El Cid: I'm not thinking about any particular user. I know who you're thinking about. Believe me, she isn't the only one - I've created a lot of tournaments, and I can see from my mailbox when someone is mass timing out on games.

And I find the "there's this tournament I really, really want to participate in, but I cannot remember signing up nor its name, nor when it starts" not very believable. If you cannot even remember that you signed up for it, you won't miss it either.

But don't worry. I only made a feature request. When was the last time you saw any request here actually be implemented? ;-)

El Cid: Note that a player isn't banned - just removed. If he/she is still active, he/she can sign up again. But it gives them a moment to contemplate whether they may have too many games going on.

Here's a suggestion: if a person loses a game because of a time out, that player is removed from all tournaments (s)he has signed up for, and that haven't started yet. This prevents that if someone becomes inactive, but still has signed up for gazillion tournaments, many are started in which one of the players won't move and the game times out.

pedestrian: The purpose of having rule 12 is for the end-game to be meaningful - or not awfully dragging. Image an end-game where there are only Kings on the board. Or both players having a King and a Bishop. Or King vs. King + Knight. For an OTB game, or a site that automatically determines draws, I wouldn't use rule 12, and just consider them draws (either directly, or using the 50-moves rule), but since this is BK, I think it's better to avoid positions that are draws, and require manual intervention.

joshi tm: That's a bit of a silly argument. I guess you didn't like Dice Chess either, because up to then, using dice wasn't the way Chess was played on BK?

pedestrian I would not consider a move that goes from a position where a King is in Check to a position where a (possible other) King is in Check as eliminating the Check. So rule 10 would not kick in. I guess rule 10 & 11 could be refined to: 10) If a Player can reduce the number of Kings in Check, he must do so. 11) A Player may not increase the number of Kings in Check, unless no other move is possible.

AbigailII: I agree with other posters that Dice Chess can be a bit repeatative. Here's a variant I came up with. I've never play tested it though.

1. Played on a 10x8 board.


2. Each player has 3 Kings, 1 Queen, 1 Archbishop, 1 Chancellor, 1 Rook, 1 Bishop, 1 Knight, and 10 Pawns.


3. White starts with 10 Pawns on the 2nd row; Black with 10 Pawns on the 7th.


4. The remaining pieces of White are placed randomly on the first row, under the condition no 2 Kings are placed next to each other.


5. Blacks pieces are placed on the 8th row, mirrorring White's.


6. Each Player has two 8-sided dice; each face representing one of the 8 different pieces.


7. On each turn, the Player's dice are rolled. Player must move one of the pieces shown on the dice - or promote a Pawn to the shown piece. (So, if Player rolls Rook and Bishop, he either moves his Rook, moves his Bishop, or promotes a Pawn to Rook or Bishop).


8. If a Player cannot move either of the shown pieces (because the pieces are blocked, or captured and no longer on the board), nor promote a Pawn to a shown piece, the Player must forfeit his move.


9. Pawns aren't allowed to promote to King nor to Pawn.


10. If a Player is in Check, and he has the option to move out of Check (or to eliminate the Check), he must do so.


11. A Player may not move into Check unless he has no other move available.


12. A King attacking a King is not counted as Check.


13. First Player to capture all opponents Kings wins.


14. On the first move, one of the dice will show a Pawn.

Possible variants on rolling doubles:

• Player may make any moves he wants.


• Player may move indicated piece twice (but not capture a King on the second move).


• Player must pass.

talen314: I enjoy Dice Chess and Dice Chess 10x10, but I don't care for Ice Age Chess. I cannot see any enjoyment from marrying the two.

Herlock Sholmes: Uhm, never heard of gammons and backgammons?

Herlock Sholmes: I rather have cribbage first, before having variants ;-)

Undertaker.: If there is a limit, I haven't hit it yet.

Undertaker.: Wouldn't it be better to educate confused people than to limit the amount of tournaments created?

pedestrian: I see. I first thought draws would only score 0 after a double. But it just means that N-point matches become N-win matches.

