playBunny: A worthy suggestion, I'll take it under advisement. Fax me a waiver of any copyright claim.

alanback: LOL.

Speaking about Backgammon variants:
One of the most interesting for me(except Backgammon and Fevga) is Domino-Backgammon or whatever they call it.
What is this? A VERY interesting Backgammon variant where thinking carefully is necessary while it is very fun too....!

How is played: Instead of a dice you have 36 dominoes. Each domino has the numbers of every possible combination of 2 dice, that is 11,12,13,...65,66.
At the start of the game a dice is being used to determine the player who will play first.

But then we forget dice and use a domino to determine our move. The first player picks one domino of his choise(not random) for example 45(a better variant in my opinion is the one that doesn't allow a double choice at the beginning of the game) and plays 45 but he should have in his mind that the other player could pick whatever he wants! The dominoes that has been used can't be used again for that player, until we run out of dominoes(that means we played all our 36). Then the game continues with again having a new set of 36 dominoes from 11,12....to....66.

Marfitalu: Actually it sounds boring, as there should be one and only one correct way to play, with one player (probably the first) always winning.

Marfitalu: No, I never have. I wouldn't mind trying it. However, I predict that someone here would have a computer program that would play perfectly every time, would shoot to the top of the ratings and stay there.

alanback: I'm not convinced, after all there are other games (all the chess variations) where this should also hold true but doesn't seem to.

here are some links

http://www.bkgm.com/variants/DominoBackgammon.html

http://www.freedownloadscenter.com/Games/Board_Games/Serious_Backgammon.html

A few minutes after I posted a message containing a generic reference to computer programs, one of my chess opponents berated me for accusing him of using computer help . . . sounds like a guilty conscience working overtime!

Well i thought you were refering to me since I proposed the variant and you said someone HERE, so with here i thought you mean in this discussion board the one that participates in the conversation....

Pythagoras: My deepest apologies for the confusion. I was not referring to anyone in particular!

No need to apologize at all.....You can accuse whoever you want actually. And me of course.... And while with others there will probably some fights be generated, with me things are different I'm never insulted or feel offended....!
But since you said that you weren't refering to anyone in particular things are even simplier....

And to make it ON topic i vote to bring Gothic Chess here. Seems an interesting variant!
    Ouch, ouch, ouch!

Wasn't there a problem with gothic chess? Copyright issue maybe?

I don't really thing that was the case....Ed Trice Vs (Fencer and others) was the problem.....
Too bad....
Peace comes when war destroys everything! In our case peace came before war destroys anything....
But i liked those flaming days....

Pythagoras: I didn't!

just a little!

Can we have a way to alphabetically sort fellowships by Fellowship Name or by Big Boss?

Pythagoras: This variant seems as good as Gothic Chess if not better, and it is nice and quiet in the flame department.

Will we be able to make intra (among fellowship members only) fellowship ponds soon?

Czuch Chuckers: Yes.

:)

Czuch Chuckers: now if we can make them invitational only, we'd be set

Vikings: Yeah, that too, but I think also being able to set the BKR parameters for the ponds would be cool too!

Can we have a way to alphabetically sort fellowships by Fellowship Name or by Big Boss?

emmett: Why?

Fencer: Why? What is it that you have against lists being sorted except by that most human of values - the BrainKing database Id?

All lists everywhere should be sortable!

playBunny: No.

Fencer: The reason for the sort request is that there are now a lot of fellowships. Sometimes I have considered a fellowship, but trying to find it later has been an unnessasary hassle. I have been playing long enough to know which long-term players that I respect, so I would like to be able to look at fellowships alphabetically by Big Boss so I can more easily consider the fellowship boards... But I was only asking... it's okay if you don't want to add a sort feature, Fencer. I wish you would have responded to my earlier queries a few days ago about my inter-fellowship matches idea, which involves increasing the role of fellowship team captains. The idea of Fellowships is great, but largely underdeveloped and therefore provides little more than yet another chat forum.

emmett: I agree, it is a pain scrolling through the pages of fellowships to find one you want.

