Icon, it also depends if you want to play for fun or not! There are a lot of serious players here, I play more for fun, but some of my teams have very serious players... I guess fellowship captains will soon get to know which are the 'serious' ones, and play more often against those, if thats their choice.

Also there are 2 butons to start a tourney, you press one to close for sign up, then you have to go back and press another almost identical one to actually start the tourney.
Its very easy to forget to do this!! I've done it once, but I always remember now because I got such a good tongue lashing for forgetting!! LOL!!

:o( Sorry Whisperz, didn't want to tread on your toes starting a tablut tourney as well. Just trying to get the new members interested!

Any pawns here want to win a 6 months rook membership??? Join the tablut PRIZE tournament!!

Starts in one month... You need 7 free slots to join. If you sign up and find you do not have the available slots when the tournament starts you will not be allowed to participate.
Good luck to all :o)

Don't get me wrong, when I have been poor, I wasted al ot of money. I gained enjoyment from junk food, movies, and other luxuries. BUt that is just what they were-- luxuries. And if something else came up that I did not have the money for, it wasn't because I could not afford it, it was because UI had chosen to spend them oney on other things.

If you can say this, Dmitri, you have obviously never been poor. Consider yourself fortunate. I'm not discussing anything else because it is getting tedious and I have a headache as it is.

Dmitri, here... "YEs. We agree, but probably not in terms of degree. I tihnk that the people we have discussed (those who truly cannot afford a membership) are veyr few and far between, so few that they are irrelevant to the discussion."

I' not going to get into a huge discussion about this, I think its enough to say that a) you cannot know how many people really are in this position and b) it wouldn't matter if it was 1 person or 1000 people. That statement is hurtful and demeaning to those people.

I have been desperately trying to stay out of this because I know from experience that debating with Dmitri and TT can go on for days and round in never-ending circles.

But please, Dmitri, dont say that people who truly cannot afford membership are irrelevant to ANY discussion.
I should imagine these people feel worthless enough without being tossed aside as 'irrelevant'. Not to mention being in the category of 'such a low number it has little to no impact on relevent issues'.

This is partly what I believe TT was saying, you are looking down on people who do not have what you have.

" He/she doesn't have membership? Why not? Unbelievable! Freeloaders! "

" He/she canot afford it?? Why not? Lazy scoundrels!! "

Sound familiar?! It reminds me of Scrooge! "If they would rather die, they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population"!!

:-) thank you x

One is "the first eddie spahgetti fast tourney (Horde Chess)", the other was due to start in March but hadn't been started by the creator, so I could remove myself from that.

Fencer, on my profile under 'tournaments signed' there are a couple still there that didn't start because not enough people signed up. The rest of the tournament is either ongoing or finished, is there any way to get rid of these? It looks like I have more tournaments waiting to start than there actually is!

Hmm, I asked for that!! LOL, ok, I'll go look!! :o) Count me out for the halma 10x10 though, I'm not keen on that!!

Any particular games need more players Josetta? I've signed up for a few already but if you're short...

Dmitri, it starts as soon as all the players have finished their games in all sections.

The creator of the tourney gets a message saying all the sections are comlete, they visit the tourney and click a new button to start the second round.

Howling Wolf, if you time-out on a game during a time when the site is having problems I'm sure Fencer would re-instate the game for you if you message him. Especially a tournament game.

Consider it done!

I dont have any tourneys to sign up for right now! maybe I should start a few, it HAS been a while. Any suggestions?

:( Well put it this way, Art, I dont think I'll be going in for any more chess tourneys anytime soon!!

Ian... nudge nudge, I DID sign for your tourney so I know its not properly started yet! :P
You closed for sign up, now you have to press another button to start the tourney :D

*frown* at Ian!! LOL, is it you thats causing confusion with BlueSteel?! I dunno, memory like a sieve... forget to breathe if someone wasnt there to poke you when you stopped... leave your head on the bus if it wasn't screwed loosely to your head... [walks away muttering about Ians memory]!!! :oD

Hi there, Blue Steel. I had a look and the tournament you're in is due to start on April 27th. It has the date on the page where your name is. Good luck! :)

Aww, thanks, AD!! I'll go sign up now! I shouldn't really, I have too many games going already but I think I need some practice for chess! LOL! Cheers! :o)

I would sign up Mr Dodger but my rating is an embarrassing 911, below your 1000-1800 range! LOL!!