Herlock Sholmes: because I discovered a brilliant idea I WILL DOUBLE

Right. So, if that's the only reason you double, it means "if you double, you think you've discovered a brilliant idea". Or are there other reasons that you will double? Reasons that occur often enough for your opponent not to consider "double by Herlock Sholmes means he thinks he has discovered a brilliant idea".

pedestrian: The leading player can double the effect of a draw, thereby bringing himself closer to winning the match. This can be remedied by not scoring draws at all, and I really can't see any serious drawbacks of this solution.

Wait, you do see that the leading player can double the effect of a draw bringing himself closer to winning the match if there's a double, but you cannot see it's beneficial for the trailing player that draws won't count? If I'm trailing in a match, and the current game is likely to be a draw, there shouldn't be any hesitation to double if that means the game effectively won't count, should there?

Of course, you could do something wild like "In the case of a draw, the person holding the cube scores half the count on the cube, the other player gets 0. If no player holds the cube (no doubling has happened) the score is 0.5-0.5". Which means that a score of "1-0" could mean either win by white, or a draw with white having doubled. Non-sensical if you ask me.

Herlock Sholmes: Just because you can think of a few positions where you would like to use a doubling cube doesn't imply it makes sense to have a doubling cube. Having a doubling cube means the cube can be used at any time, not just in the positions of Alekhine games.

If it would be my doubling game scenerio I would offer doubling cube to my opponent after discovering a brilliant combination and he would most likely accept it ... is it so hard to imagine that I would double my score ?

Ah, so, your strategy is "if I double, I've discovered a brilliant move". That would only make your opponent look harder. He's then more likely to find the combination as well, and either refuses the double if he believes the combination to be winning, or taking it if he thinks he can refute the combination.

And those who played with him were top players, not brainking masters ... and he wouldn't offer doubling cube after the first move since he also was beaten by others. So, your argument about automaticaly doubling after the first move has no place here ...

Ah, and since BK is populated by Alekhines and players who have beaten him, your arguments do hold?

You may call me an engineer, but I try to see what the effect is of introducing a new rule. And the situation is that BK isn't a closed tournament whose organizing committee invited a group of closed matched players. Player strength varies on BK. There are many games between players of different strength. In tournaments, you don't get to pick your opponent.

Herlock Sholmes: there are two guys who want to play chess for some stake, and agree that they can raise the stake during the game and if the opponent refuses to accept, game ends and the money belongs to the one who offered the doubling ... could you tell me what is wrong with this scenario

For one, this has no analogy with BK. In BK, you win, draw or lose. There are no other outcomes. There's no "winning by a larger amount". If you play a 10 point match, you get the same reward regardless whether you win 10-9 or 10-0.

Second, that would mean the stronger player would offer to double the stakes at the first move, while the position is still equal, instead of waiting till he has an advantage, in order to maximize his chance of playing for doubled stakes.

Off the top of my head, I'd say the draw problem could perhaps be solved by counting draws as 0 points instead of 0.5. Wouldn't that cancel all speculations about doubling in a drawn position?

Draws are a fundamental part of the game of chess, and very common. Scoring a draw as a loss is a big change of the game. You might as well replace the rooks with diamond aces. It just doesn't make sense.

joshi tm: I think when you are the doubling player the opponent could always redouble when he thinks he is winning, so if you double there allways will be 4 point at stake when you double on turn 1.

I doubled because my rating is 1746 while Herlock Sholmes rating is 1560. If those ratings are our true strengths, the expected score is 0.74 - 0.26. Who wouldn't double in backgammon if the their equity was 0.74?

Of course, ratings only approximate true strength, but given enough games, it's a fair estimate.

And if my opponent waits to redouble when the position gives him a winning advantage - I would resign, losing 2 points, not 4.

Herlock Sholmes: No. Three weeks from now, I'm not going to remember there's one of my 300 games with a "pretend" doubling cube.