Maybe even something as simple as a key word search feature to help navigate the fellowship list?

I also agree that the fellowships have a huge untapped potential....

Fencer: Lol. I know it's a No. (And, even so, you do much better than other sites as regards sorting; I'm just envisioning the ideal of everything sortable/everything searchable/everything optional).

I'm still curious what you have against sorted lists, though. Is it a programming issue or a big drag on the server?

Fencer, in case you missed them, my recent fellowship feature idea concerning increasing the roles of team captain was posted on Jan 26, 19:35:58. It was followed by a couple of more posts elucidating this idea.

Yes! I agree so much that having the ability for 1 team to challenge another team would be a boon to the whole fellowship concept!
The current "team tournaments" aren't started very often, and when they are, are large and take a long time to complete. With Team vs. Team, they could be created whenever any 2 teams feel like it.
Also, in partnership with this, it would be cool to be able to create multiple teams within fellowships, and be able to have a Team Vs. Team between those teams..

As Emmett suggested, some fellowships are little more than yet another chat forum. And that's a splendid use for some of them. It would be nice if there was a Chat Only option in the Game type: dropdown list so that such fellowships could be found.

The clarification of fellowship game types via a dropdown list is a valid suggestion. For example, I play chess variants. Subsequently, I had to go through every fellowship and not only look at the game lists associated with them, but I had to go into each fellowship and look at how many players there were on each team. A lot of fellowships state that they play all sorts of games, but often there is no one actually playing those games on a fellowship team. Even though I am on several teams, we have never played another fellowship anyway. Up until now, stairs seem to be the most active way to compete... but I would like to partake in more team efforts.

Marfitalu: I live on the border between Quebec and Ontario. I have lived in Quebec several times in my life. Of course, as many Quebecers would like to separate their culture from the rest of Canada's, they would like some distinction as a nationality on BK. It couldn't hurt. Yet they are still Canadians. Continuing to separate countries on BK could be interesting, but more work for Fencer.

Does anyone know how to check and see what the longest running game is?

emmett: If Quebec has its own flag (which, I believe, it does) then it's just another option for Fencer to add, exactly like England, Scotland and Wales for Great Britain - BTW why is there no Northern Ireland??? :)

WhiteTower: Northern Ireland

Fencer: Oops, I had even translated it in Greek - egg on my face!

I find it difficult to see the black pieces against the squares. Is there any chance in the future of making it easier to deal with this problem as I believe I am not alone in having this particular problem.
The other idea I suggest is using proper checkers men, say in Red and White, instead of chess pawns and chess kings.
I hope this idea is worth considering for the future :)

pitchman2: Try looking at Settings -> Chess. There is an option to set colours of the borad. Not sure if it affects checkers boards though...

i've got a suggestion, if it hasn't been made already: Sphere Anti-Froglet.

plaintiger: Again, that would be Torus Anti-Froglet.

Sorry to be off-topic, but ...

KotDB: The Earth is almost spherical and its Cartesian map is equivalent to a Froglet playing area - Q.E.D. Even if it is also valid to say Torus instead of Sphere, the spherical aspect is more easily understood by lay people, i.e. non-mathematicians :)

WhiteTower: you might be correct with the non-mathematicians, but for mathematicians it's clear that sphere is wrong. torus is not "also valid" but it's the only valid thing

Luke Skywalker: Maybe the problem is with the word "torus", which is certainly unfamiliar outside geometrical circles (no pun intended). How about "doughnut" or "inner tube"

alanback: I'm not arguing user interface details (BTW I was the first to suggest doughnut) but simply stating mathematical truth (a torus is NOT equivalent to a sphere).

Torus Shmorus. Does any of this actually matter?

Luke Skywalker: If you're only concerned with mathematical correctness, then you're off topic :-)

alanback: I know. I answered White Tower's post which started: "Sorry to be off-topic"

P.S. This will be my last post on this topic

grenv: How do you play Torus Shmorus? It sounds like an interesting game. Do you have any more details?