![]() StartingPoints Sub-pages Referenced by Homepages
|
Little Golem
Keywords: Software
Little Golem ( Little Golem's main developer and admin is Rio Malaschitz.
The following provides some information about playing on Little Golem. For further information, see the General informationLittle Golem uses only HTML (no Java or JavaScript), and should be usable on just about any graphical browser, and even on WebTV. Time limitsTime limits on Little Golem are the same in all games: ten days plus 36 hours per move Fischer time. In addition, each player has 20 vacation days per year. The following describes the time system in more detail: When a new game starts, both players have 240 hours on the clock. The clock of the player whose turn it is to move counts down one hour per hour. When a player makes a move, the time on that player's clock is increased by 36 hours subject to a maximum of 240 hours. When a clock reaches 0 hours, a vacation day is triggered if the player has any left, otherwise the player loses on time.[1] When a vacation day is triggered, 24 hours is added to the player's clock in every game that the player is currently playing. Note that the triggering of a vacation day can cause the time on some clocks to exceed 240 hours. However, if you play a move when your clock is over 240 hours it will drop down to 240 hours. Each player has 20 vacation days available after first joining Little Golem. The number of vacation days is restored to 20 at the beginning of each calendar year. RatingsAll tournament games are rated[2], but non-tournament games (started by invitation or through the waiting room) are unrated. Go ratings are displayed as dan or kyu ranks, but are internally handled the same as ratings for other games (20 kyu means 1500-1549, 19 kyu means 1550-1599, etc.). For chess and go, players can set their initial ratings, but for other games everyone starts at 1500.
The actual rating system in use has never been specified, but may be the same as the one given on If a game is played with handicap (which currently is only the case for 19x19 go monthly cup games), then the rating change takes the handicap into account. Tournaments
All tournaments at present are all-play-all tournaments (round robins) and are won by the player with the most points (2 points for a win, 1 for a draw, 0 for a loss) with ties being broken by Sonneborn-Berger (shown in the "Son" column) where possible.
To play in a tournament, register in the appropriate place on the All tournament games are rated.[2] The cross-table for a tournament shows two ratings for each player; the one in black is their rating at the time the tournament began, and the red rating in parentheses is their current rating. Tournaments come in three types: rating tournaments, monthly cups and championships. Rating TournamentsRating tournaments are four-player tournaments in which you play other players with similar ratings. A level n rating tournament features players with ratings ranging from 200n to 200n + 199 (at the time the tournament starts). A new rating tournament should start within a few minutes once there are four players of the same level in the queue.[1] Somewhen in late 2002 or early 2003 the system was changed slightly so that particularly high-rated players are sometimes placed in rating tournaments of a lower level than expected. This is because these players might otherwise not be able to play in rating tournaments at all, there being so few players of the required level. Monthly CupsAll tournaments in the first round of a monthly cup have five players, and a new one should start within a few minutes once there are five players in the queue.[1] There is no restriction on the ratings of players, so you are likely to meet players much stronger or much weaker than yourself if you play in a monthly cup. All the winners of first-round monthly cup tournaments which started in a particular month go forward to a second round (assuming there were at least two such winners). The second round should start as soon as all the first-round tournaments have finished. If there are fewer than 10 first-round winners, they play in a single tournament to determine the winner of the monthly cup. If there are 10 or more first-round winners, then they are split into three (or perhaps more) tournaments, with the winners of these going forward to a third-round tournament.[3] Note that you can play in more than one first-round monthly cup tournament in a given month if you like, but you only need to win one in order to qualify for the second round. ChampionshipsA new championship should start seven days after the last game of the previous championship has finished. The first league of a championship is a single 9-player tournament, the winner of which will be the champion. The second league has two 9-player tournaments - assuming there are enough players, otherwise the tournaments will be smaller in size and/or number. The third league (if any) has four 9-player tournaments, again assuming there are enough players. Sometimes there is even a fourth league, with up to eight 9-player tournaments. The winner and runner-up from each championship tournament (except the first league tournament) are promoted to a higher league for the next championship, and the lowest placed players may be demoted to make room for them. In practice, however, it is nearly impossible to be demoted from any league other than the first, because even if you lose all your games there will almost certainly be enough dropouts (players choosing not to play in the next championship) to enable you to keep your place. For the same reason, it is common to be promoted even without finishing in the top two of your tournament. When a new championship starts, players who have registered for the championship but did not play in the previous championship are added to the lowest leagues in order of rating. In particular, for the first championship of a newly-added game the first league will contain the top 9 rated players who want to play, and the second league will contain the next 18, and so on. Little Golem's Admins
Go idiosyncrasies
Games available on Little GolemThe games currently (10 June 2003) available on Little Golem are listed below.
[1] Occasionally, the daemon which is supposed to start new tournaments and deal with clocks reaching zero is not running. When this happens, unusually long queues for tournaments may build up and some clocks may show negative times, but all will return to normal once an administrator restarts the daemon. [2] There is a badly worded sentence in the FAQ which could be construed as meaning that championship games are unrated, but this is not so. [3] The range of sizes for second-round monthly cup tournaments stated on the Little Golem website (both in the FAQ and on the main tournament page) is wrong - there can be as few as two players in such a tournament, and as many as nine. See also /Discussion This is a copy of the living page "Little Golem" at Sensei's Library. ![]() |