tbhp wrote: ↑25 February 2026, 19:56
I'm still doubtful this is how is works, but if it is, it needs to be changed as soon as possible. A player can't unilaterally decide the outcome of a game. There is no strong downside that I can see with making the vote unanimous.
It is how it works. It's well documented by people who've been burned by it in the forums (usually in tournaments).
In a tournament game:
1. If the table reaches maximum time set by tournament creator, players are ranked by their remaining time (and rankings define progression as expected - eg. bottom 1/2/whatever are expelled according to tournament rules).
2. If a player runs out of time, ANY other single player at the table can choose to boot them. The game result is nullified and remaining players tie for a win (1 game point) and the booted player is considered to have a loss (0 game points). Swiss tournaments award equal tournament points to all players at the table except the booted player who gets zero. Single-elimination eliminate the booted player. Multi-elimination eliminates the booted player, and as many other players as needed according to the age of their account (younger accounts are eliminated).
In both cases, points as they stood at the time of the game ending/person being booted are irrelevant.
In non-tournament games, if a player runs out of time, it is the same as in a tournament, except without the tournament points/elimination. That is, ANY other player at the table can choose to boot them. The game result is nullified and remaining players tie for a win (1 game point) and the booted player is considered to have a loss (0 game points). There is no voting or unanimous agreement by other players.
If one player proposes to ABANDON a table, all other players must agree, or the game continues. If the abandon is successful, the result is nullified and I believe it's considered neither a win or loss for any player. No Elo is adjusted, no penalties are awarded (except any player who went over time will have a time penalty indicated on their profile).
As for changing it, I suspect that's unlikely. It wouldn't be a small coding task to change it to a unanimous agreement, and there would be many people who wouldn't appreciate it. This appears to be the issue Jellby is objecting to - that they shouldn't be held to complete a game because all other players at the table won't agree to boot the over time player. Which is reasonable - one player has broken the contract which was agreed in terms of how long a game would take to play. All other players should now have the option to exit that contract without penalty. And when players exit a game, the game (generally) cannot continue normally, so the result is nullified.
As I've said many times, my PERSONAL opinion is that I would also generally prefer to play on, so long as the player out of time is still playing regularly. But I also respect the choice of others at my table to leave. I also play almost exclusively turn-based, so continuing a table where a player is over time is less impactful. But in a real-time game, one player being out of time may mean that another player at the table cannot remain to finish the game. Moreover, since you can only play a single real-time game at a time, having a game where a player has disappeared or is playing really slowly means you can't just go and play something else. I'd argue that the ability to quit a game without penalty, where another player has already exceeded their time, is more important in real-time games than in turn-based. I think the solutions proposed here, about allowing a player to continue without risk of booting after having exceeded their time, are good ideas, but should only ever be applied to turn-based play. Real-time games should continue as they are, in terms of a player being allowed to boot an opponent at any point, once that opponent has run over time.
