Last night's Live Chess changes

[From the latest post in the site blog:]

Just a short post today to let you know about some great new changes that were made to Live Chess overnight!

• Automatic draw on time-out if opponent has insufficient mating material: KB, KN or KNN

• The maximum allowable lag is now two seconds (i.e. two seconds is the maximum amount of lag compensation the system will allow during clock adjustments on the move)

• New moderated "Debate" chat room

• In-game Voice Chat button now always visible

• Site outage notification with timer when necessary

• New "observe {username}" command added - takes you right to username's game! (See the whole list)

•  Seek Graph improvements: logarithmic scale on ratings-axis and dot-stacking

• Live Analysis Board improvements

• Miscellaneous improvements: follow/unfollow improvements, better grid refreshing, etc.

Please let us know if you see anything in there that's not working like it should.

Cheers!

  Sweetness!!!    Now if I can ever get the guts up to play LIVE  LOL

   -Mark

Isn't DEBATE what was previously called Open Discussion ?

Great to see the insufficient mating material rule implemented!  It really helps the tone of blitz games, IMO.  Keep up the good work!

Great stuff..any plans for live tournaments in the future?

Yes - currently in design!

Isn't K v KNN sufficient mating material though, or is this a case where USCF rules are applied instead of FIDE?

Awesome, I've been burning up the analysis board the past few weeks for some opening preparation and any changes to improve it are much appreciated.

What precisely do you mean by max allowable lag? Is it that you can't play anymore with latency >2000ms?

you can play. it just means that if you lag more than 2 seconds, we only give you back 2 seconds. so if you have 5 second lag, you will effectively lose 3 seconds. more fair to people with good connections. 

Understood, but under FIDE rules the made doesn't have to be forced, only possible through a series of legal moves, which is the case with K+2N.  Sounds like this particular implementation aligns with USCF's corresponding rule, not FIDE's. 

Ah, that's what I figured but it never hurts to ask. I know a lot of strife has been caused by bullet chess lately due to poor connections. Seems like a good enough compromise between the system that existed and still allowing for normal lag.

Thanks for the super-quick reply!

This looks like great stuff, especially live tournaments.

TheMouse, cheers as a new member of the Bongcloud Society.

can you explore your live games history yet?

no not yet

The logarithmic seek graph looks really good.  A nice elegant solution.

I don't understand this, I thought we could explore live game history. Maybe I don't understand "explore" in this context.

Anyway - nice to see my hard earned money hard at work! chess.com rocks.

I think you mean Erik's hard-earned money hard at work!

Good job chess.com!

I'm a little concerned with the maximum 2sec lag though.

How is that calculated I wonder?  One time?  Sustained for a period of time?  What happens if you're already playing and it drops below the threshold?  A disconnect?

Sorry, guys.. I should have been clearer.

2 seconds = the maximum lag compensation a player can receive during a clock adjustment on the move.

It's not a barrier to entry.

It's simply that if you lag for >2 seconds on any move, it only accounts for the first 2 seconds of it. Per Erik's example, if I lag for 5 seconds on my move, I lose 3 seconds off the clock. This means your opponent's clock should jump a lot less often, and for 2 seconds maximum rather than before where I've seen it go up by as much as 10 seconds.

EDIT: ninja'd by DeepGreene