But I could tell you what my opening move would be: "Double". So, basically, all scores are doubled. Instead of "1-0", "0.5-0.5", or "0-1", the scores will be "2-0", "1-1", "0-2". Frankly, that doesn't do a whole lot for me.

Herlock Sholmes: as far as I understand, two kings and two bishops is automatic draw, and ofering doubling cube is a nonsens.

First of all, there's no such thing as an "automatic draw" in Chess. There are some blitz rules that state that if your opponent runs out of time, you cannot claim a win if you don't have the material to mate, regardless how bad your opponent plays; there are also some rules stating in which situations one of the players may claim a draw - but those are not enforced in BrainKing. Second, I'm not a fool. I picked a situation that's theoretically a draw, but does allow a mate: White: Kc1, Bc3; Black: Ka1, Ba2. Black is in check, a2 is occupied by his own Bishop, b1 and b2 are covered by the white King. Third, how is the "nonsense" part to be coded? A game starts with a doubling cube. At what moment in the game does offering a double lead to BrainKing replying "heh, dude, we're playing with a doubling cube, but obviously, doubling is nonsense, so I'm not going to let you"?

Herlock Sholmes: It doesn't make sense to have a double cube in a game with perfect knowledge, like in chess. With chess, if the rating difference is high enough, I will have an expected chance of not losing of say 70%. That means, I'd double on move 1. In each and every game of the multigame match.

And then there's the matter of draws. Suppose you have two players, playing 2-point match. One player wins the first game, leading 1-0. In the second game, all there's left on the board are two kings and two bishops - one bishop each, of different colour. The person trailing offers a draw. The person leading refuses the draw, doubles instead. Now what?

grenv: No need to compromise. Autoplay is an option. If I turn it on, my moves are automated where possible. I don't see why the opponent should care one way or the other.
I care. If I play a combination move in many checker variants, where my opponent has to play a forced move (easy because in many variants you cannot decline taking your opponents piece), why have to wait a week for a forced move, you already know is going to come, and there isn't a single thing the opponent can do (other than resigning) to prevent it.

I see autoplay not any different from playing two stones in connect-6, 5 colours in Logik, or rolling three times in Dice Poker. In those games, noone is saying "but I want to mindlessly push a button in between my opponents moves". So why would they insist on doing so in a forced move play?

Herlock Sholmes: Boring.

If Ludo would ever get autopass (which would make it barely playable - it's actually autoplay it should do : "hey, brainking, you're a computer, just keep playing my moves unless there's an actual move that requires a decision from an entity with a braincell"), having a double cube would spoil much of the autopass benefits as it does in *gammon.

OTOH, due to the lack of autoplay, I don't play Ludo anyway, so what do I care?

Autoplay -- the feature Brainking is missing the most.

I'd like it for a tournament creator to be possible to have a list of people who aren't allowed to sign up. I'm getting really tired of people signing up for all the tournaments, only to resign almost all games in the first couple of moves.

Snoopy: Tournaments are sorted by time they start. If you have no interest in signing up for a tournament that starts in the far future, you don't have to sift through them.

talen314: 5) Don't start every next page with the same large box with prize tournaments.

coan.net: I'd love to see some new games - preferably games that have been tested, and have different mechanics, instead of yet another oh-golly-let's-just-think-up-silly-variant-1098-of-an-existing-game.

I've posted many suggestions in the past. Don't think there's much point in repeating them.

talen314: Judging by the list of most popular games at Brainking this may be a Chess variant that would be popular.

But "Mine Chess" as you describe it doesn't have randomness - at least not in the sense of 9 out of 10 games you list. It's just a game without perfect information - more like Logik, Battleboats, Frog Finder/Legs and Espionage, games that currently rank 12, 16, 18, 22, 23, 49, 51, 67, 73, 77, 83. The first Espionage variant comes in at in 51, and I would rank 'Mine Chess' closest to that (of all non-chess variations).

