Some of you people crack me up, you know that? As if all non-paying players are somehow beneath you and warrant contempt. I have never seen a snootier membership base on any board game site. As if Brainking is soooo much better than all the other sites. Well, it's not and the declining numbers bear that out. BK falls behind IYT and GT in many aspects. Since 2008, I have played regularly at all three sites and I also used to frequent Little Golem and YourTurnMyTurn. Same name, same person. So, I'm not just speaking off-hand here. I know all these sites very well and I have always felt that BK offered the least value to me. In terms of tournament play, I get a lot more competition on IYT and at a much faster pace. Same with the ladders. It's become a running joke that BK has the slowest players around. I can face the best competition in the world on Little Golem (in Go Moku and Connect 6, anyway). If what I want is a real sense of community with down-to-earth and humble people then I know GT is the place for me (and I have been a paid member there). Not only that, but GT innovates more than anyone else. They are constantly introducing new games and variants and updating site features. My intent here is not to belittle BK but to make some of you understand that it's not worth it for some of us "freeloaders" to join your fiefdom. However, I am happy to be exposed to as many advertisements as can make money for Fencer in exchange for a few free games of Frog Finder. The funny thing is I remember when everything on the internet was free in the early 00's and nobody was calling anyone names then. ;)

What we need is a new feature: CTRL, ALT, Zap! Then we can send a slight shock to the slower players and help them along! j/k ! I don't like playing slow players either. When I had lots of games it didn't matter but now it shows. However, I do recognize that I have choices and I shouldn't impose my play preferences on others. So my attitude has changed. I can choose to play in faster tourneys only. Guess what? It works! ;) Even an old fart like me can learn something new!

beach: It is often the case that people will not sign to a tournament starting, say, in 3 days but they would sign on one that is about to start as soon as the minimum number of participants sign up.
I've had most of my tournaments starting up while past the starting up time.

I think the waiting period before deletion is a good thing.

Justaminute:   it would be nice to have different people creating different tournaments not everyone likes the same games.  As for having one auto generated tournament (similar to IYT)  the tournament set up here is the one I like the best I like the option of being able to create a tournament when I want to.  The situation on the current board was discussed several months ago with fencer on here.  I thought he was going to make some changes.  There are less and less people playing on this site which I think is part of the problem with the tournament section.  I used to post tournaments with different variations and games (although always 3 day limit) but found I couldn't get 8 people to sign up so the tournaments could run.  A problem with the current board is tournaments staying on after scheduled start date.  My personal opinion is that when a tournament is supposed to start it either starts or should get deleted, it shouldn't be able to sit on the board for another 30 days waiting for people to sign up. 

Aganju:
I do agree the tournament system is one of the weaker parts of Brainking, and it seems to be a case of the inmates running the asylum. The plus side is that you can create an endless variety of tournaments, but right now there is an endless list of the same tournament. Some sites simply set up a fixed number of tournaments each week, or there is only one open one at a time. I would prefer this as you would probably get more people entering each tournament if there was only 1 to enter. It does limit the variety on the time per move, clock type etc which is Brainking’s strength and well as its weakness.

Aganju: Once again I agree with you totally What I did like was your suggestion about Backgammon variants tournaments. I don't really like playing single games as it can be too one sided sometimes and over very soon. I like playing 3 and 5 or more points games too. How about you setting one up then for us?

beach: I generally agree. Everyone is free to join in a game or tournament, and if you do so and not read or understand the time settings, it is your fault, and you should not blame others for it.
Yes, I do not like to have 100 or so games hanging around from 2012 and earlier, which move every 29.9 days only, but if it really bothers me, I should not have joined them to begin with. It is like in real life - if you buy a broken car that is advertised as such, you got a broken car, so nobody to blame except yourself.

Regarding beach's point to the tournaments (which I find much more interesting and fruitful to discuss): I have the feeling that the tournament list has been taken over by an enormous amount of numbered the-same-all-over-again tournaments, that nobody ever signs up for. I often spent half an hour trying to find a tournament to join, but all of them are the same, and have only one or two players waiting. I think we should target quality before quantity, and then people would join again. But again, yes, I understand that a paying member bought the right to create a gazillion useless identical tournaments. So be it. I hope you get happy with it.

