Luke Skywalker: I am not sure as I do not know what it is that you are calling spam. The page I see the list of tournaments on just lists tournaments with a find filter at the top of the page
.
I haven't created a tournament in over fifteen years. It caught me surprised when it started and added 23 games to my list of games. I am glad you found it before it started. I will try to get a few more running in the near future. This one seems to be going well. Have good games.

Selected games, single game round robin May 24ᵗʰ

The time parameters make it about 3 or 4 moves per week, though you are welcome to move faster. 5 games per section maximum.

Loop Chess
Extinction Chess
Dark Chess
Atomic Chess
Embassy Chess
Berolina Chess
Keryo Pente
Connect6

May 24ᵗʰ, 2022 Start.

Hi TC,

I am interested in playing in the Faster Backgammon Tournament you are organizing. I have concerns with the proposed time parameters. A 3 hour bonus means it would take 8 moves to add one day of time. A 9 day limit would never be reached in every game of Backgammon that I have played, even a game that was extraordinarily long such as forty or fifty moves long. I believe that the times are reset after the conclusion of each game in a match. If the times were carried over then maybe a 9 day limit could be reached with a 3 hour bonus. I am thinking the tournament will have many time outs or not too many entries from people that are familiar with the Fischer clock and aren't able to spend many hours per day waiting for their opponents move. Sure, I can finish a 5 point match in two hours if my opponent and I are online at the same time, and move as a fast as possible. That doesn't happen too often for me. Maybe it is more common for other people.

If you have run tournaments with these time parameters without any problems or complaints, I am impressed and please feel free to ignore this post. If this is the first time using these parameters, I think you might want to reconsider the parameters.

I am a fairly fast moving player and I know that those players that like a game to keep moving can get upset with those that drag a game out, perceived or actually doing it. If you want games to be finished in four or five days, I think the parameters you have set will work. If you would like people to join your tournaments that might only make one or two moves in a day and might miss a day from playing and yet move fairly fast, I would change the parameters in such a way to encourage fast play and yet allow people in this situation, such as myself, to play without an undue fear of timing out.

All that needs to be done is to lower the limit and increase the bonus time. Maybe a limit of 2 days 3 hours or even lower such as 1 day 3hours with a bonus of 1 day 3 hours, or times similar to this would work fine. With the limit set this low, a player would have to move every 1 or 2 days, but could get a day back with the bonus and yet would not be able to run it up to 9 days as the limit would be 1day 3 hours or 2 days 3 hours. Those players that move eight or more times a day wouldn't be affected, but the moderately fast moving players could stay in the tournament without slowing it down for the very fast players. It might take some testing of the parameters to find the pace you like, but I think this would be better and would get more people to join the tournament even if it might slow it down slightly. It would still discourage the clock using and slow players from entering the tournament in the first place.

I will copy and paste this post to send this message to you.
I have posted it here in the case some other players have concerns, suggestions, or see a flaw in my thinking. Thank you.

Sincerely,
Walter

2006 Second Quarter Open Number 5 Dark Chess

Congratulations to wetware for winning this tournament.

gambler104: You are right about that, but the method I was using lends itself to higher powers of 2 more easily. It also depends on how much importance is placed on the ratings, their accuracy, and the goals of the tournament organizer.

I like to think that the ratings are accurate with the goal to have the best players play each other for the championship and not knock each other out in the early rounds. I'st easy to group the people by adding one to the power of 2 for the number of rounds and then pairing them that way.
8 people is three rounds 2 × 2 × 2 + 1 = 9. 1-8, 2-7, 3-6, and 4-5 should be the first round pairings. If the rounds will not be reseeded each round, which is the normal procedure, the winner of 1-8 should play the winner of 4-5, and the winner of 2-7 plays the winner of 3-6. It's fairly straight forward to draw the tree graph using the numbers and keeping them like that. A few months ago some peole posted some good links for tournament organizers and also discussion various formats of it. Perhaps someone can remember where it is and maybe add the link to this page's title. I'm willing to bet Fencer made a note of it.

For sixteen players you use 17 as the number, thirty-two uses 33.

Fencer: Unless your ratings changed after this seeding was made, it is not correct. Also, it is customary to list the ranking with the person.

