Friday, December 31, 2010

ChessJam 4.1 released

ChessJam 4.1 is now available as a required update. If you use the web version or Facebook version, you don't need to do anything. If you use the desktop version of ChessJam, you will be prompted to complete a quick upgrade.

Changes in 4.1:

  • A once rare timeout bug has been recently exploited by a few users to become a real nuisance on ChessJam. The bug allowed someone to force a timeout of a game to avoid having the rating calculated for the winner and loser. This problem has now been fixed.

  • There have been several complaints about some players utilizing computer programs to help them win games on ChessJam. We have added "application switch detection" into the ChessJam application to help identify users that are switching from ChessJam to another app after every move. We realize that it's common to switch to other applications during a game so we ignore it unless the number of application switches is very close to the number of moves. For now, we're collecting the information only for analysis. During the next few days, we'll add automatic messages to the chat window to notify the opponent that the player is switching between moves.

  • Some players are registering with multiple usernames to help boost their rating on ChessJam. They play themselves to pump up their rating. We are starting to compare the IP address of both players to try and reduce this practice. There are valid cases where both players will be on the same network and can be sharing an IP address (for example, if someone plays someone in their own home, they will have the same address) so we'll only use this data when we see other patterns that suggest that someone is pumping up their rating.

We're working on some cool new features including new tournament types and even mobile device support, so stay tuned!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!