Board Game Arena

It may be useful (without implementing the double dice) to have a button that concede victory to the other player.
Many situations occur when you cannot win (even with a fair number of doubles): conceding a victory may be a useful way to end the game and start a new one

Top right, Gear button > Concede the game

N_Faker wrote:Top right, Gear button > Concede the game

Ohhh there it is, thanks a lot

Took me a while before I finally asked someone.
Should be a note on the screen allowing it, or directing where to do it,

More on this point.

Am I the only person who finds it INFURIATINGLY FRUSTRATING when the other player doesn't concede when it is mathematically impossible to win?

I have played several games where I had all my checkers but one filled and the other player had NONE. Why not just concede?

I've also had games where even if I rolled doubles 4 times in a row I still wouldn't win, so I concede. Why waste time?

My preference would be the computer would calculate the impossibility and AUTOMATICALLY end the game with a message that says it's mathematically impossible to attain victory or something like that. Save everyone some time, move on to more games.

No?

I was just wondering what the etiquette was when it is mathematically over, in this game but also in Connect Four, Battle Sheep... is it better to concede (which gain times for everyone, but some players may lack the pleasure of doing the final winning move ?), or to play fast ?

In doubt, I try to play fast but I would really like to know how people feel about it

The etiquette of conceding has been brought up before in various other forums, as it applies to games other than backgammon.

The basic outcome of the discussion was that some people like the final victory move and some people hate wasting time. About the only thing most people agree on is that if the game is impossible to win, don't play until the last move and then concede; that's incredibly unsporting. Generally the best action is for the loser to ask if the winner would mind if they concede. (Or the winner to nicely suggest that time could be saved in a mathematically impossible situation.)

A couple of notes about the other issues raised:
Placing a "concede" button on this game is not a good idea. Game buttons are generated "within" the game, on the active player's turn. There already exists a concede mechanism for all games on this site, and that mechanism is outside the game. Attempting to alter that would at best cause confusion, and could easily introduce bugs.

A notification that the game is mathematically impossible would require much more programming. The development of games on BGA is done by volunteers, and it would be difficult to undertake that work unless a clear benefit could be achieved.

And, in the case of backgammon, even though it may be impossible to win perhaps the loser is playing to avoid a gammon/backgammon. True, multi-game sets are not implemented on this site, but there has been a lot of discussion about the doubling cube. Some people play this game in places other than this site , and it may be standard policy for them to consider avoiding gammons.

Thanks a lot

it was posted to me today (after i conceded a game that was mathematically impossible to win) that (if i had played on) a point would have been removed from my losing penalty for every checker i could bear off before the game was over. This is not supported by the FAQ explanation of how ELO scores are calculated - but it certainly makes me think twice about conceding. Is the idea that your losing penalty is diminished by playing to the bitter end an urban myth?

GreenP55 wrote: ↑13 July 2020, 13:01 it was posted to me today (after i conceded a game that was mathematically impossible to win) that (if i had played on) a point would have been removed from my losing penalty for every checker i could bear off before the game was over. This is not supported by the FAQ explanation of how ELO scores are calculated - but it certainly makes me think twice about conceding. Is the idea that your losing penalty is diminished by playing to the bitter end an urban myth?

I have never seen any post from the administrators stating that the score of a game has any bearing on the ELO calculation. There have been several posts that "Hey, if I beat someone 100-10, and they beat me 51-50, why are the ELO adjustments the same??!?" Those posts have been met with "that's the way ELO works -- it only cares about wins, not score."

Also, if this were the case, it would be fairly easy to climb to the top of the rankings. Create 2 accounts that only play against each other. Each wins 50% of the time. But, their ELO isn't 100 (from constant winning and losing), but 9786, since that's how many checkers they have borne off and had their ELO losses reduced by...