Whether Mine Chess is an interesting variation or not, I don't know, but I don't agree with your popularity argument. New games are, IMO, always fun, but I prefer almost anything above yet-another-chess-variation.

talen314: What happens if a king moves into check of a ghost rider? It's not said explicitly, but are we to assume ghost riders move like knights? If an opponent is told a ghost rider moves, is the opponent told which ghost rider moves, or just that one of the ghost riders moved? Do ghost riders prevent check? That is, say my opponents king is on a1, I move my rook to c1, and my opponent has a ghost rider on b1, is he in check?

The option of the non-moving player to "block" a move makes it an oddity with respect to all the other 2-player games in BK: it requires both players to make actions before a 'move' is done.

grenv: Even # of games isn't really a good option, since you can play for the draw late in a series if ahead, but not with this option.

Less opportunity for "playing for the draw" I would find an additional feature.

El Cid: I probably would not know exactly how many games I would get (for instance on a 21 points match with doubling cube)
That would be a single game.

Note that for round robin tournaments, you don't know exactly how many games you get now-a-days either - it will depend on the number of people that are in your section. For elimination tournaments, you will know exactly how many games you get. If it's a 3-game match, you will get 3 games. Not 2. Not 4.

I would end up (at least on what concerns to my plays only) slowing up the games.
Your games might become slower, but your matches will be faster. And the tournament itself as well.

Note also that if we have a tournament "2 games for each 2 players", the games are now already played in parallel.

MadMonkey: If a game in a Tournaemt was first to 5 points for example, at present they get one game at a time, you are suggesting they get 5 at once
Yes.

MadMonkey: Pawns, Bishops and Knights already have the option to not participate in a tournament that will start many games at once. ;-)

Here's another way to speed up some tournaments: if the match type is N-game, or N-win, start N games at once, in stead of waiting for 1 game to finish before starting the next. (For N-win matches, start N games at once. Start a new game if a game ends in a draw, or if it's won by the person currently trailing). This would for instance greatly speed up stairs.

SL-Mark: I create tournaments with start dates month or even a year in advance. The reason is that that way, I don't have to remember when to create new tournaments. And it's not that you have to wade through them. Tournaments are sorted by start date. If you're not interested in a tournament that starts in the far future, don't go to the last pages.

Fencer: Yes. In fact, that's how I would handle vacation days in all situations. If a person runs out of time in a game, and still has vacation days left, add 24 hours to the clock of all games the person has running, including games where it's his opponents turn. This may cause a person to have more than time on the clock than the maximum, but that's ok; resetting to the max (if necessary) will happen as soon as the player moves.

Let me try to given an example. First note that "non"-Fisher Clock games are actually Fisher Clock games. If you have a game with 5 days/move, it's just a 5/5/5 Fisher Clock game. Say I play three games A, BC, and D B. A, B and C are regular Fisher Clock game: 10/1.12/10. D is 5 day/move game, 5/5/5. I'm on vacation, I run out of time in game A. It's not my move in games B and C. Assume I have 48 hours left on my clock in game B, and 240 (max) in game C. I have 120 hours in game D (5 days). If I have vacation time left, my clock is set to 24 hours in game A, 72 in game B, 264 hours in game C and 144 hours in game D. After 2 hours, my opponent moves in game B. 24 hours later, I time out again. Clocks for games A, B, C and D are reset to 24, 74, 286 and 168 hours. 12 hours later, I come back from vacation. I have 12 hours to move in game A, and 62 in game B. If my opponents move in C and D, I will have 286 and 168 hours, more than the max, but once I move the clocks are set to 240 and 120 (their max).

Note that I assumed weekend don't exist. (Weekends are just periods clocks don't run).

coan.net: I really do hope the next version of BK will have a time setting that allows both the Fisher clock and vacation time. I'd switch all my tournaments over to that - and it would be my preferred time setting. I'd probably wouldn't even play anything else.

The rationale? I like to play games with an average fast pace. But I don't want to have to eat (or have my opponents eat) from their vacation days if I (or they) are away for a couple of days. Hence I never create (or play) games or tournaments with a time limit less than 5 days/move, for no other reason than that I sometimes need them. Fisher clock would be ideal for me, except that currently, Fisher clock means no vacation time. But most years, I will be on vacation for 3 weeks - I need to be able to take vacation. Hence my games (and tournaments) progress much slower than I like, but picking any of the other options BK offers risks me having to time out, or take vacation. And that's something people don't like.

