There are two different game ending situations with tournaments:
1. The game reaches the maximum duration set for the table (as specified in the tournament configuration - eg. 15 days, 30 days). If this happens, all players are ranked based on time remaining. This is likely the one you mentioned "benefitting" from. You are correct that this will occur because one or more players went over the allocated time, as the full table time is just divided among the number of players - eg. 15 day maximum, 4 players, each player gets 3.75 days to make ALL of their moves for that game.
With this situation, note that, if a game is set to run 24 hours a day (it is either that, or a specific 12 hour period when clocks run, and the other 12 hours clocks do not run), one player at the table will take the "last" turn before their sleep period and the player who follows them will find their clock runs down faster than others, and probably ends up in negative time. This is not necessarily their fault for not playing enough, unless you happen to believe that tournaments are some kind of endurance sport where a player should be waking at 3am to check it's not their turn.
2. A single player has run out of time, and another player at the table decides to eject them from the game. That player is considered the loser and all other players tie for the win. If it is single elimination, the booted player is eliminated. If it is multiple player elimination then one of the tied players needs to be eliminated - anecdotally, this seems to be based on the age of the players' accounts on BGA and the player with the newest (most recently created) account is eliminated. Lots of people feel this approach is unfair, but there's virtually no agreement on what a better system would look like. There are lots of suggestions, but there are always going to be people who are negatively affected by any system and think that particular suggestions aren't a good choice.
You are correct that if you yourself run into negative time, you run the risk of being booted, even if another player also has negative time, even if that player has more negative time than you do. So yes, you could boot to avoid yourself being booted, but that may not mean you don't still get eliminated from the tournament (see above). Furthermore, even if you're NOT in negative time, and boot another player who is, that still doesn't mean you won't be eliminated from the tournament (see above). Some people appear to boot other players on the basis that they are losing the game, and to force a tie, rather than to be beaten by another player. Other people think that this kind of behaviour represents bad sportsmanship. Other players think any booting in tournaments (where running into negative time may just be poor luck and not through infrequent play), is poor sportsmanship, hence why tournaments without booting were created. These tournaments are only subject to scenario 1 above, scenario 2 is not possible.
GoodLordMonty wrote: ↑08 November 2025, 20:43
Should then, as soon as someone is out of time, they be booted to ensure this doesn't happen?
So, it depends what you're trying to achieve. If you're trying to save yourself from booting, probably. If you're trying to save yourself from being eliminated, it's only a maybe (unless you check ages of the other players' accounts). As far as sportsmanship, that's a personal decision. Consider how you would feel if you were in the shoes of the person being booted - look at how frequently they've been playing, or where the scores are at, etc. and decide whether you would feel it fair to be booted if you were in their position. If someone booted you to save themselves because they were also over time, would you think that was fine? That's a personal decision, some would say yes, others no. Figure out what you think is fair and run by those rules.