Matchmaking bugs? And a bit of feedback

I have had a lot of trouble getting matched up for a bughouse game, and I know I'm not the only one.  If you watch the chatroom for this group, there have been times when several of us have had an un-teamed 3|0 seek open, and yet we haven't been matched up together, it mostly just sits waiting.

It does seem to help to find a partner and create a teamed 3|0 seek.  However, even there we sometimes just sit waiting for an opposing team.

It doesn't seem fully broken.  I have gotten a few games.  But unless people were lying about having a 3|0 seek open, it seems to not do a very good job of matching us up together.

And for the feedback:
It would be nice to be able to see what seeks are open.  So far I've only done 3|0, as it's new, the number of players is limited, and that's the default.  But I would prefer 3|2 or 5|0.  If we could see what seeks were open, we could create one with our preferred time control, and others could see it and join it instead of independently having to decide they want the exact same time control.

Also, it would be nice to be able to watch other people's bughouse matches.

i'm with you

In the chat I can see what my opponents say. Is it supposed to do that?

If you're playing OTB, can you hear what your opponents say?

The odds are the bug lies in traditional matching, 1:1, without taking the pool-type logic into account for 2:2. 

This is to say, it starts a match between two players. Two seek, matched... another seeks, one of the 3 drops, and things get locked rather than releasing all, re-arranging matched players, and properly handling the pool of players per time-control. (A lot of logic points to address and handle.)

I've seen this before in poorly designed scheduling algorithms (and compounded by other newer-asynch-tech factors).

The matching is definitely buggy. Otherwise, if people are seeking, I agree: Things would go quicker and smoother in terms of starting games.

This versus a specific pair seeking another specific pair or randomly matched pair. But, if one drops, it locks things up if the logic isn't handled properly on the back-end. (Not to mention the buggy aspect of the async communication from v2.)

I switched to v3 today to play Bughouse... but... right about ready to switch back to classic mode.

Which parallels something else I've quickly noted... 

It would be nice to be able to see the boards the same size. What you would see if you were watching a match between two teams IRL. (And pick the side you wish to sit on. Some people have a peripheral vision preference. The best teams I've seen play OTB have specific board-side preference.)

That's not too much to ask. 

It would be too much to ask for real-life traditional play where your partner needs a piece and reaches across to your board to make a move... (some people call foul, most just let it play on... but we can't do this digitally -- that would violate the "rules").

cwfrank, I hope to see these additions too as they continue to work on bughouse here. Probably others will request those features too, as some people are used to playing bughouse on different chess servers that had those features since the 1990s.

On those servers, if you make a move on your partner's board, it does not make the move for them. Instead it suggests the move to them. They then have to make the move themselves.

Thanks for all the suggestions! We are working on the pairings issues first. 

Great, thanks!  I'll probably dip into live chess a little more often than I have in the past.

One other comment: it seems to take your blitz rating as your initial bughouse rating, which is an excellent idea.  However, you can't see your bughouse rating in your stats.  Also, your bughouse games show up in your blitz game archive, which is not ideal if you want to be able to get at your non-bughouse blitz.

I agree with everything here and fixing pairing issues sounds like a good priority. Also, I just noticed that when a player does not move, the abort message seem to come as normal, but the game ends with a loss for the side where a player didn't move. I don't think you should lose rating points just because you get paired with someone who doesn't make any move.

Good thought, @Martin0.  Perhaps it should count as a loss for the person who doesn't move and an unrated abort for everyone else?  Not sure how easy it is to treat it differently for different people, though.

Yes, we are fixing two main issues: 

- stop doing ratings changes when one person aborts

- fix pairings

BTW, A bug I assume, In a bughouse game when my opponent disable chat, I was unable chat with my partner. This need to be fixed.

Great!  Then we'll no longer have buggy bughouse.

Finally got a game .. and afterward two of the players were so intent on name-calling that the rematch request sat ... and sat ... and sat ... I hope this isn't indicative of what to expect here.

Your username is "turdmeister" -- I tried to call someone an arse-hole earlier, and got an (automated) warning (just unsportsman-like comments). If you've got a username like yours, maybe you should re-think calling-out "name-calling."

On the other hand, "stalling" is part of bughouse, and in many other team-sports, intimidation and trash-talk are part of the game. (I've seen [good-natured] trash-talk in OTB Bughouse matches.)

See previous notes and posts... 

Obviously, when you play OTB, the other team can hear what you say. If you disable chat, that's your own choice. You don't get private communication, as far as I know, or am concerned. It is not reflective of traditional OTB chess, nor reflective of any other chess variant that I'm aware of. (Unless there are team-correspondence chess variants I'm unaware of. -- Which would not be traditional bughouse, but some other variant by another name.)

Conflict over the drop-check rule is more valid than worrying about disabling chat in attempt to change communication to private.

A secondary aspect to matching and paring... 

1.) Giving more time before a match starts. (Like the traditional: "This will start in 10 seconds in tournaments.") -- Give people time to abort if they don't like a match.

2.) OR, allow specific rooms / sessions / tables where an established person can say yea or nay to a specific person.

2.b.) In many situations, I've seen a rotating queue of people waiting to play bughouse at chess clubs... where there aren't enough players. (?Maybe part of the matching logic and/or perceived issues?)

3.) "Preferred" partners or team members (when leveraging random). -- But this would be a little more complex to implement, requiring more configuration and such to allow people to say: "Here's my preference list for Bughouse partners," and then have the front-or-back-end arrange this based on available pool. (Maybe something for the future.)

@cwfrank ... There is a logical fallacy called "ad hominem": attacking something about the claimant rather than attacking the claim. Let's stick to the claim, rather than my username. My username has nothing to do with how those two players were behaving toward each other.

But, sadly, you have reinforced my suspicion: "It is indicative".

I'll quit this group now.