It seems that Erproxy just got disqualified because he lost a game by Timeout (http://online-go.com/tournament/2472). I wonder if my understanding is right, but if so it’s a great pity that such competitive players simply get disqualified due to a careless timeout that could be occasionally triggered by everyone, especially in long-term correspondence tournaments, plus that the player still has many games to go. Anyone got any ideas about this?
This is just how it goes for correspondence tournaments… we want to protect other players in subsequent rounds (if the tournament is multi-round) from getting paired with a player who isn’t going to show up to make moves.
I feel like competitive players should be able to show up and make moves otherwise the player shouldn’t be a part of that tournament.
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I find this new rule a bit too draconic, too. I’m in favour that anullment leads to getting dropped from the tourney, or a multiple time-out. But a simple time-out should not.
On old-OGS the percentage of time-outs was displayed on the profile page of every user. That was stigmatisation enough in order no to amass too many of them. Also, most players had a percentage > 0, which means that most players would have been kicked out of a tournament under the new rules. If you play in a tournament for a year and then get kicked out because of a careless time-out, the potential frustration level is rather high. And it will happen to many if not most of us (there is a rather massive 15% or something time-out (non-anullment!) quota in the ladders), and most players will be unaware of this until it hits them in the face. This is detrimental for the server.
When I look at my games from my mobile, it takes more than 10 seconds to finally display the remaining time. So I check my remaining time at most twice a week. I had a careless time-out because I simply wasn’t aware of me timing out. My mistake of course, but blaming the UI of the server is natural. Fortunately it was before the new rule. Getting kicked out of a tournament, in which I invested a year of my time and was on top of the group, and without knowing that such a new rule was suddenly introduced inbetween rounds, it looks like an excellent exercise in anger management.
I’m not sure, but I think the new rule is also enforced in the last round of a tournament. There, it doesn’t make sense or does it?
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DQ by timeout seemed perfectly fine to me. Saves time for tournament directors.
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I agree that removing a player who isn’t going to show up to make moves is necessary, but I think the criteria to decide which player belongs to this category is a little too strict. A single timeout could really happen in some emergency cases.
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BTW I lost two or three correspondence tournament games by timeout a while ago (two or three months ago?) when life suddenly went awry for quite a while and and my running games were the last I’d have thought about :-/
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Also, as ba_yu pointed out, in this case it’s in the last round of the tournament so it doesn’t do much to protect other players from getting paired with the player. It could also be unfair for those who have played fast against the disqualified player and finished the games earlier 
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Vacation time? Pause? Telling your opponent “life has forced me afk. I’m going to hit pause. If you resume the game then so be it but I would really appreciate it if you did not. I will be back when things clear up.”
I have one opponent who declares vacation time every fifth move. No big deal to me. I’m always running at least 10 games anyway.
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Yeah, sure you’re right, but IIRC it wasn’t even possible then, psycho thing I don’t have a grudge, though,it just happened that way 
Regards, Tom
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Especially with the Canadian Byo-Yomi, disqualification on the first instance is too harsh. Because there are cases, in which either you are going to time-out or not sleep. For example, you have less than 24hr left but you need to make 3 more moves to complete the byo-yomi limit. This means that if you made your move at night before sleep and your opponent playes his move just after you quit the website, you will be timed-out in the morning. (Note that people live in different time zones) The timer should increase to 24hr when a player makes a move with less then 24hr on his clock. This would prevent “unnecessary” time-outs and disqualifications.
Also, a direct disqualification with “no show” time-out makes (a bit) sense but a player shouldn’t be disqualified when he timed-out on an ongoing (move # > 1) game. Or the disqualification should be lifted if the same player continue to play his other games and win/lose any of them without time-out.
Currently disqualification is like a punishment for a sincere player who wants to be in the tournament but timed-out by mistake. However, the player is already punished because of the time-out by losing the game. Therefore, current rules punishes “sincere” players “twice” for the same mistake.
I understand that we should remove the no-show players, constant time-outters, and the players who quit the tournament in the middle without notive but this should be done with care. Current situation is too brutal and not realistic. A player who didn’t quit the tournament should have a right to time-out.
For example, after a time-out, we could ask the player if he drop the tournament (and didn’t quit it from the tournament menu) or just timed-out. If he says he quit or if he doesn’t answer and gets timed-out in another tournament game then we can safely disqualify the player. But if he wants to continue, we should regard the time-out as a resign…
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If the goal is to avoid “a player who isn’t going to show up to make moves”, then why not just apply that logic? In this case, disqualified players are those who time out in all their games.
Also, a common procedure in tournaments is to have both a registration step and a check-in step. The purpose of the latter is to confirm that the player is going to show up. Implementing check-in in OGS tournaments might address most of the current issues.
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A rule that puts the interests of the organizers above the interests of the participants is a bad rule.
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So at the end of the day, is there a way to re-instantiate the tournament status of a player? I timed out by-mistake (because of it was my first time in canadian byo-yomi, I didn’t understand it fully after it was too late) in one of my games, and continuing to play the others and won/lose some of them in natural ways. I want to be able to continue in the tournament because this tournament is really rare (a handicapped title tournament) and I don’t want to wait one more year.
In real life, you have the option to explain yourself to the organizers with a formal letter and there is a chance to get a positive result. If there is no technical limitation, I think you should reinstate the tournament status of the players who timed-out in the middle of one game but continued to play their remaining games and didn’t timed-out on them. It is obvious that these players wants to be in the tournament, they didn’t abandon the tournament…
Can I have a reply from the team if it is technically possible or not?
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what happen if i lose by timeout during the servers upgrades?? that is not my fault,so what can i do?
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I think to solve this issue is to give the tournament organiser power to reinstate disqualified participants.
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As a person who has timed out in a handful or less of games , I know how tough it is. I work nights. And do not often play the best moves when I am tired. Though they make sense at the time. So I delay playing sometimes and then there is the time crunch. And then if u mess up or forget to play that day, timed out.
I think it reasonable to be disqualified from the tournament. It is not pleasant to win by timeouts… But it also seems reasonable that a tourney director should have the option of reinstatement if they wish.
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yes it right,the organiser must have the power to undisquilificate players,i thimk that because i lose by timeout during the servers upgrades
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IMHO disqualifiacaton can be automatically made by system, but not after one but after the sequence of three following timeouts.
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Disqualification counts as a criteria for tournament ranking?
I have the same points and sum of opponents, but less points at sum of defeated opponents, so I should be on second place. It looks like a bug, unless that disqualification counts. I understand that disqualification is implemented to help eliminate timeouts, but I do not see the connection with ranking. I looked for tournaments ranking rules, but do not found them.
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Disqualified means that you STOP being part of a tournament. That’s a general definition, not specific to OGS.
Then naturally you cannot be ranked in a competition you are not part of.
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