[caplinca]

In a game this week with three friends, I was kicked out of a hand and replaced by a robot for playing too slowly. It may be that I was so focused on making the contract that I may have missed a warning sign. Three related questions:

• How long does a player have before the system boots you out?
  
• Does it matter if you are playing relaxed or competitive?
  
• Are there any steps one can take (comment, mouse click, etc.) that will forestall being booted if you are occasionally in a position where a little more time would help you?

I'm a new member, so apologies if this is well known or is documented elsewhere. I've looked for this, but the most recent posting I found was from 2012 (and I imagine that a lot could have changed). BTW, I understand the etiquette around not playing slowly, and we don't make a habit of it. (Again, though, we're playing with friends. From what I read, it sounds like we may be a little more forgiving than some on this score.) Thanks in advance.

[smerriman]

The short answer to your questions is that if you're playing with friends, get the host to choose the 'Permission required to play' setting, which prevents timeouts altogether.

caplinca, on 2020-June-26, 13:44, said:

I'm a new member, so apologies if this is well known or is documented elsewhere. I've looked for this, but the most recent posting I found was from 2012 (and I imagine that a lot could have changed).

This will sound like I'm picking on you, but I'm honestly wondering how you managed to look for this, and not find it, given it has been literally asked and answered over 20 times in the last couple of months. Clearly something is wrong with BBO's system in that people aren't able to find things; where exactly did you look?

This is just a brief sample of the requests, there are many others:

Casual players getting kicked out of game due to delay
Adjusting response time
BBO time out
Getting booted and resuming play
Avoiding robots in table and team games
Ejection by computer
Took to long to play and got kicked out
Time available to bid
When we use history to review the hand the opening bidder on the next hand is ejected for being slow
Uninvited robot
Bidding/play timing
Log off during play
Pause in play
Automatic boot
Table disruptions

[caplinca]

Thanks for taking the time to respond to this so thoroughly and asking an honest question about why I didn't find it myself.

I was centering the question of how long it took to get booted. The answer is contained in one of the links you provided, several replies down: 50 seconds, with the ability to extend to 100 seconds if typing "+slow+" in the description). The forum search feature seems to work best with short terms. It doesn't support asking a question like most modern search engines.

In hindsight, I should probably have experimented with more and different search terms (or different ways to ask the question)-- I honestly don't remember what I used. But I did spend about 15 minutes looking, and I generally can find what I need in web searching. As a new person, I will say that I generally find the BBO interface not particularly intuitive (beyond the mechanics for actually bidding and playing a hand; that is intuitive). If resources were available for such a thing, admins might be interested in the results of a usability study for new members.

Again, thank you.

smerriman, on 2020-June-26, 14:42, said:

The short answer to your questions is that if you're playing with friends, get the host to choose the 'Permission required to play' setting, which prevents timeouts altogether.


This will sound like I'm picking on you, but I'm honestly wondering how you managed to look for this, and not find it, given it has been literally asked and answered over 20 times in the last couple of months. Clearly something is wrong with BBO's system in that people aren't able to find things; where exactly did you look?

This is just a brief sample of the requests, there are many others:

Casual players getting kicked out of game due to delay
Adjusting response time
BBO time out
Getting booted and resuming play
Avoiding robots in table and team games
Ejection by computer
Took to long to play and got kicked out
Time available to bid
When we use history to review the hand the opening bidder on the next hand is ejected for being slow
Uninvited robot
Bidding/play timing
Log off during play
Pause in play
Automatic boot
Table disruptions