hexkid: ah right, ok, thanks for that. Is that for every type of game

WatfordFC: Every game has different percentages :)



Backgammon: 49.66 vs 50.27%
Ludo: 52.06 vs 47.67%
Five in Line: 57.05 vs 42.06%
Horde Chess: 69.60 vs 26.15%
Maharajah Chess: 29.84 vs 61.98%

So, I'd say colour doesn't matter for Backgammon or Ludo, White has a small advantage in Five in Line, and a big advantage in Horde Chess. Black has a big advantage in Maharajah Chess.

hexkid: ok, i wasnt to sure which type of game safarigal was referring to, but i understand now what you mean.

hexkid: Backgammon is obviously not an advantage since there is a random roll to see who starts anyway.

However Ludo does probably have a slight advantage since it's essentially a race.

grenv: the player who starts first in Ludo is also dependent on the rolls of the dice. According to your own logic, there's "obviously not an advantage" there either ;)

pauloaguia: I thought white had the first roll (I know they can't actually move a piece until a 6 is rolled, but the first attempt is an obvious advantage)

grenv: White has a small advantage since the get to roll first, but it is small. Most games last 40 or more moves so it helps lessen the effect. But it is still an advantage.

grenv: It's still dice dependable anyway

pauloaguia: ? of course ? not sure what that means, but i was just saying the 52% is probably about right - a slight advantage

pauloaguia: Wrong!!
In Backgammon, there is an equal chance for white to go first as there is for black to go first.
In Ludo, white goes first every time, thus giving white a small advantage.

As an example, let's take a very simple case: the first player to get 4 or more points, taking alternate rolls of a single die. In this, we are guaranteed that there will be no more than 7 rolls (If both players continually roll 1's).
From this, it ends up that there are 176 roll outcomes. Of these outcomes, white wins 105 of them (just under 60%). Obviously, Ludo is much more complicated, but to say that it has the same dice-dependent odds as Backgammon is not correct.

jurek: I concur. Any game where one color always moves first gives an advantage to that color. In games where a dice roll determines who goes first, the winner of that roll gets an advantage in the remaining game.

headius: That is correct however since you can not chose which one you will be it makes it so that statistically black and white are equal in games like Backgammon. The degree of advantage diminishes based on the average number of moves it takes to win a game. For example the hpotherical game were you win at 4 points takes very few roles to win so whites advantage is great. Ludo usually takes over 40 moves so whites advantage is small.

jurek: Oops, my numbers were off a bit; there are actually 279936 possible outcomes (I was lumping "equivalent" rolls like 6,1,1,1,1,1,1 with 6,6,6,6,6,6,6). Of these, 200130 are wins for white (71.5%).

mctrivia: Agreed, as the number of rolls and the freedom of movements go up, the odds tend to even out, but the claim by pauloaguia was that the starting odds for black-vs-white was the same for Backgammon and Ludo.

mctrivia: true enough, I was just pointing out that after the first dice roll, it's no longer an even game. Omitting that roll the player who "really" rolls first has the advantage. It's also fair to say that in longer-running games the odds even out. A good example is go, where there's no official agreement on what komi should be, but for 99% of games it won't matter if it's off by a point or two after playing 200 moves.

headius: The advantage does not necessarily belong to the first player, although it generally does. In a game like Reversi, I suspect that parity considerations may be important enough that the second player has an advantage.

But the main point is correct: the only way to ensure that a game is perfectly balanced is to have perfect symmetry between the two players at the start of the game. Of the games on this site, only Backgammon and its variants have this property.

Anyway, this being the Feature Requests board, I'd like to say that I wholeheartedly support both volant's and Mr. Shumway's proposals. I've wished for such a feature for a while, but have had to settle for 2-game matches.

KotDB: I also would like this feature. For now I use 3 win matches if I am worried about it. This removes the chance of a tie but the difference between who starts as white is minimalized.

i was hoping that the online green dot indicator could be added to the action points top 50 list.

I think there should be a Pawn fellowship...
Just for pawns to see other active players...
And have tourneys just for pawns...

Daniel Snyder: Their team would be strong at least in paper...

Daniel Snyder: If there was a pawn fellowship where there pawns could participate in several tournaments, that would take away one of the big of advantages of being a paying member.

Daniel Snyder: There is a fellowship for pawns. It is called Just for pawns and me but they may have fun trying to join.

mctrivia: lol

You cannot join the fellowship because this feature is available for Brain Knight or higher membership level.
You can solve this unpleasant situation by upgrading your membership.

