First, you can pause games that are in progress. At private tables, if half the people hit the Pause button, the game will Pause. You hit the Continue button to restart the game. That clickable link is to a blog page which describes the feature. The Pause/Continue buttons are in the upper left corner of your screen:
The Pause button also works at public tables, but all the humans at the table must click it in order for the game to be paused. So if you want a Pause, click that button and say "pause please" and hopefully someone else will click the Pause button to help you out.
Second, you can apply a special setting at private tables so that the timeouts are 5 minutes long. This only works when you have applied the setting and you created the table (that is, if you were the first one to sit down at the table). So if you want this setting to work for your private tables all the time, then all players who use that private table name must check it. This setting is found in the Settings panel which opens when you click your player name in the upper right corner of the screen. Make sure you check the checkbox next to "Private Table Timer 5 Min".
I hope this helps!
Marya
, but the dire prospect had crossed my mind. Sadly our games haven't lasted long enough to put me to the test! So I'm glad I know about the pause feature now. Back in the poker boom days when I was online, 8-10 tabling at once, peeing in a jar was pretty much mandatory lol.