Cyna: If you go to "Game rules" and select Backgammon, there is an explanation of the cube on that page. There is also a Backgammon discussion board, where I'm sure you could get lots of questions answered.

I don't understand how the doubling cube works in backgammon, where are the rules covering this, please?

El Cid: ah right i misunderstood you there then
i thought you meant having it like a sports team and just putting a sub in if a player wasnt playing well

Snoopy: Since tournament second rounds are taking sooo long to start, I doubt anyone would leave the site just for that (unless a specific account would be created and payed for with that purpose), since he would have to be more than a month (maybe 2 or 3) without playing ANY game in the site, or even logging in...

El Cid: but whats to stop a player staying away just long enough to get the team changed and then returning
esp if that player wasnt playing well

coan.net: A way of making it easier to implement, would be to make thing like on a sports team game, where at the beginning of a game you choose the players and the possible substitutes. Then the substitution would only be possible if a player would leave the site (something like an injury).

coan.net: yes i be very interested to know where it has already happened to

Snoopy: I also don't like the idea of being able to switch out players in middle of a site team tournament. IF it were allowed, I would like to see:

1. The replacement player can not have played for another team in the same tournament (Oh, that team is out - lets grab their best player and put them on our team.)

2. The person being replaced would have to had been off the site for (lets say) at least 30 days.

3. The replacement can not be more then 300 points higher in their rating then the person they are replacing. (of course if someone leaves the site, their rating can drop as games time out - so maybe their rating at the time the tournament started.) (again, to stop a team from grabbing "ringers" / great players to help their team.

So with those rules, I think it would almost be easier to not allow replacements.

NOW having said that, I agree with I think EVERYONE that all tournaments including team tournaments should continue on the next rounds once it is known which players/teams will continue on to the next round. (THIS would also help solve many - not all - of the cases where players leave the site between the time a tournament starts and the next round.)

nodnarbo: IMO is it shouldnt happen
if Fencer changes it on the new BK
thats cool for new tournaments but tournaments already runing should run has they are

my fellowship lost out on a final cause 3 at already left the team so why should it be different for anyone else

El Cid: I can think of one case where Fencer made a special case and allowed a team to swap out members for the next round of a tournament, but I wouldn't count on being able to do that very often.

Resher: Unfortunately it is not possible to replace players at the beginning of a new round, though it would make much sense since a round may take too much time to start

Resher: Absolutley MAD

SO it will be over 2 years before we get to the next round

As for the 3 players, i think they are still on BrainKing, just not in the Team anymore. As they were in the Team at the start of the Tournament they will play in the next round anyway...........whenever that may be

MadMonkey: The outcome of the final game of Round 1 is fairly certain, but the losing
offender has got most of the next 2 months set as vacation, so you'll
be in for a bit more of a wait yet!  

Are you able to replace your missing players at the end of a Round?

rod03801: Thanks, but I'm already fat enough...

rabbitoid: 3.0 !!

Snoopy: This should be implemented for all tournaments, not just team. Let's hope BK 2.0 does something about that, too.

MadMonkey: thats my point and i know you say im wrong but whats the point in starting new ones when the ones running are taking so long

Snoopy: Just noticed, we are playing a Team wiv Fencer in it, in the Final........... he scared i think, hopeing we will forget about the Tournament lol

MadMonkey: ive been saying that for last 2 years but have always been put down on the subject

Why we need next rounds of Tournaments to start once the winners (Qualifiers) have been decided and not when all games have finished

Jan 2008 Clone Wars started 2 years ago in January. Section 1 is finished & decided, Section 2 is decided, BUT we still wait for one game, that will not effect anything .......... WHY ???

3 of the Madhouse players are no longer in the Team that qualified

Team Tournaments needs speeding up

Well, sounds interesting, but only line3 would be needed to secure a win...

Yes! The other option was to fill the board up first then poke out a piece... Sounded cool... but about 10 yrs a little late...

