Disconnects vs resigning - what's the point?

I think its a pretty good idea, You could make a rule that you can think as long as you want, but if it is over 3 minutes, then the clock runs out without a move ever coming, you lose double rating points compared to a normal loss.  

42 points.

It's a fun number, and as good as any other.

I like my points, because they're a decent indicator of how I am improving (or regressing), and, honestly, I can sort of monitor my state of mind / level of distraction based on the trend. And that means in general, not just while playing.

Regardless, it's not about the points so much as about having my time wasted. If someone did this in a real-life tournament, how would you feel? Imagine the other guy sitting there futzing about with her phone, waiting for you to just walk off. Doing that online is equally rude.

To be clear: I'm not losing any sleep over this. My initial question was really: "What am I missing here?" Apparently, the answer is: nothing. But, it's nice to hear that I'm not the only one that finds this irksome.

You resign, and the bad guys win.  

It sounds ridiculous because you don't understand what I said.  If you take 8 minutes to make a move, that's not a problem.  If there are 8 minutes left in the game and you take all 8 minutes and the clock runs out without ever making a move, then its a penalty.  

IMBacon wrote:

As i said..you think you should be able to determine how someone uses their time?  

If they never make a move they weren't using their time, they were wasting yours.  

 This.

That is exactly the problem. Note that I rarely see high-rated players do this; it's always plebes around my level.

In any case, I always wait it out because I have other things I can do. On more than one occasion, my opponent waited for a few minutes, then kicked my butt. However, that's the rarity.

I don't want to tell anyone how to use their time, but I don't appreciate them wasting mine, on purpose. how about a compromise: do this for three games within a week, and you get docked. Or, at least:

A flag on your account that pops up when receiving a challenge, with a notice like:

"Warning: This player has exhibited a pattern of early disconnects when in an unfavorable position. Would you prefer to find a new opponent?"

Story of the worst case of stalling I ever had on this site years back on an old account that I closed years ago. While playing a 15 +10 game I was in a clearly winning position and unfortunately I couldn't per move as it was a free account at the time, I ended up getting 2 queens and he has his king I use the ladder and get him to a mate in 1 position he had played quickly the whole game and had around 16 mins on his clock that's right more time than he started with while I had used my time a lot more and was down below 5 mins. in this mate in 1 position I get a message in the chat saying haha now you have to wait 15 mins for your next game and true to his word he waited and so did I remaining silent in the chat and we get down to him having below a minute before a move is played and my time starts ticking this was a big moment to move right away and win the game or give him a taste of his own medicine a bit by letting my time tick down and let it go to below 30 seconds let him stew let him get his hopes up that I had left and he was going to win the game then type something back in the chat and checkmate him these thoughts went through my mind I'll be honest I considered this, but I decided to be the bigger person and checkmate him right away. these situations are annoying yes and I wish it wasn't happening but the world is an imperfect place and it does happen. It's a shame though.

You bring up a good point.  I just remembered I did abandon a game once when I was playing in my office at work and someone knocked on the door. 

I don't think it would take much in resources to track abandoned games.  The suggestion that the penalty kicks in after a member establishes a pattern of consistently abandoning, then I think it could work.  

Good story.

Please use punctuation. I don't even mind if it's randomly interspersed. I got out of breath reading that.

Seriously going to start a political debate re: gun control?

redacted

It's pretty easy to tell if someone in the middle of San Francisco has a bad connection, and is disconnecting unintentionally. The site has the data to analyze this pretty accurately; it's a solved problem in other domains.

Penalizing people won't make them change, but flagging their account can help stop wasting my time.

As far as your repeated "precious points" remark goes: I'm glad you don't care about your rating. I like mine, crappy though as it may be. Don't be so judgemental.

I just feel sorry for people who can't simply resign because there's often a psychological problem going on.

One thing I noticed as a high school sports coach and chess coach is that because chess is a one-person-per-side game it sometimes attracts people who aren't good as social interaction and sometimes attracts people who find failure to be a tragedy instead of an occasional part of everyday life.  You see this much less in sports where team interaction is vital and is one of the many reasons to encourage Bughouse chess as part of training to play in tournaments: recognizing which pieces work best in various combinations is the other reason.

I've had to work on the attitudes and behavior of several teenagers who just couldn't handle losing - especially when they first joined our chess club which included a very strong chess team, typically ranked in the state's top 5.

I think that's at least part of what you're seeing in players who let the clock run out or disconnect.

@MickinMD First of all, thank you for the eloquent, considered response.

"a psychological problem going on."?

Care to elaborate? Given the earlier comment about "mental problems"...

My oldest (9) is autistic, and we have a number of other "mental" issues in the family. No one in the group that I'm thinking of acts this way.

Also, being a poor loser isn't a psychological problem. It is, in my opinion, a function of prior experience and (too extreme, or utter lack of) consequences. Someone who is never allowed to lose at home may be miffed the first time it happens elsewhere, but that doesn't necessarily indicate any sort of clinical disorder. (Though, admittedly, I am not an MD.)

My experience with sports was quite the opposite: parents screaming at coaches, kids getting 'A's in Calculus who couldn't spell "derivative" (literally). I don't fault *sports activities*, but too many parents make that the end-all and be-all of their kid's school experience at the expense of actually learning anything.

This has gotten off topic. Apologies.

@IMBacon

Thanks - seems like you've thought about this a bit. I appreciate the responses.