Where is an explanation of what a BGA tournament is?

[mrdoctor]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tournament

Very much not helpful.

If you honestly think this was helpful and don't know why it's not, ask and I'll answer. I can't tell if you're just being sarcastic, or honestly wanted to answer my question but misunderstood what I was asking.

The wiki page gives an overview of different tournament types: swiss-system, knockout/elimination, round-robins, and group-stages. These align pretty much exactly with the same meaning on BGA. The only real difference to note is that on BGA "round robin" tournaments usually mean all games are started simultaneously, whereas in sports, for obvious reasons, the games would be played consecutively.

If you go to the tournaments page - https://boardgamearena.com/tournamentlist - you can filter by game and tournament type. The main tournament page for each tournament tells you how many games will be played, how many players in each game, maximum/minimum sign-ups, start-date, length of games, etc. If it all looks like something you want to join in with, then you can click the button to register for the tournament.

If a person understands what tournament types mean in sports etc (as explained on that Wiki page link) I'm struggling to work out what makes BGA tournaments additionally confusing?

[Meeplelowda]

It occurred to me that no one in this thread has yet referred to the thread titled "Tournaments FAQ" pinned to the top of this Tournaments sub-forum. I guess I just assumed that OP knew about it and found it inadequate. But now I see that it answers some things they said they didn't know, like Premium members can start tournaments and they can be real-time or turn-based, so it looks like they never saw it. It's still woefully incomplete, and it's hidden in the forum instead of the main site, but it exists.

[Dexsting]

Where do you find open tournaments?

[Meeplelowda]

Where do you find open tournaments?

Here. In order to get there without that link: 1) go to the Play Now link from the top of the page (desktop) or the top option in the hamburger menu in the upper left (mobile/tablet); 2) change the left option from Simple Game or Arena to Tournament (if it were already set to Tournament you wouldn't have this question).

By default all tournaments that are open for registration are shown. If you want to see tournaments that have not started but are already full, tick the box labeled "Show full tournaments."

[Cos-]

It occurred to me that no one in this thread has yet referred to the thread titled "Tournaments FAQ" pinned to the top of this Tournaments sub-forum. I guess I just assumed that OP knew about it and found it inadequate. But now I see that it answers some things they said they didn't know, like Premium members can start tournaments and they can be real-time or turn-based, so it looks like they never saw it. It's still woefully incomplete, and it's hidden in the forum instead of the main site, but it exists.

Thanks, that Tournaments FAQ does indeed cover a lot of the things I think should be covered in a BGA intro page about tournaments.

It does not give a starting intro/overview, it does assume you already know about BGA tournaments and are already interested and just have some more specific questions. But that's probably because it's on the Tournaments forum, where those assumptions are likely true for the audience. But it wouldn't take much work to add that material and turn this into a real intro+FAQ for BGA tournaments.

I'll add that link to the suggestion I already posted asking for BGA to add a real FAQ. Please vote for the suggestion, at https://boardgamearena.com/bug?id=112566

[Silene]

The forum-FAQ unfortunately is somewhat outdated as it doesn't include the newer tournament formats and the option for multiplayer (3+) tournaments.

[KittyCandy]

I am wondering what happens in a tournament if your time runs out? You think that 25rs is enough time but really if you count sleeping and working it really isn't that much time. Personally, I need a get to bed early and when I am at work, I am unable to play except maybe on my phone at lunch.

Does the game time out? do you just keep getting skipped till the other person wins? Does it cause a forced forfeit?

any ideas?
Thanks!

[Meeplelowda]

I am wondering what happens in a tournament if your time runs out? You think that 25rs is enough time but really if you count sleeping and working it really isn't that much time. Personally, I need a get to bed early and when I am at work, I am unable to play except maybe on my phone at lunch.

Does the game time out? do you just keep getting skipped till the other person wins? Does it cause a forced forfeit?

any ideas?
Thanks!

Tournaments have a set amount of time for the entire match, not for each turn. If that time is reached, whoever used less time advances, even if no one was expelled.

To avoid sleep/life issues, select tournaments with playing hours that actually match when you will be awake. If the tournament doesn't have playing hours, make sure you can commit to finishing in the amount of time per round. Don't enter if you can't.

[nik592]

Does the game time out? do you just keep getting skipped till the other person wins? Does it cause a forced forfeit?

If you run into the red, other players can boot you, though there are lengthy discussions on here about the etiquette of doing so, given the restrictive nature of tournament timings. In general, I would say more tournament players feel like it's poor etiquette to boot someone who appears to be actively playing - rather, let the game time out (as Meeplelowda describes) if it's not going to complete on time. Time remaining still isn't the fairest metric to rank by, but if you boot, tied players are ranked either randomly or on seniority of account, depending on who you listen to. But that means in multiplayer elimination tournaments, you can find yourself booted seemingly randomly even without running out of time.

To avoid sleep/life issues, select tournaments with playing hours that actually match when you will be awake. If the tournament doesn't have playing hours, make sure you can commit to finishing in the amount of time per round. Don't enter if you can't.

This would mean a lot of people would never enter tournaments - I probably shouldn't be entering anything by that logic. I can't tell you if I am going to complete my game in the time allocated - it depends what timezones my opponents are based in, especially the player ahead of me. And given that the setting for a lot of tournaments is 15 days per game (leading to less than 4 days per player in a 4p game), and the next setting above this doubles the time (therefore potentially doubling the length of the tournament), I get why creators prefer the 15 day setting. I tend to choose tournaments that give me at least 2-3 days of total time, because most of the time they do work out for me, but I also run into the red and get booted on occasion too. And tournaments that match my playing hours? I've never seen one. I could create one, but if no one else is creating tournaments in my timezone, it feels unlikely that I'd get many sign-ups to a tournament like that.

[ErikLevin]

I can't tell you if I am going to complete my game in the time allocated - it depends what timezones my opponents are based in, especially the player ahead of me.

I can second this. I basically never time out, but one time was a tournament match with players from the Americas, Europe, and east Asia. Just by taking 8 hours off per day to sleep was enough to put me (and some of the others) into the red. Luckily no-one went for the expel, and we did easily complete the game within the allotted time.

Sometimes it is basically impossible to not time out in fixed-length tournament matches. You just have to do your best to play in a timely manner and hope people don't expel.
(Obviously don't join tournament with playing hours wildly incompatible to your timezone/schedule)

(The simple fix, that has been suggested and upvoted by many but BGA seems disinterested in pursuing, is simply that expels should not be possible in tournaments. They aren't needed since matches time out and select standings based on clock after a set number of days anyway. And you won't get into your next match quicker by expelling someone anyway, so there is zero reason to expel in a tournament... But people can still do it.)