I am incredibly disheartened to see how fast our community is at pulling out their torches and pitchforks. I have received some really unpleasant messages already, which genuinely hit me pretty hard. I am also incredibly disappointed seeing such a great name in our community, with such massive outreach, use their voice to call out people in such a distasteful manner.
I feel the need to express my side of the story before I get publicly crucified - and while you may still disagree with my decision or find it too harsh, I hope you can at least find some reasoning, logic or rationality to it.
I will attempt to go over everything in chronological order in hopes that it will give the most accurate view of the situation.
The matchup prior was delayed. This was mentioned a few times, and I am not entirely sure what relevance it has. Nobody likes to wait - I understand that. However, when you are playing for a chance to win part of $100,000.00, you just got to bite into the sour apple. Delays happen, and it has no impact on how the situation evolved later.
Belgium has to leave to run a somewhat lengthy errand and could, unfortunately, not finish his last series. This is where we run into the first complication, and there are a few things we need to digest. It is Belgiums responsibility, and Belgiums responsibility alone, to ensure that he is available to finish all of his matches as expected, as described in the handbook. It states you must immediately play your next match once it becomes available. However, contrary to popular belief, I am, in fact, not some power-hungry administrator using every chance I get to disqualify someone. As with the Sitaux vs slam set, I am entirely okay with them postponing and playing later the same day. Belgium offers to play tomorrow, which I decline and let him know I would still like him to play today. Belgiums persist and reach out to the opponents asking them to play the day after. Once again, I am letting him know that tomorrow is not an option and that he needs to prioritise his time when it comes to an event this size - it is worth saying that the errand was not incredibly crucial and that other solutions could have been used to avoid it.
At this point, Belgium does not respond for over an hour. I presume he already left, but he left before an agreement was made, which leaves me in an awkward state where I do not know whether he took what I said seriously or is still going by his own plan, which is to play tomorrow.
Once I hear from him again, I am told that he will be home in about three hours. Three hours from then will be about midnight for Belgium. That is a very sub-optimal time to play, but he only had himself to blame for this, so I hope that games can commence once he is home. Two hours later, I am asking him to let me know once he is home, so we can immediately look into the possibilities. I let him know, once again, that he will most likely be playing today. He tells me he is home in about one hour.
Two hours and thirty minutes later, I nudge him, asking where he is. He responds, telling me he is home in one minute. At this point, his relatively lengthy yet simple errand had apparently branched out, and he tells me that something more (rather mundane) came up, which delayed the situation by another 1.5 hours. At this point, he once again persists that he will play tomorrow, which I once again tell him that he is not.
At this point, he is home, it is late, but it is only late due to his own actions. I, therefore, ask him to play in 30 minutes, as both players will be available then. He agrees. I explain that they must play privately, send me drafts and recorded games once they have finished, as I will not be available during the matches, to which he once again agrees.
The next day, I wake up with nothing from Belgium. No games, no drafts and not even a single message. I had to hear everything from F1Re instead. Belgium had not wanted to play due to being too tired and told F1Re that they should play tomorrow at 11.00 GMT. Belgium also told F1Re that he would be fine with an admin loss if I did not accept this.
You cannot convince me that Belgium did not know that tomorrow was not an option. I had repeatedly stated the same thing, yet he went against what I said and did it anyway. After doing this, he did not provide me with any information but merely told F1Re to let me know.
There are many reasons why I do not allow games to be played so close to deadlines. I have enough experience to know how many things can go wrong during a set, which can cause massive delays. If this had happened, it would have pushed the entire second day of the qualifier, which was a risk that I could not take. Directly and deliberately ignoring my requests to play on a specific date or time is unacceptable.
Belgium failed to show up at the original time and also failed to show up at the, be it, less optimal time, but one that he did agree on.
I have also seen accusations on how I treat players differently. If this were TheViper, it would have allowed anything. No, I would not. I believe I made it pretty clear in The Open Classic that I treat everyone equally. I had to exclude one of the best players in the world - I did not enjoy doing that. I did that because that is exactly what my job is. Enforce the rules and don't make exceptions. That does not mean that I cannot be reasonable and allow minor adjustments when possible. I understand things can come up unexpectedly, and I allowed Belgium many hours to return and play.
