pgt: How about that, fencer!!??

tonyh: You're not the only one. And I may even pay for a membership when it happens!!!

I'm caught again, rolling dice and no way of getting on. I face another four/five throws of wasted time.
Fencer, please could you put in a choice of auto-pass or double on the first blocked throw.

grenv: 'autopass or double' would be fine; that would sort out the problem very well. So would your other suggestion about resigning and offering one point. Both great ideas.

tonyh: what if you only have a few pieces left, and you were playing for a gammon, but now you have a piece captured and are trapped. You may want to double now.... that's why a choice would be good... if you get in that situation you have the choice of "double" or "autopass" - autopass would take you out of the game until you get a chance to come in.

tonyh: Simple solution... if the player losing can resign and offer a point, the winning player can reject and continue playing for a gammon. Either that or the system is smart enough to know a gammon is unattainable before a piece is actually borne off - particularly in positions where the winning player can't double and end it quickly that way.

pgt: agree completely about the gammon situation; what we need is for the player who is bearing off to be able to finish the game, when he reckons the chance of a gammon has disappeared. That is what happens in over the board play.

tonyh: This was discussed some years ago. and I promised to reinstate my paying membership when it was implemented. One also needs the ability to resign and not concede a gammon, thus avoiding many tedious moves until a gammon situation is (inevitably) avoided.

Could auto-pass be extended to include situations where we are in baulk, have to roll the dice but cannot get back on, because the oponent's home squares are blocked.
I know that there is a sentiment that you may want to double. I cannot conceive of a position, where a double would be wise.

tonyh: Looks like you turned it off in the past. Please find "Show game filter on the main page" option at the Settings page.

Fencer: Ok, thank you for that link to Info. I can well understand your improvement here.
One thing; the Info refers to a filter above the game list to get the same results. Hanged if I can find that fikter; sorry, probably male tunnel vision. Where is it?

tonyh: http://brainking.info/

IWe used to be able to sort our games by oppoenent, game, time remaining, etc. That option seems to have disappeared. Or should I be resetting something.
it was a good feature, which I would like to have back again.

drainking: If the invitation doesn't suit you, you can reject it, and negociate the adjustments of the game with the opponent. I do it when someone invites me without vacation days.

I am a player who usually plays a couple of games, then stop for a while and come back later.
That is why I only play games with 1 day per move.

My question is if anyone invites me, it can happen that I accidentally have a game that takes maybe a week or month per move.

It is a big question I have, because you have to reprogram a little bit, but I suggest that invitations you get you can adjust infront so you won`t be surprised by having games that can last forever.

ps. I don`t think this message would help, but is is an idea I had for brainking
Great site!!

Just a small thing. Would it be possible to give Big Bosses the power to sign Teams up without a Captain ?

I often get a team together, but no one wants to be captain.....not that the captain does much as we know. So i end up joining a team, signing them up and leaving it again, which all seems totally pointless to me.

rod03801: You could still leave a message saying to only take x amount of games or else any extra ones would be deleted.

Fencer: ouch! Guess I'll only put one game at a time in there now. (Not that I put a lot in there anyway)

rod03801: Yes.

Fencer: So, does this mean if I put 10 games of Halma in Waiting Games, one person could now accept all 10? Just making sure I understand.

pedestrian: It was removed because I did some changes to the game structure database and the algorithm of determining visible public invitations had been negatively affected by the mentioned feature. It is possible that I will reactivate it in the future but the overall performance is always the most important thing.

happyjuggler0: I miss this option too. Any particular reason why it was removed?

Orlandu: You're not allowed to have more than 50 games on the 'waiting games' list. I think if you try to make more than 50 new games, the last ones are simply not created.

I often post invitations to the "New Game" board. Until very recently, I had the option of choosing whether or not to allow someone I am currently playing against to accept that invitation. No longer.

Why is that option no longer available? In any case, please, please, please restore it. Options are good, one-size-fits-all policies are not.

Is there a way to see how many games there are when you make them on the new game page?
When you make new game, on the main page it shows only 50 when you create 50+

Fencer: Have to admit, there is not so much problem with them as it takes a while to get the Team sorted, so personally i am checking those Teams daily, though there will be Captains that do not

Thanks again

MadMonkey: It does not work on team tournament signups because it would require some more complex changes in the code, so I better think it over before messing with the current structure.

Fencer: Thanks, that is brilliant, and hopefully will solve a lot of problems. I can confirm it works on Team Challenges between Fellowships, if one is sent, OR when excepting one

I can not tell you if it works on Team Tournament sign-ups, as i have checked and all players are OK at the moment

(Of course, you could always put a GREY player into one of my Teams for an upcoming Team Tournament, and i would be able to tell you then lol)

Pedro Martínez: I think I've found it. It will be fixed soon (or later today).

Pedro Martínez: Which one, for instance? Give me a link please.

Fencer: I don't know if this is in any way related to any change you have made, but links to finished games in single elimination tourneys are not working for me now… they take me to a blank page…

MadMonkey: Is it working now?

Bwild: Of course another option could be that when a BB or Captain selects players for a Team, a small script could run looking at when each player was last on BrainKing and if anyone was over a week (for example) the person entering the Team would get a pop-up or something letting them know, giving them a chance to look into it or change the Team

how about all team members receive a notice before the bb or captains sign them up for a tourny?
its hard to keep track of whos teams your on,and sometimes an unprepared for tourny does not fit in your schedule.

