Timeouts in tournaments

from my experience (in the few tournaments that i've played in) i can say, i was baffled to see how people only started playing a little less excruciatingly slow until around 90 to 100 minutes of the 120 minutes had passed... and almost never before that even if they played a deck that was notoriously slow to oust and in which they could have used all potentially available turns to greater effect. it's really annoying to see someone on the verge of making a VP who lacks just a few seconds to score it, not being able to because of unnecessary or overly long table talk in round 2 or 3.

the terrible part is the contrast between how easy it is to waste time (on the verge of stalling up until 90 of 120min) and how strict the judges are in not allowing ANY overtime (not even a 2 seconds). this to me just FELT plain wrong. 5 to 10 minutes of -almost- standard overtime to compensate for table talk would be a VERY good idea in my book.

maybe your experiences differ?

porphyrion wrote:

the terrible part is the contrast between how easy it is to waste time (on the verge of stalling up until 90 of 120min) and how strict the judges are in not allowing ANY overtime (not even a 2 seconds). this to me just FELT plain wrong. 5 to 10 minutes of -almost- standard overtime to compensate for table talk would be a VERY good idea in my book.

I have a bitter hatred for timeouts in my heart. That said, the problem with your suggestion is that people will then play to the new "overtime" time limit. Giving people more time won't prevent more timeouts. The only things that will prevent more timeouts are

a) Don't discuss every move you make, or even most of the moves you make, and when you do get into a discusssion, conclude it quickly, and
b) Don't play so slowly.

I thanked Dorr and Izaak above for these, but I really do think that they're worth repeeating. So often I see people blaming deck types and specific cards for timeouts, which just isn't true. A group of five players who want to conclude the game before time can always do so regardless of their cards; a group of five players who aren't committed to avoiding a timeout can manage to make it to time regardless of their cards.

porphyrion wrote:

the terrible part is the contrast between how easy it is to waste time (on the verge of stalling up until 90 of 120min) and how strict the judges are in not allowing ANY overtime (not even a 2 seconds). this to me just FELT plain wrong. 5 to 10 minutes of -almost- standard overtime to compensate for table talk would be a VERY good idea in my book.

maybe your experiences differ?

VEKN's tournament time limit could be changed, and there is no reason why it shouldn't be seriously discussed. I think the time limit should be one half-hour per player for some of the anecdotal reasons talked about here. There are no doubt many good reasons not to change, but I think inertia shouldn't be one of them.

I hate, hate, hate analysis paralysis when I play other games. However, there are compelling reasons for slow play in VTES. The games inherent complexity is one of them. I would say that it took me about two-and-a-half years to get to a decent average rate of play after I started playing in fall of 2008. That is about when I started to actually feel comfortable with the cards that everyone else was playing.

I also play more slowly when I have not mastered my deck's strategy. Since people play different decks, each one can have a different strategy to master. If I "practice" with a deck, doing practice draws and turns, I play more quickly. It's hard to practice with a deck when you only play with it once every two months or so.

It is sad to say, but since you get a reward for timing out, mainly 0.5 VPs, there is also a reward for timing out. Some people stall - it's a fact.

My biggest problem with tournaments are the "Turd Polishers". They spend 2+ min attempting to convince their prey of the merits of a particular way of taking their crap... and don't listen to their prey tell them to put their turd back up their butts.

I also encourage my guys, particularly in Qualifiers, to play very paint-by-numbers decks. Its in their advantage to generally have tables not time out.

Izaak wrote:

I've literally hear people tell me at tournaments "I hate Ashur Tablets not bcause they're too strong, but because 4 out of 5 players waste a good 5 minutes of the game checking what cards they want to return to their libraries when they could easily have decided that in their predators or grandpredators turn."

Instead of whining, these people, if they want anything to change, should be calling a judge and asking for a stalling penalty or a slow play penalty and then asking for more time to be added to the game clock. I've done all of these things to and for slow players, and they work quite well in order to facilitate change in player's attitudes when they constantly get called on slow play and want to avoid the embarrassment.

Of course, there are the stallers, as well. They just need to be educated, or ejected, as you find necessary.

What about changing .5 VP for surviving to time limit, to -.25 VP penalty? I’ve noticed that „Grab 2 VP, stall the game, get GW“ was quite often the strategy on last EC. This way one will have to act more instead of wait in order to win the game.