Manners

There have been endless threads about players who disconnect. It's poor sportsmanship (usually), but can be an internet problem. I've disconnected involuntarily from games I was winning and others where I was clearly worse. Only the latter seem suspicious.

Lately, though, I've seen a growing number of disconnects from players with ratings 300+ below me. Are they pitching a fit because they lost to someone who should be expected to beat them at least 80% of the time?

Pathetic.

it's funny how the vast majority of opponent disconnections, and I mean 99%+, happen immediately after a blunder or a moment in the game where it has become clear that the disconnector's position is very bad.

In my games, it's highly doubtful this is related to random dropped connections due to a poor internet.

Literally I have not had an opponent randomly disconnect (meaning, not immediately after a blunder or the situation on the board becoming clear that they're dead in the water) in over a year.

that's been my experience at least. it's true that it could be a random dropped connection due to an internet issue, but overall that's not very likely. I can't recall ever being "saved by the disconnect" where an opponent was pounding me and then suddenly disconnected. If disconnects were random that would be expected to happen fairly often (and it does not).

i agree with you that it is pathetic behavior. when a player 300+ points below you loses, they should literally be thanking you for the lesson on the board.

I try to thank players -- especially significantly higher rated than me -- whenever I can, especially after getting crushed. It's a respect thing. People need to learn to be thankful for the lesson and then move on (or, better yet, start reviewing the game to try to learn something). Disconnecting out of spite accomplishes nothing and makes the higher-level players less likely to want to interact with players below their level.

Sorry, I know I'm beating a dead horse and preaching to the choir. But it the topic gets me a bit charged up

@plux

Yesterday, my iPad disconnected from the site while I was playing. Happily, it reconnected before I lost from a disconnect. My position was dominant and I went on to win.

Well-said.

disconnecting isn't as bad as deliberately stalling, since you get awarded a win after just a couple minutes. that and stalling is done purely out of spite. fair play should treat stalling as seriously as cheating imo

I don't want you and your spam on my thread.