AbigailII: I don't like waiting that long. It is a personal preference. I don't enter tournaments with long time limits which is one reason that the long timeouts stand out the way they do. The games waiting for a timeout are, in my case, often the only ones left. I can see we simply disagree on this issue. It is probably best to leave it at that.
I always look at the time limit to ensure that it is three days or less. When I have nothing coming up in my schedule I prefer ones with just one day.

talen314: I have had quite a few timeouts where I had to wait 30 days, sometimes more, for a timeout. It is why I always set tournaments I create to disallow vacation.
And a 30 day timeout in a tournament is a problem in which way? The timeout is likely to happen before all games are finished anyway. Even if you play against someone who makes a move once a day, many games will last beyond 30 days. Heck, I'm still playing the first round of tournaments that started in 2006 - and the slow player hardly takes any vacation time. Timeouts happened in that tournament - but most of them were before Christmas 2006.

hungry for new challenge ? for something funny ? here it goes: new, crazy backgammon version ...

1. Every player has 6 checkers numbered from 1 to 6 ...
2. Checkers are placed in the opposite player's home section of the board in exact order ... number 6 touches the bar, then 5, 4 and so on ...
3. Play is like in regular backgammon with 3 novelty twists.

4. Twist number 1: checker with the number that corresponds to the number of a dice may, but do not have to, move twice the space ... example , we rolled 5 and 2 ... checker with the number 5 may move 5 spaces or 10 spaces if the player chooses so ...same with the number 2 ... player cannot transfer unused jump
to another checker ...  player may choose regular backgammon moves for all his/her checkers instead.
******
This twist gives the player new perspective in the game ... let's look at our roll 5 and 2 again:
- checker number 5 can be moved: 5 spaces, 10 spaces and also 5 spaces plus 2 spaces, or 10 spaces plus 2 spaces ...
-checker number 2 can be moved: 2 spaces, 4 spaces and also 2 spaces plus 5 spaces, or 4 spaces plus 5 spaces ...
5. Twist number 2: Double roll is the killer ... when you get double (6-6, 5-5 etc) you choose opponent's piece (any) and send it to the bar ... if you are already on the bar and you roll double, you have to leave the bar if possible, if not, you may choose opponent's checker and send it to the bar ...

6. Twist number 3: gathering all the checkers in home section is NOT required to start bearing off ...
You jump out of the board whenever you get the roll that allows you to do it ...

Have fun ... grab your board at home, put some stickers with numbers on your 6 checkers  and try it.
Andy.

I don't know if this has been askedor if it's already available, but how about an all time highest BKR for each game

grenv: Hmm as one of those co-second placers, I think I'd have to agree! LOL..

Someone call me crazy, but shouldn't the equal second place getters share the 2nd *and* 3rd place amounts?

For example, In this tournament the 3rd place amount was essentially left out altogether because there was a tie for 2nd place - If nobody tells me my math is askew (we each got 8 brains) I'll log a bug in the bug tracker.. :)

Backgammon brains Tournament

coan.net: Thank you for your reply. On the whole very happy how the ratings work. I play mainly the espionage variants, so don't really know how it works for gammon.

The example below is from chess!

<span>Sometimes I feel that people may click new game before checking the waiting room...  which causes a number of extra games to appear on the waiting room.  so...  I was wondering if waiting room games could appear below the new game link for that specific game...  does that make sense?

SL-Mark: Well I just want to make a quick post/comment since I know Fencer is working on some updates for the site.

Right now, the BKR on this site is a "Chess" rating system - which is a skilled game. So when games that start to have more luck attached to them, the "skill" rating system is not best suited for those games.... in my opinion.

I would love to see different ratings systems used for different games - like one that was designed for gammon games to be used for gammon games.. and possible others which have some luck in addition to the skill to it. (Not sure why types of rating systems are out there.... or if Fencer is interested in doing this, but thought I would through out that suggestions.)

Sorry to drag this subject up again. However, as it is one of the neatest things on Brainking, and is important to many people, I will excuse myself. On the Espionage board, we are currently having a debate on BKR and have posted the latest entry below.

