Tournament time limit

[Rosie Napper]

Apologies if there are already threads about this but....

Just taking place in my first tournament and had a nasty surprise re the time limit.

First off, I didn't realise until it became an issue that the timer in a tournament is different to normal play in that it is just a ticking clock (ie. doesn't reset each turn) but that's my bad (although still think BGA could make this more obvious).

My real issue with this is that you are playing people from different parts of the world. As such, in a 24 hour (no playing hours) game, if you're the one who is out of synch with others, you're naturally going to lose all your thinking time by sleeping at night.

Then, if the game doesn't finish in time (which could also be down to another player) the person with the most thinking time remaining gets the win.

This policy seems to discriminate against a player for being in the wrong time zone.

Happy to be put right here but wanted to flag this and see if other people had the same experience.

[xspuipuke]

I guess it is a problem in multiplayer but then again, knowing the rules, it‘s a risk to participate in such a tournament. In 1 on 1, you can‘t lose on time as you simply need to be like on your phone during waking hours and check every once in a while whether it‘s your turn.

[PleaseAGB1]

Wow I didn't know about this in tournaments. Original poster (OP), if you want to, share more - how does the timer work in tournaments? Thanks.

[xspuipuke]

The ones I’ve participated in had a fixed total time limit per player, e.g., 84 hours for a game whose total length was set to 1 week. When the week is over, the system simply checks who has more time left if the game has not been completed. I once had to sit down past midnight my time to not lose on time the next day when the week was over because I had less time left than my opponent. Luckily we finished the game quick enough.

[PleaseAGB1]

Wow, that's wild and weird. Thanks for sharing.

[Bartissimo]

My understanding: this is entirely down to the settings tournament organisers choose. Some organisers have a great understanding of the game and the settings that work well, including the time settings and they ensure that the problems you describe don't arise. I believe anyone with a premium membership can set up a tournament, and so sometimes you get well-meaning but not fully clued-up members who set up a tournament with settings that give a poor experience for participants. (I just checked and indeed, I can set up a tournament if I want to. Also for games I don't know all that well, and where I am prone to misjudging the time requirements for a fun tournament game.)

Ideal for you would be tournaments with:
- "playing hours" - with the clock stopping in the downtime for your time-zone. I've seen tournaments that use 13:00 - 1am as playing hours, and that's fair as your clock never runs down during your non-playing hours, even if it's your turn. The alternative ("24 hours a day (no playing hours"), gives the dynamics you see: any time of the day, the clock of the person whose turn it is, is ticking and going down. Bad luck if there is a night owl or a player in a different time zone just before you in the turn order!
- Tournaments with generous time limits - 7 days works well for TfM, shorter can work, say 3 days for 2-player games, but shorter than that, and the clock becomes too much of a factor.
- tournaments with a setting/policy that players with a negative clock cannot be kicked out. The game then typically has an overall time limit, and if that time is exceeded, the player with most time remaining time on the clock wins, and others following in placement order based on remaining time as xspuipuke described. The setting you're looking for: "Players can't be skipped during games". If the setting is "All players can vote to kick players out of time", there's typically no such thing as voting, but simply one player who clicks the button to skip you if you're the player of out time, and you lose the game instantly.
- the fewer people in the game, the better. 2-player games tend to work fine. 4p and 5p games become a problem, especially if any of the negative points above feature (less than three days per person, ability to kick out the person with a negative clock, short overall maximum game length).

The trick is to avoid tournaments that feature any of those factors that are likely to cause you trouble. If you want to play games at higher player counts, it makes sense to set them up in Play mode instead, or join those set up by others in Play mode if you don't have a premium membership at the moment.

[Rosie Napper]

I once had to sit down past midnight my time to not lose on time the next day when the week was over because I had less time left than my opponent. Luckily we finished the game quick enough.

This perfectly illustrates the problem for me.