Hi folks,

I've just subscribed to this wonderful site and am having a fantastic time playing live chess. However, a few (minority, luckily!) members seem to be bad sports! I was playing one guy and was in a pretty good position to checkmate within about 8 moves. It was a 30 minute game, so there was lots of time to make his move. Trouble is, he took ages and ages to "think" about it, and never made his move! I sent a friendly message saying "are you still there?". No reply. I have a sneaky feeling he was trying to make me resign, and grab points. I offered a "draw" with no result. More than 10 minutes went by...

What should I do in such a situation? If I resigned, I would have lost points, wouldn't I? I don't mind other players taking their time with moves (that's why I love the long games!) but I thought there was something fishy going on.

There will always be jacka55e5...

it doesn't have to be fishy, probably he disconected suddenly or he had to go.

The real bad sportsmanship is when u gain a winning position, "suddenly" your opponent start playing 10 times better, and u can clearly see that he's making moves that a computer would do

I believe in that situation, if you were playing the better game, let the clock tick out and take the points. You earned them with your game and patience.

If your position is clearly winning, put the sound up, and start another game.

What do you do?  Let his time run out and win the game.  In the meantime, add the player's name to your list of "people not to play again"?

Thanks BorgQueen. I didn't realise there was such a feature on this site....

This is why I don't play slow games...I keep it to 5 minutes and less.  Unless, I'm playing somebody who I've gotten to know a bit...