How does Chess.com decide which "Next Game" to display? Logically speaking, I would've thought it would sort by time (with the games you're about to time out in popping up before a game you have 3 Days to make a turn in.) But as far as I can tell it either doesn't do this or does the opposite.  Am I missing the option in the settings or what?

I think it depends on how you get to your first game. If you click on it in your alerts, your games come up in random order, but if you go to your game page and click the one with the least time, then they will go in time order.

I don't actually think it's entirely random.  I've noticed, that after clicking on an alert the subsequent games only cycle through similar types of games (i.e. tournament games will only go to other tournament games etc.).

Are you sure? Because I'm in that Platinum tournament now and when I try to catch up with games that I'm about to time out I have to keep going to my list of games to choose the right one. Every time I hit "Next Game" I believe it throws me to my oldest created game.

So I think Nytik is right and it does sort through Game ID (creation date I guess) in descending order.

Can there be an option for the "Next Game" to follow the sorting of your "Online Chess" page? Because I'm pretty sure that list is sorted by Time Left.

That's what I meant- it definately sorts my games by Time Left, if I access them from the Online Chess page.

I've been stuck in a cycle where it just kept looping through my tournament games and would never present one that wasn't on either of my "Chess Games" or "Team Matches" lists.  I think Nytik may be right that accessing it from your alerts is what causes this to occur.

I'd think ideally, it would always cycle through your games based on ascending order of time remaining no matter how you accessed the first game.

I quit using the Next Game feature because it almost never sent me to the next game I actually wanted to play a move in. Though honestly, a good algorithm to do this would be very tough. I prefer to play several moves in a few games before getting back to some of my other games. So I just always default to going back to my games list. Then again, I don't keep too many active games.

Well they do have the option in settings on what to do after you make a move; whether to automatically click next game for you, autmoatically send you to the games list or keep you at that game.

And it shouldn't be too difficult; just use the sorting function they have for the games list for the next game. I would really reall appreciate it. :3

I think Loomis' point was that he doesn't always want all of the games to be in the cycle, but rather that it is only a smaller set are often of interest to him.

Some time back (way back) there was some discussion about the ability to quickly eliminate games from the rotation (perhaps a checkbox above the "Next Game" link) so that it wouldn't be brought up again on the current cycle.  I believe the thinking was that once you'd navigated away from your game screens or your "My Online Chess" page all of these flags would be cleared, but as long as you were actively working through your games, those that you eliminated would not come up again.

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That is something I would really like in vote chess games. It always throws me back to the same games, and I want to wait for team-mates before I vote.

DrunkCat, yes, that's exactly what I meant when I wrote "I quit using the Next Game feature... I just always default to going back to my games list." From there I can pick for myself what the next game should be.

But I like the Next Game feature. :p (Or more specifically, the Next Game link.)

I just wish that (in my opinion) it'd work right.