bert515: On and off yes. But still frustrating when the white page freezes and I have to leave the site, which happened several times this morning.

site is doing much better today..

furbster: I havem't had any problem also...

furbster: You are in the UK like I am but it not 'working fine' for me.

mine seems to be working fine

bert515: Why do we bother to pay for a membership when this site plays up so much???

HELP !!!!

**silence is golden**

MadMonkey: It is why I did not join in on your tourny and sure that is the reason for your low turn out. . Yesterday when most was complaining, I was fine. This morning (7am est) I could view any page it seemed but when I went to play a game it would not load. Now its fine.

Marshmud: Mine seems fine, but seem to be getting more people complaining

I am having problems getting people sign for a 'No Days Off' Tournament as they dont know if they can get on the site

MadMonkey: I can't even get on the main game page.

I suggest game Time-outs are frozen until this problem is sorted.....there obviously is something wrong

that just timed out and when I clicked refresh it came straight to this page again....???

bert515: I guess we just have to wear it....looks as tho nothing will be done :(

bert515: I agree  its awful

like playing in a bloody blizzard !!!

crosseyed:  its the same for me this morning, I gave up on it last night I couldn't make any moves just white pages again

MadMonkey: I am not so sure about the last part of your message. I have had to leave this site six times already within an hour. I find it so frustrating.

crosseyed: This white page thing brings back bad memories of when the site was very young lol (well, i know what i mean ) ......we went through a few months of this white page problem in its first year, but Fencer cured it in the end. Hopefully that will help him search down what is causing it

bert515: Yes I had the same problem last night. I had to leave the site twice last night. And the same is happening intermittently this morning. As I tried posting this message the white page came up for several seconds and I clicked on fresh and nothing happened. I had to leave the site and when I came back this message had posted twice.

Bernice: Something happened yesterday evening (GMT time), i had 2 computers logged into BrainKing & on both when i went back to them tabs both had 'Page not found' errors but when i refreshed all was ok

from what you said , i guess something else happened after that

bert515: exactly.....I am having the same probs again also....but of course it isn't BK, it is us..........

getting slow moves and white screens after making a move again like a few weeks ago...

Thad: This is what Masters level checker players do..almost.

It seems entirely possible that a 10-wins match with a high probability of ending in a draw could reach that many games. But then again, who'd want to play 230+ draws out of 255 games!

rod03801: Shows you how much I know. I never create new games on Brainking, just join existing tournaments, so I didn't know it wasn't possible.

Roberto Silva: He means it wasn't even a readily available option. Who ever created the match "went around" things to create a match that long.

*I think thats what he meant anyway.

Fencer: I think you've lost me now...

Roberto Silva: Well, I certainly hadn't supposed that someone would find it worth hacking to pass a number greater than 9 there.

Aganju: In Brainking's defense, I'd think "no one will play a match with more than 255 games" was a reasonable programming assumption... You'd need double server capacity to store the games on a 2-byte counter right?

Thad: lol.
Looks like the coder saved memory and used a one-byte integer to count them. 80ies style.

Wow, it looks like you can't play a match that's longer than 255 games. Our match just disappeared from the main page without any warning or message or anything after game #255. Open Pente (Thad vs. JackS)

Fencer: The site appears to be working well with me now. Let's hope it stays that way. This morning I could not make any moves in my games.

crosseyed: Since the site itself is fast and running without any problems, it seems that only some routes are affected. It usually means that there are problems with certain network nodes which is out of our reach (so we can only wait).

Fencer: Thank you for informing us. Yes I am having difficulty playing my games this morning.

You might have noticed some connect problems that started about an hour ago. I have already notified the ISP (the issue is on their side), so I hope they will fix it soon.

Energizer: I love progressive, and play a strong game. Would recommend adding a Fischer Random option for it, as (IMO) the standard variant's openings are deeply analyzed, and don't offer much opportunity for original analysis.

Progressive chess is a chess variant in which players, rather than just making one move per turn, play progressively longer series of moves. The game starts with White making one move, then Black makes two consecutive moves, White replies with three, Black makes four and so on. Progressive chess can be combined with other variants; for example, when circe is played as a game, it is usually progressively. Progressive chess is considered particularly apt for playing correspondence chess using mail or some other slow medium, because of the relatively small number of moves in a typical game.
What about making Progressive Chess on the Brainking...

Roberto Silva: Stats can be misleading. loop chess has a significant advantage to the player with the inititive (white). Never the less it is far from a forced win and a stronger black player can neutralise the advantage and go on to win.

SL-Mark: Maybe. I've only played any variant of that game once or twice I think, so can't really say anything about it.

Roberto Silva: I would argue that in Espionage and its variants, its makes no difference if you are white or black.

Marshmud: No turn-based game is ever balanced. For every game either moving first or moving second is a better option, and master players will exploit that easily. Even chess is unbalanced in favor of white, and between grandmasters a black player can be quite happy if he gets even a draw.

However, if you check the stats for the other games mentioned (Maharajah, Horde Chess, Battleboat Plus, etc.) you will see that those games are so unbalanced that one side automatically has a huge advantage. It's not that a highly skilled player can exploit a bias in the game, but that the game is heavily loaded against one side regardless of skill or ability.

Marshmud: Concerning spider line4: true about the huge advantage, but the game is complex enough to be fun even as a second player.

Roberto Silva: Those stats don't tell the true story. In Regular stack4 the 2nd player has a huge advantage. In the variants, like spider 4 The player who goes first has the advantage. Such an advantage that a good player will seldom loose.

Roberto Silva: hmm just a feeling .. i like it best to start as player 2, and i think i win more when my opponent has the first move

will have to check my games to be certain

Hrqls:
white 34313 (51.78 %)
black 31472 (47.49 %)

You sure about that?

another example is connect4 : player 2 has a big advantage there as well

Gabriel Almeida: Didn't forget; I've never played it. ;)

Carpe Diem: You forgot one way checkers. Easy win for white. In 3 moves it get a huge advantage...