I would like to see an option box one could check in their profile (similar to vaction status) that would allow the player to choose not collect points from timeout victories. I wonder if this can be implemented. I do like the extra points, but when I look at the graph of my progress, it's difficult to tell if I was actually playing better in october, or if I happened to play a dozen people who timed out that month.

I'm sorry if this has been suggested before, I did my best to search for anything relevant beforehand.

Cheers, Pawlo.

Not a bad idea.

To negate the effect of timeout victories you can turn off Auto-Win on Time for non-tournament and non-team games and then resign the oldest one after each timeout win.

This should have the same effect as not collecting the points from each.

You will have two months to decide to resign after which the win will be awarded.

You could also just take all the timeout victories like most players and look at your ranking "Today's Rank: #33924 of 71,289 (52.5%)" to determine progress. You can still turn off Auto-Win on Time and allow the two month grace period.

There is already an option to not claim time-out victories, if you go to your online chess settings. Or are you suggesting to be able to claim the win but not the points?

As indicated in post #3 you can delay the win by two months to allow your opponent to return or to give yourself time to resign.

The "No Auto-Win on time" games would have been kept forever but that problem was addressed by awarding the win after two months. See the oldest games here where the last move was two months ago and where it says "out of time" not vacation.  They will soon drop off the list as the win will be awarded.

I think Pawlo's point though is that, winning isn't really the issue - but that the RATING which reflects how well you play (more than wins v. losses) should not be changed.

Finally, someone with a good suggestion. There are a lot of people who resort to resigning because they don't want rating boosts from timeout victories so this would suit them quite a bit.

last week i lost about 40 games due to times out( i lost internet to my house last week due to the US economy) and lost over 200 points to ppl who did'nt deserve the wins (a lot of them were losing).

What the point in winning "lots" of points on timeouts to inflate your rating when in fact you can't play at that level? But almost everyone will claim victory,though they did'nt really earned it.....

That is exactly why I made this suggestion, thanks for phrasing it like that Pyke. I would at least like it to be an option for players to decide not to gather points from their wins by timeout, and I feel this would suit those players who feel that these points are just inflating their rating. In my sytem, points would still be debited normally to the player who timed out, but they would not be credited to the opponent if they had their "decline timeout points" option active.

I can think of two main reasons why my option would be helpful:

1) It would be a more accurate reflection of one's actual chess ability and provide for more accurate statistics (ie. the graph displaying rating history)

2)Would reduce the likelyhood of being bumped into a higher class of tournament. For example, the chess .com tournaments are classed  by rating. If my actual chess ability is around 1350 and I gain points from a timeout victory against someone with a much higher rating. I may get bumped from the 1200-1400 group into the 1400-1600 class and be playing much tougher opponents. (not necessarily a bad thing, but there should at least be an optional safeguard against this).

yes.

IT doesn't matter because your rating will go back down to what you were playing at. The rating don't matter, especially on an online site where today I was playing someone who was 1300 in the swedish system but only 1100 on chess.com live because he lost his first few games. Thus my rating went up less then it should when I won. But it doesn't matter.

I agree with you that it doesn't matter, but I use it as a rough guide to see if I'm improving. I'd just rather not have it spike now and then when an opponent times out. That is all.

I've been donating those extra rating points that I'm awarded as a result of an opponent timing out to charity.

Hahahaha!!  good stuff

I have a supplementary suggestion: that the default for a new user is NOT to automatically claim the win on time.  I think the majority of people would rather give someone more time than end a game in the middle.

There's also the possibility that someone won't know about the option, and a month into a good game it would end up adjourned.

I like Apollo33's idea.

Oh, I see what you mean. You claim the win, and you don't get the points. But should your opponent lose rating points as if you won rating points?

The way I thought about it... yes. They're still losing the game, and it's because they timed out. I still think it's fair to penalize a timeout. If I thought points shouldn't be lost I would have been asking for no rating changes at all to be made from timed out games. I would just like be able to choose to waive the points on the side of the person who didn't time out.

Again, this is an option I'm suggesting, and shouldn't interfere with anyone who likes the present system.