New ladder games not starting?

In the Twixt PP ladder, usually a new game starts as soon as a game ends. But my three games have all ended without any new ones starting. Not sure if this is happening in other ladders. Any idea what's going on?

Yeah, looking in it I see at least a couple matches the system could/ought to throw you in. Out of curiosity I joined the Twixt ladder and immediately got a game, so that's at least still happening. I recall going spans of time (I think they were short spans) having no ladder games while entered in a tournament, but I can't remember any details except that they weren't the Twixt ladder.

In Twixt Ladder

You are in 4th place. You can challenge players in 2nd and 3rd place - but both have already played two games (in defense). And players in 5th to 7th place can challenge you, but all three are already playing their challenge.

Oh; I was thinking the challenge ranges were broader than that. My memory is really not the best, but I swear I've, like, challenged 1st place from 4th before, or something.

I've almost certainly overlooked an explanation somewhere, but how is the range determined?

Oh wow. That is a very simple explanation. Thank you!

Oakmoss! I just found the explanation for how ranges are determined in ladders. Scroll to the bottom of any ladder page and you'll see.

It says you can challenge up to CEIL(SQRT(order)), which as far as I can tell means you can challenge any player between your rank and the square root of your rank.

Unless your rank is 2, in which case you can challenge the player with rank 1. Even though the square root of 2 is higher than 1.

There's an additional restriction that you can't play the same player twice in a 14-day span, which might also cause some games to not start right away.

The CEIL(SQRT(order)) says how many ranks higher you can challenge. So, if you are currently rank 50, CEIL(SQRT(50))=8, meaning you can challenge up to 8 ranks higher, i.e., rank 42. If you lose, then you will challenge rank 43, then rank 44, and so on, although once 14 days have passed, you are eligible to be matched with rank 42 again. The exception is if the person at rank 42 already has two "defense" games, in that case you will also be matched with rank 43.