grenv: When auto-pass was being discussed, I suggested that we could (inside a game) select auto-pass for "x" turns, in order to surpass the "I don't recognize this game" problem. Of course this was on the time that auto-pass was asked to be possible on a inside game option (and not for all the games of that type as it is now). Maybe this could prevent the anti-jokers situation

wetware: If there's a blot then presumably you could come off and therefore the option to double could become available again. This need only be for when there is no chance of coming off and rolling is not necessary...

grenv:  I'd like to see that...but not as much as I'd like to see random second rolls.    :-)

For some time now, I have felt that my opponent's and my opening moves were identical. I shared this view with Walter Montego and he agreed. We decided that I do a test of 150 games to see how often the opening moves were the same, expecting a result of about 10, at odds of 15/1.
Out of the last 153 of my games, 57 had identical opening moves. Surely, this cannot be right; it needs looking into.

tonyh: Agreed. I never took any data, but I always felt the frequency was very high for having the identical opening move.

Fencer, i know this is an old request and your said about not making any changes to this version of BrainKing, but PLEASE add one small thing.

Can we have a Preview button added to the Fellowship Discussion boards please (well, main boards as well would be nice) for when we edit text etc... printed at the top of the Fellowship page. It would be SO handy for us that Moderate & post to the top of the boards

wetware: I've just got caught in a game, where I have to throw but cannot get on. i'm utterly fed up with having to make a useless move! What a waste of time.

tonyh: Hey, take it easy, man. It's just a meaningless detail, compared to, say, the situation in Japan or Libya. Don't take this site so seriously.

MadMonkey: Yes mate. I think I can have a look at it.

MadMonkey: All right, it is ready and when I finish some other minor things, it will be uploaded and activated.
Regarding changes to this version of BrainKing, I think I will actually do some of them, in order to make the upgrade process (to 3.0) more convenient. The only thing that cannot be easily modified is the game model, it is safer to rewrite it from the scratch.

Fencer: Thanks, that will so much better than having to submit to see what it looks like, then going back in etc..etc..

Fencer: There is nothing I (or you) can do about Libya or Japan! I cannot fix the universe or the debt induced crash. So, let us attend to the things we can fix, like making coffee or playing backgammon. Don't you take this great site of yours seriously?

I agree that BK is a great site, though not perfect. Nothing in this world is or can be perfect, but this is no reason not to try to improve things.

A good way to improve BK further would be to fix the opening-moves-bug in the backgammon variants. here is a collection of links on the topic. Fencer, are you going to fix this also before BK 3.0?

Thom27: I don't know. I won't pretend that backgammon is my favorite game (because it is not).
Instead of a thread full of theories, can you give me some IDs of games that were affected by it?

Fencer: http://brainking.com/cz/ReadBug?bgi=1754

tonyh: Actually I don't take it seriously as much as 10 years ago. Since some people are never satisfied, it's not worth the effort. Don't take it personally.
I mean that I have many other interests and BrainKing is just one of them. Not the only one.

Pedro Martínez: Is there a game without autopass that would suffer of the same problem?

Pedro Martínez: Hmmm, maybe I have found a possible source of the problem. Maybe. I'll try to upload a patch soon and we'll see.

Fencer: Maybe we are talking about different things. The bug I mean is: the first rolls of the two players are too often equal. E.g. white starts by moving 5 and 3, and black, in the directly following move, rolls 3 and 5.

I and others have tested this with a high number (hundreds) of games, and it happens about 4 to 6 times as often as it should.

It is a statistical thing, and one cannot give a single game that was affected. It are all games where the opening rolls are equal, so to say.

Thom27: But if there were, say, 4-6 games where the rolls were identical, you would have to assume that 3-5 of them were affected by whatever the problem is... so it would help.

grenv: Maybe you are right. Here are some game numbers from my sample I had downloaded, where the first two rolls are equal:

3661393
3661396
3663115
3664961
3665093
3665242
3667535
3667537
3674420
3674422
3674426
3674427
3690264
3690269
3690297
3690298
3690766
3692509
3692512
3692513

I've just uploaded a patch that could (hopefully) solve the dice issue. We'll see soon. I don't promise anything, it needs to be tested.

MadMonkey: OK, you can preview board description changes now.

Fencer: Thanks Fencer

That will be great help to lots of us i think

Where's the 'like' button? I want to like the post three posts down. ;-)

Thad: I;d still like to "like" the autopass issue!

Fencer: Well done, fencer; the identicals seem to have disappeared.

tonyh:  How large was your sample size?  And if they have completely "disappeared"...well, we have a different problem!    :-)

wetware: le size was 152 games; I wrote 'seem to' but honestly, just haven't seen any identicals in the last 25 games or so.
What is your different problem?

tonyh: We should see some identical rolls--but not nearly as many as before.

