Can we get a different color boarder for this chess game also since the pieces move different then regular chess.

grenv, Thad, kleineme: I disagree with your derision of the S-B system. Whatever else can be said about it (and much has), it makes sense to give the section or title to the player who has beat the one he tied with. I believe the S-B should remain the standard.

Some creative method might be instituted to speed up a 2-player "playoff", meaning any final round with only two in it. One suggestion is to play all games concurrently, and this would be ideal for gammon type games where more chance than skill is involved, but it does not work especially well in other games that start from the same position and are likely to follow the same path longer if played simultaneously. The time control could be accelerated though.

Thad: "MissYourTurn", great shot, that one is really hilarious!! :)) However, the endless round after round until one player wins BOTH games is awfully B-O-R-I-N-G. I deliberately let a few time out in Pente, because I got so tired of facing the same opponent and it was obvious that neither player was ever going to win both without a thrown game.

If the final round is only 1 section, how could 2 players in that section never have played each other?

eagle eye: Actually, it's worse than that. If there are more than two people in the final round (any round with only one section), then, if there is a tie for that section, there are two tournament winners, even though those two players never faced each other!

eagle eye: When only 2 players are playing in a final section, there are now actually different options that a tournament creator can pick.

(X number) wins match
(X number) points match
(X number) games match

Which of course for this, the SB does not really do anything. Only in sections with more then 2 people does the SB really do anything.

Thad: Indeed, with 2 players in the final round SB won't work if they tie.I guess here (on BK) both will be winners, am I right?

kleineme: When I used to play at MissYourTurn.com, I had several tournaments get down to just me and another player. Sometimes it would take us more than four rounds to determine a winner. Whether I won or lost, those were great finishes and the way they should be played!

grenv: just in case that you really have to break the tie (title, qualification) you have to decide in favour of a certain tie break system. In those cases I would prefer the head to head result to SB. Let's see it as an abbreviated separate tie break match, for which you often do not have enough time.

But in cases where you do not necessarily have to break the tie, as on this site, I agree that all tied players should advance.

grenv: Right!

kleineme: I agree, it is an arbitrary rule to break ties that doesn't make much sense. But then again no tie breaker makes sense. Even looking at head to head is flawed for the same reason. Why should one game count more than another?

In my opinion tied players should advance regardless of attempts to break the tie.

chessmec: <quote>Sonneborn-Berger [...] is an usual used system.</quote>

yes, it is, but in my eyes it's nonsense. In a round robin you may look at the result(s) between tied players but any other system is just an arbitrary way of breaking ties at all costs.

SB basically honours wins against higher ranked opponents. Agreed: if a player has a better SB then he has scored better against the stronger opponents. But he has also lost more points against the weaker opponents, so what's the sense in granting him the higher rank?

would it be possible to show the online status of players in tournament tables? E.g. using a green dot as on the main page.

chessmec: After logging in, I can visit that front page and THEN the background image isn't visible - the gray background is on at that time. I believe that to be a result of the relevant cookie read by the website, except it's not read before I log in.

WhiteTower: Now, what about blocking this one and only image with your browser?

Fencer: Tell us a bit more, please :)

chessmec: Maybe I wasn't clear - I already have that background image turned off - but the front page of BrainKing has it permanently there whatever your setting is.

Or waiting for a new and improved visual layer of BrainKing.

WhiteTower: Either turning off background image in your settings (do not know if pawns can do that) or blocking this special image only with your browser.

chessmec: The original image is 800x768, 65Kb approx. at 72DPI. I suppose the way the image is right now is perfect for 800x and 1024x resolutions, but any higher and you get repetition on the right side. I'll just have to live with it... Not that I see that page that often anyway.

reza: The image seems to have 60 kB with current resolution, wouldn't be much different with higher I bet. By the way, do some web browsers offer some "cache images" feature? It might be useful in certain cases. Images for brainking pieces ocassionally fail to load and this would help there too, rather that usual "Show picture" approach.

WhiteTower: What about using Browser-Cache?

reza: It gets bigger by a very small amount, because there's nothing in the extra area covered. Anyway, if you come through dial-up, you should really have it turned off anyway, isn't it a waste of your bandwidth?

playBunny: I like the image butnot if it gets bigger!

WhiteTower: Hey what about those poor people struggling to fill their 1600x1200 screen? Do they have to suffer these tiny images?! ;-p

Reza: What background image? I have it turned off in Settings.

