| Challenge Dialog | ||
|---|---|---|
 | Chapter 15. Play Online |  |
| Challenge Dialog | ||
|---|---|---|
| | Chapter 15. Play Online | |
The challenge dialog is used to issue game seeks to other users. Game seeks can be direct seeks, sent to a particular user (by entering their name in the opponent name field), or an open seek available to any user who matches the seek parameters.
You can issue a seek by clicking any of the time control buttons in the Challenge Dialog, and then clicking the Ok button to confirm. If you want to create a seek using the same parameters as your most recently created seek, then click the 'Ok' button immediately after the challenge dialog displays (the Ok button label will show the current time control that will be used). To avoid confirming the seek with the 'Ok' button, you can double click on the seek button which will automatically create a seek of that time control.
If a seek created by another user matches your game seek parameters, you will be immediately matched up to play, otherwise your seek will be added to the list of current seeks, and a new game will start when someone either explicitly accepts your seek, or creates their own seek with matching parameters. Automatic seek matching will only occur on seeks created by human players, seeks created by bots need to be accepted manually, and will not be used to match your own seeks.
When you logout (or disconnect by closing your browser or losing your network connection), any pending non-correspondence seeks will be automatically cancelled. Correspondence seeks will survive logout, and will persist in the system until you either cancel them, or they are accepted by another user.
The advanced seek options can be used to create seeks with a time control not supported in the quick select panel, or to create seeks targeting particular rating ranges, or defining options such as rated/unrated and starting colour.
Chess Tempo time controls are defined using three values, a start time, an increment time, and a maximum time. The start time defines the initial time on the clock, the increment time, defines how much time is added to the user's clock after each time they move, and the maximum time defines a ceiling on the total time after adding the increment. By ignoring the maximum time, you can define most of the common time controls seen in online play. The maximum time allows you to define some time control types more common in correspondece play. So for example, a correspondence type time control with a start time of 1 day, an increment time of 1 day, and a maximum of 1 day is equivalent to a 1 move per day time control. As no matter how many times you move in a day, the increment will never increase your clock over 1 day, and each time you move, your clock will grow back to 1 day, leaving 1 day until you must play again.
Another example is using the start time to provide an initial "time bank" where for example you set it to 10 days with a increment of 1 day and a maximum of 10 days. You can miss playing for up to 10 days without timing out, if you have played all your previous moves on time. The 10 day time bank will start to decrease if you play less often than once per day, but can be replenished up to the maximum if you play more quickly. Setting an initial "time bank" in this manner allows you some flexibility during a game without having to resort to taking vacations. For example, if you need to spend a couple of days away, the time bank makes this possible with minimal iconvenience.
If you'd like to play a correspodence game that is certain to finish within a particular time frame, you could set the start time to say 30 days, and the game will go no longer than 60 days (maximum 30 days for each player). You can choose to play as slowly or as quickly as you like, but all of your own moves must be played within the 30 days of total available time.
The seek filters allow you to define the types of players who will see your seek. Currently the only seek filter available is the rating range. If you don't want to play people outside of a particular range, please use this filter to avoid them seeing the seek.
By default a newly created seek will be available to anyone that matches the seek filter parameters. If you want to send a direct challenge to a particular user, then enter their name in the 'Opponent Name' field.
Seeks can be defined as being for rated or unrated games. If you are creating an unrated seek, you can also define which colour pieces you wish to play with, otherwise piece colour is always assigned randomly.
If you regularly create custom seeks with custom time controls and filters, it can be annoying to have to recreate the seek parameters each time. To avoid this, you can turn any set of seek settings into a seek 'favourite'. Enter the seek parameters for your new favourite, and then click on the 'Create Favourite' button, and enter the name of the new favourite. Seek favourite buttons appear at the top of the challenge panel, and can be clicked on the same way as the existing default seek buttons. When a favourite has been clicked, several new options appear in the buttons at the bottom of the challenge dialog. There is a 'delete' button, and if you have more than one favourite, two left and right buttons to re-order the favourites.
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