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In addition to the time limits for individual actions, I propose the following for Regional and National tournaments:

Quote from: Minister Polarius on September 23, 2016, 08:57:14 AM

In addition to the time limits for individual actions, I propose the following for Regional and National tournaments:

What--exactly--is this proposal trying to fix? Do you feel players are intentionally stalling to gain a competitive advantage or what?

This strikes me as a very large step down the slippery slope to uber-competitiveness that would be detrimental to the spirit of the game.

Here are the concerns I am seeing so far:

1. This would make people scared to call judges.
2. This would make people more competitive.

Here are my answers:

1. This would actually make it harder for people to bully new players, because if they get caught doing it 4 times they'll lose a game they would otherwise have won if they'd just played honorably. At the same time, it is not fair to top-table players to not win games because their RLK opponent is constantly challenging them on basic rules and situations and burning time waiting for a judge to come over and explain something very basic again.

2. People are going to be as competitive as they are going to be. One of my games at Nationals technically should have timed out before I won, but my opponent recognized that he had taken way more time than me and couldn't get through my defense so he let me take my last 3 turns in rapid succession to make sure I could get through his defense, which I could. But at my first Nationals, I had an opponent who was much older than me. He'd lost 20 minutes before the round was over, but proceeded to take forever to do everything from that point on. I was 15 and still pretty socially awkward so I didn't have the presence of mind to call a judge over (although by the time I was sure he was stalling and not just thinking a lot the damage had been done anyway), so I ended up winning 4-1. I still took 3rd overall, but clearly that game left a bad taste in my mouth. A decade later it's still the only game I remember from that nationals. There are already gracious and ungracious players (neither of which is wrong in a tournament setting), and I believe these rules will actually encourage respectful play.


Redemption has a unique vibe. I realized 2/3 the way through T1-2P that the top table was dominated by people who were laughing, smiling, enjoying the game, and caring as much about whether their opponents were having fun as they. Most of the tryhards fell off pretty quickly anyway. The goal of these rules is not really so much to correct a prevalent problem (though it is a problem frequently enough) as to prevent hard feelings because there is nothing on the books to confirm or deny the sense that one was unfairly robbed of a victory.