Game clock

On Board Game Arena you are playing "live" (real time) or "turn-based" (asynchronously). In both cases, you have an allotted delay to play your moves.

Most of the time, your initial delay at the beginning of a game is some minutes (in realtime mode) or some days (in turn-based mode). During each turn, or on specific occasions, you get an additional delay. If you have no more time to play, you will get a "clock" penalty and your opponents can decide to skip your turns.

Time to think

Your allotted time to think is displayed on the right of your player's name. When it's your turn to play, this time is also displayed at the top of the web page.

Game speed

Table administrator can make a choice between some game speed profile (example: fast, normal, slow). There are many speeds for each mode (realtime and turn-based).

The additional amount of time credited each turn depends on the chosen game speed profile. Be careful to check the game speed setting before the game starts to adjust your timing. The interface displays an estimation of the game duration based on recently played games with the same speed settings.

Note: your allotted time to think cannot get higher that your initial time to think. For example, if you start the game with 5 minutes of thinking time, you time will be limited to 5 minutes maximum.

Note: playing without a time limit is strongly discouraged, except if you are playing with friends, or to discover a new game. Remember that without time limit, you can't skip the turn of a player that is not playing.

Running out of time

As soon as you run out of time (negative clock), you get a clock penalty.

For realtime games:

When a player has a negative clock, any one of his opponents can make him skip his turn. Once this has been done, all following turns are skipped automatically.

When you are in this situation (turns skipped automatically), you can get back in the game by clicking on the dedicated button "get back in this game". Note that you are not allowed to get back in the game if your clock is still negative. However, as all your turn are skipped, it shouldn't take long before your clock becomes positive again.

If you can't/don't manage to get back in the game before the game end, you will get both a "leave" penalty on your profile and an ELO penalty for this game.

For turn-based games:

On turn-based games, you are warned by email when you are running out of time.

When you are out of time, your opponents also receive an email notifying them that they can make you skip your turn (they can also choose to wait if they don't mind or if you told them that you would be offline for some time).

Continue the game after a "skip turn"

If you are playing in a game where a player skips all his turns, you have 2 options:

• You can continue to play the game until the end. This is recommended. In this case you will earn the ELO points you deserve for your victory.
• You can abandon the game. All players with a negative clock will accept automatically and receive both an ELO penalty and a "leave" penalty. But the you and the other players with a positive clock won't get any ELO since the game didn't reach its end).

"My opponent is too slow"

Each of us has different expectations on game speed. Please remember that as soon as a table has been set up at a given game speed, each player is allowed to use all his allotted time to think. If you want to play fast, set up or join only tables with "fast" mode on, but don't bully an opponent to play when he has the right to use his alloted time to think.

"I would like to think a little"

If you are in a critical step of the game and want to take some time to think, you can click on the "I would like to think a little" link at the top right of the page.

Thus, your opponents will get a message and won't be thinking that you are away from keyboard or disconnected.

Clicking on this link is not mandatory, but we encourage its use as a courtesy.