Add a Canceled Match Result

The API shows this match was lost by both teams, but the match page shows it was a draw. No indication it was canceled due to failing to meet the minimum players by the start time.

Example:

https://api.chess.com/pub/match/1575841 - Both sides lose

https://www.chess.com/club/matches/1-day-per-move-club/1575841 - looks like a draw

https://api.chess.com/pub/club/1-day-per-move-club/matches - search for the above match, result shows draw.

It's inaccurate to show "lose" with one endpoint and "draw" on another. The match also never started, so is it really finished?

So, will a canceled status and canceled result be added any time soon? We have finished, registration, and in-progress match statuses and win, lose, and draw game results, but neither has a canceled status. I think it would be beneficial to add a canceled section to the club matches endpoint. Not only would it make our lives easier, but it would also fix the misleading data the API returns.

Also, can I safely assume that if both sides show the result as "lose" the match was canceled?

Two players facing each other both banned for cheating could result in lose-lose maybe? Just trying to find an edge case

True, good catch. That one's a little hard to find an example of to test. But yeah, this is why I don't want to make assumptions without knowing.

This was a change that resulted from the redesign of clubs last year. Matches with specific start times and minimum required players used to be left 'hanging' if not enough had joined and that was never really satisfactory.

The solution the site came up with may seem rather arbitrary but I think it's an improvement over the previous situation.

Agreed. This was a half baked solution to the issue of matches that never started due to failed criteria. Understand the need to resolve it but the answer they came up with shows little logical thought.

Jonathan Cannon's initial proposition (August 18) is in comment #455 in this forum: https://www.chess.com/clubs/forum/view/club-redesign-five-questions-to-jdcannon?page=23

It took Chess.com five weeks to come up with some "drawn and completed" nonsense instead ... and it's more than four months now that they didn't manage yet to fix this.

From the point of view of processing match endpoints, it's easy enough now to identify those matches that defaulted in this way. For that reason I prefer the new way of dealing with defaulting matches to the old (there are no longer arguments about allowing a team that's short of a couple of players an extension so they can reach the minimum).

But if this redesign causes any confusion, it's in the webpage for such a match because classifying a match that never started as 'drawn' is somewhat bizarre.

That's correct, Stephen. The system now rewards a team that defaults on the starting criteria with a draw. Completely ludicrous.

I too like to be able to see the canceled matches, but the presentation on both the web page and API is still incorrect. Neither team "lost" as the API says and they didn't draw as the page says. That's why I'm proposing an accurate status to call it what it is - canceled.

The API and webpage should be the same.

But then what else could they do except introduce a new special category of match result which I imagine they were reluctant to do.

But by using an existing one they've ended up with this strange 'sealing wax and string' solution that no one feels comfortable with.

They could have added a field stating if the match has failed to start, and void the result field.

We could hope that they could actually think and introduce a solution that correctly reflects the state of the match at the point of defaulting. We live in hope.

At the point of default the system declares the number of boards in the 'Drawn' match.

They pick the number of registered members of team 1. So if team 1 has 30 and team 2 has one member the number of boards is declared as 30. Work that out.

Although I suppose a match that cannot start due to shortage of players could always be cancelled in much the same way a club admin can cancel/abort a match before the start?

Then it would be deleted and any web or api request would return a 404 error, page not found.

That might have been a better alternative but for the fact, with all data removed, admins wouldn't know which team had failed to reach min. team size.

This also creates an inconsistency with other scenarios:

1. The other team has fewer players, so some players are removed

- The players who were removed are removed from the webpage and API

2. An admin removes a player

- The players who were removed are removed from the webpage and API

3. An admin cancels the match

- Match and players are removed from the webpage and API. Trying to access the match from the webpage shows an error banner.

4. The match failed to reach min players

- The match and registered players are visible on the webpage and API

If we're going to see "canceled" matches in scenario 4, why not scenario 3 as well? Technically both should have ended up in the same status.

If it's the players who joined we care about, why not scenario 1 or 2? This would be good information to know.