Sabotage is not going to happen. IYT is not granting permission and it its their game.

MagisterLudi-- are we supposed to know what "IMNSHO" means?

Folks, here is my take on what has been said.

If, as soem of you say, a player rated 300 points below you has a 40% chance of winning, then the game is flawed! It is not the ratings system, it is the GAME that is flawed! Several of you have said that the lower rated backgammon players lose more than they should, which seems to me that luck plays too much of a role.

I see. I admit I know veyr little about backgammon, when grenv stated that a weak player can beat a strong player based on the luck of the die I figured that could be a problem.

grenv, you said "I think the thing about backgammon is that the luck of the dice means that a weak player can beat a stronger player quite often."

seems to me that the easy solution would be to not play games that are based on luck.

How does FIBS work?

I see little wrong ewith the current format-- whne playing someone rated far below you, of course you are not going to gain much for a win-- if you did gain a lot, then it would not be very hard to gain a high rating.

I do think there are a few glitches with the current rating system, but I do not think it needs to be completely overhauled.

If a player plays soemone who is 400 points lower in rating, he should beat that player 9 out of ten times. So, the amount he gains should be 1/20 of the amount he loses. So, he should gain 3 opints for beating that player but lose 30 points if he loses.

that is close to what happens now at brain King, although I have noticed some oddities.

I like chinese chess and I would like to see it here. But, the problme is that thesame piece looks different for each player, which I find confusing.

I agree with what you tow have said: a little extra space on the harddrive does not hurt at all, and eliminating a little space will not help the problem. BUT since you both agreed with that, I am not sure what this would accomplish:

"Maybe unused names could be removed upon request? Deleting all names that haven't been used for a few months might be a good idea too, but it would be nice to send them a courtesy email first."

HOw would this reduce bandwith at all?

grenv, why not just turn off the autofresh altogether? You can just hit F5 to refresh, or hit the refreash buttton on the toolbar.

It's hard to say what is to blame. I have a cable modem and I have not had any trouble making moves tonight. The dialup should be slower, but not so dramatically slower. It could be a combination of things.

I don't understand all this fuss over timing out in games. I have completed close to 2000 games on IYT and this site, and I have timed out in 6 of them, all 6 were on one occasion when I was out of town for a week without computer access.

It is not difficult to avoid timing out-- choose games with at least 3 days to move, and don't let the timer get so low that tewchnical problems can result in a timeout. Also, don't start so many games that they can't all be gotten to in time because of the sheer volume.

this is a good opint. I too have a tendency to come to a game that I want to ignore for awhile because it is difficutl fo figure out my next move. But, that means I cannot use the "move and go to next game" function because it keeps going back to it. It might help if there were a way to demote the game to the bottom of the list, which is pretty much what scooter was suggesting. But, this should be low priority until the more important matters are taken care of.

I understood you just fine, nothing went over my head.

Are you trying to say you were NOT speaking in opposition to the suggested combination chess variants? It certainly appeared that way.

As for your claims, I see nothing impractical or complicated about the combination variants, what exactly is the problem?

As for my reference to pente, I thought it was fitting since you so vehemently argued in favor of what I (and many others) consider to be an illegitimate variant and then you seemed opposed to apparently legitimate chess variants.

If you were NOT speaking in opposition to the idea of creating those chess variants, then I misunderstood you, but If that is the case it was because your statement was vague, not because anything went over my head.

These seem like legitimate variants to me. WHat is wrong with combining two variants to make another variant? This is better than removing a crucial rule from a game and calling it a variant.

Kevin, I don't think your solution addressed what I said-- if I am making my moves one after another, as I (and probably many others) do, a message in the inbox will not be veyr helpful.

I tihnk the easiest solution is the simplest one-- the games aresent as a pair, and they should be accepted or declined as a pair.

YEs, but there is a problem with this. HWen I am making my moves, I often use the "move and go to ____ game" function, such that I may start playing a game that was intended to be aprt of a pair without realizing it. Then by the time I realize the opponent has not started the other game, I have already moved twice and I cannot delete it.

