Chess.com Needs Your Input - Live Chess Games Adjourned?!

Hang on... I'm trying to catch up with you guys...

Great discussion. Excelguru's flowchart is awesome, haha. Too good.

I think the mentality should be if you want to avoid a loss, the attempt is to reconcile it as quickly as possible - ie. the person immediately tries to log back in and resume the game. If the potential is that they can say, "Ah well, it's going to sit there for three days or more, I can just do whatever else", it's no good - a lot of the time such adjournment, whether or not either player is able to view the game, will benefit the player in the "worse" position. I'm sure we've all had those times wherein we hit a wonderful flow, disrupting this flow, starting over, can be dispporportionate for the other player.

So, one thing really quickly - we seem to have survived or gotten by with the current beta disconnect situation rather well. Yes, we've lost winning games, and yes it is profoundly dissapointing when we arrive at an interesting position, but we've all been living with it for a while. I've noticed that live chess has improved as far as disconnects go - for some it is still quite fraught (what is going on with your connection, ilovegambits?), but even now it is tenable.

So, I think it should be a thing whereby if an unusual disconnect occurs, the player who is still connected should be given a message like "It appears as if your opponent has abandoned the game due to a disconnection. If you leave this screen open, we will reconnect the game should they reappear within 10 minutes. If you close this window we will temporarily adjourn this game, it will enter into a 1 day holding pattern [with excelguru's thought processes re: is X online, is Y online? kindof situation]. You will be able to resume this game should your opponent re-appear, etc."

It's fantastic that something is being done to address these issues. Ultimately, I'm with Tripps when he says "I think most people are OK with an online game loss due to disconnect if they cannot reconnect soon enough." I don't think the site needs the headache of 3 day old live games nagging or what have you, simply that the fun games you stramble to reconnect to, knowing that both you and your opponent will be dissapointed about not finishing, are the ones that this system is working to protect.

So, I think we should err on the side of rewarding the scrambling-to-reconnect people. It will be interesting to see the kind of courtesy people will adopt - I know personally that if I noticed my opponent disconnected oddly, I'd probably sit with the game for 5-10 minutes and chat away with my friends in the meantime and give them a while to come back.

Okay, I created this right before Tripps post above (which I like the idea of)...

Actually I like what bondiggity said with one modification... the time limit for logging back on should be a MAXIMUM of 10 minutes but should be shorter for faster games. A 10-minute repose in a 3 0 game would feel like a century. Whaddya think? Sure would make the logic simpler.

I assume they wouldn't just count the material but run a computer analysis on the position so that even if your a queen down but about to win it back, the score would take that into account. 

See Erik... if you can give us a couple of hours, we'll re-design the whole site for ya. LOL

1 hour seems good to me.

Hmmm... more brainstorming... if YOU get dc:

1. Your clock ticks while you're away. If you don't rc before your clock runs out, you lose.
2. Free members have 5 minutes to rc (that should be plenty).
3. Premium members have 8 minutes to rc (more than plenty).
4. If your opponent runs out of time, you still get the win even if you didn't rc in time to see it happen.
5. If you don't rc in the allotted time, you lose regardless of how much time is on your clock or your advantage in the game.

This scenario allows plenty of reconnect time for people who simply got disconnected by accident (the people we're trying to help here). It also tends to discourage the act of disconnecting for the purpose of studying the game with "free" time.

Sure, it will have it's occasional problems, but I think it's fair. It would also add another "perk" to promote paid memberships which help support the site.

That seems like the perfect solution.

A solution for disconnects should be a welcome addition!

I usually only play quick games (2 0 or faster, to be specific).  With excelguru's excellent suggestion, I'd probably lose on time before I could get connected again (because of step 1 -- clock keeps ticking).

I'd like to see some amount of "grace time" to reconnect -- maybe just 2 or 3 minutes.  This would help people in quick and blitz games, as well.  (Granted -- with such short games the D/Cs are less troubling, but they still happen.)

Perhaps the right solution is to offer all of these choices.  Either make the "disconnected game handling mode" part of the game options (along with time, bonus time, color preferences, etc.) that are displayed so that two players are agreeing up-front on how to handle disconnects; OR put additional options on the chess board window to allow selection (with defaults) of said mode before the game begins.

This may have stated already I didn't read all the posts.

But each person should have a set number of games a person can adjourn to prevent people from abusing it.

And would it be possible to turn off the option to have the game adjourned, I rarely get disconnected, and most of the time when my opponent disconnects I'm winning.

