Your draw example brought up an idea. What if you had 1 day to reverse declining or accepting an offer? This has good points for both the game offer and draw offer. A third use is if people wanted to take back a move, that could be very helpful. You make a move, and then see the mistake after it has been moved. Being able to edit the last action you did would be very useful.

THe discussion with jadarite reminds me that i was feeling a little misplaced here a couple of hours/days ago either:

asked for a feature to count single points instead of just wins and losses. fencer answered only shortly but i received a lot of contradictory words from a couple of members here... . i didnt want some advice either ;-), just needed to tell my opinion on the existing system and some possible "improvements"..

but its good.
if we didnt discuss those issues in public, especially all the "experienced" brainking.-users, the boss of this site would have to work until his death just fulfilling our requests. so our discussion here is worth a lot, but finally all those advice could lead into a wrong direction, too - and the requestor easily feels misunderstood.

in my case, the discussion about counting single points in some games came to an end in the swamp and i still feel not being accepted and/or understood by all those people who talked about "my" issue.

 -  maybe we should talk about a special moderation for this forum, or maybe about a final word of the site's owner after a certain while?!

Family Man:

jadarite: Your Feature request has more problems associated with it than solutions. People are just trying to help you figure out other options that might help. Another solution to your problem is to send a private message to Fencer who has the ability to help you, but I would guess that he would not prefer to do this if you are prone to accepting game invitations on accident

jadarite: ;-)  -  some days ago, someone invited me to a mancala game as blkack player. i didnt want to play him, explained him why and pushed the "accept"-button, without wanting it (i just got used to click on that button).

i am here for more than 3 years now and - well - as long as i am here for fun and - not only - to improve my ratings or so, it simply does not affect me to click the wrong button. - same happened quite often when accepting a draw-ofer that i wanted to decline... ;-)))

You can think whatever you want to think. I simply made a feature request. Take it or leave it. I don't really care. I am sorry I even brought it up.

The thing is, I accepted an invitation. I didn't even know I did it. I was simply clicking around, learning how this site works. There wasn't an intentional invitation I made that I wanted to cancel. I simply didn't know. Now I do. Isn't there some grace factor? To me, that is sporty. Saying, you clicked it, tough is a bit strict in my opinion.

It would be similar if we bumped into each other on the street while being preoccupied with whatever we were doing beforehand. You juse say, "excuse me sir" / cancel, and move on. Not only do I see that as sporty, but also polite.

you are just determined to be rude which is the point i was trying to get across and i will not sink to your level and be rude also

jadarite: i just meant that you are and were coming across majorly rude and there are better ways of saying things than insulting people who are just trying to offer help.

jadarite: well - now i know at least a little more what you want.
how about creating non-BKR-games? if you resign them, they do not affect pointage or something else. and all people who want to play for more thrill wont accept those invitations.

now i am offering one more OTHER option, but i feel its because we are talking about sport here - and just cancelling games isnt that sporty. i am sure brainking is already offering a lot of nice - and easy to handle - opportunities to fulfill your needs! all the best...

Which do you want from me, a response that addresses something else? What did you eat for breakfast today? Where are going shopping tomorrow?

Or, do you want me to address the statement head on? Well, Jessica, I don't need to be convinced of the "other" ways. I stated a feature request. I wasn't asking for support.

If I made a move, then yes, there is no computer task that I know of that would require me to sign on to Brain King and make a move. However, if I clicked the accept link on accident, and I never wanted to play to begin with, I don't see this as a moral issue.

Furthermore, if 2 friends are just practicing openings. Perhaps one is a grandmaster, the other never moved a piece, the beginner would want more time to make moves than say 2 grandmasters. In that case, this would be a perfect solution. You let the beginner practice their openings. After 10 moves, cancel, start over.

There are uses beyond what I see. To prevent people doing this deliberately, you could put in a limitation so that they could only cancel 1 game a day. This would allow those that legitimately don't want to play the ability to cancel and prevent a disruptor from doing it en masse.

jadarite: chill out on the defensive factor please. the other people were just explaining other options to you.

jadarite: sorry to ask you once again: dont you think it may be "unsporty" to cancel a game once youve started it? you may tell people before if you preferred a special opening or so - but cancelling after accepting???

i imagine in real life: sitting in a cafe, with a chessboard. you come to my table, sit down,  i make my first move. you stand up and say "sorry, but thats not my opening" or "sorry, i have to go now"...

I understand there are "OTHER" options, I understand I can do all this "OTHER" stuff. What I would like to do is be able to cancel games if I haven't made a single move. Please don't try to convince me OTHERwise with some OTHER way of thinking. Trust me, I know what I like. This is one of them, I like that option. If you don't want to play, you just click what would be a cancel button, it gets erased from the system.