Top bracket as 1-8
next------- as 4-5
next------- as 3-6
next------- as 2-7

If done in this manner it will makes it possible to have the top seeds meet in the semi final and the number 1 and 2 meet in the final. It is easier to follow using the numbers this way too. If the ranking were done with the top four seeds and the rest assigned randomly, then I suppose it's fine and doesn't matter. It certainly is an improvement. How did you do it?

crosseyed: I'm still trying to get a feel for the Fischer Clock timed games. You have to check out the timing and bonus amounts. There are so many different ways to time a game. If the bonus is short and you and your opponent don't move fast, you can easily time out. IF the bonus is very long, then it really doesn't matter much. Same thing if the maximum is more than a couple of weeks. When the bonus is between a day or two and the maximum under 15 days, you can have the game move fairly fast and still not be pressured into moving daily. A bonus of 1 day 6 hours works good for me and will still allow slower moving players to enjoy a game without it affecting those players that like to move faster.

crosseyed: Try Fischer Clock timed games with a bonus of 1 to 2 days. I've found these limits move along and yet also give you time off when needed. Fast players move fast and it doesn't matter. Slower players will still need to make 8 moves in 10 days with these limits over the course of the game and will also be able to miss a few days.

Someting like this:
3 to 5 day start, 7 to 15 day maximum, and bonus of 1 day 6 hours.

Rose: It now fits my screen like it did before.
Thank you.

Universal Eyes: Would you be so kind as to retype your previous post so that the width is not so large? Perhaps a carriage return in the middle of the sentence and then updating it is all it would take. You post is larger than the width of my screen and now it makes all of the posts that wide. Thank you.

KotDB: I'm impressed with how you figured that out. It is similar to Keno or lottery except those games don't allow the repeating of a number.

I have something I've not worked on in awhile and I wasn't able to figure it out when I did work on it. I am wondering if you or someone else might be able to point out to me where I'm going wrong, or solve it yourself and show me the numbers for me to check and explain how you did it. At least to its completion with the exact number of possible deals, not approximations. It involves the dealing of the first hand in a game of Building. After the first hand is dealt the dealer faces four cards to the table. Similar to what is done in the game Cassino, if you're familiar with that game as I doubt if you know Building, but it doesn't really matter what game it is to understand this problem. The number of cards dealt to each player is seven if they're playing two handed, but that shouldn't have any baring on it either. You could just take a deck of playing cards made for Building and deal the top four cards off the top to solve this problem. But if you need details to help I will gladly supply them. This might not be exactly on topic for this discussion board, but I am the tournament director and get asked about the deal of the four cards and the odds related to the turning of a Jack or Joker or more when someone is dealing. The other problem related to this one is what are the odds and the number of hands turned up when the four cards can taken in one turn by the non-dealer on his first turn. I'll get to the details of that, if you can help me with the turned up cards first. The clearing of the table, if you or someone else is interested in it, can be done through messages or some other board unless it is appropriate on this one. I can solve it through brute force methods and using the fingers on my hands, I've just never attempted to do it as yet.

Anyways, back to the turning up of the four cards. The deck of cards used to play Buiding is the 52 standard deck used for Bridge or Poker plus two Jokers, for a total of 54 cards. When the dealer finishes dealing the players their first hand he faces four cards to the table between them. If any of the four cards turned up is a Joker or a Jack, the card or cards are set aside and another is dealt up to replace each one. If the replacement card is also a Jack or Joker, it too is set aside and another card is dealt up. Since there's four Jacks and two Jokers, the maximum number of cards set aside is six. None or one is the common amount, with two happening on occasion. The most I've ever seen is five and I've seen that three times, but then I've played thousands of games of Building. I've never seen all six turned up, but I'm sure it's possible.

What I've had trouble figuring out in this problem is how many different ways can each amount of Jacks and Jokers be turned up exactly. In Five Card Stud Poker there's an exact number of ways you could have a four of a kind dealt to you and it's not 13, but 624. That's always a good one to puzzle people with. There's 40 straight flushes in Poker that are easily countable on one's hands, no calculator required and they think only 13 four of a kinds, so why does a straight flush rank as the higher hand if there's more of them? I'm old school, a royal flush is a straight flush and not a seperately ranked hand as is now commonly shown in Poker charts. The best straight flush, but still just a straight flush.

