Fencer: That's it.

Fencer: I posted what I thought was a well considered contribution which may have been lost in this meaningless exchange. Should I post it again, or have you managed to locate it?

nightmagic: Of course it's possible, and simple. It would be VERY VERY VERY simple to program. And believe me, I've been programming computers since 1963

nightmagic: Then you clearly did not understand my post. I have 80 games at the moment, and in normal circumstances I work them down to zero two or three times a day (unless I have to go to a funeral - and what I'd LIKE to do is finish most os my games before my OWN funeral.) But, for example, I am currently in a tournament whereb one player has about 2000 concurrent games, and whilst he obeys all of the tournament rules, he makes a move every 14 days. This tournament has now been running for more than 14 months, and IS NO FUN AT ALL. What I was suggesting is a way that I can identify players who will not put me into this boting position again. If you move 6 times a day in each game, then under my suggestion you will migrate to my list of "favourite players", so you will not have anything to worry about.

grenv: What's wrong with the rack?

nightmagic: Never mind. I still can't understand, and I've read it three times, very carefully. Perhaps some fullstops and capital letters might help, but I tried putting them in for myself, and for the life if me, I'm completely confused. Perhaps I'm just thick.

Can I suggest a “fast player index”: which would work as follows: (Please read “he or she” for all of the occurrences of “he”)

Every time a player makes a move where his total number of games waiting to move is less than 10% of his total games gets a “fast player” point.

For example, somebody with 1000 concurrent games would get a “fast player point” every time he moved when he had less than 100 games waiting for his move – potentially 100 points if he reduced his backlog of games to zero in the course of a day.

A player who has 50 concurrent games, who plays a move in each of them every day would receive 10 “fast player points” – plus additional points if he makes additional moves in some of the games during the 24-hour monitoring period.

I would suggest that “fast player points” be accumulated for (say) a month – so that only those points earned in the previous month are actually credited to the player’s “fast player” index. This would ensure that somebody who, for whatever reason, cannot maintain “fast player” status.

The “fast player index” could then be used as a criterion for tournament entry, game invitations, and so on. It should be available to review in a player’s profile,

This would not disadvantage players who like to play slower and more relaxed games, but would be of great benefit to players who like to finish games (and tournaments) within a few days or weeks of their starting,

KotDB: My earlier suggestion in this situation "Autopass until I can make a move" should therefore become "Autopass until I can move again, and I don't want to double from this position"

BIG BAD WOLF: I updated my post to stress "good"!

mctrivia: With the POSSIBLE exception of Fischer Clock games, I can't see any good reason whatsoever why anybody should have any say as to whether his opponent uses autopass or not.

emmett: But not likely!

Fencer: Take a poll!! I bet you a year's membership that 99% of BG players would not object!

Fencer: Perhaps "never in this game" is a bit harsh, but maybe a "activate autopass until there is a possible move" would be a good idea.
In fact, that would solve ALL the problems, without having to agree on autopass when setting up the game: the player who cannot move could just click "do the autopass on my behalf until I can move again" if that's his wish. His opponent could not possibly object (could he?).

Fencer: So autopass is never an option in a cube match when you "own" the cube?

Backgammon (gogul vs. pgt)

This game uses autopass, but I still get "since youcannot move, press submit" message. Autopass does not appear to be working. Any suggsetions?

ßăķëď Äłáşķǻñ: About the only conclusion one can draw from this thread is that the "PC" stand for "PERSONAL computer", and that everybody seems to have their own pet way of doing things, which works for them. I'm happy, and hope everybody else is too. Sorry for stirring up a hornet's nest.

nightmagic: I don't understand your post, and have no idea what a "botton" is. Can you explain more clearly?

Andersp: I used to use IE7, and decided to install Firefox one day when I had nothing else more important to do. Wow! Brainking suddenly went about twice as fast! Yesterday my wife opened IE, and without looking I opened up BK and wondered what had gone wrong with my computer and why everything was so slow. Switching back to Firefox fixed that very quickly.

Fencer: It's not at all complicated, but it's slow! If the submit button were above the Message and Notes boxes, then for the 99% of time when there are no notes and no messages, the submit button would be right there, and there would be no need to wait for the screen to refresh before the scroll took effect. (Maybe this is not a problem in first-world countries like the Czech Republic with good broadband facilities, but we are not all so lucky)

Fencer: I have "Show move buttons directly below game boards", and almost the smallest font size in Firefox, and I still need to scroll down for most of the games I play. What am I doing wrong?

Fencer: I can't help thinking that even if it LOOKS stupid, it would be a wonderful improvement. My most frustrating experience of Brainking is scrolling down to the "submit" button after making a move. I think that this suggestion is worth MUCH more than a

Fencer: Thanks - I'd already done that, and can't for the life of me think how they got unchecked - maybe I did it inadvertently, but I have not been to the settings page recently, nor changed my browser settings. I'll do a virus scan and see if there are any nasties hanging around which may have changed something.

Fencer: It was a "Congratulations you're the 999,999,999 visitor and have won squillions of $$$$" type message. I have now blocked pop-ups and it's fixed. Funny thing is, I thought I had already blocked popups. That's the first time I've ever seen that sort of garbage on Brain King, but it's ok now.

Today a lot of rubbishy pop-ups have appeared every time I look at messages. Is this a new "feature". If so, can it please be removed.

pauloaguia: Why not quote all the prices in NZD

Gr☺uch☺: Isn't everybody a friend?

