I hope that the translation conveys the true sense of his words.  If it makes you feel angry, then you probably don’t understand.  Essentially, it confirms that AJ Sacher was essentially exactly right in his post here.  He never intended to break the rules.  His original article in Japanese is here.  Anyway, here’s the translation.  It’s pretty accurate, but getting all the nuances is hard, so mostly use it as a much better google translate. — Erek Speed

1.5 Year Suspension, About the Hall of Fame Cancellation and What I will do from here on out

I think a lot of people already know but, I, Tomoharu Saito, ended up being suspended for 1.5 years.

Here are the contents of the mail I received:

• As far the GP Florence incident, based on past warning history it was judged to be intentional.
• The 2001 Suspension was taken into account.
• I cannot participate or judge at tournaments for 18 months.

At first, I was in shock. Honestly, not being able to attend any more tournaments is a tough blow.  In light of such a serious judgment, my heart felt strange.  In my own way, I’ve been playing while dedicated to fair play, haven’t I?

And now, concerning that, the more I thought about it the more I understood.  I think the main cause was that more than considering fair play; I was overcome by the desire to win.  Being a pro player, I should have a significant desire to win but as my thoughts settle, I guess that desire overly dominated my sense of fair play.

I’ve reflected heavily on the situation; from the accumulated warnings and DQ, to my eventual suspension, and I’ve come away with something critical.  For the sake of all those who will continue going to magic tournaments, I think I will write it clearly:

[A strong desire to win] – [A strong sense of fair play] = [warnings and easy DQs]

The solution to this equation may seem exaggerated, but I ended up receiving many slow play warnings, and I think that’s the reason I was suspended. If you have an extremely strong desire to win, but don’t have an equally strong sense of fair play, then it’s no good.
I’ve always pursued victory, but in terms of fair play, at some point, the growth stopped.  The reality is that as you play in more and more professional and competitive events and your wins are noticed more and more, there’s an increased demand for fair play.
That being said, because it’s hard to quantify having the same amount of competitive spirit vs sense of fair play, I’ll summarize it as follows, “The continued pursuit of fair play is incredibly important.”
As far me, I wasn’t able to stick to that path, and ended up with the worst outcome, but if everyone holds firmly to these ideals in their play, I think they’ll be okay.
The quest for fair play:  Discussing it with more colleges and understanding every nook and cranny of the rules, I concluded various things as might be expected.  I earnestly accept what has happened to me due to my failures and from here on out I think I will make the best of my life.

I received an 18 month suspension. Moreover, I have accepted the reality of the situation. In regards to the suspension, the ruling criterion is not made public, but based on whatever it was, and because I participated in the pro tour by choice, I will, like last time, abide by their decision.
In regards to the Hall of Fame cancellation, shortly after, another email arrived. Until now, I was doing my best, and am happy to have been voted in and it’s extremely unfortunate, but in light of what ended up happening, I thought it was an appropriate action.

DQ, suspension, and a hall of fame cancellation.  What’s more, my bid for POY is now impossible.
Concerning these things, to those who have been supportive, those who have been disappointed, those who have begun to be inconvenienced, to all people related to magic, once more, please accept my deepest apologies.

Let me speak a bit about what I’m going to do from here.
After each of these events, I received a truly large amount of email and comments offering assistance and encouragement.  You truly saved me. Thank You.
Despite what happened, that there were people with these kinds of thoughts astonished me.
I was happy. However, at the same time, there were also again apologetic feelings which swelled up inside of me.
I think understand everyone’s feelings.
That there’s still a lot I can do for magic after all.
That I can contribute to magic, to the increasing of the happiness of the magic world. Indeed, with such a strong thought, I will certainly do it.  This time, I accept your kind words, and will relentlessly pursue your kind offer.
Thanks to all this I can continue with some peace of mind.

