Earlier last week, we received a brief email from Galaxy, organizer of the GOC 2013 in Shanghai last December about some changes that have been made to the top ranking. In the initial settings, the top 3 teams of this competition where :

• Winner: Team 4 – Hazzan and Hero
• Second: Team 9 – Lucky_n00b and littleboy
• Third: Team 7 – ZolKoRn and OC_Windforce

Now the top ranking is:

• Winner: Team 9 – Lucky_n00b and littleboy
• Second: Team 7 – ZolKoRn and OC_Windforce
• Third: Team 6 – 8pack and Yeong

The change of leader pushes the teams up in the ranks and brings onto the podium team 6 by UK overclocker 8pack and HK overclocker Stephen Yeong.

Reasons behind this change

This change is due to the disqualification of Team 4. In their statement, Galaxy doesn’t indicate in depths the reasons of this disqualification:

The original winner Team 4 failed to comply with the official rules and regulations, the board of judge has come to a mutual agreement to disqualify Team 4, GALAXY management respects the board of judge’s decision.

But we’ve done some digging and the reason is quite sad but simple. An overclocker (non-competitor) was seen sitting at the desk in front of the system, keyboard in hands and touching the hardware as well as contributing to the OC effort (read here: pouring ln2). If the last one is probably the less problematic, the two others in an obvious competitive spirit are (with or without proof that the guy changed something – he simply shouldn’t have been there indeed). It is a sad news for the Team of Hazzan and Hero even though this is off course not from their intentions. We’ve talked with Team 4 and non of both competitors thought of doing bad. This is simply a case of a friend being too helpful – it could have happened to any teams having a friend over on the event floor.  So let’s remember for next time: yes your friends are here, yes they can advise you on specifics, but no you can’t let them interfere with the system at all.

ED. Note (Trouffman) : I would like to remind to our fellow overclockers, theses are competitions with rules, and cash prizes or hardware prizes, we are mostly all friends and like to share the knowledge. This is a sad news for the outcome but a really needed one, let`s not forget that, like in the Olympics, competition have rules to be respected, in the last outcome of there is loophole, judges are the one with the last word. This is the case for any kind of competition, let`s all play by the same rules and enjoy this hobby/sport/gathering opportunity that is ours.