I dont think so, Tony. I could just see (for example) if I was stuck on a bar for, say, 10 moves... my opponent making a comment about how much quicker this game would go if I only switched the auto-pass on. A person could feel pressured into switching it on, rather like being pressured into resigning a game one would rather see to the end.

Heck, grenv, if yr opponent takes 5 days to make a move, you are going to get annoyed anyway, whether you autopass or not. And probably you are losing anyway, so where's the rush?
I still favour an option.

Even though I understand why Fencer did/does not want to do the autopass thing, I would still vote for autopass. (just in case he see's enough people wanting it, he might reconsider)

BBW (BIG BAD WOLF)

One thing that would annoy me though is if my opponent spends 5 days per move and makes 10 moves before I get a chance, thereby leaving me hanging for a couple of months. Perhaps a time limit would be appropriate after which the auto move turns off until I make one more move. I think it's most effective as a way of playing a whole bunch of moves on one day.

Harley, I think you may be comapring apples (resignations) with pears (autopass).

What I hate about guys who won't resign is that I am forced to make a number of pointless moves.

With autopass, the 'mover' still makes exactly the moves he will make in any case; it's just a quicker process. My guess is that most guys won't bother too much if the BG position doesn't come back immediately (they probably have another 100 games to play anyway).

I really wouldn't be bothered if it was auto pass or not, but I dont think it should be an option. Either way!

Personally I think autopass for backgammon should be used all the time. I hate having to make a "move" even though I can't actually move. Why on earth would I care where the opp was moving in the meantime, in backgammon the position itself is important not the moves taken to get there.

Having said that it's the same everywhere else so we can't complain too much.

I'm not saying it would be confusing, just that those who chose not to use it might come under attack from those who want them to use it.

Autopass would not stop one from seeing the opponents moves. Of course the moves would be recorded as usual and they could be seen in the game notation. There should be a automated message sent to player after autopasses telling you had to pass and instructions on how to check what happened since your last move. I can't see how that could be very confusing for anyone.

Yes but if it was optional, you would have people saying that players SHOULD use it and it could easily cause arguments. Its like the old argument about if a person should resign a game when the outcome is an obvious loss for them, or should they play to the end.
Many people get irate if a person doesn't resign when they'd like them to. It would be the same here, if a person for instance was stuck on the bar in backgammon, but wished to see their opponents moves, they would not use an auto feature.. and their opponent would say 'can't you use it?'... It could cause a lot of tension. IMHO

Yes, automated moves would be nice. Besides automated passes, the program could make moves automatically in such situations where the player has only one possible move. Also, it would be nice if the player could input sequences of the type "if opponent moves here, I reply there" that the program would play automatically.

Earlier automatic passes have been objected on the grounds that it would be distracting for beginners. IMNSHO the best altenative would be, if every player could decide whether he/she would let the program pass/play the only possible move for him/her.

Auto-pass would be a good feature in reversi too. And probably in other games also.

Possibly, could fencer give us the option of having that automatic facility or not?

It's been brought up before and the Idea has been turned down.

I havent seen anyone suggest this, but I would like to see the game play so that if a player cannot move, it will automatically skip them and go back to the next player. I think the game would move easier in this case.

Bingo! I forgot about that. Pressing Cmd+R on the keyboard will do the same thing. I did that once and managed to retrieve a message I accidentally errased before posting. Thanks for reminding me of that.

I don't have WebTV, but here supposable using "Options - Reload" on the WebTV unit will cause WebTV to get a new page and not a page from cache.

Webtv is not very versatile, its only purpose is for online use. There are a few tricks you can do like cut and paste, and playing with htmls, and you can use a printer, but other than that you can't do the things that can be done with a computer. It's basically an internet box that uses a TV screen for a monitor, but a regular monitor can be used as well. I suspect the reason I have no trouble with a wide screen effect is because of using the TV screen instead of a regular monitor, but there may be some other reason for that too. I don't have very high screen resolution, but I do have a large screen for viewing.

The problem was most likely that you were viewing a page stored in cache - either you'd have to delete the temporary internet files (i'm not sure how to do that on WebTV) or force it to load from the source and not from your cache (again, i don't know how to do that on WebTV).

