I agree, once the screen is raised the game counts. I would say Dark Chess is similar, once a move is made by each player the game counts. Maybe this is a good rule for all games?

Yay! Caissas, you must be reading all my old posts. lol.

I had the same question. I suggest not starting or finishing a game type in 6? 12? months should remove you from active status. Perhaps an additional filter "Show inactive ratings".

I'd like to see my record against an individual in a particular game on the ratings list for that game next to the players name.

e.g
Order Player BKR Counted games Your record
1. PlayerOne 2100 36 1-4
2. PlayerTwo 2050 60 3-2
etc

You'de have to do more detective work than that though, since I'm sure some people play from the same machine legitimately, particularly within a family. Also anyone playing moves from the same office network would possible register as the same IP address as well.

Actually In backgammon it is frequent that a position is reached when one player cannot lose, even if (s)he rolls 2-1 and the opponent 6-6 for the rest of the game. Obviously this is only applicable if there are no overlaps and therefore no chance of capturing. In these cases you should resign unless both players are happy to keep chatting. It is really only tournaments that I would apply this to since a lot of other players may be waiting for the outcome before proceeding.

If you were going to implement the doubling cube, you would also need to award two wins for a gammon and 3 for a backgammon. Personally I think if you're going to implement that, let's just have 5 point matches.

I started the thread by suggesting that once the game is mathematically over then the game server should award the game instead of forcing the game to continue pointlessly. Of course resignations would help (I always resign if the game is mathematically beyond reach, why prolong the agony).

I'll try that, but i still think it could be avoided, and I don't want to have to keep checking to see which rounds are tardy in starting. Is there any reason why the tournament owner needs to actually approve the next round starting?

Can I suggest that tournaments automatically start the later rounds, rather than waiting indefinitely for the organizer to click a button?

In one tournament the creator hasn't logged in since march, and he isn't in the final anyway! Meanwhile we could be playing the deciding games.

Can anyone argue for the status quo?

Scrabble is difficult for legal reasons.

Re: Average rating. The average should be 1300. Since every game includes someone adding and someone subtracting the same amount, the average should never change. Average of established players only will vary of course, indicating the relative strength of new players (the lower the average the better the newbies).

I would like to see the BKR of each player that I (or others) have played when I list the games played for a particular variation om the profile page.

hmm... the amount of money they ask for is quite small, and if you want to play for free you can. I was suggesting the number of moves restriction only to improve performance, not to encourage membership.

pawns are not the only problem, and possibly not the biggest. they are the only ones not contributing to the solution however. Having said that, if I was still a pawn I probably wouldn't join until the site performance increased.

Attrition of paying members is likely to be a problem for the future of the site I would imagine, so anything that improves performance and availability should be tried.

Here's another thought: turn off the auto refresh, or limit the lower number to 5 minutes. I suspect the number of people who leave the browser up while not actively playing is causing some unnecessary performance problems.

Hmm. Not letting pawns in is not the best way of getting them to pay.
With 20 games at a time you could still, in theory, play hundreds of moves. Less likely I guess. I would change from 20 games to 100 moves (it seems to me that i play a lot, but rarely get to 100).

By the way I also prefer this site to iyt for many reasons, which is why I'm trying to think of ways that it could be accessible more often.

I still think the best incentive for the pawns would be a site that doesn't crash!

i agree that move limits are not ideal, but with the server in such a bad state it may be a good temporary solution until more bandwidth is obtained.

Limited games will not be quite as effective since the pawns can still play just as quickly.

I would think that limited moves with a working server is preferable to the current situation. Also may incent some pawns to pay for membership once they see the site working better! (I understand not paying as it is performing now)

At iyt there was a moves per day restriction for non-paying members. Perhaps something like this could make the site more reliable?

Players online changes continually. Mental or written notes are hardly practical. I would suggest some sort of indicator, similar to the asterix used to show tournament games would suffice.

I actually meant beyond mathematical doubt. Example would be backgammon, where one player could roll 2-1 and his or her opponent could roll 6-6 for the rest of the game and would still win. In chess I wouldn't recommend this approach.

At least it could be a game option to allow automatic moves if forced. In Backgammon it could speed up the games a great deal.

Also I would like the game to end if the result is beyond doubt. While most people resign in such a position, it can be quite infuriating playing a move a day for 3 weeks just to reach an inevitable conclusion.

just my 2c

That makes sense for many of the games here. Some it's doubtful and others it makes no sense (e.g BackGammon).

How about an option on the ratings list:
"Active Players Only". The definition could be either started or finished a game of that type in the last 6 months or something like that.
I know of at least one case where the top ranked player is no longer playing.

