Quote :

Chess.com encourages players to be kind and show good sportsmanship. Our Fair Play policy expects that players will not:

• intentionally disconnect during games
• stall to make opponents wait unnecessarily
• frivolously abort games because they don't want to play black, etc.

If your account is flagged for breaking this policy your account will be restricted. You will still be able to play games with friends or accept direct challenges, but you will not be able to create or accept open challenges until you play more games that follow the fair play policy.

May I ask :

1) Does/Can Chess.com distinguish between Players who Intentionally Disconnect from those who gets disconnected due to Bad/Poor Connection ?

( This happens regularly if our Connection is Bad n' we even loose Winning Games ! )

2) Similiarly,how do u distinguish between Players who abort Games due to having Accidentally clicked on/accepted the Wrong Seek and not because they don't wanna play Black or for any other reason ?

( I frequently click on the Wrong Seeks coz of very Poor Connection .. I hv to click many times or very quickly on the Seek I wish to accept but often get the Wrong one instead and hv to abort ... ( I like to play Black,actually [got used to it] n' hardly get to play White with people coz they normally abort if they get white or maybe for some other reason.)

Thx So Much !

Yeah,I know ... Tnx .

What I mean is ,does Chess.com distinguish the Actual ones from the Accidental ones before marking them ,else it wouldn't be really correct ?

.. I'm juz trying to figure this out .

Yes we can differentiate but we won't say how otherwise people will know how to bypass it :)

I have a question here--several times I have been playing 5 minute games and in the middle of the game windows 7 shuts down automatically for updates and I lose on time.  There's no warning from the machine; it just shuts down.  Do I get flagged for that?

I think s/he won't be flagged if s/he loses on time ; only if s/he does any of the 3 things stated in the Policy above .

Kohai already answered that they can differentiate between bad/shaky Internet Connection and 'Disconnects on Purpose' by Players.

@dashkee:

Change your Windows Update setting so it only downloads the updates for you but you decide when to install them ..

Can anyone tell me if, when playing a game, and looking at it in analysis, is it ok to look at 'explore' to help, before making a move.   

Yes, you can and it is allowed ..

It's allowed for correspondence but not live, if I'm not mistaken.

You can stop Windows from doing that. You can configure Windows to do or not do just about anything, assuming you know anything about Windows...it's kind of like chess, except for the fact Windows is a super-bloated and super-inefficient OS, unlike chess, which is neither bloated nor inefficient if played properly.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/6042-windows-update-enable-disable-automatic-restart.html

Dietmar and NimzoRoy

Thanks for the info; I thought that the feature was one of those Bill Gates I'll-do-it-and-you'll-have-to-put-up-with-it things.  And yeah, I'm @2000 USCF but @1100 when it comes to computers.  If it wasn't for guys like you I wouldn't be able to open my e-mail (now what do i do about all those #%&!ing letter openers that I bought?).

To clarify: You can use opening database for turn-based play (correspondence chess) but not for Live Chess. That distinction did not cross my mind as I play mainly bullet where looking up Explorer is prohibitive by default. But I realize that there are folks that play games with longer time control. For those cases, you cannot ..

look, you're making impossible and unfair requests here. If someone aborts, theres no way to tell what the reason was for, and there's nothing wrong with aborting because you want to play a different color. Sometimes players want to try out a new gambit or defense. Plus, it isn't a big deal, it's not like people are aborting every single game. Also, disconnection can occur due to many problems. Sometimes I accidentally click out of the page , other times my laptop runs out of power. 

About the stalling comment. This is chess, what you think is stalling, is a player thinking very hard about the next move. I find to my own surprise that I may spend aboout a minute or 2 thinking over 1 move in a 20 min game. Its an integral part of chess: patience and time. You certainly cannot expect the mods to look at this as an issue, much less take action against it. 

In conclusion, I think you should relax and take it as they come. The problems, if they even ARE "problems" to being with, cannot be fairly remedied. Play chess otb if you're really that annoyed by it. 

- best regards. 

LordNazgul

If your professor and I are somehow related, he was number 1, but he wasn't number 2.  (Wait, did that come out right?  I'm really not sure....)  

 errr ... Are u talking to me or to Chess.com ???

I'm a bit Puzzled ......

How can Chess.com play Chess OTB ?

( This Policy is implemented by Chess.com,not me. )

I think I made it very clear that I was speaking to you directly. I made the assumption, observing your word choise, that the stated "issues" affected you, and you were frustrated. In any case, my previous comment still stands: Not a single one of those rules should be implimented on this website. 

I think u didn't understand what I said ... I was asking the same questions u were asking .... 

.. ie.I was wondering if Chess.com can/do differentiate between Intentional Disconnections/Aborts and Non-Intentional/Accidental Ones so people don't get flagged/marked wrongly.

Plz Read the posts again carefully ... Tnx .

There's nothing to be fustrated about ...

If people abort my Seeks coz they don wanna play white( or for other reasons ) ,I juz accepted it and played Black and I got so used to it,now I like playing Black ! ( Good Training/Practising )

.. but I think these Rules r Good for Fair Play.