One side note: I would join a lot more Backgammon-variant tournaments, if they would not be created as one-pointers. Any serious backgammon player knows that the game needs the cube, and playing only one single game is too much random winning. So please, when you create backgammon type tournaments, use at least 5 points (or more), and allow the cube, and you will get more players.

beach: Again I agree with you totally.

For my 2 cents worth here, I too play against paying and non paying members.  I pay for a membership and I play a lot of games that is the purpose of my membership.  I play usually only 3 or 4 day time limit games I rarely take 7 days tournaments because for my liking they are too slow and I always play those games last.  Time limits are a personal choice.   To those that only play a few games and want moves made several times a day I suggest you post games in the waiting room or choose game from there with a 1 day limit.  The beauty of this site is there is a time limit that suits everyone.  This is one of my favourite sites, I play several times a day, but sometimes real life effects how many moves I make a day.  There are several of us that play lots of games and again that is our right with a membership.  There are less and less fellowships now that post tournaments not like in the old days.  I used to post new tournaments in the tournament section where everyone could join, and found there are fewer and fewer people here that wish to play, as a result when someone else posts a tournament I join.     I have never had a problem with anyone who plays within the time limits.  So to those that complain, I suggest buy a membership if you can, if that is not possible post really quick games in the waiting room.

ThunderGr: I treat everyone the same whether they are non paying members or paying members. I move as fast as I can within the time limits if not sooner. If I am losing I don't slow down and sometimes if I am losing badly I resign the game to save wasting time. Each to their own we all have other commitment in our daily lives that can mean we sometimes can't play for some reason or another.

badgerboy78: I find it unreasonable to *complain* about your opponent moving within his time-limits.
I do not think this has anything to do with membership level. And a simple, I move within my time limits, please do not complain about that, would suffice, in my opinion.
There are questionable behaviors, though, like players that move reasonably fast but, when they see they are going to lose the game, start moving at time limit, which is really unsportsmanlike but the only thing you can do about that is just stop playing against those players.

ThunderGr:
I think this is a sensible proposal, 1 board that I can ignore if my blood pressure can't take it any more like the politics board.

Justaminute: What you propose does not sound unreasonable to me. When I was a non-paying member I was wondering whether I could post to discussion boards or not, before I post my first ignorant question that some very helpful paying members bothered to answer.

The creation of a board specifically for non-paying members to post and the reservation of the others for paying members would help a lot, I think.
This way, those willing to help could check that board while those like you, that are bothered by those posts could avoid the "nuisance".

I think that complaining is as much human as possible and that it is not confined to either paying or non-paying members.
It is in anyone's discretion to misinterpret a complain if they so wish, but this does not make the interpretation right.
Complaining is a form of interaction and posting a complain in a general way *may* result in the improvement of someone's situation(or it may get them flamed, of course :P).
I am one of those that prefer even flames to stay in the non-condescending spectrum of discussion :).

I've received more than a few complaints from members (usually non-paying but sometimes not) about slow play My usual response is "buy a membership so you don't have to beg for moves". It's illogical to me that someone selects a game with a 3 or 5 day move limit then complains if the opponent uses most or all of that limit. Especially if a player is only playing 20 games, they have more than enough opportunity to select only games with a 1 day limit. Leave the others alone. Of course, then they would probably complain if their opponent wasn't moving 3 or 4 times a day.

ThunderGr:
I think posting to discussion boards should be a privilege of paying members only.
20 moves is an allowance for people to determine whether they want to join the site or not. If they want to spend years as non members playing only 20 moves then that is their decision. but I don’t see I should have to listen to their complaints that they are getting less than they want when they have paid nothing for it.

