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One of the things i like is to be able to play people who are on my level or a bit higher. Obviously, sometimes that seems to go to extremes :-) I'm interested in both a strong game as well as someone who is interested in explaining some of the finer points and or discussion. (Obligatory humor: I like walks on the beach, puppies, and low cost car insurance :-) heheh. BTW: I am M/29/married, and live in Naples, FL, USA :-) I tend to be available between around 7- 9PM (EDT or GMT-5), but may make a move or two by the following AM before 9AM EDT. You might catch me making a move around 11-1 during lunch :-).

I don't like ICQ ... too much overhead. My Yahoo! Messenger ID is geraldyoung, and MS Messenger is geraldyoung1, if you'd like to real time dialog with me... If you have an alternate, preferred messaging system that you use, let's talk!

hi my name is jeff i started a game with you anxious to continue the game good luck jeff

With all due respect to my fellow players: I will no longer accept a game that has a timeout of 1 day, nor a timeout greater than 15 days. If you're not interested in this, there are plenty of other people who aren't paying as much attention, and do not mind as much to wait for timeouts to collect their wins. I feel I play fairly and move often enough during the day to facilitate any game. I do not mind losing fairly, and will resign in a timely manner. I will, at times, accept a requested draw, especially in an extended game, but not necessarily if I am clearly in the lead. I may present a draw offer, usually to avoid a drawn-out conclusion, but I will respectfully abide by the desires of my opponent in that case. And, considering I do feel I play enough during a given day to provide adequate opportunities for my opponent to move, I will take advantage of all rules, including available timeouts. I may, as a courtesy, extend up to an additional 12 to 24 hours or so on a 3-day timeout, depending on the regularity of movement of my opponent, and will accept a reasonable request during play to extend the timeout period for extenuating circumstances. Thank you for your time to read this. I hope this will clear any misunderstandings if I delete your challenge without comment. I will graciously accept any comments to this post. Regards, Gerald (Crythias)

Hopefully the promised 'acceptable challenger filter' should solve all our problems.

I put myself on unchallengeable because I will be out of the area for a few days at the end of the month, and I don't want to worry about moves/timeouts. I hope I can resolve all my remaining games during that time, and for those I cannot resolve, please accept my apologies, and for those who insist on collecting TimeOut wins regardless, I will be back, and we'll finish this :-) Thanks for listening. Probably (hopefully?) things will change on this site to provide for vacations, but if not, here's my heads up. Regards, Gerald

Create a Yahoo! email address and use the mail feature along with Yahoo! Messenger to announce when a move has been made. It's nearly instantaneous, and the little pop-up message tells you exactly who has moved :-)

That is a Great idea!!

I have been doing the same with MSN Messenger from the start, same thing it gives you an instant notification as soon as the opponent has moved. This has proved to be very helpful as you can then play real- time with some of the games.

I have been doing the same with MSN Messenger from the start, same thing it gives you an instant notification as soon as the opponent has moved. This has proved to be very helpful as you can then play real- time with some of the games.

Instructional or for fun games are an important part of being able to do better on the ladder. It would be nice to have games that are able to allow takebacks and not count toward the ratings score.

Very true. We will be adding an option to Create Game that allows you to specify whether or not a game is rated. This has been my intention since introducing the ratings but for some reason has slipped down the priority list. I'll have it done within a few days. Probably.

I would find is most useful if you coloured the square in red or something when a piece has been captured (along with the green where I last moved from). I often come back to my turn and sit thinking why someone had just made a particulr move, failing to spot the captured section down the side of the screen Thanks, -Dan PS: Keep up the Im-pawn-tant good work...

It would be nice if people could fill in an optional form with as much information as they felt comfortable with. Without taking notes all the time you can soon get confused about who said what about where they live and what they do. Rhymester

We have been thinking of adding an additional information box for players to write any information about themselves that they feel appropriate, such as how often they are likely to make moves and which style of player they prefer to play against.

How about a Master List of Player Data. It could include volunteered information as mentioned, plus their location or time zone. Also include the following: current number of games in progress current rating and win/loss/draw data games won against: (game number and opponent username) games lost against: (game number and opponent username) Just a thought... Marc

Thanks Marc, It sounds like you're thinking along pretty much the same lines as we are. I was going to start working on a system like that yesterday but we had a bit of trouble with the server as some people may have noticed :) Thanks, Chris

I have just deleted several games that didn't actually get started or had just one or two moves made. Among these were a couple where I could have claimed victory. I don't particularly want to climbe the ladder by default as it were but does a 'claimed victory' in a non started game score the same as a fully played out game? Rhymester

A claimed victory scores the same as wins by checkmate or resignation. Games with fewer than 2 moves made on each side are never rated. -Chris

Good news that hardly started games don't count!

Hey! You and I haven't played yet :-) Unfortunately I am out for the evening, but I am not a slouch for returning moves :-) Actually, it may be late tomorrow before I can respond, so please don't put me on a 1 day game :-) Otherwise, I am really regular.

Done that game started. Chrismo - is there a way to set the time out details when you challenge someone?

Good point. We need to do this and allow all game options to be configured when starting a Challenge game. We will make this a priority.

With an open invite to someone particular you are able to select a move timeout.

