Auto-resign.. Can this be turned off?

I don't see any fair uses in Auto resign. You wouldn't resign a board game just because the internet on your computer suddenly tuned off.

What? So you want people to be able to suddenly abandon a lost game by simply disconnecting their internet?

You also want the quality of games to go down massively by allowing people to play with bad internet and not have any downsides to it themselves? 

No thanks, it's fine how it is.

I just had a game where my opponent accidentally blundering their queen with 41 seconds left in a bullet game. After I captured the queen, my opponent just let the time run until timeout. Now, where is the auto-resign when we need it? 🤷‍♂️

Happens to me, too, at some time rendering me lose streaks. Sometimes even when I just made a great move, making me think my opponent is cheating with some kind of program or something.

Right. If I have time on my clock, I expect to be able to use it. If I have 4min 36s, if I want to use 4min 35s to find the right move, that's my business.

Failing that, if there's going to be a requirement to move every n seconds, then the time control needs to be clear about that when it's chosen, ie, "move in 10s" or such. Not as a surprise pop-up during the game with plenty of time on the clock.

As for disconnections: assuming that the clock carries on ticking in the game just the same, the only person a disconnection is inconveniencing is the player experiencing the disconnection, because they won't be able to move yet even if they know how they want to move.

As for their opponent, they can just sit tight and wait for the player experiencing the disconnection to regain it and move, or else lose on time.

If you can't wait 5 minutes to win on time, don't sign up for a 5 minute game, because that time is your opponent's to use how they please.

Sportsmanship is all very well and good, but that is for players (and if necessary, intelligent arbiters—human, or a much better AI than is being used) to execute.

What next? Auto-resign if the eval drops below a certain level? Auto-resign if I lose a piece? Auto-resign because I played an unsound gambit and am objectively lost out of the opening? Auto-draw immediately at the start of the game because the position is equal?

You make some good points. I think they need to implement a system similar to what poker websites use. If you rarely dc and you do, it doesn't auto-resign you it lets the timer run out. Somewhat of a time bank. You get 10mins every week or something. So if you play a 10min game and you somehow disconnect it will run the clock down instead of just resigning after 1min automatically.

The reason for auto-resign is because of people that simply close their browser after blundering. Letting the time run out and sort of griefing their opponent in the process. 

I agree with this. And the last points/questions are really something the developers can look into to decide if sportsmanship is not observed during the game hence the "behavior" of lagging or "disconnecting." You might have executed a brilliant gambit and still need a few more moves to complete the game. But if unfortunately if you got disconnected, it might be good to have other game outcomes than just "Opponent won on time," like "Player1 abandoned the game" or "Player2 lost due to disconnection."

Since a game record also displays the remaining time of each player during a particular part of the game, one may end up confused if he/she reviewed a game and saw, let's say, player1 lost on time but still have some 20 seconds left. But if it said "Player1 abandoned the game" or something like that, that would be better. It may not matter for some, but I think there are others who would want to have that too. Especially if a certain player always abandons a game or runs time to lose on time. Because I don't think that's good behavior while playing.

AnastasiaStyles wrote: "Right. If I have time on my clock, I expect to be able to use it. If I have 4min 36s, if I want to use 4min 35s to find the right move, that's my business."

For over the board games, formal tournaments, or matches between friends, I'd tend to agree with you that your time should be your time. But I think casual online games with strangers have a rather different dynamics.

People abandoning games out of spite on online games is very unsportsmanlike but unfortunately it's quite common. And when you're playing with strangers, there's basically no repercussion for unsportsmanlike behaviours.

In over the board games, your opponent can't just leave the table, they have to wait the game out themselves on the table and there's a good likelihood they'll be playing the same person frequently or they may be banned from a club, so abandoning games out of spite would be rather unheard of. Also, matchmaking in over the board games are much slower compared to online games, in over the board, you often have to wait for other games to finish before you can be matched with different opponent anyway so finishing games early doesn't really do you much.

I've over 1000 games in chess.com and no one has ever done that to me. How is it common?

You've never had the game auto-resign etc? It's not suuuper common but it does happen. The game quality is fine overall the system is working and people get punished for doing it I think.

I've not seen anyone talk about this from the other perspective so I'll chime in. I don't usually have trouble with internet connection myself, but what annoys me is when I'm in the middle of a game, there's a very interesting position on the board, my opponent disconnects because of bad connection (the indicator of bad connection can be seen next to their name) and it DOES NOT LET ME WAIT FOR THEM! Enemy usually still has some time on the clock, I want to wait for them to connect and finish the game! Instead, the game is resigned for the opponent by force. How annoying is that? 

a lot annoying

I don't understand all the arguments about 'getting extra time by disconnecting'... the clock still runs down while it waits for you to reconnect,  and the other player gets to look at the board while you're reconnecting and running down your clock, I don't see the advantage.  

One option, to allow both systems to to ask the other player 'XX has disconnected, do you want to Win | Draw or Wait. (If the other player is massively winning but disconnects, I'd take a draw to be fair if I could) The default could be the current way of working 'Auto Win when Opponent disconnects' (like auto-queen) but let people choose 'ask me' as a fair-play option.  Possibly only in Rapid +  it would be far too distracting in bullet.

Yeah, I find this auto resign business especially annoying, earlier I was playing a bunch of rapid games and the auto resign message had substantial neurological effect, it made it difficult to focus on the game basically, chess.com sucks, I til they change it I don't know if I'll even play.

Also, I have a carpy device which loses internet all the time, so the resigning has got to stop, yes it's annoying when someone spites you but GET OVER IT! YOU'RE NOT TWO YEARS OLD YOU CAN WAIT A COUPLE MINUTES FOR YOUR OPPONENT TO MOVE!!! There, I got IT out of me, I don't like yelling but sometimes all caps speaks louder

we can't even change this silly 20 sec auto resign in private tournaments, sometimes I forgot to open the page before the tournament starts and before I login I see the other person won because of this auto resign, atleast there should be an option to increase this time or disable it all together in  private tournaments 

This is absurd! Why am I auto-resigned after 20 seconds of lost connection when I still have 5 minutes on my clock?