Hrqls: against most opponents it's usually point 3 or 5 ... but against you, from now on, it will be point 4 :-)

Lol. Then I shall make a point of seeking calmness and tranquillity of mind.

Carpe Diem: it's OK to resign! [,,,] why drag things out?

It might surprise you but for some people, it's not. They'd rather play the loss than resign it. It may or may not be related to suicide versus natural death. ;o)

Another possibility is that the person thinks that they're doing you a favour by giving you the satisfaction of the final, winning, move. I do know that I sometimes feel robbed of that minor pleasure when someone resigns close to the end.

A third possibility is that "mathematically eliminated" does not always occur to the non-mathematically minded.

A fourth ... an opponent might be resentful of the loss and dragging it out to punish you.

The most likely, I would guess, is thoughtlessness or mindlessness; the force of habit.... The game appears, the player moves, on to the next....

SL-Mark: Speed ratings would be very useful. It would be especially useful if the speed ratings could be used to estimate the expected duration of a tournament. For my "Some like it fast" tournaments, I wouldn't care about the time control if I could specify that I only want players who are likely to allow completion within, say, six to ten weeks. Then I could set a 7-days time control to allow for Life's unexpected emergencies, safe in the knowledge that the usual course of events would be frequent moves by all concerned.

@Mélusine: Your concern wouldn't be as much of an issue as you might think. A fast player with occasional lapses is still a fast player, different from the once-a-weekers with their busy lives and in a different Universe to a crawler with hundreds of games.

For instance, if you play a game and the opponent is online and makes their move and it comes back to you, you might get to play the next turn. Someone with hundreds of games will never do that unless they are specifically giving priority to games with those who are online. Playing twice in one session would be very beneficial to you speed rating, having most games go to the end of a huge queue would be detrimental.

BGBedlam: Surely a solution would be to put a limit on the maximum amount of games somebody can play.

For sure. The idea of "unlimited games" is an impractical ideal. I think the limit should be literally what you said, the number of games that people can play - and a person who is continuously playing at the limit of the time allowed has probably got more games than they can play.

It's obviously not going to be a hard limit. A hundred Ludo games is much more manageable than a hundred games of Chess (unless it's a player who more or less likes clicking Chess pieces at random ).

Hrqls: there are also people with busy lives who don't have hundreds or thousands of games going on

Sure but they don't therefore affect hundreds of tournaments and hundreds of other players.

I would further suggest that the number of busy lives who almost always play at the very last minute is minimal. As I pointed out to Roberto, the time controls are not as labelled. The 5-day time control is for 7, 8 or 9 days, not for 5. A game-hoarding slowcoach will often take the full 9 days when it occurs whereas a busy lifer will not.

Hercs: the players do (or should) know what they signed up for

Why "should" they? Did you nod knowingly above, when I said that a 5-day control is for 7 to 9 days? Maybe you did but do you think that it's common knowledge?

Hercs: for prize tournaments: the creator has chose the time limit for a specific reason

Lol. Do you really think that tournaments that can take decades have been given a thoughtful time control? I suspect that most tournament creators do it naively.

Besides, even when they are carefully chosen, the tournament can still proceed very slowly. I used to create tournaments with limited time controls called "Some like it fast". The idea was that they could be over within weeks and thus be suitable for fast players and Pawns. But a slow player can make those take months instead of weeks, perverting the intent, spoiling the enjoyment and degrading the membership of any Pawn who falls foul of them.

The reason that I reject "but they're playing within the rules" as a poor excuse is that it misses the point, which is that the rules are not fit for the purpose.

Roberto Silva: There's no need to shout, Roberto, and it's clear from what you say that you only have a limited understanding of the issue and no interest in improving that impoverishment. I see no value in any further conversation with you other than to point out that you, like many people, do not seem to realise that the so-called 7-day time control is not for 7 days between moves, it's for 9, 10 or 11 days depending on which day of the week the move is made.