Now then, what will I do in more concrete terms.
After this, the huge amount of time I spent as a pro player with practice, competition, and travel has freed up.
Firstly, there’s the primary result of my magic success, the CARDSHOP Hareruya.  Here, more than in the past I’ll strive to put increased effort into my store.  These days, because I have many colleagues with the same thought, and because there many people for whom it is necessary, I’m not mistaken that this is the best course of action. In order to ever increase the smiling faces of my customers, I want to do my best. It also looks like I’ll increase the number of staff on hand.
Furthermore, having played tournament magic so long, until now I’ve had no time and haven’t been able to play any casual magic.  Now it looks like I’ll be playing quite a lot of it; cube draft, Winston draft, people’s original rules and so forth.  Reporting on my pursuit of casual ‘fun’ seems interesting.
And then, as I’ve mentioned to some people, 1.5 from now, as for making a pro comeback and renewing my efforts, I’m sorry to say that at present I’ve not yet thought about it.  Even though I have accepted the ruling, the mental shock is still great. I’ll use this opportunity to try and consider it at my leisure for the next 1.5 years.  Also, in addition to magic related things, I am thinking of trying to search for various possible things outside of Magic as well.

These things I’ve written are the ‘what’s next’ things which are currently in my head.
Even though I’ve added the suspension and hall of fame cancellation since my last entry, in the end, it looks like the things I want to do are the things which are related to magic.  Thanks to Magic, I can do so many things that I’d never have learned otherwise.
But if that’s what I really want to do, then even later, that’s all I’ll do, right?
At least, that’s how it goes for me.
From here on out, regarding the outcome of this, if there is good news, I’ll do my best to tell everyone right away.
With Regards, Tomoharu Saito.

Well then, I’m wishing for everyone’s and magic’s continuing long term happiness.

Thoughts:

People are assuming I’m from the philippines which leads to a bit of confusion.  I don’t speak Tagalog!  (though I learned how to pronounce it.)

Round 3 opponent couldn’t believe I was black, exclaimed the unbelievable fact to his friend later.

He was going to guess half brazillian I guess.

After I told him of the Jamaican dilutution of my black half, he asked me if I smoked weed, I sadly told him no, but I guess Filipino grass is really good.  Oh well.

Rd 1:  mono-red.  Game 1 he gets me before i can stabilize. I die to hell thunder tricks game 2.

R2:  white weeny.  Game 1 I didn’t draw a planeswalker but sphinx almost got there.  I couldn’t counter the second conqerors pledge though.

Games 2 and 3 I did draw planeswalkers.  I exiled 2 baneslayer angels because emeria was live an I wanted to win.

Rd 3:  sqeaker games vs Jund.   Game 1 he got me with burn mostly.  Casting hell’s thunder 3 times.  Game 2 I stabalized but i needed a 6th land for my sphinx for 7 turns before I died to incidental damage that included thunders and sarkhan throwing broodmate dragon’s at me.

Rd 4:  vampires.  No witches or vapors.  game 1 he hits me with mind sludge to destroy me.  Game 2 walkers plus sphinx. Game 3 he mulls to 5 and I day 2 hexmages.  Then I count up Jace because he’s stuck on 2 lands.  5 turns later I ultimate.

Martin juza should never call a judge.

Rd 5 vs jund
Game one I double sea’d and won with the walkers and sphinx.  Game 2 I went to 1 before stabalizing with coup and counters.  I countered a pulse on my tokens but maybe I should save the counters for burn only.

Rd 6 vs mono green
Killed me game 1 with monument.  Planeswalker awesomeness games 2 and 3.  Game I day/coup 3 times.

Rd 7 vs NLB
Game 1 I mulled to 5 and never had more than 2 land.  Game 2 I mulled again and took some time to get some blue sources. It happens I guess.

The Mosquitos here love to bite my legs.

Rd 8 grixis draw.

Greedy game one.  Spinx game 2.  10 minutes left.  Draw.

Rd 9 gw aggro ramp
He was late so he received a game loss.  He had a pretty aggressive start game 2 with 2 escorts and so many spawn tokens.  I slowly ramped up playing walls and spreading seas while keeping negate open for the overrun.  I countered it eventually and won soon after that.

So many girls here.  More girls than I’d ever at any magic event.  Most were even playing in the event.  Definitely a good sign for magic.

