Nothingness: so basically they have moved 2x per month

Uhm, "they"? You know your opponent could have written exactly the same? If your opponent moves twice a month, it means you move twice a month as well.

Nothingness: I never get upset if they move fast unless its an unually low amount of time. such as 1 hour and they make 10 moves in a short time. then they go away, then,i go away. then when i come back game is over and i lose.,

Let me get this straight. You and your opponent play 10 moves in a short time, gaining some pool time. Then your opponent stays away for a while, but not long enough to time out. Your opponent moves, and then you stay away longer - and you time out. And that's your opponents fault?

when someone commits to that time limit they should make the effort to stay online and finish that game. if i play you in a game that you created with a 1 hour limit and bonus and you move 8x right way and i have no games going on i will go offline ( b/c i have no games to play now) then you come back and move then the next day i time out.

Eh? You go offline. So, it's you who isn't making the commitment. Don't blame your opponent if you decide to stay away till the next day if you're playing a time limit of 1 hour/move. And certainly don't accuse him of not making the commitment. If he doesn't time out, but you do, it's you who doesn't make the commitment.

Nothingness: I really fail to get what it is you want. You seem to be upset if your player plays fast for a while, then "doesn't move for three days" (which he can only do after accruing enough time on the clock), yet it's fine if you're awarded extra time (by moving fast enough), and take it?

It seems you want to have your cake and eat it.

Nothingness: i even have to do this in times of great concentration. i will think about a move for 4-5 days.

So, let me get this straight. You want a time control that forces your opponent more than once a day, never going to have a 3 day break, but you want to allow yourself 4-5 days thinking time for a move?

Doesn't seem quite fair to me.

Nothingness: Why would you play 3 moves/day, and then not move for 3 days? And repeat this? Note that when using the Fisher clock, you can prevent this from happening. A setting of "1/1/1" requires one move a day. Of course, if you and your opponent coordinate, you'll still be able to drag a 300 move game into a 1.5 year time stretch. But that'll require both you and your opponent to move at the last possible time.

Nothingness: If you move 3 times a day, it must mean your opponent moves 3 times that day as well. With that pace, you do your 150 move game in 50 days. What's the problem here?

Nothingness: If you and your opponent live 12 timezones apart, and are both primed and ready to move instantly between noon and midnight localtime, your game will progress at a steady speed of 1 move/day. It will also be impossible to do 10 moves/day. You can only play multiple moves a day if your online time overlaps with your opponents, and you and your opponent move in the overlap time.

Nothingness: 6-8 hours will "punish" average movers. And it will even punish one of the players for being in the wrong timezone.

Considering players come from all over the globe, a bonus of at least 24h/move is required to be fair on all players. Regardless of max. pool time. And regardless of the game being played - be it Espionage or anything else.

SL-GentleKiller: I run a daily tournament, in all games, so it's not hard to find a tourney starting soon.

dAGGER: do you really play to gain achievements?

I don't. I don't compromise my playing style in order to be able to gain an achievement. Or will I play games I otherwise wouldn't play.

Chaos: What is disappointing was that a game resigned by the opponent doesn't count as a win for an achievement.

Don't expect me to continue a lost game just so my opponent can gain an archievement.

Chaos: Note that this is only an issue if you play with a Fisher clock setting if there's no (or a small) increment on each move. If you gain 24 hours or more on each move, the risk is much smaller (it still can give one player some advantage as one player may build up "spare time" more rapidly than the other though - but even this is a solved problem).

Thad: Littlegolem has a time pace which I finds the most ideal of all the time paces I've encountered on the various games sites I have played on. Each game you start with 240 hours. After you move, you get 36 hours added to your clock, and if you then exceed 240 hours, the clock is set to 240 hours. You have 20 vacation days a year. If you time out on a game, and you have vacation days left, you get 24 hours added to the clocks on *all* your game, one day is subtracted from your pool of vacation days. You can exceed 240 hours this way, but only until you move. After a move, the time is capped at 240 hours. There are no weekends. No system holidays. No abuse. No buying of more vacation days. Noone is able to drag out a tournament, other than playing long games and moving once every 36 hours. IMO, except for a yearly lump of vacation days (I'd rather see 2 days/month added to the pool, with the pool maxed at 24 days), an ideal pace.

Thad: Yes, but I'd lose the game if it's a game from the next round of a tournament that starts 4 days before I return from vacation, wouldn't I? While I can control my own pace to a certain extend, I cannot control the pace of others. Which makes a Fischer clock too dangerous for my liking.

Nothingness: I don't think we ever had the ability to change time pace on BK (and certainly not in tournament games). I like Fisher clocks. I used to play on FICS, and I always use the Fisher clock. Little golem uses a Fisher clock as well. Yet, I never play games with the Fisher clock on BK. Because here on BK, Fisher clock implies no vacation days. And I know that during the year I will go on vacation. And there's no garantee at all a game or match doesn't last half a year. Or that a next round of a tournament doesn't start during, or right before my vacation.

Would BK have time pace of Fisher clock with vacation days, I'd never use the regular clock again.

Chaos: You could create such a maximum by setting the increment field to 0. (Then the Fisher clock reduces to a "normal" chess clock).

IMO, such a move pace is totally out of place in BK - unless players play at the same times, it's very likely to give one player a huge advantage clock wise. (Say you always play between 12AM and 9PM, dedicating 9 hours a day playing BK. I only play 10 minutes a day, from 10PM till 10:10PM (time adjusted to your timezone). You will then have a serious risk of losing our game on time, while I will not. Simply because there will be 14 hours between my move and your first opportunity to move, and only 10 hours between your move and my move. I will gain 4 hours/move on the clock - even if you are a much more dedicated player than I am).

dAGGER: Maybe we can choose some events with long time limit and some other with short limit.

And if you become a member, you can actually make tournaments yourself.

Chaos: Oh, I know I could look in the move history, make notes and such. But that is too much work for me. BK could also decide to not show chess boards anymore, afterall "there's the move history". I'll stop playing chess here if the board will disappear.

There are many, many other games (here and at other sites) to be played that don't involve the work that Espionage requires. So Espionage loses, and I don't play it here.

Nothingness: Game length in itself doesn't mean much. Many Anti-Backgammon games last over 200 or even 300 moves as well, yet there have been more Anti-Backgammon games than all the Espionage variant games combined.

I've only played a few Espionage games (not even enough to own any BKR). The main reason I don't play it is the BK is a turn based website, where games can easily take months or years to finish. This is fine if the board reveals all information needed to play the game - that is, history isn't important. This is not the case with any of Espionage variants, which makes me not to want to play it.

dAGGER: I think you can safely assume the majority of the players are aware tournaments exist, that they can sign up, and furthermore, that there are boards for each (group of) games.

I also think there the number of different people posting on boards is much smaller than the number of players - no doubt many player don't read (all) the boards because they just want to play, not read or post.

I think you have to face the possibility that Espionage just isn't that popular. Just over 13 thousand games have been played - counting all five variants together. That's less than a far more recent game like Knight Fight, which, without the benefits of variants, has more than 18.5 thousand finished games. And it's utterly dwarved by the number of Backgammon matches whose count stands as of this moment at 861957, 65 times as many as all the Espionage variants.

Ah, yes, I forgot about the vulcano's for a moment: he can just keep circling them.

I think you should be able to corner him - but it would be unfair to discuss an ongoing game.