It's ok now. Another problem solved, by doing nothing at all! Now if I can just get everything else fixed this way, I'll be on easy street.

Nope, I'm still stuck on an earlier page. I turned the set off for awhile, then on again and came back. Then I logged off and back on again. Main page is still showing what I saw this morning. I can get to games and private messages from other pages, so I can wait to see if this glitch goes away or not.

Thanks MadMonkey. I'll give it a try.

endgame: Try logging out and back in again, see if that has any effect.

Something odd has happened with my main page, it seems to be stuck at where I was this morning. I can only get to games from some other page and by clicking on the red number next to "Main page". At the Main page there two games waiting for me to move, but I've already moved on one of them and I won the other game...but they still appear on my main page waiting for a move, and none of my other games will show up. Also, I won't know if I have any new private messages unless I go to some other page. Is this just a short term effect of the new download?

I thought of that awhile back, and I think that if there was an option of "invite players to a tournament" it would end up getting abused.

I can just see some of the tournament creators going down the list of ranked users and inviting EVERY person for each tournament - I'll probable end up with spam for each tournament (which there is a lot if you include Fellowship tournament).

Of course for the private tournaments Fencer is working on, it would need to be able to invite people - but for normal tournament, i'm not sure if I would like that option. :-)

[WhiteBKR "1732"]
[BlackBKR "1603"]

It will list the BKR at the time of the game. Saves looking it up if you're checking out other people's games :)

In the user's profile, you can see their Wins, Draws, Losses, and BKR.

Is it possible to add the rating positions along with them? I find them to be very interesting.

For example my 2055 rating in Backgammon Race is 1st, but the same 2055 rating in Five in Line would end me up in 39th place!

Why not, I can add them but I'm not sure if ELO is calculated in the same way as BKR [approximated rating formula of US Chess Federation].

Here is the Internet Chess Club. You have everything of importance IMO but it might be nice to add ratings. Other than that looks great.

[Event "ICC 60 15"]
[Site "Internet Chess Club"]
[Date "2003.05.24"]
[Round "-"]
[White "ArtfulDodger"]
[Black "Vandebedian"]
[Result "1/2-1/2"]
[ICCResult "Game drawn by mutual agreement"]
[WhiteElo "1732"]
[BlackElo "1603"]
[Opening "Queen's bishop game"]
[ECO "D02"]
[NIC "QP.08"]
[Time "12:05:31"]
[TimeControl "3600+15"]

Seems to be fine, here is one of my games:
[Event "Casual Game"]
[Site "BrainKing.com (Prague, Czech Republic)"]
[Date "2003.03.19"]
[Round "?"]
[White "rip55"]
[Black "unacanta"]
[Result "*"]

1. e4 c5 2. c3 e6 3. d4 cxd4 4. cxd4 d5 5. e5 Nd7 6. f4 Ne7 7. Nf3 Qb6 8.
Ng5 h6 9. Nh3 Nf5 10. g4 Nxd4 11. Na3 Bxa3 12. bxa3 Nc6 13. g5 hxg5 14. Be2
Rxh3 15. fxg5 Ndxe5 16. Bf4 Qa5+ 17. Bd2 Qxa3 18. Qb1 b6 19. Bb5 Bb7 20.
Bf1 Nd3+ 21. Bxd3 Rxd3 22. h4 O-O-O 23. Rh2 Ne5 24. Bc1 Qa4 25. Rf2 Qxh4
26. Qc2+ Kb8 27. Bf4 Ka8 28. Bxe5 Re3+ 29. Kd1 Qg4+ 30. Kd2 Rxe5 31. Rxf7
Re2+ 32. Kc3 Rxc2+ 33. Kxc2 Qxg5 34. Rff1 a5 35. Rab1 Rc8+ 36. Kd3 Ba6+ 37.
Kd4 Bxf1 38. Rxf1 Qg4+ 39. Ke5 Qe2+ 40. Kd6 Qxf1 41. Kxe6 Qf6+ 42. Kxd5
Qc6+
*