It's fairly easy to figure out how many times the four cards will not have any Jacks or Jokers. Since there's 6 cards that are Jacks or Jokers, that leaves 48 that aren't. The first turned up could be any of those 48, the second would be one of the 47 left, the third one of the 46, and the fourth one of the 45. Since these can be dealt in any order, you need to divide the product of these numbers by the number of ways one can group 4 things, which is 24.
48 × 47 × 46 × 45 ­­÷ (4 × 3 × 2 × 1) = 194,580
This can be written 48!/4!44! if you have one of them calculators that does the factorials on it. I'm used to paper and pen, but calculators handle big numbers pretty good nowadays with exact numbers and not approximations. Seems like there's a calculator built right into the computer too. Oh yeah, a computer's original use!

OK, that's easy and I'm sure it's the correct and exact amount of different times the four cards can be turned up without a Jack or Joker amongst them. What happens when one one of the four cards is a Jack or Joker?
48 × 47 × 46 × 6 ÷ (3 × 2 × 1 × 1) = 103,776
or written (48!6!)/(45!3!5!1!)
For two I have 48 × 47 × 6 × 5 ÷ (2 × 1 × 2 × 1) = 16920
or written (48!6!)/(46!2!4!2!)
For three I have 48 × 6 × 5 × 4 ÷ (1 × 3 × 2 × 1) = 960
or written (48!6!)/(47!1!3!3!)
For four I have 6 × 5 × 4 × 3 ÷ (4 × 3 × 2 × 1)= 15
or written (6!)/(4!2!)
So far this is easy enough to follow and can be done with some paper and a deck of cards while imagining different ways of cards being dealt or combinations of sets. The numbers themselves are kind of large, so a calculator comes in handy.

The first four cards can have 0 through 4 Jacks or Jokers in the total of all those different ways and there's an easy check for it too.
194580 + 103776 + 16920 + 960 + 15 = 316,251
The check is 54 × 53 × 52 × 51 ÷ (4 × 3 × 2 × 1) = 316,251
or written 54!/(50!4!)
So far nothing complicated once you see how this is done. My problem is what happens when the dealer finishes dealing the cards to have just four cards turned up that aren't Jacks or Jokers. The turning of the cards after the first four is dependent on the card turn up to replace a turned up Jack or Joker. The more Jacks and Jokers turned up, the more complicated it gets. I tried the two extremes, and maybe you can see what it is that I'm not understanding or overlooking.
The case of when just one Jack or Joker is one the first four cards is fairly straight forward. It happens 103,776 times out of 316,251, which happens about 32.8% of the time and is close to 2 to 1 against it in odds. This and the four cards not having any Jacks or Jokers 61.5% cover a little 94% of the four card combinations that can be dealt.

The case of one Jack or Joker in the first four cards:

The dealer sets it aside and deals another card. If it's not a Jack or Joker, he's done dealing the first hand. He shows the non-dealer the one card that was set aside and then faces it on the bottom of the deck for use later in the deal of the other hands remaining. It no longer matters for this problem. This fifth card that he turned up wasn't a Jack or Joker, so it had to be one the remaining 45 cards. This is the beginning of where I get confused in figuring out the exact number of ways this can happen. Should the number of deals where just one Jack or Joker was faced equal 103,776 × 45? Which is 4,669,920? Since it takes five cards to be dealt when this happens, we'll need to figure the case of one Jack or Joker based on a set of 5 cards, right?
Doing it as {48 × 47 × 46 × 6 ÷ (3 × 2 × 1)} × 45 = 4,669,920 is not the same thing as
48 × 47 × 46 × 45 × 6 ÷ 24 = 1,167,480 A quarter of the other number, but exactly the amount of ways one Jack or Joker can dealt out of a deck of 54 cards into a hand of five cards. Not only that, but the first number is larger than the group it comes from which is 3,162,510, the number of sets of 5 in 54 objects, 54!/(49!5!). I'm obviously missing something. This second number, 1,167,480 is the exact number of times just one Jack or Joker will come up in five cards, but is not the right number for this problem because it includes the case of when the first four cards contain no Jacks or Jokers and the dealing stops before a fifth card (The Jack or Joker) would be dealt. For some reason I think subtracting 194,580 from the any of these numbers will not yield the right answer, though it might be the thing to do with 1,167,480 and get 972,900.

The other extreme is taking the first four cards to be all Jacks and Jokers. This happens 15 times out of 316,251. About .0047% of the time at odds of 316,236 to 15 or exactly 21,082.4 to 1 against. Yep, that doesn't happen much. I can't remember if I've ever seen that happen or not. I have seen four Jacks turned up, but that was after turning some replacement cards for some of the earlier Jacks.