My preferred pace? 168 hours initial time, 36 hours added to the clock at each move, 168 max time (I think that's 7/1.12/7 in BK notation), no weekends, auto-vacation. That gives an average pace of about 2 moves each three days while still allowing to be away for a few days without vacation penalty, and the longer vacation. No weekend nonsense (but people who aren't able or willing to play on a weekend can still cope).

grenv: But that requires planning in advance. I use auto vacation because I don't know the exact dates I need them. It will depend on when my opponents in the games with the fastest time controls will move - if I play a game with 4 days/move, and I'm away for 7 days, I may need 0, 1, 2, or 3 vacation days, depending on when my opponent moves. I don't always know when I will be back. And after coming back from vacation, it may take a few days to make moves in all my games, depending on what other pressing things I need to do, and how many games I have to move in. Autovacation is just much more convenient. As for "dragging on tournaments", I don't experience that. Whenever I look at a tournament that has been started a long time ago, and hence is "dragging", it's always because of active games, where people actually move. Note that with vacation days, and weekends, a black rook (assuming he's not bought more vacation days) can only "drag" a tournament for at most 2 months by not playing. Then he's out of vacation days. And she can only do that trick once a year.

Note also that Fencer has pointed out that in the future, autovacation will be the only vacation. But that's all I know about the rewrite of BK.

gammonrace: The simplest way to solve it would be to no longer actually use the gammonrace account. I can understand your reasoning to create the gammonrace account - but I fail to understand why you still use it.

grenv: I don't think it matters a lot whether people use auto-vacation or set vacation themselves. I seldomly time out (I doubt I've timed out more than twice - perhaps a dozen games in total). I use auto-vacation to avoid having to calculate how many vacation days I need.

talen314: I have had quite a few timeouts where I had to wait 30 days, sometimes more, for a timeout. It is why I always set tournaments I create to disallow vacation.
And a 30 day timeout in a tournament is a problem in which way? The timeout is likely to happen before all games are finished anyway. Even if you play against someone who makes a move once a day, many games will last beyond 30 days. Heck, I'm still playing the first round of tournaments that started in 2006 - and the slow player hardly takes any vacation time. Timeouts happened in that tournament - but most of them were before Christmas 2006.

talen314: The disadvantage is that some games, even if no vacation is taken, can easily last half a year, or longer. (Depending on the game, move time settings, and whether it's a multigame match). While I can see that not spending more than a few vacation days is fine for the next few months, it's harder to predict a long time in advance. It's even harder if the tournament has more rounds, and you advance to the next round. I've had cases where there's a years difference between me finishing my last game of the first round, the my first game of the second round starting.

As for games with people that aren't active - those people either haven't set autovacation, or have already ran out of vacation days. Their games are likely to time out before the other games are finished. It's only a problem for tournaments starting in January, where people have signed up long time in advance.

Herlock Sholmes: But there's the classical strategy stealing argument. If there's a winning strategy for the second player, the first player can just pretend to be the second - he plays a random first move, as getting numbers is never a disadvantage.

Saying "if the first player plays an attacking strategy, there are chances for the second player if he plays defensive" doesn't mean the first player doesn't have an advantage. After all, if playing defensive is a winning strategy, there's nothing that prohibits the first player to play defensive.

Herlock Sholmes: This game is very easy to play but as usual very hard to outsmart your opponent ...
So, you have play tested it?

BTW, it seems that the player going first has an advantage, as he'll have a chance to have crossed out more numbers than the second player (second player will never have crossed out more numbers than the first). Perhaps the first players last turn shouldn't count if that doesn't leave the second player a turn.

Herlock Sholmes: That's just a variation on Ludo, isn't it? Including the boring "many turns before actually making a decision" part.

