Players shouldn't be allowed to ABORT because of their opponent's rating

Happens to me all the time, my rapid rating is just high enough to where I have to wait 5 minutes for a game, and then the lower rated player will abort it

Live tournaments are a decent solution to playing some higher, some lower and some people closer to your rating. Of course, they can abort those but then they are out of the tourney.

you're the kinda guy that thinks "participation medals" are a necessity, never played sports or coached others. got it. everyone hold hands and play nice.

and the species grows stronger.

• if i think a game will be boring, logically i have reasons to assume such. 
• my boring and your boring are subjective thus the only thing absurd is your lack of understanding 
• "a human being"... um are you really this emotionally stunted? The world will crush you.
• 200 rating points difference  below 2000 are a big deal. for each 200 gap from 1200 up player strength in opening, tactics grow exponentially. i can tell a mile off a 1500 in blitz. 
•  "1st of all" in the middle of a paragraph...
• "ethical debate"...um you were the poster whom began this farce of a thread because someone much better than you didnt want to play
• you suggested in your opening post that his conduct was wrong and should not be allowed
• YOUR HURT FEELINGS MEANS SCREW FREE CHOICE "THOU SHALT PLAY ME"
• nobody in this world owes you a thing. they can play a COMPETITIVE game of chess or not. remove the points and play unrated games for that experience if that's your desire
• you've never done or attempted self learning. a much lower rated player will have ZERO  comprehension of the thought processes/ tactics of a much higher rated player. 
• when you go to school (im bloody convinced youre not an adult) they start you off with your ABCs and add to your knowledge PROGRESSIVELY
• you should view the chess ratings the same way.

we're all doomed lol

I haven't played that many games on this site but get the impression you can't make that many choices regarding your opponent. In all games I've played the opponent gets chosen automatically so an occasional abort is to be expected.

My site is freechess with a Unix like interface with plenty of options. I screen automaticaly for players less then 600 points weaker since I do try to win and there is no bonus there (ELO). Also I select an automatic resign for a disconnection since most of the time these are players bored of a screwed up position and too lame to resign.

You get to 1800.

You beat all the 1800s.

You get to 1900.

You beat all the 1900s.

You get to 2000. You get to play the 2000s. That's what you have to do. You have to earn the right to play in the 2000 pool. The only other way is by asking but you don't want to do that. So yeah... No one gets to play Nadal or Messi just because they think they have a chance in their sport.

The other day I saw Magnus Carlsen has a profile here. Just browsing through I saw some 1200 players daring him to play them. I understand mr Carsen's inactivity here. Somewhere else somebody commented on his earnings in Tblisi as comparable to a simultaneous exhibition. Apparently rates have gone up over the years but with G-Star raw I can see his point.

On freechess I've had people whom (I played a couple of times wanting to play someone else. With my interface BabasChess you get a warning message blocking everything else when someone challenges you. Sometimes people challenge you over and over again so I get tempted to simply block them. Might be unkind but nobody notices anyway so who cares?

@endgamestudy

After reading your original post again I see I misunderstood you. If someone, for whatever reason, does not want to play and aborts chances are both of you immediately hit play again and you get the same thing sevetal times in a row. The server just takes the first available offer. It happens to me at freechess too once in a while.

There are two things you can do about that. Either block that player and solve the problem once and for all or wait a while so he gets his way and then hit play again.

Good luck, Eric

I haven't checked in on this thread for awhile but what is the argument about? The designers of the site decided that people have a right to abort if they don't want to play their opponent but it is not unrestricted. After a certain number of aborted games in a certain period of time the person has to either play or resign without the abort option.

Maybe you should challenge Magnus for the title then.

Although there is no way to tell i would guess that most people who abort a game do so because they prefer to play with white but they happened to get black.

>>but I think 150-200 points isn't going to have any real effect on the game.