The case of all four of the first four cards being Jacks or Jokers:

In this extraordinary event, the dealer (besides smiling and looking forward to the last hand of the deal), would set all four of the cards to the side and turn up four more cards. If none of these four replacement cards are Jacks or Jokers, he's done dealing the first hand. He picks up the four cards set aside and places them face up on the bottom of the deck for use later in the deal during the last hand.
Just how many times can this happen? It'd seem to be 15 × 194,580 which is 2,918,700. I believe this number might be correct for this particular example, but it isn't number for how many times the dealer might turn up exactly 4 Jacks or Jokers. There are a lot of ways that the dealer might indeed turn up exactly 4 Jacks or Jokers while dealing the four cards to the table. He could deal one Jack or Joker and three other cards in the first four cards and then turn up three consecutive Jacks and Jokers as replacements and then a fourth card not a Jack or Joker, or he could turn up 3 Jacks or Jokers in the first four cards and deal in a number a ways just one more Jack or Joker before getting four cards that aren't Jacks or Jokers. I tried to make a tree diagram for these choices in dealing each replacement card when this situation occurs and I went crazy! It's in the archives somewhere as I haven't worked on this in over fifteen years. When I got the tree diagram to the chance of having all 6 Jacks and Jokers turned up on the deal of the first hand, I had branches everywhere and an impossibly high number of occurances for what would be the rarest event of this deal to happen. The branches stop when 4 cards that aren't Jacks or Jokers are dealt, but go on to a possible ten cards if all the Jacks and Jokers we to be dealt.

My brother saw me working on this problem years ago and came up with a solution that I didn't like as it didn't cover every possible deal or have the exact number of deals for each combination of Jacks and Jokers turned up. He just programmed a computer to randomize 54 numbers and then pretend to deal until there was four numbers not 49 through 54. He had the computer tally each deal and then do it again. He had the computer run all night and then gave me the percentage for 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, Jacks or Jokers being dealt. Definitely not a mathematician's answer, but he's an engineer and didn't see why I wanted exact numbers. His approach did give me an idea for counting the number of ways the four cards and the Jacks and Jokers could be determined. Seeing how he did this over twenty years ago and computers are lots faster nowadays, my idea might actually be practical today. Just have the computer methodically count and go through each possible combination of dealing the cards. Since the first four cards when dealt without a Jack or Joker total is known precisely, you could even skip that part and just do the counting from when one or more are turned up.

Anyways, there's my problem and I'd certainly like some help on it and a way to check the numbers. And of course, any new approach to solving it, or how you solved it would be greatly appreciated. Also, if you'd like the details for the clearing of the table's original four cards by the non-dealer or eldest hand, just ask and I'll get it to you.

Thank you for your help

Hrqls: It shouldn't be a problem with random games. Wouldn't reseeding the players for the next round be easy enough to do? Or just leave it seeded as it was in the first round and continue the pairings based on the first round seeding?

gambler104: The system of seeding a tournament based on the rankings for a single elimination tournament is based on the premise that the final match should be against the number 1 and number 2 rated players. The groupings are done in such a way that this will happen if the higher rated (lower numbered seed) will always win their match in the early rounds. If the lower rated player upsets the higher seed, then they get to carry on in that person's place. They earned it, right?

Hrqls: I hadn't thought of the random game type tournaments. I can think of a few ways.

One way would be to seed them randomly!

Another way depends on how the actual game to be played first is chosen. Does everyone in the tournament play the same game in the first round? If so, after the game is chosen the players could be ranked and seeded by the rating they have in that game. For the second round, you could re-seed the field or keep it as is.

A third way would be for the games to be played to be picked for each round in advance and then the total rating to be used for the seeding. Whether or not the game order is revealed to players if it is done this way would be up to the tournament creator.

I'm sure some other ways can be thought up. I like the second way that I just made up of these three ideas. Allowing the tournament to be started after the deadline with a pared down list could also be done. Say you have a 32 player tournament, but only 21 sign up by the deadline. Even after the deadline is extended it is still 21 entrants, start the tournament with the top 16 seeds. Yes, the ranking and seeding of them is a problem for a random game, but idea number two would work for that too.

gringo: Why not seed the tournament and give the higher rated players a bye? Then the next round would start with a power of two number of players. Simple solution and it will get every tournament of the single elimination type started on time.

