Prolonging losing game to make opponent run out of time

[FSKFSK]

This probably is a bad site for playing games like go or chess. There are go-dedicated sites that will be better.

With go, the game doesn't end until both players pass. The losing player could keep playing in their own territory and drag out the game. If he's already ahead on time, he can make a move just before you go to bed and you'll lose 8 hours.

[tbhp]

Well actually...

What is the code of conduct?

On Board Game Arena, you should not:

• Take an unnecessary and unreasonable amount of time at the end of game in an obvious losing position.

Breaking these rules will affect your reputation.

(from the FAQ, emphasis mine)

Is it still an obvious losing position if you win?

The obvious interpretation here is that it's referring to a losing position as far as the game itself. Otherwise it would be a useless mention.

[tbhp]

I think the rule was probably intended for the usual non-tournament case where a player is just delaying their eventual loss out of spite.

I disagree. Spiteful players delaying an inevitable loss is not a real issue since it doesn't affect anyone, it just makes the game go on longer. If anything, it only affects the losing player since they are choosing to prolong their situation instead of just moving on.

What the rule is trying to prevent is cases where a player has a legit shot at making their opponent run of time, in order to avoid losing the game.

I had that happen to me at least twice, where I only had like 15 minutes remaining on my clock, while my opponent still had days. They only had one move left before I would make my final move, and it was obvious to anyone who knows the rules of the game that they would lose, yet they decided to suddenly stop playing, apparently hoping to catch me in a situation where I log out for long enough that they can kick me out.

As a result, I had to set up an alarm to wake me up every 10 minutes, and this went on for a couple of nights before they finally decided to make their move. This is a perfect example of what the rule here is supposed to prevent (I considered linking it to them, but I preferred to say nothing and wait it out). It's just unethical behavior on all levels, whether that's in terms of bad sportsmanship, or simply in terms of being a terrible way to treat another human being.

[FDHenneberg]

Yeah, I think this is pretty straightforward once you know there’s a rule against playing excessively slow at the end of a game in an obvious losing position. Can’t see why it should matter if it’s just sadism (or passive aggressive behavior or whatever) or if it’s done to win by unfair means. Clearly against BGA rules. The interpretation that it’s ok (edit: I meant legal, nobody said it’s ok) if it gives you a win by timeout is far fetched.

[Ceaseless]

What do people think of someone that has no chance of winning the game if it finished normally, but they prolong the game so that their opponent runs out of time?

Winning on time is a valid strategy. The devil's in the details for this one.

Luckily, this is not something I have had to deal with, but it seems to be happening in a Go tournament right now. The game has reached the stage where each player just has to agree that it is over, but the losing player is now making futile moves into the opponent's territory. The winning player has 2 days remaining on their clock, while the losing player has 8.

I'm wondering if this issue is limited to Go, or if there are other games where a player can prolong a game to such a great extent.

You can blame turn-based for this nonsense. It's a headache I refuse to deal with for so many reasons, this being one of them. A lot of ideas like flagging players are under circumstances where both players are always present for their game, you don't have these ridiculous situations where someone is absent. It's a question for the moderators to handle.

I find the idea of trying to flag someone in turn-based to be rather sketchy but turn-based is an unreasonable format to begin with. It takes a lot of mutual effort to avoid it blowing up in everyone's faces. If it were up to me, I probably wouldn't allow it, but I'm not the one who would have to enforce such shenanigans afterwards, so I suppose that's pretty easy of me to say right now, isn't it, lol.

Is it still an obvious losing position if you win?

If you win because the other player eventually runs out of time? I would say probably. I can't imagine how else you would interpret that rule.

That said, it doesn't mention how the rules affect your reputation. I'm not sure if you're supposed to report, or people were supposed to red thumb (back when red thumbs actually affected reputation), but I assume some intervention by the player would need to happen to affect anything.

Well actually...



(from the FAQ, emphasis mine)

Is it still an obvious losing position if you win?

The obvious interpretation here is that it's referring to a losing position as far as the game itself. Otherwise it would be a useless mention.

It's for positions where a player refuses to play a lost game. Sure, you're slotted to all of your time to play the game, but you still have to actually play it. Using the clock as your weapon of choice for a rage quit is a great way to get banned on gaming sites. Winning on time is not a losing position.

Yeah, I think this is pretty straightforward once you know there’s a rule against playing excessively slow at the end of a game in an obvious losing position. Can’t see why it should matter if it’s just sadism (or passive aggressive behavior or whatever) or if it’s done to win by unfair means. Clearly against BGA rules. The interpretation that it’s ok (edit: I meant legal, nobody said it’s ok) if it gives you a win by timeout is far fetched.

There's nothing clear about it. It's a headache.

[tbhp]

It's for positions where a player refuses to play a lost game. Sure, you're slotted to all of your time to play the game, but you still have to actually play it. Using the clock as your weapon of choice for a rage quit is a great way to get banned on gaming sites. Winning on time is not a losing position.

It is if the game wouldn’t have been winnable if finished normally.

It’s one thing to accidentally make your opponent lose on time because you genuinely needed time to think and couldn’t make all your moves before the game’s time runs out. I can see that happening, and in this case then what happened happened, not much we can do about it.

It’s another to intentionally waste time because you aren’t planning to win the game fairly. That’s obvious poor sportsmanship and is one of the reasons why the rule exists. I agree there are other reasons, like pointless delaying out of spite, but it’s not the subject of this thread.

