Thinking time

[LPinkS]

I just played my first tournament and, even though I played every time my opponent played, my "thinking time" was exceeded, because my opponent was in a time zone 8 hours different from mine. Was my opponent allowed to stop the match and get the win, or did it happen automatically? The whole set-up doesn't seem fair, because I was quite diligent about playing.

[Mathew5000]

I just played my first tournament and, even though I played every time my opponent played, my "thinking time" was exceeded, because my opponent was in a time zone 8 hours different from mine. Was my opponent allowed to stop the match and get the win, or did it happen automatically? The whole set-up doesn't seem fair, because I was quite diligent about playing.

Hello, welcome to the forums. You don't say whether this was a two-player game or a multi-player game you were playing, but in either case the answer to your question is yes, when you have exceeded your allotted time, any opponent at your table can "skip" your turn, with the result that you will finish last in that game.

In non-tournament games on BGA, you have some time added to your bank every turn, but that is not the case in tournaments. You probably didn't realize that, as BGA doesn't explain it very well for new players.

I'd encourage you to continue playing tournaments on BGA, but before you register look at the tournament page to see how much time you will be allotted for each game, and make sure that you will probably be able to complete it within that framework. Here are some other threads on this forum that deal with related issues, one from last year and the other quite recent:

viewtopic.php?t=29465

viewtopic.php?t=36981

[Meeplelowda]

I just played my first tournament and, even though I played every time my opponent played, my "thinking time" was exceeded, because my opponent was in a time zone 8 hours different from mine. Was my opponent allowed to stop the match and get the win, or did it happen automatically? The whole set-up doesn't seem fair, because I was quite diligent about playing.

but before you register look at the tournament page to see how much time you will be allotted for each game, and make sure that you will probably be able to complete it within that framework.

In addition to what Mathew5000 wrote, be sure to check if the tournament has playing hours set, and if so, be sure those playing hours align with times you will be able to make moves.

If you don't know what playing hours are, it's a 12-hour window of time when your clock will run down if it is your turn. Outside of those hours your clock is paused even when it is your turn. You are still allowed to make moves outside of those hours, but if you sleep from 23:00 to 07:00 and the playing hours are set from 23:00 to 11:00 in your local time (it is displayed in the local time of the device you're using), then for most of the playing hours your clock may be running while you're asleep.

[LPinkS]

Thank you very much for your answers. I actually thought that the posted time was per turn, not per game.
The game was a single elimination tournament game.
I will take your suggestions and keep trying tournaments.
Thanks again.

[RazorOz]

When you join tournaments look at the clock or thinking time per player. I looked at your history, and I can see it was a Wingspan tournament with the game round set to 2 days, that sounds a very optimistic clock even at 2 player so I'm not surprised to see a load of games ended like this.

[LPinkS]

I guess the real issue is that I did not understand the terminology. It may seem obvious to someone who has been doing this a while, but what does the clock measure—time between plays or time for each round or time for the whole game?

When a game round is set to 2 days, does that mean the whole game has to be finished in 2 days or that each round has to be finished in 2 days?

Meeplelowda talked about “playing hours.” How are those determined and where does that show up in a tournament?

Is there somewhere on this web site where all of this is explained or do people like me just have to learn the hard way?—aling with the gentle coaching of you kind people in this forum.

[RazorOz]

I guess the real issue is that I did not understand the terminology. It may seem obvious to someone who has been doing this a while, but what does the clock measure—time between plays or time for each round or time for the whole game?

When a game round is set to 2 days, does that mean the whole game has to be finished in 2 days or that each round has to be finished in 2 days?

Meeplelowda talked about “playing hours.” How are those determined and where does that show up in a tournament?

Is there somewhere on this web site where all of this is explained or do people like me just have to learn the hard way?—aling with the gentle coaching of you kind people in this forum.

It means each round in the tournament has to complete in 2 days.

Playing hours weren't relevant in this case, as there was no playing hours set, meaning your clock will tick down 24 hours a day while it's on your turn. If they were set your clock would only tick down during those playing hours.

[LPinkS]

I appreciate everyone's help. I also discovered the FAQ section, which was helpful, too. I do love this site, in spite of the learning curve.
Thank you to all.

[Meeplelowda]

Playing hours weren't relevant in this case, as there was no playing hours set,

Playing hours are relevant because we were advising about what to do in the future, not what could have been done for this particular tournament. In the future, they may be considering a tournament that does have playing hours set.

[Meeplelowda]

Meeplelowda talked about “playing hours.” How are those determined and where does that show up in a tournament?

These questions were deemed "not relevant" and ignored.

1) How are those determined?
The tournament administrators set them according to their whim. Tournament administrators are just other BGA players with Premium accounts.

2) Where does that show up in a tournament?
On the registration page, right under the line "Time allotted to each player."

For example, these are the two relevant lines from an upcoming Lucky Numbers tournament with no playing hours:

Code: Select all

Time allotted to each player	12h00
Playing hours			24 hours a day (no playing hours)

And here is an example from a Donuts tournament with playing hours:

Code: Select all

Time allotted to each player	42h00
Playing hours			13:00 → 1:00

Also, it is shown in the tournament summary before you even click on it: https://imgur.com/a/tibPh6J

The time will be shown in your own local time as determined by the device you play on.