16 player tournament, but only 11 sign up. The deadline passes. Now you take the player's ratings and pair them up to add to 17 as they're ranked. 1-16, 2-15, 3-14, 13-4, 12-5, 11-6, 10-7, 8-9. As there isn't any players numbered 16, 15, 14, 13, or 12 players 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, would get a first round bye. Round two would start with 1 versus winner of 8-9. 2 versus winner of 10-7, 3 versus winner of 11-6. 4 versus 5.

The first round in a 11 entrant single elimination tournament would have three games played amongst the lower rated seeds. The three winners would continue on and the second round would have four games with the eight remaining players.

This can done for any number of entrants, odd or even. After one round the power of two number of people are left in the tournament and it will always work out at the end. Fencer should look into doing this. The tournament creator could have a 32 player tournament with 21 entrants and just have it start when the deadline passes.

I believe a few people posted earlier on this site about how brackets and seeding work. It's a real simple process.

SafariGal: It's all about the perception of fairness. I posted about this subject on the BrainKing discussion board around the first or second week of February. It all got lost in a big brouhaha caused by an unrelated subject on February 14th.

I proposed letting the tournament organizer keep the profit and giving Fencer a cut of it. I also said to let the organizer be able to set the profit at whatever level he wanted, including no profit at all or even letting him put extra in for a larger purse.

You presently can sponsor a prize tournament yourself without a fee. And notice, these tournaments are widely attended. The fee-to-enter tournaments with a 30% cut seems too high for just about everyone. Fencer did propose adding month extensions for every ten positions filled in the tournament.

I would change the current set up and let the tournament creator set the percentages to whatever levels he likes and for more places. If the total is less than 100%, he shares it with Fencer, say 75%/25% Creator to Fencer. All types of percentages would be tried, but eventually people would enter those tournaments they thought were fair for themselves. I personally would not enter one that took more than 10% out unless I figured my chances of winning a placing prize were very good.

Then there's the problem of the Brains themselves. Not everyone has them yet. This causes the fee-to-enter tournaments to not get started because of lack of people joining. The pool of people with Brains is small. I have 50 Brains. What am I supposed to do with them?

Starts April 29th

3 day time limit standard vacation

2006 Second Quarter Open Number 4 Extinction Chess

2006 Second Quarter Open Number 5 Dark Chess

3 day standard vacation, it's an open.

2006 Second Quarter Open Number 1 Janus Chess

3 day time limit standard vacation

http://brainking.com/en/Tournaments?trg=14677&trnst=0&u=2644

http://brainking.com/en/Tournaments?trg=13972&trnst=0&u=2644

http://brainking.com/en/Tournaments?trg=13971&trnst=0&u=2644

Is it still OK to sponsor tournaments and not charge an entry fee? Is it possible to sponsor part of the tournament and have an entry fee too? Who determines the payouts? I assume the tournament creator.

As for the gambling aspect of charging entry fees. In California it depends on a few things. What game or sport is being played and if the money collected from the entry fees is lessthan the amount paid out. If more money is paid out than collected or exactly the amount collected is paid out it is generally not considered gambling. Of course if the game is a game of chance as defined in the California Penal code, this doesn't matter and it is gambling. Which may or may not be against the law because some forms of gambling are legal in California. If less money is paid out than collected and it doesn't cover expenses then it works differently too, but it's not necessarily gambling either. Compare playing darts, pool, cribbage, or blackjack for prize money. There's all sorts of legal things that have to be decided in this crazy state that I live in to determine the legality of each. Plus, believe it or not, the location of the event! This makes a big difference in California. I know, I know, our legislature obviously has had too much time on its hands. Betting in a place that has a license to sell alcohol for onsite consumption is almost always against the law and yet some tournaments are legal even in that case. And of course some bars sell California Lottery tickets. And there's also charitible types of gambling like some Bingo games or drawings.