[Ceaseless]

I agree there are other reasons, like pointless delaying out of spite, but it’s not the subject of this thread.

In other words...

The obvious interpretation here is that it's referring to a losing position as far as the game itself. Otherwise it would be a useless mention.

The quote that I specifically replied to is mistaken. It's not a useless mention. Therefore, the otherwise follow-up to your so-called "obvious interpretation" is not the case. The note on not stalling losing games does already have a purpose that is not covered by the subject of the thread.

It's for positions where a player refuses to play a lost game. Sure, you're slotted to all of your time to play the game, but you still have to actually play it. Using the clock as your weapon of choice for a rage quit is a great way to get banned on gaming sites. Winning on time is not a losing position.

It is if the game wouldn’t have been winnable if finished normally.

It’s one thing to accidentally make your opponent lose on time because you genuinely needed time to think and couldn’t make all your moves before the game’s time runs out. I can see that happening, and in this case then what happened happened, not much we can do about it.

It’s another to intentionally waste time because you aren’t planning to win the game fairly. That’s obvious poor sportsmanship and is one of the reasons why the rule exists. I agree there are other reasons, like pointless delaying out of spite, but it’s not the subject of this thread.

Trying to make policy based on information you don't is not usually a good idea. It creates impossible situations for whoever has to enforce it and just creates more conflict and drama. We end up right back where I said we would. It's rather easy to say you won't allow it when you're not the one who has to deal with enforcement. In the end, it's an ambiguous headache for the moderators to sort out.

[tbhp]

I agree there are other reasons, like pointless delaying out of spite, but it’s not the subject of this thread.

In other words...

The obvious interpretation here is that it's referring to a losing position as far as the game itself. Otherwise it would be a useless mention.

The quote that I specifically replied to is mistaken. It's not a useless mention. Therefore, the otherwise follow-up to your so-called "obvious interpretation" is not the case. The note on not stalling losing games does already have a purpose that is not covered by the subject of the thread.

Right, but my statement wasn't about which motivations are covered by the rule, but rather whether "losing position" can ever refer to something other than the game state itself. I maintain that it's the only interpretation that makes any sense (you can't both be in a losing position according to remaining time, and also be in a position to waste time, it's nonsensical).

So what the rule means is that it's never okay to waste time on a game you know you've lost according to the rules. Whether the player is trying to win by timeout or is just being spiteful, in all cases the behavior is condemned by the rule.

Trying to make policy based on information you don't is not usually a good idea. It creates impossible situations for whoever has to enforce it and just creates more conflict and drama. We end up right back where I said we would. It's rather easy to say you won't allow it when you're not the one who has to deal with enforcement. In the end, it's an ambiguous headache for the moderators to sort out.

I somewhat agree, but the rule exists so it's meant to be enforced. And while it's true that you can never really know someone's intentions for sure, there are cases where anyone of average intelligence would agree that a game is 100% lost, which would therefore make highly suspicious the player who is taking forever to make their move.

All in all, my post is not trying to say that there exists a perfect solution that could be enforced in most cases. I'm more trying to raise awareness about the fact that it's not a good behavior, so that the people who know they have been doing it stop doing it. We all have a responsibility to play games on here as ethically as we can, because like you say there's many things that are just impossible to enforce. So my personal case I've written above can, I hope, make some people understand, if they haven't already, that they are potentially causing harm when they are trying to win games that they shouldn't be winning.

[nik592]

It's for positions where a player refuses to play a lost game. Sure, you're slotted to all of your time to play the game, but you still have to actually play it. Using the clock as your weapon of choice for a rage quit is a great way to get banned on gaming sites. Winning on time is not a losing position.

So you mean where a player has lost but then just refuses to play anymore turns and eventually runs out their clock? So then another player can boot them. I mean that's just the first point in the list of things one shouldn't do on BGA - run their clock out. I can't see that they need to stipulate essentially the same thing but in one specific situation, so I would think it must be referring to a wholly different situation.

While winning by the clock is a valid way to win, in tournaments where time is fixed, doing pointless moves to run out the clock seems like poor sportsmanship. Even if your purpose is to run out the maximum table time and therefore make standings happen based on time remaining, and potentially end up in a higher position than another player who would have beat you if the game had ended, that'd still be workable in some scenarios, but again, seems like poor sportsmanship to do so. But given the way timing works in tournaments, I don't think most "win on time" scenario in tournaments are valid (and I'm quite happy that booting can now be disabled for tournaments for that reason).

[tbhp]

The problem with the logic of "it's okay if you end up winning" is that it's a twisted logic that depends on whether the potential offender reaches their desired outcome. It's kinda like if you said "stealing is bad, unless you don't get caught".

There is no way to define a concept of "losing position" according to remaining time because that's not a knowable thing, it all depends on the rate at which both players make their remaining moves. So it's only at the end of the game that you are able to tell who was effectively in a "losing position". That makes the rule useless, since there is no way to enforce it until the game is already over, in which case it's too late because either the potential offender managed to win and "clean their hands", so to speak, or they lost and in this case the loss is their punishment. So the existence of the rule doesn't change anything about the outcome of games or about how people on this site choose to play games.

Therefore, the only interpretation of "losing position" that makes sense is the one that has to do with the game itself.