WhiteTower: I used to be an active chess player for more than 10 years before BrainKing and I am aware of all possible tie-breaking and other systems. I would never introduce anything which is totally unknown to me.

WhiteTower: But the image gets harder to load which is not that good for players like me who use dial up with really low speed!

Fencer: You're the boss. But did you know about this tie-breaking system before you started BrainKing? ;)

Anyway, back to feature requests. On behalf of people with widescreen monitors, I would ask for a favour: to increase the width of the background brain image to 1280 - this will also cover people with the 1280x1024 normal resolution as well as the 1280x768 widescreen resolution.

I use the name I am used to it. There is no reason to rename it.

WhiteTower: I think Fencer decided well to use "Sonneborn-Berger" as the name ... I think in chess world this name is more known and used than "Neustadtl Score".

Nothing political struggle. I am just wondering about the "Neustadtl-Score"-English Wikipedia.

chessmec: Is this some kind of political struggle? Whoever was first to mention it gets to name it, I think. So both pages claim the same? In that case, name it something neutral :)

WhiteTower: No. If rename, then show both names. In Germany/Austria nobody uses "Neustadtl-Score" (Germen Wikipedia - http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonneborn-Berger )

Fencer: OK, at least rename it to its proper name: Neustadtl score?

Please?

Thad: No. Sonneborn-Berger must stay. Check http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonneborn-Berger out - it is an usual used system.

Thad: No.

I would like to see the moves list sorted from bottom to top. I think it should be an optional setting so that players who prefer it the way it is now can keep it as is.

In longer games, I find that I keep having to scroll to the bottom of the page to study what my opponent did the last few turns, then page back up to the top to study the board, then to the bottom again if I want another look. In long games (I've played Espionage past 100 moves more than once), this can be a pain. If the moves list were sorted with the most recent move on top, this could be avoided and would make at least one player very happy. ;-)

Thanks,
Thad

Fencer: I suppose the Romans will always be right:

Errare humanum est.

Or an even better modern version:

We're mistakes and we make humans.

WhiteTower: Nothing but a missing row in one table :-)

Fencer: Fencer, you're a magician!

No, you're not, but yes, it worked, so come on, let the embarassment aside and tell us what was wrong ;)

WhiteTower: And now?

WhiteTower: I'm a non-paying member and the sorting on the Main Page works for me

M132T003C:

1. When I click on ANY heading in ANY page where "sorting" is available, nothing happens - is this ANOTHER "paying members only" feature or what?

OK here's a real feature request, instead of a misplaced Bug Report:

1. It would be useful if the list of Finished games in the profile could be sorted by clicked on a heading, list the Main Page table.

2. A column for Total Games played would be useful too.

WhiteTower: As we look down to the valley from the hall of the mountain king and wonder how the other half lives. :)

El Cid: This sounds logical, but the converse is true too. Don't join a pond if you know your time is up and you're not going to renew your membership.

Both your idea and the way it is actually done here are fair, though one may not seem right to the person that becomes a Pawn after starting in a pond. I can't remember if it clearly states in the rules as to what happens to you if a pond continues pass the expiration date of your paid membership.

I don't know if it's already been suggested, but I think that when someone is in a pond, and the membership period ends, one should be allowed to continue playing the pond, i.e. the restriction for members only of ponds, should be applied only when the pond starts

Walter Montego: You Rooks are oligarchs! :)

Fencer: Thank you for your reply. I wasn't too clear on how it went. Seems like once you join as a Rook these issues aren't too much of a concern. I had the feeling you had it set up this way because otherwise someone would be thrown out of the tournament in a later round and that just wouldn't be too fair for someone that had made it that far.

Walter Montego: The games always count to the total slots. But in case of second or next round, the max value can be exceeded.

Pioneer54: or Fencer: If a Pawn or Knight member makes it to a second or later round in a tournament, do the slots required to continue in the tournament count against the member's total avaliable or does the fact that they already qualified keep these extra games needed to carry on in the tournament not count against their total slots?

BIG BAD WOLF: Another idea for your 4. is that perhaps the required slots could be reserved for the tournament (or as many as possible if insufficient), or some number that the player suggests having been given a warning that the rest must be played and freed by the time the tourney starts. This would be especially useful when booking far in advance (Lol which would be a week in my case).