As for this site, even if it is illegal it be hard to imagine anyone getting busted for it. It's not like the site itself is set up for taking bets on a game or running a sportsbook. Collecting fees and paying them out to the participants in games that require more skill then luck is a far cry from being an online casino. If you take a cut in any of the tournaments Fencer, it might be construed as running a casino, though I feel that's a stretch. And if I have my own turnament and award all money collected, or if I do it like I did the only time I have so far and just put the prize myself and let all that want to join for free, that certainly should not run afoul of the law. Are any of the games offered on this site considered games of chance within California? I sincerely doubt it, but even if one is, your site is outside of California. Other states might have different laws. There's a few left that don't allow most forms of betting whether or not it's a game of skill. Wagering is wagering and they consider it gambling. How's Czech Republic view it? Anybody you know betting on the Super Bowl's outcome tomorrow? That's one of the biggest betting days of the year in the United States. You'd never know that betting on sports is illegal in almost every state from the amount of money that's being laid down on the game.

Fencer: This will be a very good improvement. I'm glad you're working on it. Good luck.

Fencer: I was thinking along the lines of having the program check the tournament after one person has finished all of the games. As you say, if that person has won all their games, they're the winner of the section. For all the other situations you could have a chart for each possibilty and have it check the chart. It might be easier to write a program to create the chart and then just use the chart as a table look up kind of thing. This seems like a lot of work to me and you'd need a different chart for each size section. Still, once there's a chart covering every way a section can be finished, it'd check it fast and wouldn't require any further calculations.

I'm thinking a brute force method might be the way to go even though it requires a calculation each time. There's not that many different ways a tournament can finish after one person has finished all of his games. You could just have it check to see if that person wins no matter what happens to the other people in the tournament. The moment it comes back with someone else the search is over until the next completed game and then check each person that has finished every game in the section.

If all that is too much trouble, it would still be a good thing just to have it cover some very special cases. The case with one person being done and having won every game. The cases where one person is done and only lost one game and everyone else has at least two losses or has lost to this person. Just adding this would probably cut down on a lot of idle tournaments, let alone if you covered every possibility.

I'm thinking the "two games colors switched with drawn games counting as a half point each" kind of tournament would take a different set up, or would it be the same thing?

Fencer: You'll have to have it either end the tournament or if there's more than one section, advance the winners to the next round if the other sections are waiting. The players whose games don't affect the winners of a section can continue to play their game, but everyone still in the tournament can get playing again. Or the tournament winner is now known and those slower players can finish their game. I'm sure Pawn and Knight members will like this improvement too. They'll be free to play in another tournament while the slowpokes can play their game in peace.

It sounds like a lot of "if this, then that" kind of programming. You'll have to take into account a lot of different scenarios to insure getting every situation covered. I'm sure there's a finite amount of ways a section can be completed. Or would a brute force method work and you just plug every win or loss possible and check the value for each after each game is completed? If it comes out the same for all situations it'd be time to advance or announce winners, right?

Time to restart the quarterly tournaments.

Starts January 20th, 2006. Open to all

Two games switched colors. Good luck.
Yes, a link is good to add.
http://brainking.com/en/Tournaments?trg=12781&trnst=0

Remove a fellowship? OK, I guess that would explain that. Why they'd do that must be a story in itself.

A bug in the switch over, eh? Perhaps the year 2K+5 virus has popped up? If that's the case, I'm sure that it's being worked on.

Thank you for the updates Skyking and MidnightMcMedic.

I have a couple of questions concerning this tournament.
1) What happened to team #7?
2) What happened to the statistics page of individual players?

Dark Chess--------30
Extinction Chess---6
Gothic Chess------12

The Dark Chess tournament is going to be tough to win. There's 5 of us with 2000 or higher ratings. Should be a good tournament. The Gothic Chess tournament should have a few good match ups too. I'm still learning the game, but have had some success of late.

I'll post once more near the beginning of the tournaments. I think next quarter I'll stagger the start of them. Though I'm the only one entered in all three of the tournaments, it makes for a lot of games to jump on the screen all at once.

Dark Chess
Extinction Chess
Gothic Chess

Dark Chess has a prize offered.
Hope to see you all there. Last time I looked the Extinction Chess had six, so'd it be nice to get a few more. After posting this note, I'll check the status of enteries and report back here.

bumble!
Thank you for creating the clickable links to the tournaments and letting me know how it is done.
Kevin did it to the ones that I listed on the game board themselves. Makes it lots easier for someone to check it out or join.

Dark Chess Number 3
Extinction Chess Number 3
Gothic Chess Number 1
Yep, added Gothic Chess. It's a good game. Lots of power roaming the board.