Justaminute: It is understandable that when you have just 20 games allowance to play, the delay in moves gives you a harder time than when you have dozens, hundreds or thousands.
Instead of initiating a rivalry, it is best if you explain it to them and help them find games with better time-controls for their preferences.
As for the contribution, I was a non-paying member a few months back, as well.
Several of my games are against non-paying members because most paying members...do tend to move slowly for my liking, even in time-controls like 2dpm-no days off.
If people like the site, they can bring other members as well, which could either become paying members or contribute with their participation, ideas and, yes, even whining.
If paying members are being condescending instead of understanding and helpful, those people will, most likely, leave and the site loses with them leaving, as well.

Last, but not least, I think it is best to behave to non-paying members with the same respect you would want to be treated if you were a non-paying member.

ThunderGr:
And yet we have to read endless posts from non paying members complaining about paying members playing too slowly. Time to fight back. Personally I think they contribute very little.

Justaminute: Condescending attitude towards a person is hardly justified. The site would be much less without the non-paying members. Please, consider that when you express this kind of opinion.

crosseyed:
I likewise get tired of hearing freeloaders whining.

speachless: I agree with you totally. This guy only plays 8 games. We as paying members take advantage of our membership and perhaps take on too many tournaments because I like to support people who take the time to set them up. I like to play fast but I cannot makes moves for every game everyday.

Hrqls:

this is an open forum which is intended to be about brainking

we allow a few off-topic posts, but when there are too many then we will gently ask to continue elsewhere

both the posts of aaru and of dice cheater are within the topics of this forum, so they are both allowed

however it shows of respect of the original posted to leave his thread on his topic, and not hijack it for your own topic

therefore dice cheater could best have started a new thread instead of posting his opinions about slow players as a reply on a post in the thread of aaru

aside of that : the subject of slow players have been talked about a LOT already and there are many opinions about this .. the site offers many ways to setup your games and tournaments, so you can always find a game with a time limit which you like best ... and if you somehow do get stuck with a slow player you can always ask him gently in a pm to move faster (i am not the fastest player, but i can move faster against specific opponents when asked)

about the problem with the timeouts of aaru .. i have no idea as i hardly use the fishers clock, and i am glad speachless is looking into them as well :)

Marshmud: i understand what you mean. but if someone comes in an open forum here to complain about people that "should learn to play faster" as he say, then this might be same humiliating for them "who doesn't play as fast DC think they should" ....so i think if people cant manage temperament and direct reactions on their complaining against people that play for fun in another speed, then they maybe shouldn't complain over other players in public.... so if any opinion is allowed, maybe also mine is...

i don't think it's ok to shoot against players that use their possibilities given by brainking.com as standard possibilities

Universal Eyes: yes, you're right about the time tracking, i agree totaly

ThunderGr: a little bit of temperament doesn't hit anyone - i think. and i don't think either this board is ALL about aaru. i can stand behind what i wrote 'cause i hear this complaining a lot around all boards and i just had enough for a while :-) that is how my temperament went from 0 to 50 :-) i think dice cheater is old enough to reply to my thread how he thinks he should.

speachless: I think you are being too harsh on the person.
It is true, his issue is not related to aaru's problem but this board is not about aaru's problem either. It is a general board. Everybody can post an issue at their discretion.

I agree with you that the complain is not justified, but a simple pointing out of why it is so should be enough, IMHO.

Dice Cheater: seriously? here we are speaking about an issue and you take the chance to complain about slow playing users? come on!!!! we have here options given, that are used from players as they are, no more no less.
so tell me, if players like you that complains about opponents that only uses the options set by the game-opener would it not be better for you only to join games with "no vacation days" set to maybe 1 day or 5 hours or whatever you think is fast enough?

there are players here that enjoy playing on another way as you use to do, they enjoy playing "move by move" without having the stress to play a game fast till the end.

if i have the possibility to join 1500 games at 1 time, 'cause i'm paying for that possibility, i can't see why i should be wrong, just because i enjoy playing differently as you do!

it's very annoying, you didn't very bring any input that matters the issue of aaru, you just came in and complain about "slow playing players"... i don't see the fact... why don't you ask for a new forum board and call them "slow players on brainking"... if it helps

Universal Eyes: If only some people played a little faster, there wouldn't be any need for Fischer's clock and we would all have more fun. Between Fischer's clock, weekend days and the ultra generous Vacation days settings playing here sometimes feels like watching paint dry.

speachless: Game notation board makes it hard to determine anything when it keeps the same date and time for every move which would be the last move made.

