A movement frequency counter

Originally posted by KnightWulfe
There is obviously some importance to time and frequency. If there were none, then there would not be a LAST MOVED ON.... and a setting to tell people how often you move.

I think (and apparently so do others) that such a measure would be a welcome addition. It might mean nothing to you, Phlab, but I would find it useful. I am not talkin in one game or ...[text shortened]... about an overall ACCURATE movement counter, not just what they decided to put on their profile.

No, the number is worthless to everyone.

You think you want it, but a number like 7 or 66 isn't going to tell you anything about a user unless you count how many games they have going, time preferences, and how many games they didn't move in until the last minute.

Here is the new thread that will be popping up in Help or even Site Ideas:

"User X says he moves in 66 games EVERY DAY! But this user moves in MY games every 4 days. What gives"?

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Originally posted by Phlabibit
No, the number is worthless to everyone.

You think you want it, but a number like 7 or 66 isn't going to tell you anything about a user unless you count how many games they have going, time preferences, and how many games they didn't move in until the last minute.

Here is the new thread that will be popping up in Help or even Site Ideas:

"User X ...[text shortened]... es in 66 games EVERY DAY! But this user moves in MY games every 4 days. What gives"?

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So you divide the number of moves by the number of games to get an average.
There are many ways to make the raw data work into real and useful information

You are so damn literal..

Originally posted by KnightWulfe
So you divide the number of moves by the number of games to get an average.
There are many ways to make the raw data work into real and useful information

You are so damn literal..

At least your trying to refine the number here.

Example:
Phlabibit has 12 games and makes 5 moves a day on average.

What does that tell you about my play?

It doesn't tell you that I bang through my openings, slow down in the middle game... and will move every time you move if I have a winning position and know my next move for sure.

It also doesn't tell you that someone I'm playing has slowed down because I'm winning in hopes of finding a better move or catching my clock at zero.

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Originally posted by Phlabibit
At least your trying to refine the number here.

Example:
Phlabibit has 12 games and makes 5 moves a day on average.

What does that tell you about my play?

It doesn't tell you that I bang through my openings, slow down in the middle game... and will move every time you move if I have a winning position and know my next move for sure.

It also d wn because I'm winning in hopes of finding a better move or catching my clock at zero.

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There is always ebb and flow with movements Phlab. That is why what I am suggesting gives you a daily, weekly and even monthly average. I will also tell you how someone is actually playing versus what they SAY their move frequency is. I could be averaging 5 moves a day (per game) for the month, but 7 for this week and only 3 for today when my move frequency states that I am a once a week or once a day mover.
It would give you a good differentiation between how someone says they move, what their normal movement trends are and what their current movement trends are.

Originally posted by KnightWulfe
So you divide the number of moves by the number of games to get an average.
There are many ways to make the raw data work into real and useful information

You are so damn literal..

you assume the number of games in progress is always kept to a constant number. they're not, xe could have 70 one day and then 3 weeks later have 30, decide to stay at 30, now the move frequency will be totally inflated for the amount of games being played.

we have time controls for a reason, if you want to play someone who moves everyday play 1/0 games.....if you want to play everyday but there might be some days you can't move 1/7 or 1/14.

Originally posted by KnightWulfe
There is always ebb and flow with movements Phlab. That is why what I am suggesting gives you a daily, weekly and even monthly average. I will also tell you how someone is actually playing versus what they SAY their move frequency is. I could be averaging 5 moves a day (per game) for the month, but 7 for this week and only 3 for today when my move freque ...[text shortened]... ays they move, what their normal movement trends are and what their current movement trends are.

How about a number like this (still somewhat misleading, but)

Phlabibit takes 64 days to finish games on average.

KnightWulfe takes 19 days on average to finish games.

?? (these are just numbers I made up, but could be figured out with the right formula)

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Originally posted by trev33
you assume the number of games in progress is always kept to a constant number. they're not, xe could have 70 one day and then 3 weeks later have 30, decide to stay at 30, now the move frequency will be totally inflated for the amount of games being played.

we have time controls for a reason, if you want to play someone who moves everyday play 1/0 games.....if you want to play everyday but there might be some days you can't move 1/7 or 1/14.

Right, me being a slow mover, I will not take one day games, try to avoid 3 day games, and prefer 7/14 games.

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i'll tell you why this is stupid....people are unpredictable...right now i have 29 games going at different t/o, the highest being 7/14 and the lowest being 3/0. the 3 games i'm moving in most...pretty much when it's my move are 7/14 games, purely because i know the position or i'm trying to turn a pawn advantage into a win. the 2 3/0 games are just past the opening and i don't know what to do, therefore i'm playing slowly in these games, about 2 days per move.

you can't give someone a move frequency figure because things happen within a game that makes you slow down or play faster....plus people might complain if they saw me making an average of 2 moves per day in each of my games when i haven't moved in their games for a week or so.

