thechosen0ne: I guess I should have looked at your profile before posting. You have the automatic vacation turned on.

Imagine that you run out of time in a game that does not have a green dot (no vacation time allowed) or a red dot (no vacation time allowed; also no "weekend days" allowed). What happens is that you lose an hour of your vacation time, but all of your non-dot games also gain an hour of time left to play.

Once you run out of vacation time, then the next time you run out of time in a game you lose that game.

thechosen0ne: On the left side of the site there is a column of links.

1) Click "Settings".
2) Click the "Calendar" tab on the top of that page.
3) Check the box near the top of the calendar page. Then go to the bottom and click "save and finish".
4) Check your profile to make sure it worked.

Aganju: You are correct about vacation time. However you omitted one thing, namely that vacation time doesn't work for green dot games either in addition to red dot games not getting vacation.

Rabbits2: When you say "just changed my email", what do you mean by "just"?

There are some things here at BK that update immediately, some thing seem to update a few times a day or so, and some things update once a day.

And that doesn't count the times when BK needs a reboot because some things aren't updating when they normally would....

DeaD man WalkiN: Take the period off of the end of the link. Here:

http://www.backgammonmasters.com

SL-Mark: It is a common mistake of people who don't understand the game of backgammon very well to downplay the element of skill. Some of these people even sometimes put the word skilled in quotes, as if it is not actually worthy of the name skill.

SL-Mark: In dice games, the skill is in managing that which luck gives you. There are good ways to play what the dice give you, and there are less good ways. The more highly skilled players find the better plays more often than the less skilled players do.

I can't say why others play them, but I don't view it as destiny or fate when I win or lose; not over the long run anyway....

Universal Eyes: Wow, I never noticed that before, thanks! I wonder how many other features there are that I've never noticed at BK.

Herlock Sholmes: Yes, that is right. I agree the instructions are a bit vague.

One way to think of it is that in triple dice poker, the bonus is calculated by the score that you get if you had scored three of each number, and in triple dice poker the bonus is calculated as if you had scored four of each number.

If you think of it that way, and you realize that you only got three 6's in 6D, then you need to make up that extra 6 somewhere else, for example by getting five 5's and five 1's, or five 4's and five 2's.

Herlock Sholmes: If you look at the rules for triple dice poker, which your game is a variant of, you will see that the score that you need is based on the upper section of the first column. In order to get the bonus for the second column, you need to multiply by 2, and to get the bonus for the third column, you need to multiply by 3.

Folks, you need to be careful before putting this type of "stairs" thing into BK rules for non-stairs games; there are all kinds of potential nasty unintended consequences.

For example, this could inspire people to change their settings to not accept invitations.

Another downside is wanting to limit number of ongoing games (for non-rooks) in order to make space for a tournament you want to play in, but too many people want to invite you to games and you are forced to accept.

Similarly you might be trying to clear up your remaining games to go on a playing hiatus (a vacation or just to not get burned out on a particular game).

Another potential problem is being forced to play time controls you don't want to play, or match lengths you don't want to play, or single game invitations where your opponent has the side that has a huge advantage (e.g. battleboats plus).

Right now I have a few players on my blocked users list because they were abusive or obnoxious in some other way. I would hate to be forced to play them.

I'm sure there are other potential problems that others can think of. Anyway, I hope Fencer would be very careful before implementing any such "reform" to make sure it doesn't hurt more than it helps.

I have had similar problems with players who are number one ranked while I was number two ranked who refused to play me. It is frustrating. Fortunately for me though none of those rating differences were insurmountable the way the rating difference in checkers is....

Resher: Doh! I looked at that list too, but I thought the first column meant something else.

I guess my list is a list of winners of public tournaments, while yours is a list of winners of any tournament.

Mélusine: Unfortunately I had to construct it manually; I don't think there is an accessible list at BK.

I started here, which is a list of those who won 1000 or more tournaments. Then I looked up each name and ranked them myself.

http://brainking.com/en/Achievements?aid=64&submit=Submit&p=1

aaru: 3875
Gammonator: 3049
Borowitz: 2710
FrancescoLR: 2380
cd power: 1793
AlterMann: 1413
Pioneer54: 1194
DeaD man WalkiN: 1188

El Cid: It is worth pointing out that in the study I referred to, that before Indiana changed the rules, a few counties in Indiana didn't have DST while others did. Therefore when they changed the rules they could measure the changed energy output in the affected counties while also having a control group.

It is the control group which is the key that makes it convincing.

