Welcome to Gorrion.

Gorrion is an online game server for the play of games of Backgammon, Breakthrough, Chess, Go, Havannah, Hawalis, Hex, JadeJack, Kauri, Margo, Merels ( Nine Men's Morris, Morabaraba ), Onyx, Othello ( Reversi ), Pente, Toguz Kumalak, Unlur, Viking Tafl ( Brandubh, Tablut, Tawlbwrdd ) and Y.

It was developed to create a welcoming site for the benefit of game enthusiasts and to create a community where they can engage in friendly exchange with their opponents. I hope that you will find this an enjoyable and useful site.

Please do try from your smartphone. Gorrion will format the content to make it easy for you to use. You may find gaming from your smartphone to be a more relaxing experience.

You may contact me at [ gorrion@dashstofsk.net ]. Please do put forward any comments and suggestions you may have. If you experience something you think might be a bug then do let me know. Likewise if there is some feature or enhancement that you feel would make a nice improvement. All opinions will be welcomed.

Please read the terms and conditions for this site [ terms and conditions ].

Please also have a look at my software offerings, an SGF viewer and editor for games of Go [ GoRilla ], and a PGN editor for Chess [ Penguin ]

Your Valued Support. If this site is useful to you please take a moment to make a donation. Gorrion cost me a lot of time and personal effort and the service costs of maintaining this site all fall on me. The only revenue I receive comes from voluntary donations. I believe this site should be free from advertisements or subscription. Please help me in this. Your donation will help keep my interest alive in this project and will fund further development. Thank you.

Please invite your friends to come and play.

I sometimes wonder why. It has taken me a lot of time and effort. But, on the whole, I have enjoyed developing this site. It has been fun.

At the start the primary reason was to expand my web development skills in a number of areas: PHP, Javascript, SQLite, online application development, web site administration and to be able to present Gorrion as a demonstration of my capabilities.

I was also a bit unhappy with the style, behaviour and format of a number of the online sites and decided I would like to have a go at writing one myself, one that was simple and that was not overloaded with functionality or media content.

I also wanted to help popularise some games that I believe ought to be more widely known: Onyx, Unlur. Lately I have acquired an interest in some of the old, established games: Backgammon, Merels, Tablut.

It gives possibility for players to engage in conversation with their opponents. I believe that social interaction is a vital part of game playing and that all conversations should be public.

You can examine the game statistics for all users to identify a suitable opponent. All users get a rating for each of the supported games, plus an average rating over all the games.

All games are accessible to all users. You will be able to run through the moves of a game and review its progress. Additionally, games are available as an SGF download ( or PGN, ECH for Chess, and MAT for Backgammon ). I hope you will use be able to use these to get better in your games.

It also makes available some games ( Margo, Merels, Onyx, Tablut, Unlur ) that deserve to be better known.

You need to have Javascript enabled. Otherwise this web site will not function properly and you will not be able to log on. Data cookies are also used. Some older web browsers will not be able to display the transparent images that are needed for some of the games. Also, some older web browsers have odd Javascript behaviour. The following browsers were found to be okay:

• Chrome 49.0
• Firefox 21.0
• Internet Explorer 8.0
• Opera 9.64

Browsers on mobile devices should be okay.

Gorrion dynamically generates images to represent board positions. These images ( together with a number of Javascript files ) are held in the cache of your web browser for quick rendering of the web pages. It is okay if you periodically clear the cache. In fact it might be a good idea to do this occasionally. Some of the images and files stored there might no longer be needed. Any images and files will be re-downloaded on the next occasion when they are needed.

Log in and go to the 'Waiting Room' and 'accept' any game that needs an opponent.

Alternatively, use the 'New Game' menu to start a new game. You will be able to challenge an opponent directly or place an invitation in the waiting room. To challenge a user give their user name, otherwise your game will be an open invitation.

You will always be able to delete any of your 'waiting' invitations or decline an acceptance to one from a user.

