I wasnt starting a coversation about ladders so the post could disappear down the page, I was saying I would run one if there is enough interest.

I know Fencer is happy with them but I think they are probably a low priority on his to do list at the moment.

Brian thank you for your kind words I was touched.;•) I love this place and spend a lot of time here. When you extend a helping hand it comes full circle. Thanks it's not just me that does this. I have some great people behind me helping every step of the way. I 2nd it. GO BRAINKING.

If I remember correctly, I was thinking Fencer liked the idea of possible having different "ratings" or ladders and such.

Then again, maybe I'm just wishfully thinking!

I would like to publicly thank Linda for setting up this tournament and her hard work with Fencer to allow those pawns and knights with full limits of games to enter this tournament through them. I think it is a great idea and I think we will get well beyond 100 players. I encourage all to join this tournament and throw your 5 bucks into the pot. 5 bucks is like 2 new release DVDs at the video store. So chip in. Also I am also adding, that if I should get lucky and win the tournament, I want to donate the 50 bucks to the boost a pawn program that Linda has to get some more pawns memberships. If you know someone who is a pawn and would like a membership and cant afford it, ask them to get in touch with Linda or get their permission to have their ID turned into Linda. I think this is also a great idea. GO BRAINKING!!!!

If you are a knight or a pawn and do not have room to enter this tournament and would like to pm me with your nic & Id # We will get you in. Thanks ;•)

I was thinking about setting up a simple ladder for the BK reversi players similar to the GT ones, one ladder per variation.
If you are interested, please let me know in one way or another.
It would be set up on my website and accesable from BK. But the games would have to started manually etc.

Steve

It was everyone.

i take it that it wasnt just me that couldnt get on last night ? (with the game time suspended is the only clue)

Thanks :-)

That sounds like a fun idea. Good luck with it Kevin. :•)

Since I have to renew my membership soon anyways, i figured i'd have another membership competition so i could pay for them together. I do not want to simply set up a tournament because i want any pawn to be able to enter regardless of their current tournament status, and do not want to give it simply to the person who is the best at a certain game.

So I have decided to have the following competition:

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Any player at the pawn or knight membership level can enter. To enter, you must send me either a private message (to Kevin) or an email (to Kevin_P86@hotmail.com or kevin_p861@yahoo.com) which contains as many english words of a certain length that you can find. However, each word in your list must be the same number of letters and the winners will be decided based on total number of letters in the list of words. All the words must either be found at www.dictionary.com or the URL must be provided to the online dictionary in which it was found. No proper nouns, slang or abbreviations allowed (including those found at www.dictionary.com). The prizes will be a number of 1 year Brain Rook memberships - the number depends on the number of entrants. The deadline for entries will be Friday, March 19, 2004 (the last day of winter). Only one entry per player will be accepted.

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I will allow Rooks to enter as well provided that they give me the name of a pawn or knight that will receive the membership, should they win.

Good luck everyone!
Kevin

good girl ;oÞ

OOPS...sorry Steve :( and Knights :(

Your wife and I Andersp will have to set up a permanent pay link between bank accounts LOL

Come on Long John..you know ..the more water you take from a well the better it is! LOL

Move or Pay!! LOL

Like I had said in previous posts, I feel this idea is a special tournament and they should not count toward your games played limit(20 for pawns, 50 for knights) It also should not count against knights or pawns who carry on in another backgammon tournament. This pay tournament should be considered a special exemption from those restrictions. You will get more response that way, in my opinion.

Like I had said in previous posts, I feel this idea is a special tournament and they should not count toward your games played limit(20 for pawns, 50 for knights) It also should not count against knights or pawns who carry on in another backgammon tournament. This pay tournament should be considered a special exemption from those restrictions. You will get more response that way, in my opinion.

Ok is this suggestion better? The most active player doesnt pay a nickel. The (we) others pay the difference to the "winner". So if Steve has 800 moves and #2 has 700..then # 2 pays 800-700 = 100 x 10 cents...and so on...und so weiter (german)

better Steve? LOL

I take it there's no potential legal problem with BrainKing making money from the prize tournaments(?) It might be an idea to make them a regular feature with fairly fast time limits, maximum 4 days to avoid the automatic weekend. Is there a possibility to waive the restriction on pawns competing in multiple tournaments if they play in paying tournaments?

I think Linda J's idea is great, among other things by getting the ball rolling it puts members in the mood to make a difference. How about tournaments in other popular games, chess for example?

Andersp , I could never afford 1 cent per move, you think.. a weeks wage to Fencer from me would be phenominal LOL

LJ so what happened to the J after the L on your head? LOL

Bernice you forgot the Knights, they pay too :o)

I dont really have time for this BUT....
We need the improved hardware to support the number of players.
The vast majority of the players do not contribute.
Rather than approach the FEW who do pay for more whether $5 or $12.50 how about restricting the Free access in favout of the paid... it might encourage those who are happy with the site but live within their twenty games to contribute and thus use the site more.
NO I AM NOT SUGGESTING BANNING PAWNS... but if the cake is limited first shares should go to the people who paid for it....

302paid players....is that all there are???? not counting CAOZ and management? wow...no wonder Fencer is struggling.....even at $5donation per head $1500 isnt going to go anywhere.

it works out at $12.50 approx per paid player, to raise the $4000 that is needed...
if each and every one of us paid for an extra 6 months right now....PROBLEM SOLVED...alternately we could each pay for a pawn, but would they all renew or just enjoy our money and donation of a membership and then leave?

I think each of us extending a further 6 months now is a far better idea.

Lucky its on your forehead LJ..could been worse! LOL

it took me 3 days to shut of my auto-refresh

You took that long lol

I dont use e-mail notifications or it fills my box up full of them. LOL

I shut mine off day 2!