SafariGal: I said you would have fun trying to join.

There are also several benifits to becoming a paying member that are not listed. I give away a $19US box of chocolate tootsie roles every year to a member of my fellowship Chocolate Lovers United. You can help make Fencer rich(I don't think that is listed but it is a good goal. And you can brag over all your pawn friends that you can play more games then they can.

*This add was payed for by The Make Fencer Rich Foundation

mctrivia: I'm hoping to win that chocolate next year!!!

I was wondering if it would be possible to list membership cost in dollars as well as euros.I understand that the conversion is made through paypal during the transaction, but it would be a big help when refrencing to others if it was listed in dollars also.

Jim Dandy: u can convert on the membership page at the top in small writing

prettymama: Thanks,another reason why I should wear those damn glasses that were just prescribed a few months ago

Jim Dandy: lmao

SafariGal: You can solve this unpleasant situation by upgrading your membership.

Upgrading your membership would not help either, as you would not be eligible because you are no longer a pawn! ')

Jim Dandy: maybe you ned apair of glasses like this:
http://www.3dstereo.com/Merchant2/graphics/00000001/glasses/xray.jpg

nobleheart: You're bringing me back to my childhood years.I brought a pair of those into my 3rd grade class once.......what a letdown

Czuch Czuckers: Yah I know. The whole felloeship was ment as a joke.

I'd like to request Fischer Random Atomic chess. This eliminates the opening theory (as in regular chess) and has been successfully tried on other sites (schemingmind.com for one).

...a tourney created by fencer, with the backing of brainking, to be held annually...
...a sort of brainking "king" tourney of every type, with possibly the same type prize as the july action...
...with so many other tourneys created here,some lose the luster and appeal a tourney like this might create...
... I could care less about winning 'crazy joes chess for the intermediate' tourney, but would find better gaming pleasure in participating in "Brainking's ~king of kings~ battleboats tourney 2006"...
...anyone have any thoughts on this idea?...
...fencer?

some chess ideas that would be really radical:
how about a chess game with a simple twist on strategy.
chess played on a hexagonal shape board(multi-hexagons).
the difference between a square(4 directions) & a hexagon(6 directions) might be addictive.
-
or how about a central chessboard...with 4 more boards attached to each corner..why?...to allow four a 4 player game(4 colours).this sounds complex..but I have always thought it might be fun for chess for >2 players.maybe another idea for this might be for a larger board...4 players..and each simply takes a turn in rotation.
-
or how about chess played on a triangular shape board.(multi-triangles)
the difereence between a square(4 directions) & a triangle(3 directions).
-
any ideas on this people?

nobleheart: How about 3D Star Trek Chess? The rules can be found at http://www.chessvariants.com/3d.dir/startrek.html

actually, there is a board for new variant ideas:
http://brainking.com/en/Board?bc=45

I think that the layout for this new feature may not be the best. With all those languages, the table will either be too wide or the columns so small that things won't be readable.

Maybe a better layout would be to have just the user's language and a combobox to select the language you want the dictionary of...

pauloaguia: The change was already made. The entries can be highlighted with different colours, though.

In the Ponds... I thnk there should be a
"Ponds created by me" button...

I would like the feature that I could play my aponents moves and then my own and submit these moves to the server so if my apponent plays what I thought they would already know what move I want to make so my aponent does not have to wait for me to make that move. This is not like auto pass because I am still chosing what move I want to make I just can chose before hand.

Would be very usefull in games like anti-chess and line 4 were there are often times were there is only one good(or allowed) move for your oponent.

Everyone has great ideas here!

My idea:

Is it possible for BK to start up a scrabble type game?
The format at IYT is pretty good (they call it jamble)
If we had scrabble here I could get rid of my IYT membership altogether because that is the only game which keeps me loyal there.
I might be able to bring my friends over too.

I think that is called "Conditional Moves"

Dogod: Yes it is.

Dogod: They use that system over at dailygammon.com. I like it for the most part. The only detractions is that you often have to be online for a longer period of time to make a set of moves in a game.

gambler104: I often write out notes in the message area for all of my moves. Would be nice if the server could play them for me.

Thank you for the ability to accept or decline multiple invitations!! Great thing :)

ajtgirl: i think Fencer said s/t that yes, but there will be problems with lanaguage mutation. Will you be willing to play scrabble like game in Czech?