ATC Event Issues and consequences

As I do almost every year, i attended the ATC tournament in Tennessee this year.  I almost always enjoy my opponents, the games, and the event in general.
There have been exceptions.  Until now, I have never named names, pointed fingers or layed blame.
I guess that ends now.

A few years ago, I went and had 5 great games, and one, not so much.  This player was a nightmare to play a game with, as he blatantly cheated, argued, yelled, and was just a terrible person right down to his core.
you can read how the match went here :  Game from Hell

It is about halfway down, but if you read further along in the thread, you will see that I only listed maybe 1/4 of the cheating he tried to or actually pulled.

I never named this guy until now.

My opponent that game was Aaron Aelong.

Aaron seems to have a reputation for doing these types of things... just google it. Seriously, he has more drama associated with him than anyone else I know.

Anyway, once again, there were issues at ATC, and Aaron was in the middle of it.

Issues they had at the ATC:
The AC did not seem to work at all for long stretches of time. It was HOT. I mean, sweat dripping from your face HOT.

the app they used did not pair correctly. In one case, My team was supposed to be playing on 3 tables at once.

The tournament was nowhere near on time. really. Starting at noon and ending at what.. 10? And only getting in 2 games? It was a logistical nightmare.  Day 2 was no better.

And now the big one.  Guess who was caught cheating? Again?
Aaron had been called out for cheating tournament after tournament, from illegal lists to just downright cheating on the table.  What punishment does a repeat cheater get?
nothing. A slap on the wrist. A "don't do that again" time after time after time.

This time, PLASMA GUNS were used for three games. Problem is, they never bought or paid for plasma guns and it wasn't caught until an opponent really read through his list.
the following is what I was told happened, so this is "hearsay" but Aaron supposedly tried to shoot with plasma, his opponent said 'But you dont have plasma!' and he replied "Oh, ok" and kept playing, but not using plasma.

W...T...F
They tracked down his first two opponents and asked if he used plasma against them.
YUP, he sure did.
So this INTENTIONAL serial cheater, Liar and obnoxious opponent was caught YET AGAIN cheating.
the players at ATC had enough. Seriously. People were PISSED. They were screaming for blood. Ban him, Kick team Happy out the door, get rid of the cancer!
Guess what ATC decided to do?
In a big F-U to the teams, we were told "They will play as normal, but there will be a points reduction. we don't know how many points yet"

Seriously, there were at LEAST 12, but closer to 20 teams that were talking about walking out. It was getting ugly. But, the game went on.

Our next table was right behind Aarons table.
It was not 20 minuites in before they were calling for a judge due to issues with Aaron.

No remorse.
no punishment.
time after time.

We left after our last game, and we will not be going back.

I had 5 great opponents, 5 great games and made a lot of new friends. Almost every team we talked to echoed the "never going back to ATC" sentiment as well.

I guess this info got back to the ATC head honchos, because after day 2, they decided not to do a points reduction, they asked team happy to leave.

too little too late.

Anyway, I may post up some battle reports as my games were all great, fun and very enjoyable.
But I will never be going back. And if Aaron is allowed to play at adepticon, I see no reason to go there either.  Pretty much, until TO's stand up and start punishing blatant cheaters, the entire game will suffer.

This guy has been habitually cheating for years, and nothing gets done.

I love how like half a dozen teams threatened to drop if Team Happy weren't removed. 40k events have turned into mob justice because the event organizers are so impotent.

Wow - I was supposed to be at that event - but life conspired against me. Happy I didn't go now

Isn't there a catalogue that spells the punishment?
Like one infringement: get called out.
Do it again: automatically loose that game.
Do it again: all his games are declared losses.
Do it again next year: forever ban

Tournament organisers should really put together some kind of catalogue for punishment and a combined data (just like word file) where they keep the names off everyone that got to state 2 at least. So that they can keep am eye on those guys and that someone that gets banned, gets banned everywhere.

Sent from Topic'it App

I went to 40k night tonight and one of the people there was at the ATC in a team that held a significant standing. He played against Team Happy and at one point had 2 judges and the head judge at his table and they would not make a damn call about the cheating. Team captains were going up one by one to complain but eventually they all marched up there together like 30 people asking for refunds if the issue was not addressed.

What did they achieve after going there together?

Sent from Topic'it App

Not to poopoo anything, but in the interests of fairness I thought it was worth saying that the ATC Organizers put out this statement in response to various issues:

   

Quote :

July 16th, 2018

   This press release is in regards to Team Happy being asked to leave this year’s ATC.  Any article, podcast, blog, etc. that states otherwise is misinformed and inaccurate in their information and should be disregarded.

   The ATC has clearly stated policies on our website and mission pack.  It is our responsibility to follow these guidelines in fairness to all players involved.  The statements below reflect that we did just that.  We also want to take this opportunity to say that it was made obvious to us this year that our slow play, some model policies and our penalty system are in need of a revision.  Those revisions are already in the works and in future years will be much stricter.

   What happened at the ATC 2018 event concerning Team Happy:

   After Round 3 a player with an illegal model was brought to our attention.

   According to our policies we issued the player in question a retroactive Round 1 warning and a current round 2 game loss.  The model issue had been corrected after game 2 and was not used in round 3 so there was no need for any action in regards to that model in round 3.
   atc event 2018

   As to the question of “Why was a specific points penalty/loss not announced immediately?” Our response is that we had an event already running late and a room full of players who continued to bombard us with their concerns, giving us no chance to think it through clearly.  We needed and wanted to make sure that we had the time and clarity to make the right penalty that would have an actual impact on the team penalized and we knew that anything less than a complete removal of the team (at that time) was not going to affect the next round pairings, so we kept the event moving and applied the penalty during rd 3 once we had a few mins to take action.

