Snoopy: Perhaps the DoS attack guys decided to change the target.

Pedro Martínez: I could not express it better.

crosseyed: "The customer is always right" - if you want to believe that, it's your right, of course.
Give me some time and I'll try to elaborate a little.

crosseyed: You clearly have no intention to understand what I say all the time (well, not a big surprise because you are not the first one). I see no point to make any more attempts to explain.

crosseyed: Let me quote from the Paid Membership page:

"The player is not limited by number of started games at once nor number of moves per day nor number of joined tournaments and team tournaments, is limited by 35 vacation days per year."

That's what you are guaranteed to get. Everything else is "maybe, but maybe not, depends on the situation". Please try to deal with it.

Regarding your comment "If Brainking is no longer your top priority you should hand it over to someone else" - if you are interested, give me a good offer and we can discuss it.

crosseyed: Maybe you should have read more carefully what you paid for. You have a right to play more games, create fellowships, tournaments etc. There is nothing about "you will be guaranteed to have a site running without any problems ever" or "you will never have connection problems", and it's not there for a very good reason.
I could also say that I find your response (and permanent complaining) very insulting. Then we can insult each other on and on, if it makes you more happy. I prefer not to discuss it with people who only see their own problems and nothing else.
Anyway, I am the one who decides what my priorities are. If you don't like it here, you can always play elsewhere.

Hello guys,

It is true that some people can have problems to access BrainKing. BrainKing itself is OK and running fast, but for some strange reason the server occasionally fails to provide new connections, so the generated page never reaches your web browser. When I have time, I'll try to do some tuning, but since I am very busy with many other things (you might have noticed that, after 10 years, BrainKing is not my top priority any longer), it's hard to make any estimate, especially when I have no idea what could went wrong.

When I know more, I'll post it here.

thechosen0ne: It is always the server time - GMT+01:00 (or 02:00 when daylight saving time is active).

Roberto Silva: Well, I certainly hadn't supposed that someone would find it worth hacking to pass a number greater than 9 there.

crosseyed: Since the site itself is fast and running without any problems, it seems that only some routes are affected. It usually means that there are problems with certain network nodes which is out of our reach (so we can only wait).

You might have noticed some connect problems that started about an hour ago. I have already notified the ISP (the issue is on their side), so I hope they will fix it soon.

Well, since I don't have any problems loading any BrainKing pages, there is no issue with the site itself, otherwise it would be slow for me too. It is probably a network problem, more like.

Bernice: Actually, the average page loading time is about 1 second, based on long term measuring.

Aganju: The third prize is split between third and fourth.

joshi tm: Try it now.

Aganju: It happens sometimes. Several times a year.

King Pyrhus: Do you mean Notepad or private notes in games?

Carpe Diem: 7/10 is still a fraction. We are not a charity. This opportunity had been originally created for people who received some bonus codes in the past, so they don't need to make 7 different orders but only 5 or 4 (for instance).

Anyway, I know of several players who really placed 7 orders and got their Black Rook for 252 Euro.

Chimera: Open video, click Share / Embed and copy/paste the code.

wekke2002: Dude, I've sent you a response 2 months ago. You better check if your email address is correct.

Carpe Diem: Actually, the "Sort next games by" option is obsolete (and should be removed) because games are sorted by time left only due to some performance issues we had observed in the past. It means that "next game" is always the game with the least time left to make a move.

rabbitoid: In order to make such a tool safe and easy to use, I would be something like "Click to fix this tournament" button anyway. A script to check all running tournaments once a day and fixing the bugged one seems to be a better solution.

Guys, when I have time for it, I'll try to fix all such tournaments at once. But now I cannot promise any date, I am quite busy with many other things.

Gammonator: I've done some tinkering. The tournaments should be running now.

Hrqls: Good! If nothing goes wrong, I might be able to release the first beta version within a week or two. It already connects to the server and shows some data (games to play, number of new messages etc.), so I hope the rest won't be too difficult to add.

speachless: There is not option like that. When people join teams, it is expected that they want to participate in team events (matches, tournaments). The easiest workaround is to leave the particular team (or all of them).

MadMonkey: It reminds me that I have just finished my first Android application and it would be nice if someone tests it a little.

Here it is: BrainCalc

If there are no issues with that, a BrainKing client for Android should be quite easy to create.

MadMonkey: What about BrainKing for Android?

MadMonkey: I don't know. You are a good organizer, though.

rabbitoid: I see. Sure, that could be done.

rabbitoid: Timestamps are stored in the database but I don't think there is enough space to show them next to the moves.

Thad: This game, perhaps? Anti Backgammon (UNICORNKRIS vs. Mousetrap)

Gammonator: Can you post a link to the tournament?

Thom27: I don't see anything wrong with the smileys, even when I log in your account. Aren't they blocked by some Firefox addon?

Thom27: I've found a small bug that causes the list to be empty if you have no friends here. It will be fixed soon. In the meantime, adding at least one friend should be a temporary workaround.

Thom27: It really looks like a bug. I will look into it.

thisbeme: Your fault dude. Everybody else is smart enough to know it without any amendments.

(V): Unlikely. I suggest to use a "normal" free photo service.

El Cid: A small bug, perhaps. Nothing serious. I would ignore it.

aaru: The script is executed once a day on 00:01 but it was stuck for some reason. Such things happen.

pedestrian: If there is a problem, I will look at it when I have time. Finding a bug in a game model that was taken as "working" for 4 years is not easy.

speachless: Some graphics is missing in the bigger set but the small one should be OK, as far as I know. How would people play Plakoto, anyway? From time to time I receive a question why some pieces are missing on the board but when I suggest to switch to the small set, everybody responds that the problem was solved. So I take it for granted.

pedestrian: At least I know that I am not wrong about it.
Regarding Plakoto, it is true that some images are missing, mostly because they are specific to Plakoto only (mixed white and black pieces) and I had probably forgotten to create them. When I have some time, I will look at it.

speachless: Interesting. How many times have you read the Fevga rules before you started to fill my mailbox with "typical problems"?

Let me quote something:

"A player's first checker must pass the opponent's starting point before he may move any of his other checkers."

That explains the 6-6 "bug", right?

I would like to add that Plakoto and Fevga had been introduced here in February 2008, more than 4 years ago. I am sure that if these variants were as flawed as you suggest, some poeple would have probably noticed that a long time ago.

The bottom line - there is a special Backgammon discussion board which should be used for any further comments or questions. I don't doubt that regular backgammon players would give you any explanations better (and faster) than me.

MadMonkey: If you have a good reason to ban yourself from your own tournaments, just ask me. It's a single click solution.

rod03801: Yes, it is new. It was requested by people who are permanently abused by slow and annoying players, deliberately ruining their tournaments.

aaru: I would say it is equivalent to -7.

ScarletRose: What's the problem? The worst thing that could happen is that a year membership would be just stored on your profile page but you can never lose your lifetime subscription. The easiest way to purchase a membership for another player is to go to their profile page and click "purchase membership for this user" link at the page top.

happyjuggler0: Yes, it is possible. I coded it many years ago so I am not quite sure.

happyjuggler0: BrainKing is a very complex application and such things happen, occasionally. A simple restart usually helps.