Rainbow Road: I have seen this advertised on TV.

SO if i am watching it correctly, at any time during the game, you can poke a piece of you own colour out from the FIRST row, and all disks above fall down one place ?

Line 4 Poke out... Regular line 4 but you can pokeout 1 piece (White or Black) to get the line 4...

El Cid: Precisely. Thank you for completing the argument.

grenv: Or if I'm losing for 2 points and there are only 3 games left, I might decide to risk more to try and get a win, since most likely I will lose the match (whereas with all the games in a match played simultaneously I wouldn't do it)

AbigailII: very legitimate in chess. For example, If you're winning by a point with a game to play you may decide to simplify quickly and get a draw. This is part of the game even at world championship level. What's wrong with that??

grenv: Even # of games isn't really a good option, since you can play for the draw late in a series if ahead, but not with this option.

Less opportunity for "playing for the draw" I would find an additional feature.

El Cid: I probably would not know exactly how many games I would get (for instance on a 21 points match with doubling cube)
That would be a single game.

Note that for round robin tournaments, you don't know exactly how many games you get now-a-days either - it will depend on the number of people that are in your section. For elimination tournaments, you will know exactly how many games you get. If it's a 3-game match, you will get 3 games. Not 2. Not 4.

I would end up (at least on what concerns to my plays only) slowing up the games.
Your games might become slower, but your matches will be faster. And the tournament itself as well.

Note also that if we have a tournament "2 games for each 2 players", the games are now already played in parallel.

MadMonkey: If a game in a Tournaemt was first to 5 points for example, at present they get one game at a time, you are suggesting they get 5 at once
Yes.

El Cid: Wouldn't be possible with a doubling cube if you think about it. :)

Even # of games isn't really a good option, since you can play for the draw late in a series if ahead, but not with this option.

How about speeding up tournaments by starting the next round as soon as the contestants are known, this would be far more effective IMO.

AbigailII: Although I agree that it would make tournaments go faster, I don't think I would like to join such tournaments, if multiple games (instead of a single match) were mandatory, because I probably would not know exactly how many games I would get (for instance on a 21 points match with doubling cube), and so I would end up (at least on what concerns to my plays only) slowing up the games.
Besides I like to maintain my game number at a low level, so if it was a 3 match game I probably wouldn't mind, but on a 10 win match I (and maybe a lot more people) most likely would not join the tournament, so make this as an option seems to me as the best option

AbigailII: Well, yes, but in a different sense. If a game in a Tournaemt was first to 5 points for example, at present they get one game at a time, you are suggesting they get 5 at once ? or am i missing something.

BugCafe have a similar thing, when you sign for a Tournament it asks you how many games you would like at once from the Tournament.

MadMonkey: Pawns, Bishops and Knights already have the option to not participate in a tournament that will start many games at once. ;-)

AbigailII: Yes, good idea. Of course there would have to be some way of setting or checking if a player wishes to do that.
Just in case they are a Pawn, Bishop or Knight saving room for another Tournament to start etc...

Here's another way to speed up some tournaments: if the match type is N-game, or N-win, start N games at once, in stead of waiting for 1 game to finish before starting the next. (For N-win matches, start N games at once. Start a new game if a game ends in a draw, or if it's won by the person currently trailing). This would for instance greatly speed up stairs.

El Cid: I understand what you mean, and i am sure Fencer does already, but it is on his list.

The Elimination idea is good as well, that way people who are here regually, and fast, so they finish there games can proceed in a Tournament. This of course would help pawns who play a lot

El Cid: I'm a mathematician and comuter scientist, and I know it would not be too resource consuming. It's not necessary to simulate the outcome of every game, and, it need only be done when a game finishes.

However, I already offered my help (not to this concrete problem, but to the site in general) and it was not welcome, so I won't do it again.