This has a lot of advantages. If you are playing chess, you could invite someone to a game with the King's Indian and see if they want it. You could invite them to an opening with the Sicilian, whatever. I don't see why a resign has to be the solution. It doesn't make sense to me, it won't make sense to me, so don't try to convince me "OTHERwise" folks. Just accept the fact, that's what I would like to see. If it gets implemented, great, if not, oh well. I voiced my opinion and it will stand. See you perhaps on the board someday.

jadarite: for screen shots you can open and see anyone's game. Just go to someone's profile and check their "current games" or "finished games".

You can delete an invitation that has not yet been ccepted. On your home page, on the bottom there is a list with all your invitations that have not yet been accepted. You can choose which ones you want to widthraw. Once someone starts the game you have no longer such option.

jadarite: No - pay for a variety of exclusive features, deleting already started games being one of them.

I don't quite see the logic in that. Pay to not play?

jadarite: As joshi_tm pointed out already: you have the opportunity to delete games if you become a paying member.

I went to make a screenshot. I am new to this, so I opened up a board, and in doing so, someone accepted. All I wanted to do was make a screenshot so I could redesign Shogi (Japanese Chess) pieces.

Another reason would be if you started up 4 or 5 games, and then 2 accepted. You might want to concentrate on those 2 games. Why make 4 or 5 in the first place? Because you don't know who would be interested. Instead of waiting for 1 person to accept in one kind of game, you sent out multiple invites and see who bites. Then you play. In that case, it would be useful to cancel a game. Even if a person didn't use this option the right way as mentioned before, they can still do it. If all they want to do is mess with the system, why would they care if the system credited them with a loss? They are just messing with the system. People in my case and the second example I outlined would have that loss carry with them when it really shouldn't.

diogenysos: sometimes you have the bad luck of accepting an open invitation of someone that has left the site in the meantime...

jadarite: but if you decide to play a game, why should it be necessary to cancel it afterwards?

If you resign, the system counts it as a loss. I don't see the significance in this. I think if it must be there, we should be able to type a reason then why that game was ended on the first move. Personally, I am not into this wins/loses, ratings. I just want to play to play.

Now the auto pass feature is working, can the feature also be implemented for ludo games?

jadarite: Well, if you want to cancel a game in the first move:
Options
-1: Become a paying member
-2: Just resign, for that won't cost any BKR.

jadarite: this feature was used @ itsyourturn.com and some people misused it by picking up waiting-room-games of one person and immediately deleting them afterwards. - cancelling tournament-games wouldnt be useful, too...

I think if you haven't moved a piece, in whatever game, you should be allowed to cancel it.

MadMonkey: If you are using style sheets, you can do something like:

b + a[href="Tournaments?tri=206948#1"] {       
    position: absolute; top: 0px; left: 200px;
    height: 30px; width: 250px; background: yellow 
}    

Which puts a large yellow bar on the top of the page with a link to the tournament. Unfortunally, you'd need have to list each tournament separately.

Butt ugly, but at least I won't make a costly mistake.

Could we have something on the game page of a Triple Gammon game to remind us that it is a Triple Gammon game.
I imagine people will play these versions differently, as in attacking more to go for gammons & backgammons.
I think something on the page to show it is a Triple Gammon game would be useful.

grenv: Monkey's right. Just send Fencer a PM.

grenv: This has cropped up a few times.
I think if you let Fencer know and there is no chance in you carry on in that Tournament, you can get round it

As a new pawn (previously and maybe future rook) i just noticed that I can't join a tournament because I'm already playing another tournament.

However...

I finished playing that tournament months ago and it is held up by incredibly slow players.

I suggest tournaments where pawns have finished don't count against them in this regard.

Could there be a better way to remove someone from a number of teams in a fellowship without having to go through each team?
I just pasted the same URL 100 times only to find out I somehow removed that player from the fellowship in the process which is exactly what I was trying to avoid in the first place.

Without giving it much though, I think a cool way could be to add in the players profile a check box by each team. Then, clicking on a button to remove from selected teams would do the trick.
This feature would only show up on our own profile or by the teams you are a captain or Big Boss of (so you could remove other players from your teams quickly).

But of course, this is just a suggestion. It can be implemented any other way - as long as it is less boring than the way there is(n't) right now.

well - anyway - i would still like to ask for the discussed  feature., as we have a new counting system for backgammon, which offers us a new kind of thrill competing, it would be nice to offer the mentioned system for other games, too!

nabla: There's never anything wrong with starting it! It is hard to decide when to move it to the game-specific board, isn't it.

