Red Army Policy on Quitters

Dear members of Red Army:
We provide the opportunity for all of you to experience tough competition, have fun, and be a part of a team. We ask one thing in return -- finish all your games and fight for every point. Unfortunately, we have had some people decide to put themselves over the team and quit team match games. Quitting is not an option -- if you start a team game, you finish it. Otherwise, it is not fair to the rest of us.

We realize that there are circumstances that happen that are beyond your control -- wars, natural disasters, deaths or sudden illnesses in the family, computer problems, etc. If you can't be at a computer for more than three days, put yourself in vacation mode. Every player has vacation time that they can use. I'm going to go through the team games on a regular basis, and if I see that someone has quit, and it has not been cleared with any of us, then we reserve the right to warn or ban.

If you’re having problems connecting to chess.com or it does not put you into vacation mode like it is supposed to, then please contact both me and a staff member of chess.com; this site is a work in progress, and they will not know that there is a problem with this site unless you tell them.

Playing for the Red Army or any other team is a privilege and not a right. If you join one of our matches, then you accept this rule. The only other thing we ask is that you follow basic rules of courtesy -- don't spam, treat everyone like you would if you were face to face, and be a team player.

Are you saying we can't resign a lost game or that we shouldn't time out?

I'm pretty sure he's saying that you can't time out because there is no excuse for timing out.

Quitting does not mean resigning lost positions. Quitting means either timing out or resigning in the opening. For example:

1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 Resigns.

OK then, I agree 100 percent.

"deserters will be shot"

Plainly reasonable.

Plainly unreasonable. Also rude, arrogant and dillusional.

Well, these are team events, so if you decide to quit one of your games, you not only let yourself down, you let the rest of your teammates down as well. And you let down your opponent who invested the time and effort to play that game.

 My sentiments exactly. I thought this was man utd's red army, not stalin's.I am no quitter anyhow, but what I find offensive about this is being told what to do by some tin pot admin on a power trip.The European Pschye Abohorr's being told what to do.Eternal Hope maybe should have thought of this before being so damned rude and issuing warnings.

It's not a power trip; every organization has to have rules and consequences for not following those rules. It works both ways. What I find offensive is putting hours of work into my games, only to see my teams lose matches because too many people do not pull their share of the weight. Are you saying that we should not have rules against speeding or murder or rape because the legislature is simply on a power trip? And you don't speak for most Europeans; as you ought to be able to see from the threads, there are plenty who agree with these rules. Speak for yourself.

????? what organisation are we LOL this is a chess team get a grip man its not the KGB or the CIA. There are rules to chess, but where are the rules for chess teams.I do understand not wanting to be beaten in games,but thats life laying down the law and making ultimatums is not the answer.Where has all the fun gone that you spoke of. Its getting far tooooo serious for my liking.

Well, it works both ways and I'm not the only one who feels this way. It's not fun for any of us to see our hard-earned efforts cancelled out by people who decide that they are more important than the team and who just quit. If Alex Ferguson lays down the law to his players and tells them how he expects them to behave, is it appropriate for them to talk back and tell him he's taking the game way too seriously?

Well, that's true. But a lot of us still take it seriously, and it's not fair to those of us who take our game and our team seriously for people to decide to quit without telling anyone what's going on.

Oh I see, you aliken yourself to Alex Ferguson and I am but a player who should do as they are told and not talk back.                                                         Alex Ferguson was born less than five minutes from where I sit right now his first football team less than two minutes. Alex Ferguson would be the first to remind you, Football(or chess)is just a game to entertain the supporters" Win Lose or Draw as long as the good people who spent their hard earned wages are entertained, the result is secondary" (matt busby) .Winning trophies is a bi-product of the Manchester United Ethos set down by Sir Matt Busby and continued by Sir Alex.                                                                                lets agree to disagree on your method of getting people to toe the line.I will continue to do as I see fit were my games are concerned and you can watch over all the team games and adminster your punishments when you see fit and  we can all feel priveleged to be a member of the Red Army,do you see how egalitarian this sounds? well these are your words.Good Luck with your Quest for world domination.

Timing out on a chess game is akin to rape and murder? LOL you've lost the plot EternalHope.

I made no such comparison. I was asking a simple question -- where do you draw the line? Or let me put it another way. You're the boss. One of your people doesn't show up to work three days in a row and you don't know what's going on. Everything else is screwed up as a result. What do you do?

No you were telling us if we don't do as we are told we will be banned from this group. You asked if someone is told how to behave would it be appropriate for them to talk back.I would insist on asking questions.You now ask were the line should be drawn,I ask why draw a line what is the purpose of all of this is it to become the top 1% in team chess or top in vote chess.Has a statistic become more important than the members themselves?  

That's exactly the point. If someone decides to quit one of their team games, they are not showing consideration for the other members of this community. Again, the question -- you're the boss. Someone doesn't show up for work for three straight days. You don't know what's going on. Everything is screwed up as a result. What do you do?

If we're losing because the other team is simply a  better team, we can't do anything about that. But we can do something about losing because people decide to quit and show zero consideration for their teammates.

lets imagine for a minute you are the boss,I don't appear at work for three days.On day one I was smoking crack all day on the biggest crack pipe you ever seen.On day two I had a jolly good afternoon at a brothel and smoked a little more crack, and on day three I went to the track and blew every penny I had left that I hadn't spent on my crack and brothel escapades.Now that probably doesn't seem like a worthwhile venture to you or my boss but some people would think it worthy.Each reason is relative to the person and you have no right questioning them and deliberating over and sentencing.Please answer me this.How many team matches have been lost simply because too many people have quit prematurely?