BKR ratings are important. Having a tight BKR range at the top promotes competiveness and moral. However, where someone has leapt in with an extremely high BKR rating, causes abuse (defend rating by only playing low rank players) and creates less competiveness as that rating is almost unassailable as well as frustration in the other players.

The feature request is to modify the initial rating awarded during the first 4 games. There are many possible ways of doing this, but perhaps the easiest would be to create a cap on the number of points awarded for each game. For example, assuming all 4 games won, a cap of 100 could produce an initial provisional BKR of 1700, or a cap of 150 could produce 1900.

Latest post on thread on Espionage board:
The flaw is more than the abuse.
The ratings work very well after the initial provisional BKR has been awarded, it is how the initial rating is derived that is often specious.
There is a big difference between inaccurate and wildly spurious.
Here is a real example from earlier this year. You can find many similar examples across all games.

Game 1 won, opponent BKR between 1500 – 1600
Game 2 won, opponent BKR between 1400 – 1500
Game 3 won, opponent BKR between 1700 – 1800
Game 4 won, opponent BKR between 1500 – 1600

So what initial provisional BKR should be awarded?
1600 – 1700 Largely inaccurate, as we have information on a 1700-1800 win.
1700 – 1800 Inaccurate, but best we can do with information available.
1800 - 1900 Largely inaccurate, no information to validate this.
1900 – 2000 Grossly inaccurate, absolutely nothing to suggest this.
2000 – 2100 Wildly Spurious!
What was awarded? A figure half way between 2000 – 2100.

You decide, flawed or not?

wetware:bearing off is as usual ... all the checkers have to be in home section like in a regular game in order bearing off to begin  ...
however, the winner is who bears off his/her 2 backrunners first ... game ends at this moment and no other bearing off is required ... but before it happens the other checkers (some of them) will probably be born off
first, due to configuration in home section and the roll, of course.
Did it help ?
Andy.

Herlock Sholmes: I like the sound of this...would love to do some play-testing.  Did I understand this correctly: ONLY the 2 back checkers are ever borne off?  (as opposed to the winner being the first to bear off those 2--although other checkers could be borne off along the way toward that goal?)

AbigailII:
I have had quite a few timeouts where I had to wait 30 days, sometimes more, for a timeout. It is why I always set tournaments I create to disallow vacation.
For members with limited games, like pawns and knights, it can be frustrating having a game occupy a precious game slot that is not being actively played by the opponent.

MadMonkey: thanks, I am not a programmer but even to my limited understanding it shouldn't be a big task to
implement ... you're right, only marking these runners should be done and some "IF-ELSE" when bearing off starts ...
Cheers,
Andy.

Herlock Sholmes: Well i will add it to my list i am compiling for Fencer. Hopefully as i am not busy, that should be ready for him to look through.

As i can not see any reason why not, unless Fencer just does not want it, it would seem very easy to code.
The only difference to the normal Backgammon code, is just to check the first 2 pieces that are beared off are the 2 'back' pieces. It seems easy or is there anything i am missing ?

MadMonkey:thanks for your remark ... there is only one problem with this variant ... it's extremely
exciting and addictive ... and all of a sudden huge portion of your "established" knowledge about backgammon becoming useless ... same story as with regular chess and atomic chess (or any other good variant of course) ...
If this will be ever implemented I would suggest putting a  dot of opposite color on every back checker  ... this way it will be obvious where these runners are.
Cheers,
Andy.

Herlock Sholmes: Sounds good

this time addition to backgammon family ... all the rules stay the same with simple modification ...
in order to win player has to bear off ONLY two back checkers ... they have to be marked in some way of course ... this variant calls for a different strategy since these two back runners are to be protected along the way ... remember, in order to start bearing off all the checkers have to be in home section as in regular game ... be careful not to cover unnecessary your back runners ...
I played something similar with only one special checker and a special dice that allowed to move backwards ... my variant is simpler ...
Cheers,
Andy.

talen314: The disadvantage is that some games, even if no vacation is taken, can easily last half a year, or longer. (Depending on the game, move time settings, and whether it's a multigame match). While I can see that not spending more than a few vacation days is fine for the next few months, it's harder to predict a long time in advance. It's even harder if the tournament has more rounds, and you advance to the next round. I've had cases where there's a years difference between me finishing my last game of the first round, the my first game of the second round starting.

