How do you guys deal with rude players without completely turning off the chat? The past few days, I've ran into lots of mean players in game and it's really killing my desire to play. I would prefer to keep chat on because I really do enjoy talking to the nice part of the community (it might be my favorite part of chess!)
Trash talk back. Isn't this what Blitz is all about? ;-) Since you live in NYC you could go to Washington Sq. Park and get some inspiration.
How do you guys deal with rude players without completely turning off the chat? The past few days, I've ran into lots of mean players in game and it's really killing my desire to play. I would prefer to keep chat on because I really do enjoy talking to the nice part of the community (it might be my favorite part of chess!)
Try Focus Mode!
Also, you can turn chat on for only your friends and that's what I usually do!
Don't let others discourage you from your chess improvement! You got this! 
I don't chat while playing except in daily games. I reduces my concentration.
Is it not possible to disable chat while playing? If not, Chess.com needs to fix that ASAP!
It is.
What purpose is to disable chat ... blocking misfits who insult me? Who's left to make a thread about? Seen any threads ? "Hey ... my opponent was a good sport, wished me good luck."
Get in touch with Kleinrock, Fibbinucci and Beebe, LLC. They're taking Monsanto to the cleaners on that toxic Roundup pesticide crap. Maybe they'll handle toxic players, too.
Lmao, Daddio is a farmer. He probably was spraying junk by Monsanto, now owned by Bayer, yesterday...
Chess.com has a dedicated support page about abuse on the website, have a look: https://support.chess.com/category/139-abuse
If you feel anyone is going too far, you could report them as explained in this page https://support.chess.com/article/209-how-do-i-report-someone
More details on what action may be taken can be found on this page: https://support.chess.com/article/780-what-happens-to-accounts-that-are-violating-community-policies
Hope this help answers you questions.
Is it not possible to disable chat while playing? If not, Chess.com needs to fix that ASAP!
Have a look at this page, it explains how to disable chat while playing: https://support.chess.com/article/646-what-should-i-do-if-another-member-is-rude-or-abusive
Ignore them and report is the only answer, really. I have noticed a big increase in toxicity recently. Had a couple of games recently where my opponent was clearly mad about losing and got toxic as a result and a couple where I'd blundered and they felt the need to message me about it.
It would be nice if chess.com could do something about this, but I guess at the end of the day if someone is able to send you a message at all, they can find a way to send something hurtful if they want to enough
I particularly enjoy taunting from cheaters. One told me that I was wasting his time and should resign. I told him that I was busy gathering data. He was banned the next day.
I ran into a toxic player I won that game with time then a couple minutes later I received a message from that toxic player the message he (or she) sent made me think of going to lichess (thankfully I recovered and I might stay on this website) the message said this "duh I just keep playing hoping I win on time even though I play like cr*ppp."
Make sure to give them their own medicine AND THEN block them.
If I get even a hint of disrespect I block them. If they are very abusive I report them and block them.
Then I forget about them. I'll never have to deal with them again.
like report them
In-person, I would grab a hazmat suit.
Online you should be protected from the toxic particles.
Oh, other kind of toxic. 😅
Block and report is always best!
You can disable chat for all but people on your friends list. I don't know why anyone would want any chat during a game but to each their own
You don’t have to limit yourself to playing with friends. In the live chess settings, you can enable the chat for friends only.
Also, the focus mode hides the chat window for live games.
I've never had a huge problem with toxic players in chat (few rare cases here and there), but this is good advice; thanks for sharing this feature. I don't think I need to use it, but it is nice to know that this is always an option.