However:

Cheating by doing something you 'think' is ok, but you should ask a judge about because you are trying to correct what you thought was a misplay

Vs.

Cheating by just changing your resources to improve your position for no purpose whatsoever

Are radically different. To the extent where the first one, DQ without prize is a fair punishment. For the latter case, suspension at the very least would be warranted.

There's a difference between a minor lapse in judgement of not wanting to bother with getting the judge involved [and secretly knowing you may not be correct] and just flat out doing something that you know is against the fundamental rules of the game.

It becomes an issue of whether he's a CHEATER or just someone who happened to have cheated.

Everyone has to have a 'first time' ... you aren't BORN a cheater, and I doubt anyone cheated [knowingly] when playing their first game of Vs.

It IS possible that it's the first time he's done anything that could be considered overt cheating ... and losing several thousand dollars would be enough to disuade most from cheating again [not to mention most people will watch him like a hawk anyone based on the scar on his reputation alone]. Unless he's a compulsive cheater, or believes he can get away with it [which means he better do a little better than swapping a KNOWN card in hand for a card in the resource row] he'll likely not be cheating any time soon.

That's why I think he probably won't get a lifetime ban ... maybe a suspension to 'make an example' of him ... but I highly doubt he poses such a grave threat to the tournament scene that it would require a lifetime ban.

I think this is the most convincing arguement I've heard from this thread.

The only part I don't get is: if he was going to cheat, why do it so poorly?

He had one card in his hand and his opponent knew what it was, why would he think he could get away with playing a different card?

This sounds to me like he thought he could switch them on the chain and did it without telling anyone.

Definitely poor play, maybe cheating, I stand by UDE's decision (because they have more information than me, obviously), but don't think there was a whole lot of malicious intent involved.

Hey, I have an idea: How about we stop being stupid and move on with our lives. The issue has been ripped apart repeadedly, and now you're just kicking the puddle of blood where the dead horse used to be.

Enough. Get a job.

Love, J-M

I dont know how many people here have ever played Counterstrike, but this is very similar to the arguments that used to go on about maphacking vs comm cheats vs model hacks. It doesnt matter WHAT he did that makes a difference, you cheat, your gone. The pro circuit is a privilege, not a right, you mess with that you stop playing. Nuff Said. UDE provides these checks as a BONUS for playing the game, not a reason for playing the game. The reason for playing is fun, not money. This isnt a sport people, and dont compare it to one. If vs turns into a sport, then i dont want to play anymore, because in a sport you do anything to win for your team. Thats not how this is, and thats not how this should be.

Hans Joh cheated. He broke the golden rule (a card layed is a card played, and thats one that we've all known since playing crazy 8's with our older cousins) and he should be punished in it.

Getting back to the counterstrike argument, being another GAME that you can win serious money at, that if Valve catches you cheating, they take away your right to play the game at all, by removing your CD key from their database. Even by banning Hans from all sanctioned events, they still havent taken away his right to play the game. Which is what should matter, not the money.

So to get to the point, i say ban his ass forever, because cheating in a sanctioned tournament once means you have forfeited your right to be considered a fair player. Cheaters is cheaters is cheaters.

at PC Indy there were FOUR separate instances of players 'messing up' with birthing chamber against me. Such things as doing a double birthing chamber without discarding in between, using Dr. Light to get an extra character out so you could birthing chamber & THEN laying a resource down after you had seen a card you should only have seen in the recruit step, etc.

In every single instance of this a judge was notified, and in every instance the judge was lenient to the point that the player got a warning AND I got a warning for letting them do it (although how can I stop someone from drawing cards....they just do it). In every case the judge let them go back and try to correct the game state, EVEN THOUGH they had additional information, and there was no way to truly turn back time.

Two of my opponents I know just had a brain fart, the other two who knows? In this PCLA Top 8 cheating thing it seems that it would be very easy to correct the game state. That makes the ruling all about intention. I don't think there should be a fine line about 'intention' where UDE judges subjectively choose who 'intends' to get away with something and who doesn't intend to.

I would like to see the same penalty applied across the board to all players, regardless of severity. It shouldn't be SO subjective on the judge's part whether you get to go back and correct the game state, get a game loss, or get labeled a cheater and lose ten thousand dollars.

