Tournament Question

[Panthergirl]

I'm participating in a tournament for the first time. It seems that when someone times out (which has happened twice already), the winner of that round is the person with the most "thinking time" left. However, in the game I'm currently in, we haven't even gotten past the point of choosing families and my clock is 2-4 hours behind the two other players who aren't timing out. How can that be? We haven't made any moves in the game, yet I'll end up in third place as a result of the time on the clock.

[Tobysaurus]

As soon as it’s your turn to do something (anything) your clock starts counting down. So if a tournament game starts while you sleep at night, and it starts with your turn (even to pick a family) your clock will run until you log in to realize what has happened.

If your timer runs out, others have the option to skip you which ends the game as you described. Also, even if players are patient and understanding to you running out of time, most tournaments have total round limits that will automatically end the game. It’s not ideal to win that way but it keeps things moving along.

[Panthergirl]

OK, clear. I rarely run out of time but I can see how someone in Australia, as in this case, could run out easily because the rest of us are either in Europe or the US. I guess if the timer was adjusted for all time zones the games would take forever...

[JCWeb]

Panthergirl,
I too have issues with how many of the tournaments are organized on BGA. Often the time limits seem way too short, particularly for situations where players are from different parts of the world, and the clock is, in essence, "ticking" at times when normal individuals would be sleeping, resting or busy at work. One time I got forfeited without having even got an email notice that a game had actually started! (I don't log onto BGA every day like some folks.) The fact that many games are decided in favor of the player who uses the least amount of time as opposed to the player who is best at the game, in my mind, makes many of these tournament results somewhat suspect.

Having said all this, I don't have an easy solution to this, other than to be careful when signing up for tournaments. However, despite these flaws, I probably will continue to sign up for Obsession tournaments here on BGA because it's a fairly good interface, has many different options (hopefully to include the Upstairs Downstairs rules), the opportunities to play the game competitively in face-to-face events is extremely limited and, finally, number one, Dan Hallagan (whom I have met personally) is a great guy and deserves our support.