lol. I think most people who sign up for an account probably flake out within a day or two...so that's probably to be expected. Just volunteer for a couple greet games and let them time out when they do. that's my 2 cents.
Chess Greeters
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Look on the bright side, while it won't help your rating, it should pad your total win/loss numbers.
I've been a greeter for about a week, and I'd say 80% time out in the first five moves.
rookandladder wrote:
...it should pad your total win/loss numbers.
Unrated games are not included in stats. An exception is time per move average.
I alway greet them with a hello, reassure them that this 1st game is unrated so that there is no pressure & to just have fun with it, & that it wil not reflect on their stats in any way.
Well in that case it is not much of a commitment. I'll sign up for a few.
In my first online game. I thought my greeter was taking too long to move. I thought he/she would move within 1 minute. By the time I had realised the games are long, it was too late ...
How does one become a greeter? I played out the full game with my greeter, did quite well too (at least I think so). However, like robson91 said, he took a LONG time to move
Yes, this is normal for some new members not to come back. I experience quite a lot of these members, but there are a few who stay and flourish in this site. One of them being ExtraBold. Since that greeter game, we have played 1-2x again and his rating is pretty high. He also contributes to the site every once and a while.
ADK
robson91 wrote:
In my first online game. I thought my greeter was taking too long to move. I thought he/she would move within 1 minute. By the time I had realised the games are long, it was too late ...
This is a serious problem I seem to notice. There should be a MORE PROMINATE notice about what's to be expected from this first game.
I bet a high percentage of these games are people creating new accounts.
OK well all 3 greeter games I signed up for are close to timing out without the other player moving. One is even a diamond member - go figure. Signed up for chess mentor perhaps.
I guess people are used to stuff on the net happening instantly. I wonder if it is clear enough that "online" chess is not live chess. After all, both are online, and "online" could easily be mostly offline! Correspondence chess is the usual name for it. (And it would be better if the alert email had a picture of the board, and you could reply to the email with a move instruction eg 2.Nf3)
http://www.chess.com/forum/view/help-support/problem-with-chesscom-greeter-games
I posted the same issue a few weeks ago. I removed myself from the greeter games becasue I they never are played to completion.
May 14, 2009
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#14
there is one big problem -> people are expecting live chess. and no matter what we do to tell them it isn't live, they don't get it :(
May 14, 2009
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#15
erik's right - I'm sure other greeters have often found their opponents leaving messages saying 'Come on - it's your move' or similar - often when I'm asleep :-)
I started a thread asking for people to make suggestions about how to encourage new starters to continue - I'm always friendly, I explain that it often takes at least a day to move (I always try to make at least 1 move a day in greeter games) & I suggest they play Live Chess to get a quicker game. But I've still had very few games played out (maybe 2 out of the 10s of greeter games I've played).
Seems I don't get any greeter games now - I think that's because my average time to move is pretty slow. Ho hum - we do what we can :-)
For newbies, rather than rely on the little radio icon, why not a text box:
"Your opponent is currently offline. You will be sent an email when they move, within the next day or so. "
or
"Your opponent is online, but may be playing other games at the same time..."
Maybe part of the problem is that it doesn't make much sense effort wise to play only one online game at a time. Yet that is the position the newbie is in.
I think that when you join Chess.com your greeter needs to be online so you can "speak" with him/her and immediatly begin to play.
Agree that only one game is not so interesting.
Maybe new members could receive 3 or 5 greeting games so they'll recive answer to their moves faster and really see what it give to play correspondance chess.
In fact, when you join, you begin a game, play your 1° move (if you are not Black and needs to wait) and wait the answer.
New member have to wait that their opponent is online and answer the move. They have enough to wait, they join to play not to wait 2 days to "only seee a pawn move"
I've seen that lots of new members have lots of game.
Think it's maybe because they challenge someone to play immediatly and so they have lots of games and can't manage this and have some time lost games or have their rating going down fast because the greeter is maybe (certainly 99% of the case) not a newbie in chess.
Well I've had a newbie play 2 moves now. Then ask for a draw. Oh well, I'm not gonna make you play if you don't want to.
I think the idea of finding a greeter who is online at the time is a good one. It won't always work of course, but the hit rate should be higher.
But I feel that it is very unfair on the greeters who volunteer to play, make one move against a new member and end up winning the match because their opponent hasn't come back
Hi, I volunteered for the chess greeter option (where you are selected to play the newcomers in unrated games) It's a nice concept to have us regulars to welcome the new people and such, but so far I have found that none of the newcomers play the games. So far I think 15 different games were started, but none of the players (except for 1 right now at move 3) has actually continued the games after move 1 or didn't even begin them. Has this happened to anyone else. Are you experiencing newcomers not playing. Do you think maybe it's because they are unrated and maybe they want to play only rated games. Maybe a better Idea woud be for newcomers to be matched up in a rated game against each other, that way they would both start at a 1200 rating. And maybe also the regulars could be assigned to a newcomers games & be able to communicate to them in the chat window if they have any questions about this site, how it works, during the game.