As for games with people that aren't active - those people either haven't set autovacation, or have already ran out of vacation days. Their games are likely to time out before the other games are finished. It's only a problem for tournaments starting in January, where people have signed up long time in advance.

At present vacations (all days) are allowed or no days. It would be nice to have an option to allow a set number of days of vacation for a tournament. This would avoid the long waits for games to time out that are not being actively played. It is a good compromise option between those that want games to proceed quickly and those that want to have some days off because of very heavy schedules.

FYI...  Their is no little boss explanation when looking at the descriptions of the ranks in the fellowships...  (when you go to change a persons rank).  I think people know for the most part what a little boss is and does; but it still should be added.

Here is what it shows:

Description of the ranks:

• Member - normal fellowship member. He/she can join the teams, read and write to discussion boards of the fellowship.
• Manager - besides all advantages of normal members he/she can become a captain of any team and set team ranks of their players.
• Big Boss
  - the ruler of the fellowship. Besides all advantages of managers
  he/she can allow players to join his/her fellowship, ban players for
  this fellowship, set ranks of all members (define managers etc.) and
  write fellowship news (displayed on the fellowship's main page). Only a
  member with Brain Rook or higher level can become the Big Boss.
  WARNING!
  Each fellowship can have only one Big Boss. It means that if the Big
  Boss sets his/her rank for another member of the fellowship, he/she
  stops to be its Big Boss and becomes a manager.

AbigailII:and you are right Abigail ... but luckily we are humans and we play human created games ...and  99 percent of those games are not perfectly balanced ... and you know what ? thanks God ... this is why we also created tournaments and matches and every player has a chance to play as player A ... look at Horde Chess , Maharaja Chess, Reversi, Gomoku, Halma, Checkers, Chess and about any possible game ... first player has an advantage and if not, Lady Luck  shows her teeth (backbgammon and the whole family plus card games) ... do you quit playing ? no, you enjoy them despite all these flaws ...
Cheers,
Andy.

Herlock Sholmes: But there's the classical strategy stealing argument. If there's a winning strategy for the second player, the first player can just pretend to be the second - he plays a random first move, as getting numbers is never a disadvantage.

Saying "if the first player plays an attacking strategy, there are chances for the second player if he plays defensive" doesn't mean the first player doesn't have an advantage. After all, if playing defensive is a winning strategy, there's nothing that prohibits the first player to play defensive.

AbigailII:I tested it ... look, natural human tendency will be to jump into crossing out those sets that have 2 or even 3 same digits ... this way many other categories would be left behind (undeveloped) ...in this case the second player will have a chance to open many more categories , and force the first one to run behind him/her ...if the first player chooses to open 3 different categories at the very start, the second one can immediately try to find a set that gives him/her advantage in one of those freshly open categories ...
Running for 5 secured stones can be risky since it can requires ca 3 moves ... running as a first player for different categories is also risky since the second player can immediately follow you and double and even tripple you scores in new categories ...
As you can see there is more into the strategy than it may look ...as the game develops there are other strategic moves like blocking certain areas of the board, imprisoning certain digits etc ...
You see Abigail, the more categories you open (getting more different digits) the more shallow your score will be in each category ... the second player can easily control those numbers and a) run for 5 secured stones or b) tie with your low score in other categories ... even if the first player is on attacking side, the second one is on controlling side ... every board will be different and it would be impossible to predict anything ...
I know you would have fun with this one.
Thanks for your input.
Andy.

Herlock Sholmes: This game is very easy to play but as usual very hard to outsmart your opponent ...
So, you have play tested it?

BTW, it seems that the player going first has an advantage, as he'll have a chance to have crossed out more numbers than the second player (second player will never have crossed out more numbers than the first). Perhaps the first players last turn shouldn't count if that doesn't leave the second player a turn.

I am fascinated by Japanese grid puzzles from Nikoli ... and in this spirit I am sharing with you  my new invention for 2 players.

