Hmm... That's going to be alot of draws and non movement.. And with the 2 games being one after another instead of simultaneous, long periods of time between that non-movement..

lol.. oh well.. I'm not going anywhere anyways, so I guess I'm not in any hurry anyhow! :-)

alanback: basicly. It is considered a draw and neither player advances or drops down the stairs.

The standard stairs match is 2 games -- what happens if one player wins each game? Nothing?

Fencer: A wee bug in some player's Show all games Step numbers.


Backgammon alanback (1) BIG BAD WOLF (2) 17. 5 days 23 hours
Backgammon heyblue32 (1) lunedith (2) 14. 5 days 21 hours
Backgammon lunedith (1) AbigailII (2) 12. 5 days 19 hours
Backgammon Spiritstorm (1) chattytea (2) 17. 5 days 19 hours

Step 2, 4 players;
alanback (2266), Spiritstorm (2147), 4evolution (2122), lunedith (2122)

Step 1, 61 players;
playBunny (2372), frolind (2291), arpa (2242), qetutor (2190), basplund (2189), Hrqls (2185), WizardII (2178), Ebru (2169), furbster (2164), Zach (2159), incognito (2158), heyblue32 (2156), Hannelore (2148), BIG BAD WOLF (2134), afella (2132), SueQ (2124), Czechgirl (2120), lovelysharon (2120), LuTze (2117), chattytea (2072), AbigailII (2013), ...

playBunny: I suggest you ask the 'top dice roller" im sure you meet him before i do

Andersp: Lol. That's a cute analogy. Taking it further the kids probably throw their rattle and a lucky throw sometimes get our hero in the eye. I guess the pain of the eye poke must outweigh the gain of the candy. Or maybe these babies just don't have enough candy to steal. It's hard to tell without knowing the thinking of this top player (no name). Are you sure this candy actually relates to BKR and not to the experience of the game itself?

playBunny: A top dice roller (no name!) said to me not long ago "To play 17-1800 rated players is to steal candy from kids"..then i cant understand the fear for losing BKR...can you?

Eriisa: That opponent's Stairs (ie. no fast Stairs for Checkers). If you resign from a Stair your matches continue unless you resign those as well.

Andersp: I thought you'd enjoy a good laugh at this one.

My sympathies to the topplayers (top dice rollers in backgammon) who must play lower rated players. If they should lose (awful thought!!) they could lose some of their so well deserved BKR. If i was a top dice roller i should absolutely restrict myself to not playing any stairs at all

BIG BAD WOLF: Why is his opponent not listed on the Fast Stairs (Checkers)?

S O C R A T E S: My suggestion to anyone who hates to play lower rated players and only want to play same rated players, then stairs may not be the best thing.

Unless you want to stay around long enough to climb the stairs - then once a stairs spread out some and you are near the top, then you will only have to worry about being challenged by players close to you - which most likely will also be higher rated players.

S O C R A T E S: My sympathies indeed and that objection makes a lot of sense. That's why I restrict myself to 5-point Backgammon, at least for now.

As a top checkers player it's certainly disadvantageous for you but, being of that class, you'll most likely be on the top Steps of the Stairs. It's early days yet but in due course you won't find anyone challenging you who hasn't also got a high rating. It's a question of patience and accepting the initial "blood sucking". [Lol. I play at a Vampire site too, hence that analogy.]

Good fortune!

playBunny: All of a sudden I'm playing a mandatory game and if I win I get 0 points, if I lose, I lose 30 points. Ladders(stairs) should not include rating :)

S O C R A T E S: Because....?

I don't think BKR should be affected in stairs....

Fencer: How about an indicator on the page where you can view all the stairs you are currently playing in, that would allow you to see which ones you have to wait before you can challenge in? That way you wouldn't have to go to the individual page for each to find out if you can issue a new challenge - you'd be able to tell at a glance from the "show your stairs only" page.

(which is not, of course)

I think it's too early to blame the system. Until more steps are generated, it's pointless to say the system is bad.

estanto: Well that is one thing I like about BrainKing's stairs - they did not just copy another system, but tried to do a few things different to try to make it different for the site.

I'm sure if problems arise where players are unable to challenge people, and such and something like being able to challenge above would fix it, Fencer would look into doing that. But right now, the system is working great how it is. My opinion is to try it how the system is now, and once (if) something does not work, then would be the time to start thinking about being able to challenge above yourself - but since when someone loses, I believe there will always be people at the bottome and near enough to you to always be able to challenge people at the same (or below) your level to earn your way up to play the top players. (instead of skipping the same level people and jumping up to challenge the top players right away.)