Roberto Silva: I'm getting sick and tired of all this constant whining of people who sign up for time limits they don't like and then complain when people aren't playing fast enough for their liking.

And I'm years past being sick and tired of people who think that their inability to understand this issue makes their "advice" of any value.

How many Pawns come to the site and join a tournament not knowing that it's going to take years and they won't be able to join another tournament? What's your solution for that?

You say not to join if the time limit is too long but what if it's a prize tournament? You're saying that people who can't wait years - sometimes decades - have to forgo the opportunity that such rare tournaments provide.

To add insult to injury, many of the excessively slow players who have joined those tournaments were Black Rooks who had no need of the membership that was to be won. In my book their action is either thoughtless or selfish and neither is a good thing, whether it's "within the rules" or not.

You have sympathy for people who have such a busy life that they can only play one move every nine days (seven day clock with weekends off). Do you really think that many of these people exist? Nine days between each move?

You say that people shouldn't have to "give up their busy lives to indulge others" - but you're ignoring the real issue - which is people indulging themselves with hundreds - and sometimes thousands - of games that they cannot play except at the very limits. Their life is busy alright - busy with too many games! And it's other people who suffer for that indulgence.

Do you begin to see that it's not as simple a situation as you've imagined? Do you begin to understand that STFU is not a solution?

Your question is my question.... Why is it so hard to understand?

heavenrose: i just want him in peace is all

I've just consulted a medium and he said that dien will suffer eternal unrest if he doesn't get to hear people's last thoughts and to know how he touched their lives.

Carpe Diem: Playing within the rules is a terribly poor excuse; it completely disrespects the spirit of play. Many of the offenders will never, ever, understand how much game hoarding reduces the enjoyment of so many other players. It is a serious problem. If this were my site then it would be one of the first things that I would seek to change.

MrDelete: Congrats!

When that tournament started, your son thought it was a fun game. Now he probably thinks that it just for kids and old fogies.

Here's a hypothetical. If someone buys BrainKing, should they be expected to continue allowing Forever Rooks to enjoy full membership at no cost?

If you're a Forever Rook, try pretending that you're the buyer rather than yourself. ;o)

2003-2009 ......... Thirteen mentions of words starting with "arrogan".
2010-2014 ......... None
2015 Jan-Nov .... None
December 2015 ............. Twenty four!!

Aganju: Heh heh. Me too. I've further found that even if you test the waters by asking whether advice would be appreciated, an affirmative answer is no guarantee of a good reception. I agree with you that biting the tongue is often less painful than getting the hand bitten.

Brian1971: Fencer said, several years ago, that he was not as dedicated or enthusiastic. He also said then that the site could no longer be his priority. I must admit that I'm surprised that it comes as news to you.

You're right that a perceived lack of interest will result in the loss of paying members. There are gammoner Pawns here who would have gladly renewed their Rooks if their requests, you might even say pleas, had been answered. Sadly the impression has long been that the gammon variants, despite being collectively the site's most played games, have not been considered important enough to fix various issues. I forget the details but the Backgammon forum has plenty of words about them up until people gave up trying. And where is the AutoPass for Ludo? I think I've wished for it almost half a gazillion times!

Your perception that activity is dwindling is a correct one. Two years ago, in November 2013, I took a snapshot of the Running Games page. The number of started games was 53000. The November 2015 page showed 33750. Today it's 31150 (although that difference may well be seasonal). I did take a couple of snapshots several years before 2013. Unfortunately they got lost but I remember noting that the 2013 figure was definitely lower.

But it's not just BrainKing. DailyGammon has seen a decline in numbers and Pocket-Monkey struggles to fill its fast class of tournaments. The years have seen other sites and a whole new mobile market to entice people away.

With regard to memberships here, there are 52 Rooks, 10 Knights 5 Bishops and one Forever Knight showing for this year. That's a total value of 2367 Euro (assuming 12 months for the Rooks and Knights), and that Forever Knight will, by definition, contribute nothing next year and thereafter. I have to believe Fencer when he says that memberships are the least contributor to the site's profitability as that sum may well be gobbled up by the Internet Provider alone.

