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No more speed accounts
Posted:
May 25, 2004, 7:23 PM
Hopefully that subject got your attention! As you may or may not know, many players like to play both "normal" pente and "speed" pente. A sort of standard has evolved where a player will create two accounts (like dmitriking/speedmitri) to separate normal play and speed play.
I am thinking about doing away with speed accounts, essentially combining them with a player's normal account. The advantages of this are numerous: 1. You only have to log in once and don't have to switch back and forth. 2. Other players know who they are playing when playing speed games and normal games. 3. Keeps the ratings "cleaner". Many people have commented on this in other posts but basically everyone's ratings are loosely related and if players start using their speed account for normal games or vice versa it effects the ratings of everyone to some degree. 4. You can view a player's stats for both normal and speed games at the same time. 5. I'm sure there are other advantages, please contribute if you can think of some.
Of course there are also disadvantages to combining accounts. 1. Confusion, I'll have to manually combine accounts and that will take players a little while to get used to the change. 2. How do you define what is a "speed" game and what is a "normal" game? This is the big question and probably varies somewhat from player to player. The way the system will work (at least this is my current plan) is for the game type (speed/normal) to switch depending on the values of the timers. So I have to draw a line and define what a speed game is and what a normal game is. If we only had initial time it would be pretty easy, I could say a > 6 minute game is normal and a < 6 minute game is speed. Incremental times make this just a little trickier. Here is what I'm proposing for the formula to define what type of game is being played. A speed game will be defined as a game where initial time + TOTAL incremental time is less than or equal to 5 and 1/2 minutes.
This formula basically attempts to "guess" the total time each player will have with incremental time added in. It is impossible to know for sure since the number of moves each player will make is not known BEFORE the game is played (don't even think of suggesting the game type be determined AFTER the game is finished). So the number 15 is used above as the "average" number of moves in a speed game, this was determined by looking at past performance of speed games in the database.
Here are the formulas: Speed game = (initialTimeMinutes * 60 + incrementalTimeSeconds * 15 <= 330 Normal game = (initialTimeMinutes * 60 + incrementalTimeSeconds * 15 > 330
Some examples: Initial time/Incremental time (5/0) = Speed game 5 * 60 + 0 * 15 = 300 Initial time/Incremental time (6/0) = Normal game 6 * 60 + 0 * 15 = 360 Initial time/Incremental time (5/2) = Speed game 5 * 60 + 2 * 15 = 330 Initial time/Incremental time (4/6) = Speed game 4 * 60 + 6 * 15 = 330 Initial time/Incremental time (4/7) = Normal game 4 * 60 + 7 * 15 = 345 Initial time/Incremental time (1/5) = Speed game 1 * 60 + 5 * 15 = 135
Ok, so the formula isn't set in stone yet. I'm not a big speed pente player so I'd like to hear everyone's opinions about this, the number of seconds that determines the split between speed/normal can be adjusted for example if people think 330 isn't good.
Posts:
21
Registered:
Jun 4, 2002
From:
Montreal QC Canada
Age:
39
Re: No more speed accounts
Posted:
May 26, 2004, 3:47 AM
I suggest a new Game type name "Speed Pente", so just before starting a new game you choose from the game type "Speed Pente" and the stat will be store under that type in you acount.
So you don't have to care about the time setting, the will be set by the player just before starting a Speed Game.
Posts:
542
Registered:
May 9, 2002
From:
Northeast USA
Re: No more speed accounts
Posted:
May 26, 2004, 3:58 PM
Dweebo,
I think this is a fantastic idea and I think your details of implementation are right on so far. I prefer the way you described it instead of allowing "Speed Pente" to be a user selectable game type for many reasons that for now I won't get into. One suggestion I do have, which you probably are planning to do anyway, is to make it clear to the user which type of game they are about to play, which is updated immediately after the timer settings are changed. What comes to mind is the text that appears in the background right on the game board that says "Pente" -- this could be changed to say "Speed Pente" if the owner of the table adjusts and submits timer settings that would yield a speed game, and would feel the same as if someone changed the game type to "Keyro Pente" for example (thus, both players must click Play again, just as they do now when timer settings are changed).
I'm sure the formula you described could be tweeked slightly but I think it's a very good start and should be pretty close to what you've suggested.
I'm curious how far you plan to take this idea. It sounds like the first thing you are planning to do is to "mark" games as speed or normal, in addition to being marked for game type. It also sounds like you are planning to have two ratings associated with each username for each game type -- one for normal speed, another for speed games. I am wondering now, will the database and user selectable database filters be updated to be able to filter out speed games? Will there be two rankings lists? Will this concept be expanded to support all game types? Is this step going to make it easier to eventually support DSG speed tournaments? There may even be other such improvements to other parts of DSG that I didn't think of which also follow logically from this concept.
The full picture looks to be a pretty big effort, but taken one step at a time perhaps it won't be too bad. I think it's cool that you've moved this idea higher on your priority list.
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From:
Powell, OH
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Re: No more speed accounts
Posted:
May 26, 2004, 5:35 PM
Thanks daxoo and up2ng for your quick responses.
