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A few tournament questions
Posted: 27 May 2025, 00:44
by koningco
I really became a tournament player this month and I have a few questions after my first tournament experiences this months. Hopefully someone with more tournament experience can answer them.
1) I know I have to confirm my participation within 5 minutes after the start of a real time tournament. But how long do I have to confirm that I am ready to start in a turn based tournament? Or will I automatically join the first (or next) game after a specific time?
2) If in a Swiss Tournament someone is kicked out because he is out of time, how will the 6-4-2 points be distributed to the other 3 players? Will everyone get 3 points?
3) This Swiss system tournament (real time) was cancelled, which I understand because we could not play 5 matches in a group. But what would the minimum number of players be to let this tournament start?
https://boardgamearena.com/tournament?id=385967
4) This Swiss system tournament (turn based) was cancelled too. What would be the minimum number of players to let this tournament start?
https://boardgamearena.com/tournament?id=381539
Re: A few tournament questions
Posted: 27 May 2025, 17:37
by Mathew5000
koningco wrote: ↑27 May 2025, 00:44
1) I know I have to confirm my participation within 5 minutes after the start of a real time tournament. But how long do I have to confirm that I am ready to start in a turn based tournament? Or will I automatically join the first (or next) game after a specific time?
For turn-based tournaments, you automatically join your table after a brief time, whether or not you are logged on or have a BGA window open. No need to confirm.
2) If in a Swiss Tournament someone is kicked out because he is out of time, how will the 6-4-2 points be distributed to the other 3 players? Will everyone get 3 points?
4 points if my arithmetic is correct. When a player's "turn is skipped", that player is expelled from the game and finishes last; the other players are deemed to have tied for the win and evenly split the Swiss points for that game.
I've never found a way to see the minimum number of entrants for a tournament, after that tournament has ended (or after it has begun, if it begins). You can try searching the URL at Internet Archive Wayback Machine (
https://web.archive.org/) but it's very unlikely you'll get the answer that way. The Wayback Machine doesn't routinely crawl random tournament pages on BGA.
Re: A few tournament questions
Posted: 28 May 2025, 00:39
by mrdoctor
Not even the people who set-up the tournament can view the minimum player number once a tournament is completed/underway. You can message the person who set it up to see if they remember, but they probably won't recall.
That said, the Saboteur one was for 4-5p games, and had 9 sign-ups. It was only for 3 games, so the minimum player count may have been set at 15 at the lowest as it would have allowed everyone to play each other once, but who knows - it may have been set at 100.
The Coloretto one was for 2p games and had 5 sign-ups. There would be 8 groups, and 2 from each group would qualify for the next stage. As 16 qualify, I'd assume that the minimum player count for stage-1 to start would be 32 at the least to ensure that at-most only 50% went through to the next stage.
Re: A few tournament questions
Posted: 28 May 2025, 05:12
by BoosPeople
mrdoctor wrote: ↑28 May 2025, 00:39
The Coloretto one was for 2p games and had 5 sign-ups. There would be 8 groups, and 2 from each group would qualify for the next stage. As 16 qualify, I'd assume that the minimum player count for stage-1 to start would be 32 at the least to ensure that at-most only 50% went through to the next stage.
I created this tournament with 6 groups and 4 players per group to advance.
https://boardgamearena.com/tournament?id=398119
The system set the minimum number of players to 24; (6 groups * 4 players)
Re: A few tournament questions
Posted: 28 May 2025, 06:25
by Mathew5000
Mathew5000 wrote: ↑27 May 2025, 17:37
I've never found a way to see the minimum number of entrants for a tournament, after that tournament has ended (or after it has begun, if it begins).
It turns out, there is a way to get this information! Navigate to the tournament page and look at the HTML source (in Firefox, for example, hit ctrl-U). Now search the page (ctrl-F) for the first occurrence of the text
Number of players (ensure you are at the
first occurrence) and then look at what's three or four lines below that text. You might see something like the following:
Code: Select all
<div class="tournaments-presentation__subtitle-label">Number of players</div>
<div class="tournaments-presentation__subtitle-value">
<i class="fa fa-child"></i>
<b style="font-size:larger">9</b> <small style="display: none"> / 40</small>
<div class="smalltext" style="display: none">15 minimum</div>
</div>
Ignoring the tags enclosed by "<" and ">", it tells you that 9 entrants registered where the maximum was 40 and the minimum 15.
koningco wrote: ↑27 May 2025, 00:443) This Swiss system tournament (real time) was cancelled, which I understand because we could not play 5 matches in a group. But what would the minimum number of players be to let this tournament start?
https://boardgamearena.com/tournament?id=385967
The tournament had been set for minimum 16 entrants, maximum 64.
Minimum 15 entrants, maximum 40.
Re: A few tournament questions
Posted: 30 May 2025, 18:30
by yodamus
Wow. Thanks for that info Mathew. I was wondering why some tourneys never started. Now I know.
Re: A few tournament questions
Posted: 30 May 2025, 20:11
by koningco
I just found out that it's on a tournament's page before it starts, in very small text below the number of players: 16 minimum.
One more question:
If I unsubscribe from a tournament because I expect I can not complete the next round within the time limit: will this cost me reputation? Or will it only cost reputation if I can't complete a tournament round that has already started within the time limit?
By the way: it would be good if someone can update the FAQ section for tournaments (also with questions that other users asked).
Re: A few tournament questions
Posted: 31 May 2025, 03:11
by Meeplelowda
koningco wrote: ↑30 May 2025, 20:11
If I unsubscribe from a tournament because I expect I can not complete the next round within the time limit: will this cost me reputation? Or will it only cost reputation if I can't complete a tournament round that has already started within the time limit?
Signing up for a tournament was a commitment to play the entire tournament. So withdrawing after the
tournament begins (regardless of whether it is during or between rounds) will incur a penalty. But in recognition that maybe it's difficult to plan that far ahead, the penalty is smaller than quitting a non-tournament game.
Re: A few tournament questions
Posted: 01 June 2025, 01:51
by koningco
That's unfortunate. I registered for this Swiss turn based tournament
https://boardgamearena.com/table?table=681028199 but I overlooked the time limit is 2 hours per player. Well if it costs reputation I will not unregister and hope I will not be the one who is kicked out in the remaining 3 games. It unfortunately happened to me while I was playing in a real time tournament and was I got 18 minutes over my 2 hour time limit in the turn based tournament.
Re: A few tournament questions
Posted: 01 June 2025, 02:14
by Mathew5000
koningco wrote: ↑01 June 2025, 01:51
That's unfortunate. I registered for this Swiss turn based tournament
https://boardgamearena.com/table?table=681028199 but I overlooked the time limit is 2 hours per player. Well if it costs reputation I will not unregister and hope I will not be the one who is kicked out in the remaining 3 games. It unfortunately happened to me while I was playing in a real time tournament and was I got 18 minutes over my 2 hour time limit in the turn based tournament.
My advice would be to withdraw from the tournament. I believe the penalty is only 4 karma points, so if you're otherwise perfect it would reduce you to 96 which is still considered excellent. And you would regain those 4 points after only a small amount of play.