Apologies if this has been discussed on the forum before!

I don't play much Live Chess here and they are mainly 5 min games, but the other day I came across an opponent that would let his time run out as soon as he would be in a lost position or if he had lost a minor piece...

Our last game he had nearly 4 min left on his time, when I captured a knight and he simply let the time run out...

I have immediately blocked him, as I play chess for fun and don't want to come across people like that, so I thought blocking him was OK to me...

However, when I checked his profile here, I've noticed he did the same to other people in Live Chess as well, so I'm sure I'm not the only one here annoyed by his behaviour... 

I personally find this attitude disgusting and discourteous but I'm not sure if I have a case to press the Report Abuse button?

I'd like some advice or maybe a staff member to let me know if we can do something?

Thanks!  

His behaviour is conditioning your use of the site, the games you could be playing-and you are not- and mainly making you lose your time. I would report it as a clear rude, abusive practice. 

You think that's a problem? Imagine facing these dicks in a 30 10 game. =/

I've asked and this is not considered a problem, so the only thing you can do is block them.

I can imagine how painful is this in a 30 min game... They should have a way of punishing this unacceptable behaviour!  

we're going to have a solution to fight this at some point. most likely a button where they have to click after 60 seconds to make sure they are still there.

That's a really good suggestion.

Thanks Erik! I'm really happy the way you always listen to our comments and suggestions to improve even more this great site! 

a player could also be deep in thought in a critical position and not think to hit the button, or running the position through their chess engine...joking

Agreed -- it is extremely difficult to differentiate between the spiteful abandonment of a game and a legitimate absense.  The idea you've put forward trys to address that, but when the pizza guy rings the doorbell it may take me longer than 60 seconds to make it back to my game.

I think if it were reportable there would probably be an initial inadation of complaints and a high burden sifting through the legitimate cases and the false accusations on the staff.  However, I think if you if you put in a good enough penalty I think the regular offenders will soon mend their ways and start toeing the line.

I had the idea of maybe a penalty of say a 2 hour ban, that could be dished out by staff.  When the case is clear cut.  I think the mere announcement of such a penalty would deter most.

With the new version of Live Chess I understand that there will be provisions for adjourment and adjudication.

How about the ability for the user who is waiting to trigger the prompt for response after a set amount of time has passed (1-2 minutes?) and to declare the game adjourned if no response has been received within a set amount of time (another 1-2 minutes?) so that they can move on.

It sounds like another good idea but a quick question: if a game is adjourned because a player intentionally let his time running out in a lost position, don't we need both players to agree in order to restart the adjourned game? I don't think this kind of played would agree to restart any game he knows he is gonna lose anyway...

Another issue - in my example here, I had to wait for 3,5 minutes in a 5 min game, which is 70% of the total time of the game... no problem...

However, in a long 30 min game, waiting for 3 minutes might be considered a normal thinking time, if the position is balanced and complicated...

What do you think? Thanks for your opinion! 

Well the other half of adjournment is adjudication, whereby games that one of the two players doesn't agree to restart within a given time period have their positions evaluated and a result assigned.  In this case, the losing player who refuses to resume the adjourned game would eventually be given the loss, but at far less inconvenience to the winner.

As for the absoluste versus proportionate time question, I think that a combination of the two would probably be appropriate -- say the larger of 5% of the total time in a game or 30 seconds before a prompt could be sent.  For a 30 minute game this would mean 1½ minutes each, or 3 minutes in total, but for games that are 10 minutes or less it would never go below 30 seconds for each, or 1 minute in total.

All very much back-of-the-napkin of course....

You should expect a 30 minute game to last 1 hour.  If you're not prepared for your opponent to use all his time (in any way he pleases), why start the game?

But when you spend an hour on a 30 minute game, you should also be able to expect to be playing the whole time.  Being left to babysit an abandoned game is not generally what people are looking for when the start one.

yes,this is what the rule is in some -not-so-popular-chess-sites.If if make it that if he takes like 5 mins to move then he loses

I understand your frustration, but I am of the opinion that when you start a game, you should expect that game to go on for the maximum allowed time. If the game lasts an hour and you are playing for an hour, awesome, if the game lasts an hour because your opponent decides not to move, even better - start another game and pick up the free points!

I actually think that's a bad idea.  In longer games I can easily sit and think solid on a single line for 5 minutes and having to press a button every minute would interupt my thought process.