Stalling : after 10 minutes you forfeit the match

Time : some have plenty but others do not. If you are a parent, employed, you generally don't have a lot of spare time and energy. So your time is precious. When I sit down to play here, it has to be planned out in advance. So when someone thinks nothing of stalling 20, 30 minutes for whatever reason, it is a deep lack of respect of fellow players. Yes, stuff happens during the game and players can be taken away from the game to deal with it. When that happens, be respectful and take two seconds to resign your game. Or if chat is activated for both players, see if the other player minds waiting. I would support Chess.com implementing a 10 minute rule : if you don't move after 10 minutes the match is forfeited. It's clear and simple. I know sometimes a time limit is enforced by the site, maybe if the mouse is not moved for a certain amount of time. But for some reason, in most cases, it just doesn't work, as stallers have clearly found a way around that.

There's a max time for the first move, and a max move for each of the next 9 moves. How long is dependent on the time control.

https://support.chess.com/en/articles/8593801-how-does-game-abandonment-work

Afier that, players can use as much time as they have available, as long as they're connected.

If a player stalls too often, as a percentage of recently completed games, they'll be restricted

https://support.chess.com/en/articles/8598007-what-is-chess-com-s-sportsmanship-policy

You can also report them

https://support.chess.com/en/articles/8584203-what-is-stalling

The long move timer is only on the first ten moves of the game. If you use more than half of the base time control on any of the first ten moves, the game is declared abandoned.

Hello Martin, Chess.com should strive to make online chess as real as OTB. This means trying to discourage people from behaving differently than they would in front of another human being. In a 60 minute game, making it OK to stall 29:00 minutes in the first 10 moves is something that would never occur in real life. That's why the rule should be modified. In OTB, you would feel the pressure. On Chess.com, you clearly do not because the behaviour occurs regularly. And putting the onus on players to report stallers is more proof that the current rule doesn't work. Chess.com is just making it harder on itself by having to investigate complaints that it could easily eliminate, investing time that could be spent on better things I'm sure. Just make it clear : take more than 10 minutes at any time in a 30 or 60 minute game, and the game is over. For speedier games, times take care of themselves.

The current long move timer for the first 10 moves was developed so that they could have one abandonment formula to apply to all live time controls.

Since 90+% of all games played online have 10 minutes or shorter controls, it limits the wait to a maximum of 5 minutes in most games.

However, I understand that waiting 15 minutes in a 30 minute game or 30 minutes in a 60 minute game can be quite annoying. That's why I stopped playing those long controls quite a long time ago.

Perhaps they should have a shorter period for a long move timer in controls longer than 10 minutes.

Hello @justbefair, stats can be misleading. There are more shorter games because they are... shorter. Looking at total minutes played may give a different picture. Since you can theoretically fit 6-10 games in 60 minutes, divide that 90% by 6 and that gives you 15% of time played. Experts encourage newbies to play longer games so that they have time to strategize without feeling too much pressure. For me 60 minutes are ideal and they result in my best and most enjoyable games overall. The great majority of the time it works great, but it only takes one spoil sport to ruin your whole allotted daily chess time. 30 minute games can also be exciting but the added pressure doesn't always give good results.

It's not good forfeiting players for waiting too long to move. That's WHY they are allowed to budget their time as THEY see fit, not chess.com. They chose a particular time control & so did their opponent, if the opponent doesn't like how much time is being used then PICK A DIFFERENT TIME CONTROL! That ain't complicated. Also, it might be a hard position to pick a move so they need the time. And having the threat of forfeiture lurking in the background like a crackhead with a crowbar hiding around the corner to hit u can't be good for ur chess either.

@DreamscapeHorizons No one is arguing the times that both players chose. What's at issue here is time management and respect of your opponent's time. As "THEY see fit" is all fine and dandy with the great majority of people. That's how it SHOULD be BUT you have people who won't think twice about abusing time to try and obtain a psychological advantage, i.e. let's see if I can throw off my opponent by making him or her wait for 30+ minutes after 10 moves. Some people will stop at nothing to try and juice up their rating, but I'm guessing it's mostly kids that live in a world of video game cheats. Chess.com must adapt and remove the online safety blanket that abusers have and make it as if the player were right in front of you. There's no way stallers would delay this way in real life. They would sweat and give up. A 10 minute rule would simulate real life pressure.

