Papa Zoom:

speachless: I'm starting to really like you, speechless . [insert cute blushing and kissing emoticon which I can't insert because I'm a tight arse who can't be bothered to pay for a full year's membership (bring back the one month spur-of-the-moment membership option, please)]

nice language Dice Cheater......people have been banned for less than that

Bernice: You must be joking, right? What kind of language has he used that may be offensive or insulting, that could be a reason for banning? Speachless has used much more offensive remarks in her comments.

Agreeing or not with a person's opinion is one thing, threatening him with banning for no reason at all is another.

Dice Cheater:
The first round of this argument was on 4th June. Round 2 kicks off on the 15th, 11 days later.

Rather ironic when the post was about slow play.

Justaminute:

Aganju: I like that idea of showing the average speed on someone's profile .... this speed can differ greatly though for various types of games

Believe it or not, despite of the most generous time controls features here on BK, there are some people that systematically Time Forfeit their games.

I would be more interested in a TF(%) on someone's profile rather than a deceptive average speed.
When someone goes on vacation during the summer, this average speed may drop significantly without representing the actual playing speed of a person.

And, of course, Hrqls is right. Some people do take their games seriously enough to think more in one type of game(e.g. Grand Chess or Shogi) than in another (e.g. Dice Chess or Ludo)...

Justaminute: good point

Justaminute: I don't visit the discussion board very often, I'd rather just play the games.

ThunderGr: you wrote *Speachless wrote much more....in HIS comments*
HER please, I'm a woman :-)

speachless: My apologies. I corrected the original post.

ThunderGr: you're very welcome

Happy Birthday to Pedro Martinez :) hope it is a real real good one ;)

How is it possible?
Last action of player 'X' - 1pm. But his games still move on... (I'm not blocked by player 'X')

is it for an administrator possible to correct ONLY the points calculated by brainking after a move or does he need to restart the whole game? my opponent got from 39 to 16 after a roll of double-2, so 15 pieces disappeared... i wrote already about the issue 2 days ago through the contact form but didn't got any answer, so I'm wondering if I should move on and maybe loose the game cause of this single error, even if I was supposed to win?
Cloning Backgammon (TheAlchemist vs. speachless)

speachless: looks like you cannot have 40 pieces on the ace point... It gets automatically reduced to 16.
I can only agree with your issue, that is certainly a bug.
Regarding your question - technically, an administrator can do whatever at any time. However, typically they would want to do it now and not 5 moves later. I recommend you send a personal message to Fencer, and put the link to the current game (not two moves back) in it.

Aganju: thank you

Query? I had an SB score of 6.0 in a game of Dice Poker I won the other day and havev just come equal in number of games and my SB score is 4.0...I havent lost THAT many games in the last 2 days to go that far down? Any suggestions please.

your S-B score is based on the amount of wins that the people you beat have won. So in the first tournament your opponents won a combined total of 6 games where as your opponents that you beat in the second tourny won a total of 4 games combined

Vikings: I am going to push back on that, because at the very least it seems misleading or confusing, if not just plain wrong.

S-B is a tiebreaker system. If you win four games and tie one game, then the tournament table will say that you have "4.5 points".

There is also a column labeled "S-B". If someone else also has 4.5 points, this method will decide which of you wins the tournament, or sometimes the tournament will be a tie if both of your S-B scores are the same.

Your S-B is decided by the number of games your collective opponents have won. If you play against players A,B,C,D, and E, and player A won 3 games, and players B and C won 2 games each, and players D and E won 1 point each, then your S-B score is 9. If the player you are tied with under the "points" column has a higher S-B than you, then s/he wins the tournament at BrainKing. If you have a higher S-B, then you win the tournament. If you have the same S-B, then you both win the tournament.

One can argue that this makes sense, or not, but it is how things work here. If nothing else, everyone plays under the same system.

happyjuggler0: "Your S-B is decided by the number of games your collective opponents have won. If you play against players A,B,C,D, and E, and player A won 3 games, and players B and C won 2 games each, and players D and E won 1 point each, then your S-B score is 9. If the player you are tied with under the "points" column has a higher S-B than you, then s/he wins the tournament at BrainKing. If you have a higher S-B, then you win the tournament. If you have the same S-B, then you both win the tournament."

Carpe Diem: Oops! You are right of course.

thanks for all of that LOL....Im still none the wiser....

Bernice: SB scores are worked out for individual sections of round robin tournaments and don't apply to individual games. They are a way of deciding what to do when there's a tie and can't be used to compare performance in different tournaments nor to track progress over time.

In your May Flame Pit Dice Poker tournament, you and Bwild both got 3 points, so the winner of the section/tourney is decided by the quality of your wins, which your SB score tries to measure. The 3 opponents that you beat managed to score 1+1+2=4 points between them. But the opponents that Bwild managed to beat scored 3+1+2=6 points between them. So Bwild's wins are judged to be more impressive than yours (since 6 > 4), so he gets awarded the top spot.

Does that help?

a 6 month white rook membership. That option is not on the Paid Membership page. Please explain. Gracias in advance

ketchuplover: it is you have to click on the drop down menu!

Its 22 euros

It's quiet in here. Anyone got any thoughts on slow play! ;)

BGBedlam: Oh yeah, plenty to say about that. As per usual we'll both be heckled for mentioning this elephant in the room but who cares at this stage. My current findings about slow play is what I call 'ghost' players, there are more and more of these here these days (I'm only aware of those who play backgammon). I suspect they are given free membership then start games with a generous time control but only play when they are about to time-out even though they visit the site to make one or two moves every single day. It looks like some matches are being played but the truth is they last forever and that's simply not the way backgammon is played. I'm simply not interested in playing matches that last a year or more. Due to the above this website now feels dead, there's very little dynamism left. Pity.

