New Blitz Quirk(s) in Live Chess !?

Hello, just inquiring if anyone has had the difficulties I have recently, in the LIVE CHESS area. First to state a Good Thing ... which is that since changing to Safari or Mozilla-FireFox, now I am hardly ever disconnected~!

But that leads to one of the quirks. It seems that now when others all get disconnected at the same time, for me it just freezes the board to prevent moving, sometimes. (I guess that is not so bad considering most others get knocked clear off of the area ... except my opponent of course! )

But the one that is really giving me a headache is that BOTH my Safari or Firefox seem to have days, more often than not, where they will steal my last 2 to 4 seconds off the end of nearly all my games that day, making a lot of losses. It's been rather like a roller coaster. Climbing back up to 1600's on the No Theft days, or periods ... then the plummet back to 1400 when it starts to act up. (Usually 30 to 50% of my losses on such day will be from the time clock weirding -out that way, at an estimate. Especially if playing one minute instead of 2 minutes.) And I can't seem to adjust to this factor, such as pretending to know I will lose at 5 seconds left for EG.

Is anyone else having this problem? Figured out any way to correct it? I know I have seen a couple others lose on time when my side of their clock showed them as having up to 4.6 seconds left. Also had a guy calling "TIME" to me in the Chat Box, but I had 22 seconds showing as remaining on my clock, [ and also it said it was still his move ] . Whereas his went down to ZERO.00 yet it did not award the game to either of us. So he abandoned it, then his clock that I could see instantly went back UP to showing him at 50 seconds left and me staying at 22 seconds ?!? Could he have had a computer hooked in, or something? I wonder because on another site where they allowed computers to be code connected somehow, and often computer games would not time forfeit .... even tho the player, then the computer (or vice-versa) would go to zero time left eventually.

we are going to make this all better next week :) we are adding LAG indicators so that people know when and who is lagging.

Great to hear -- I think visibilty into this will really help people understand why the clock adjustments (and even disconnects) occur when they do.

I still think the flag is using the wrong clock.  The most obvious example is if you have a premove set with less than 0.5 seconds (possibly this time is dependent on your lag) then it will not make the move and you will lose.  Also, it often seems to start rejecting moves and give obvious 'computer thinking' signs of something happening before your timer runs out, and then flags you when it does.  Also sometimes you can move as soon as you see a move and drop a piece on a square instantly but it still costs you half a second or so as if it's only accounting for half of the lag, like the main timer is running before you see the move, or possibly it's accounting for lag sending and receiving the move but maybe there is more lag for the livechess window to display it. 

hrmm. i have not experienced this. but i will certainly investigate.

Hi Erik ~ Great to hear about Lag Indicators. I've never seen any before. It sounds interesting to see in action.

   Wondering; another blitz site I play uses a program called TIMESEAL.  It's job is to track & deduct any transmission aor lag time involved during a move, from the total which gets charged to the players clock. It does seem to do that quite well. 

   So also wondering if TIMESEAL program [or one similar !?] is available for a site such as yours to acquire for use? Or if it is something which I could use here somehow, if loaded on the other site to my active browser? Or if CHESSdotCOM is considering getting something like it in-the-works for the future>?

   Some added info now re [mentioned above] preloaded moves. I notice that if my opp moves very fast, while I'm in the middle of trying to input my next move as a preloaded one, ...often they catch me before it gets accepted, then the system takes back my move attempt to where that piece started from. Thus refusing my preload, so I must move it again, or some other piece instead. That does not seem unreasonable. Probably it is already known to you, but I wanted to be sure. Also to mention it [in case anyone else was wondering] because one opp accused me of Cheating ... I think due to some of my moves, or preloads, interrupting his move-attempt(s) in that way !? 

   The other thing I see about preloaded moves... When I do preload one, it actually takes more time for the system to move it upon the board for me if it is a "long move" (eg. Re1-to-e7), than it takes to make a "short move" for me (eg. Bf1-to-g2). And so the "long move" also takes more time from my clock than the "short one" ... just as if a real hand was moving on a real board~! ...and so I have found it beneficial to make "short-moves" when down to final second(s). Just as in real otb blitz, a player tries to make his moves short & close-to-his-clock-button during last seconds~! In that respect it is quite realistic & makes me curious if it is designed to be that way ...or does your system actually NEED the extra fraction of a second to make the Long-Move ?!

   All very interesting.  Regards, Craig A.C {computer-neophyte}

thanks baron!

we do use a TimeSeal-type program. that is why you see the clock adjust depending on lag.

as for the cancelling of premoves, no, we need to fix that.

as for premoves taking longer, that we need to look into.

I experience this all the time, however I believe it is a curious issue.  Pre-moves do not exist in ordinary blitz play and so is it realistic (or fair) to be able to make a move that takes no time at all?  I would be interested to hear the admins' thoughts on this.

The fairness of premoves aside, I've definitely experienced what sstteevveenn
 and broze are describing - timing out even when the move was put in, say, with 1 second left.

I haven't had this problem.  However, once I was playing and I lost on time and my opp had .23 seconds.  I had a rook and a king and they had a king and the game was considered a draw by insufficient material.  We were both baffled but, eh... things happen.

If you are consitently losing on time by 5 seconds or so, what I would do is add 1 minute to the clocks.  Or, use Fischer time (IE. 5 mins +2 seconds)

aa-

Yert, if you ran out of time and your opponent only had a king left, then the game is considered a draw by "insufficient material." Basically it means that your opponent didn't have the kind of material necessary to ever checkmate you. He can't win if he can't even create a hypothetical checkmate, therefore he is only awarded a draw. 

Thankfully I have not yet encountered any problems on Live Chess with my system operating Google Chrome. Glad to see Erik and the Crew working so diligently with those suffering difficulties. Keep in mind that all major sites still deal with many of the problems expressed in earlier posts. Though frustrating, it is an issue everyone is still trying to resolve.

once this gets developped will we have tourneys for live chess?

yes, one day :)

Great to hear~!

I recently played a game where I "lost" by time forfeit. Yet my opponent had only king and knight. It should have been a draw, but Live Chess game him (or her) the win.

Is this a general bug in the program?

can you provide a link to that game? you probably had a pawn or something else, and you CAN get mated if you still have material and he has just a knight!