My life is pretty boring which in my opinion makes my posts pretty boring. Producing boring content is not its own reward; it doesn’t matter how zen you think you are. On the other hand, it’s annoying when people are always asking me how I’m doing so I should probably try to post brief updates here from time to time. This is one of those times.

Instead of a small book of boring everyday minutiae, I’ll instead focus on the areas of my life which matter most to me.

Work
Work is going pretty well. It’s frustrating sometimes not having any clear goals but that’s the price of trying to break new ground; there are no paths to follow. The first big deadline is coming up in May which is only 2 months away. It will probably go okay, but it might require shifting into the classic Japanese Salariman mindset and spending all of my time at work. 頑張ります！

Magic
This season I was going to try to put my all into qualifying for the Pro-Tour at San Juan but the first 2 qualifiers didn’t go so well. I haven’t been to one in a few weeks due to trying to become focused on other parts of my life. Magic is fun, but I guess I need some balance too. Grand Prix Yokohama is the weekend of the 20th so hopefully I’ll be back in play mode by then.

Software
I started a side project porting Rikaichan to Chrome. I got the first part of it done but haven’t worked on it since January. It’s a part of my getting back on track plan so hopefully I’ll produce an update before the end of march. For those interested, I called it Rikaikun and it’s available from the Chrome extension gallery as I type. (It’s a tool which translates Japanese words on the fly.)

Vacation
I went on vacation at the beginning of February to see the Sapporo Snow Festival. A good time was had by all. We stayed in a Capsule hotel which is certainly fun if not a bit strange for those unacclimated to the Japanese way of life. There are some pictures here: Yuki Matsuri
I was wearing shorts and a t-shirt the whole time which made me a quasi-hero in the eyes of the common folk.

Health
I have been getting healthier. It’s been forever since I posted but the full story is like this: I decided on a whim to try Fuhrman’s eat to live diet. It’s really good but not for someone as lazy as me. I then switched to the Hacker’s diet which is all about cutting calories. This is much easier and I have been using it to great effect. I got lazy for a month but am now half way back on the horse! I plot my Journey’s here: Physic’s Diet (This week’s not been that great diet wise. ^^)

Besides that I run for exercise, which is annoying but useful. I imagine that eventually I’ll be the next Jesse Owens and my competitive nature pushes me to my next run. For runs, you can check the Nike site here: http://my.nike.com/melink14 I’m currently doing a 10K training program. I don’t have any specific race in mind but it gives me a schedule to follow.

I feel that’s enough for awhile, I should try to keep on a consistent schedule with these but not enough interesting stuff happens in my life. I apologize.

The Monday after I arrived I visited a realtors office so he could find me a place to live. I didn’t much care about size but I wanted a place close to work and good arcades. I work in Shinjuku and there’s a really good arcade in Shibuya so he ended up showing me a place in Shibuya and a couple of places in Shinjuku.

They were all fine but one of the places in Shinjuku was a block from work and came furnished so I went with that place. I spent a few days chilling and bumming about around Shibuya and other places in Tokyo. It’s pretty nice to be in this city and not have any obligations but I would be glad to return to work. It’s good to have a purpose in life.

In Japan, apartments have quite high move in costs. Not only is there 1 month rent agency fee and 1-2 months deposit but there’s also 1-2 months of key money (礼金) which is essentially a bribe to sweeten the deal for the landlord. This plus first month’s rent and stuff like lock changing fee and cleaning fee made me worried for a bit that I wouldn’t be able to move in as soon as I needed. In the end, everything worked out and I was able to move in.

In that time, I also went to the Tokyo Game Show with Hidde and spent quite a bit of time sleeping. In the near future, I’ll have a post about the former but probably not about the latter.

This post is about my journey to Japan.  As you know, I was on a road trip previously, but my papers came in so I left in the middle to file my visa application.  I’d been waiting for more than 3 months so I didn’t want to be the cause of any delay.

My COE (Certificate of Eligibility) came through perfectly in the category of Engineer valid for a 3-year visa.  With that, my passport, a visa application and 3 days I had all the documents to ensure I could enter Japan.  (Assuming they didn’t find drugs or child porn or Chinese nationalist propaganda on my person.)   I sent Square Enix a copy of my visa and they said I was good to go.