Roberto Silva: Maybe it is more related to aaru 'cause in one of my games aaru went time out too.... ?

Fencer: What seems weird is that this sequence of errors seems to always happen between the same 2 players...

Fencer: Thanks a lot for your infos Fencer, I appreciate the fact that you verified the code. I will still use Fischer's clock as it works pretty fine to me.

speachless: I don't think we have a general problem. Mostly because:

1) Fischer's Clock had been introduced many years ago and nobody ever complained about any suspicious behaviour. Yes, there were some complaints but they had been caused by misunderstanding the concept of this feature.

2) No problem of this kind ever happened to me, not even during the test phase. I am sure that a serious anomaly would have been discovered a long time ago.

3) Although I don't have time for a serious and thorough investigation, I've had a quick look at the source code. Everything seems to be normal and as it should be.

So, my best guess is that aaru was unlucky to find a specific combination of parameters that causes the issue he described. Unfortunatelly I cannot provide more information at this moment.

Fencer: Dear Fencer, do we have a general problem with Fischer's clock? Aaru is loosing lot's of them 'cause of time out, but in all of them the bonus time didn't work.... i use to set Fischer's clock on my new games/tournaments, but if it doesn't work in general or is it a singular error that occured several times to aaru?....... (aaru posted here various issues on his time-outed games)

thanks for taking care

It is very difficul.
+1000 games
It is not possible to notice all details.
Other thing. When you play on Android, you have no idea about time per move...

aaru: You are right, of course, but if you had noticed, it could help pin down the bug. If it was showing correctly the incorrect time limit then it is a calculation bug but if not then it would be a more difficult bug to find.

ThunderGr: I have no idea. Even it was 1 minut -> still should be 18 hours & 1 minut

aaru: Where you playing on time limit? How much time did you have after your last move? Had you noticed?

aaru: I see. Thank you for clarifying this.

aaru: Thanks for taking the time to explain this, I never could quite get my head around the Fischer clock and the time-out rules.

ThunderGr: You're wrong. In that case, the game should have ended on April 24
Pls read sth more about FC ->

http://www.chesscentral.com/chess_clock_how_use_a/157.htm


"Let's look at an example of a player's time usage (and his corresponding clock display) across the first few moves of a 40/20 Fischer increment game.

The White player at the start of such a game has "40:00" showing on his digital clock, which means that he starts with forty minutes in which to make all his moves. Black hits his button to start White's clock (and to start the game). White already knows what he wants to play, makes the move 1.e4, and hits his clock to complete his move. Three seconds have elapsed between the time Black hit his clock to begin White's move and White hitting his clock to end the move.

In a traditional "sudden death" game, White's clock would read "39:57" (showing that three seconds had been used) and that would be it. But since this is a "Fischer" time control game with a twenty second increment, the digital clock has been pre-programmed to add twenty seconds back to a player's time whenever his button is pushed. Thus twenty seconds gets added to White's clock when he presses the button to finish his move, and the timer's display now reads "40:17" (his initial 40 minutes - the 3 seconds he took to move + the 20 "bonus" seconds of the added increment):

40:00 - 0:03 = 39:57
39:57 + 0:20 = 40:17

Black plays 1...e5 and hits his clock to end his move and start White's timer. The White player snaps off 2.Nf3, again taking three seconds to make his move and hit the button on his timer:

40:17 - 0:03 = 40:14
40:14 + 0:20 = 40:34

...and so White has actually gained 34 seconds since the game's start because he's playing pretty quickly.

Black bangs out 2...Nc6 and hits his clock. The White player already knows he wants to play a Ruy Lopez and plays 3.Bb5, again taking three seconds to make his move and hit his clock:

40:34 - 0:03 = 40:31
40:31 + 0:20 = 40:51

White's picked up nearly a full minute - he now has nearly 41 minutes to make all the rest of his moves.

