Chatting during chess

See, that's great.  At least the guy (or lady) tried.  You have to applaud that effort.

Hmm. Well I just thought about it a bit, and I do think you're right. Ultimately, the internet connects the world, and we're all the same people wandering around the planet as we are on the internet, so we should represent ourselves that way. I think many people don't realize that and as a result don't feel like they're being rude when they don't respond, but since these same people probably get annoyed by trolls (who flourish on being anonymous and behaving in a way only the internet permits) they are at fault.

This is a bit of a side track, but you know when you're walking on the street and someone passes you and you make brief eye contact and say "Hi" and they say "Hey" back? Well if you do that you also know that occasionally someone does not respond, or in the rare instance you fail to respond in time for them to hear you because they caught you off guard. And in these instances you can't pinpoint without a doubt that these people are pure bred jerks. They just had a little moment of technical rudeness that may or may not have been intentional. I think we just need to take that kind of thing into account when dealing with this kind of behavior online.

And also, in some countries, or even some areas of the US, sidewalk hellos are never exchanged. It's important to bear that in mind, but really I do agree with you on all this. Quite simply, it's impolite not to respond in these C.C. games.

I agree with you that many of them do not consider their actions (or inactions, as the case may be) to be rude, and in some way, that sort of mitigates it.  Maybe the mindset I described is not universal, but it sure comes across that way.

Anyway, in survey sampling, statisticians have developed a method called the randomized response approach to soliciting truthful answers to sensitive questions.  So, for example, have you ever cheated on your spouse?  Stolen office supplies?  Lied on your taxes?  You get the point.  Directly asking would be futile, if the goal is to obtain truthful responses.  So instead, toss a fair coin.  Do not tell anybody the result of the toss.  If H, then answer the real question.  If T, then toss again and answer instead the auxiliary question "Did you just roll H?".  The survey gathers only the final answer, but not the question that was being answered, so no way to nail somebody, no way to know who is confessing and who just rolled a tail.  Even with this lack of certainty intentionally built in, trends can still be uncovered.

I would argue that the same principle applies here.  We may never know which one of the thousand ostensible jerks is actually not a jerk, and which 999 actually are.  But how much does this matter?  If it walks and talks like a jerk...

Cystem.  lol. That is sooo cute.

Wow. How interesting. I didn't know about that randomized response approach. It's really cool.

I'm pretty much spent on this one. I think we agree... more than we already did.

Oh yeah, and Cystem, that is hilarious. I love it.

A couple of months ago, I was playing in a chess.com tourny and one of my opponents accused me of cheating. It was the first time out of about 300 games and I responded as such..."Well, thats a first". It did really rankle me. The very first thing out of this guys "mouth" was ... "I think your cheating". Not good luck or anything. Grrrr.

 padman... you are so right. I think looomis neeeeds a hug.

 You nailed it... absolutley.

Oh sorry I forgot I was dealing with an idiot.

The country I live in has a much higher percentage of titled chess players per capita than Australia. As far as I know it's not customary here to say "good luck" in the beginning of a chess game. I have watched grandmasters play and I didn't notice that they say "good luck." Of course, such a great player and philosopher as you would surely have a few things to teach us all about that.

If you don't know what formula racing is, start using the Google. And I wasn't 'responding' to anything you said, I was making a comment. Now crawl away.

Hi guys,

What a great topic!  Thank you Arstan. 

I love 'chatters'.  I will always chat back.  I like the guys that 'trash' talk.  I dont mind the 'trash' talk, I find it entertaining.  Of course, my chatty-ness goes out the window when time becomes a factor.  Also, I only 'chat' on my opponents time. 

I feel it is polite to say something to my opponent at the start of a game.  I always say 'Hi and good luck.'  I hope that is friendly.  It seems to me that it is.

I will confess that I sometimes like to advertise my next move.  You know, I will say something like " ... f4 coming".  I hope that isn't over the line between chatty and rude.

Watch your backrank.

Great topic!

yeah, telling your next move would probably get me to disable the chat.

I think its courteous to say something. At the very least, you want your opponent to play well so you play well and you learn from the game.

Yes, I see now that the comment about 'well known expressions' was yours, which I didn't even pay attention to then. However, I wrote in the thread before that in similar lines, so the Earth doesn't revolve around you. That you experience disagreement on a minor issue as an assault on your very person is your problem. You also refuse to understand the point that what may be common to you may not be so common to others, does that need to be drawn ? 

I think you both had good things to say, so I am having a hard time understanding why you two are fighting now.  There are enough jerks out there that those of us who are not jerks should not be fighting among ourselves.  Do you really have a substantial difference of opinions, or has this just escalated from what one of you construed (or misconstrued) to be an insult?

Luckily, if you look at the ratio of website members who are rude/ total website members, you'll see that the number for Chess.com is MUCH MUCH lower than most websites I've ever been on. Most chess players have a really good level of civility, it seems. No surprise there :P

I don't think saying "good luck" to your opponent makes a whole lot of sense. If you're trying to beat them, why would you want them to be lucky? I mean, I realize its the principle of the thing, you want to wish your opponent well/ you're trying to be polite, but "good luck" just seems a little out of place. I'd even imagine it could come off as a back-handed insult to some.

Yes, several people here have made it clear that they do somehow perceive an insult from this simple comment, but there are always some people looking for a way to put a negative interpretation on anything.

Good luck is just polite, good sportsmanship.. nothing more...

Kinda the opposite of saying "I hope you have bad luck"... lol

One shows good manners and one shows you are a - - - -

Happy filling in the gaps!

I think saying good luck makes sense. Luck definitely has a place in chess.

Do I use an opening my opponent isn't prepared for or is it something that he or she has studied or faced before? 

I'd definitely like for my opponent to have good luck and still lose to me. 

It's better than than my opponent have bad luck and blundering about and losing to me. I'd like for my opponent to play their best game possible.