That's awesome if this is fixed!

However, let's please move conversation about this over to the Backgammon discussion board, from here forward. http://brainking.com/en/Board?bc=26

Thanks!

I know this should probably be in the Bug Tracker, but I think here is more rapidly seen (and it's kind of a "patch request"). When a user has many started games (I've noticed it on cases with 2000 or more started games), and when using Opera, there is a layout bug, that creates a blank top of the page, and the Bainking site (the top of the towers and the list of started games), start only at the middle of the scroll bar on the right. This happens in the Castle and Simple styles, but not in the no fonts. Also in internet explorer the castle style works correctly (I haven't tested the other two, but I believe they will work correctly also).

So the feature request is... could this be corrected?

El Cid: I want to limit the number of games shown anyway (100 max would be good). That should solve it.
"Don't use Opera!" would be another workaround.

Fencer: By the way I forgot to say this is on other players (I have my main page limited to 5 games).

Considering that the only other browser I have installed is IE (even if it is version 8), I think I rather use Opera...

El Cid: It was a joke. The 100 max limit solution will be implemented.

It would be really nice if the red numbers next to the 'Events' link did the same thing as the red numbers next to the 'Message Box'. If you click on the number for Message Box it takes you to the oldest unread message, but if you click on the red number for Events it takes you to the Events folder. Does this have an easy fix?

nodnarbo: Hmm. Mine takes me to the precise Event.

The one difference I DO notice though is that it doesn't preview the subject of the event when I hover my mouse over the number. (Which it DOES do on the message box)

is it possible to integrate other games like abstract strategy games into your network such as Perigon?

carlscott33: Yes, in the future.

I apologize in advance if this has been brought up before.

Regarding timeouts, I'd love to have a feature that makes it impossible to sign up for new tournaments if both of the following apply:

1) You have no vacation time left.
2) You have forfeited ___ number of games since the above condition happened.

You could then sign up for new tournaments once you have more vacation time again.

I believe that this would act as a way to encourage people to play only the number of games that they think they can reasonably expect to play. As things stand right now, some people simply don't care, and it delays round two of tournaments from starting, amongst other things.

Thanks for your consideration,
happyjuggler0

happyjuggler0: I second that. Another possible formula would be something like:

I would like to see something else.

I would like to see tournament be able to be setup where it only allowed up to X number of vacation days/hours per round.

So instead of making a tournament with NO VACATION - we could make, for example a tournament where a player can use a MAX of 5 days vacation (120 hours) per round. [maybe with presets of 3 days / 5 days / 10 days -- maybe with different color circle for each type to go along with red circle games.)

... that way vacations are still available in case of emergencies, but hopefully keep out those who drag the tournament out. (Then again, now that the vacation "exploit" is fixed, hopefully once someone's vacation is out for the year - they will not get any more until Jan 1 so it won't be as big of an issue as it has in the past.)

coan.net: I was about to object to that because that seriously limits anyone who want to go on vacation longer than a week without worrying about BK, but then I realized you weren't asking for a requirement of all tournaments. All you are doing is creating an option. Options are good, and potential tournament players can pick and choose which options they prefer.

Edit* This would be a good option for private games as well, not just tournaments.

happyjuggler0: Yea, so for the "Time per move:", you would have the following options:

standard vacation

fixed weekend only

no days off

limited vacation - 3 days

limited vacation - 5 days

limited vacation - 7 days

Options for tournament AND private games would be good (along with site & team matches). And of course, the limited vacation is if they have vacation days to use. And for tournaments, I would say per round - so if you make it to round 2, you get those days reset for the "limited". Maybe make those with a "black dot" to show the difference between the green & red dot games.

pedestrian:1000 games at once? Good grief, that sounds absurd. I can barely keep context when playing 30... you must be a genius of the highest order.

coan.net: Good idea. I was looking for a compromise and that could be it.

grenv: Thanks for the kind words... I've never played more than about 400 simultaneous games myself. Would that make me 40% genius?

pedestrian: Actually, there used to be a 1000 games limit when the site had been launched. However, some active player had complained that "it says that Brain Rook can play unlimited number of games, so I want to have 10000 of them!" and I had been too naive to try to address every single request, no matter how absurd it was. Now I really regret it.

In other words, I am seriously thinking of reapplying the 1000 games limit again. At least for players who have serious problems to play more games than they can handle.

Fencer: I didn't know it had already been a rule. I'm still a newcomer, I guess!