Game timer on singles games vs tournaments

[JoysFriend]

A BGA friend and I are trying to understand if there is any difference at all in the timers for playing tournaments vs playing a single game?

\If each player gets 2 days to think on a single game, does that two days restart each time a person plays, or is it a total clock count down and each player gets a total of 48 hours (2 days) thinking time per game?

And in a tournament, is the 2 day timer just 2 calendar days, so if one person plays another in a different time zone, they could not sleep because they would miss the timer for that day?

The timers are confusing. Are they different kinds of countdowns depending on if you are playing a tournament or a single game?

[nik592]

Tournament games are fixed time. So if you start with 48 hours, that's all you get for the entire game. If you sleep, yes, you lose a bunch of hours. It's one of the reasons booting in tournaments is a bit controversial, because poor combinations of timezones with other players can put you in a situation where you get into the red quickly.

Non-tournament games are (as far as I know) all time-per-turn - you start with a bank of about 3x time per turn, and each time it is your turn, you are allocated a new allotment of time (to a max. of the bank you started with). So 1 turn per day starts with 3 days, and you gain 24 hours each time it is your turn again (but never exceeding 3 days of total time).

[JoysFriend]

Tournament games are fixed time. So if you start with 48 hours, that's all you get for the entire game. If you sleep, yes, you lose a bunch of hours. It's one of the reasons booting in tournaments is a bit controversial, because poor combinations of timezones with other players can put you in a situation where you get into the red quickly.

How long has this been true? Does the tournament automatically boot anyone who has gone over time? How can my timer not stop when it is the other players' turns?

[Bray]

How can my timer not stop when it is the other players' turns?

Your timer does stop on other players' turns. The point is that you have an absolute time limit on your clock. It's not a Fischer time where you get back time after each move. Every second your clock ticks down is a second that you will never recover.

[nik592]

How long has this been true? Does the tournament automatically boot anyone who has gone over time? How can my timer not stop when it is the other players' turns?

For at least as long as I've been a member of BGA (so 18 months, probably longer). As noted by Bray, your clock does stop when it's not your turn, it only ticks while waiting for you to play. There is one other caveat, that if a tournament has playing hours set, your clock will only tick during 12 of 24 hours (as stipulated by the tournament, and it is the same 12 hour period for all players and does not take into account timezones).

The tournament doesn't automatically boot when players run over time, but your other opponents have the option to do so. There is plenty of discussion on the tournament forum (and several bugs/suggestions) about the fact that booting in tournaments is a problem. The other point to note is that tournament games have a fixed length (again, stipulated by tournament settings) and if that time is reached, the game will automatically end and rankings awarded in order of time remaining.

One other point is that where a player is booted and multiplayer elimination is occurring in the tournament, players are ranked by the age of their BGA account (oldest to newest). Meaning players who were NOT out of time, and potentially on their way to winning, or at least beating other players, can be eliminated. It's probably the worst problem with bootings in tournaments - that losing players can sometimes use it to progress (though obviously only if one of their opponents runs out of time).

In any case, if you have more questions, I'd probably suggest searching in the tournament forum (https://boardgamearena.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=8), and posting questions to one of the various existing threads on this topic.