Brian1971: Brian, you have over 600 matches. Fencer doesn't delete matches when a game hoarder's membership runs out so you'll continue to feast for as long as you can string the matches out but you won't be able to add to the pile until you purchase a new membership.

You'll also be out of all fellowships, so do pass the Pub's Big Boss title to someone who can keep your fellowship alive. You're quite well ranked in various game types which suggests that you might take an interest in your prowess. If you enjoy the rating graphs as much as I do then you'll miss them, at least for a while.

Your decision to experience being a Pawn as a form of protest will not come without a cost. You're not handing merely handing a cheque over to Fencer every year, you're purchasing a level of service that you couldn't otherwise enjoy.

Fencer: there are no ActiveX controls on BrainKing because I hate this technology.

You're using ActiveX for AJAX in IE.

Fencer: I originally wrote "the 'I've changed my mind' becomes meaningless" but changed it to "a mystery" 'cos it sounded better. Heh, heh. If I'd left it as I wrote it initially would you have replied "BrainKIng is full of meaninglesses"?!

King Reza: Now that your interviews post is linked to from the board header and will be clicked now and in the future by people coming fresh to the idea interviews, the "I've changed my mind" becomes a mystery. I reckon it would be good to rewrite that post as a self-contained article (and with a title). ;-)

: Lol, Aye, well done for that, BBW. You did a good bit of investigation for that bug report.

imsoaddicted: Perhaps this will be informative? - http://brainking.com/en/ReadBug?bgi=892

Nothingness: Here are some possibilities:
1) Gamble them away in a Brains tourney.
2) Save them up and put them towards a membership renewal or gift.
3) Gloat over them.
4) tell all your friends that you've got 200 Brains and then spend an hour explaining what you mean.
;o)

.

Rolls   %     1 in N           10%       20%       30%       40%       50%       60%       70%       80%
 1    83.333    1.2   |=========:=========:=========:=========:=========:=========:=========:=========:===
 2    69.444    1.4   |=========:=========:=========:=========:=========:=========:=========
 3    57.870    1.7   |=========:=========:=========:=========:=========:========
 4    48.225    2.1   |=========:=========:=========:=========:========
 5    40.187    2.5   |=========:=========:=========:=========:
 6    33.489    3.0   |=========:=========:=========:===
 7    27.908    3.6   |=========:=========:========
 8    23.256    4.3   |=========:=========:===
 9    19.380    5.2   |=========:=========
10    16.150    6.2   |=========:======
11    13.458    7.4   |=========:===
12    11.215    8.9   |=========:=
13     9.346     11   |=========
14     7.788     13   |========
15     6.490     15   |======
16     5.408     18   |=====
17     4.507     22   |=====
18     3.756     27   |====
19     3.130     32   |===
20     2.608     40   |===
21     2.173     45   |==
22     1.811     55   |==
23     1.509     65   |==
24     1.257     80   |=
25     1.048     95   |=
26     0.873    115   |=
27     0.727    135   |=
28     0.606    165   |=
29     0.505    200   |=
30     0.421    235   |
31     0.351    300   |
32 **  0.292    350   |
33     0.243    400   |
34     0.203    500   |
35     0.169    600   |
36     0.141    700   |
37     0.117    850   |
38     0.097   1000   |
39     0.081   1200   |
40     0.068   1450   |
41     0.056   1750   |
42     0.047   2100   |
43     0.039   2550   |
44     0.032   3050   |
45     0.027   3650   |
46     0.022   4400   |
47     0.018   5250   |
48 **  0.015   6300   |
49     0.013   7600   |
50     0.010   9100   |
51     0.009  10900   |
52     0.007  13100   |

That record of 48 passes was a 1 in 6300 happening.
In contrast, getting 32 passes is only a 1 in 350 occurence.