Hey! I'm offering a prize in the Dark Chess tournament. Winner, if not me, gets a one year Rook Membership. If I win the tournament, the person that defeated me and finishes highest will get a six month Rook membership or a one year Knight membership their choice. Details on the sign up page. Dang, I still don't know how to make the link, but it's there on the tournament page.

Gothic Link
Gothic

Extinction Chess
Extinction

Dark Chess
Dark Chess

I will post notices on the respective boards now and when the time draws near. Hope to see you there.

Yes he does!

Thank you for clarifying your position. Perhaps we're closer on this that it seems from reading the posts, just wording it differently.

Winning can also be not fun. Especially games like Chess. Playing a person that's no match for you guarantees a victory, but like you've said it's not as sweet. Losing every game in a tournament sucks, and it'd be hard to see the fun in it. There is still fun though. I doubt if the Chess tournament organizers would let you play the masters without going through some type of qualifying first. Of course if it's an open, you can pay the entry fee and take your lumps. :) I know that it is possible to play the champions of Bridge at certain tournaments.

Maybe the fun in a tournament is of a different kind than a side game for you. To me, on this site, the games all count about the same. It's harder to win a tournament than a single game. Perhaps that's the difference. When a prize is offered, that can make a difference too.

I disagree with you about having fun in a tournament. As I've said on previous occasions, "The object of a game is to win, but the reason to play a game is to have fun." I have as much fun playing a tournament game as I do a side game. I see little difference between them except for trying to win the championship as an added bonus for a tournament game. I try to win every game that I play. Even if I lose a game, I usually have fun playing it. Depends on how the game went and how well my opponent and I played and if luck was involved or not. I certainly would not play any games if there wasn't any fun in playing them. I mean, what would be the point of playing if they aren't fun? I could find something more enjoyable and rewarding with my time if I thought playing here wasn't fun. No one's paying me, so I must have a reward of fun and pleasure. I suppose even if I was getting paid it might be fun too. That would depend on other things. If this paid me like my job does, I'd quit the job and have a hobby that's fun too.

IMupChucKing 3. July 2004, 12:21:58
Your first paragraph amazes me if you truly believe what you've typed! Haven't you ever watched other people compete and seen the look of happiness on them during and after the game is over? I've watched enough professional sports to know the players are indeed having fun while playing. Sure the pressure to win is immense in pro sports, but the fun is there all the same. Lots of fun in amateur sports too. Yep, I really have trouble understanding your point of view on this subject. I hope you have fun when you play. If not, I would ask why are you playing? Just to torture yourself? There's got to be some fun in it somewhere unless you profit from it in a way that I haven't thought of. Then I could imagine playing without fun because of an ulterior motive.

2¢

It appears that the tournaments started correctly and there's no problem with the new format.
New format looks like an improvement over the older one too! Cool. I'll see you at the games.

Hmmm, it copied it nine times! Perhaps my reticence in starting the tournaments is justified? I'll delete the eight extras in a bit.

I'm not to sure what to make of the bata base update announcement, but if simular to what went on earlier in month I'm kind of nervous about starting the two tournaments later today. If Fencer or someone in the know can alleviate my concerns, I'll go ahead and start them later today. Otherwise I was going to take the catious appraoch and wait until the change has been implimented and all is well, or that it's been undone and put back to how it is now with a message about what or when it'll happen again.
This seems like the right way to go, especially with Dark Chess, because the games are ruined in the event that the positions are revealed.

Just a little more than a day and half before the Second Quarter tournaments will be starting. Extinction Chess currently has 8 signed players. Dark Chess has 15. They run the gamut in ratings, so there'll be lots of variables for each player. Opens are opens, after all.
Avoid becoming extinct, or bring your flashlight to keep the darkness away. :)

Congratulations "mangue"! Well done. It went to the wire after you guys knocked me out of contention with it being a three way tie at the time. Yes, I became extinct! :(
See you at the Second Quarter tournament as I'm demanding a rematch! Just in time for the Second Quarter tournament come to think of it!

One week until the Dark Chess and Extinction Chess tournaments will get going. Looks like there'll be a couple sections, maybe three in the Dark Chess one.