BIG BAD WOLF: Ok, the stronger players should be protected to be bothered by challenges of the weakest, I agree. But it would be very normally to allow a challenge in a certain range. That range could be normally +1, 0, -1, but at the top down to -2 and at the bottom up to +2. That's the way a ladder normally works. I cannot see, what should be better with that stairs.
Btw, I would also prefer to allow empty steps with the interpretation to challenge to the next not empty step.

Walter Montego posted about not liking the idea of not being able to challenge people on higher steps on the BrainKing.com board, so I will expand an answer here.

The point of the stairs is that the best players will sooner or later raise to the top steps. If a new person joins a stair, they have to EARN the right to challenge the top player - they need to play people on their own step and slowly climb to earn the right to play the top players.

The purpose of letting people challenge people in the steps right below them is so that will allow the top players to hopefully have someone to challenge so they can at least keep some games going, and not just jump to the top with no games to play. (Then again they do not have to challenge if they do not want to.)

WhisperzQ: the only problem with that is that there are people here that I know of that would slow down in a game that they are losing in to the point that the other game would finish and a new one start and then they would finish the new one still before the original game just to have better odds of wining a second game

I know it probably too late, but I would have preferred to see the standard lenght set at 3 days rather than 4 days. (And yes, I know you can play faster, but if I only take the games from the top of my time sorted list they do not get there as fast.)

It seems as though most of the games (maybe Backgammon excluded, I don't play it) are set up a two game matches, but these are by nature sequential. Is it possible to set up a new style which are two game matches where both games are played at once. This would not need to be restricted to use in stairs but could be an alternative two game, and two win matches, they could be called "paired" games for instance.

The reason to ask is to have the result of the game resolved quicker. A "four day" game (the standard length) may last for a long time and for it to be followed by another it might be a year before a result is known ... this might well slow up the stepping considerably.

Just a thought.

What about this?

Could the Stairs Show games list (and any others) be sortable please? If not with re-sort links, could they be ordered by challenger name rather than game id?

Also, could the player viewing the list be highlighted as with ratings list?

Dryznik:

http://brainking.com/en/Stairs?trg=2&tri=109

Where and how do I enter Halma 10 stairs?

ellieoop:
I agree
Awesome job Fencer

Fencer: ok... thanks Fencer...

lovelysharon: No, the Retirement is the same for all types of Stairs. It has nothing to do with days per move/game.

I have a question on these very fast Fischer stairs... when it says no days off.. does that also include no "Retirement"?.

these stairs sound much better then the ones at gt and iyt. good job again fencer:)

Luke Skywalker: and, most importantly, the players' steps

thanks for quickly implementing my requests. In the list of games could you display some more info, like on the main page, e.g. move number, whose turn it is, time until timeout, online indicator

Eriisa: I think Fencer's looking ahead to the potential of having 1000+ players on the Stairs. That would make it a very big page. I think it might be an idea to show the Step that the player is on plus the one above and the three below in full detail and the short list with ellipses for other Steps.

Eriisa: yea, i think once it starts to spread out some, it will become less of a problem. But would be nice if you do click on the "..." to show everyone, to also show the other steps - but not that big of a deal (to myself that is)

I'm a little confused on one thing.......

Take for instance Standard Stairs (Backgammon). There are currently 2 steps. Is there a way to see ALL of the players on step 1 AND step 2? Rignt now, you can either see both steps, or see every one on step 1. Or will the problem become moot once everyone starts getting onto more steps?

In each stairs, it shows all active games - but would be interesting to see completed games also - see who was playing who & who won and such. Maybe not the complete history of games, but maybe the last month - or last 50 games completed in the stairs or something. (or all the games if possible)

Fencer: You used the name too!

playBunny: Sure thing.

Fencer: 3 to 7 days can easily see a 5-point match finished.
Fast Fischer's For Cubists?

Very Fast Fischer's Stairs.

WizardII: GoldToken has a platform type ladder where groups of people share one level. I haven't played it - it's only for paid members so I've no idea what kind of experience it provides.

WizardII: Every system has its pros and cons. I like this one :-)

WizardII: Aye. Instead of grabbing the legs of those above and trying to clamber over them it's more a question of seeing who's below you and stomping on their hands as they try to reach upwards (or booting your peers off the platform). ;-)

One of the biggest difference I can see with the Stairs rules as compared to the rules I have seen for ladders is how one moves up and down.

1. Nobody can be on the same step/ladder position at the same time.
2. If you win you take the position of that person on the ladder, and everyone shifts down.

Not to say that what I have seen is better is what I am used to.

Could the Stairs challenge show the estimated BKR change?

I'll also vote for a challenges-made/accepted column on the player's stairs page. It's hard to know which ones I'm fully booked in.

dmk: That would be good to know quickly which stairs you have challenges to be made - maybe even on the profile page - maybe a (1/0) for 1 challenge made, 0 challenges against you) or something similar.