Here is one from GameKnot:
[Event "League division D2"]
[Site "http://gameknot.com/chess.pl?bd=881982"]
[Date "2003.06.28"]
[White "unacanta"]
[Black "ydebilloez"]
[Result "*"]
[WhiteElo "1371"]
[BlackElo "1737"]
[TimeControl "1/259200"]
[Mode "ICS"]
[Termination "unterminated"]

1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. Nc3 dxe4 4. Nxe4 Bf5 5. Ng3 Bg6
6. h4 h6 7. h5 Bh7 8. Nf3 *

One from IYT
[Event "Casual Game"]
[Site "http://www.itsyourturn.com"]
[Date "2003.06.02"]
[Round "*"]
[White "unacanta"]
[Black "ryden_97"]
[Result "*"]
[Ply "25"]

1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. Nd2 dxe4 4. Nxe4 Bf5 5. Ng3 Bg6
6. h4 h6 7. Nf3 Nd7 8. h5 Bh7 9. Bd3 Bxd3 10. Qxd3
Ngf6 11. Bf4 e6 12. O-O-O Be7 13. Kb1 *

I think you have everything necessary. The system is adding the event and site name which is helpful. Thanks, looks good to me.

Currently you can see this statistics at the opponent's profile after clicking on "show games with this player only". But you are right that it would be nice to see it in games as well. I will add it to the list.

Now that we'll have played each other a fair number of times, I'd like to see the results against an opponent displayed alongside a current game. So if I am playing Atomic Chess v Whisperz, I'd like to see how I've done against him, gruesome though it is.

I think that I've already added them. Please check it.

Yes, nice addition to the system. Most welcome. I talked to Nodakindy, he said he had mentioned the format was missing some of the standard tags. It is not a big deal, they can be edited in but thanks for adding them when you get it done.
Una

Hi Fencer, the pgn-Format in regular chessgames works correctly and I can play these games for instance with the windboard freeware utility.Naturally we can not play with this utility games on a 10x8 board (only standard chess). Perhaps there is a computerfreak who can produces a pgn-player for 10x8 boards? Best would be with the Gothic and Janus pieces.

thanks fencer for adding the (move and goto the next game of the same type )link , one of the best links so far ;~)

I would like to see a feature in your profile next to each game saying what your opponent's average rating is now or when the game was finished.

Fencer: Now that you mentioned it, could you tell us how close we are to the hardware upgrade? :-)

patience was the word :)

that means possible but please be patient, Fencer, that would be appreciated, and we can be patient for now and ignore the childness, thanks.

Ok..suppose that means "not possible"

Sure. But it would mean another CPU load for our processors. I would like to postpone all such features after our hardware is upgraded.

If i see on my favourite list that there are new messages i click there then i dont want 90% of the messages to be childish crap ...understand now?...so as Kevin said, couldnt this "ignoring" be included in the "enemy" function??

I think he means like we could block certain players' posts from the dbs, so they will not show up.

I have read a few requests that say they want the enemies list to include blocking db posts.

Kevin

If you don't want to read messages from some boards, simply don't click on their names. Or do I miss something? What should be the real effect of the Ignore function?

Would it be possible to add an Ignore/mute-function. Some messageboards are too annoying so if we could click "Ignore" or "Mute" on the names we dont want to read messages from would be VERY NICE.

My web site has some very good examples on how to use PGN files.
There are examples of both single and several files merged together.

http://uncantawy.topcities.com/

Since we have the PGN option, I will be adding a BrainKing link in my site. It will hold tournaments and games I and others with the 65thsquare club play
Nodakindy has a great site also, check it out.
http://nodakindy.bravepages.com/

There are a couple ways, you can use NotePad to merge PGN files.
Just load the first file in, then open the others, cut and paste back to the original.

I use WinBoard and FileMate, both will allow you to merge PGN files. I like FileMate the best, seems to be the most versitle.

Una

Yes it's a great addition to BK. Does anyone know how to combine a group of pgn files?

I loaded the files with WinBoard and filemate, both work fine.
I really appreciate the effort, I use the PGN feature quite a bit.

Una