mctrivia: true enough, I was just pointing out that after the first dice roll, it's no longer an even game. Omitting that roll the player who "really" rolls first has the advantage. It's also fair to say that in longer-running games the odds even out. A good example is go, where there's no official agreement on what komi should be, but for 99% of games it won't matter if it's off by a point or two after playing 200 moves.

jurek: I concur. Any game where one color always moves first gives an advantage to that color. In games where a dice roll determines who goes first, the winner of that roll gets an advantage in the remaining game.

[shortened]
URLs can contain commas, but BK appears to end links when a comma is encountered. I know it's a bit tricky to get that sort of thing exactly right, but I thought I'd mention it.

Ex:
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=7300+University+Ave+N,+Fridley,+MN&ie=UTF8

Fwiffo: Thank you, I had some trouble finding the Go discussion board, so I just tossed it out here. I'm so happy to have my favorite game on BrainKing!

A couple points for komi in Go:

- The standard now is typically 6.5 or 7.5 points
- Most sources claim it should be the same for all sizes of board
- We should be able to configure it, so players can use 5.5 (classic) 6.5 (current Japanese Pro standard) or 7.5 (Chinese, Ing, and AGA standard)

mctrivia: I'd think a generic web services interface to BK would be perfect for this. Anybody could write their own little apps...heck, someone could write a phone app so I could finally play while I'm on the bus :)

It occurred to me today that a list of "active" or "busy" games would be really nice to have. When I don't have any moves to make, I'd often like to watch other games in progress. It seems to be difficult to find games that are currently "busy" in realtime. Perhaps there could be a dynamic list that, say, shows all games with two or more moves in the past 5-10 minutes? Then it would be easy to pick out the most active games to watch. Am I the only one that finds watching entertaining?

headius: Ok, I'll repeat my feature request in hopes more Shogi fans will pick it up. I would love to see Tori, Wa, and Chu shogi on BK, and I would guarantee to sign up for a paid account immediately if they were available. There are no other places online that fully implement any of these variants, and I have a stack of friends who want to play. Come on you Shogi fans! Voice your support! :)

I've become a shogi fan in the few games I've played, and recently found that there are many smaller and larger Shogi variants that look extremely intriguing to play. They range from the absurdly small (4x4 "nana" shogi) to the absurdly large (taikyoku shogi on a 36x36 board with 402 pieces per player). I'd be interested in both ends of the spectrum and all those in between, but there are a few that are especially intriguing:

Chu Shogi (12x12) - a good size, I think, and has an active following worldwide
Dai Shogi (15x15) - very large, but perhaps playable in a few hours
Daidai and Maka Daidai Shogi (17x17 and 19x19, respectively) and Tai shogi (25x25). some of the smaller variants sound interesting as well, and they range from 4x4 up to 9x9.

Would there be interest in getting more Shogi variants on BK? I'd vote for Chu and Dai immediately.

Salkkuman: I agree, I'd hope those three popular sizes are included. I imagine the hold-up is that writing a Go game implementation is a lot tougher than writing one for chess, since pattern recognition is such a big part of the game. I'd be willing to help, if that's possible :)

I'd love to be able to play BK on my phone. Currently, though I can load up the main page a log in, the subsequent screen comes up blank. I'd love for this to work, and would certainly help debug and test it.

Are there any plans to add Go/Weiqi to the site? It seems like a major omission given the broad popularity of Go throughout the Asian world (and its growing popularity abroad). Most of the rules are logically simple, though I can appreciate the complexity of pattern recognition required. Brainking does, however, already have working board and piece a la Pente...all that's needed now is the code for Go, which I'm sure could be found in the public domain somewhere.

Are there plans to add Go to the site?

I'm playing a chinese gentleman in a game of Xiangqi, and I know he would prefer using traditional pieces. Unfortunately the current implementation of xiangqi here only has westernized pieces. Perhaps the pieces on wikipedia (GPL-like reuse license) could be added to the system for use on Xiangqi? A good start would be http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xiangqi#Pieces, where can be found some attractive piece images.