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Nothing in all that to be concerned about. (And, remember, Stephen is refusing to show...though I hope somebody changes his mind.)
Judges are human. The more serious concern is that a judge might favor a fish in a close competition if he/she knew it was that of a friend, or be down on it out of concern of being perceived as favoring a friend. To overcome the possibility of being subconciously influenced, or being perceived as influenced by such knowledge, most judges stay away from the show tanks until the entries are ready to be judged. They do not want to be influenced, and do not want to be perceived as influenced by such factors. These folks work awfully hard to attain the status of certified judge, and spend considerable sums to meet the standards and then go judge shows. I'll dump on some of their decisions, but I'd not question that they truly believe what they say when it comes to judging koi. These folks are among the ultimate of crazies in this hobby... and everyone of them I know would be greatly distressed and enraged if any of their fraternity based their judging on anything but their honest opinion of the koi in front of them. The respect of their fellow judges means more to most of them than just about anything else in this world.
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