Don't allow pause in correspondence tournaments and ladder games

I just took a look on some of my long-running correspondence tournaments. In 2 of them the last pending games were “Paused”.
One of these games is on pause for 4 months, no stone played jet and the player which paused it isn’t around for month.
I asked the players in question to continue their games and will inform the tournament director if they don’t. But I wonder how many tournament games are unnoticed on pause.

I would like if the “Pause” is either not possible in correspondence tournaments or at least has some time limit.

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You should be able to unpause yourself, is that not so? Basically allowing to pause is a curteous option, not obligatory at all.

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Not my games. Only in tournaments I participated in. I’ve no way to unpause others games.

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Very much agree. See also:

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Yeah, that makes sense. I will push the idea onto devs.

Or at least having the option in tourney creation would be nice.

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Unless I’m mistaken, the Fast Corerspondence tourneies specifically state that if you vacation or pause the moderator has the option to call it for the other person.

So is it simply the case that this should be exercised?

(I’m totally for not allowing pause in those games as a rule/mechanic, as well)

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As far as I can tell, tournament directors are not empowered to call games. I use the same message in my fast tournaments but I would have to call a Mod in to act upon it.

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In my experience, the directors do have that power. It might be, though, that instead of just calling the game result they have to actually disqualify one or both players from the tournament and then the game is ended by “Disqualification”.

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Some people also play during the pause. To reduce notification spam? ^^ As long as they’re not the only people left playing, I don’t really mind. One of my opponents vanished for a month so I paused the game for 2 weeks, but he didn’t come back so I unpaused again…

Yea I wouldn’t disable it for tourneys in general (only for titled tourneys) but make it optional.

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Shamelessly bumping/reviving this topic.

Case in point: Tournament Game: Tianyuan Nines Title Tournament 2019 (50552) R:1 (Ozai9x9 vs jingo2)

The game is paused by White ( @Ozai9x9 ). After more than two weeks into the tournament, White is yet to make a move while playing and even completing other games in the tournament.

I hasten to add that White is NOT breaking any rules and yet it is theoretically possible for the game to be paused until the near ending of the round brings it to the attention of the director somehow.

That is why pause should not be possible (or very limited) in correspondence tournaments or ladder games.

Especially title tournaments like this one. I’m guessing @gamesorry would use the option if it existed.

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jingo2 can unpause the game at any time if he wishes. @gamesorry can end the game at any time if he wishes. So, is it really that big of an issue?

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Yes - unlike “Vacation”, pause is totally under the opponent’s control. And you only get 4 of them, so you can’t have silly “on-off” games for too long.

Moderators can also unpause, if for some reason that’s needed.

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Yes.

With over 30 games ongoing, @jingo2 may well be unaware of the pause and in fact appears to have quit playing altogether (TO sequence evident).

Ozai9x9 initiated the pause and so is presumably happy with it or may have forgotten all about it. There is no automatic expiry or limit on manual pauses.

gamesorry can only end the game by disqualifying one of the participants which he/she would probably not do without asking them to resume first.

In a tournament like this, with 123 participants and 490 games it would be unlikely to come to the directors attention until near the end of the round. Then if the players do resume, the other 121 participants are awaiting the completion of previously paused games so that the next round can begin.

The problem is not this game or this tournament. It is just an example to illustrate why this proposed development (see thread heading) would be beneficial to running tournaments. Especially large tournaments and automatic tournaments.

[Edit] The players in this example are not breaking any rules and no criticism of them is intended.

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That’s certainly a good point - about how it can be quietly overlooked.

To fix it properly is a back-end change.

Conceivably we could hide the pause button in tourney games on the front end as a shorter-term solution (if it doesn’t make it into the back-end short-list), which would mean at least Web users would have to go far out of their way to pause a game. It wouldn’t help for app users.

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Thanks for bringing attention to this issue! Yes disallowing pauses seems like a good option to have to avoid prolonging the tournament indefinitely. On the good side it seems the game has got unpaused now.

I guess before this feature is implemented we have to rely on friendly reminders to the players (before disqualifying them) if this happens again (please feel free to notify me by pm!).

(sorry for not replying earlier btw)

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