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

It has been my experience on other sites that having adjourned live games creates more problems than it solves.

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Agree with above.

To be honest I dont get many dc's (my end) but if I do dc. I dont mind losing points - a little sore but accept it .

I use Firefox and play blitz, mostly 3min games. It is remarkable how most of my opponents dc's appear to be deliberate, you're within a move or two of checkmate or a clear win and your opponent dc's.. sooo I think if you disc. you lose, end of story. I could live with that.

Thed only way you should get to 'adjourn' a game is with the opponents permission.

This is a great chess server but this latest ruling needs re visiting please.

It's live chess, 1 day is ok.

its ok saying that you dont get many disconnects and dont want adjourned games, but what about those people that get many disconnects? its not fair on them if you lose 2 games a month by default and they lose 50? the idea of adjournments is to give both players an equal chance of winning the game, and taking the quality of your connection out of the equation. it just needs some fine tuning. but if you dont get many disconnects then think yourself lucky, i have lost 10-15 games in one day on disconnection, and its frustrating at times, i think that adjournments are a good thing, but like i say, the idea just needs a little more thought and fine-tuning :-)

What if one player intentionally navigate his/her browser away from the site? Log their IP address (if they mask their IP address, do not allow them to play live chess). If they break away but the IP address is ping-able (meaning the player has intentionally closed his/her browser or navigated away from the site), that player must immediately lose.

If indeed the player has lost internet connection, adjourn the game for 3-7 business days max (the player's computer may have crashed - give the person a chance to repair the computer! One day is inadequate.)

If the player logs back into the site, give a popup message that he/she must finish his/her game before doing anything else in the site, or resign! Do not give any other option. If the player disconnects again, countdown the remaining of the 72 hours.

After 3-7 business days the game should be adjudicated, judged by a live person, not a computer, taking into account the ratings of the players.

I think a resume button for use in the event of disconnection is an excellent idea, since I occasionally get disconnected whenever I play live chess.

The truth is that it is not possible to please everyone, no matter how hard one tries.

Previously, under the you lose if you dc rules, the only people that we heard from were the people who objected to that rule. Many forums were written and many comments made on this very subject, and almost without exception every poster was against  you lose if you dc. Indeed, it was the number one gripe from the voluble users of Live Chess. Erik and team go to great lengths to enable a rule change and *surprise, surprise* the other half of the argument raise their voices. 

There's no doubt, that there's plenty of scope for abuse and answers need to be found, however, let's show a little patience and understanding.

We are all in this in this together, a learning, growing experience.

Keep up the good work Chess.com!

dsarkar> they break away but the IP address is ping-able

A technical note: this scheme won't work, because NAT and firewalls are very common, and their existence means that just because you receive tcp segments from 1.2.3.4:4515 doesn't mean you'll reach that same user by pinging 1.2.3.4.

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 A player who plays through a router or uses software NAT or advanced firewalls, if the router line is good, then the player should have the computer connection checked by an expert - it is not chess.com's fault!

Also players should be forewarned through a disclaimer that if they play from a school campus or private network, they run the risk of losing immediately if they are disconnected due to any reason.

Or for players playing online chess, a questionaire should clarify what type of connection they are using and will use in the future, and setup the penalty algorithm accordingly.

I think only games > 15 min. should be adjourned, and rather than waiting for 1 week, I think allowing 10 mins. to reconnect is long enough.

I've been playing online for many years, and that's the only real positive use of adjournments I can see.

Else, it's better to play turn-based

I haven't read this entire thread, but here is my experience and input.

 

The feature is good, but it is being widely abused. I played a game with Papyrus22 recently, and he adjourned a hopelessly lost game for him - apparently just to piss me off. But i believe fixing the abuse here is easy. live chess is supposed to be different from the regular chess on the site in that the whole game is played through right away. it should not be possible to adjourn a game and continue days later. If I wanted to do that, I'd play on the regular site (Which I do!). If this is to fix an honest disconnection problem - then it should have a time limit to give the disconnected player plenty of time to get back into the game. otherwise, it should be assumed that he has no intention of getting back into the game and the waiting player should be given the win. Because of the nature of live chess (quick, immediate games) the time limit should be MINUTES, not DAYS! 5 minutes max, in my opinion. Which does not refreash every time he disconnects. That's plenty of time to come back from an honest disconnection. He is simply stalling. Now he actually has come back (just now) and has decided to play a new game with someone else instead of accepting my request to continue.

The absue is incredibly annoying - and only creates a pile of games to be reviewed - work that really doesn't need to be done.

erik, as a suggestion, is it possible for the adjourned games to be listed either on the members live chess profile page ? or possibly in their stats page ?

