2-player games can stalemate forever with no way out
Posted: 23 October 2026, 23:56
I've now been in 2 games of Piles recently that would not end because neither player would give up the card the opponent needed. Both games dragged on for 40+ minutes, which is pretty ridiculous for a game listed at 2 minutes.
At first I was a firm believer that these situations resolve on their own, but they really don't always. I tried proposing to abandon the game, but my opponent refused, so my only options were to sit there making a meaningless move every turn just to reset my timer (so I wouldn't get kicked for inactivity), or concede a game I wasn't losing.
There has to be a better way to handle this. Every current escape hatch requires either the opponent's cooperation (abandon) or the opponent being literally idle (inactivity kick). A stubborn player who keeps playing junk moves defeats all of them while staying technically active. So any fix needs to be automatic. Some ideas:
1. Turn cap with a tiebreak. After a set number of turns each (& perhaps when both players have exactly 5 piles), end the game automatically and call it a draw on ties.
2. Stalemate auto-draw. If no pile is completed for N consecutive turns, or the same cards keep cycling through the center, declare a draw, similar to chess's threefold repetition rule.
Thanks for considering this. I love the game, I just don't want to spend 40+ minutes trapped in one.
At first I was a firm believer that these situations resolve on their own, but they really don't always. I tried proposing to abandon the game, but my opponent refused, so my only options were to sit there making a meaningless move every turn just to reset my timer (so I wouldn't get kicked for inactivity), or concede a game I wasn't losing.
There has to be a better way to handle this. Every current escape hatch requires either the opponent's cooperation (abandon) or the opponent being literally idle (inactivity kick). A stubborn player who keeps playing junk moves defeats all of them while staying technically active. So any fix needs to be automatic. Some ideas:
1. Turn cap with a tiebreak. After a set number of turns each (& perhaps when both players have exactly 5 piles), end the game automatically and call it a draw on ties.
2. Stalemate auto-draw. If no pile is completed for N consecutive turns, or the same cards keep cycling through the center, declare a draw, similar to chess's threefold repetition rule.
Thanks for considering this. I love the game, I just don't want to spend 40+ minutes trapped in one.
