Fencer: Good! I've just switched to one :)

JerNYC:

OK, found it. It's NLStardust

Purple: I don't see it :(
Are you sure it's the right name?
profile for stardust:
Name: Stardust
Membership: Guest Status
Joined: 19 October 2003
Last Play: 14 January 2004
one finished game, no current games

Thad: And while at it, add a global counter, a line in the game such as

time taken: white: 6 hours, black: 3 years, 2 months, 24 days, 1 hour

would be a real help, if we can't have a simple "beware, turtle" label on the profile :)

Fencer: I didn't mean that. Have a look at GT, any game. There, when you click on a previous move, it displays the timestamp for that move. Here the timestamp displayed is always that of the last move in the game.

Fencer: It's a pity that BK doesn't display a timestamp with each move.

rod03801: I am, sniff! now I'll never receive mine

Gabriel Almeida: A little math: that's 92 moves in 2 years = 730 days.
number of days needed for 1440 moves would be 1440 * 730 / 92 = 11426, 31 years.

Filip, will brainking still be here in 30 years?

Mousetrap: Wow, I'm truly impressed. You've even lost count of the years, It's just had its fifth birthday :)
Still that's a very good pace. 5 years is about 1800 days, 1440 double moves, that's better than a move a day, with the inevitable periods of absence.

Vikings: In theory even a simple backgammon game could go on forever (spread pieces, take, throw back and so on) but the odds are against it. Cloning BG seems a good candidate too, with the ever growing number of pieces but I can't find a good example.

Vikings: I used to think that anti-back was the game that allowed the maximum number of moves. No. I have seen a game of regular camelot on Goldtoken that lists 939 moves. the outcome (draw) was obvious after about 100 moves, but they continued at it for 800 more. And to top it, the game lasted only 3 months. Now say this game was played by the Kid and his Eminence ...

beach: After 5 years at the same 21p round I don't feel very polite. Unfortunately I don't speak Italian, and even if I did I doubt that what I had to say would be a lot of help.

norrsken: Welcome to the turtle victim club
I think 10 years is highly optimistic
beach: a professional turtle won't usually time out. He'll just play his moves at the last possible second.

All my life I've been waiting for you
Of course I'll write to you right away, not forgetting to add my BK, GT and facebook passwords, and adding visa numbers as an afterthought

(for those of you who don't know what I'm raving about, have a peek at my wall)

Why should a purple player want to write in red? just thought I'd ask

Bernice: It's really about time for the browsers to get rid of those prehistoric rubbish messages.

Fencer: Give a shout when it's down to 10 so we can all start to sing ten little indians

Why people go to a play site, then pay it money in order to avoid playing. I must be thick, but the logic escapes me.

The owner can, of course, but why should he bother? to enter a tournament so he can try to win more of them?
Hmmm, come to think of it, the same applies to me too. Maybe I should try to unload mine on ebay? :)

MadMonkey: Nice to have all those micro-management options, but how many of those do you really use? I have only the following enabled:
go to the next game of this type (my default action)
stay here (I use that for battleboats, logik and espionage where I want to see the results of my move)
go to the main page (which I use only rarely, when I want to play just one game)

aww, is it over already? Just when it started to be fun

Fencer: and at the same time this: Masters 3 which starts in -298 days, and has only 2 sub-tournaments, both finished (?)

Deb4858: If you are on a Microsoft controlled computer you CAN, of course delete IE. However, some side effects may be expected. All your word documents, for example, are likely to develop warts. The desktop clock will probably display the Muslim calendar, but be off by 34 days. Image files will all display a small gremlin on the lower right corner. Typing "www" anywhere in a text zone will make the loudspeaker play Oh Susanna in an infinite loop and all the attempts to modify the volume will be met with contempt.

Pedro Martínez: is the "" for "new"? or "faster"? I either way

fukuhara: They're visible only in mode "castle"
In other modes you can change easily by modifying the "/en/" in the current page link to your favourite language code. It sticks when you then click on things.