My plan was to fly first class because I’m kind of a big deal, but American Airlines decided that my request was not compelling so I picked up a last minute ticket on Air Canada and jetted over to Japan just in time for Silver week.

The plane ride was fine.  I slept at first and then watched some movies.  At Narita, the guy didn’t see my visa so tried to set me up with the temporary visitor landing permission, which is useless to me.  A small complaint and 20 minutes later I’m going to pick up my bags with a passport that says I can chill in Japan for 3 years as an Engineer.

I sent my heavy bag ahead via the convenient door-to-door delivery services that Japan is good at and grabbed a train to Shibuya where I would be staying until more permanent accommodations could be found.

Besides the annoying lugging of luggage through stations and up mountains, I arrived at the hotel unscathed, checked in and settled down for a long stay in the land of the rising sun.

• Utah has people in airplanes that check your speed.  I want to be pulled over by an airplane.
• Utah also has a beehive as it’s state highway symbol.
• Going down mountains are super fun.

Vegas was fun, I was trying to acquire a taste for beer, but it’s still at the pretty terrible range.  I had a pretty good fruity drink at some place that cost like 13 dollars.  Everything around here is way too expensive but I guess that’s the price you pay for being in the city of sin.

Also, Tom was really interested in the the calling cards that were handed out by random people everywhere advertising the best prostitutes.  $35 special indeed. (That was actually a lie.)

Tom has more here: http://alltom.com/pages/road-trip-2009

Since last time I graduated from MIT with a BS in computer science and have begun my summer job as a TA in the MITES program.  I have a great group of kids and look forward to teaching them something about programming and life.

This year we’re doing iPhone applications which means I get to learn something about coding for the Macintosh platform.  In order to facilitate this I bought a new Macbook Pro which came with an iPod touch.

I’ve also been accepted in to the Master of Engineering program in EECS here at MIT.  I’m deferring it for awhile though because I’m going to go work for Square Enix in Japan.

I have a lot of things I need/want to do this summer.  I hope I can manage to get some of them done.

That’s all for now.  Maybe I’ll update more often in the future.

In this case, not this society, but Japan’s.  That’s right, I’ve decided to go to back to Square Enix to work full time after school.

This was a tricky decision which took a lot of soul searching to arrive out.  In the end, SE has a vision and a mission which is simply more exciting than the other places I looked at.   

It will take a bit for me to get my visa after a graduate so I’m still up in the air about what I’ll do for the summer.  I’ve applied to MITES but besides that it’s up in the air.

If I don’t get to do that, I’ll just chill in Kansas doing nothing, or maybe fun projects or possibly anything at all.

First, I have to graduate.

I’ve decided to make this entry more of coming back post than anything else.  A flashback episode to get us caught up to events more relevant to the status quo.

I survived the last semester of school pretty well.  It was my hardest term but also my best term with respect to grades.  This was also the time of my main job hunt (I have to leave school eventually) which required me to fly all sorts of places which gave me less time do work and turned one A into a B.

Now, I’m into another term which I’m supposed to be taking easy, but at the same time have all sorts of added responsibilities and unsurprisingly still no real time for my various hobbies and pet projects.  Hopefully, I’ll be able to catch up a bit in the near future and develop some kind of sane schedule before I graduate.  I’m not holding my breath.

Future posts will cover my future after MIT, spring break, and maybe other stuff less related to my life depending on how much I care to share.

Wish me luck.

This week, however, I’m on vacation because it’s Obon week.  It’s the week that the Japanese return to their homes in the countryside and light laterns to guide the spirits of the dead back home.  It’s like Mexico’s Day of the Dead, but in August. 

While I’m technically on vacation (literally as well until today or possibly tomorrow at least), my project deadline is coming up and it’s hard for me not to think about work.  I’m pretty sure I can’t just go to work legitimately, but who’s to stop me form stopping by when I’m in the neighborhood, just to check on things.

In anycase, this is a vacation and I’ll probably update with interesting things sooner rather than later.