Board for everybody who is interested in BrainKing itself, its structure, features and future.
If you experience connection or speed problems with BrainKing, please visit Host Tracker and check "BrainKing.com" accessibility from various sites around the world. It may answer whether an issue is caused by BrainKing itself or your local network (or ISP provider).
Clandestine 1:Wild! And it's made even stranger by the fact that auto-pass is on, so it's not like your opponent would even have the opportunity for some impossible "magic move". If Fencer isn't able to resolve in a reasonable amount of time, hopefully your opponent would agree to resign since it was almost certain they were going to lose before the glitch.
Bernice: Fair enough, just seems REALLY odd that would happen the day before. Maybe an auto-renewal? I don't know, just spitballing ideas. Obviously this will be for you to sort out with Filip, so I'll leave it at that. Good luck!
Bernice: Could this not have been attempts by BrainKing to transfer the funds that you were trying to renew the membership with? Either way, I'd suggest contacting Filip directly rather than relying on him reading your message here,
Aganju: That's a plausible theory. And there's no reason the offset has to be one - IE it could be players with an ID 10, 100, 2567 more or less than our own. :) Something only Fencer would be able to determine. Clandestine could also be on to something, but it would indeed have to be a long-standing bug.
Modifisert av Carpe Diem (28. juli 2019, 01:03:50)
Bernice: I assumed she would be able to read it; nothing I said was meant to be a slam at her. I mean, I mentioned the resignation thing because I think if she comes back and this happens again, she should finish her games out rather than resigning them all. It's not a huge deal, and of course she's within her rights to do what she did, I just think it's not the best approach. That's all. My apologies to her if my comment came across as overly negative, as it wasn't my intent.
I disagree about banning people who transfer their membership. A pawn membership is free, so by transferring their paid membership, there's no reason they shouldn't have the right to go back to the pawn level. I mean, they could just create a new account anyway; I think it's better for all if such members continue on with their existing accounts.
And I meant it when I said I was sorry to see her go; I'd be happy to see her renew some day.
Crosseyed Mary: Again? I recall you did the same thing last spring (2018). It's a shame, because I think a lot of people would prefer you played the games out rather than have a bunch of resignations.
ketchuplover: Thanks! And yes, it's bookmarked. The thing is, I'm not one to think to open the site every day, and apparently once I forget for a few days, it just leaves my mind for longer - although I guess I have the excuse of an election campaign that's distracting me. Anyway, that's why I always keep a tab open with BK, and then I always see when I have games to play. But I guess I closed it at some point and then...well, here we are.
Modifisert av Carpe Diem (10. oktober 2018, 11:11:18)
Sorry to all my opponents who have been waiting on me for almost a month. I guess at some point I closed the BrainKing tab I always had open on my browser, and have been so busy that I just plain forgot. :(
Roberto Silva: Exactly. I usually decline game invitations I get that are one game matches and not random colour; often I'll send a message with the decline, explaining that if they want to reinvite with random, I'll play. And I do that regardless of what colour they're offering. Of course if it's a game like Dice Poker or Logik, it doesn't matter.
Also, there's a bug with elimination tournaments where the players are in order of rating, and the top player always gets white - I get white a ridiculous amount in Mancala, which is a huge advantage. I keep meaning to message Fencer about it, but I can't imagine I'm the first to notice and tell him.
Modifisert av Carpe Diem (12. mars 2018, 11:38:17)
I can't seem to find a board where rule discussions belong. If there is one, please LMK and I'll post there instead, or an administrator/moderator should feel free to move my post.
I have a question about Fevga - the "hidden rule", as I call it, as it's not software-enforced and thus causes confusion. Here it is, taken from Brainking's rules:
It is allowed to build a prime (six consecutive blocked points) anywhere else (not in the player's starting quarter), but if opponent has collected all his checkers onto the one point behind player's prime, the player must unblock a point in his prime to allow the opponent a chance to move.
How I've always interpreted this rule is that once you are completely blocked - IE none of your pieces can move because primes are built in front of all of your pieces, and they are all immediately behind said primes, your opponent must move a piece. I've never had a problem with this before, but my current opponent has a slightly different interpretation, and when the rule is read literally, I can understand their viewpoint. They are suggesting that all of my pieces must be on the same point, since the rule says: "if opponent has collected all his checkers onto the one point behind player's prime". Now, that seems to me like a strange rule, as it would be extremely rare to be blocked in only one place, but that is what it says. So, who's right? Here's the game in question:
http://brainking.com/en/ShowGame?g=7912346
If that link doesn't work, you should be able to find it in my Started Games, me vs. ekko. You'll notice that I have a single piece stuck behind my opponent's prime (11 rolls in a row with no 6 - argh!), and then my other 14 pieces on one point that is behind what is effectively a two-point prime. I believe the intent of the rule would be that this fits the criteria, but I can see that the rule isn't worded in quite that way.
