I made three postings about this disconnect bussiness. I recieved a message from a German Grandmaster who told me that happens a lot and this is why: there is "lag" function that's on special software. I lost 12 games on disconnect. It was pretty much the same on all these games. I had a strong position on a higher ranked play the all of sudden the disconnect happens. Thier game clock is ticking down. However, when the reconnect finally happens I've lost on time and the other players has all his time back since the disconnect. If it were random why in all 12 games was it always my time that was lost? It has to be on purpose.

Dear John,

I agree 100% with your statement. I tried to convince the chess.com managers to correct this bug by wich on reconnection all the time is given back to the opponent while your time is considerably reduced. But without success. Somebody said tha the disconnection is due to the poor connection of our providers but it is difficult to accept this given the fact that the disconnection always happens when you are in a winning position and the opponent is in clear difficulty. I believe like you that the disconnection is done on purpose and that is a way of cheating but I don't know how this is done. The chess.com managers should provide a clear statement on this problem. Otherwise it is the end of chess.com!

Regards.

Maurizio de Nigris

Rome

Here's what Chess.Com has to say concerning this phenomenon:

-- Here is the explanation:

-- When there is much time left on the clock, we avoid clock bouncing:
-- When you play your move, we delay the start of the opponent's clock view in   your browser a little (based on lag).
-- When your or your opponent's lag  g r o w s  at some point, the clock view may go down a little to far and when the opponent's move eventually comes, the real (server) clock shows more seconds left than the clock view in your browser,
but we  d o n ' t  u p d a t e  the view (to show more time left) not to confuse our users.
-- When clock is approaching zero, we need to act differently and we allow for clock bouncing, allowing the clock view to be updated on each opponent's view.

Regards,
Piotr

However, it does not explain why the Chess.Com server counted up after my opponent's 32nd move from 0.22 after 32.Rd3 to 0.40 after 33.axb5.  Unless of course by "bouncing" Chess.Com meant that the server clock COUNTS UP.

Fleishcoph of Germany attributes the anomalies from Connection Interrupted to cheating using a LAG SWITCH.

What happens is that your computer is disconnected, hence it doesn't receive your opponent's move, even though it has been made. Therefore, you see his time tick down, but he's connected to the chess.com server and therefore sees your time tick down.

I don't think that's a bug, it's policy. Because people can disconnect themselves intentionally (just pull the wire out of your computer), they need to be charged for time disconnected. It is afterall, not the opponent's fault. However, what's seriously flawed is that the "reconnecting" message blocks the screen. If I'm being charged for that time, I should be able to see the board!

There is absolutely no way it'd be technically possible for your opponent to disconnect you. The reason it happens to you in winning positions could be multiplefold: perhaps you resign lost games and hence are in winning positions more often, perhaps it's just selective memory.

Anyways, some tips to prevent disconnections

• use a wire connection. Wire-less (wi-fi) is problematic.
• have a fast connection from a reliable ISP
• use a good, updated browser (Firefox or Chrome)
• turn off other internet pages when playing live chess. Don't stream videos on YouTube while playing!

What Chess.Com and those who think that it is impossible to cheat in Blitz and Bullet Chess or those who dismiss the complaints concerning "Connection Interrupted", here's how Wikipedia explains how cheating online is done: --->

Artificial lag

In the peer-to-peer gaming model, lagging is what happens when the stream of data between one or more players gets slowed or interrupted, causing movement to stutter and make opponents behave erratically. By using a lag switch, a player is able to disrupt upload from the console to the server, while their own console queues up the actions performed. The goal is to gain advantage over another player without reciprocation; opponents slow down or stop moving, allowing the lag switch user to easily out-maneuver them. From the opponents' perspective, the player using the device may appear to be teleporting, invisible or invincible, while the opponents suffer delayed animations and fast-forwarded game play, delivered in bursts.^[4] Some gaming communities refer to this method as "tapping".

The term 'lag switch' encompasses many methods of disrupting the network communication between a console and its server. One method is by attaching a physical device, called a hardware lag switch, to a standard Ethernet cable. By flipping the switch on and off, the physical connection between the console and the server is disrupted.^[5] Other methods, called a software or wireless lag switch, involve using a computer program. In this method, the cheater runs an application on a computer connected to the same network as the console. The application hogs the network bandwidth, disrupting the communication between the console and its server. An example of such an application is Laggsta.^[6

Live chess is not peer-to-peer.

It's client-server-client.

Peer-to-peer means there's no "authoritative" server, which is what allows the above mentioned to happen. It's basically the two players connecting to each other directly. Here, chess.com is the authoritative server.

Lag switch: "By using a lag switch, a player is able to disrupt upload from the console to the server, while their own console queues up the actions performed."

The server in a peer-to-peer gaming setting is one of the player's computer (or Xbox). That's technologically radically different than a client-server setting, like this one, where server is the chess.com server.

Let's say we two played a game:

in a peer-to-peer setting: Czech Republic (my location) -----> Hawaii (your location)

in a client-server architecture: Czech Rep. -----> California (chess.com servers) ----> Hawaii

that's how the information would travel. The "transfer stop" at the chess.com server renders these techniques moot. It also slows down the game, as compared to a direct connection.

For the love of gods, please at least try to understand something before you mindlessly cite it. What you're doing is the equivalent of a card player accussing his nude opponent of having a card up his sleeve. But I'm sleeveless, he'd argue! Yes, but you have cards, right? You must have one up your sleeve.

I didn't want this to become an argument. I posted some tips above for avoiding disconnects. Please, try to work out the problem, and stop dreaming up conspiracy theories.

Here's an example of how a "Connection Interrupted" added 18 seconds to my opponent's clock (from 0.22 after 32.Rd3 to 0.40 after 33.axb5

So would you read the official help file explaining lag compensation? Thanks.

Dear yeres30. This is a clear example of how the present software does not work on disconnect. All the explanations and justifications of the chess.com managers are irrelevant. Please change this nonsense or most players will abandon chess.com. It would be a pity since chess.com could be the top site for playing chess having a lot of attractive features.

All the best,

Maurizio de Nigris - Rome

 my advice to you is...

if you know you dont have a great internet connection, then don't play 2 min games!  haha my connection is not great either, but if you play 10 min games then it definitely allows for some room for error with the timer.

Das ist nicht gut!

Intentional disconnect.

Several time especially when the opponent is in a critical situation he/she disconnects and you have to wait until the end of the time. According to the Fair Play Policy the player is warned that the disconnection was noted and his/her account restricted. What type of sanction is given especially to those players who constantly disconnect?

Thank you for a reply

Maurizio de Nigris