grenv: You know, I think you're just looking at it wrong. Think of a minimum bid set at 19,000 as a requirement to bid more than 18,999. That's how I look at it. Anyone that bids less than the minimum is out. If someone wants to chance that someone will do so, that's their perogative. It happens in the regular course of a game all the time. When someone has no points left, they're not out of the game yet. They still can bid 0. Everyone else knows this and can bid 1. Same thing, though risk free.

fencer:
Czuch Chuckers: As it is set up now, if we all bid exactly the minimum, we'd all go in the Pond on the first round and the game would be over!
Removing players should be something that should be available. I do think that if a creator wanted to remove a player he should have a referee make the final decision as to doing it and not be allowed to arbitrarily remove people. That would be fencer's job. I doubt if it would come up much, especially after this power was exercised a few times and if the same person continues to do it you could ban them from playing in the Pond games. If fencer doesn't want to referee the games, I'm sure we could find someone impartial enough to take the job. Or even a moderator here could do it. fencer could serve as the final board of appeal in cases where the person or persons believe they should be allowed to stay in the Pond game in question. In fact this might be a way to have someone resign too. It could work both ways. I think it is something that should be looked into.