tonyh: This was discussed some years ago. and I promised to reinstate my paying membership when it was implemented. One also needs the ability to resign and not concede a gammon, thus avoiding many tedious moves until a gammon situation is (inevitably) avoided.

pgt: agree completely about the gammon situation; what we need is for the player who is bearing off to be able to finish the game, when he reckons the chance of a gammon has disappeared. That is what happens in over the board play.

tonyh: Simple solution... if the player losing can resign and offer a point, the winning player can reject and continue playing for a gammon. Either that or the system is smart enough to know a gammon is unattainable before a piece is actually borne off - particularly in positions where the winning player can't double and end it quickly that way.

tonyh: what if you only have a few pieces left, and you were playing for a gammon, but now you have a piece captured and are trapped. You may want to double now.... that's why a choice would be good... if you get in that situation you have the choice of "double" or "autopass" - autopass would take you out of the game until you get a chance to come in.

grenv: 'autopass or double' would be fine; that would sort out the problem very well. So would your other suggestion about resigning and offering one point. Both great ideas.

I'm caught again, rolling dice and no way of getting on. I face another four/five throws of wasted time.
Fencer, please could you put in a choice of auto-pass or double on the first blocked throw.

tonyh: You're not the only one. And I may even pay for a membership when it happens!!!

pgt: How about that, fencer!!??

tonyh:  Earlier today (on another site) I doubled my opponent.  But I have a man on the bar, and my opponent has a closed board.  Meanwhile, on my side of the board, my opponent has one man back, behind--but not immediately up against the edge of--my 5-point prime.  I double him now--I do not wait, which would give him the chance to roll a 62 that would jump my 5-prime and probably win--perhaps even win a gammon.

I double, thinking that it is more likely that he will have to break his board (allowing me to enter) on the next move or two.

But if I were auto-sleeping, and could not double until I actually had a chance of re-entering...I think it would be too late.  My opportunity would have been lost.

I can hardly wait to conduct a long rollout of the position, to see whether my cube decision was correct.  Maybe I'll post a link to the position, once that match is complete.  I think it's interesting.  Even if I'm wrong, I'll learn from it.

wetware: I imagine that if you are trapped, but your opponent also has checkers back, that would be a case where you would not go to auto-pass.

More common is the situation where you are the only one back and would never double.

wetware: There is an easy enough solution.

Don't just have an blind auto-pass for all situations - but still allow you to roll a dice, and if you are STUCK, you THEN have the option to choose "Auto-pass UNTIL I can move". (Maybe a check box above the submit box)

So if you think there may be a situation you do not want to use the auto-pass, you clearly don't choose that option.

coan.net: You just made me think of something that I have been puzzled about since I first started playing at BK. Why do both players have to permit auto-pass? If my opponent doesn't want to use auto-pass and I do, why can't he simply opt out while letting me use it?

By the way, I also like the idea of being able to change my auto-pass setting in the middle of the game, in much the same way that I can change the setting to "stay here" when my opponent is stuck on the bar and I own the cube.

happyjuggler0: Yea, I never did understand that either. If I want to use auto-pass - then let me - Don't let my opponent FORCE me to play a certain way. If they don't want to use it and click "pass" every time - fine, let them - but let me play the way I want and not let my opponent FORCE me to play a certain way - let me play the way I want to.

Anyway, here is how I would setup auto-pass (for all gammon games, and others like Ludo)

1. An option is settings that says something like: For games with a PASS, go ahead and auto-pass for me. (Applies to all gammon games where the CUBE is not in play) - if's its a gammon game and you have a chance to double, check below for those situations. Also applies to Ludo & other similar games.

2. An option in setting that says something like: For games where there is a AUTO-Move (only 1 move available) - go ahead and auto-move for me.

3. Then in a game, like mentioned below - (This would come up for people who do not have #1 above checked, and gammon games with cube) - If a situation comes up in game where you "Pass" - let there be a check-box that says "Auto-pass until I can move a piece" - Once you move a piece, if the "Pass" situation comes back up, you will need to check that again.

---- Then also, WHENEVER there is an auto-pass or auto-move, just have a small default message says something like "coan.net auto-passed" - that way the opponent knows they did not see any message or anything like that. (Since that was one of the "reasons" some had for not wanting to have auto-pass)

coan.net: That's exactly what I said!!! I should have patented it.

coan.net: 100% agree - Just wish i could write Greasemonkey scripts like hexkid

coan.net: coan; agree with everthing you've written! Especially about me using auto-pass, even if my opponent doesn't want to.

tonyh: It seems that there is pretty general agreement about what would be desirable new features. The only thing we are missing is an authoritative statement saying "great ideas - these will all be implemented in the next three months" or "despite the clearly expressed wishes of the customers, I can't be bothered and It ain't going to happen any time soon"

Game ID: 5145888, Match ID: 543045
this time for a lot of wasted moves.