 

Fencer: Lol. Thank you. I'm getting more out of requests here than I ever did on the Features Requests board! Just one extra tweak, if I may. Could the unread ones have a different background or be in bold, rather than using italic as the indicator, please? Italics is rather too subtle for those with high-resolution monitors and those with poorer eyesight, especially as we now have the option to have an unread message some way down the page or even on a different page.

Fencer: I guess that's a pretty handy one for people who don't read their messages! ;o), but far more useful is to be able to mark something that's been read as unread so that if you don't have time to reply it won't get forgotten or lost. Is that a small enough tweak that it could go online before the major work?

Fencer: Inbox | Outbox

Fencer: If you've got too much time on your hands you could always turn this dropdown list with only two items plus a button into a pair of directly accessible links. That'll get rid of a bit of clickery which I'm sure many people have found annoying over the years.

Complacency about Firefox's security is not recommended. The following article is rather eye-opening:

Firefox Myths

Hrqls: I quite agree. Paid members pay not to have ads but the competition is NOT what they paid for. The "entry fee" for the competition is to switch ads on. Seeing free entry into the competition as a right in incorrect.

Fencer: Heh heh! Don't visit brainking.info? So, being a most curious and cheeky bunny, what's the first thing I have to do?!

Agggghh - it's more Ads!!

prettymama: Invoke IE = Use IE. :-)

Summertop: "I like it."

Print it out and it stick up next to the monitor. It'll help solve that second dilemma by keeping you focused on BrainKing and away from the distraction of work! ;o)

Hrqls: "what if i whistle the dutch anthem while i am on my profile"

Yes, that should work. :-) It just depends on the nationality of the person whose profile you're viewing. It's the control shift click on the lower left corner of the image that activates the sound recorder and song analysis scripts that Fencer's written. If you get close enough to the right anthem ... bonus points!

02i: " i mean where else do you find .."

Well, to be fair, GoldToken and DailyGammon are two that spring to mind. ;o) I won a membership at GT and DailyGammon is totally free, so there's no need to buy membership, but some players do put up prizes for tourneys. Friendliness at both sites is second to none.

(Yes, yes - it's a tie, lol)

Cluck: Without knowing what Fencer's aims are, I feel certain that testing the system is not enough reason for having gone to all this trouble and putting up generous prizes.

Stevie Your membership entitles you to many things but there's no reason why it should provide free entry into Fencer's competition. It could but it's not a must. Rather than think of ads as being an insult to your membership rights, see that they are the entry fee to the competition. One which you don't have to pay if you don't want to be in the competition. If Fencer can recoup some of the costs of running these competitions through ad click-throughs that's surely not something you'd begrudge him, is it?

Stevie: Why is Fencer having these competitions? What's in it for *him*?

gambler104: Server time is Czech time. One hour ahead of GMT. I believe 6pm Eastern is the deadline.

Brian1971: Silly man, of course I don't know you. All I know is that you've chosen to make judgements about certain people and look down your nose at their choices in life. Maybe you're a great guy but from what you've shown here I find that I have no wish to know you. It's a shame that you didn't choose to stay in your "normal" life away from the "'puter" in the first place. That way you wouldn't have to give a hollow LMAO to cover your embarrassment.

Brian1971: See what I mean about a superiority complex? You assume that responding to idiots on this board implies a personal interest in them. Nope. I just don't suffer fools gladly. I couldn't care two hoots about you personally.

Brian1971: I was working too. Working on my sympathy for your superiority complex. Sadly I didn't get very far. :-(

Skittles: It was down from 2:15am until 6:30am here in London.

alanback: LOL! ;-P

srnity: Lolol. Shhhh, I'm putting on my "stern face". ;-)

Brian1971: "Before jumping on me you should read my entire post. IF people are here every hour, every minute of the day they need a life."

That is not a conditional statement and the IF, even in capitals, doesn't change it from a judgemental declaration.

"People who are here every hour, every minute of the day, need a life."

It's insulting and well worth jumping on you for.

Not only is it insulting but it's also naive. Have you ever seen a dance marathon? People who dance for hours until the last one's dropped? They have chosen to be in a competition that can be won only by constant, relentless attendance and attention, plus amazing endurance. They have a life and the've chosen to spend part of it in the competition.

