investigate "Intentional Slow Play" and Sanction

It is funny to hear someone complaining about a game taking too long when I have one game that has been going on since November 2010.

You could tell the OP is new to chess.com when he complained of a game lasting a whole month! 

I prefer to think about moves in the entirety of the time alloted. That is intentional slow play, and I should not be warned/punished.

LOL - must be 14d/m game

you should just play live chess

I'm currently playing in a tournament and one of my opponents is on vacation. He's the only player in the group not finished with his games.

 i need to only play no vacation. even on vacation i have access to the internet plus within 48 hrs or so i have to check my emails... to ensure no emergencies i need to deal with. younger people are online all the time.

what is a "lag cheat"?

Something Dev keeps rambling on about.

One day someone should sticky one of these newbie threads that keep popping up every few days, and just merge the new ones into it.

I just dont understand why anyone cares, or even knows, about the pace of an online game. I currenly have only 20 games in progress (could be more at any time since I advanced in a couple of tournaments that havent started yet), and I frankly do not know how many of my games have people on vacation, or how long its been since I have moved in them, or how many games any of my opponents have going, etc etc. Who cares?

If you dont have enough to keep you busy, then start more games, its that simple.

Maybe the person with 45 games did just that. He didint have enough going to keep him busy (his opponents weren't moving fast enough) so he added more games until he is busy enough. So what.

Agreed, I hope soon he provides us with an insight as to his philosophy regarding resignation etiquette, and the relative values of knight and bishop.

Yes, and they should merge all the posts into one, overlapping text and all.  It could be an art project.

I think some people sign up for many games intending to take as long as possible in order to boost their rating.   They know that there will be a significant percentage of players who forfeit on time.    

I went on a long road trip one time and knew I'd be able to get to a computer (wireless) only rarely so I looked for a few games that the person specified two weeks per move.   That game went on for months long after my trip was over.   He took two weeks for every single move or close to it.   

Thing was, this player had several hundred games going.  Why so many if you take so long?   I looked through his game history and found numerous games he'd won by resignation when he was clearly losing.

Desert_Nomadic_Luke, I think the reason why people drag out lost positions is to achieve a higher peak rating. It's possible that they can win numerous other games prior to resigning against you. If someone is dragging a game out, just check and see how far from their peak rating they are.

Sometimes this is not the case ; but if it is, it will favor you anyway. You will gain more rating points.

Of course other times they will be dragging a gazillion lost games out and you will gain less rating points than you deserved.

Who cares that much about ratings, anyway?

I usually resign hopelessly lost positions prematurely, when it's not a live game. Why would I want to spend my time dragging a game out when I'm inevitably going to lose?

Quite often it's no credit to my opponent that they are beating me, so why would I want to earn them extra rating points off me before I resign to them?

Do you really think a player would slow down a game to attempt to receive "higher peak rating" to win against? this seems untrue; I believe people are just rude! Now sometimes I like to force a player to checkmate me with the advantage he has or finish off the game. Some players I feel resign too quickly. I do think there is satifaction seeing a game to the end.

I'm not sure about your theory of extra rating points. I hope I'm not coming off as argumentative; but after a while of playing your rating fluctuates more because of the competition you are willing to compete against.

look ... it's like this

My my peak rating is 1754. Let's say that I have 10 games going and I am winning about 5 of them. A couple are still up in the air, but I am definitely losing to you and one other guy. Pretend that my current rating is 1700ish. So if I drag out the games I'm losing, my peak rating will possibly go up if I can finish the other 5 games that I am winning; before I get checkmated by you.

This would make my profile look better.

Some people think like this.

It's my suspicion, anyway.

People are not here to play chess for the sake of playing chess. They are goal oriented. Even in their goal orientation, it's not practice. Their goal is often to get a higher rating in the internet. This seems super stupid to me. If your aspirations are to be a better player, shouldn't you be more concerned with playing over the board regulated tournaments? ... not internet chess?

You would be surprised by how many people here have never played in an over the board tournament. These internet ratings are the only ratings they have and they associate it with their social status. Seems idiotic, right?

So it may be hard for me and you to comprehend but why would someone put so much time and energy into being a bad sport? Why take 2 days and 25 hours and 59 minutes to make a move in a totally lost position? Why drag that game out until you are checkmated?

This is what you can do! Gobble all of their pieces and don't even try to checkmate them! Under promote all of your pawns. Just don't stalemate them. That would totally make their day ... maybe that is even why some players don't resign. They are hoping you collect a lot of queens and have an accident.

Justs, if someone wanted to maximise the difference in rating points they would get it would be better to take their losses before their wins.

It depends on the way it's calculated, and the difference would probably only be a few points though. Added to that there's how you predict your opponent's rating is going to change...

If the rating of an opponent someone is losing to is skyrocketing then the higher it has climbed by the end of their game - the fewer points they will lose.

Conversely, if an opponent someone is losing to has a rating that is taking a nosedive... the longer they wait until resigning the more the points loss is going to sting.

Of course this doesn't mean that people aren't delaying games; they may not have thought of the above... or the two or three rating points it might amount to might be worth it to them...

Murgen, you totally didn't understand my explanation.

If you can win x number of games before resigning 1, then you have gained points without losing points and your peak rating is higher.

What you are saying is true. It won't matter in the end result, but the peak rating will be different.

If you resign 1 game and then win 5, the discrepancy won't be much as opposed to winning 5 and losing 1.

However, what you're missing is that the peak rating will be higher according to which sequence you do this. If you win all 5 of the 5 that you're winning and you do it before resigning that 1 game, your rating won't be different in the end but your peak rating will be higher, because it didn't include the 1 game you lost.

People can use their time anyway they choose. That's why it's called"their time".