I agree with Pioneer54, somewhat. There is currently an option similar to what he is saying: You can invite someone to two games, then check the "alternate colors" box, and it will create two independant games that will each count individually and run concurrently.

The problem is, the opponent can accept one of the two and leave the other one, possibly to his advantage.

What I would like to see (and very possibly what Pioneer54 was alluding to) is the option to create a two game set of independent games that MUST be accepted as a pair or not at all. ALso, this would make the pending invites section of the main page less cluttered, because currently each pair I invite someone to takes up two klines on the page.

it appears this might not happen. IYT has a copyright and they might not allow it on other sites.

Do you refresh your browser pagewhen you load your brain King page? I have brain King set to a favorite place, and whne I load it, ti brings up thel ast page, exactly as it appeared. The (XX new) messages will appear as they duid athe last time I viewed the page. Then I hit refresh and it updates to the current status. I don't knopw if this would solve the problem or not for those who are having this problem.

I was wondering what your plan is for the greyed out search function. I have a suggestion, if this isn't what you are already planning. I would like to be able to type in the game number of a game and hit search andh ave theg ame load. That way when someone says "check out this great game of pente that I played" I can easily do so.

there should be a page iof tournament winners, as there is at IYT.

good opints, I forgto about those. 5inline should be replaced by Go-moku, because 5inline is really just a fake version of gomoku.

Wolf, what difference does it make where the stones are placed? It is the same game. The only difference is the board size.

some of the games on mindsports.net look interesting, such as havannah or congo. Some of the explanations of the rules are terrible though. I tihnk it would be interesting to have congo and havannah here on this site.

hmm, I think they were talking about chinese chess, but I might be mistaken.

Fencer, Blazinshore had an idea that he wished to be expressed on this board. This idea is to merge the Pente and Keryo pente message boards into one board. The two are so similar that one board shold suffice for the two games, and this would prevent the need to double post when there is a matter affecting both boards.

It was also suggested that the go moku board also be part of this merger, becasue of its similarities to pente.

It probably couldn't hurt, but still, I think the go-moku message board should remain separate, just because the play and strategy are so different.

--Dmitri

The message boards at DSG (www.pente.org) are like this also (the way they are on little golem.net as described by Big Bad Wolf). It works fairly well.

Messages grouped by thread means one could click on "previous message in thread" and "next message in thread" and under each message, it would have a liunk to the replies to that specific message. This is how it works at IYT. ALso, at DSG, there is a alightly different system that is also effective. Each new thread is listed on a list of topics, and replies to that thread are found by clicking on the main thread.

Iti s hard to explain exactly. CHeck out www.pente.org to see what I mean. BOth ways are useful.

Jason, take another look at what I said-- No one would be FORCED to play any more games. IF the person declines to accept any challenges in a time period, he simply is taken off the ratings leaders board until he does. Do you think soemone should just be able to sit on the leaders board for life without actually PLAYING any of hte other top players? That doesn't make sense. Besides, anyone who is unwilling to play ANY of the other top players does not deserve to be on the top of the leaders board anyway.

you are probably right. It is an interesting idea, but not necessarily one that can be implemented.

But if it is, and a person does not accept the forced challenge, then he would just be removed from the leader boards.... no big deal... if the person is too busy to play even one challenge over such a long period, then he should not object to being removed from the leader boards.

posts that complain about other post not being on topis are really getting tiresome. Mad Monkey, I appreciate your concerns about this matter, but, I think you have taken it to the extreme. The discussion was about adding a new feature (forced challenges) and possible variations of this idea. I don't see why you think this is off topic. We all know there is a general chat board, as you have pointed this out before! And in this particular case, you are complaining about posts that ARE on the right board.

Lovely Sharon, you make a good opint with "Is there any thought to a "top" player's life or schedule.... perhaps they don't have time to play all challengers... ... why don't people get to be a "top" player themselves by winning games on their own accord???..."

however, that is not the reason I was given. THe reason I was given was "I won't play you because you might win." in other words-- (my paraphrase): "I won 5 games, all as player 1, and now I will just sit here and play only the weakest players so that My rating never goes down."