Heyyy, nice one Molly!! Glad it went to someone so deserving! Congrats :oD

And wheres all the checkers players too?!! My all checkers tourney starts tomorrow and theres only 'normal' checkers and parachute checkers with enough players to go ahead! Come on checkers players, get signing!!

If you can think of a way, Dmitri, I'd like to hear it! It IS unfair to everyone, I think they could have let the tournament creator know if there was an emergency requiring that many days off.
Maybe they were just messing with the calendar and not realised they'd set so many!!! LOL!
I have to say in the guys defence though, he WAS on a hell of a lot to begin with, and he's normally very nice and polite, I wouldn't have expected this from him. I'm sure there is good reason.

Nah, you can't put limits on the holiday days!! We're given 30 days a year, and if someone uses them all in one go then thats their problem. There could be a good reason for it, illness, a hospital stay etc..
I know it affects others but it goes with the membership, and we might be glad of it one day. Of course a note to our opponents to explain why we'd used that much holiday time would be polite, but not a necessity.
I've not used any holiday days yet, and I can't forsee me using any this year. But if I had to use all 30 in one go it would be for a dire emergency!

rod03801.. there isn't really much to do, choose a game (or all games), do your settings and then on the day & time you selected press the buttons to start the tourney!!
Then if it gets to a second round press the button to start that (I guess, mine haven't reached round 2 yet!!).
Easy Peasy!!

Heyyyy, we got a 'my tournaments'!! Nice one Fencer, that will make life loads easier! :o))

Tournament started! A week to sign up, have fun!

I'm not saying it would give anyone an advantage, just maybe not a true S-B.
I'm quite happy to agree to disagree! We have different opinions, no big deal :o)

Well, if theres 7 players in one section, and two of those timed out on every game, that would leave 5 players.
So you would only have 4 opponents to make up your S-B.
Its similar to the ratings in that the more games you play the more accurate your rating. So it follows that the more people you have as opponents, the more accurate your S-B.
I think people would complain if they suddenly needed 14 empty slots to enter a tournament instead of 7!! Pawns are limited to 20 slots so they would have to have only 6 normal games going to enter a tournament.
There must be another option.

And if 2 games were started at the same time for every opponent, that would give everyone double the amount of games to play. How would that work for pawns with a limited amount of slots for games?
I do agree, some games could do with one of each colour being played to make it fair because of the differences in each colour. I just dont see how it could work for players with limited game slots.

Well theres a few tournaments where the player has obviously not returned to the site, and timed out on every game. Therefore nobody gets S-B points from them. Which significantly affects the chances of it working fairly to decide who goes to the next round.

If you played 2 games against each opponent the tourneys would last twice as long!

Kevin, I thought that at first, but then changed my mind. If you look at tournaments theres not many where there are drawn points, and rarely more than two people with the same amount of points. Of course there are a few occasions where there are three people with the same amount of points. But then again there are three people in one tourney with the same S-B! So I really dont think that matters.
What does matter is that people are penalised by the performance of people they win against.
In games like backgammon especially, that really isn't right because a normally good player can have bad dice. No back/nack gammon player has won ALL their games through skill. A certain amount of luck of the dice is involved too.
If you win five games in one section, along with one or two other players then that should be the end of it, you go through to the next round along with the other players.
If you've won those five games against poor players or by timeouts then you'll soon be ousted in the next round.
But the sets are random, you get to play against high rated players, and low rated. You dont get a choice who you play. Someone with a high S-B could have achieved that by luck, and is unfairly going through to the next round leaving behind a better player maybe. No system is perfect, and its very disappointing to win most of your games, the same amount as another person, only to be dropped from the tourney because of a S-B! Especially when theres only one or two S-B points between you and the other player.

I agree with Sundance about the S-B being a bit unfair. In the First Official BK tournament, 10 x 10 reversi, both myself and Stromovous have won 5 games each. Yet he will go through to the next round without me because his S-B will work out higher than mine. Would it be so bad to drop the S-B? The later rounds will soon filter out those who may be there more by luck than skill, and it seem much fairer to go through on points (how many games you've won) than by the S-B system.