I really didn't want to get involved here, but...

So it does matter what he did. You mean it doesn't matter WHY he did it.

You have to earn privileges. Anyone is free to play in UDE Sanctioned Events. UDE reserves the right to remove that right from you.

For you it's fun. For others it's money.

This is the one that got to me...

Pro players of any sport will tell you the exact opposite. Most professionals hate cheating. Sports players do not do ANYTHING to win for their team. Anyone with morals who competes will do anything LEGAL to win. But that's not sports: that's competition. And a game is competition.

I don't know what sport you played that sullied your experience, but cheating is not respected by professionals.

You cheat in the NFL, you're punished. Fans turn on you, and pros do not respect you.

You cheat in the MLB, you're punished. Fans turn on you, and pros do not respect you.

What do you want UDE to do? Take his cards and hang "Wanted" posters in Hobby shops?

Dear J-M,

You may have missed it, but this is a forum on the internet that deals with a card game. As such, there are very few meaningful things to talk about here, since card games, while quite enjoyable, are essentially meaningless. The direct result of this is that there isn't a single thread on these boards where some twit, in a desperate attempt to appear cool and high-minded, couldn't rumble in and tell people to move on with their lives. Naturally such posturing is immediately invalidated by the presence of said twit on said boards, but hey, desperate attempts to appear cool and high-minded are nothing if not desperate.

You are neither a mod nor an arbiter of intelligent conversation. Telling people to drop a topic is both outside of your power and outside of your expertise. Cut it out, champ.

Huggles,

Grant

P.S. - a thread on cheating, a topic that cuts to the heart of any game, is necessary at this point in the game's development.

What i meant in my posts, is that anyone playing in a Vs tournament must accept whatever happens. It is fully in UDE's right to ban him from any event for life with no reason whatsoever. This is a game, purely for fun. Plain and simple. If there is a possibility of known cheaters playing competively, then it is not a fair competition.

What happens in the next sanctioned event where a player sits down across from someone who was caught cheating? Is that player being given a fair chance? maybe, but not necesarily. My personal view would be to ban a cheater from every competitive event run on the planet, but that being impossible, and probably not fair, cant happen. What can happen however is that he is banned from competitive Vs. It sucks to be him if his reason for playing happened to be the money. Because in that case, he should have been EXTRA careful to make sure everything he did was perfectly legal. When im playing for fun, ill make mistakes and such. But if im playing competively, a mistake is not a mistake. Its a bad play.

I feel sorry for him, because what he did could have been a mistake, but even i know that when ur playing for 1000's of dollars YOU DO NOT MESS WITH THE GAME STATE. dont try to take advantage of situations that may or may not be legal.

There is no line. This is the point im trying to make. Theres playing inside the rules, or playing outside the rules. Nobody has the "right" to play in the pro circuit, that is a privilige earned.

Ive watched amazing players at many games banned for life from various competitions due to very small infractions of the rules, but when you come down to it, it solves alot of problems in the future. If HJ sits down at a PC table again, it will SUCK for him, because anyone thats heard about this kerfuffle will not be nice to him. They will call a judge every time he moves a card around in his hand. And with good reason, no offense.

[/EDIT] Sorry, kairos, didnt quite read ur response correctly... its not a right to play in the pro circuit, its a privilege freely given to everyone, but can be yanked for no good reason. A right is a right. If it can be taken away, by defination its not a right (slavery and force and such notwithstanding)

And in sports, players do do everything they can to win. Thats why sports have penalties, and not permanent bans for checking from behind. Because players will try everything they can to win, sometimes they just get caught.

And if someone's reason for playing a game is money, then they've prioritized money over fun, which is NOT A GOOD REASON TO PLAY A GAME. Just because you can make money doing this, doesnt mean you should put fun to the wayside. Making money is fun. Playing cards is more fun. Playing with cheaters is no fun.

[/EDIT2] And im not saying any about Hans personally. Im sure hes a grand player and i bet hes great to play against. Im just saying that ANY cheating whatsoever should be dealt with harshly and immediatly and permantly. Otherwise the game will fail. Take the most popular competitive GAME on the planet (counterstrike). They catch a cheater, there is no passing go or collecting anything, straight to the banlist. Permantly. anything else and it encourages people to cheat, based on the reasoning that "im playing for money, so i will do anything to get that money"

Most players will do everything they can to win within the rules of the game. Sometimes they cross the line. Sometimes on purpose, sometimes on accident. That is why there are levels of penalties in sports, just as there are in VS.