   Also, during round 3 another player on the team had an issue with his opponent which led to a situation with our head judge.  Both players were running on high emotions and attitudes were in poor form.  The original rumor regarding what had actually happened was found to be false and grossly over-exaggerated on the floor. The truth of the matter was confirmed by our head judge. The over exaggeration that was sweeping the room was that the player had told our head judge to go F*** himself, when what was truly said was “I’m not going to do that” (in regards to the judge’s suggestion to resolve the controversial game issue at hand). The issue was resolved by the players once the TO’s came on the scene and as per our policy, a warning was issued to the player (first warning to that player) and team captain.  We want to be clear that had the player actually said that to any of our staff, they would have been immediately ejected and banned from the event.  We have a zero tolerance policy for such behavior and we immediately went into a 30 minute conversation with the team captain with full intention of removing the player from our event.  Once the truth was discovered, the warning was issued instead of player removal.

   During the lunch break (after game 3) we had a very long meeting with the team captain, Tony.  An agreement (initiated by the captain) was made that if there were any other issues with anyone on the team, that the team would withdraw from the event.  We did not disclose this agreement to the rest of the event players at that time but promised the other captains that we would reveal our decision and intentions in their entirety at the end of the event (which we have just done).

   As another layer of enforcement and proactivity, we also posted our head judge as a permanent judge at the team’s tables for the rest of their event.

   After round 4 there were questions of slow play brought against the team.

   This was reviewed and checked against our slow play policies/guidelines.

   After review, all game lengths had met our requirements (minimum 4 turns completed), there was no pattern of games not meeting the required number of rounds and our judges had not seen proof of any “slow play tactics” during the round.  Again, we understand that our slow play policy is in need of revision.

   After round 5 there was a model conversion infraction brought to our attention.

   We addressed the issue and ultimately the team was asked to leave our event, with no games played in the final round.

   The team did not argue to try and stay in the event, they were courteous to take our request and in order to not create more delays, they waited until the final round was underway to come and discuss all of the details.  The team left after a very reasonable and respectful conversation with our staff and TO’s and there were no confrontations of any kind.

   We want the community to know that we do not take these situations lightly. What we do at the ATC sets a precedent and a certain standard.  A decision like this is no small thing, and no TO ever wants to have to eject someone from their event, let alone five players.  We always want to make our decisions with a clear head, in accordance with our policies and guidelines, with integrity and fairness to all players involved. We also want to make it very clear that mob mentality and threats of not coming back to our event were absolutely not a factor in our decision, in fact they hindered us from making the decision sooner as it added an entire other layer of issues to our already full plate.  We understand that players were upset; they had every right to be, especially if what was being said around the room was true. We were extremely upset as well and if the situation was what it had been rumored, then we would have removed players immediately, but by taking the time to go to every player directly involved on both sides and getting the facts, and then taking it all and putting it all together, we were able to do our job correctly, clearly and fairly, without anger and influence from outside sources.

   In the end, we learn every year what we could have done better, where we failed and where we excelled, we listen to our players input and we adjust from there.

   That’s the best we can do, for you, for us and for the community.

   We are ready to move forward to better days, higher player standards and the best ATC event ever in 2019 and we hope that you will move forward with us!

   

   – Shane, Chris and the ATC staff

A sugar coated way of saying they did not give a penalty, and only took action AFTER the Saturday event was over (they didn't disqualify to Sunday if I remember correctly).
If people were not upset, and if people did not protest, I would not be surprised at all if the only thing that happened was a small points deduction.

And here is what happened from the guy it happened to.
THIS is why we can't have nice things!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9vZ8AWRUHE

Skulnbonz wrote:

A sugar coated way of saying they did not give a penalty, and only took action AFTER the Saturday event was over (they didn't disqualify to Sunday if I remember correctly).
If people were not upset, and if people did not protest, I would not be surprised at all if the only thing that happened was a small points deduction.

Sounds as if they tried too hard for minimal involvement and minimal necessary punishment.

I'd like to see the criteria for slow play.

Sent from Topic'it App

CptMetal wrote:

What did they achieve after going there together?

Sent from Topic'it App

Surprise surprise when 30+ people hit up the TO and demand a refund if action isn't taken, action gets taken. In this case Team Happy was thrown out on their ass, which is what should have happened in the first place.

Thats terrible news Skulnbonz, im sorry to hear about this.

One Question,

I thought WYSIWYG prevented cheating like the Plasma incident?

Are only some tournaments enforcing WYSIWYG?

Old_Soul wrote:

One Question,

I thought WYSIWYG prevented cheating like the Plasma incident?

Are only some tournaments enforcing WYSIWYG?

That is something odd that I didn't think of.

I thought WYSIWYG would have been in force at most or all tournaments.

Anyone know how they played this?

---

Just checked, ATC have a very specific Models Policy: http://nebula.wsimg.com/073fc9bbc5f37f1b625f72b1e038f61e?AccessKeyId=1E8002073E9E379BF894&disposition=0&alloworigin=1

It includes:

ATC wrote:

"2: Units must always be represented by appropriate models. This is the single, most important rule. The 'What You See Is What You Get' (WYSIWYG) rule is in effect for all events.
That means all units MUST be easily identifiable as the particular choice they represent and that any and all weapons/options taken for a unit MUST be clearly represented on the model(s). Exceptions MAY be made for themed units or armies.
Furthermore, you need to contact us to let us know about any conversions you are planning on using, and MUST provide us with photos of ALL models in question.
Don’t worry – we fully appreciate spectacular modelling skills, but we just want to make sure everything is super clear for your opponent so that no confusion can arise during games. Players are required to email us to approve any conversions/etc.   
To protect everyone’s experience, you will be required to remove any models that have not been approved, from the table, immediately."