It is difficult to move from the 2 spot into the 1 spot of thep erson in the 1 spot who is 80 points ahead refuses to play.

But, Sundance makes a good point about the long term raitngs, so before too long, this fruad will be a distant memory.

Good point Harley. Ok, forget the top ten tourney then, but Scoter;s idea of the forced challenge is a good one. One must accept a challenge from someone in the top 5 or twn within a two or four week period or soemthing like that. and the challenge MUST be a pair of games, NOT ust the color that the phony player likes to play.

You don't understand, I DO want to play with these players. I think those atop the leader boards should play each other. But, if they opt not to, there is nothing that can be done.

Will they get bored? Maybe, maybe not, but it s irrelevant, because one cna just play a game as player 1 every now and then and remain atop the leader board, undeservedly so.

BlazinBrian, thank you for your civil reply. THe problem is, I cnanot force people ot play the 2 game set-- the people I am referring to choose which games they play, and they only play as white. THen they sit on the ratings leaders board and decline invites to be player 2. THat is a load of crap, and those people do not deserve ot have their name atop the leadres board! A simple extra column will at least show that hte person is playing a disprportionate amount of games as player 1.

Danoscheck, good point. But, Gary pointed out to me that one need not be concerned with someone not offering to play the other side-- you cna simply send an invite for both games, and if the opponent accepts only the game where he goes first, you can delete it!

Fencer, I think it is great that this site has ratings and leaders boards. There is no money at stake with htese games, so the only prizes are pride and recognition. But, I have noticed a bothersome trend, that is, some players play ENTIRELY as player 1 in games like pente and Keryo pente, where player 1 has a big advantage and most people know it. As a result, some people cheaply get ot the top of the rankings who do not deserve to be there.

Here is my idea for a solution: on the ratings boards, there should be an extra column, in addition to name and rating: it should say
"% of games played as player 1." Then everyone can see who the real gamers are and who the phonies are. Since the ratings calculation is the same for player 1 or player 2, I think this is essential if the ratings are to mean anything.

Magister Ludi, I agree. But, I think Fencer is already workign on this-- he has already done it for tournaments, and I think he said he is working on it for non-tournament play. As it is, we cna invite the player to two separate games, but, being able to do it in one step would be nice.

Hello all. I apologize for not keeping my posts on the appropriate boards. I will post my rants on the approrpiate boards from now on. I think some of these discussions got carried away before everyone realized we weren't conducting them in the right place.

If anyone wishes to continue the arguments about pente, Keryo pente, or IYT, we can do so at the pente, Keryo pente, and general chat boards, respectively.

Yes, the "i" and the l" get confused, particularly when upper case and lower case are used. what is confusing about not having an "i"?

I just wanted to mention once more how important the 2 game sets are in tournaments. In the pente and keryp pente tournaments that I have signed up for, it looks like several of the sections may be decided solely on the basis of who got to be white in the matchup between the two best players. I hope the implementation of two game sets is a priority for pente and kerro pente (and it probably would be a good idea for all the games).

Also, I may have mentioned this before, but I would like to have the option of inviting people to a non-tournament 2-game set, where both games start at the same time, and each game counts individually as a win or a loss.

thep ente and keryo pente boards seem to be workign well, and the occasional glitch from the first few days seems to be gone. Good job.

what need is there for card games on a turn based games site?

I was invited to join a fellowship. in as few words as possible, someone please explain to me what it means to be in a fellowship, thanks.

Maybe someone who is already a rook can anwser this question. How long after I paid by credit card before I gain rook status?

testing edit

I would like to have the option to create a 2-game match and have both games start right away.

ALso, I had a thought for a chess variant. I had always thought that a piece that moves like a queen and a knight would be a great idea, and apparently it alrady exists. How about incorporating it into a game? Maybe in Janus chess, there could be one knight-bishop per team and one maharajah per team, played on the 10X8 board that Janus is on.

I noticed the chess board can be resized, will this be possible for pente also?

Last, I would like to commend for checking these boards and responding often, I don't know how you keep up with it all but it's great to see.