tenuki: You'd have to propose the replacement scheme first. Don't throw away the wine if you haven't got the champagne yet. And make sure it's not cheap champagne replacing superb wine. ;-)

Radiant Aunt: Aye, that'll be because there's a limit of two per person.

blazeinshore, Lamby: I'm all in favour of censorship in this matter. I think it was in very poor taste bringing forward a half-baked set of allegations and circumstantial evidence.

My objection regarding the censorship is about the manner in which it was carried out.

harley: It's very simple in my view. Hiding and giving yourself time to deal with the people who write messages is far superior to a mass deleting of the messages and ignoring the people who wrote them. Bad decisions were most certainly made.

The effort that goes into a post doesn't matter? Please, feel free to spend a couple of hours on a post and then watch as it gets thrown away without you being given a copy, in fact without you even being informed. Would you then agree or would you be asking why you weren't simply put on hide?

How many of those people who think Jason was right actually had their work destroyed? Yes, work.

alanback: I had the "Can't find page" version of inaccessible. As that's both the US and the UK I guess Fencer or Liquid are having a fiddle with a wire or a piece of code.

Stevie: so quick?? im sure its been a week hasnt it? Im sure that has been near a week.

No the parade has been length but Panda's message heralding a transition to normality was only 5 or so hours ago.

Most other site relevant topics get shoved over to APPROPRIATE boards within a day or 2.

This is a special case. That sounds like a traffic-warder/park-keeper mentality.

Im sure we have given extra time this time for good reasons..

Yes

but the site is also meant to move on.

Ideally in a natural unforced way with patience being exercised by those who make the transition more quickly.

I come to this board to hear about the site. and all I see now is red numbers that mean not alot.

I would suggest that they mean you're being impatient.

Its coming to the point that its not worth coming here to hear about the site,,, because it wont be about the site. Im sure I am not the only one

I would suggest that they are being impatient too.


One more day! Would that have been too much?

Stevie: Because here is where the parade has been taking place. This is where the emotion is.

See if the topic and mood continues over on GC. It might do but then it'll get mixed up with whatever was going on there already. If it doesn't that'll be because the move dampened it down to nothing. Either of those seem a bit of a shame to me, especially the second.

It's not a major deal, it's just that I wouldn't have been so quick to start hustling people away with "let's move the party next door".

harley: Personally I think that the high spirits should have been allowed to wear themselves out on the BrainKing board. It would probably only have take another day's patience and it's a natural and fitting transition from the solemnity here. Just my opinion, though. What do I know?

harley: :O)

Is that a big snowball which got you in the nose?

ITSQUIETINHERE: LOL. Now you mention it.. I remember

Czuch: Watch the Backgammon tournaments at VogClub and you'll see average players win 4, 5 and 6 round single elimination tournaments - even though they may come up against players better than the best here. The Dice Gods rule! The players simply follow as best they can.

Jim Dandy, Vikings: I guess Czuch and I were being too subtle with our hints...

Welcome to the Backgammon Board where your comments can extend the discussion that we've been having..

where you'll find my reply proper ..

because here it's all somewhat . (And I do wish there was one of those with a smile or a wink rather than a frown. )

Jim Dandy: I know you only had a quick "peek" but Czuch wasn't kidding. We have had this conversation on the Backgammon board and it was only yesterday!

Andersp: I don't understand. Mentioning where, blocked by whom?

Purple: Interesting. Nice job too!

nabla: Yes, it's impossible to detect, especially as it would only be done for an occasion move but it would be as well to spell it out in the User Agreement. Whenever someone's asked something like that on the Backgammon board it's been pointed out that the game is in progress and it would be unfair, but most often the person asking knows this and asks after the move anyway. If someone's playing me and they want me to advise them on what's best for their next move, lol, well, we can cheat together and hope that nobody tells! :-))

Czuch: Shhhhhh! Yes, detecting computer cheating is unenforceable from a practical point of view. So are most of the scams that the few cheaters employ as there's only one Fencer and he's a mite busy most of the time, lol. But there are curious and alert players here who stumble across these things on occasion.

(Note that an account where the playing is done solely by a computer and this is made known - that should not be seen as cheating. It's more the provision of a fine opponent for those who want to challenge it.)

Czuch: Using a program to analyse what's already happened in a game isn't illegal but using one to make your moves most certainly is.

I also think that a 30% rake-off is high. Ih fact it's considerably higher than on any of the proper gambling sites. But then Fencer isn't competing with these; this isn't a gambling site. I rather think these tournaments are just to add a flavour of excitement for those that want it. True, there will to be people going into these tourneys blindly but I suspect that most of the ones who have a decent chance to win will know what they're doing. Those with no chance would be in it for the fun and would have already written off 100% of their stake anyway. A win for them would thus be a huge and unexpected bonus!

I seriously doubt that there's the makings of a big scam here. For a start these tournaments aren't going to be flooded by people and money, plus they'll take forver to complete, just like ordinary tournaments. So I'd say the opportunity is a small one. If someone were consistently winning (especially in a luck-based game) then sooner or later they'd come under scrutiny and would likely be found out. But assume that these problems don't exist and someone was able to win a lot without detection .. there's then the problem of "laundering" the Brains - finding people who'll fork over the cash to the scammer instead of purchasing through Fencer. That's likely to be a lot more work that it's worth.

As a comparison of sorts. At VogClub, a non-gambling Chess/Backgammon site there are also money tournaments (Vog "tokens" equivalent to 1 cent). These have an entry fee of 2 tokens and a stake of 10 or 50 tokens. The 10-token ones have a high rake-off (20%) but 12 cents is cheap enough that you wouldn't care too much. Despite this they're very underpopulated. I've played in three-player tournaments (and lost to a beginner! ). I'd imagine that here, when people realise that it costs $1.50 to enter a money tourney, they will see it as only an occasional treat.

