There is a clock correction for lag or latency. Basically, once you submit your move your computer starts counting down your opponent's time and continues to do so until you've been notified of your opponent's move. Since there is latency associated with the time your opponent made the move and the time you received the notification of it the move comes with an official clock time so that your record of your opponent's clock can be corrected. Note that the correction will actually by the sum of your latency plus his, so he will most certainly see your clock being compensated in the same way on his side even if his connection is contributing the lion's share of the lag.
With respect to your opponent making moves without his clock counting down, this may be the result of the use of pre-moves which allow you to commit a move before your opponent has made theirs. These can be used to move without using any of your time but are not without risk for obvious reasons.
Hello,
I would have a question about live chess and if latency pays any role in calculating the playing time of a player.
It seems to me that in case somebody has a poor internet connection it gets extra time compensation. By poor IC i mean that the connection indicator is either yellow or red but i'm not sure if this is defined as high latency or packet drops.
I'm asking because i played a couple of 5 min games against another opponent and it seemed to me that the other person got on average 3s more for each move. At some point he even managed to make 3 moves without the second timer changing. Having such random time counters makes fast games unplayable..
thanks in advance,
Radu