Fencer: For me yesterday was very sluggish, today it's back to regular speed (=fast).

Doing refresh (F5) on the main page is slow. clicking on the "Main page" link is much faster. Why, I can't guess, they should be the same.

I didn't receive any mail from linda. What did I do to deserve this cruel treatment? buuuuuh

(V): Of course it isn't. The fact that we're on this site should be sufficient proof :)

thisbeme: I agree. Making your customers click needlessly is unforgivable. For this crime Fencer should get at least 20 years hard labour.

julie67660: Non. Il faut recommencer l'invitation.
Le forum en Français est ici

Anyway, there are some arcane rules that are extremely difficult or costly to implement. For the chess draw rules, for example, to be able to recognise a 3 time repetition of the position you'd need to memorize something to identify a position for each move, and compare the position to previous ones after each move. It can be done, of course, but slow down the server.

To implement this timeout draw rule, which is controvertial anyway the server would need to know which position are "unwinnable" or "unlosable". OK, some things are obvious as a lonely king, but others are just as unwinnable and far less easy to identify.

Surely there are more important things to implement and correct on brainking?

furbster: OK here.

Pedro Martínez: Ludo is the most exciting and intellectually demanding game on this site, no question. At least until Fencer introduces Tic Tac Toe, probably in BK version 14.3.

Artful Dodger: The probability of not getting a 6 33 times in a row are (5/6)^33 , about 2.5/1000. Not bad. I recommend buying a lottery ticket, fast, before your luck runs out.

alexlee: Round? Now that's a LOL. I'm happy when he finishes a point. With 21 as goal...
I'll have to remember to bequeath my password to my youngest grandchild :)

Good
That means that HE will have to play at least 52 moves this year. Not ideal, but certainly an improvement!

Fencer: So "I don't want to use automatic vacation" equals "I prefer to time out as soon as I overstep in a game".

Fencer: question: what does "using the automatic vacation" still mean?

Mélusine: I haven't touched the translation work for ages, but I'll try to catch up a bit.

Justaminute: When you play against His eminence, as I do, it's very simple: just roll. play whatever you like, the game won't finish in your lifetime anyway.

Gabriel Almeida: Ah, clowning backgammon, my favourite subject

I roll and move pieces
wait 2 weeks (for a "5 day tournament")
His eminence passes for the 10th time in a row
(can't do that in a hurry, you need 2 weeks to ponder the subject)
I roll and move
Wait 2 weeks
What a suspense!
His eminence passes for the 11th time in a row (you never know, something might have changed)
Wait 2 weeks
Continue to shift vacation days. You never know. Maybe the rabbit died of boredom?
Wait 2 weeks
What's the lifespan of a rabbit, anyway?

What do you know, I DID get an achievement for this game: "Force the opponent to pass the move 10 times in a row without using the autopass in a single game of backgammon or its variants."

Isn't life a treat

Would you consider it OK if applied to poker too? allied players telling each other what their cards are? it's exactly the same principle.

MadMonkey: Hey, I hope you're not a reincarnation of Ed Trice, he was going on about a magic formula a couple of years ago. when challenged to prove it he didn't do so good.

And by the way, the rating system in ponds is rubbish.

Fencer: Hmm, I tried to look up "earn 360 euros without skill or strategy". It came back with "about 4 690 000 results (0,53 seconds)". You can google anything!

"GERRY": my favourite Cardinal will surely second the suggestion

Fencer: How about the new vacation system, at least? at one point you intended to introduce it ahead of BK3.

Bluefin: yawn until someone joins you

Come on England: That must be it. She hasn't been on since April. she must have set the vacation days before leaving as a last act of kindness because she figured you were overworked and need extra thinking time. Then when she reverted to pawn she enters a new category and gets 10 fresh days. Of course, unless she logs in she shouldn't be able to set those days.