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beach: No one should be pressurised to make more moves because a player only has a few games running and bored because they have too much time on their hands which is why this discussion has arisen once again. I eagerly wait to see what happens after the 16 November.
Walter Montego: This is a good start, but consider also what kind of game you set up. If people chose 10-wins-match, and the game is one with many moves, it can still drag for years.
But generally, yes, Fisher Clock is the thing to use. You can fine-tune it to your wishes pretty nicely.
Start 4 Days 7 hours Bonus 1 Day 18 Hours Max Time 11 days 1
A shorter max will definitely force a faster game. These parameters make the players move three or more times per week. Vacations and weekends have no baring on it. And, as always, the fast players can finish the game in a couple of hours. If someone quits the site, the game will end in 11 days. You can use a longer start time to give more time during a round change or series of games for matches.
Aganju: I don’t like the idea of the blacklist, I hate the idea showing someone guilty, as in court. I prefer an effective action as do not allow to join tourneys or games (for anyone) while you have a game where it is your move. I think it’s short with one game because there’s always an opponent on line. Five games would be perfect. Indeed, with 500 games running, the player will block himself.
This is - unfortunately - a recurring topic on all such sites. that also proves that it is an issue. We have discussed it many times in previous years...
To jog your memory, here are some ideas that were presented:
do not allow to join tourneys or games (for anyone) while you have a game where it is your move. That seems a minor impact, but realistically, it makes it _much_ harder to 'hoard' games - try to have no games to move when you have 500 games running. Someone is always online and answers back, so it is really hard to get to empty the list.
display an average reaction time for each user. This could be a mid-term average (so a single week of vacation doesn't affect it to much), I would say 10-weeks or so. This would be simply the average time a game sat in that players hands before he moved.
of course you could pile onto that, and allow tourney creators to limit entry for people with 'less than x average reaction time'
create a public blacklist of the small number of players that are considered the culprit. That would probably lead to fighting and name calling, and even more aggressive discussion, but it doesn't need a code change in BK, and it would be quite effective. Just block those people from your tourneys, and you are golden.
tourney creators could try to understand the time controls better, and just chose something more appropriate. There are enough choices available to speed up tourneys while still allowing a leisurely pace for participants. We could educate them by giving helpful examples of what time controls to chose for which effect.
I still think this is a good list, but i also think this discussion will end the same way as the others (nothing changes, next discussion in about six months, same arguments). We are too much like politicians - we shout out our opinion, don't listen to others opinions, repeat our opinions, don't want to agree on anything except on that our opinion is the right one, and compromising is for losers and doesn't get you reelected.
O čem je toďten plk: Re: Thousands of games and years to play one round of a tourney
pB: i agree that the time per move is a bit vague with the option of weekend days and vacation days added ... if you really want to be naughty you can even switch your weekend days while playing giving you 2 extra days once in a while ... just to frustrate your opponent :-)
about players knowing what they signed up for ... maybe they didnt know at first ... but i believe people learn from experience .. or at least i hope so ... and after some tournaments which are too slow for their taste they will think twice before joining a tournament which might be slow
due to a busy real life i am retiring on this site, and also on dailygammon, just finishing my running games/tournaments ... which migh take years, but i cant stand to lose on timeout :-) i am only playing now on jijbent.nl (i think the english version is yourturnmyturn.com ?) i think there the default for tournaments is 1 day per move, and a max 6 day pool even then tournaments can take quite long
you are/were quite active on dailygammon as well .. what do you think of the timecontrols there ?
out of curiousity : about how many players are we talking who "abuse" the time control on this site ?
if i have an opponent who plays too slow according to my taste (rarely happens, but sometimes it does just before i go on vacation) ... i then send him a polite private message asking him if he could move in my games first
if an opponent sends me a message asking me to move faster, i then make sure i always move first in his/her games before i move in the others
about the speed rating per player: i suggested this years ago as well as i think its very useful and very informative .. but you have to take into account the different game types .. an average speed would make less sense that an average speed per game type
playBunny: Yes, I prefer this idea of a tournament with a predictable duration than to be measured in my moves. I think I don’t like the idea that people could see how fast I am, because sometimes I’m not. I agree with you, it’s not logical that a tournament with 3 days/move can be played in 5 days. 3 days are 3 days ! It’s why I rarely join for more than 3 days because I know it can be 5 days. But I must be honest too : as rook, we see the things differently than other memberships : I don’t like slow players but I don’t really pay attention because these players don’t block me.
SL-Mark: Speed ratings would be very useful. It would be especially useful if the speed ratings could be used to estimate the expected duration of a tournament. For my "Some like it fast" tournaments, I wouldn't care about the time control if I could specify that I only want players who are likely to allow completion within, say, six to ten weeks. Then I could set a 7-days time control to allow for Life's unexpected emergencies, safe in the knowledge that the usual course of events would be frequent moves by all concerned.
@Mélusine: Your concern wouldn't be as much of an issue as you might think. A fast player with occasional lapses is still a fast player, different from the once-a-weekers with their busy lives and in a different Universe to a crawler with hundreds of games.
For instance, if you play a game and the opponent is online and makes their move and it comes back to you, you might get to play the next turn. Someone with hundreds of games will never do that unless they are specifically giving priority to games with those who are online. Playing twice in one session would be very beneficial to you speed rating, having most games go to the end of a huge queue would be detrimental.
Carnie: I play at the pace I want to, not to pander to you because you only have 29 games running and are you are impatiently waiting for players to make a move. By the way I see one of your cronies has 2079 games running at present. I see she has gone quiet. Have you complained to her about all her games?
O čem je toďten plk: Re: Thousands of games and years to play one round of a tourney
BGBedlam: Surely a solution would be to put a limit on the maximum amount of games somebody can play.
For sure. The idea of "unlimited games" is an impractical ideal. I think the limit should be literally what you said, the number of games that people can play - and a person who is continuously playing at the limit of the time allowed has probably got more games than they can play.
It's obviously not going to be a hard limit. A hundred Ludo games is much more manageable than a hundred games of Chess (unless it's a player who more or less likes clicking Chess pieces at random ).
O čem je toďten plk: Re: Thousands of games and years to play one round of a tourney
Carnie: Get real! You are peeved because your lost a match that you should have one. That I understand and have some sympathy for you on that subject. But you are now harping on about games and time limits because Fencer did not acknowledge you. If it did happen that you have or had been held up for two weeks by some players in the short time you have been in this site then I am amazed you only have 34 games. Surely all these players with SO many games would still be on your list of games. Oh wait I know what you are going to say. You resigned ALL of them. So that being the case why are you still harping on about it? I know and see you spend a long time in this site. So with only 34 games you must get bored. So you post about something that has been discussed so many times and will never change. By the way I did have you on hide but I kept seeing your posts in the main discussion board. So I still could not avoid you, so I decide to take you off hide. I am sure you see my posts too in the main discussion board. So you don't fool me by saying you don't read my posts.
BGBedlam: Why? There are already some limits for certain memberships. There are some people who spend most of the day in this site playing games. Then there are some others who spend all day that are the moaning about how many games some people play. Whatever nothing is going to change now, So the people moaning about people playing lots of games just have to accept. It does not bother me how many games some players have.