Originally posted by Phlabibit
How about a number like this (still somewhat misleading, but)

Phlabibit takes 64 days to finish games on average.

KnightWulfe takes 19 days on average to finish games.

?? (these are just numbers I made up, but could be figured out with the right formula)

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If that were broken down by timeout - then you'd have a far more useful metric than move frequency.

Originally posted by orangutan
If that were broken down by timeout - then you'd have a far more useful metric than move frequency.

Many have asked there be a way to know how often someone is timed out. That's a different number for a different day I guess.

This formula should exclude timeouts, canceled games, and maybe resignations in the first 10 or 15 moves to make it more accurate.

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Originally posted by Phlabibit
How about a number like this (still somewhat misleading, but)

Phlabibit takes 64 days to finish games on average.

KnightWulfe takes 19 days on average to finish games.

?? (these are just numbers I made up, but could be figured out with the right formula)

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That would not work either, since that rating would be based on the game and not the player. It takes two to play and if you are an actual frequent mover and your partner in that game is not, you will get a rating based on that players rate as well, not just yours.

If I average 6 moves a game per day, but the guy I play averages 1 move a week and it takes 48 moves to complete the game, we move at the slowest players speed...no the fastest, so the rating would be that Knightwulfe takes 24 weeks to finish that game rather than what I would have moved at based on the average moves per day per game, which was 6, so instead of a 24 week game, it would show a 4 day game.

Originally posted by KnightWulfe
That would not work either, since that rating would be based on the game and not the player. It takes two to play and if you are an actual frequent mover and your partner in that game is not, you will get a rating based on that players rate as well, not just yours.

If I average 6 moves a game per day, but the guy I play averages 1 move a week and it t ...[text shortened]... e moves per day per game, which was 6, so instead of a 24 week game, it would show a 4 day game.

Based on that logic all our player ratings are rubbish too?
Just like a rating value, a metric on average game length is never 'exact' - it's a snapshot of a moving target.
And as you say - your moves can only be made when it's your turn, so if I exclusively play slow players then my own move frequency will also be slow even though I may be itching move all the time.


Game length seems better than move frequency as within a single game move frequency varies a lot all depending on the context of the game - this is my experience anyway.

An average game lasts about 40 moves.
If I'm playing a 3 day timeout game I should be expecting my opponent to take the full timeout - their move time is therefore about 120 days + whatever timebank is in force.

I'd find it far more useful to know my opponent finished 3 day timeout games on average in 30 days as opposed to knowing they averaged 4.5 moves a day.

The 4.5 moves per day figure has no meaning in the context of the game I'll be playing as it depends on the number of games in progress and the timecontrols being played.

The game finished in 30 days could be compared to my own figure to know if I'm slower / faster than the other player. A much more useful figure all round.

However - I'm against this being implemented as it's not that useful and would a) take precious coding time to realise properly [the calculation may be simple, but it has to be put on the page and space made in the database to hold it etc. etc] and b) It would add that little bit more load to the server to calculate - all these little bits add up to a significant amount when you look at the number of games / users there are here.

Originally posted by KnightWulfe
That would not work either, since that rating would be based on the game and not the player. It takes two to play and if you are an actual frequent mover and your partner in that game is not, you will get a rating based on that players rate as well, not just yours.

If I average 6 moves a game per day, but the guy I play averages 1 move a week and it t ...[text shortened]... e moves per day per game, which was 6, so instead of a 24 week game, it would show a 4 day game.

I believe that you can measure MY time used, or YOUR time used to come to a number.

You used 19 days of time to finish a game, ignore the other guy's time.

Your number might be more like 9, I don't know how fast you move.

If my number figured the other guy, my number would be more like 90 days.

Sorry I never mentioned that. Thought it, but forgot to explain.

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Originally posted by Phlabibit
I believe that you can measure MY time used, or YOUR time used to come to a number.

You used 19 days of time to finish a game, ignore the other guy's time.

Your number might be more like 9, I don't know how fast you move.

If my number figured the other guy, my number would be more like 90 days.

Sorry I never mentioned that. Thought it, but forgot to explain.

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So, as stated by Orangutan, the stats would have to be broken down by timeout (time controls as opposed to losses to TO).

So...
3 day TO: average game length = 30 days with 30 moves
=> I will move on average once per day in 3 day TO games

7 day TO: average game length = 60 days with 30 moves
=> I will move on average once every 2 days in 7 day TO games

etc

The metric means more, but is still pretty much meaningless given that a player might move immediately in the openings, very slow in a difficult position and fast when his plan is working.

Given the huge amounts of calculation needed to arrive at the figures above, and the limited usefulness of the stat, I very much doubt if we'll ever see it.

D

Good riddance before it even arrives.

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