reza: I've prepared a translation tool built in BrainKing itself. But it's not possible to use it for Farsi until the database is upgraded. It should happen within a week or two, I hope.

reza: The site is being translated into several languages. It's part of Fencer's cunning plan for world domination.

I don't think there is anyone doing Farsi. Are you offering.

It appears to me that ughaibu is translating the site to Japanese or Chinese or something, right?

By the way Fencer, did you manage to make your system read Farsi?

Thanks. I dont like any of those games so I never explored the page's function.

ughaibu: That's it! And this feature exists since 2003, how come you didn't find it before? :-)

You mean I can define a default starting position at that page so as to avoid the necessity of setting up the position each time I start one of those games?

BIG BAD WOLF: Yes, our time was changed on Sunday.

ughaibu: On that page, you can prepare starting positions for games where they must be edited before a game starts (Battleboats, Screen Chess, etc.). Just try it.

yes it should BBW. I noticed it coincide with the time change over the pond last weekend. Sunday morning it will be back right for us again.

OK, that could be - I think our time changes this upcomming weekend, so hopefully it will fix itself then.

yep...summertime started on sunday morning at 2am here

Did the server time recently change? Well I normally keep my clock on this site the same as Czech time - that way midnight in Czech is 5pm my time.

But now midnight Czech time is 4pm. Did something change?

Read this page.

menu shows: Waiting games (425), but when I go to see list of games it's only 2 pages. Do I miss something?

What the hell is this godawfull game editing page? It's all very well to ask me to translate this stuff but what the. . . . . . . .

Pedro Martínez: that's great, thanks.

Pedro Martínez: You're right! it works, I just tried it!

BerniceC: Of course you can send a message to yourself. See that little envelope next to your ID below? Click on it and there you go!!!

Fencer: isn't it possible to makew itb show you how many moves you made that day, if your nearer teh record you might push that little bit harder for it.

ScarletRose: I think you can see how many you moved the previous day? Where it says the most moves made hit the MORE and look for your name!

Fencer: OH dear....someone sent me a way to do it....and yes In the end I did use notepad :)

thanks :)

ScarletRose: No, you cannot. Until you hit a record :-)

BerniceC: Of course you can't do that. Use Notepad instead.

hehehe....I had no one to talk to and wanted to send myself a message LOLOL

I can't do that????? it says there is no such user as BerniceC!

can check how many turns they have made in the day?

The invitations with the same creator ID, game type, creator color and days per move are grouped into one.

furbster: no worries

thats great that, exactly what i had in mind when i suggested my ramble on feature requests lol thanks reza!

furbster: NO! you can have as many invitations as you want but they'll be filed in two 'directories' : BLACK and WHITE

so you can only put 2 games of same type on waiting games now?

Fencer: this is nice!

Fencer:

pauloaguia: Yes.

Fencer: Can it have the page links on top of the list as well? I only see them on the bottom of the table.

nice!

Ah! So it only shows two invites for any one game type from any one player?
Have I got that right?

And how do you like the Waiting Games page?

BerniceC: Cool!
It's nice to see someone from Svalbad and Jan Mayen playing here.

Now where is it? I've never heard of it!

I just love the "Country" on the player list link (is that new? I havent seen it before)....128 Australians....isnt it a pity we dont see more ofthem :( BananaD , WhisperzQ and a couple others....would be great to set up "Country Challenges"

Thanks Fencer...havent seen it and it looks great :)

ughaibu: well from someone that really dont know either, It looks as tho it is (for battleboats) to let you see how to set up the board....but I am probably wrong LOLOL

Would somebody be kind enough to explain to me how the "game editors" page functions?

EdTrice: ah! thanks!

that explains something i have been wondering about for some time already :)
i have played more games of hyper gammon than backgammon (323 vs 255) but still my hyper gammon bkr changes a lot while my backgammon bkr behaves exactly like described below (8-13 points difference depending a bit on how many i won/lost in succession lately)

of course my hyper gammon has a much higher deviation :)

taking the deviaton into account can explain both the effect of hyper gammon vs backgammon as well as the effect of a lot of wins in succession


i asked for the formula as well and thought i found it via google .. but then someone else (i forgot who and on which board :)) posted the correct link with the correct formula (fencer responded with 'yes' i think ;)) .. it might be the one pedro posted as well :)

Chessmaster1000:

My fourth question is:
I have around 300 completed Backgammon games and 100 Hyper-Backgammon.
When i win or lose against an equal opponent at Backgammon, i gain or lose 8 points ALWAYS! When i win or lose against an equal opponent at Hyper-Backgammon, i gain or lose 19-25 points.......
Why is that happening.............?

If the rating system is implemented the way Mark Glickman devised, there are 2 numbers used to compute your rating. One is your rating, the other is your rating deviation (or just r.d.)

