rod03801: No idea how I wasn't aware of this already. Life-changing (in a tech way, that is), thanks!! :)

Bernice: Yikes! Glad to hear you and your home are well; hopefully everyone gets their power back soon.

Bernice: Best wishes, stay safe!

Merry Christmas everyone!

Bernice: Fair enough, just seems REALLY odd that would happen the day before. Maybe an auto-renewal? I don't know, just spitballing ideas. Obviously this will be for you to sort out with Filip, so I'll leave it at that. Good luck!

Bernice: Could this not have been attempts by BrainKing to transfer the funds that you were trying to renew the membership with? Either way, I'd suggest contacting Filip directly rather than relying on him reading your message here,

Aganju: That's a plausible theory. And there's no reason the offset has to be one - IE it could be players with an ID 10, 100, 2567 more or less than our own. :) Something only Fencer would be able to determine. Clandestine could also be on to something, but it would indeed have to be a long-standing bug.

Aganju: Your total is much better than mine! 

beach: I found the same about 10-12 hours ago; all seems great now.

Indeed. But I don't see the point in comparing the price of apples, oranges, or MMOs to BrainKing.

Apples and oranges are also different prices. :)

Merry Christmas everyone!

Bernice: I assumed she would be able to read it; nothing I said was meant to be a slam at her. I mean, I mentioned the resignation thing because I think if she comes back and this happens again, she should finish her games out rather than resigning them all. It's not a huge deal, and of course she's within her rights to do what she did, I just think it's not the best approach. That's all. My apologies to her if my comment came across as overly negative, as it wasn't my intent.

I disagree about banning people who transfer their membership. A pawn membership is free, so by transferring their paid membership, there's no reason they shouldn't have the right to go back to the pawn level. I mean, they could just create a new account anyway; I think it's better for all if such members continue on with their existing accounts. 

And I meant it when I said I was sorry to see her go; I'd be happy to see her renew some day.

Crosseyed Mary: Again? I recall you did the same thing last spring (2018). It's a shame, because I think a lot of people would prefer you played the games out rather than have a bunch of resignations. 

Regardless, sorry to see you go.

ketchuplover: Thanks! And yes, it's bookmarked. The thing is, I'm not one to think to open the site every day, and apparently once I forget for a few days, it just leaves my mind for longer - although I guess I have the excuse of an election campaign that's distracting me. Anyway, that's why I always keep a tab open with BK, and then I always see when I have games to play. But I guess I closed it at some point and then...well, here we are. 

Sorry to all my opponents who have been waiting on me for almost a month. I guess at some point I closed the BrainKing tab I always had open on my browser, and have been so busy that I just plain forgot. :(

Roberto Silva: Exactly. I usually decline game invitations I get that are one game matches and not random colour; often I'll send a message with the decline, explaining that if they want to reinvite with random, I'll play. And I do that regardless of what colour they're offering. Of course if it's a game like Dice Poker or Logik, it doesn't matter.

Also, there's a bug with elimination tournaments where the players are in order of rating, and the top player always gets white - I get white a ridiculous amount in Mancala, which is a huge advantage. I keep meaning to message Fencer about it, but I can't imagine I'm the first to notice and tell him.

No other thoughts on my Fevga question? 

I can't seem to find a board where rule discussions belong. If there is one, please LMK and I'll post there instead, or an administrator/moderator should feel free to move my post.

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!

Aganju: Yes, my opponent was going to be up against that limit a few moves later, and I was aware of it. I don't believe there was any malicious intent here; just a matter of them wanting to get as many pieces home as they could, I suppose.

Glad I brought this up; some very interesting points.

Hrqls: Yeah, I certainly could, but I don't feel strongly enough to bother with that most of the time - just enough tonight for a small rant on the boards instead. :) And in this particular case, it's someone with in-game comments shut off. I feel better now anyway. :D

Brief rant - it's OK to resign! I understand playing a game through to the end, especially when there is the possibility of some learning coming out of it. But once you are mathematically eliminated, and nothing is to be gained even in terms of knowledge, why drag things out? 

crosseyed: Maybe, maybe not. But taking part in the discussion isn't mandatory.  

I wonder if removing weekend days would help, or if that would cause more problems than it solves.