Aganju: Yes, my opponent was going to be up against that limit a few moves later, and I was aware of it. I don't believe there was any malicious intent here; just a matter of them wanting to get as many pieces home as they could, I suppose.
Modifisert av Carpe Diem (30. november 2017, 09:29:35)
Glad I brought this up; some very interesting points.
I've been thinking about this a bit more, and I guess my perspective is shaped by the fact that when I was young, I played and organized a lot of tournament chess, and that's one game that, past the beginner stage, is not often played to the end. If it was, there would be some painful games. In some other games resigning is almost a foreign concept. Take a couple of the most popular games on this site - you're not eliminated until the final move in Ludo, and Dice Poker and Backgammon aren't usually decided with THAT many moves remaining. Battleboats, Logik, and numerous others - basically no resigning. There are lots of other games like that. If one is used to games where resignation isn't standard, perhaps it doesn't occur to one to ever resign.
I had thought of taking away the "glory" of the victory, and that maybe some people don't like that. It's why I often don't bother in games like the different "line" games (Pente, Connect6, Line4, etc) - you usually don't know you've lost until you're a couple of moves away from losing (or you'd do something about it!), so I figure my opponent is more likely to want to go to the end than be done slightly sooner.
Achievements are definitely something I didn't think of. I'll try to be mindful of possible achievements when considering resigning in the future.
The kind of games I think could use a little more resignations would be ones like Mancala. It plays quickly enough so it's not a big deal, but there's no game where it's easier to see when you've lost. Thankfully I've never been stuck in a dragged out game of Frog Legs, which is already one of the most painfully long games as-is. :) The one that brought on the mini-rant was a game of Halma where I had moved all my pieces to the opponent's home, and they still had one piece left there and lots to move to my home. I had to move back and forth for several moves while they move their other pieces home, and then they finally moved that last which enabled me to win. Seemed kind of silly.
But really, even though I decided to share my little rant with everyone, it isn't that big of a deal to me. Just something to think about, and some of you gave me more to think about. :)
Hrqls: Yeah, I certainly could, but I don't feel strongly enough to bother with that most of the time - just enough tonight for a small rant on the boards instead. :) And in this particular case, it's someone with in-game comments shut off. I feel better now anyway. :D
Brief rant - it's OK to resign! I understand playing a game through to the end, especially when there is the possibility of some learning coming out of it. But once you are mathematically eliminated, and nothing is to be gained even in terms of knowledge, why drag things out?
Emne: Re: Thousands of games and years to play one round of a tourney
Carnie: If there are people with several hundred or even thousands of games who are still signing up and playing extremely slowly, I could see how that would be frustrating, although I'd be surprised if it was common. The way I arrived at the situation was that I was (and am) in several fellowships, and signed up for a lot of games at one time. A message for one tournament would come to me, and I'd sign up for a bunch of games, and then another message for another tournament would come before the first set of games started, and on that went for a little while. So I was signing up for more games not fully realizing how many I was committing to (obviously still my own fault).
And also because games can, as we know, take a while, people's situations change. Mind did - I became a lot busier a couple of months after signing up for all of them.
None of this is to say that I think you aren't justified in being annoyed with this, but that it's not only people being inconsiderate - there are sometimes mitigating factors. And yes, people could resign their games, but doing that with hundreds of games is going to have a pretty huge impact on their BKRs, which is why people would be reluctant to do so.
crosseyed: Could be that Carnie is talking about past situations.
Emne: Re: Thousands of games and years to play one round of a tourney
playBunny: I don't disagree that it can be a problem, especially when, as you mention, it takes up the slots for a Pawn that's new to the site. But I also don't think it's fair to pin the problem completely on those who are playing within the designated time limits. The solution might be a combination of things - make it more clear to people the repercussions of signing up at certain time limits, and for signing up to multiple games in multiple tournaments, perhaps have some allowance to give pawns some more games to play if they are maxed out with games that are taking forever.
Modifisert av Carpe Diem (5. november 2017, 00:35:04)
Carnie: Yeah, that's the key - it's on us to decide what games, and time limits, to play. I've been on both ends of this. A few years ago I went crazy signing up for tournaments and ended up with well over a thousand games running and had a VERY hard time keeping up. Games were going to their limit all the time, and I used up most of my vacation days. Not something I'd have done on purpose, and I could see how some might find it frustrating, but at the same time, I was playing within the limits. Just gotta know that there will be some people who use up the full time allotted, so you have to allow for that when signing up. These days it's rare a game goes a day without a response from me, and games I'm in are often the first done in tournaments. But I don't begrudge those who make a game go on what seems like forever, as they're playing within the rules.
beach: Yeah, that happened to me recently; I considered sending them a message to ask what they were doing, but in the end decided I couldn't be bothered. Player had a number of <1000 ratings, so it obviously isn't the first time.
Carnie:Well, I can "hear you" now, as when I look at the game record it does indeed now show that you timed out and lost, in spite of you having made the last move. Very odd. I'd suggest sending Fencer another message.