MadMonkey: Actually I meant a manual "before schedule" finish round, so that tournaments where no games (or just a few) have finished wouldn't saturate the system. Of course, if no one noticed a group had already been decided, it would be as it is now.
maybe it could be also considered/added that on single elimination tournament, a round could start game by game, so if games 3 and 4 had finished, the winners would start their next game without having to wait for all the games to end (I know this has problems with fisher clock, but those problems happen to at the moment

El Cid: I will modify the Feature Request list i have for Fencer for things to be included in BrainKing 3. (well, to be considered lol)

That is similar to how Tournaments first were on brainking. Each round had to be started manually, but that was with all results in.

I think maybe once or twice a day an automatic check to see if anyone (or a Team) has already qualified for the next round of a Tournament could run.........that should be sufficient.

It has been asked many times, that the tournaments would start their next round before every game is finished, and it has always been answered that it would consume to much resources to calculate every tournament at every hour.
How about something like a way for the creator or any player could manually submit an "unfinished" tournament or section to that calculation (maybe limited to once a day/per tournament, so it would prevent a player from forcing the system to calculate the tournaments positions recursively, making the system near a crash). There would still be the need that the system could calculate the maximum number of points a player could still get, but I don't think anyone would try it (specially if it was independent for each section), if most of the games wouldn't be already finished and the final positions were almost obvious (or at least the winner of the section)

Hope it's not to confusing

MadMonkey: thanks now i feel stupid

Snoopy: If i get what you mean...... goto Fellowship, pick any Team , and then Single Elimination as you do.

Then when the Tournament set-up screen is there, scroll to the TOP of the drop box, it the 1st choice in the box

when you create an all game tournament in normal tournaments
we have an option to include all the games
but when creating one in fellowships that option isnt there so ppl have to click on every other game
can we please have this option to include every game

or if im missing seeing it could someone tell me how its done

It would be nice if some of the games created by Mark Steere got implemented here on Brainking.
http://www.marksteeregames.com/

Can Dots and Boxes added to the site?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dots_and_Boxes

For East Asian players the fact that Japanese and Chess notation is only of western style is really inconvenient.

Japanese chess notation style does not even has longer chess-style notation such as P7g-7f for short P-7f. Longer style is used for some of the Japanese chess softwares for non-Japanese. Also Chinese Chess and Japanese chess should have Kanji notation now that Japanese and Chinese localization have been released.

My fellow, tenuki has just chipped in an idea: neutral discs could dissappear when they create a line of 4, making all discs above them fall down.

Another idea:

How about rhombus-shaped 10x10 board. Discs fall down diagonally (from either left or right side) and can block making part of the board unplayable and stick to other discs.

I've been thinking how to "refresh" line4 games here. I have searched the internet for some unusual variants of line4, and reported to Fencer as soon as I had found something interesting. Now, after holidays, I'm full of new ideas that I want to share with other players:

*** A mix of line4 and connect6. It combines line4's board, gravity and goal, and connect6's number of placed discs.
*** Same as above, but the goal is opposite (like in anti line4). The rule "do not put in the same column your opponent did in last move" is not applied.

I've been thinking about some additional features, because putting 2 discs a turn is much more challenging and tricky.
In order to balance chances there are two things that could be done:
*** A player, instead of putting his two discs, puts one disc of his color and is allowed to destroy any other (his or his opponent's) disc that is on the top of a particular column. Beacuse this feature enables 3-fold repetition, when the same situation occurs for the third time, the game is a draw.
Example: White starts by playing e1. Black plays c1 and destroys white's disc in e1. The c1 disc is the only one on the board now.
*** A player, instead of putting his two discs, puts one disc of his color, and is allowed to put two NEUTRAL discs (both in the same column) in a column of his choice. These neutral discs are just blockers, they don't belong to any player, and they cannot be used to create a line of 4 discs.

Of course those blockers should be limited by adding the tetris feature, and:
*** to 2 uses/player/game;
*** no more frequently than once in 5 moves.