No, not the points in the actual game.
I dont think it really goes against you, if you beat someone who had won no other games, maybe because they signed up and never came back to the site, but the other player had beat someone who had won all their other games, then they would get a higher S-B than you. That seems fair to me.
And if you both had the same S-B then you would both go through, presumably!
Of course it counts all the games you have won, each player you beat, their games would decide your S-B.
A bit like when deciding your BKR the other players rating is the deciding factor.
When deciding the S-B, the other players games are taken into account.

alexlee, I think it means that if you and one other player get, say, 5 points each, the S-B points will come into consideration.
So the players you beat, THEIR points will be added up (the games they won) and this is the S-B for you.
In other words, if you beat good players and they won most of their other games, you'll have the higher S-B than the other player if the people they beat didn't do so good overall.
Its like a ratings system, so the actual game type doesn't matter.
Does all that make sense?!!

Hiya everyone, I'm still a few players short for some of the games in my tourney to run. Mainly some of the chess and checkers variants, also anti line four and tank battle.
This tourney starts on Tuesday and I'd like to get as many players as possible (hey, at least four!!) for as many games as possible! So if you haven't signed up already for some of these great games then you only have until Tuesday!! Happy playing!! :o)

Come and sign up for hrlqns BIG ONE!! All the games are listed, just choose your favourites! Only a week to sign up, 3 day moves & unlimited players! Good luck to everyone who joins in!

I agree, if someone didn't have enough slots they would be removed from the tourney, so if their membership level changes it should be the same, removal from the tourney.
And as Dream says, some tourneys are for prizes, and its unfair to the other players if a knight receives extra membership while they are still pawns.

Fencer, you'd only be creating more work for yourself if you started the tournaments, everyone is timing out and will no doubt ask for the game to be started again once the problems are sorted. I'm having a lot of problems myself, yesterday I spent hours trying to get in and for my efforts managed to move in only 8 games! But I'm just keeping from a timeout in my games. Other people aren't so lucky! We know you're trying your best but starting tournaments will only add to everyones load at this point.

Of course! I should have thought of that! Phew, glad it wasn't something I did!! Thanks!

I'm not quite sure what happened when I started this tourney!
There were 16 player signed up, I started it off and there were only 14! I'm not sure if 2 players dropped out at the last second, or the counter was wrong or if I lost 2 players in starting it!
If you signed up then found yourself not listed I'm terribly sorry, I've no idea what happened or how to check on it. :o(
Good luck to everyone else though :o)

Not at all Stingeroni, my toes aren't squashed in the slightest!! Maybe we should have an ultimate match between the winner of your tourney and the winner of mine?! Could be interesting!

The tournaments with possible prizes, how about, just having them for a certain BKR. Those with ratings 1900-2100, then another for people with ratings 900-1200. And so on.. if its only brains up for grabs people would be less likely to cheat than if it was for a membership anyway.
Are there enough people in each rating bracket to do that?
What I'm thinking is those with lower ratings would stand more of a chance of winning, and if they suddenly excelled in a game it could be looked at and you could tell if there was any cheating going on! Theres probably a major flaw in that idea I haven't thought of!! Hey, what do you expect off the top of my head!!

Any objections to me joining your tourney as well as having my own?!

LMAO Aurora (rrbrls)!!

Lamby, my tourney starts Tuesday but I think Goonerg has given people a week or so to sign up?
I'll probably be doing more backgammon ones if this goes well :o)

Hi Lamby, click on the 'tournament' link above, then on the backgammon link. It will say 'sign up for this tournament', or something along those lines!
You need 7 empty slots, and you can only play in one tournament at a time.
Goonerg is offering a prize tourney where you can win 6 month knight membership! Then you could enter more than one tournament if you had membership!! (Not that I'm trying to put you off the backgammon, EVERYONE is welcome! Just thought I'd point out the better offer in fairness!)
Good luck and I hope you can join in! I'll probably be doing another one after this if it goes well.

Hi, I started a tournament for backgammon, I hope I set the BKR's right! It should be set so everyone can play! If anyone spots a mistake can they let me know? Cheers!
Oh yeah, sign up while you're there!!

Nice one Eddie, I've signed up for a few, great idea having it as a fast tourney! Good luck to everyone!

My head is hung in shame!! LOL, thanks for the compliment Aurora!! All the best for the New Year (hope you get over your hangover soon!! LOL!)