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BGonline.org Forums
An ethics issue raised in Paris?
Posted By: Phil Simborg In Response To: An ethics issue raised in Paris? (Perry Gartner)
Date: Tuesday, 3 November 2009, at 7:32 p.m.
Ray did not have to make his donation public, and could have easily made the contribution so no one would know. The fact that he did it publicly showed that there was no intent to "secretly" garner the director's favor.
Any time there is a ruling, there is the risk that a director might be close friends with or prejudiced toward a given player, and there may always be players who question that. The answer is, if the Director believes a ruling is close, or is highly a matter of judgement call and not clearly an obvious interpretation of the rules, he can disqualify himself and state that because he is good friends with X that he would like to turn this ruling over to a tournament committee or a third party that both players agree to.
Perry, you and I and others do a lot to work with and support various tournaments and tournament directors, and we get fair rulings. Now, if I were across the table from someone I knew to be very close friends with a given director and I was concerned about the fairness of the ruling, that is just one more reason why both the player and the director needs to have an appeals committee.
From a practical point of view, this could actually work the other way. Most tournament directors are very concerned about their reputation for fairness, they might even bend over backwards NOT to show favoritism to a friend. I know I might well be that way. I think we simply must trust in the director to use good judgment.
As for Ray's gift, I think it is lovely. It also illustrates why I have been advocating for years that too much of the prize money goes to the top winners. They wouldn't mind and shouldn't mind if it was spread around a little more. If all quarterfinalists in a major event at least got their entry fee back, that reduction would hardly be noticed by prize money the top winners get, and a lot more people would walk away happy. Isn't that the goal???
(At the ACS Charity event two weeks ago, I was the auctioneer and announced, in front, that if I won I would give part of my winnings as a further donation to the charity in hopes that others would do the same. Of course, my gesture was nothing compared to Ray's, as he had already won and I my odds were very low of having to pay.)
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