Don't think site or anyone has ever adequately answered my point in post44, one team I played against had no less than 3 newbie 1200 raters  at foot of table... all turned out to be proficient higher scorers at the expense of our lower members. Anomalously site does not allow this in their own   competions  but does  allow group directors to do so.

Presumably, with new members now tagged as Unrated until they have completed five rated games, there is much less of a problem with 1200-rated players masquerading as novices?

when i play 1 minute per side without added time, or 5 minute per side without added time, i lose on time a lot in the beginning!!  so i personally consider that a fair reason to lose.  so i hope that it is not counted against me for just sitting there and pondering my move pretty much. 

Point has been grumbling on for quite a long time, partly no doubt because elite players never encounter it so they don't appreciate it or understand it. A look at match between team Scotland and team Bulgaria about 13 months ago should prove illuminating . I am not suggesting gamesmanship was involved, merely that Fair Play it was not.

as for not wanting to play the other color, i do not care!!  i prefer playing black because i am used to it.  however i am game either way.  i just do not like to play many games.  usually when i am finish with one 5 minute per side game, i log off.  it does not mean that i am chickening out.  i just want to rest.  if i log on again and see you again i might go again.  simple as that.

Where does it say this ? 

My mistake! It was a bug associated with a recent update. All players with more unrated games than rated games got marked as unrated until they finished another rated game.

(some-members-once-with-ratings-are-now-unrated)

I had a Mate in One (1).  With over 3 minutes left to play on his clock my opponent disconnects.  At 1.21 he abandons. It meant that my opponent was trying to reconnect and abandoned at 1.21 left. 

Question: will my opponent be flagged for violation of Fair Play Policy?  I think he made a good attempt to reconnect so he is not in violation. Am I correct? Or am I wrong.

dpruess,

how's the fair play policy working out? do you have any general impressions or statistics?

 Ah, you're wrong.  Aborting because the color is "wrong" *is* bad sportsmanship in and of itself.  It's annoying.

Along with that, there are people who wait for white to make the first move, then abort if they don't like that move.  Possibly, they're random disconnects, that's quite unlikely.  If you're too finicky to play black, or don't like the first move, then don't play.

 Oh, I didn't know that.  Good to know.

Hi, as of the last week every match that i search for i get a message stating : Your account may be restricted etc...

Any ideas as to why and how i can stop this?

Can you take a look at this page please, it explains in detail.

You should be allowed to abort any game without penalty if your opponent's internet connection is "Yellow" or "Red".  This is especially valid in blitz games.  

Huh .. Nobody asked to be challenged .... How can we be forced to accept Every Challenge we get ? ..  I think it's people's right whether they wanna accept a Challenge or not.

I"m not sure computers should be protected by the fair play policy. However, I am aware that some members here would like to play with the comp.  Sometimes people wait for a particular computer challenge to become available and it's not fair if someone stalls or disconnects with the computer while these people wait for a computer challenge.  But before the policy was implemented, i accepted a computer challenge, then aborted so i could challenge it to an unrated game.  I play against the comp to experiment with things, and would really like it if the outcome of my game with a comp was not subject to the fair play policy. 

Thank you for the reply, but I had already read that page prior to posting. But i believe that the message I am seeing is a standard message as I am not doing anything wrong and nothing has happened to my account. If this is so, please forgive my ignorance.