Board Game Arena

I was on a tournament (it's a wonderful world)
4 Players rounds.
Each round 2 players win, 2 players loose.

One of the players (the one playing 50 games in the same time, i don't know how you can do that well but whatever) leave the game or got kicked by the others at mid game, he got like 2 days of overtime...

All remaining players finished the game.

Final result : i got 2nd if you check the points and i'm the only one at the end to have still time, all other players are overtime.
If you check the final board it says : 3 players finished 1st place, and the other one 4th.

So, in this case, i need to understand why i got kicked of the tournament and the other "winers" got to next round. I did good game, i finished with time and i loose... Just because of this leaver or kicked player.

References :

https://boardgamearena.com/table?table= ... d=91609727

imgur.com/a/wEryDE7

There's many threads discussing this, but basically, when a player is booted, the remaining finishers are ranked in order of the age of account (oldest = 1st). If multiple eliminations are needed, newer accounts will be chosen. It's because there's no other way to determine rankings fairly (for most games) without reaching end game. While your game continued, the kicked player is replaced with a VERY basic AI, that likely just takes the easiest move, rather than continuing to play. Many people don't like the system for determining player ranks in this situation, but realistically any system they chose would be mostly random and seem unfair to someone.

Ngroamnor wrote: ↑10 June 2025, 03:44 the one playing 50 games in the same time, i don't know how you can do that well but whatever

Just because you choose not to doesn't mean others can't. I used to regularly balance about 60 games at a time, and easily enough. I know of other players who run numbers into the hundreds. You have no knowledge of what someone else's life is and what time they have available. If they're keeping up (and in this case, the player possibly wasn't), then why does it bother you?

I'll also add that tournament play does not work the same way as regular play, everyone gets the same amount of time which ticks down consistently (unless playing hours are also selected). That means that whichever player plays last in the day, the player following them will lose a decent chunk of time due to sleep. Unless you happen to have a number of players who have just the right play hours that they take turns evenly through a 24 period (which is pretty rare). I almost never run out of time in regular games, even when running 60 at a time, but regularly on tournaments, even with only 20 or so at time, because I live in Australia and other players often take their turns during my night and I lose time due to sleep. If a player is regularly playing (and it looks like this one actually was), you're usually better off to allow them to complete the game. I realise you didn't kick them, but just pointing out that running over time in tournaments isn't quite the terrible sin some make it out to be.

Ngroamnor wrote: ↑10 June 2025, 03:44 If you check the final board it says : 3 players finished 1st place, and the other one 4th.

So, in this case, i need to understand why i got kicked of the tournament and the other "winers" got to next round. I did good game, i finished with time and i loose... Just because of this leaver or kicked player.

The tournament format was multiplayer elimination ( https://boardgamearena.com/tournament?id=398096 ). Whenever a player's turn is skipped, that player automatically finishes last and all the other players are reported to have tied for first. Since three players are considered to have tied, but only two from each table advance to the next round, the server takes the two players with the smallest player ID number. And since the ID numbers are assigned sequentially when you sign up for the site, it means that in effect, ties are broken by seniority: the oldest account(s) will advance. You can see by going to the player profile pages, you joined BGA in 2021 while the two opponents who advanced in the tournament joined in 2016 and 2020 respectively.

If that seems unjust, please upvote this suggestion: https://boardgamearena.com/bug?id=152830

This has been discussed quite a bit in this forum. For example, here's a thread from last year: viewtopic.php?t=35946

Mathew5000 wrote: ↑10 June 2025, 06:02

Ngroamnor wrote: ↑10 June 2025, 03:44 If you check the final board it says : 3 players finished 1st place, and the other one 4th.

So, in this case, i need to understand why i got kicked of the tournament and the other "winers" got to next round. I did good game, i finished with time and i loose... Just because of this leaver or kicked player.

The tournament format was multiplayer elimination ( https://boardgamearena.com/tournament?id=398096 ). Whenever a player's turn is skipped, that player automatically finishes last and all the other players are reported to have tied for first. Since three players are considered to have tied, but only two from each table advance to the next round, the server takes the two players with the smallest player ID number. And since the ID numbers are assigned sequentially when you sign up for the site, it means that in effect, ties are broken by seniority: the oldest account(s) will advance. You can see by going to the player profile pages, you joined BGA in 2021 while the two opponents who advanced in the tournament joined in 2016 and 2020 respectively.

If that seems unjust, please upvote this suggestion: https://boardgamearena.com/bug?id=152830

This has been discussed quite a bit in this forum. For example, here's a thread from last year: viewtopic.php?t=35946

At least now there is another option: if more than one player has to be eliminated per round, think about only playing in tournaments in which skipping is disabled. Of course, this presents a different problem if a player simply leaves, but it prevents strategic expelling by players with highest seniority.

Thanks for the answers. Now i understand the logic behind.

Why not just look to the ELO ranking related to the game
Or play the game again maybe.
In this case, a 3 players game, same victory conditions.
Nothing due to luck, age or wathever randmon thing with no relation to the game...


The result seams unfair but i understand it's the simpliest way to got resolved.

Have a nice day.

Ngroamnor wrote: ↑10 June 2025, 14:31 Or play the game again maybe.

Replaying the game would potentially hold up the entire tournament waiting for that game to finish when each round of the tournament is supposed to have a fixed upper limit. This particularly impacts Swiss tournaments for which the next round can't continue at all until *all* games in the previous round conclude.

There should be a tournament option to:

- Replay the game with one fewer player

or

- Advance all the tied players to the next round anyway

The side admins decided that it's more important to devote resources to implementing more/new games, instead of fixing/improving tournaments.

FSKFSK wrote: ↑13 June 2025, 01:32 There should be a tournament option to:

- Replay the game with one fewer player

or

- Advance all the tied players to the next round anyway

Meeplelowda has already addressed why replaying the game is not workable in a tournament.

Meeplelowda wrote: ↑10 June 2025, 17:51 Replaying the game would potentially hold up the entire tournament waiting for that game to finish when each round of the tournament is supposed to have a fixed upper limit. This particularly impacts Swiss tournaments for which the next round can't continue at all until *all* games in the previous round conclude.

As to your other point, I recently responded to a similar suggestion on this thread: https://boardgamearena.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=43095

nik592 wrote: ↑12 June 2025, 00:11 I think the issue here is that if you're not eliminating at a consistent rate, this will make a tournament drag on longer. If I have a tournament with 20 players, 5 tables of 4, that's supposed to eliminate 2 each round, round 2 will have 10 players, round 3 should have 6, round 4 will have 4, and now we can find our winner. If half (rounded up) of the tables only eliminate one because of a timeout issue, round 2 now has 13, round 3 has 9, round 4 has 6, round 5 has 5, round 6 has 4, we're taking two extra rounds to get down to a final four.

FSKFSK wrote: ↑13 June 2025, 01:32 The side admins decided that it's more important to devote resources to implementing more/new games, instead of fixing/improving tournaments.

Considering that other thread is about the fact that they've now introduced an option where players are not skipped in tournaments, actually someone is making improvements to tournaments. And this hasn't been the only recent change made to tournaments (though it is the one that makes me happiest).

I just wanted to add this little testimony, related to the case :

https://imgur.com/a/TrQWVJJ

It's a way to arrive to the final of a tournament with no game finished. I'm sorry but the guy has the proper name indeed . I don't know him and he actually played well in the game i had with him, but i'm not sure it's a coincidence when it's happening 3 times in all your games, And BTW, in the 4th he got skipped for ranking, 1st of the 1st in all other games, and arrived to the final... Lol !

In multiplayer, that is so wrong... Hopefully things will change for the best.