Here’s my opinion about team tournaments and certainly my message rather replies to the questions of Kookaburra. On my profile, I wrote that team tournaments are my favorite, so I’m ok to join any team that needs a player for a team tournament. However, I must admit that for some games, it can be very frustrating to play in a tournament where the teams aren’t balanced. For example, a team with players with a bkr about 1900-2000 playing with a team with players with a bkr about 1200-1300. The game isn’t interesting : the strong player gets bored, the weak player is disappointed because he has no chance to win. That's why, I usually join the teams on the most popular games, because on these games, the bkr are in the average. And, of course, I’ve my preferences, unfortunately, not the games of checkers, but if a player is missing in a team, so as to join a tournament, tell me, I’ll join the team if it can help.

Crosseyed Mary: It says 35 on your profile

Marshmud: IYT discussion boards got out of hand and Patrick Chu was fed up of the constant complaining.

Marshmud: Yes that was what I though 35 days. I paid for a membership yesterday and there are zero vacation days. So something is wrong somewhere. Fencer could at least acknowledge my message. He has read it I know.

Crosseyed Mary:

A player with Brain Rook membership level can use up to 35 vacation days a year. After some vacation days are used, it is possible (twice a year) to get some extra days (during the same year) if the membership is renewed by another year (or longer period) - 10 after the first renewal and 5 after the second one.

I agree with Carnie...GT is hard to maneuver around. I try to play the same games over and over but recently have started playing tournaments at Monkeys Madhouse...There are certain players I dont like playing against so try to not play them, but apart from that there is nothing wrong with BK except there is nothing new games wise an there dosent seem to be a lot done upkeep wise. I have never had any problems with Fencer answering my queries, but I must be just lucky.

Carnie: I wonder how the boards would be without a moderator? I"m sure fencer would of deleted the public boards like Patrick did at IYT.

Carnie: Except for the owner who does not have the good manners or courtesy to reply to message about membership. So once again I have put it on the discussion board where he might reply with luck. Which was what I did last time I had a question to ask him.

Question when a membership is paid for, you get 35 vacation days.. Even it if it renewal they get added on? True or false?

Carnie:

Carnie: If that is the case I think the least Fencer could do is give Rod a forever membership for keeping an eye on this site so religiously

alexlee: Strangely enough I sent a message today asking about something. I wonder how long I will have to wait and will it be another volunteer?
I just play regular games there with mainly the same players. It is handy to have another site to play games in when a site is down for one reason or another.

Crosseyed Mary:
Everything at GT is a secret. No idea who is in Gold Token Support but I don't think there are many :)

Marshmud:
Agree there are bugs at GT. Tomas does what he can but it is probably hard to work on a code that someone else wrote. BUT at least they have site run tournaments. Kind of odd here for a game site not to have site run tournaments

alexlee: Trying to be civil about GT. She knows how I feel. I knew Chad 20+ years ago when even fencer was at GT. I feel like Chad stole fencers idea of fellowships, as they call them "clubs". There is so many bugs in the club tournaments because its code is written so poorly. Its why I say you cant compare the two sites, but others will disagree with me. Gt is popular for many. its only my opinion.

alexlee: A few weeks ago I tried to contact some one from G/T and it took over a week to get a reply and then it was a volunteer.

alexlee: I agree with you on that. I looked at the tournament page today and it was one page and a wee bit so not as bad as it has been in the past.

Crosseyed Mary:

Okay, but one is enough to ruin the whole board.

alexlee: There was/is only one person who created far too many tournaments.
There is another but it looks like people do sign up for them and they do get played.
It was the Team tournaments that are not starting due to not enough teams signing up, that started this discussion.

Marshmud:

There needs to be a limit as to how many tournaments someone can post. Terrys asked about this a while go. Fencer sounded like he would do it if we came up with a number. Five seems like a reasonable number to me

Marshmud: One word comes to mind elitism.

Marshmud: I well remember that hahahaha

Crosseyed Mary: I'm sorry Mary, I mean the site team tournaments when I speak of team games.

