Chess.com Needs Your Input - Live Chess Games Adjourned?!

Hey all. If you have visited Live Chess recently (since Nov 8th) you might have noticed a few new changes. One is private and group chat! The first step in making communication in Live Chess better. The second is game "adjournment". 

This is how it currently works:

You are playing a game. If your opponent disconnects (could be intentional or because of their internet connection or Chess.com's server's fault), then that game is auto-adjourned. Then if your opponent comes back online you will both see a yellow highlighted game in the SEEKS window and either of you can click on RESUME. If you don't finish the game before 7 days, then the game is "Adjudicated", meaning that the winner is judged to be a WIN, LOSS, DRAW, or ABORT (if too short). 

Question is, how SHOULD it work :) 

How long should people have to resume? What about playing while you have a pending game and that person is online? 

Please give us your thoughts! :)

Erik

players should have 3 days to resume. 7 is too long.

I'd say 3 days.  A week would be ideal but probably more work for chess.com.  Who will decide the adjourned games?  A comp engine?

Also, I think close games (within a pawn difference) should be aborted rather than deemed as draws.  A middlegame even position is not necessarily leading to a draw, especially not among two players of unequal strenght.

Gimme several minutes to create this flowchart and scan it...

3 days

i hope you aren't joking! we need help here! :)

We should have the option of continuing in a turn-based game.

7 days has worked for ICC I think that is a good case study to go off of.

I'm not... just a sec...

Okay, this is extremely simplified, but it gets us started and was all I could conjure up in 5 minutes...

Obviously, this will get much (MUCH) more complicated as we move through it. I'll create a cleaner version later, but for now I can work faster with hand-drawn sketches. So throw some stones at it and let's get some revisions going. You won't hurt my feelings so give me changes and I'll mark 'em in.

And for those of you who have never designed the logic behind a website before, sit back and enjoy the show. You may discover that "simple changes" are usually anything but!

The problem is that players can still contemplate their games while the games are adjourned. Someone once told me a story about a chess tournament during which there was a power outage.  The player whose turn it was to move complained that their time continued to run while they could not see the board, but the arbiter refused to give them any extra time, due to the fact that they could still remember the position, or at least parts of it, and think about their next move.  I see a similar situation occurring in adjourned games (the player whose turn it is gains extra time to think about their move). That being said, even three days seems to be far too much time.  Also, I think the amount of time for players to continue the game should depend on the length of the game.  Giving players a day to continue makes perfect sense in a 30 0 game, but is far too long for a 1min bullet match.

For example, suppose it's your turn when the game disconnects. You should not be allowed to "see" the board position until your opponent resumes the game. Otherwise you could sit and study it for an hour which wouldn't be fair in a 10 0 game. There would be a whole line of logic just for that.

EDIT: second_wind beat me to it!

I think that the yahoo chess model works fine for live games.  On yahoo, when disconnects happen, the disconnected person logs back in and the game continues with the diconnnected person's clock continuing to run during the disconnect.  You could have a policy that if the person disconnected doesn't log back in after so many minutes, then their clock runs out and they lose.  If they do log back in they get their minutes back.  But, in general, I don't see why live cames should get converted to turn-based, and I don't see why live games should continue more than serveral minutes (or maybe and hour).  The intention of live players is to play now, not later.  As a note, I've had many games disconnect on both yahoo and chess.com, non were intentional.  I appreciate the fact that you are trying to correct this. 

Yeah, I had to put some sort of "delay" feature there and that was all I could think of at the moment. Without some sort of delay mode there, if they chose "Later" then the logic would immediately see that they were both not playing and would send them another pop-up again. Remember the old BASIC language...

10 Print "Hello"
20 Goto 10

LOL... trying to find a way to avoid that sort of thing.

The more I think about it, the more I like the idea of a 1-hour timer instead of a 3-day timer. maninthemachine has a good point.

I play Yelena Dembo and she gambits a pawn or the exchange in return for a kingside attack. This happens in several openings. I'm disconnected a dozen move into the game. I'm +0.87 or +1.46 up, but likely wouldn't win or draw. A person with less integrity might seek out higher-rated opponents and disconnect 12 moves into the game (for a draw)

Point #1: If a game is close (less than +1.67), we should not adjudicate a result. It is better to mark the game as aborted than as won or drawn.

Even given the above, a person with less integrity might disconnect as soon as they have an advantage that crosses the threshold (or, alternatively, just before their disadvantage croses the threshold). Or they may use the opportunity (in time trouble) to debate their next move. On another server, only 9/270 of my games ended by disconnection.

Point #2: Only allow a player 2 courtesy disconnects, +1 for every 10 games played. If they exceed those, if they disconnect they lose the game.

Some thoughts...

I play a bit of online poker...and I know there is a difference because it's not a one-on-one format unless you're playing heads up, but basically the model is if you disconnect, tough cookies.  The clock is running.  So, when I first started playing on Chess.com and got disconnected (or my opponent did) then I had that model in my head.  I tried to log back on figuring the board with the position would pop back up and I'd just take a hit on my clock.  Well, that of course is not what happens.

I think most people are OK with an online game loss due to disconnect if they cannot reconnect soon enough.  Frankly, I don't care that much about any one game.  So, I say as a default if a person is disconnected, their clock keeps running.  If the other person wants to wait it out and collect the win - then great.  If not, then the game is abandoned and no one wins.

Now, for games that "matter" each partcipant could choose a "Game Protection" mode that would follow logic similar to what you sketched up, but I think you'll find most of your casual players won't make use of it.

Tripps> The clock is running.  So, when I first started playing on Chess.com and got disconnected (or my opponent did) then I had that model in my head.  I tried to log back on figuring the board with the position would pop back up and I'd just take a hit on my clock.  Well, that of course is not what happens.

This is the OTB model, and would be my ideal. What has really frustrated me is when I disconnect with 10 minutes on my clock, return 30 seconds later, and face a loss. This is not how it works OTB. My comments before I assume they aren't implementing your OTB-like model due to programming complexity or some other reason.

My personal opinion is a ten minute timer implemented with likesforrest's courtesy idea. You get one courtesy cushion of ten minutes for every x games played, and afterwards, then Tripp's idea of the clock just running in your absence takes place. I really don't like the idea of having to have games decided by chess.com. I feel that whoever disconnects has ten minutes to reconnect and restart the game. If the person who disconnects doesn't get back and start the game, they will be given a loss. I think this is a good way to do it because:

1. Eliminates the possibility for a weak player to get a good position on a stronger player and just leave to be awarded a win they might not have been able to finish.

2. Eliminates complaints about the decision of W/D/L/A

3. If both players involved aren't on a lot, there is a good chance they won't meet up and game must be adjudicated. 

4. Less work for chess.com servers