First of all, it is possible that a highly draconian approach to judging can actually prove to be detrimental to the game as there exists shades of grey in the realm of judging. Permenantly banning somebody when a question of doubt surrounding the event is echoed by a number of players is guaranteed to spread some ill-will about the game.

Secondly, your analogy is flawed as the manner of judging and the effect of banning greatly differs in Counterstrike as compared to Vs. In Counterstrike, the rules are pretty strictly enforced by the confines of the game, and you have to very deliberately go out of your way in order to cheat at the game. There is a strong requirement to make a conscious effort in order to cheat. In Vs, it is possible to make a mistake accidentally. Furthermore, the effect of banning a CD-Key in Counterstrike does not effectively prevent the cheater from continued play, he is still free to find a new key with which he can continue his gaming. This is simply not the case with Vs as a player cannot simply just reapply for membership and start over.

Rather than engage in speculation over what Hans Joachim Höh did during PC LA, or has done during his Vs. career, I suggest that you ensure that you're as familiar as possible with UDE's tournament policies and the comprehensive rulebook because you will never know when this information may prove valuable to you (in preventing you from making an accidental infraction and to know what your opponent is and is not allowed to do). UDE have a set of policies in place to handle situations such as Höh's and I'm sure they're doing a good job of following their own guidelines in this case.

Accusing someone of having a bad reputation is serious, given the circumstances. I hope UDE investigation will clarify if he has a bad reputation or not. If he has, then I guess banning is in order. If he doesn't, you should check your sources again, because they might not be reliable.

En-Kur, you say Hans tried three separate times to get game losses for Karl, and you make it look as if that was a bad behaviour. Far from my intention to tarnish even more Han's reputation, but can you please explain us what did he EXACTLY do to earn your disapproval? Because if an opponent attempts to do something he can't do, I guess calling a judge to take note of the attempt is exactly what you should do in a high level tournament, isn't it?

hans was in an unwinable position in game 1 due to psimon being in play and karl having complete control he then did not scoop instead accused karl of cheating on three seperate occasions. it was terrible behavior and very unsporting. honestly the best analogy to this is ( i dont know if anyone watches baseball ) when rafael palmero got caught with steroids. the man broke rules he cheated plain and simple. there is no defending it, and it was not a mistake.

Ok so what if he didnt scoop. Perhaps he thought he might be able to play out of the lock. I cant see it happening but its always nice to have hope. Now when you say he accused a person of cheating was he being serious or joking. I accuse freinds of being diry rotten top decking stack shufflers all the time its not a big deal. (Note None of them are cheating i condem cheating its a nasty little habbit) Ohh and the whole he had a bad attitude thing is total bs. You wouldnt be happy if someone accused you of something bad. Even if you did do something bad you would still be mad that you got caught. Anyways, I think we have talked this situation into the ground and it may be time to close it or something. Ohh can we have another Anti Rsc forum to take our minds off of the whole hans issue.

Well, Here is what happened. I remember back in 1999 I went to Europe on a random trip. I remember passing thru Germany and saw this little antique shop. I went in and saw this old guy, who at that time I didn't know was crazy, running the shop. He kept talking about something to himself. I payed no attention to him and kept looking around. He yelled "STOP!" and I turned around and looked at him. He pulled out a crystal duck. I was terrefied and thought I would die at that time. He then he started to walk over towards me. He started to make duck noises as he walked over. I tried to move towards the door without making any sudden movements. He then began to yell out "STOP! Pay attention to was you are doing!!" I looked around and was confused on what was going on. He pointed to set of figures, a triangle; a circle; and a pentagon, and as he started to say something, the phone rang. He said "Don't lie to me, you stole something didnt you?!" I answered with a low voice "no" He then replied, "Where is the shape? you bastard!" then yelled to his wife "Answer the call, hoh!" Then I ran and he said "Remember this for it will be useful information!"

So that proves everything and ends the discussion.