coan.net: You guys can try to convince me all you like, but I think such a rule is silly and wrecks the game, not that i care since becoming a pawn myself, just an observation.

grenv: No, at the time ponds were a "member exclusive feature" - so when people dropped their membership level, they are no longer able to play. (just like pawns are no longer to do much in a fellowship once their membership drops.)

I think it is found now that ponds are a little "stale" with all the same players, so allowing pawns to play a limited amount - in my opinion - will be a nice thing. (again, like others said - Fencer needs to make sure people are aware of the change since it can affect game play in a big way as explained already.)

rod03801: Still a bug, just injected in the design phase :)

grenv: No, that is how it was intended.

rod03801: seems like a programming bug.. if you start a game you should be allowed to finish.

grenv: Pawns were not allowed in ponds. If someone became a pawn, part way through a game, then they stopped being able to bid. It was a known strategy that if you saw someone become a pawn, you knew they couldn't bid anymore, so it was safe to bid one point above that player.

The point is, to make sure people realize that this strategy would no longer work, because pawns would now be able to bid.

joshi tm: I'm afraid I didn't parse that explanation, can you try to phrase differently?...

you are saying that pawns and non-pawns had different rules about what they are allowed to bet.. but that could be solved by just making the rules the same for everyone? Therefore I presume you meant something other than what you actually said?

grenv: Because the Pawns can post moves again. Pawns were before eliminated by posting an easy bet of 1 more of their last bet.

joshi tm: Why would allowing pawns to play a pond constitute a "rule change"? Who cares who the entrants are, it's the same game with the same "rules". Good grief.

rabbitoid: Yup, ythat's why I'd like to give limited play to the Pawns. They will surprise us, and of course, this rules change must only apply to the new generated ponds after them or announced with a bling bling flashing message box on the main page ;)

El Cid: Yes, was me

As a Big Boss i need to know which Tournaments my Fellowship has Teams already signed up for (whether i am in them or not) without having to open each Tournament. Thats the main issue.

As you say, a dot to show which Tournaments we are Captains of a Team in as well would be good.

I think this has been asked, but how about something like a blue dot on "team tournaments" page, on those tournaments where we are captain of a team

coan.net: That's exactly what I had in mind. As for allowing pawns to play a pond, or 2, or 5, I've been suggesting that for a long time now. The ponds have been drying up because lack of new faces for years. Remember when I used to start a daily one-day pond? I had to stop, because not enough people showed up at the end. There are only so many rooks, and most of them lost interest.

joshi tm: I think what he means is if a current rook drops to a pawn, they know to just bid 1 more then their last bid. If Fencer changes it so they can play and does not let everyone know, then they will fall in the pond because of the rule change. (at least that is what I took from it.)

My opinion - let pawns play, but limit to 5 ponds at a time (5 ponds where they are still running - if they fall in, let them join another) (and if they are a bishop+ and have more then 5, and drop down to a pawn - let them continue all that they started.)

rabbitoid: I do not think so. Strategy's will change a bit indeed. I think the game is better to play and the ponds will be filled up faster.

ChessVariant: some links to illustrate my idea:
http://gameknot.com/mt.pl?id=35733
http://gameknot.com/mt.pl?id=35088
http://gameknot.com/mt.pl?id=35098

ok, we have thousands of chess variants plus 960 or Fisher Random Chess ... I would like to introduce the whole new Class of Chess Openings, where figures stay in their traditional positions but PAWNS can (and must)be positioned anywhere (still chess rules apply though) on players half ... it's more like topical playing and for every white pawn black pawn is positioned symmetrically on the board ...
thje smallest number of pawns used for these games should be 3, the biggest 8 ... it's very creative approach to the game, everyone can be a creator of his/her game
and the number of different starting position is astronomical ... I play this kind of game on internet ...
it's never boring and even Fisher Random looks like it's younger brother ... I wish we could have this feature on brainking ...
Andy.

: i love the new poker game,,,kudos''' However two things i can think of that would be nicer,,least for me. In the scrolling box with actions,,"blue lines" and black for player chat. Its hard to keep track on just the winning hand..like say make it dark green "(player) wins with two pairs. etc"... Also the second countdown clock for player to do something the color would catch the eye more, even tho that one is not much of a big deal.

AbigailII: I don't know if it will help you, but I had a similar issue. If I lowered the size of everything (Ctrl and scroll), just slightly, it fixed the issue.