If it's not the programmers fault that time on this site is displayed improperly, then whose fault is it? ;-)

Thad: After reading your question I tried to think of who else might somehow be responsible. Living in the US, depending on who you talk to, it seems like *everything* is either Obama's fault or Bush's fault.

Roberto Silva: Not if everyone followed Obama's leadership!

Seriously though, if the US eliminated DST because of a careful academic study, then everyone else would surely either eliminate it too, or at least conduct a similar experiment in their own country.

Anyway, all it would take is for the Czechs to also eliminate DST, and then thisbeme would need another scapegoat for why he times out.

Note to whom it may concern, if you find yourself timing out a lot, it is your own fault, not BK's. The occasional timeout may *perhaps* not be your fault, but habitual timeouts certainly are your own fault.

Thad said: If it's not the programmers fault that time on this site is displayed improperly, then whose fault is it? ;-)>

It is Obama's fault.

Seriously.

A 3-year study showed that a 2006 time zone change in Indiana (US) saved energy (resulting in saved money and a cleaner environment than otherwise) by eliminating Daylight Savings Time:

http://www.physorg.com/news187946326.html?xid=rss-fullcontent


If Obama had followed the advice of the study, he would have eliminated Daylight Savings Time in the US, and the rest of the world would likely have followed suit.

[edit: and as a result, BK would not have to figure out which locality changes its clocks, and which ones never change their clocks]

Everything is Obama's fault, unless it is Bush's fault. or both of them.

People, please don't turn this into a political thread. I only point it out in the hopes that *someone important* somewhere might read this and help to eliminate Daylight Savings Time, which is bad for the environment.

Fencer: Thanks for fixing it.

By the way, does someone have to be a Brain Rook in order to post a video to his profile?

Rod and I tried for a long time yesterday to post a video to my profile, but it didn't work. He could post it to *his* profile though, so the problem wasn't the video itself.

happyjuggler0: Ok, the tournament just started that I was talking about.

BK went down for a minute or so for maintenance earlier today. Since then I have noticed a couple of anomalies.

First, I signed up for a tournament that was supposed to start "immediately" once the maximum number of players was reached. That was a while ago.

Second, games that a player has passed the deadline for moving are showing times like -2 hours 32 minutes.

This may be a new feature, I don't know, namely when a player is on a weekend day his time continues in the negative until his weekend is over. I actually like it, but I don't know if it is intentional or not, especially since that tournament hasn't started yet.

Vikings: I tried. Rod and I tried a lot of different things, we had a lot of PM conversations and tried a lot of things. He even emailed me the embed code he got when visiting the youtube video.

All no luck.

P.S. I even used 3 different browsers, changed cookie settings, and a couple of other things I don't recall at the moment.

rod03801: rod03801: Thanks for the help trying. That goes over and above the call of duty.

Also thank you for the BrainBishop!

rod03801: Perhaps you were right the first time, pawns aren't allowed to post videos....

rod03801: I guess I give up then. Sigh.

Here is the "usual" youtube link for anyone who wants to watch after all the hype lol.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=fqymcJRSbxI#!

rod03801: Thanks for the help folks. I just tried the old embed code like you two suggested. Once my submission gets cleared, we'll see if it works.

I tried to post a video to my profile using the embed link to a youtube video, and after being held up for moderation/inspection, it came out wrong.

Suggestions?

plaintiger: Somehow, someway, this explanation should be added to the site in a way easily findable by users of Brain King.

I suggest adding it to "Tip of the Day", but anywhere intuitive should be good.

Carl: I hate to break it to you, but I bet she says that to all the guys....

Bernice: I was under the impression that ALL images must be approved. Certainly the few images I have posted here required someone at BK to look at them first before they appeared on my page.

Bernice: I've always simply assumed it is about stopping:

1) porn images (not suitable for minors, and others likely would be unhappy)

2) hateful images, such as Nazi symbols.

Ladybird68: Needless to say, but I'll say it anyway, if you are going for such a record, make sure you know when the server day starts and ends.

The moves per day record is not based on the time zone you have your BK clock set to; it is based on BK time.

P.S. This advice doesn't matter to those who live in Fencer's time zone....

Gabriel Almeida: http://brainking.com/en/PlayerList?a=ap

In black letters a couple of lines above Fencer's name.

Mélusine: I'm not the one playing in the tournament. Although "playing" is perhaps not the right word....

Nothingness: I assume this is the tournament you are talking about:

Back*turnajek

It has a time control of 30 days per move. With weekend days, that is 6 weeks per move, so there is no reason for him to lose vacation days.

It is ridiculous to have a tournament with time controls that long....

rod03801: You mean he won't be able to play in all 2700+ tournaments he signed up for? Whatever will he do?