Czuch: Win-win. It sure is - except when I turn you in for cheating. I could have won that tournament! Apart from that bit, though, it sounds entirely reasonable to use your Brains to pay for someone else's membership in return for cash.

So how much discount did you have in mind? Will you have enough Brains by June?

Czuch: Who to? If I gave you some money how would I receive your Brains?

Fencer: That' a bit unclear but it sounds as if you're saying the 30% becomes yours.

Mary Jo: In that kind of game the 1 day is the total amount of time in which you can play moves. Let's ignore the bonuses for now and just imagine a couple of those sand-filled timers. There's one for each player. If the sand runs out then that player lose the match. Unlike the ordinary sand timers, though, these ones don't get turned over. Rather they get switched on and off. Yours is losing sand all the time that it's your turn. When you move yours stops and your opponent's starts losing sand. So, there's not a heap of sand per move but for the whole game.

Now let's consider the bonuses. This has the efect of topping up your sand each time you move, by 3 hours-worth in this case.

Looking at your game it says that you played 9 moves. Your timer will have lost the sand between each move - the period from when your opponent moved to when you did. If you add all that time up then that's more sand than there was available.

So how much sand did you have? 24 hours (the initial 1 day) plus 9 bonuses of 3 hours, giving 51 hours in total. At the point that your opponent made his last move you must have had only 4.5 hours of sand left .. and hence the timeout.

BIG BAD WOLF:

Fencer (hide) 3. February 2006, 19:25:28 link
- browsing player list -

reply

Even Fencer's curious about who these Rooks are and what it means!

alanback, Fencer:

Fencer: [Runs off to Membership Levels] "Hmm, nothing changed there, but then that'll be the last part of any changes. Where else can I look..?"

I wonder what it was you did..

Fencer: "everybody is free to use only features he likes."

Mostly true. Knights who only play a few games can't utilise the tournament system as they might like because of the one-per-game-type restiction. Eg, a Knight in a multi-year Backgammon tournament can enjoy no other.

Unless you've changed that somewhere along the line?

alanback: Lol. I don't believe you can extend your own Pawness into someone else's Rookhood! But as to who the extension is being applied to ... whomever you nominate.

Pythagoras: I believe the answer to 1) is that you don't actually buy memberships, per se, you buy membership extensions. It's just that with some people they are extending their Pawnness into Rookhood. So it would be B).

I asked a similar question to 2) and 3) way back whenever and got the answer "Fencer would work something out", so I'll be interested to hear any further elucidation.

alanback: Lol. I haven't got a lawyer's hat to be not sure with but that's okay - I'm already not sure that's true. I'm just remembering bits of conversation from the Feature's Board.

Czuch: One key aspect of Brains is that it isn't cash and therefore the tourneys cannot fall foul of gambling prohibitions. (Do a search for gambling on the Features Requests board where there was a conversation about it.)

Fencer: "The latter (two halfs and pairing)."

Excellent.

(Perhaps that snippet of info could be added to the Help text, just for completeness?)

Fencer: In the Single Elimination Tournaments are the pairings done by taking every two BKRs (ie the top and 2nd, the 3rd and 4th, etc..) or by folding the top half onto the bottom half (eg, in a 8-player tourney, the 1st and 5th, 2nd and 6th, etc)?

Stevie: It does look something like that - the profile info's fallen behind again...

Profile: JMDLOVESNirvana
Last action: 29. January 2006, 20:05:25 - viewing profile (Andre Faria)

Posted in the Flame Pit:
JMDLOVESNirvana (hide) Re: [something or other] 29. January 2006, 20:08:50
Blah, blah...

Stevie: Yes, I can confirm that.

Profile: JMDLOVESNirvana
Last action: 29. January 2006, 19:39:33 - browsing main page

Posted in the Flame Pit:
JMDLOVESNirvana (hide) Re: 29. January 2006, 19:56:00
"Blah, blah..."

Both of the above were copied at 20:00 and the profile information is clearly out of synch.

Pedro:

Stevie: Likewise. For me the problem is highly intermittent and most accesses are behaving. Then a big hesitation or several little one occur. UK problem, I guesss. [shrug]

Stevie: Reeeeeeaalllly slow response times here as well.

prettymama: Lol. It does seem strange but it makes sense. It's due to the fact that Sphere froglet is so new.

Blackviper's ranked #2 in Sphere Froglet but that's because he's the second of only 2 players who have an established rating! Everyone else, including yourself, is provisionally rated and ranked. On that ranking you're at #41 whereas blackviper is #72. And his rating is 895 to your 1368. That difference of 473 explains, as Steve said, why you get no points for a win.

Pythagoras: Yes and yes.

There was quite a discussion about vacation days not so long ago. Stick vacation into the search box to get hold of it...

Pythagoras:

plaintiger: Aye, I would have thought so too.

ScarletRose: LOL. Yep.

Vikings: It's the last 10 in the current year. The previous 9 were in December or earlier.

Reza: Nice one. A very enjoyable read.

frolind: If it's two matches per pairing and there's one win and one loss per player...?

Rod: That's what I was thinking it sounded like. Hmmm, so draws will be possible... Thanks Rod.

A tournament has been defined as follows:

Match type: 13 points match with doubling cube
Tournament type: two games (switched colors) for each two players

So does this mean there will be two 13-point matches per pairing or does one of these parameters take precedence?

Pedro:

I've had intermittent problems but no more than a minute each time. I'll post after each one from now on, just in case someone can spot a pattern..