Could the box showing icon/name/chips at the poker tables be make a little taller? Currently (on my browser), the number of chips a person has falls halfway below the box, making the number hard to read if the person doesn't have cards, and almost impossible to read when the player has two cards (as the cards obscure the chip number).

rabbitoid: True.

Fencer: But if somebody does, I hope the somebody will give warning before, since the non-participation of pawns is an important part of the strategy

joshi tm: Because nobody made a change yet.

Well, since Brain Pawns can join poker tables, why pawns cannot join ponds still?

Artful Dodger:

Pedro Martínez:

Pedro Martínez:

"GERRY": Tomorrow, 5 p.m. ET.

When are the cheater,s on this site going to be BANNED?

could fellowship tourneys be allowed to make changes without administrator approval?

I deleted a fellowship a time ago but it looks like I cant join other teams anymore because I joined the teams of the deleted fellowship! What should I do?

For those who still see some parts of the site loading slow, check out this post:

Computers (coan.net, 2007-03-12 20:16:01)

I posted some information awhile back about things in the settings you can turn off. (for example, not having every menu load on the game pages allows the game pages to load quicker.)

Just some general tips which may help.

Fencer: I see the page show, but only half the board displays, then the page slowly fills in the details. Actually it's faster today than yesterday.

Perhaps capturing the move in a text box would be a good option... instead of needing to refresh the page each move (i'm thinking of backgammon where i need to refresh the page 4 times if I roll a double, but if there was a text box i could type 24-20 24-20 18-14 18-14 or something like that it would be quicker)

"GERRY": The whole BrainKing is pop-up free. Guaranteed.

Fencer: Mine works good for awhile then a pop up show's. Try again.Other then that its good.

grenv: Is your browser slowed down or is it just waiting for the server response for a longer time?

Fencer: When I make a move the board takes a long time to refresh with the new position.

grenv: Nothing is slowing the site down. According to our stats, it is fast as usual.

Seems to me the site has slowed down to a crawl recently. 5-10 second page refreshes even with the "lite" checkbox checked.

I therefore request "fewer" features.. can we eliminate whatever is slowing the site down?

any speed indication would have to be per game type as people play certain games faster than other games (i sure do :))

MadMonkey: Put us monkeys in charge and everyone goes bananas 

joshi tm: "...show a graph of a players move history" --> That's right. It was discussed too, but nothing happened.

coan.net: the "speed rating" limit --> great idea, I like it. Another way to sift out those obtrusive players.

Artful Dodger:

MadMonkey:   I could  help with writing the code but that would cause a huge problem as nothing would then work. 

coan.net: On a totally different subject that you lightly touched there. The BIG problem we have here is we all (including Fencer i am sure) want the site to grow and improve, but Fencer is only one person, he has a job and a life.

My Feature Request is not a Feature at all, but a person is needed. I think what we need is someone who can help Fencer with writing the code, making improvements & helping design games etc......

In my opinion that what is needed here more than anything, then maybe some of the great Feature requests, Game Requests & Bugs would get sorted sooner rather than when ever Fencer can squeeze them in

coan.net: Personally, I'm not big on the speed rating idea. BUT, I think it would be SO innovative as I think we would probably be the only turn based site with such a thing. (At least the only one I know of) So, it might be worth the programming time.

rabbitoid: As a slow player myself (but one who never tries to purposely hold up anyone or any one tournament - or take more then my allowed vacation days a year) - I think the idea of a graph to show how often a player moves would be an interesting idea - IF AND ONLY IF - it was optional, and a person can turn off their graph if they don't want to show it.

On the flip side - people should then be able to create games & tournaments in which they can choose to have a certain "speed rating" - and of course the users who choose not to turn their on will not be allowed to play those - but they can still play any regular game or tournament.

Honestly - I think it would be a lot of programing work on Fencers part... in which I would rather have him working on new games, but I can see how some sort of "speed meter" could be made & used... again, as an optional part of the site.

joshi tm: Bad idea, in my opinion.

Why? human nature.Do you recall, a while ago, the period when the craze of the day was to make the maximum possible of moves per day? it went on for a long while, the stats are still available somewhere here.

What's that to do with this problem? simple. If you publish a "turtle meter" as you propose, then as certain as income tax you'll start a fierce competition among them to determine who's the worst game blocker on this site. They're bad enough, acting on their own. don't make them form a union, for Fencer's sake!!!

AlliumCepa: Maybe it is better to show a graph of a players move history (# of moves/day) and the number of running games over time. These two graphs are a good estimate how fast a player plays.

Marfitalu: "...I think that a formula to evaluate the players about the way they make their moves could be more accurate." There was a discussion about this here.