MelissaMarie: From this page http://brainking.com/en/PaidMembership?p=3 is defined as:

"Black code - a randomly selected bonus from this list"

In the same spirit as the other recent posts, perhaps Fencer could sponsor a tournament (perhaps hosted by someone else if he gets a volunteer) that is only open to people who buy a new rook membership (no renewals). Fencer could donate a prize of some brand new brains perhaps as an incentive, or something else that catches his imagination.

Aganju: Thank you for that reply; a second the motion. I wanted to say the same thing, but couldn't figure out a way to do so that wouldn't make me look rude. As a result I was silent until now....

rod03801: If you have a game with time remaining in the red (i.e. less than an hour left), I suggest the following:

1) Open up the game.

2) Check the time limit per move. Let's say that in this case it is 2 days.

3) Check when your last move was made. This should be under your name on the board and say something like "Last move: 25. September 2011, 10:59:24".

4) Add the time per move to that time listed under step 3. In this case, add 48 hours.

5) If the time under step 4 is in the future, you haven't used vacation time in that game.

6) If the game you just checked has for example 15 minutes left, and you have another game that has a time left per move that is less than 75 minutes, you should check that game too under steps 1-5. The reason is that it may already have gone into vacation time and had 1 hour added to time left to move.

All of the above should also take into account weekend time. Fischer clocks make things even more complicated if they add extra hours for each move made. Good luck in that case....

Vikings: Maybe he hit the "Search" button instead of the "Send" button.

I've done something like that before when sending BK mail in my message box here.

coan.net: "Cleaning cache" can mean different things to different people. When I decide to clear cache I have several options which I can choose to delete or not delete.

Cookies for example. I usually keep the cookies of the sites that I more or less trust, such as BK, while deleting the cookies from all other sites.

Today just now I cleared cookies for BK, something I haven't done in many months. The site is now loading much faster than it was before, noting that I am one of the people who had problems with the loading speed of the site very recently.

*edit: I also want to note that I clear my cache every day, at least once a day actually. After clearing what I want to clear, I then individually pick out which cookies to delete.

It could be something else I suppose. I also rebooted, then installed a flash reader update, then rebooted again. I know nothing of computers really, maybe that had something to do with it instead, I have no idea.

Ok, I'll chime in too. The site has been unusually slow for me today too.

Bernice said: I don't obviously

I try not to assume....

Edit* I am curious though, was there *no* user name in your inbox, or what?

Bernice: What is this person's BK user name, the one who sent you the message here at BK? Surely they can't use a yahoo address to send you a BK message?

Pedro Martínez: Interesting. I always choose autopass, but I never pay attention to whether or not my opponent accepts it too. I kind of thought that it happened even with autopass on, but like I said, I wasn't paying attention. I will look into it from now on when it happens.

Anyway, I still think it is absurd even with 'no autopass" selected, to have to approve the dice of the first roll of the game. But then again, I have no idea why anyone wouldn't choose autopass to begin with. And as I stated in my previous post, as absurd as it is, this issue on the first roll is also just a very minor annoyance anyways....

Vikings: With all due respect, that is asinine. Why should the software time someone out "for not rolling the dice" on the first roll of the game? It should be automatic since doubling the opponent is not an option. And if it is automatic, then having the player confirm that the dice were in fact rolled is absurd.

That said, if one were to rank this "bug" (I'm not even sure I would call it a bug, just a time wasting feature) on BK's site of 1-5, with 1 demanding immediate attention, and 5 being low priority, I would rank this problem somewhere around 250. It is annoying, but only in a "you can't be serious" kind of way.

I can think of many other things I'd rather have Fencer do to improve this site before I asked him to eliminate this pointless feature which does little more than waste a few seconds of player time every now and then.

beach: I suggest opening up enough tabs to see each 100 game page. Then you can see all of your games, and play whomever you choose. You may or may not need to refresh the page manually when you go back to an old tab.

Anyway, that is the best work-around that I can think of for your problem.

Off topic. Hmmm, there is no topic in this forum, so, er, um, nevermind.

Artful Dodger: The thing is, getting a refund doesn't mean that you got a great deal. You could still have paid through the nose. In reality the only thing that you know when you get a tax refund is that you screwed up and had too much deducted from your taxes, and you got screwed.

beach: I'm sure that fencer is working on it; it is in my opinion the worst of the new bugs. Aside from being obnoxious, it means that some opponents won't be moving very often in those "7 day" games that you were talking about.

I won't be accepting anything but short time limits until this is fixed for that very reason. That includes both private games and tournaments.