Carnie: If there are people with several hundred or even thousands of games who are still signing up and playing extremely slowly, I could see how that would be frustrating, although I'd be surprised if it was common. The way I arrived at the situation was that I was (and am) in several fellowships, and signed up for a lot of games at one time. A message for one tournament would come to me, and I'd sign up for a bunch of games, and then another message for another tournament would come before the first set of games started, and on that went for a little while. So I was signing up for more games not fully realizing how many I was committing to (obviously still my own fault). 

playBunny: I don't disagree that it can be a problem, especially when, as you mention, it takes up the slots for a Pawn that's new to the site. But I also don't think it's fair to pin the problem completely on those who are playing within the designated time limits. The solution might be a combination of things - make it more clear to people the repercussions of signing up at certain time limits, and for signing up to multiple games in multiple tournaments, perhaps have some allowance to give pawns some more games to play if they are maxed out with games that are taking forever. 

Carnie: Yeah, that's the key - it's on us to decide what games, and time limits, to play. I've been on both ends of this. A few years ago I went crazy signing up for tournaments and ended up with well over a thousand games running and had a VERY hard time keeping up. Games were going to their limit all the time, and I used up most of my vacation days. Not something I'd have done on purpose, and I could see how some might find it frustrating, but at the same time, I was playing within the limits. Just gotta know that there will be some people who use up the full time allotted, so you have to allow for that when signing up. These days it's rare a game goes a day without a response from me, and games I'm in are often the first done in tournaments. But I don't begrudge those who make a game go on what seems like forever, as they're playing within the rules. 

beach: Yeah, that happened to me recently; I considered sending them a message to ask what they were doing, but in the end decided I couldn't be bothered. Player had a number of <1000 ratings, so it obviously isn't the first time.

Carnie:Well, I can "hear you" now, as when I look at the game record it does indeed now show that you timed out and lost, in spite of you having made the last move. Very odd. I'd suggest sending Fencer another message.

Carnie: I'm confused by "I thought people left this place because of bullies but I see the owner doesn't care." - were there some posts deleted? I sure didn't see anyone bullying you, but maybe you're referring to something else.

Hrqls: Yup. And below the game board, it says:

Aganju: I think what you'll find is that although it claims that you lost and shows rating points going down for you, if you look closer you'll find that the names don't match the rating points, and that your points actually go up.

So it works something like this. Let's say you and I played, and you won the match but I won the last game. Let's also say your rating was 2100 and mine was 1900 before the game. It will say something like Carpe Diem won, 2100 (+13), and Aganju lost 1900 (-11). I actually lost the 11 I should have, and you gained the 13, it just gives the wrong names in the message.

This bug's been there since I started playing here. It's simply a display error, not a problem with rating points.

"it's perfectly fine here, all the time."

Same for me.

badgerboy78: I tend to keep a tab with BrainKing open all the time, and after a while (usually a few weeks) that starts to happen. If I close the tab and open a new one, the problem disappears.

Merry Christmas everyone!

crosseyed: No, there doesn't need to be anything wrong - I believe there is approximately a 2% chance of having 23 non-6 rolls in a row, so inevitably it will happen to anyone who plays enough. Now if that happens to you every game, that's a different matter. To me, the bigger issue with Ludo as a game is that the skill element is pretty low in my opinion - but maybe that's just because I'm not skilled enough to understand the subtleties of the game. :D

Thom27: Are you advocating for people to try to earn forfeits, or warning others about those who do that kind of thing?

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."

Bernice: Some kind of glitch, or error on the part of a player, seems much, much, much, much more likely then someone maliciously choosing two of your games to delete.

skipinnz: Ah, I had no idea; thanks!

I'm wondering what prevents someone from being ranked in a game. For example, I noticed that Tenuki, who has excellent ratings in pretty much every game, is ranked in very few of them.

Carpe Diem: Quite a coincidence, I just came up against this very situation, and made a different move than I would have previously. But I forgot to follow my own advice and tell my opponent why I moved the piece I did. :(

cd power: I also had no knowledge of this rule. I think it's great that you proactively follow it - I'd suggest that when you do, you let your opponent know. Something like:

Raistlin: Thanks! That seems to be an equally bizarre option. When I look at the tourneys in question, they say "Sort by BKR: No", but it sure appears that they all are sorted that way, so perhaps that's displaying incorrectly. 

Aganju: What a bizarre setting - why would anyone ever want that? As you say, it certainly shouldn't be the default. 

Carpe Diem: No one has any thoughts on this?

Typed out another post about this, but I guess I didn't send it properly.