That's fine for an established business. Sometimes early on the business will need to go into debt. One way to do that is to offer a share of the business (like a venture capitalist). Perhaps there is such an investor to be found here? I don't think casual bake sales and passing the hat is going to be very helpful though.

just my 2c (again)

Since at best you'll get about 10% adoption, you'll only raise under $1000. Is that really all that's needed to fix the problem? How about offering shares in possible future profits for investors instead? At this rate the problem is going to be that players such as myself will not shell out to renew our memberships when they expire unless something is done about the problem.

How about if a group winner is decided prior to all games being finished, the group is considered complete and the next round can begin (or the champion crowned)? This would potentially stop some tournaments dragging on... :)

When the doubling cube is implemented I'd like to avoid iyt's silly implementation if possible:

When doubling no longer makes sense (in the case where the current value of the game added to my score is enough to win), please don't give me the option to double. This is a waste of a click (which is also an extra page refresh).

I concur, though their are links on the right already that can be used to see previous moves. I think the message that XX moves have been made for you is the important part.

lol, your right about losing anyway. I'm not going to get annoyed at an opp taking 5 days if that's the rule, though some tournaments are dragging on a bit.

Which reminds me!!
How about this: If someone has won the group before all the games are finished, why not award the group to them and move to the next round (when all the groups are finished of course).

One thing that would annoy me though is if my opponent spends 5 days per move and makes 10 moves before I get a chance, thereby leaving me hanging for a couple of months. Perhaps a time limit would be appropriate after which the auto move turns off until I make one more move. I think it's most effective as a way of playing a whole bunch of moves on one day.

Personally I think autopass for backgammon should be used all the time. I hate having to make a "move" even though I can't actually move. Why on earth would I care where the opp was moving in the meantime, in backgammon the position itself is important not the moves taken to get there.

Having said that it's the same everywhere else so we can't complain too much.

I think it's useful to know that the opp is online as well. Also it should make no difference to the performance of the site. The real problem is the probably the number of concurrent requests rather than the number of fields being returned from the database.

You can also cut and paste the chess board into a word document. The pieces are pasted separately and can therefore be cut and paste around as needed. Ctr-z can be used to undo moves!

Credit to Wiktor for this one!

Same happened to me in one tournament. Apparently a bug?

Fencer: Any plans to retroactively fix these tournaments?

Vikings:
If the ratings took into account the value of the game (i.e 2 after a double) then you may not accept a double. Also if a gammon was worth double and a backgammon triple.

Better would be points matches. If this was introduced it would need to be a different game and the ratings start from scratch.

Hey danoschek, this board is for discussing new features/games. Take your ridiculous drivel elsewhere, preferably some private forum.

i agree, i never turn down a achallenge unless i'm playing too many games, and it cost me about 200 points in bg recently! :( Now the challenge is to get them back!

I think there is a bug in the ratings. every single drawn match I've been involved in has resulted in no change to my rating, up or down. This doesn't make sense. Most recently I drew with a player 200 points lower than me, both established. No change. Fencer or others, what is the expected behaviour here?

Gary Barnes is correct mathematically, assuming that the ratings are established and accurate. Here there have not been enough games to guarantee that of course.

I think the thing about backgammon is that the luck of the dice means that a weak player can beat a stronger player quite often. This means that playing only players with high ratings would be an advantage. In chess this isn't the case.

I wonder whether any rating systme can be effective for backgammon unless the doubling cube is used? Perhaps the die hard backgammon players can answer that?

feature request: Notes not related to topic be deleted.

danoschek: None of your posts make any sense to me whatsoever. Am i missing something?

How does any of this qualify as "feature requests"?

Also code inspections applied before testing work well at reducing introduced bugs. ;)
Can also be time consuming though :(

How about a "resign and insult the opponent" button. That would save me some typing. ;-)

Because this way I can watch TV or read a book(!) and just glance up from time to time to see if it's my turn. I'm basically lazy. Also I can have the window open in one corner and be working somewhere else on the screen and see when it's my turn. etc etc.

I wonder if we could turn off the auto refresh after actually clicking on a piece, or clicking the "resign button". That way the page wouldn't refresh in the middle of writing a note to the other player. Thanks.

I think runningwolf may need to be at least a knight to get vacation days.

Also, I like to play all games of the same type at once, in order to keep my brain from exploding. How about a "Move and go to next game of same type" button (maybe we could shorten the message but you get the idea).

Loop Chess is best implemented as a two v two game. Your partner plays the opposite color and you both play simultaneiously against the other pair. Any piece your partner captures can be put onto your board during your turn. How about this as a variant for team comps?

How about Atomic Loop Chess?

How would Dark Checkers work?

Ok, enough nonsense.

If you want a quick game how about dark atomic chess? lol.

On a serious note: How about Diplomacy?

If someone accepts one and not the other you could always abandon the game. It doesn't count to your ratings if you abandon in the first move or two.