I have a question concerning the organizing of tournaments. Is it better to have large sections of eight people, or small ones of four or five? I suppose the answer depends on what I mean by "better", but I've noticed that a lot of tournaments are set for sections of four or five people. I tend to think it's better to have as many people play at once, but it does mean there's less winners available for a later round if you only start with a few sections. 24 people into 3 sections of 8, or 6 sections of 4. It'd be kind of nice if the organizer could set the sections based on the actual number of entrants as opposed to having it set in stone, or can I change the section size before starting the tournaments?

Thanks. I wouldn't have ever got that one. I'm not too good with a abbreviations, though I remember them. Go As You Please. I knew it wasn't Got Any Yellow Potatoes? or Going At Your Persistance. :) Geldings And Yearlings Post.

gooner, what's GAYP BK stand for?

Perhaps you should have the tournament as a Dark Chess tournament instead of regular Chess? I doubt very much that there's any programs for it or that they play very good, plus it's not easy for players to get help from kibitzers either. If not, what was the prize that you were offering? Maybe I'll match it sometime in the future and do it myself.

Hey, just five more weeks until they start.
They're both opens, all are welcome. Both have some top rated players, it'll be a challenge and an oportunity.
In the first quarter Dark Chess. Tenuki and I have won section one, with section two up for grabs amongst three players.
The Extinction Chess first quarter has me eliminated with a three way tie for first place with two games being played.

Could you rephrase your post MASTERMIND? Least ways, I couldn't make head nor tail of it after re-reading it a few times. As your Subject line is from either a post of mine or Lythande's, I'm assuming it refers to them.

I'm not sure what you mean by Chess-serious. There's uncertainty in the game, so it cannot be played perfectly as regular Chess can be. I'm the highest rated player on this site, but I know the game can be played better than I play it. Sooner or later one of them players will come along. I'm playing the player that's won the most tournaments on IYT and we're going to split our pair of games. I think it would be a great game to play live. Especially at a tournament. Or just at home. You'd need a computer programmed for it and two or more monitors. Extra monitors for the kibitzers. This same set up would work for Battleboats, Stratego, and lots of card games. Though those games don't need that since the games work without the computer. Dark Chess requires a lot of supervision. I suppose it could be done without the computer, but you'd need a referee and two assistants to make it work. Plus a way to mark the board for each player as the game developes. There's an old version of Chess called Kliegspiel that's very simluar to Dark Chess. The main difference is that you're not allowed to move into check or make illegal moves using regular Chess rules. I believe this version is from the 1800's. I imagine the wealthy Chess enthusiast of the day could set it up to play. I had never heard of Dark Chess until a couple of years ago when I stumbled upon IYT looking for a site that had a Chess variant called "Ultima". There's no book on Dark Chess, least ways I haven't heard of one. Seems like Gothic Chess is developing a following. It only requires a differ board and extra pieces to play. Extinction Chess works with a regular Chess set and is easy to understand if you already know how to play Chess.

I notice that you have no completed or running Dark Chess games, Lythande. When or where did you ever play? Have you played it live somewhere? I'd certainly like to play it that way. Battleboats is a good comparision. Imagine a Battleboats game where you could move the ships from time to time. Stratego is simular too. The thinking in Dark Chess requires you to bluff at times. Also you need to imagine what your opponent is up to. Deduction is important to play well, too. In regular Chess, none of them things are important. It can even be argued that whoever your opponent is in regular Chess, it shouldn't affect your play. Since we're humans and not machines, that's not the best way to play regular Chess. Knowing your opponent's habits in Dark Chess can sometimes be important. How to learn them is something that takes a few games. And it's always dark. Seems like the better opponents that I've played actually set me up, knowing that I know that they know I know what they're up to. Kind of like a different level than if they were playing a new player at the game. In which case, never leave your troops unguarded, or they'll be draped in a hurry. :)
Well, that's about how serious I play it. I'm sure if some the champions of Chess or Poker put their minds to Dark Chess, you'd have a better answer.

There's just two months left before they start.
Sign up before all 141 spots are taken. :)

Were you addressing this to me? I didn't list anyone's name, nor have I had a bad attitude about the time limits. I will not stop talking about them just because you've grown bored or have lost patience with those of us discussing something that can greatly influence one's enjoyment of a game. Especially on a turn based site. One that has lots of different players and their approaches to the time limits and other things about them. I think the subject is quite pertinent to any discussion of tournaments and the running of them. If you're right about the next generation of BrainKing, it sure can't hurt to talk about it before it's implemented incase Fencer might get some ideas from us and our posts.