Crosseyed Mary: I have the same 4 players on my teams. Mel is in one. But most are the same 4. They all have ask me to not list them in challenges. The 5 of us only help keep team games going. I only play team games, no others.

Bernice: It was your orange marmalade you mailed me. I'll never forget how delicious it was.

Marshmud: OOPS....that wasnt what I understood way back then,....that puts a different slant o things ...Hoping you are cancer free now and congrats for beating it.....xxx

Marshmud: Your comment about your team members not wanting to play team challenge games/tournaments is only confirming what I have been tying to explain to Kookaburra. So your team members must think they are too elite to play other team challenge games!
I do have a very good memory regarding the universe etc.

Bernice: No, I back out as I was going through a tough go. Its a shame, because fencer was going to stick around a full year for free. I had mctriva and another programmer from Greece to me help out, but honestly I didnt think I was going to be around another 12 months. Some thought his asking price was high, but it was fair. I had problems on my end it had nothing to do with greed.

Crosseyed Mary: Been cancer free two years now so hopefully I dont disappear lol. My friends knew what was going on. I dont play team challenges, and none of my team members want to either, just team tournaments.

Marshmud: Marshmud I remember when you were going to buy this gaming site, but greed got in the way of settlement if I remember correctly...It is amazing how some people are selectivein memories, but then i guess that does happen in old age hahahaha....Gone are the days when you couldnt get a game unless you were on here 24/7 because they filled up so quickly...How times change ;

Marshmud: I recall your disappeared on two occasions for a very long time. So can you guarantee that won't happen again? Otherwise I could send you team challenge game.

Kookaburra: What I meant is GT has a active owner, and a paid full time programmer. This site just needs a new owner with passion to move it forward. This sites code is wrote that way, far brilliant to any out there, just his passion went from his game site to his family. I understand your frustration, but Im one that has teams in all the team tournaments so Im trying to keep them going and asked coan a year ago to lower the minimum players, in which he did. Ive been trying to get a checker team together for many moons. Just not many play checkers, sadly.

Kookaburra: This is a very good site to play games in.
Perhaps you could set up some tournaments and you will see that players will sign up.
It seems a shame to have full membership and only play a few games.

Marshmud:
All sites have issues. None are perfect.

Marshmud:
Agree

Crosseyed Mary:
I was just looking around sites. And this site seems good. Just a bit inactive. Thanks everyone for the discussion.

Kookaburra: Unfortunately those are games I don't play.

Kookaburra: I agree that Goldtoken has a larger player pool but with all due respect, you cant compare GT to BK.

Crosseyed Mary:
I am involved mainly with the checkers and chess fraternity there and we seem to be doing ok. It has a very good turn based implementation of checkers there. The best I’ve seen. Especially with the Restriction and 11 man ballot. Also have a couple of other clubs as a sideline.

Kookaburra: I am already a member in Goldtoken and have been for many years. To be honest I do not like the layout there. So I just play regular games.

Marshmud:
Doesn’t sound very good does it. Thanks

Crosseyed Mary:
If you join Goldtoken let me know. I am kookaburra there and own a number of very active clubs. And also some clubs I assist with in chess com. I can help you. It is a bit tricky when you first join a site. We also have a system in Goldtoken where when new people join we arrange some games for them from some friendly people.

Kookaburra: You could do it but I think you will find that you are flogging a dead horse at times.
The apathy is from the players in this site.
I cannot navigate around Goldtoken peculiar way of joining team games or signing up for games.

Kookaburra: Most of your answers can be found on this board: https://brainking.com/en/News

Go back to 1 January 2017

Crosseyed Mary: I didn’t mean to criticise. But I am in the Checkers and Russian checkers and both haven’t taken off. I don’t really like backgammon much and so far it has taken off. I am doing ok in them. Maybe people just play individual games here and clubs are not so important. That’s ok. People play what they like.

Kookaburra The creator coan.net does choose games that are more popular. He does his best and has done it for a very long time.