Re: Gaming activity

[Hagbard]

Which board sizes, game types and variants have been more popular during the latest year?
Updated 31.12.2023

Board sizes.
Other 3712 games
11x11 1908
9x9 772
7x7 413
5x5 102
19x19 72
13x13 71
15x15 65
17x17 8

Game types:
Other games 3712 games
Weak king 1859
Strong king 1275
Unarmed king (Sea battle) 277

Variants:
1. Sahkku & Daldøs 3450 games
2. Copenhagen 11x11 904
3. Hist.Hnef. 9x9 629
4. Hist.Hnef. 11x11 472
5. Hist.Hnef. 7x7 413
6. Total Hnef. 11x11 225
7. Dablo 11x9 165
8. Sea battle 9x9 143
9. Sea battle tafl 11x11 103
10. Hist.Hnef. 5x5 98
11. Hex 11x11 85
12. Alea 19x19 72
13. Tyr 11x11 72
14. Berserk 11x11 71
15. Tyr 15x15 63
16. Copenhagen 13x13 39
17. Sea battle tafl 13x13 29
18. Hist.Hnef. 13x13 28
19. Fetlar 11x11 20
20. Old Hnef. 11x11 13
21. Saami Cuhkka 5x5 12
22. Alea 17x17 8
23. Fetlar 13x13 3
24. Sea battle tafl 15x15 2
25. Hist.Hnef. 15x15 0
(Total 7123)

[Hagbard]

Which board sizes, game types and variants have been more popular during the latest year?
Updated 30.12.2024

Board sizes.
Other 4007 games
11x11 1713
9x9 458
7x7 370
13x13 234
15x15 44
17x17 42
5x5 24
19x19 10

Game types:
Other games 4007 games
Weak king 1432
Strong king 1261
Unarmed king (Sea battle) 202

Variants:
1. Sahkku & Daldøs 3672 games
2. Copenhagen 11x11 1000
3. Hist.Hnef. 11x11 392
4. Hist.Hnef. 7x7 370
5. Hist.Hnef. 9x9 350
6. Dablo 11x9 216
7. Hist.Hnef. 13x13 151
8. Total Hnef. 11x11 95
9. Hex 87
10. Sea battle tafl 11x11 71
11. Berserk 11x11 71
12. Sea battle tafl 13x13 67
13. Sea battle 9x9 62
14. Tyr 11x11 39
15. Old Hnef. 9x9 34
16. Saami Cuhkka 32
17. Fetlar 11x11 29
18. Tyr 15x15 25
19. Hist.Hnef. 5x5 24
20. Odin 17x17 23
21. Odin 17x17 23
22. Alea 17x17 19
23. Odin 15x15 17
24. Odin 15x15 17
25. Old Hnef. 11x11 16
26. Tyr 9x9 12
27. Alea 19x19 10
28. Fetlar 13x13 8
29. Copenhagen 13x13 8
30. Sea battle tafl 15x15 2
31. Hist. 15x15 0
(Total 6910)

[Hagbard]

This diagram shows the tafl gaming activity of the latest 13 years of this site, measured as number of tafl moves done per week.

There is an apparent seasonal variation with higher activity in winter and lower in summertime.

The many smaller spikes are large tournaments.

The sudden rise in March 2020 is start of the worldwide quarantine.
A fall occurs in summer 2020 as the quarantine is loosened.
Steep rise again from Oct. 2020 from new worldwide lockdowns.
Steep fall around May 2021 as people worldwide apparently agree to stop their emergency conduct.

[Hagbard]

The WTF finalists got extra 10 days as we ran into Christmas, and it's remarkable what they did with the extra time. The final games are impressing.

I wonder if it would be an idea to time all games between the very top players (IM and GM) with 10x (not race games).
Or simpler, when both players are rated > 1900.

A few players have a general problem with timing. Casshern and Thomas who live far away. Sqaree and Luizz who are just not up to quick games.
Timing could be no less than 5x for these.

Rest of us, including myself, probably prefer games to be rather quick.


I'd propose a timing along these lines:
-----
Not less than 10x between the top players (rating > 1900).

Not less than 5x in games involving
Casshern, Thomas, Sqaree, Luizz

Besides this, and for race games
5x for tournament games
2x for normal games
except when players specifically choose something else.
-----

Different timing for various types of players is an old discussion.
Already 2014 I proposed, in response to complaints by Nath, to split players into two groups, fast and slow players, and use two different timings. At that time the idea was rejected, however.

[Hagbard]

Idea for change of setup for the normal tournaments here, inspired from the World Champ.'s Battles of Brothers:

Until now, all normal tournaments have been Round Robins, i.e. every new player has started up with games against everybody.
This could be changed into kind of Battle of Brothers:
A new player starts up only against his four nearest neighbours in rating.

Race games would still be Round Robins, since they're easier games.

[Luizz]

Thanks Hagbard for activating the account.

I’m a bit confused what you’re proposing exactly regarding the times. You state that the 4 players with time-issues should get 5x times, but later you state that for tournament games everyone should get 5x timing. Am I misunderstanding something?

Otherwise, the real problems are:

• Confusing display of time left

• Almost no increment of time

Giving players 5x or 10x time won’t solve these problems in the future. I for instance am a bit scared to make a bad move in difficult positions, so I often wait for days in a sense of procrastination. However, once I only have 1 day left and the red text screams at me, warning me about the timeout, I always try to play as fast as possible. It’s not that I‘m not willed to play fast games, but rather that I sometimes are just scared to make a stupid move, if that makes sense.
However, this does not work, as I simply don’t get any additional time this way. I don’t know how the time increments work in detail, but you never gain enough time to continue playing in a proper way. OdinHimself wrote in the small forum that sleeping hours just drain your time in these situations, and you’re basically forced to stay awake, or lose on time. That’s just a bad design. As we are a rather casual gaming community, I think it should be expected that one move a day is enough for avoiding a timeout. Two moves at most.

I propose these design choices:

• Display the remaining time in the game, or on the list of current games directly. This way the players can easily see the remaining time, and not only when the timeout is near

• Instead of the current „timing formats“ of x2, x5 … (x2 of what anyways?), give a time limit of 1 day, 2 days, 5 days, and maybe something like 5 minutes for blitz-games would be interesting. This time limit is the maximum amount of remaining time the players can have in a game

• Once a player makes a move, 24 hours are added to their time. This cannot exceed the maximum time limit chosen

• Once the game reaches 100 moves, the maximum time limit is reduced to 1 day

I think that way we could have a simple, yet flexible design for time limits. This would also enable blitz games, which is a desired feature in this community for a long time. However, this will probably need some additional testing and experimentation.

I’m happy for any discussion on this topic, as I think an updated timing system is absolutely necessary.

[Hagbard]

I see that x5 is not enough.

It's changed to x10 now, which should be plenty of time.

It's a good idea, that you and Sqaree usually choose "x10 + no rating", which gives even more time.

I expect x10 to be ok. But if it should turn out to still be too little then more can be done -