Similarly this is a competition situation here. And while relentless attendance is not compulsory, nor an absolute neccesity, it does convey an advantage. That people have chosen to spend this part of their life engaged in such a pursuit of glory is not an indication that they have no life but that they are fitting this competition into their life. Your insults show lack of appreciation both socially and intellectually.

Brian1971: "This way people who play over a thousand games at a time dont drown out players who play much fewer games."

This is another point that you haven't understood. Look at the Pawns competition and be aware that almost 100% of thoise points are single points for non-tournament games. In the Rooks competition something like 80-90% are tournament points which score double. So multiply the Pawn scores by 2 and compare the lists.

And then try and explain how Pawns with 20 games maximum are far, far from being "drowned out" by Rooks having over 1000 games??

You'll notice that there are no Knights in the entire Rooks competition. Oops, I shouldn't have said Rooks there, because it's for non-Pawns. Why no Knights? Because they don't have the 100s of games and they don't get many doubled points from tournament games, Knights are severely limited (crippled, in terms of the competition) in the number of these that they can have.

But that's not quite true. A Knight with a fast connection and the willingness to compete (ie, put in the time) could, with the techniques that the Pawns use, beat the Rooks and win a prize.

And that would apply to anyone in these ranges of number of games that you've proposed. It's not only numbers of simultaneous games, it's turnover.

Brian1971: You're just the lastest in a series of people who come with an opinion on a topic that you haven't understood.

Have a read of a post I made to those other people. Competition resources and fairness/unfairness

And in fact I left out two resources from that list that give a clear advantage. For pawns it is free games slots with which to play a fast opponent. Pawns with only 4 or 5 are at a disadvantage. Of course they can resign some games and free up slots if they want to increase their competitiveness.

Another resource, one which has proved decisive, is connection speed. Someone on dialup has absolutely no chance against broadband users and the faster the broadband the better - provided you have sufficient speed in your opponents so that you're not staring at your game sheet most of the time.

there's another resource, lol, that it also "unfair" and that's the availability of BrainKing! Competitors who are in bed (or elsewhere) while Brainking is being down and being fixed will have an advantage over those who are ready and waiting to play clicky-clicky but can't log in.

Lol. Yep. Fingers crossed .... :-)

Iiiiiitttttttt''''''ssssssssssss rrrrrrreeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaallllllllllllllllllyyyyyyyyyyy ssssssssssssssllllllllllllllooooooooooooooooooooooooowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.........

Fencer was online about 10 mins ago but has gone off since then. It's 11:45pm for him.

For me it was 4:20pm (UK) yesterday until late this morning.

actionpoints: No problem, I took it exactly the way you meant it and Not a floosie was referring to earlier posts (since modified, lol). ;-)

While playing with fang earlier we discussed connection speed (and that's why I mentioned it in my post below). He said that both he and yourself are on 512Kb. Quite a bit of Britain is on 2Mb, including myself. That coupling with excellent playing partnerships, has allowed me to steam along like a mad clicker! ;-) There are also minor techniques - no, no, not loopholes, lol - that I'm willing to share .. after this month's competition. ;0) These techniques can shave off a second or two here and there and improve the overall move rate.
_______________

Auto?a$$ is the ability for the server to skip your turn if you can't make a move. Here at BrainKing we have the luxury of being able to tell the server (Yes, you're right, I can't make a move. Thanks for putting the game back on my game list so that I make this click and tell you that I agree). Other sites, for some reason, remove this option thereby shortening the game, and hence the fun! [Takes tongue out of cheek.]

But it's also possible for a computer programmer to implement an autopass of their own or even write a program to make every move for them. I'm capable of that and I'm tempted to do so and enter it into the competition next month, lol. (Only as a proof of concept and naturally I'd disqualify myself much as KotDB did with the DB expoit). This month, though, there's no robot and all my clicks are my own. ;-)