time

l was playing my game and my oposite had only two minutes how can he make is clock go up wards to 4 minutes so he ca win this game ok l should have won on time but due to he made time go up . l lost but l played for his time to finnish and changed queens so it was not possible for he to win in 2 minutes. How? linda000

lag prblm baby

This seems to be one of the most common complaints at the moment, and a difficult one to accept - since it is outside our usual frames of reference.

With standard chess clocks when you are playing OTB, both players can see the board simultaneously and the clocks simultaneously. Both players see each move immediately it is made, and as soon as one player stops his clock - the opponent's clock automatically starts.

Chess over the internet, however, is a bit like two people playing chess in different rooms, using one board and one pair of clocks. When one player makes his move and stops his clock, the board and the clocks have to be transported into the other room before the second player can see the move and, critically, before the second clock starts. On each occasion the clocks are moved, they have to be synchronised.

After the second player's move, the board and the clocks are brought back to the first player, and the clocks synchronised.

It should be clearer that the elapsed time as measured by the first player's wristwatch is not necessarily the same as the time used up on the second player's clock.

Back in the virtual world: depending on the time taken to transmit and display the move to the other player, each player may see his opponent's clock apparently either standing still or going backwards.

If only one player is using Premoves, this will exacerbate the illusion. The time taken to make the move will effectively be zero. If the time taken to transmit the move is 1 or 2 seconds, the player not using premoves will see his opponent's clock go backwards by 1 or 2 seconds each time he (the non-premover) moves.

It's not error on the clocks, it's the correction of error on the clocks.  Your clock keeps ticking down after your opponent has made their move and because it takes time for you to get notified of your opponents move (and the accomanying actual time of the move) an upward correction to your clock is required.  Your opponent almost certainly sees the same behaviour on his clock after each of your moves.

Given that there have been confirmed server issues over the past couple of days it may seem extreme, but also explainable.

The problem I have with the concept of time manipulation is that not only do you need to get ahold of a flux capacitor, but you also need to get your computer up to 88 miles per hour.

Oh, and it's also not possible.

Why is it that the complaints so often come from people who can't write in full sentences? I have a couple of theories.

1. Internet lag. The sentences are complete when they are written, but unlike a face to face conversation where the words are transmitted directly, here they have to be transmitted over the internet. Due to lag in the router, some words get lost or changed along the way. Chess.com attempts to make up for it by adding the words back that were dropped, but to us it looks like the language is going backwards, like, to caveman time.

2. Blatant language manipulation! (needs no explanation)

Ha! That's a trick question! You can't measure complaints versus sentence length when the complains aren't written in sentences. Tried to trick me, but you couldn't! Loomis wins again.

(Seriously, look at the OP, try to find a sentence. Go ahead, I dare you.)

This is the Internet, "bro". Fair ain't the name of the game.

yes i have lost to time lag before .... and it is annoying! Unfortunately, it is one of those things I guess?

The thing is, you don't lose to time lag -- it's a restatement of your clock to the actual time.

What would you have done with the clocks in this scenario:

• Your opponent has 6 seconds left and makes his move in 1 second (5 seconds left on his clock)
• Because of a slow connection somewhere along the way, it takes an additional six seconds for you to get notified of his move
• During this six seconds, your clock counts down from 5 to 0 and sits on 0 for an additional 1 second.

When you finally receive the notification of his move his view of the clocks has been sitting on 5 seconds for him (and has in fact been incorrectly counting your clock down for six seconds) and your view of the clock has him at 0 seconds.  Should:

1. You be awarded the win despite him having made his move on time?
2. Your clock be adjusted so that it reflects the time he actually made his move?

@HotFlow: you are completely right! My dear old friend "Linda" writes always this way, sometimes hard to understand. But as you say, age is here a "small" problem - but he still can play a good round of golf at this age! I would like to thank you for your post and your understanding. haho288