I've spent 20+ minutes on a single move in OTB tournaments, multiple times. 🤔

@Martin_Stahl I understand and can appreciate that you were doing it legitimately and not trying to gain a psychological edge. In that case, instead of forcing a 10 minute rule, it could be part of personal options in settings. If I choose to use that option then I could. If you don't like that rule, then you could click No on that setting. And if I choose to match with players that think like me, I could do so and you could do what you want. Currently I don't have that option and what Chess.com is doing to discourage stalling is not efficient at all.

If the issue is time management, then you should probably find another board game to enjoy. By virtue of signing up for an agreed upon time, both you and your opponent earn the right to use the time as you see fit. Time is an essential part of the game, as many have said, the clock is a piece.

You do not get to stipulate how your opponent uses his clock any more than you get to stipulate how your opponent uses his other pieces. There have been many games of chess won by opponents who used their pieces in a manner that the other player didn't like.

@IfPatriotGames Very well said. I'm just trying to get rid of players who rely on stalling regularly to get under the skin of players. This goes against the sportsman like rules of Chess.com but it doesn't have the tools to get rid of the behaviour. The time is there to use as you see fit to play the game, but in real life if you regularly stall, you will quickly earn a reputation. Here, there are 100's of thousands of players, maybe millions all over the world, it's next to impossible to know the players. Remove the security blanket of distance and anonymity provided by the online nature of this platform. BTW I love chess, so don't tell me to find another game to enjoy. Professional sports have all adopted secondary clocks to discourage stalling. Online chess can as well. I'm no longer if favour of imposing a 10 minute rule, but to make it an option that we can chose or not.

I just meant that there are other board games where time management isn't such an issue. Not everyone plays the same way, or for the same reasons. When you claim the opponent is stalling, and want to infringe on their use of time, that's no different than limiting their use of other pieces. Just because you don't like how they use their resources doesn't mean you get to dictate how those resources are used. I play regularly against someone who is very good with their knights, but I have no right to dictate how they use them. I can't say "you can use your knights, but you can only move them once every five moves, never twice in a row".

It's possible the opponent enjoys the game most when there is a time differential. For example, when you have 10 minutes left but they only have 5 minutes left. Or they just spend a lot of time on certain moves. As long as you agree on the time to be used, agree on the pieces to be used, agree on the rules to be used, however someone wants to use those resources is up to them.

There is no ruling on 30 minute rapid games. Why is this?

Actually, I believe that only one world championship was stalled, where the loser straight up walked out mid game, and the victor had to wait until his clock hit zero before claiming victory, that was the first time a game was stalled though, and rules have probably been put in place since then, but it is annoying, and rules should be put in place, I usually read the news, look at email, trade stocks, any of that when games get stalled.

yep, completely normal, I know people who've gone 40.

I want to be clear : my goal is to advocate for change by Chess.com. In the age of AI there should be an algorithm that measures how long players take to move and determines if this is legitimate thinking or stalling. Letting the clock go from 40, 50, 58 minutes to zero multiple times should be automatically detected by Chess.com, no matter if it's after the 10th, 11th or other move. This is NOT using the time as a piece as IFPatriotGames says, or at least it's not in the spirit of the game. Serial stallers should be detected automatically and dealt with speedily. This would eliminate a good chunk of the problem. You will always have people who don't care and will just keep on creating new accounts with new emails.

I agree, there should be something against stalling, maybe if the position is -3 or worse, or you are down at least 3 points in material, and use 20%+ of your origional time in rapid, you forfeit. Enough forfeits leads to a ban, sure they can create a new account, but some won't or will at some point get discouraged.

The site already restricts accounts that do it too often, as a percentage of recently completed games.