As others mentioned, a clear and uncontroversial improvement would be to allow the players to fully use their time. If a disconnection happens, the clock will keep running and the disconnected player would just resume with a hit on the clock or a time loss if he isn't quick enough. This would be totally fair since one cannot use that time to better study the position anymore than he could have at the board. Grace periods or adjournments change that and might be abused if not designed carefully. There should be be no incentive for disconnecting to better understand the position or get it adjourned favorably. Moreover, trying to annoy the opponent by delaying the result shouldn't be an issue. Maybe even in this system, players shouldn't be allowed to play other games if they were disconnected and do not want to resume. This would further cut down on disconnections by sore losers who just want to waste your time. All that I've described is InstantChess.com's model except they have optional adjournment after a tiny grace period. While this solution is fair, simple, and without downsides, it might not go far enough to protect those with a genuine disconnection (but perhaps it evens out in the end). That's where we need the real brainstorming.

The models used by ICC or FICS require much more deliberation to evaluate and are more complex for the players too. I'm not yet prepared to offer a real opinion on what would be best. However, please keep it simple. Unlike some chess sites, Chess.com offers a home for casual and serious players. Don't go into the if x than y and if z then t but if r then e slope to frustration for the common player. The solution should be in the principle of Occam's razor.

thoughts from another player (pasted here so i can keep them together):

Just @ the end of a 1 min blitz game my opponent conveniently (for him) disconnects. 

He is back online and his live game archive shows he has played another game.

Near the seek I see a resume option but he doesn't respond.

He also doesn't respond when i try and hit the chat (Shame?) 

I know you have good intentions but people are going to abuse this and it shouldn't be a strategy for chess.

Certainly when blitz chess is involved.

What is you need some time to think?

An analysis is likely to show he is ahead esp if you factor your time time.

I really hope I don't have to deal with people pulling chump stunts all the time.

Thanks for listening

I would rather have my rating drop b/c of a disconnect

wow. this has been REALLY helpful to read :) i will continue to ponder and then give feedback. the real kink in all of this is that Chess.com's live chess just isn't stable enough yet for some people, and that is the kicker. if it were just losers disconnecting or the occassional internet-goes-dead, that would be one thing. but sadly, occassionally, the whole $*(&%^# server dies and all games are lost. 

i'm not where i'm leaning on this, but i'm liking the sound of keeping it shorter, measuring disconnect %s, possible option for adjourn or claim win, auto-reconnect, etc. 

i know that some people will feel our current system is not well thought out, but we needed to throw it out there and get feedback on it, so we released early. 

if you have further thoughts, please do advise! and keep in mind that we are dealing with 3 different scenarios:

- intentional disconnect when losing (or to game the clock);

- accidental disconnect (poor connection, etc)

- chess.com's fault (mass disconnect, high browser requirements, etc)

Adjourning live games is the stupidest idea I've heard all day.

If anything, follow the Yahoo! chess model in regards to disconnections.

yeah, it's so stupid in fact that most chess sites do it....

This is the best idea I've heard.  Generally if you get DCed due to your internet going down, you'll be back up and on in a few minutes.  Give a 10 minute grace period or something along those lines, but don't adjourn it for hours, days, or even a week.

I know I went through a period of internet trouble a week ago or so and lost 6 games to disconnect, but still I don't like a long adjourn policy as it's too exploitable.

Well, if they plug it into Fritz it would be just as much a violation as if they used Fritz during the normal course of the game. Thus, this is really the same issue. Although, they can think about the position without analysis software and still play better than without the disconnect.

If I had to give out an award for dumbest idea of the year, this would win. All the other improvements to live chess have been awesome. This one was not well thought out though.

Many of the games I have played tonight have been adjourned (my opponent disconnects, obviously on purpose) once I have reached a clearly won position.

We have a week to resume? What a joke. What if I don't want to resume? If my opponent disconnects, I should be able to claim a win. When I play a chess game with 2 minutes per side, it means the winner should be decided in 4 minutes, not more. In over the board chess, if my opponent gets up and walks away, the game doesn't pause. Sure, disconnections happen accidentally. Servers are not perfect. But I was a lot happier before this feature (I got disconnected sometimes, it sucked) than I am now.

What if in a lightning game I sac a rook when my opponent is in time trouble so I can put a lot of pressure on his position? 90% of the lines might be winning for me, but 10% might be losing. He now has a week to find this losing line. And of course if the game was analyzed by a computer, I'd be declared the loser, when in reality in almost all situatoins I'd win. When I play blitz/lightning chess, I don't want to spend 30 minutes analyzing a position before the game's over. Otherwise I'd play correspondence or 60/0.

Those who don't want to use this "feature" should at least be able to opt out - I'll shut up if I get the option of creating a seek without my opponent having the option to adjourn the game.