Fencer, just a small request (as it is a Bank holiday here lol).

Would it be possible (well, i know you say everything is possible lol) that when Team challenges are made, that the Boss of the Fellowship gets some sort of notification as well. Maybe a red number beside the Tab in the fellowship if not a message sent to them. Some Teams that get challenged do not have Captains (although Bosses can enter the Teams without one), and some captains just miss the messages i think.

I just got sent a message about a new challenge, and when i got there i have loads waiting

I'm way over my limit of 20 games and still i get invites to new games. Why are people able to invite me, even though i do not have any slots available for new games? I hope this will be changed.

pgt: I guess after the deafening silence that the answer is "despite the clearly expressed wishes of the customers, I can't be bothered and It ain't going to happen any time soon"

I believe that there should have a backgammon game without the doubles!

Orlandu: ahh... there is

GT: I think Orlandu means 6-6, 5-5 etc counting extra.

When you put a newgame up in the waiting rooms why can we have a rating search of 50 point besides 100 points. i am high in the rating and the next person rated down 1 spot is more that 50 points?

I always found it very frustrating when an email notifying me of a move included a link to brainking.it or brainking.pl instead of brainking.com. Now they all the links seem to be brainking.com links. Yay and thanks!

Thad: Funny. BrainKing.pl domain was never registered.

Fencer: I just made that up. But it looks like I spoke too soon. My latest move email has a link to brainking.it. :-(

Thad: If you don't read the url bar I don't think you'd notice a difference would you?

grenv: I click on the links in the emails to get to my games, so, yes, I need them to go to brainking.com not brainking.xx.

Thad: Just wondering why, since when I use brainking.xx it works fine. On the other hand I guess jumping from server to server doesn't make a lot of sense.

grenv: Because my browser has the password stored for brainking.com but not all the others.

It's weird. Sometimes my move notification emails contain a link to brainking.com and other times they contain a link to brainking.it. This happens for emails regarding the same game! Fencer, why is this?

Thad: I don't know. A typo, most likely. However, since everybody has BrainKing in bookmarks, there is no point to click on email links anyway.

Thad: I myself would be curious if the e-mail's you get with the .it link are all from the same opponent (maybe an opponent who uses the .it) - or is it just random.

Fencer: You are wrong. The link in the email take me straight to my game in one click when I have a move to make. They make playing at BrainKing quite convenient. There IS a point to them and to having them right. I hope you can see that and that you were only trying to make a joke with your earlier comment.

coan.net: I am currently only playing three games, and I get the .it links in emails concerning only one of those three games. And, yes, that opponent is in Italy. But the weird part is that I only get the .it links some of the time. Other times I get the .com link.

Thad: Probably depends on which page the user that played the move was using at the time the email was generated.

If you log into both sites once and remember the password in the browser then wouldn't that solve the problem?

grenv: Ah, if he plays on different servers, then that could explain the kinda random difference in the links in my emails.

Wasn't the idea of using the different domains (brainking.com, brainking.it, etc.) supposed to allow players to connect with their 'home' server, improving speeds or efficiency or something and thusly giving us a better experience? I'm in the US. I shouldn't be directed to brainking.it.

Trivial I know, But is there any chance of more smilies being added?

Black Sunshine: what's missing right now?

Black Sunshine: Fencer always said he will add them if you show him which ones

nodnarbo:
well, I've been playing here for almost 5 years now and no smilies have been added - so I'd be happy with any new ones!

MadMonkey:
I need to go on the net and find a smiley site for him?

Black Sunshine: I guess my feeling is that with 1278 different smileys, most of which I have never used, we don't really need more unless there is something specific that you think is missing. Also, I think Fencer has higher priorities than hunting for more smileys to add.

nodnarbo:
I would guess you don't use smilies often then and I have no doubt Fencer has far more pressing issues

nodnarbo: I agree with Black Sunshine : I'd like to see other smilies. I'm rather a big user of smilies and many smilies that we have at our disposal are difficult to put in a conversation like this one for example.
It means that, in reality, we don't use 1278 different smileys but less. Yes, of course, Fencer has priorities but I think that his 1st priority must be to satisfy the users of the site. And Black Sunshine is right : there's a long time that we have the same smilies, her request (which is mine also) is reasonable.

Fencer's first priority is definitely not satisfying users of the site.

i must have dropped into the wrong site by mistake.. i thought i was at brainking the game site. Are we really talking in length about smileys? is there a candid camera somewhere?

Chaos: I'm guessing this post is ironic, but it's hard to tell without hearing the inflection. Nicely done.. not too crazy to be obvious, but crazy enough to induce laughter.