Probably a bad question

So, I was just playing a rapid 15/10 game, and I am white, I play my move, and then the opponent doesn't do anything, and there is a pop-up that says "The game will abort in ____" with a countdown.

Why does that happen? What's the point of it?

well would you rather wait the whole 15 minutes for the game to abort?

Isn't there auto resign for that?

And rating doesn't change so it's kind of annoying

@Checkmatefun2018  This might help explain your question in more detail.

https://support.chess.com/customer/portal/articles/1444922-fair-play-policy

"On his or her turn, each player has 15-20 seconds to make their first move. If this does not happen, the game will be automatically aborted. This has a negative effect on the Fair-Play record of the player failing to move. (But if you hit Abort, it affects your record! It's best to be patient for a few seconds.)"

@Jonani ok thx

@Checkmatefun2018  You're welcome.  It gives you more insight into why this particular feature is setup the way it is.  Hope it helps.

If someone aborts too much, or allows too many games to abort, then the aborts cause a rating loss.

Speaking of aborting a game. In the arena, there is that message which starts after 5 seconds and says the game will be aborted in 15 seconds. After those 15 seconds are up, the timer (of the total game time) keeps running for about 10 more seconds. So it aborts after 30s rather than the 20s it should have aborted.

there is no rating change so that if you accidentally start a game (maybe with the wrong time control i.e. 1 min instead of 10 min) you don't lose rating

I thought there was if you were habitually aborting? Surely there is some form of control for abort abusers?

there is a rating penalty if you abort too many games, yes

Thanks, thought so.