ChessTV -- POB Topic 4: Internet Chess Ethics!

Doesn't everyone hate playing that dude who is completely lost, but decides he/she is going to allow the remaining time to run out, rather than move and let you checkmate him? Where are the ethics (unwritten or otherwise) in Internet Chess? How can this be controlled, and/or SHOULD it even be controlled??? --

This is was a topic of discussion in our "Pardon Our Blunders" show yesterday (Chess.com/TV). Thoughts:

• When you sit down to play, both players are fully aware of the time alloted for the game. So even if we don't agree with this, is it really right to prevent someone else from doing it?
• With that said, it is reasonably understood that if the game is over -- you don't actually expect the full 15 minutes or whatever to be used by your opponent, just to delay the inevitable? "Super weak dude..."
• Is there some way we could all agree on a percentage (like an evaluation of +10 or something) that if someone is stalling, the "system" automatically detects it after an agreed upon time (like 2 mins or something) and forfeits the opponent? Aren't there problems with that though???

Watcha guys think?

Good point. We weren't really talking about e-chess, but I will certainly make a mental note of that. I don't think vacation time should be abused like that. If we could develop a way to keep track of that, I believe it would be in everyone's best interest...

In an OTB tournament (as you know Danny), there's the very rare occasion where someone does something unsporting, or unethical, or just stupid...

Whenever this happens the 'correct' thing to do is go get the TD (tournament director) or an arbiter or something. 

MOST of the time they'll avoid getting involved at all.  Sometimes that means you're stuck playing 50 moves in a bishop's pawn on the 7th vs. queen endgame... but at least the TD doesn't risk ruining the tournament.

I think my vote goes for something similar... chess.com should stay as uninvolved as possible in terms of 'enforcing etiquette'.  

Leave well enough alone.

-Matt

Good points. Don't want "Flies" or "Brothers" ...

I agree there should be some balance. Obviously ih8sens makes some great points too. I think the difference, ih8sens, is that Chess.com has over 2 million members, and thousands of games going on at once. No "otb" event is even comparable last time I checked... The thing is that I don't think we could become "Big Brother" even if we wanted to. There is just too much. BUT developing some kind of "stay within reasonable etiquette" lines system should be considered.

When a player selects a G/30 time control, they are committing that the next hour of their life is for this chess game -- it could go that long. But we should be honest about what this means. It means they are willing to play a game of chess for an hour -- that means engaging their mind in a sporting contest, pushing themselves to perform in a competition, not sitting around watching a clock run down, that's not what they signed up for.

Everytime I see the argument "You agreed to this time limit", I can't help but think this isn't really what they agreed to.

And what about what the loser scum on the other end agreed to. Didn't they agree to play a game of chess? And not be a jerk about it? Why does anyone ever turn the impetus around to the winning player in these cases.

Agreed -- My opponent and I agreed to commit our time for up to an hour, but my opponent and I also agreed to a game.  Once one of the parties walks away from the latter agreement the other party has every right to complain about being obligated to live up to the former.  "But you agreed to the time limit" is only part of the equation here.

i agreed with loomis and grobe on air. we had a similar point come up with the topic of when to resign in an otb game-- without the stalling, but let's say continuing to play out moves. and we came up with an etiquette standard which i think is pretty compelling: as long as there is something chess-related to think about, ok, the game goes on. but if someone is sitting on the other end, not thinking about chess, but merely wasting your time out of spite-- it's an etiquette violation.

That's a good rule of thumb. You just have to take into account that players at different levels may think there is nothing left to think about at different points in the game. A master will feel like there is nothing left if you're down a rook with no compensation. A beginner still has to think about how to mate with a queen against a lone king.

I know players that do this to boost their "Highest Rating" stat. When a player like this is about to lose a game, he or she tries to play out as many games as possible and rack up the wins and rating points, and then he or she loses the dead lost games all at once with the knowledge that they can recover it later. Not saying that this is ethical behavior but there are practical reasons for doing this. It's not always done out of simple rudeness or spite.

As for the E-Chess thing, I would think something Chess.com might be able to do is track people on vacation to not let them make moves in any game if they're "on vacation", or at least not more than a move or two without moving on to other games. Of course, it's somewhat of a hairy thing, with different games having different time controls, but the basic point is that people who are "on vacation" to the effect that they can't move in one of their games shouldn't be "off vacation" in others. My $.02.

As for the subject of the post: It's an interesting thing, because this doesn't really come up OTB. People occasionally do it, but it seems like less of a hassle to me and I haven't seen or heard of anyone actually even considering calling a TD about it. If they did, I think at least some other players would look down on the TD-caller even more than the stalling opponent. Telling your opponent to resign is basically always a worse crime than resigning too late. On the other hand, on web servers, it does seem to be a big issue. Maybe this is because of the anonymity the internet inherently gives. Part of me wonders if it's hopefulness that the opponent will have some kind of connection failure. I've had that happen once or twice and it's incredibly frustrating. It's definitely wrong, it's definitely a problem, but... I don't really see what can be done about it. I guess, you can make it a clear violation in the TOS, and you can have people report, but on such a vast scale, it will be like shooting fish in the ocean - sure, you'll nail some, but overall it won't make much of a difference. Maybe it will have a deterring effect. The other issue is that some weaker players may not realize how bad their positions are, at least for a while, and may be doing this unintentionally.

It sucks when someone delays like this, but there is absolutely no justification for forfeiting someones game based on how long they take to move. 

It seems like from an E-chess standpoint, here on Chess.com, the problem of someone walking away from the game (So to speak) in a long Live Chess match will be solved by the new Live Chess setup. Multiple games at once = "Well, this &*@#$ isn't coming back. *opens new tab, new game*"

Problem solved. 

Abusing vacation time, that's harder - But at least you're not really *wasting* your time there. Sooner or later it runs out and you will win. You don't need to sit around for an hour doing nothing.

EDIT: Also, I *really* like the idea mentioned on the show of having a special staff awarded 'You're a &*$#@' trophy that can be awarded to people who do this. That'd be awesome. 

i am new to the site but it happened to me .... and the guy didn't only keep me until the time was over, he also started saying bad words!! i think there must be a "report this user" button just like on face book!!

there is: towards the bottom of the page (grey area, below the white) there is a link: "Help&Support" follow that to report abuse. thanks!!

What justification is that?

It seems to me that forcing a forfeit of an individual game is still something that should be avoided -- even in this circumstance.  Banning a user altogether based on a pattern of abusive behaviour such as this, on the other hand, is 100% on point.

I don't understand the on again off again vacation stuff on this site.  I played somewhere else long ago that had the rule after you come back from vacation, it takes something like 48 hours before you can activate vacation again.

Also vacation was either on all your games, or none of them.

So maybe it's my bias from experience, but this seems like a better system than what chess.com currently has.

The new 1-day minimum for vacation should help.

Cool, didn't know about this, sounds good.

As for the live chess timeout stuff, I agree with what you've been saying Grobe.