Timeouts

Hi there. I am quite new to this site & I have diabled my auto win on timeouts. I have won about 4 games on timeouts & obviously gained the points for it, (which I dont really want), now I have another game that as timed out & by quite a few days now. Is there any way of claiming the win without getting the points? Most of my points have come this way & I think it gives me a false rating!! I want to  gain points on my rating by wining games!

What are your thoughts on this?

Cheers  Jay

You could always lose a game, or play unrated games, maybe contact chess.com and ask them to adjust your rating, but ths is the way of things, sometimes your rating gets inflated by time out wins.  IF your opponent couldn't manage his time control then you were beating him, it's possible the position was so sticky for your opponent that he/she could not find the right move in time. 

Resign rather than claim the win. You have two months to decide, after which the win will be automatically awarded.

Well, other players here take the rating points, so, in fact if you don't, only then will your rating not be a true reflection, because you now choose to be rated by a different standard from everyone else  in the pool.

Thanks Jay, I've been pondering the same questions as you have about timeouts.

I've been away from chess for more than a couple decades, and just recently started playing again. Getting a win because an opponent is slow or non-responsive isn't what I want... the experience of resolving the game is more important than just gaining rating points. However, there is a difference in game types, rated or unrated, and when accepting a challenge to play rated, agreement on time is established. Take the points. Ratings that are meaningful take many many games or matches before they reflect your true skill level.

There can be wild rating changes for the first few games. Since there is no provisional rating on the site, a few might have preferred to resign games rather than have a "Highest" rating stat that they will never come close to again.

Before there was a no Auto-win on Time setting this player asked for a ratings reset, back to 1200, due to timeout wins. Being such a slow player, games would have to end in timeout wins or with opponents resigning in frustration. He abandoned the site before he could get to another reset.

	Ekina (1343)	jamal-a (1280)	1-0 (won)	14 days	11	10/12/2008	view
	Ekina (1841)	Jordannes(1300)	1-0 (won)	14 days	8	8/31/2008	view

TadDude - Thanks for the examples. Ekina's rating seemed to be adjusting, close to 500 points in about a month and a half.

With all your TD activities, do you see a lot of losses due to over-rated players getting slaughtered?

What amount of rating 'disortion' due to time-outs should an average player tolerate before requesting a reset?

Ekina's rating is not adjusting, the games are from last year. Once his rating reached 1841 he asked for a reset to 1200 and then won his next game, by timeout of course, to get to 1343. He has long abandoned the site.

The minimum games played setting is 100 games in most of my tournaments so players are fairly reliably rated. Over-rated players being slaughtered is not as obvious as temporarily under-rated players joining tournaments they are too strong for, and slaughtering the reliably rated players.

An average player will not need resets. As you have stated ratings stabilize with games played assuming there are some losses. Ekina was an anomaly as he would win almost all of his games when the other players grew old and died.

Please tell me how it calculated timeouts. Thanks. Greetings !