1. For this game we use 9x9 grid (or board if you wish).
2. There are 9 categories of numbers : 9 ones (111111111), 9 twos (222222222), 9 threes ... and finally  9  nines ...
3. Software randomly distributes these digits on the board ...
4. Players in their turns cross outs 3 (they have to touch each other) digits either vertically, horizontally or diagonally ,,,
5. Below and above the board software displays how many of each category members players
    collected ...
6. Digits already crossed out cannot be used again ...
7. Players try to win as many categories as possible ... to win a category it means to have more digits
    than the opponent in a given category ... let's say player A collected 6 fives and player B only 2 fives ... the winner in this  category is player A .
8. Game continues this way until there are no more 3 consecutive digits to be cross out ...
9. Digits in each category are compared and the player who won more categories is the winner ... in case
    they won the same number of categories, there is no winner and the games ends as a draw ...
***
Remarks:
If players secures 5 digits in any category, he/she wins this category ...
Try to develop your own winning category(ies) ... sometimes only 4 or even 3 digits secures your winning category ... you can do this by careful play and eliminating some digits and areas on the board ...
Do not be discouraged when the opponent collects many digits in one or two categories ... it's almost certain he/she forgets about other categories ...
This game is very easy to play but as usual very hard to outsmart your opponent ...
Cheers
Andy.

Fencer: Going to have to charge you storage space on my computer..... all these little folders with all there own contents.... Game Requuests, Teams etc..etc..

kleineme: Thanks. Bluff is not a bad name.

Fencer: You can buy this as a board game here in Germany with an expanded rule set.

MadMonkey: Maybe it should be "Show All New Posts...Within reason" what if a join a FS and it has 1000+ new posts

MadMonkey: Don't forget to put it to your list.

Fencer: Awsome, so much nicer when checking new posts

(can not beleive its taken 7 years to think of it lol)

MadMonkey: Easy and reasonable.

A small, yet very useful request

Every Discussion Board gets a different ammount of posts. Yet for example if you have yours set to 10 messages, and the board has 28, you have to start counting etc..etc.. Yes, the easy answer is to set it to display 50 posts

Well, PLEASE (either here) or in the new brainking, can we have an option "Show New Posts Only" please Fencer

AbigailII:Abigail, there will be more "decisions" to make than you think ... positional play will be very interesting ... being ahead of opponent's peg(s) or being behind - do you think it qualifies for automove ?
Every racing game can be related to Ludo, if you wish ... but there are many significant differences between these two games ...
1. Cards instead of dice.
2. Board
3. Number of pieces.
4. Way of starting and ending the game (same start and finish line)
5. Moving backwards plus using Ace in two different ways ...
6. Goal ...
And this project was to use cribbage board as a main actor ... of course, actual tracks can be of different design ...
Andy.

Herlock Sholmes: That's just a variation on Ludo, isn't it? Including the boring "many turns before actually making a decision" part.

I'd play the game, but only if there's automove (that is, BK makes all the moves for me until there's actually a choice of moves to play).

Hi, I've been playing cribbage for years. Cribbage board is a fantastic tool to keep score, not only for cribbage card game but for many other games, where immediate points recording is needed ... but I was always trying to construct a game where a cribbage board is used directly as a racing track ... here comes my proposal ,,
1. We need (of course) a cribbage board, 2 players, 3 pegs for each and a deck of cards.
    (As you can see everything we need is included in the standard cribbage package.)
2. First look at the cards ... we have numerals: 1(Ace), 2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10, 11(As) and court cards
    Jack=1 point, Queen=2 points and a King=3 points ... Ace can serve as 1 or 11 points ...
3. Cribbage board has 120 holes and players have to race their pegs to reach anything beyond 120th
    hole ... (unlike Ludo or Backgammon there is no requirement to get exact roll to bear off or reach
   home position) ... they race in the same direction ...
4. In order to enter the race players draw one card at a time and wait until they get one of the court  cards     (similar to 6 in Ludo) ... when they get Jack, they start from the hole 1, when Queen, from position 2 , when King, from position 3 ... only court cards allow the player to enter the race ...
5. Once they enter the race they can move as many holes as the next numerical card dictates ... but wait,
    court cards work in reverse order and move players peg backward ... Jack 1 point, Queen 2 points
    and King 3 points ..
6. At any time player is free to choose which peg he/she wants to move ...
7. Here comes interactive mode....whenever situation arises that the player may jump into the hole with
   the same number as opponent's hole with a peg in it, opponent's peg is moved back to the beginning
   position and has to wait for court card to enter the race ...
8. The winner is who moves 2 out of 3 pegs beyond 120 point ...
9. Having 3 runners and 3 opponent's runners on a neighboring track creates very tense situations ...
    Hope you will like this unusual racing game ...
Andy.