I'm not sure if this has a negative effect on the server, but how about turning off e-mail notification for pawns?

Not really as it is not a real stock. I'M not saying to put it on the NYSE.

Nobody's forcing anybody to buy shares.

Getting things tied up into stock by making BrainKing a corporation would make things complicated from the legal aspect. This would make some lawyers who do this for a living rich and I am pretty sure Fencer does not have the resources to start down that path. If he did we would have a new server on the way. LOL

Thats what a rate reduction of future fees are!

sure he would, he would just be getting it up front, at 2 dollars off per share, it would take 7.5 years to pay back the price of a $15 share

I still like the idea of selling stock, say at $15 or $20 a share, instead of paying cash dividends, they could be in the form of a couple of dollars off per share on their membership fees

Must be LJ so he can afford that server for BrainKing. LOL

Steve would pay for the server by himself as often as he hits the top of that list. lol

LOL Rod...but agree it had been easy to count the fee :)

Brian, AndersP's post was a joke. Because Steve is frequently on top of the daily # of moves list.

I know we are focused on the short term solution to the server situation. However while we are discussing ways to afford a bigger and better server, lets think about the long term success of Brain King. The only way is gain more PAYING MEMBERS. The only way is to give the pawns a little taste of what they are missing by not being a member. I still feel the best way is to aid them in becoming paying members. Offer tournaments to get more pawns invloved and make the prize of winning it a membership. Sponsor more pawns. I know Linda is doing this already with her Boost a Pawn club. We all have friends and family that we play with on this site. Maybe extend a 6 month membership to them. You pay for it and they get it. THis is a good way to let them in all that they are missing by being a pawn. How many members would seriously consider being a pawn again??? I know it has been suggested that we invent a different level of membership but how about new payment options. Some do not wish to pay for 6 months or 12 months at a time. Offer monthly and 3 month membership plans as well. When you average it out it comes to about 2 dollars a month or so for a rook. Less for a knight. That option to pay as you go each month might make it worth it. You could even set it up as a automatic bank payment each month so they would not have to remember to renew it. I think any pawn could afford 2 or 3 bucks at one time to play as a member each month. Anyone like these ideas or have anything to add??

Why should people be forced to pay for their moves they make in a day? Members are already paying for these moves so why charge them more?? I still like the tournament thing and the idea of renewing memberships, and buying friends a membership and converting pawns into members. That may very well get us to where we need to go next.

How about 10 cents for each move during one day?
100 moves = 1000 cents = 10 USD (i think LOL)
Good idea Steve? :)

"If you do not play backgammon and would like to donate please send me a pm. Thanks :•)"

Id like to point out that if a pawn wants to donate, then maybe they should just get a membership, and if a member wants to donate, then there is already a link on the left for doing that.

Instead of talking about it all day, we're doing something to raise money. We are trying to set up a prize tournament to raise money for BK. The tournament will be backgammon with an entrance fee of $5 with all proceeds going to BK. The prize will be $50 to the winner. Get a chance at $50 and help BK all in one. You will be asked to pay the fee of $5 once we know we have enough interested players. All entrance fees will have to be collected before the tournament can begin.
In order for this to work well we are hoping for at least 100 entrants which would be $500
$450 would go to BK and $50 to the winner. Please only serious entrees please. If you sign up for this tournament we will take it that you will be willing to pay the fee.

You can sign up for this tournament
Here

If you do not play backgammon and would like to donate please send me a pm. Thanks :•)

Same here, Crissie and Steve. Just keep hitting refresh and cross your fingers! :o)

Thats a great post, Brian1971. LindaJ also runs a fellowship that can help out pawns who can't afford memberships, but would like one. Look her up for details!

I have been getting error stuff for the last couple of days now. Sometimes I try to gain access by typing new.brainking.com into my browser or try getting in through brainking.info. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesnt.

I too have been getting this error message, "http 500 internal server error", since last night?? This is the first I've been able to get on at all. Anybody else???

I wasnt sure because there was always plenty of players online when I get back LOL

Yeah steve, me too, for a few days now. Mine says either the server is too busy to use or hat the site ran into a technical problem, or sometimes even that that item cannot be used. Its been frustrating to say the least. I'm sure it has been so slow around here because others are having similar problems. I bet it is taken care of soon, as always.

Good luck Fencer et al.!!!!

I do enjoy playing on this site and having a brain knight membership is a luxury item for me as I make only about 10,000 USD right now and have a basic monthly budget of 700 a month. I do not have extras such as cable or satelitte TV or even a car. I get around with help from those who are willing to help me in bad weather. Otherwise I hike to work, grocery store, laundry, etc. I cant afford to pay more. However the members unless they want to should have to pay more. We are already supporting the site. Giving extra perks for donating money is a good idea but it makes those who cant feel inadequate. Sending private donations is ok if you want to. However lets try encouraging pawns to join brainking as at least 6 month pawns for a trial. They can see what membership advantages there are and if they are like me they would never go back to a pawn. Heck 10 USD right now or 10 EUR as of March 1 is a bargain. Be polite and reasonable and not pressure them, but in conversation see what they feel about being a member when you outline the advantages you enjoy. Assist them to the right customer support people for any questions they have about payment too. If just 400 pawns would buy into a brain knight membership for a year there would be enough then to pay for the server and have some left over for saving for future upgrades to the site and BrainKing2. Also I am sure Fencer would hate to do this but maybe for a short while get a sponsor or two for the site. After about 3 or 4 months maybe this would help too. Think about it 400 pawn memberships converted into brain knights is not much at all. That means if each of us can convert one the money would be there. I havent converted any, but I have had a few who said they would when they had the money to do so because they think this is a great site.