All games have their own board.. For future references to those that are new to the site as well. You can pick up tips and ask questions about games from each individual game discussion board

rod03801: Ok, I am sorry that I started it, I did not remember that there was a Mancala board...

It seems this Mancala discussion would be better at this point on the Mancala discussion board That way other people playing the game could chime in more easilly. (People looking to discuss this may not look on this board for that) Thanks!

AbigailII:

i totally agree on that idea that the higher rated player is expected to win more than 50%. its just too easy to get a draw in some games. this is why i'd prefer a finer counting-system for some games, at least as an option.

and, sure the 2000BKR-player wins against the 1000er even by one point. he wont increase his BKR too much, this is guaranteed by the existing BKR-calculation-system!!

nabla: The quote says that you only get the seeds in your own pods if you cannot make a move that gives your opponent a move to make. For instance, all you have (as white) is 3 seeds in a1 and 2 seeds in b1. No possible move will give your opponent a seed.

Note that Oware is quite different from the Mancale game we play here. Oware doesn't have a collection pod, you can only score seeds with captures, which you do by ending your sow in an opponents pod that contains 2 or 3 stones (after seeding).

Another Oware link

AbigailII: My feeling is reinforced by the mention in the same article that Oware has been solved and that perfect play leads... to a draw !

AbigailII: Yes, that is exactly what I quoted, and you are right that it reads as if when I can't make my opponent play (and only in that case), I take all remaining seeds. But that does not seem to make sense with the two previous paragraphs on the subject, which explain that you must always ensure that your opponent can play. At first I saw it as a clumsy phrasing, now it looks more than a mistake.

Maybe this Wiki text is indeed where the error (if it is one) comes from. I admit that it would require someone more expert than me to judge this.

nabla: I am certainly not a Mancala expert, but the first link I tried, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oware says:

If an opponent's houses are all empty, the current player must make a move that gives the opponent seeds. If no such move is possible, the current player captures all seeds in his/her own territory, ending the game.

nabla: I certainly agree the game is unbalanced. But we have other games with the same problem: Maharajah chess, Horde chess, Pah Tum, Five in Line, etc.

AbigailII: And apart from the Nokia phone, did you ever see one of those instances where the player without move lost all remaining seeds ?

AbigailII: Hmm, I stand corrected, when I reread the rules of Oware, they are indeed not the same as our "Mancala". Does the latter indeed come from the Nokia phones ? That would be a real pity. And I insist that being unbalanced is a major defect in a game.
Probably I am a bit of a nitpicker on this, but I would also like if the game rules stated a reference of where they come from.

nabla: But Nokia didn't invent the rules themselves either. They just picked a well-known instance [*] of a certain subclass of Mancala games (a class that has been well studied, with many instances known to be a win for white).

[*] The instances vary with the number of pods (6 each in this case), and the number of intial seeds (4 in this case). I think I've posted links to pages about this variant a while ago.

AbigailII: I disagree. Whatever the name chosen, if you take an existing game (that is known as balanced) and change a rule (making it unbalanced), then the rules are wrong by any definition that I can think of. Mancala games have a very long tradition, and I am sure that there are higher authorities than Nokia about them.
Actually, naming the game Mancala was a clever try by Fencer to avoid all discussion about the game rules. Indeed I wouldn't have dared to protest if the present rules didn't seem to make the game badly unblanced.

diogenysos: Well, it *should* be a 'disadvantage'. That's the entire point of a rating system; if a higher rated player plays a lower rated player, his expected score is more than 50%. So, if the match ends 1:1, the higher rated player is expected to lose.

Your suggestion could lead to a 2000 rated player playing a 1000 rated player in a 2-game match, where the 2000 rated player winning the first game 26:22, losing the second game 25:23, and still getting his rating adjusted as a win.

That's not to say that I don't think the rating adjustment could not be improved. Currently, the potential of ratings isn't fully taken advantage of. Regardless of the length of a match, for rating adjustment, it's considered a win, a draw, or a loss. But ratings (at least, ELO ratings and their derivatives) predict an outcome. For instance, that the higher rated player ought to win a 10 game match by 7:3. If the higher rated player wins by 6:4, the higher rated player would actually lose points, while the lower rated player wins rating points, despite losing the match (because he did better than he should do according to his ratings).

AbigailII:

well, maybe i didnt come to the exact point by this explanation. just wanted to say that the 1:1 in a two-game-match is of disatvantage for the higher rated player. counting the points could solve this problem. in backgammon, its completely different and not to be compared ;-)

but for example in pah tum, or even in froglet, it could be interesting and fair, too, to count the points. -

maybe it should be offered just as another variant.
we can change time and match-settings, maybe there can be a "counted-points-match" as one more option.