About the MindSports Player Sections
The Player Sections are a playground for game enthousiasts around the world.
Anybody with an email address can play the
featured games against anybody else. All games can be viewed by all visitors.
The sections use a rating system for each game
to establish the relative strengths of the players.
This is a work in progress. Although we plan a lot of additional features it
is already easy to start up a game and play without any difficulty.
Play requires a Java enabled browser, like Netscape Navigator 3.0 or MS Internet
Explorer 3.0 or up.
Online - not live
The games are online, but not live:
when you view a game it will be automatically updated when you make a move,
but not when your opponent makes one. You must reload the page to see if anything has changed.
Notification
When you get challenged or
one of your games progresses, you will receive an email message.
Although this technique isn't as sophisticated as some Java game servers use, it has the
major advantage of having no problems with firewalls. So really anybody can participate.
Also, players don't have to be online at the same time.
Entering your move
The most tricky part is entering your move: you
must adhere to the strict syntax the Java
applets expect.
Below every online game is a link to the game-specific instructions on
notation. Please read those for every game you participate in,
because entering an illegal move loses the game.This is the offical rule - if you note your mistake in time, or if you have a friendly opponent, you can undo your move.
The Command Menu
With the command menu you can undo your last move, end a game by accepting a loss, or
negotiate a draw.
- Undo last move
Use this to correct your mistake. It rolls back the last move. Multiple undo is possible if both players alternate undoing their moves. - Propose/accept draw
Use this to negotiate a draw. Note that when you propose a draw, you must enter a move too. Your opponent can then choose "Accept draw" to end the game in a draw, or simply play the next move to reject the offer.
Accepting a draw is only possible on the move immediately following the proposal. Of course, you can propose a draw as many times as you like. - Resign
This ends the game in a loss for you, unless
entered on the very first move - in that case it finishes the game without any outcome, so use this too to reject a challenge. Please do so if applicable, it helps keeping things clean.
When a game ends it will be moved to the "Finished Games" category. Since it will no
longer accept any moves or commands, reviving a finished game is not possible.
House Rules
- You must register with MindSports using your valid email address. This is
vital for the notification system. If email to your address bounces back,
your user information will be removed from our database.
We'll use your email only for the player sections and won't give or sell it to other parties. - At any time, you can change your preferences. For example, when you don't want to get challenged for a while, you can uncheck all games. This doesn't prohibit you from completing your current games. You can open yourself up again anytime.
- Again: an illegal move loses the game.
- Our purpose is to present a dynamic site. So games that appear to be left unchanged for a while will be archived in some, yet to be determined, form, and will be removed from the online games. It is not guaranteed that all activities will be archived; it's up to MindSports which ones are.
- MindSports reserves the right to deny access, in case of misuse of the player sections or the information therein. MindSports can exercise this right solely on its own discretion.
- Participate at your own risk.
