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There has been a idea of starting the next round in ponds immediately after all players submit their bids. In this way, it would be possible to finish a pond within hours or even minutes. Of course, the maximum time per move would still apply, however the creator would have the option to set as low time limits as one minute. I have already informed Fencer about this idea, but I would like to know how popular such ponds would be. So if anyone would post their comments, it would be mostly appreciated.
alexlee: I should also mention that this idea is not to be interpreted as an effort to change the ponds as we know them. There would be two types of ponds available: the regular ones and these new "live" ponds.
Pedro Martínez: as long as the automatic scripts that determine timeouts keep being executed only every few minutes, having a time setting of 1 minute is probably not viable...
Other than that, I like the idea. Though timeouts will be much more easy to spot... and so may rise the number of complaints against people "dragging" the pond by moving at the very last minute just like we have now in tournaments...
pauloaguia: But what was suggested is that the pond round is ended as soon as everyone has placed the bet, or until the regular time (whatever it is) elapses. so no one-minute timeouts. I like it too.
Fencer: Theoretically yes, but I don't think it would work in practice:
The average pond now has enough trouble collecting 16 reluctant players from all over the planet. for a live game, they'd all need to be present at start.
With poker, it doesn't matter much if someone drops out of the table, but in ponds you need to stay until the end. Difficult too.
rabbitoid: Actually I think live Ponds could attract more players. Nowadays there are many that won't play because the Pond always lasts for at least a couple of weeks and they may not control their availability to play during that period... For instance, whenever I go on vacation, I have to stop signing up for ponds over 1 month in advance!
Live Ponds might not suffer from this syndrome... Or they may, it all depends on the time limit for each move and of how people decide to (ab)use it...
rabbitoid: The average pond now has enough trouble collecting 16 reluctant players from all over the planet. for a live game, they'd all need to be present at start.
That is exactly the reason why I brought it up here. My guess is that live ponds would stir the interest and it would not be too difficult to get 16 players for a game. But it's only my "guess" and I wanted to know what other people think of it. Anyhow, I like grenv's idea of allowing Pawns to play live ponds.
Pedro Martínez: Agree, bringing pawns in would change everything. But that's contrary to the policy of limiting pawns. After all, the site needs to show a profit. I and others had proposed long ago to allow pawns to participate in one pond at a time.
Another possibility is to reduce the holy number of 16, make it a variable. Maybe the 20000 and 500 too, while we're at it. We've always been following the rules defined by, eh, I forgot his name, but...