GGS Othello Server Introduction

This is an introduction to the Generic Game Server (GGS) and its Othello server (/os), where many of the world's top Othello players hang out. It  has a huge number of features but its power makes it hard to navigate at first; this page is to help you get started. It will not teach you all the features; for that visit  http://external.nj.nec.com/homepages/igord/usrman.htm

To Play A Game

        Generic Game Server - bodo1.cs.ualberta.ca  5000
        (c) Igor Durdanovic - igord@research.nj.nec.com
        (c) Michael Buro    - mburo@cs.ualberta.ca

: Enter login (yours, or one you'd like to use).
NewGuy
: Enter your password.
MyPassword

It is important to enter a password even if you're not registered.
This will be followed by a lot of text. You can read it all later using the help command.

Talking to people

If you are a human you may wish to talk to people. Use the who command to see all the people on GGS, or type ts who 8 to see who's available for a game of Othello.

If you see OldGuy, you can talk to him by saying

Generic and specific game servers

The GGS is a completely separate program from the specific game servers. To communicate with GGS, you simply type the command, e.g. 'who'. To communicate with your specific game server (the othello server /os, since you typed 'mso'), you prefix the command by ts, e.g. 'ts who 8'. Since GGS and /os are separate programs, they have separate commands and help files.

To get GGS help type 'help help'; you can see a list of GGS commands by typing 'help cmds'.
To get /os help type 'ts help help'; you can see a list of /os commands by typing 'ts help cmds'.

Registering and getting a rating

In order to get a rating (necessary to play some of the tougher players on GGS, and fun anyway) you need to register. Your password will be the same as the one you logged in with; make sure you remember it before registering.

First you need to find an administrator:

Learning about your opponent

The finger command (abbreviated f) tells you about someone. GGS has a finger command
f OO7
Which tells you a little about OO7 (his name, for instance). The othello server has a finger command too
ts f OO7
Which tells you Othello-specific things about OO7. This includes his rating and his decline formula:

 |decline: size!=8 | anti | mc!=? | (rand & (discs<14 | discs>24)) | mt < 20 | ot > 1800 | ((stored > 0) & !saved) | !rated

OO7 automatically declines any game in which any of the following is true:
size!=8 played on a nonstandard (8x8) board
anti player with the most discs loses
mc!=? The colors aren't random
(rand & (discs<14 | discs>24)) The game has a random starting position with fewer than 14 or more than 24 discs
mt < 20 OO7 has fewer than 20 seconds
ot > 1800 OO7's opponent has more than 30 minutes
((stored > 0) & !saved) There is a stored game between you and you want to play a brand new game
!rated The game is unrated

Accepting Challenges

If someone challenges you to a game you will get a line like this:

/os: +  .18 2155.4 OldGuy  15:00//02:00        8 R 1720.0 NewGuy

(.18 is the challenge id, 15:00//2:00 means standard time control; 8 R means standard 8x8 Othello, rated).
Type ts accept .18 to play or ts decline .18 to turn down the challenge
 

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