I'd play the game, but only if there's automove (that is, BK makes all the moves for me until there's actually a choice of moves to play).

Teachme2play: Yea, but what if, the turn before you say 5 fives opponent catches you lying f.e "4 fours"?

According to your annotated example game, you don't consider that to be good tactics. Note that in said game, B, not knowing what A has, doesn't call LIAR on either A's "four threes", nor on A's "four sixes".

Or he discoveres your plan and plays 5 fives before you? Excellent. So, we agree that the game just might have started by the first player playing "5 fives". No point going through the motions first (going through the motions is ok for a "live game" - it's deadly for a turn based web game).

Teachme2play: 1st paragraph: That seems like an artificial way of increasing the length of the game. And it doesn't help. Does it really make the game more interesting if it goes:

A: 1 five
B: (anything)
A: 2 fives
B: (anything)
A: 3 fives
B: (anything)
A: 4 fives
B: (anything)
A: 5 fives

and now B says "LIAR" and wins the game, or bids and A says "LIAR" and wins the game? It just prolongs the game for 2 months.

2nd paragraph: Well, yes, I understand you think that's the smartest move for B. I wonder why, specially since the "mistake" you let B make seems like a brilliant move (given the not so smart opponent you let A be) to me.

3rd paragraph: I fully understand why you think the reasoning of B will be. I'm just pointing out that with such a reasoning, I expect that out of 100 games, I will win 99 of the games against B. For instance, against such a B, and with the roll 2,2,5,5,6 (so, 5's instead of 4's), I could have played exactly as you let A play against B. B is tricked in believing I don't have any 5s, calls LIAR, when there are indeed 5 fives.

Would you play "6 fives" having no fives on your hand, hoping opponent has 4 fives?
You're failing to understand my point. My point is, if I had 2 or 3 fives, I may not mention them until "5 fives". Clearly, with the B in your example, that's a garanteed win (he'll call LIAR based on my not mentioning them before).

Teachme2play: I guess I don't understand the rules (or strategy) of the example game. Why wouldn't A say "5 fives" as his first bid? Given the mismatch between what's "on the table" and his own dice, it's unlikely he has the best hand. He might as well call a high bid, letting B make the decision to call him out a liar, or put in a high bid himself (after which A calls B a liar).

Also, you say B. "2 threes" B avoided 2 ones and 2 twos and probably made a mistake, cause now A thinks B doesn't have 1, or 2 on his dice. Why is that a mistake? If A calls B out a liar, B wins the game, and if this bid causes A to draw a wrong conclusion (I've no idea why A would draw that conclusion though) about Bs hand, I'd say it's an excellent bid by B.

B: "LIAR!" B knows A hasn't played fives before, so he doesn't have any. That's another reasoning I don't get. Given that the bids don't have to be real, A could in theory have anything. In fact, if I was A, and I know B would reason this way, then given a hand of "2, 2, 5, 5, 6" I might have bid the way A did, tricking B to call me a liar. Then again, I wouldn't assume B to reason this way, and I'd never play the low bids in such a way as to reveal my hand.

Teachme2play: Your modifications suggests there are two types of dice: dice rolled by players, and "dice on the table". The rules don't talk about this second set of dice - in fact, rule 6 suggests that the only dice in the game are dice rolled by players.

Now, if those "dice on the table" don't exist, it's a game I'm familiar with. Which, IMO, isn't very fun for two players (4 - 6 players is best).

Herlock Sholmes: Add three dice, and each time all three dice are the same, the player instantly loses. Add four dice, and each time all four dice are the same, the player loses all your running games. Add five dice, and each time all five dice are the same, the player loses one year of membership. Add six dice, and each time all six dice are the same, the player is banned from BK.

How's that for spice? ;-)

Herlock Sholmes: 1) It's not a different variant. It's exactly the same as chess. It's just the user interface that's different. Nothing else. 2) 99.5% of the computer interface are already annoying (some more than others). I rather see things happening that decrease annoyance, rather than increase it. If you want more annoyance, take a hammer and hit your fingers.