The r.d. measures the accuracy of your rating. It uses the typical Gaussian type distribution associated with a 95% level of uncertainty based on what is known about your play, and the accuracy of your opponents' play.

The higher your r.d., the more your rating will tend to ocillate.

For example, at "game 0", your r.d. is set at 350. This means with a 95% level of certainty, your rating is the starting rating (1500?) + or - 350 points.

Whether you win or lose, your r.d. goes down a bunch, I think to about 220. That means your next rating is +- 220 from your "true" rating with, again, a 95% level of certainty.

As time goes on, your r.d. goes down to about 30, then it hardly ever goes below that.

With your game counts, it is safe to say your r.d. for 300+ games is much lower than for 100+ games.

Also, your r.d. starts to RISE again as you do not play for a while. It is a time-based anti-decay function.

Now, after having said all of that, I hope that is why you are observing what you are observing!

Chessmaster1000: To answer your first question:

a) if the game had been a draw, you would've lost 73 points.
b) if you had lost the game, you would've lost 117 points.

Besides, according to the formula, you should have lost the amazing number of 28 points, even though you won.

As far as I know, this is the formula BK uses for its ratings:

>http://math.bu.edu/people/mg/ratings/approx/approx.html


It looks quite exact to me. Can you guys please enlighten me as for how it is unclear?

BIG BAD WOLF: I had a game the other day where I was unrated and my opponent was in the 1100 to 1200 range. After I won the game my rating went up 0 points to 1700+ and theres went down 0 points! How does this happen? I dont really car much about ratings either, but when I win I like them to go up. Is there any way to find out before a game starts or to not play in games where your score for winning has no chance to go up, or go up by less than a point? It doesnt make much sense to play a game where your rating can only go down or remain the same. I would still play with somepeople who are friends or whatever, but I could make the games unrated at least.

Chessmaster1000: The pull down game menu appears in the Top Left corner of the page. It simple lists all of your games where it is your move. If you dan't have a move waiting, there is no menu there.

if you go on a winning streak or a losing streak, I've notice that after a while game values will change by 11 a few times

Chessmaster1000: Well I might be able to some-what help on a couple of those.

first - good question, but I can't answer. The formula that is on the website has to deal with mostly live games and such, so I would agree that a clearly written formula that is used on this site would be nice - I could never get the one that is listed on the website to come out correctly - always off. (Which also when the ratings are rounded to whole numbers also messes up my calculations...)

Second - As a side note, you may not actually win 0 points - you could be winning .2 rating points, which would show as 0 points gained.

Third - 2700 is the limit on this site, and there are a couple of games which a few people have hit the 2700 point. (and can not go any higher)

Forth - I'm glad I'm not the only one who almost always gains and losed 8 rating points in every backgammon game I play. (Except if I lose to an extremly lower ranked player - then I usually lose 16 points.) But I have over 700 backgammon games played, so I would expect it to be a little more consistant like that. But like you, in other games like Hyper Gammon (300+ games played), the ratings are very wild still for me - where after 300, I would expect to start seeing them to at least start settling down a little.

Fifth - Activate pulldown game menu - is that from the Java script settings page? If so, that is when you have your mouse over the top left corner of any page, it will bring down a quick drop-down menu.

I want to ask 4 questions about the BKR formula and philosophy of it and 1 more....:

Today i won an Atomic Chess game against an opponent who is 1782 BKR points, while i have 2438. And i won the amazing number of 0 points.....

My first question is:
How many points i would lose AND how many points my opponent would win if:
a)The game would be draw......?
b)I would lose the game.......?
(Better of course would be if Fencer would give the exact formula (not the known link which isn't clear) but i know Fencer will not(This is an observation-Fencer always avoids to give the formula....))

My second question is:
OK, the BKR difference between me and my opponent was big as the formula gives 0 points for a win (actually gives me a decrease of my BKR but this would be ridiculous so it is set to zero), but do you find it "fair" or "logical" to reward 0 points to someone that won......?
I enjoy playing Atomic Chess and i don't care too much about BKR, but i don't ignore it totally. My motivation to play against lower rated opponents, would become higher if i would gain some points (even 3-4) by winning...........
Is there any chance that this would change............?
It isn't reasonable.......

My third question is:
I see that the limit 2700 exist in various options when creating tournaments/games...etc. Is this the absolute BKR limit and nobody can have a BKR higher than this...........?

My fourth question is:
I have around 300 completed Backgammon games and 100 Hyper-Backgammon.
When i win or lose against an equal opponent at Backgammon, i gain or lose 8 points ALWAYS! When i win or lose against an equal opponent at Hyper-Backgammon, i gain or lose 19-25 points.......
Why is that happening.............?

My fifth question is:
What the "Activate pulldown game menu" does........?
I have activated today and nothing (obvious) changed.........