I feel the need to express my side of the story before I get publicly crucified - and while you may still disagree with my decision or find it too harsh, I hope you can at least find some reasoning, logic or rationality to it.
I will attempt to go over everything in chronological order in hopes that it will give the most accurate view of the situation.
The matchup prior was delayed. This was mentioned a few times, and I am not entirely sure what relevance it has. Nobody likes to wait - I understand that. However, when you are playing for a chance to win part of $100,000.00, you just got to bite into the sour apple. Delays happen, and it has no impact on how the situation evolved later.
Belgium has to leave to run a somewhat lengthy errand and could, unfortunately, not finish his last series. This is where we run into the first complication, and there are a few things we need to digest. It is Belgiums responsibility, and Belgiums responsibility alone, to ensure that he is available to finish all of his matches as expected, as described in the handbook. It states you must immediately play your next match once it becomes available. However, contrary to popular belief, I am, in fact, not some power-hungry administrator using every chance I get to disqualify someone. As with the Sitaux vs slam set, I am entirely okay with them postponing and playing later the same day. Belgium offers to play tomorrow, which I decline and let him know I would still like him to play today. Belgiums persist and reach out to the opponents asking them to play the day after. Once again, I am letting him know that tomorrow is not an option and that he needs to prioritise his time when it comes to an event this size - it is worth saying that the errand was not incredibly crucial and that other solutions could have been used to avoid it.
At this point, Belgium does not respond for over an hour. I presume he already left, but he left before an agreement was made, which leaves me in an awkward state where I do not know whether he took what I said seriously or is still going by his own plan, which is to play tomorrow.
Once I hear from him again, I am told that he will be home in about three hours. Three hours from then will be about midnight for Belgium. That is a very sub-optimal time to play, but he only had himself to blame for this, so I hope that games can commence once he is home. Two hours later, I am asking him to let me know once he is home, so we can immediately look into the possibilities. I let him know, once again, that he will most likely be playing today. He tells me he is home in about one hour.
Two hours and thirty minutes later, I nudge him, asking where he is. He responds, telling me he is home in one minute. At this point, his relatively lengthy yet simple errand had apparently branched out, and he tells me that something more (rather mundane) came up, which delayed the situation by another 1.5 hours. At this point, he once again persists that he will play tomorrow, which I once again tell him that he is not.
At this point, he is home, it is late, but it is only late due to his own actions. I, therefore, ask him to play in 30 minutes, as both players will be available then. He agrees. I explain that they must play privately, send me drafts and recorded games once they have finished, as I will not be available during the matches, to which he once again agrees.
The next day, I wake up with nothing from Belgium. No games, no drafts and not even a single message. I had to hear everything from F1Re instead. Belgium had not wanted to play due to being too tired and told F1Re that they should play tomorrow at 11.00 GMT. Belgium also told F1Re that he would be fine with an admin loss if I did not accept this.
You cannot convince me that Belgium did not know that tomorrow was not an option. I had repeatedly stated the same thing, yet he went against what I said and did it anyway. After doing this, he did not provide me with any information but merely told F1Re to let me know.
There are many reasons why I do not allow games to be played so close to deadlines. I have enough experience to know how many things can go wrong during a set, which can cause massive delays. If this had happened, it would have pushed the entire second day of the qualifier, which was a risk that I could not take. Directly and deliberately ignoring my requests to play on a specific date or time is unacceptable.
Belgium failed to show up at the original time and also failed to show up at the, be it, less optimal time, but one that he did agree on.
I have also seen accusations on how I treat players differently. If this were TheViper, it would have allowed anything. No, I would not. I believe I made it pretty clear in The Open Classic that I treat everyone equally. I had to exclude one of the best players in the world - I did not enjoy doing that. I did that because that is exactly what my job is. Enforce the rules and don't make exceptions. That does not mean that I cannot be reasonable and allow minor adjustments when possible. I understand things can come up unexpectedly, and I allowed Belgium many hours to return and play.