Gr☺uch☺: Why not just "disable cloak mode"

grenv: I can't even CONTEMPLATE not having the opponents score available - either face-to-face or on line. Why on earth would you NOT see it?

Fencer: Ok then. I'll buy you a beer next time I'm in Prague. Will that sway you?

Fencer: I agree with Furbster - this is a new relatively new game, and I have already made that mistake twice!

ßăķëď Äłáşķǻñ: Well I suppose I will just have to admit a vocabulary deficiency. (Actually for scrabble it's not as much use as one might think, because you still need a "U".)

Czuch Czuckers: Should I have challenged th computer?

rabbitoid: (sigh!)  Well, I suppose you might be right about OGRISM, but I guess if you're into ogrisms it doesn't matter how you spell it.  Perhaps "AhAhAhWOW" would be ok?

But SOD does not allow YUK, YUCK or YEUK, even though I use a word which sounds something like that when calves liver is served.

I also love game, which is why I am making a plea to play it with real words.  My wife and I play several times a week: we have gone right through the SOD (in 1987) and documented all of the allowable 2-letter words, so that there are no arguments.  (And before 1987 I didn't know that an "AI" was a 2-toed south american sloth!)

joshi tm: I have played scrabble (against a computer) on a couple of sites. The problem I have is that they use dictionaries with words which don't actually exist. I have had "YEUK", "QIVIUT" and "OGRISM" played against me, and I have checked my copy of the Shorter Oxford Distionary and none of these words, or anything like them, appear anywhere. Scrabble is a great game, but it is completely ruined by made-up words which do not occur in ANYBODY's vocabulary. Please save us from scrabble on this site, unless we can use the Oxford or Websters dictionary and not one of those ridiculous dictionaries with words which one must "learn" in order to compete.

emmett: Thanks for that - I think I knew that already so I obviously asked the wrong question. What I meant to ask is "is there an easy way - without locating the individual games - to get the date/time of the first move of the first game in a multi-game match?"

Is there any way to find the date and time of the first move in a game?

emmett:  I thing "GL" is a ridiculous greeting.  Personally, I think if you don't have time to type a meaningful greeting, then it's better not to type any greeting at all.  And certainly not an automatic greeting in the second or subsequent game of a match. (As somebody remarked earlier, this is akin to shaking hands between each set of a tennis match!)

Matarilevich: I generally only play cube games - a double SHOULD double the cube value and then the dice should be re-thrown, but I don't think it is implemented - or if it is I have not seen it. Come to think of it, I don't recall seeing a double in a "normal" game either. So I don't believe that the probabilities actually arise in the BK implementation.

I suggest that the default colour for gammon game invitations should be "your colour - black". The player who gets to make the initial move is determined by the dice, and if one accepts an invitation, it would be good to be able to make a move - or "pass" as the dice determines - without possibly waiting two or three days to make an initial move. There is no tactical or strategic advantage in being black or white.

emmett: I agree with Grenv. I always have a game or two going against my son, who lives on the opposite side of the world, but every couple of years when we visit each other we just continue playing from our own accounts from the same computer. There's no way I'm going to throw away a game to him, or him to me, just to cheat the ratings!

tonyh: I can't speak for Go, but a GREAT feature would be automatic termination of a backgammon game where the result was a foregone conclusion - gammons and backgammons considered, of course, for cube matches.

whopper: Good suggestion. I second that.

mctrivia: The previous spelling was fine. It was the meaning
However I think I'll stick to scrabble with a real English language dictionary and not one of those strange dictionaries which allow all sorts of strange words which nobody ever actually knows the meaning of, let alone ever uses in conversation.</i>

mctrivia: I take it you mean "accepted"?

GiuiT: What a brilliant idea. I second it! (unless we can actually implement it for EVERYBODY - including the ignorant!)

ScarletRose: I have tried to find and play against players with less than 100 current games by creating a backgammon tournment (it's still open to sign up South Pacific Midwinter Tournament 2 fast players ) - unfortunately at least half of the people signed up have exceeded the requested limit!

pauloaguia: Yes, something along those lines would be worth following up.

Marfitalu: The absolue number of moves is not the problem. It's just ridiculously slow players!

I was on vacation when

Action Points

was introduced, but I would like to add these comments.

I think it is a pity to reward people for the absolute number of moves per day. This encourages players to sign up for more games than they can possibly complete in a reasonable time, simply to ensure that they can continue to make moves all day and accumulate competition points.

I am playing in one Backgammon tournament which at the current rate will finish about 2010 - and there is no guarantee that I will be alive then. (What happens in this case - would I "time out" - in more senses than one? - or does Branking have a web site in heaven where I could continue to play for eternity?) The slowest player in the afore-mentioned tournament is logged on most times when I view active players, yet he/she makes a move in the tournament about every 10 days. This is NOT a fun way to play.

Could I suggest that a new bonus be introduced. Perhaps a snapshot of waiting games, where it is the players turn to play, could be taken at say midnight GMT. If a player makes a move in all of those games in the next 24 hours, he/she could earn bonus points - of say 20 for a brain pawn, 100 for a knignt, and 1000 for a rook. This might encourage players to sign up only for games which they have a reasonable chance of finishing before the end of the year - let alone the decade!

Groucho:
I agree with all my heart
(This reply to play my part)
Please give autopass a shot
What we want's not what we got