This way, if there is a query regarding which game or with whom, the help on live chess can see them.

dsarkar> A player who plays through a router

That is 100% of chess.com customers. Your message right now went through at least eight routers on its way to chess.com.

dsarkar> or school campus,, if the router/switch is good

Cisco, Juniper, Linksys, whatever... support NAT, dynamic addresses, and firewalls.

dsarkar> then the player should have the computer connection checked by an expert - it is not chess.com's fault!

If each user wants to pay me to check their connections--excellent!  :)

But there's no need. At work, school, libraries, or Internet cafes they're using NAT or firewalls. At home if they have dialup they're using dynamic addresses, if they have more than one computer they're using NAT, if they have a router they're using NAT, if they're using firewall software they have a firewall, etc.

I would fault chess.com if they implemented a feature that was incompatible with ubiquitous Internet technologies. Also, your scheme ignores browser crashes.

dsarkar> Getting disconnected due to poor connection is one thing, getting disconnected due to faulty setup is another.

Using dynamic addresses, NAT, and firewalls is not a "faulty setup". Dialer pools are essential in dialup networks. NAT is a key reason IPv4 has worked for so long. Firewalls are one of the key defenses against hackers trashing our networks and systems.

All this happens under the covers without most people being aware.

[Edit: The quotes are from the original message I read. It appears to be edited slightly now, but the points above are still valid @ 3:20am.]

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Good idea Kohai.... this would also allow Live Chess users to form their opinions about prospective opponent's suitability viz-a-viz Live Chess games pending.

This is a good idea, especially if there were some way to voluntarily adjourn a game. Such a feature would make longer live chess games more like games in real life. This would give those who come here to play OTB style chess a better way to play than turn based chess. This way those who want correspondence style chess get to play their game without being accused of cheating when using books or databases and those who think that there is only one way to play get to practice their skills in as close to an OTB environment as possible. Previous discussions of this issue have revealed that a major reason OTB players use turn based chess is the simple fact that life can intrude thus wrecking a perfectly good long time control live chess game.

I woke up at 6:15 on a Sunday because I wanted to read-up on the latest posts for this issue and brainstorm possible solutions... my life is truly sad.

Okay, I'm brainstorming here, so bear with me... my thoughts may be a bit jumbled (I mean... more so than usual!).

DC's fall into one of 3 categories:

1. The player DC's by accident
2. The C.c server has an issue and causes the DC
3. Player DC's on purpose

I think we can all agree that it would be nice (not "necessary", but "nice") to offer solutions that address scenarios 1 and 2 without allowing abuse by scenario 3. And I do believe that this is Erik's main intent with this discussion.

Erik, is it possible for C.c to actually differentiate between these 3? If so, the logic could have a separate path for each scenario. This would be ideal. Even if C.c could determine between 2 and (1 or 3), but not necessarily between 1 and 3, that would still be good. We could simply have 2 separate sequences of logic, with no differentiation between 1 and 3 (unfortunately).

Because the main enticement of live chess is to play faster-response games (minutes instead of weeks), the solution should probably be designed to allow a resolution in minutes.

Adjudication, by whatever means, is probably not going to be reasonable. There are simply too many factors to consider and Lord knows there are WAY too many games to have a human do it. I mean, we're only talking about on-line ratings here. These aren't USCF-recognized or FIDE-recognized ratings. Some people take them WAY too seriously.

More brainstorming to come after I satisfy my morning caffienne addiction.

I'm probably missing a few of the recent suggestions here. Nonetheless, please comment on the following logic sequence...

hi, when was this adjourment, resume games started? im my case i have a lot of disconnections , i don't have this resume game in my part , how could i can avail it? is someone can help me? thanks.

Adjourning game on disconnection always create lot more problems than it solves. Best is player should have option while creating seek if they want forefiture or adjournment on disconnection. Both seeks should be in different color. This works best . Auto adjournment will create too much work load for site staff and many complaints about opponent not resuming and playing other games.

  Drop the idea in present form.  

Since downloading Firefox I've had 2 unexpected disconnections. I'm ok with that. This "adjournment" of games idea, frankly, is terrible. If people are disconnecting because they're frustrated with the way the game is going then it should be counted as a resignation. If it's a random disconnect who cares? It happens very rarely if the user is using the proper browser. I had two games be "adjourned" last night. It was quite annoying. I go to live chess so I can play a game from beginning to end. What is the point of "live" chess if it can be adjourned? It's no different than the turn based chess with this feature. Having this feature makes no sense in live chess.