Dice Cheater: Well, I do not know where you find your opponents, but most of my backgammon games go through blazingly fast. To me, the site bustles with life :P.

BGBedlam: I haven't been entering any new tournaments for six months now (except team tourneys), so my game count is down considerably. But I still see enough opportunities and have enough moves to make.
It's coming back to finding the group of people that want to play fast, and make tourneys within that group - that should fix this issue.

ThunderGr: Not naming names but I'm currently playing two of these ghosts.

Dice Cheater: You have just 7 games out of the 20 that is your limit. I am pretty sure you could, if you wanted to, start games with faster players.

Dice Cheater: Why would you be heckled? I suggest you join quick playing tournaments and stay away from the endless tournys. You know you have the control to play at your own time limits.

"given free membership then start games with a generous time control"

You seriously believe this?

Dice Cheater: " I'm simply not interested in playing matches that last a year or more."

Then DON'T join games with time controls that allow that to happen. You've been told that plenty of times. Why do you keep blaming players for your inability to understand the site rules?

If a player has 7 days to make a rule, he's entirely within his right to take 7 days to make a move. Whatever else he does during those 7 days is his business. Why should he have to interrupt his personal and professional life to come here and indulge you?

Roberto Silva: You have 10 hours vacation days left so your post is quite clearly about defending your own lethargic playing style. Indulge me, crawl back under that rock.

Dice Cheater: boy oh boy, I really started something there. It was only a joke. I.ll keep quiet in future.

BGBedlam: You're alright m8

Dice Cheater: You only have 7 games running, so it must seem like an eternity when you are expecting players to make a move and they have not done so. Perhaps if you played more games it would not be so bad for you. There are no rules that say players must make moves when you expect them to. If you can't take the heat you should leave the kitchen as the expression goes.

Roberto Silva: Well put.

Dice Cheater:

crosseyed: Why defend slow play? Slow play sucks.

Dice Cheater: Yep, I second that.

Dice Cheater: So, you can't stand that the other players impose their playing velocity to you, but you want to impose yours to them...
Like it has been said, no one here is forcing you to choose 7 day normal vacation games (in fact you have some games that have smaller time controls). If a player has a time gap to play, (s)he can use it. If it uses more time, it starts losing vacation hours, if even then he uses more time the game will eventually timeout. Yeah, it's kind of frustrating when you see a player with 50 games that connects everyday and it usually has +40 in his turn, but he plays within the time gap he is allowed to, so I can't blame.
Moreover, if you have only 7/20 possible games you can have, it is less likely to have a game in your turn. Like it has been said every time this matter comes up, this is not a realtime game site, so it is expected that the games last. Even so, there are countless time gap controls so that each player can use the ones that best fit his play style.
And this is not defending slow play... it is just remembering that each of us has the possibility to choose which games we want to play, so we got to face the consequences of the opponents we choose (especially if you are not playing tournaments)

Dice Cheater: This is what you need

El Cid: Well put again.

Dice Cheater: I have sent you two match invites and the first paragraph of this post.

Here's a couple of 5 point matches. The time parameters are about 3 moves per week. With the maximum time set at 8 days 1 hour, the game will time out if someone doesn't move in a little over 8 days. With the Fischer Clock in use, the amount of vacation time I or you have left does not matter. The clock keeps running. I usually move everyday and sometimes all day. You and I have played before, though it has been awhile since our last encounter. I only have 11 games currently running, so you won't have to worry about me making hundreds of moves trying to keep from timing out in a multitude of games with other players. Though I like to chat while playing, I also observe radio silence. Just depends on what's happening.

If you turn off the chat feature, I will not play any more games with you. Same thing if you shut off the auto-pass if we play Backgammon.

If others would like to play with similar time controls or longer matches let me know. Though I do not play a lot of different games, I like Dark Chess, Embassy Chess, Backgammon, and a few other games that are listed in my finished games list, if you're interested. I am against what I consider slow play, but I have room for many games and certainly do not want an opponent to time out in a game. It is easy to set up the Fischer Clock as Fencer has the game invite page set up. I always wonder why more people don't take advantage of the Fischer Clock. Especially those that do not like endless games that never end. It takes awhile to get a feel for how you like the time parameters, but it works well for me. My favorite time controls that work well for my life situation and also leave me time to be on extended work assignments are these time parameters:

Initial time between 4 and 7 days
Bonus time 1 day 18 hours
Limit to time 11 days 1 hour

I could play a standard time of 30 days and vacation allowed and I'd still move nearly every day. I won't play with those time controls because I want the game to either be over or to be played.

moistfinger: OK, I have sent you the same game invitations that I sent Dice Cheater. Good luck!

Walter Montego: The "Limit to Time" is actually "Limit for one move", as it was explained to me by aarou here

Walter Montego: I agree that Fisher Clock is the way to go.
However, I would prefer if it allows to use a bit of vacation, because it happens sometimes during the year that you cannot play for some days. For example, I do often international business travel, where I am on the road with colleagues for several days, often without internet access except late at night in the hotel. So, I play around 8 to 12 times a day all my moves in all games, for maybe 340 days a year, but there are maybe 5 periods of 3 - 5 days where I cannot play. I prefer an even tighter Fisher Clock than you proposed - for example initial 3 days, 6 to 12 hours bonus per move, max 3 days. That forces both players to move 2 to 4 times a day (I understand that this is not good for everybody), and I never even get near the timeout, except those periods described above, where I lose many games. So I wish there would be a way to have very tight Fisher Clocks with 10 days vacation per year, that would be perfect.