I'd say this is not true exactly. A 200 point difference means statistically, that the stronger player will score 76%, so they  are basically playing in another league. Now I'm not saying that there is anything inherently wrong in wanting to play higher-rated players, but from the perspective of those players, they just waste their time without getting anything out of it (and I'm not talking about ratings, but about the learning experience and the fun you get from the challenge involved). I'm only a patzer myself, but apart from the fun factor, I'm playing chess for the challenge involved and if I play someone that is substantially weaker than myself, there's no challenge (most of the time), so I'd rather use that time to play against someone else. Which is why I limit the range in which I search for opponents. And if I don't find a fitting opponent, I'm probably better off using the tactics trainer or reading a chess book (or doing something else, which is completely unrelated to chess).

So would I like to play Carlsen or Nakamura? Well, who wouldn't? But do I think they shoud be forced to play against me just because no one else is there to play them? Of course not,

This all said, I kinda agree that putting out an open challenge and then not accepting the luck of the draw seems a bit immature. If they don't want to play weaker opponents , they have the tools not to do so without repeatedly to abort a game.

I set my opponent's lowest rating at -50 and save, but often I get matched up against lower rated players. that's why I abort some games. I don't know why it happens, it should be fixed.

by the way, I really dislike the new site. it was way easier to create a challenge before. 

>>A 2050 playing a 2200 is almost equal.

No it isn't. That's like saying the german basketball team is as good as the U.S. basketball team; they are playing in the same world championchip tournament after all. We all know that first statement to be false.

Same in chess. As long as the rating is an accurate reflection of the player's strength (which, given enough games, it is), you can be damn sure that 200 points makes a world of a difference. In tournament play, I don't care (you have to take them as they come) but apart from the rare upset, you can be damn sure that I won't lose many points to substantially weaker opponents and I won't win many points from people substantially higher than myself. And the fun games are those in the middle.

So, knowing that, I won't go out of my way and try and dare opponents that are totally above my head, but I also won't go out of my way and try to get easy wins against players,  I want to play against those opponents where I have the most fun and typically, those are the players that are challenging but not unbeatable.

>>Only computers think they will win if they are 7/10ths of a point ahead..etc. The point is it depends on the game.<<

Well, the history of chess proves otherwise.

>>How does it make sense to think it is better to not play at all then to play someone 150 points lower. Even 500 points lower. This completely lacks common sense. <<

Doesn't. Chess isn't my only hobby, and if I don't have enough fun with it, I'm better off doing something else. In a tournament, I  just beat a player with a rating 400 points lower than mine. In this game, I easily won even missing a simple basic mate at move 11 (!). Where's the fun in that?

Just to be clear: This is not about the rating because about that, I couldn't care less. And in that potential scenario at the chess club, if I'm Carlsen and have nothing better to do, I certainly wouldn't mind to play a game with a patzer like myself, maybe even trying to teach him a thing or two.

but in this environment, where (at least in my experience) the only communication between two players is via the game's moves, I will continue to try and maximise my fun by playing against opponents, where I have fun playing. And to limit the range of ratings for an open challenge is a means to that.

 >> but would a 4000 beat a 3000 easily?

Without a doubt, yes.

>> What about all the games I've had mouse slips, blunders, stupid losses on time when I have 3 queens and my opponent has 2 rooks. I have to have all that reflected in my "accurate" rating.

Yes? If you didn't make all these mistakes, your rating would obviously be better, because you'd win more games.

>> I don't know where you are getting the idea that 200 points in rating makes such an extreme difference. 

Well it's basically because I used to study computer sciences and mathematics and know a bit about how the rating system actually works. Hint: it's not quite like you suggest with your examples.

Okey, so I read the first 4 pages, and nobody, really nobody mentioned that there is an option when you set a challenge where you can specify the minimum and maximum rating should your opponent have.

All this people aborting because of being paired with low rated players, are just plain lazy and/or stupid and/or ignorant.

All they have to do is to create the challenge with the minimum of -50 and the maximum to +400 or ∞, and that's it, they will never have to abort a game again.

Yes, sometimes it happens, it is a bug somewhere. I think the minimum and maximum oponnent rating just works (when playing from a browser (not iOS or Android client)) when you create your first challenge, in the subsequent seeks is when it fails.