Fencer lol .... In the Fellowships boxes where we join / leave Teams etc... the players go grey when they have not been here for a month i think

Could you please extend it in some way ? When we get a Team challenge and click the link to accept and select players, there is no way to see who has or has not been here in so long without going back to the Fellowship to look. Maybe have the same grey box show there as well, or even better just to the right, the date they were last here. Of course the same applies to signing Teams up for Team Tournaments.

Anybody playing 1000 games and making 1 move every minute would need slightly over 16 hours to make a move in each game. Assuming that even 10% of the opponents are on line and move on the same day, he would then have another 100 or more moves to make. That leaves precious little time for sleeping, eating, going to the toilet, interacting with real human beings, browsing bulletin boards, watching television, shopping, going to the movies. I don't believe that anybody needs to be signed up for more than about 2-300 games concurrently, let alone join a tournament if they are already playing 500 or more games. I have just turned 70, and am still locked into a tournament which started when I was 65, and in which I have not made a move since I was 66. I am likely to time out in the final round(s) simply because I will probably be residing underground before the tournament finishes. That should help to prolong the tournament for another 5 years while I time out involuntarily.

grenv: hmm... .not so simple... you would need to eliminate time where you can't move (all games with opps)... that time would be subtracted from the 70 in my formula.... or something like that.

Universal Eyes: I suggested a speed index a while ago...
easy enough...
m = moves made in last 10 weeks (arbitrary, but i think large enough to be significant)
g = number of games currently playing

index = m / 70 / g

and is equivalent to the number of moves you make per game per day.

Then you could use that as a filter for tournament sign ups etc.

lol

pedestrian: There is only one problem with that formula, if a player has made 1000 games and timed out in 999, since the minimum allowed is always 1000, he would still be able to start another 1000 games. I know I haven't thought on a limit number for games, just the ratio (games timed out)/(total finished games) as opposed to the suggestions of a single timeout resulting in penalties, but considering something that has been said a few posts below. If the timeout ratio is more than 30% (this is a suggested number, and maybe it could be in the last 6 months or so) then there would be a limit of 1000 games, otherwise, there would be no limit whatsoever.


Edit:Yeah, I know I'm still allowing 1000 games, so maybe an additional class like more than 60% timeouts= a limit of 200 or 300 games. Although to be really perfect the number of finished games should also be considered for the limit calculation (if a player has timed out in 30% of 3000 games - which is 900 - against one that has lost 30% in 100, maybe the first player can play about 1500 games at once...)

Also in general i think that time limits in games are too long. I consider 3 days for a move quite slow pace. In tournaments there is always someone who will use all the time available and with 3 days per move+ weekends thats just about one move for a week. I wish people would choose a little bit faster scheduling in general. Afterall theres plenty of vacation to cover for missed moves (at least for paying members).

Playing with a slow pace means that one has to sign for more games to have enough to play. And more games automatically means slower response times in any single game.

El Cid: We're discussing several different things now. My biggest concern is with people (especially new members) who sign up for more games than they can handle, thus spoiling the fun for themselves, their opponents and to some extent the other people in that tournament. That's why I tried to propose a formula that forces people to prove that they can handle a lot of games before they are 'let loose', so to speak.

pedestrian: especially should there be a problem that is beyond ones control (ie:computer issues)

grenv: The only problem I have with timeouts is on the beginning of the year, when everybody gets the vacation days "refilled", and many times we have to wait about two months with the game on top of the "your opponents turn" list. The purpose of auto-vacation if to prevent timeouts due to "unforeseen" events, and at the moment, to prevent the exploit in vacation that was possible when vacation were scheduled...
And as for the people who take forever and don't timeout, as was previously (before this conversation) said if they are within the allowed time, they can take all of the time (I admit I often do that with games such as espionage or chess variants), although I also agree it's kind of frustrating in things like backgammon when there is only one possible move, and your opponent has only 3 or 4 games in his/her turn

El Cid: I personally have no problem with people timing out.. my problem is with people who don't time out and take forever and get all these auto vacation days kick in.
I think vacation should be scheduled not automatic.

pgt: How about something like a timeout ratio (if that is even possible to program). This way, one or two timeouts wouldn't matter, but massive timeouts would

coan.net: Having two or three timeouts is not the problem - it has happened (against me) when playing games with "1 day moves, no days off" and suddenly have to be out of town for three days at a funeral, with no computer access. And I only had 12 games running at the time. The problem is people who have one or more timeouts every week.

On the subject of timeouts, is there a good way to check how many timeouts another player has recently had? I would like to be able to check that, it might help me decide whether I want to play a certain player or join a certain tournament.

pedestrian: .... then again, what is the problem with massive forfeits - if a person can not handle the games, then they will be forfeited when they time out. (I'm just throwing out suggestions - I don't plan to be much over 100 games at a time any time soon myself, and others timing out is not too much of an issue for me.. just throwing out ideas is all.)

coan.net: But if you were already playing close to 2000 games, then one single forfeit would effectively mean you couldn't start any new games for 6 months. Isn't that a rather draconic penalty for only one time out?