Don't forget to name it "Flying Dutchman" :)

coan.net: It's a pure coincidence but I've been watching Dead Man's Chest a week or two ago and thinking about this game as well. However, if it is implemented on BrainKing, it would be a multiplayer game, similar to poker tables, not a two player turn-based one.

coan.net: I proposed starting low and limit the beatings in order to make the game longer. But if you say you are able to make multiple rolls in 1 game my suggestions are unnecessary.
Let's make this one clear: 3 games match would consist of 15 total dice rolls?

Games like Horde Chess and Maharajah Chess are unbalanced which is probably one reason they do not get as much play. A way around this is to include an option for unbalanced games only where two games are played. If each player wins the same number of games the player that wins in the fewest total moves wins the match. Obviously matches would be an even numbered number of games. Winning quickly and not just winning becomes a trickier proposition.

team tournament could you please add the auto matic move box

10x10.. five in a row...

coan.net: The more players there are, the more fun this game is, as the bluffing opportunity becomes quite large with 4+ players. But for a 2 person game, your proposed plan below would work.

Yes, you can start out by stating that you have four 6's... you do not have to start with a low number. Like most games, everybody will come up with their own rules.

I've read some rules, and I did not see it mentioned that you have to start with Ones, or something else low - not sure why you would not be able to just start high (shorter game, but why should that matter?)

This is how I would do it on this site (for 2 players) - Would make it a "match" of the first person to win 5 rolls (so 9 total rolls of the dice are possible)

First person - has the option to pick between 1-10 dice (total number), and then have the option to pick 1-6 (what is on the dice).

Second person has the option to either calling the person (show dice & end round), or raising the bid with either the same dice # & higher total number of dice, OR, and higher dice number and any total number of dice.

I would think most hands would last between 1-4 times between each other - and playing to 5 would make the game last around 20 moves on average (again, maybe less - or maybe more depending on the players)

--------

Of course making it a 3 or 4 player game would also be nice.

Teachme2play: Yea, but what if, the turn before you say 5 fives opponent catches you lying f.e "4 fours"?

According to your annotated example game, you don't consider that to be good tactics. Note that in said game, B, not knowing what A has, doesn't call LIAR on either A's "four threes", nor on A's "four sixes".

Or he discoveres your plan and plays 5 fives before you? Excellent. So, we agree that the game just might have started by the first player playing "5 fives". No point going through the motions first (going through the motions is ok for a "live game" - it's deadly for a turn based web game).

cd power: Thanks for those links cd

Is what i like already is the real time concept that you mention. I think that needs to be built into brainking as soon as possible for a multidude of games

AbigailIIif I had 2 or 3 fives, I may not mention them until "5 fives".
Yea, but what if, the turn before you say 5 fives opponent catches you lying f.e "4 fours"?
Or he discoveres your plan and plays 5 fives before you?
As I said before, that's a matter of tactics.

A: 1 five
B: (anything)
A: 2 fives
B: (anything)
A: 3 fives
B: (anything)
A: 4 fives
B: (anything)
A: 5 fives

B says 5 fives after A's 4 fives and A loses :)

Having spent several years in China as well as traveling there on business for the last 14 years, I have played this game and it is a lot of fun... however, I'm not sure how fun it will be over the internet. It is fun because of the quick play, usually alcohol is involved. I think this game would need to be played in a real-time setting, like Brainking's current poker rooms.

: The game mentioned below is one of the most popular dice games in Asia... also called "Liar's Dice"

Google it... it's all over the internet.
http://www.wikihow.com/Play-Liar's-Dice
http://www.liarsdicemaster.net/

http://www.my-new-chinese-love.com/liars-dice.html