Modifisert av Carpe Diem (1. november 2017, 05:05:37)
Carnie: I'm confused by "I thought people left this place because of bullies but I see the owner doesn't care." - were there some posts deleted? I sure didn't see anyone bullying you, but maybe you're referring to something else.
Emne: Re: Is there a nasty bug in the evaluation of multi-game matches?
Modifisert av Carpe Diem (3. august 2016, 22:58:51)
Aganju: I think what you'll find is that although it claims that you lost and shows rating points going down for you, if you look closer you'll find that the names don't match the rating points, and that your points actually go up.
So it works something like this. Let's say you and I played, and you won the match but I won the last game. Let's also say your rating was 2100 and mine was 1900 before the game. It will say something like Carpe Diem won, 2100 (+13), and Aganju lost 1900 (-11). I actually lost the 11 I should have, and you gained the 13, it just gives the wrong names in the message.
This bug's been there since I started playing here. It's simply a display error, not a problem with rating points.
Modifisert av Carpe Diem (20. februar 2016, 10:46:58)
badgerboy78: I tend to keep a tab with BrainKing open all the time, and after a while (usually a few weeks) that starts to happen. If I close the tab and open a new one, the problem disappears.
crosseyed: No, there doesn't need to be anything wrong - I believe there is approximately a 2% chance of having 23 non-6 rolls in a row, so inevitably it will happen to anyone who plays enough. Now if that happens to you every game, that's a different matter. To me, the bigger issue with Ludo as a game is that the skill element is pretty low in my opinion - but maybe that's just because I'm not skilled enough to understand the subtleties of the game. :D
Aganju - no offense, but that's just silly. I have definitely noticed times when I roll in Dice Poker and the exact same number comes up again, which always make one wonder. But then I think back to all the times that doesn't happen, and realize that the issue is likely just that I take note of the times when it does. But even if there was an issue with the RNG, your time solution would be useless. If the RNG uses the system clock, it will be dealing in fractions of a second, and waiting 15 minutes isn't any more "random" than responding in a couple of seconds. But as you say, there is no risk to waiting, so if you feel it works for you, I'm not here to tell you to do otherwise. :)
happyjuggler0: "Your S-B is decided by the number of games your collective opponents have won. If you play against players A,B,C,D, and E, and player A won 3 games, and players B and C won 2 games each, and players D and E won 1 point each, then your S-B score is 9. If the player you are tied with under the "points" column has a higher S-B than you, then s/he wins the tournament at BrainKing. If you have a higher S-B, then you win the tournament. If you have the same S-B, then you both win the tournament."
Not quite - your S-B is decided by the number of games your collective opponents that you have defeated have won. Your S-B is the sum of the points of all your opponents you defeated, plus half the points of all your opponents that you tied.
Bernice: Some kind of glitch, or error on the part of a player, seems much, much, much, much more likely then someone maliciously choosing two of your games to delete.
Modifisert av Carpe Diem (12. mars 2014, 21:05:26)
I'm wondering what prevents someone from being ranked in a game. For example, I noticed that Tenuki, who has excellent ratings in pretty much every game, is ranked in very few of them.
Carpe Diem: Quite a coincidence, I just came up against this very situation, and made a different move than I would have previously. But I forgot to follow my own advice and tell my opponent why I moved the piece I did. :(
Modifisert av Carpe Diem (3. februar 2014, 14:43:27)
cd power: I also had no knowledge of this rule. I think it's great that you proactively follow it - I'd suggest that when you do, you let your opponent know. Something like:
"Hi there. I'm not sure you're aware of this, but I was obliged to move one of my pieces since you were unable to move; this is a rule of the game that isn't enforced by the software. Just letting you know in case you find yourself in my situation in a future game."
The wording of why you were obliged to move a piece could probably be improved to include whatever the actual rule says.
Raistlin: Thanks! That seems to be an equally bizarre option. When I look at the tourneys in question, they say "Sort by BKR: No", but it sure appears that they all are sorted that way, so perhaps that's displaying incorrectly.
I guess I'll send a message to Fencer so he can look at the specific tournaments and tell me if that's the issue. I just think that any setting that allows someone to give themselves (or anyone else, actually) the same colour throughout the tournament should be removed - I can't see any good reason for the existence of such a setting.
Aganju: What a bizarre setting - why would anyone ever want that? As you say, it certainly shouldn't be the default.
But even so, I would think that since the setting is for "games with a random start position", this would just mean a player would end up with either all white or all black in an individual tournament - having all white in something like 15 consecutive tournaments would still be a little odd. But it makes sense that it's somehow tied to that setting.
Modifisert av Carpe Diem (11. januar 2014, 03:01:47)
Carpe Diem: No one has any thoughts on this?
"I'm wondering if it's possible for the creator to choose their own colour in a tournament. I've come across someone who had had white at least 48 consecutive times for one particular game in tournaments this person has created. They are single game matches."