[pbmserv-dev] Game record: "swap" and handicap

["David J Bush" <twixt@cstone.net>]

For those games which use the "swap" rule, the PBMserv game
record has never recorded whether swap was used or not. The
only games which I know use swap are Twixt, Hex, and Y.
One nice aspect of swapping on this server is, players
actually switch sides, which is how swap is supposed to work.
I don't want that to change. Maybe a line "swap was used"
could be added to the record when swap is used.

Twixt is probably the only game which uses row handicapping.
The smallest handicap is 0, which means the board stays the
same shape, but swap is disallowed. For larger handicaps,
one edge of the board moves closer to the opposite. So, for
nonzero handicap, one could determine a game is handicap
by examining the text-graphics. All handicap games are
unrated, so completed games which are listed by PBMserv
as unrated must have been handicap games (I think.) The
problem here lies with a new challenge. If a player
challenges me to a 0 handicap game, PBMserv does not tell
me that I should not swap. (Maybe it won't allow swap if
I try it, which I haven't done.) I'm hoping the word
"handicap" could be explicitly displayed in the game
record.

If the game record display is changed, I hope this will
not interfere with all those programs that import PBMserv
text records into specific game database managers...

Thanks!