Response to daxoo about a separate game for speed. Yes that of course is a possible solution, I forgot to mention that. I think the main reason why I don't like it is people will "forget" to change it back and forth for whatever type of game you're playing and this will have the same negative impact on ratings as I described in my earlier post.
up2ng: What you suggested about letting the user know what game is being played is exactly what I had in mind, the background will print either "Speed Pente" or "Pente" (same thing for all other games as well).
Yes I do plan to "mark" games as speed or normal and yes everyone will have two ratings, that is the whole point right! I will be able to mark older games as speed games as part of the conversion, but will have to just COPY a player's rating to their new "speed" rating.
Yes the database will eventually have a filter for speed/normal games, initially I think I won't make that change.
Yes there will be two rankings lists, and all games will have speed games.
Is this going to make it easier to support speed tournaments? Hmm, I guess a little but not that much.
Yes it is a rather large effort that will take me some time to develop but it is something I think needs doing for the long run.
Hmm, up2ng, you didn't mention how this is a horrible idea unless we have Pente in sets, I'm shocked! I didn't realize you could write a post without bringing that up
Posts:
54
Registered:
Feb 21, 2003
From:
Hawaii Home page
Re: No more speed accounts
Posted:
May 26, 2004, 7:47 PM
How do other sites (surely there is an online chess site that has these same speed games issues) handle the rankings? Perhaps we don't have to reinvent the wheel.
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Re: No more speed accounts
Posted:
May 26, 2004, 9:41 PM
Thad,
Yes I totally agree. I don't play regularly at any other sites so I'm not sure, though I think someone once mentioned to me they knew of a chess site that did something similar to what I describe.
Posts:
55
Registered:
Jan 21, 2002
From:
ohio
Age:
65
Re: No more speed accounts
Posted:
May 27, 2004, 2:09 AM
ELIMINATE SPEED ACCOUNTS?? WHY NOT? I THINK IF YOU WOULD CHECK SPEED ACC. RATING VS REG RATINGS YOU'LL FIND THAT THEY'RE FAIRLY CLOSE ANYWAY. PERHAPS YOU COULD RUN A LIST OF REG ACC VS SPEED ACC TOP TO BOTTOM AND THE PROOF WOULD BE THERE TO SEE. I REALLY DOUBT THERE WOULD BE FEW EXCEPTIONS. CHECK IT OUT!
IT SEEMS I USED ALL CAPS TO WRITE THIS ....BUT I'M TOO LAZY TO REWRITE IT..................didn't mean to shout.
Posts:
751
Registered:
Mar 1, 2002
From:
My Own Lil World Mostly
Age:
43
Re: No more speed accounts
Posted:
May 27, 2004, 7:18 AM
In no way does my posting here admit agreement to what is being suggested but dweebo could allow the people to hook up their own accounts given that they know the passwords and such. It might help him choose the right "speed" account to link another with! Just a positive suggestion, the only one I could come up with!
So does this mean it is just going to take into account how long I play a game and how many moves are made to determine the "type" of game or are you going to be able to set the timer?
Message was edited by: partica at May 29, 2004 1:07 PM
Re: No more speed accounts
Posted:
May 27, 2004, 6:28 PM
this sounds like a great idea to me. i got tired of logging in and out and over the last year have just used the one account for all my games speed or regular. i have a total of 3 accounts i use this one primarly. if you need to know what they are to combine them just e-mail me. thx for working on this dweebos, i think it will clean alot of stuff up. rob smith
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Re: No more speed accounts
Posted:
Jun 1, 2004, 5:42 PM
Yes I could possibly set up a way for people to link their accounts themselves. I think it might be quicker to just do it manually though, I don't think there are many more than a 100 speed accounts.
Of course I won't know always how to link them, so maybe I'll have to start a new thread in the forum with a list of all speed accounts and how I think they should be linked and players can post there.
When YOU or your opponent change the timer, DSG will look at the timer settings and determine whether the game is speed or not BEFORE the game is played.
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Re: No more speed accounts
Posted:
Jun 2, 2004, 4:45 PM
Things are not going to be perfect, I'll just say that first of all.
Yes it will look at the games played as robsmith, and all other players, and determine if they are speed games or not. However, just because you played a speed game in the past it won't affect your current ratings (speed or normal). The only thing changing from the past is whether a game is marked speed or normal.
When the conversion happens, the robsmith account will have 2 ratings, one normal and one speed. The ratings for pente will stay the same, the ratings for speed pente will be copied over from your speed account.
Message was edited by: dweebo at Jan 12, 2005 5:12 PM
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Re: No more speed accounts
Posted:
Jan 12, 2005, 11:25 PM
Ok, so I realize I started this discussion over 7 months ago, but I am now getting close to finishing this change (there was a long... period of inactivity in the middle).
I have developed all of the coding changes I "think" are required, and have a script to convert data in the database. I still have to do a large number of tests to make sure everything still works.
And the final big change is to actually figure out which speed accounts need to be linked.
So I'm going to try and keep track of that on this thread, if you can contribute any players please do! Here are some players with "speed" or "spd" or "fast" or "quick" in their names. Any other ideas?
I didn't realize you could write a post without bringing that up 