Nice idea having a forum, been meaning to suggest it for sometime, but if one thing would improve it is the ability to jump back to the main forum page after reading a thread. At the moment you have to link back to the original post before you can do this, very annoying! Keep up the good work

Absolutely! Sorry about that - will fix in next update. A short cut at the moment is to use the drop down list box Site map... on the red title bar... hope this helps, Chris

Why wait till tommorow when I can risk introducing a bug today? I have added a link back to the main list for you Paul.

The timeout period should be more clearly stated on the board, I think. Especially the One Day timeouts. Both in your Games and the current game. THIS IS A ONE DAY GAME or some such. :-)

We will give some thought to this to see where best to display this information. I agree that it would be nice to have a quick view in Your Games of which games need your attention soonest.

What about adding alternate email addresses to be notified of moves to? I have created games at work, but at home when I want to carry them on, I don't know when my opponent has moved. It's too much of a let down to keep coming in only to see that there are 0 games awaiting.... Cheers, -Dan

Yep, Froggie requested this as well so this looks like it will creep up the list of things to do.

Another solution is to use a bigfoot address to distribute mail to both your home and work addresses.

If you're allowed to keep your email client on all the time, you might use (if you're using Microsoft Outlook) a Rules Wizard to forward messages with the word Chess to your alternate mailbox... Or, likewise as mentioned elsewhere use a web based email system with its associated messenger (Yahoo!, Excite or Hotmail, eg) to have instant notification of moves.

You really do! Great site and getting better all the time! Just wanted to say thank you in public as it were! Rhymester

Cheers Rhymester! Look out for tonite's promotion of the group code... This will allow players to keep lists of their friends for quick reference of their statisics. Can't take credit for that one though... that's all Ruzz's work!

Hear hear!

Looks like you deserve a medal too!

I think it is ridiculous that players can get a rating of 1200 without playing any games.

You gotto start somewhere...

I agree that you have to start somewhere, so it is difficult to rate new players accurately. However a lot of experienced players have ratings from other sites, clubs & organisations. These could be used as a basis for players new to this site so that they can start with a more realistic rating.

New joiners now get a rating of 1000. Some players have a rating of 1200 because in the very beginning, this was the rating given to new joiners. The rating system itself is easy to do because we just use the traditional ELO method, but to start it off on a site like this is very difficult. I originally tried a system whereby the first five games attempted to estimate the starting rating by using a system of Opponent's Rating + 400 for a win and -400 for a loss, 0 for a draw and then averaging out the five games at the end. This was unworkable because in the beginning noone had a rating!! As the ratings become more diverse in the current system, I may put this back in as it will then be more effective. If anyone has any ideas on how to improve the way newcomers are assigned ratings, please let me know because I am very much aware that the current system is far from perfect. Thanks, Chris

I believe there is nothing wrong with your system, except that you shouldn't have changed it, unless you can recompute it for everyone. Marc

We have recalculated all the ratings based on a starting rating of 1200 for everyone. This seems to have made things a lot better. -Chris

Well Done, Chris! That should make the rating system a little more meaningful now. - Marc

Fear not ... I have a plan. It is easy to spot a player with a rating he or she does not deserve. These players make excellent targets for challenges. I have a good chance of beating them, and because I am playing above my own rating, the reward for victory is much greater than the penalty for defeat. If I have the patience, I'll get to 1200 by my own efforts. Dr Tim.

That is the great thing about the Elo system. If a player has played enough games, their rating is likely to be quite accurate regardless of what it was at the start. When you see someone who has played only a few games then it's likely that the rating isn't very accurate yet. Cheers, Chris

i've been thinking on this for a little while and i think i may have something.. obviously no rating system is going to cross over well into another rating system cause all groups of players have varing strenght.. just because you have a 1600+rating on another site doesn't mean you should get one here.. not until you've earned it.. i want to first state what a rating system is for.. because i think my system may seem a little radical at first.. rating systems are a way for one player to gage his strength against another player. let say that there was always a range of ratings in a group of players.. broken down as follows: rating name percentile 2400+ senior master 99 2200-2399 master 97-98 2000-2199 expert 89-96 1800-1999 class a 77-88 1600-1799 class b 59-76 1400-1599 class c 41-58 1200-1399 class d 22-40 below 1200 class e 1-21 from this point of view all rating should be calculated off of a played game matrix.. a person who has won 76 of 78 games(unless all those were played against the same person)should have a rating closer to the expert level. assign the best player his or her rating then calculate everyone else's rating off of that rating. based on who he played and how they faired.. all new comers should have a "provisional rating" that can move more quickly up or down in the first 20 games.. this helps new players be more accurately rated. currently there is no provisional rating and i believe that is why the majority of the ratings on this sight are low. and will never increase.. there is really no rating pool to draw from to increase your rating.. i can come up with some formula's if your unclear on how this system would work.. or if your interested to know..

It would be good if the winner was e-mailed in the event of the other player resigning / requesting a draw as at the moment you don't know until you go 'Your Games'. It would also be good if the loser was mailed in the event of check mate. Apart from that this is an excellent, excellent site. Love it!!!! Quixotic

Have you got your e-mail notification turned on in your settings? I certainly get an e-mail when someone offers a draw. Rhymester

OK, maybe I was wrong about offering a draw, but I don't recieve anything if the other player resigns...

Friday 10th 2010f September 2010 09:26:37 PM

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