But Black has other ideas; either by design or by accident, he doesn't play the standard Ruy reply of 3...a6 and instead plays 3...Nf6. This throws White for a bit of a loop as he hasn't prepared for this move. He eventually figures out a reply but takes a full two minutes and thirty-four seconds to think, make the move, and hit the button on his clock:

40:51 - 2:34 = 38:17
38:17 + 0:20 = 38:37

...and White now has 38 minutes and 37 seconds left on his clock to make all of his moves before he'd "lose on time".

I've played quite a few online games using the "40/20" Fischer increment and discovered that, on average, each player usually uses about an hour to play; this is a good increment to use when you have about two hours to play a game. For a faster game you could easily start with a shorter "sudden death" time or a shorter increment (or both, such as "20/10": twenty initial minutes with ten seconds added each move). A few algebraic equations have been published which let you approximate the time a game will take when using a particular Fischer time control; although it's impossible to predict infallibly the length of time which a (theoretically) open-ended game will take, these equations can at least give players a "ballpark" idea of the expected duration of a game.

Fischer increments were officially recognized by the United States Chess Federation for tournament use starting in the mid 1990's. This caused a fair amount of contoversy at the time since players had to replace their analog clocks with (then more expensive) digital models. That initial furor has died down over time, but you'll see many players still using their analog clocks for casual "sudden death" games at chess clubs or between rounds at chess tournaments. (In fact, an analog clock is still my choice for "speed" games with my friends and family, since anyone can understand how to set and use one without any special instructions.)"  

In BrainKing we have 3 parts of Fischer's clock - A/B/C:
A - time for move (on the beginning of game)
B - time added after each move
C - maximum time for one move

Example #1 -> 30days/1day/30days

Games started at 8am. Your move at 9am
30 days - 1 hour + 1 day -> 30 days (because in C we have 30 days)

Example #2 -> 21days / 18hours / 31days 23 hours

Player X - dead time at 5pm, moved at 4:40pm (20 minuts before dead line)
20 minuts + 18 hours -> 18 hours 20 minuts

moistfinger: Maybe so, but, if I am not mistaken, the 3rd number in the fischer clock indicates the *absolute limit* of the game. That is, despite of what the other 2 numbers say, the game cannot exceed the *total* of the 3rd number. So, a game with a 30 days limit will end at the 30th day, no matter who's turn is to move at that time.

ThunderGr: Time limits are way too generous here, it's a bit of a joke. Some players wait until the very last moment before time-out to make a move, it's really quite sad. As far as I'm concerned slow players kill game websites, they suck all the enjoyment out of the games, makes everyone lose interest after a while. There are more and more of these guys here on Brainking (I'm not naming names but I'm itching to!). I have my own theory as to why.

aaru: The game had started 24/03/2014 with a 30 days limit, aaru. I think this is your problem. You should pay more attention to the time *limit* of a Fischer clock.
It is not just the 18 hours bonus, you know. It does not look like a bug to me.

game 6663653
Last move of my opponent: 2 June 2014, 17:25:25. Time out -> 2 June 2014, 19:40:00. 2:14:13 hours after move of my opponent !!! (FC with 18 hours bonus)

Fevga (AlterMann vs. aaru)

Ps.
Strange - I cannot put next picture to my Bug gallery.

aaru: When had the game started? I can see there is a 30 days limit.

game 6663440
Last move of my opponent: 1 June 2014, 17:59:00. Time out -> 2 June 2014, 02:50:00. 8:51:00 hours after move of my opponent (FC with 18 hours bonus !!!!!!!!!)
http://brainking.com/pl/PhotoAlbum?alid=2160&phid=16462
Nackgammon (AlterMann vs. aaru)

crosseyed: It would be my pleasure!

baddessi: When you do we must meet up.

crosseyed: thanks! Maybe next time to UK. Haven't seen any of England except for Heathrow