Gorrion doesn't support handicap games for Go. A handicap only has meaning if there is a difference in rank between you and your opponent. If you do want to play a handicap game then you and your opponent will have to agree for one of you to pass the necessary number of moves at the start of the game.

'View' a game in which it is your move. Click on a node in the board grid. A "Submit Move" link will display in the actions rectangle. You may click additional nodes to simulate a possible line of play. Once you have decided that your original choice is correct hit the "Submit Move" link.

You will be prompted for a comment ( if you wish ) to send to your opponent. Please note that any comments you send will remain with the move and will always be displayed on the game page. It will be included in any SGF download that any user might request. Please do not include personal information or anything you would not wish to be made public.

You may also view the board position for any previous move. Hit the move in the moves list rectangle to display the move position. Additionally, hit the 'next', 'prev' links under the board grid to run through the moves of the game.

For games of Othello Gorrion will automatically make a move for you or your opponent if either of you has only one valid move.

In Backgammon click once to move a piece by the value of the first dice. A second click will move a piece by the value of the second dice. You may swap the dice before your first jump. All need to be mouse clicks. Attempting to slide a piece will not work.

Players are allowed a number of days to make their moves. Their 'time' is increased by a number of days for each move they make and starts to run down once their opponent has made their move. The default allowance is 28 days with an additional 1 day per move. The time control is set by the challenger when he starts the game.

Currently there is no holiday timeout or night downtime built into the system.

In games of Go the clocks will stop once two consecutive passes have been made, but will restart if a player then chooses to continue with a move.

If your opponent does not respond to your challenge the game will be abandoned after 14 days.

An eMail will be sent to inform you when it is your move. Additionally you will receive a reminder if you have not moved in your game after approximately 7 days. 'Reminder' emails may not always be regular. If you do not wish to receive these eMails then check / uncheck the 'Restrict eMails', 'Reminders' options in your 'User Settings' page.

Reminders will not be sent in games of Go if two consecutive passes have been made.

Also, when you are in the 'Your Games' page the number of games waiting for you is shown in the browser tab for the page. This is periodically updated and the page will automatically refresh when there is a change. If you are waiting on a game you get a visual prompt without having to manually reload the page.

There may also be occasions when I will send a broadcast eMail to all users to inform them of any important events ( maintenance downtime, changes ) relevant to the site.

Players who have played 12 or more games will have a rating that is determined by the ELO system as described at [ http://senseis.xmp.net/?EGFRatingSystem ].

Players who have played less than 12 games will have a provisional rating, a quantity averaged over the games played and based on the ratings of their opponents and on the results of the games.

In Backgammon matches the ratings are adjusted after each game. The change in the ratings will only be half that for other games.

Go kyu / dan ranks are related to ELO approximately by the following table. 100 ELO points equate to one step in rank.

ELO Rating	Go Rank
2700	7 dan
2600	6 dan
2500	5 dan
2400	4 dan
2300	3 dan
2200	2 dan
2100	1 dan
2000	1 kyu
1900	2 kyu
1800	3 kyu
1700	4 kyu
1600	5 kyu
1500	6 kyu
1400	7 kyu
1300	8 kyu
1200	9 kyu
1100	10 kyu

You also get a global site rating which is the weighted average of all your game type ratings.

The default behaviour is that there is no timeout of your login session. You will be logged in for the entire duration of your browser session. Also, login will be automatic whenever you restart your browser software. To enable this Gorrion needs to store a data cookie on your device. If someone manages to get hold of this cookie then they could impersonate you. If you are unwilling to accept the security risk you may opt to set the 'login timeout' option in your User Details information page and your login will timeout after a few minutes of inactivity.

In all cases, if you are using a public device please exit using the 'Log Out' menu.

Be aware also of potential difficulties if you attempt to log in as the same user simultaneously on two different devices. One of the sessions will become logged out.

Also you will not be able to log on simultaneously as two different users within the same browser session.