While polishing up my quick skills for our state’s blitz championship, I decided to spend the measly $1.50 and play in the USChess Live quick tournament last night.
I was doing well with a good score and played a guy who was rated about what I was.
I dropped a queen, but decided to play on. I happen to get into a drawish position. My opponent suddenly “lags” out (for you non geeky folks, his internet connection had some problems). He was disconnected for around 15 minutes. We waited around for 10, then the next round started.
The TD gave me a full point win, which I felt was unfair to my opponent, since he had basically 2 pawns, a rook versus my 1 pawn and a rook, though the rooks and I was to win a pawn, it was certainly going to be a draw.
My question is, does USChess Live have special rules about disconnection, etc for rated games?
How can we tell if your opponent went off-line because of a connection error? Your opponent could have a personal emergency, going off-line without telling you. There are a number of reasons why your opponent went off-line, by free will or a connection break. A flag fall is a flag fall, you had mating material you won the game.
You also have to think of the other players in the tournament, as what you are asking for is an adjournment. How do you want to organize you and your opponent, with the director to be back on-line to finnish the game? Having a game ten event, the tournament was not organized to have any adjournments. Asking for an adjournment, would only delay the rating of the tournament – that would be unfair to the rest of the players.
Asking the director to change the win to a draw, because you feel it was a draw is not even legal. Asking the director to change the results of the game, even if both players are in full agreement is illegal. As it would be a pre-arranged game, it would also effect the ratings of you and your opponent.
You need to work on your prefixes. It wouldn’t be pre-arranged because it wasn’t arranged before the game. If you want to call it anything it would be post-arranged.
I once had a player receive a phone call that his wife was being taken to the hospital, so he had to leave in the middle of the game and he asked me to explain it to his opponent and mark it up as a forfeit. When I went to his opponent, he pointed out that the player who had to leave was up a pawn, with a definite edge if not completely winning. He said that he didn’t feel right taking a win under these conditions and that a draw seemed more equitable. I marked it up as a draw.
Can you prove they did not email each other before the tournament? Can you prove it was not fixed before the tournament? Can you prove they did not email each other before the tournament that one player would go off-line? I do not know, I cannot prove it was pre-arranged or not, can you?
If I was at your tournament and my flag fell, with my opponent having mating material, would you give me a draw because I was not watching my clock? The computer can go off-line, that is a risk we all have when were on the computer. If my computer goes off-line I cannot prove it went off-line because of a connection error or it was free will.
Thunderchicken, you cannot prove a persons word on the computer. People can send emails or other modes of information, that fake their age and gender. People can use anyones name on the email, do you really trust everything you read on the computer?
I have a feeling you don’t work in IT, correct? Have you done a basic search on the internet about the wild claims you make, or do you sit at your computer with a tin foil hat thinking that it’s reading your thoughts?
Would you like for me to explain to you how I know you get disconnected against your will in a ChessLive game, or will you continue to make stuff up and tell me I’m wrong, even though I’ve been doing this for over a decade?
What about the people that lost their game because their clock flag fell. At my last tournament, white had two queens and three pawns, black only had two pawns, white lost the game because the flag fell. Should I feel sorry for white because he wanted to use his own analog clock than a digitial clock. White used the analog clock, there was risk to use the analog for a flag fall.
Your opponent and yourself both have the same risk to play on-line, the connections can be broken. You both share the same risk, your opponent lost the connection, your opponent lost the game. There is always risks in life, you and your opponent both had the same equal risks. Your connection could had been broken, just like everyone that registered for the tournament. All the players share the same equal risks, you all accepted the risks before the start of the tournament.
Thunder, I’ve been working in IT since the early 1970’s.
I GUARANTEE that I can find a way to fake a disconnect that you will not be able to prove was intentional. If nothing else, I’ll just walk over and kill the power on my DSL router, which goes down 2-3 times a week anyway. (I think it’s been a bit flakey since my house got struck by lightning.)
However, getting back to the original subject, try writing a set of rules for dealing with online chess issues, there are a lot of situations to cover.
My advice: take the points. If you play online long enough, you’ll be on the other end of that issue sooner or later.
So what would the reason be for in this situation? The game was logged on the server, he was up a pawn. How can that be determinded intentional.
Yes, I agree there’s a way to fake disconnect. But there are rules set up on ICC and on USChess live that before a final decision is made, they look at the position.
It does not matter how you got disconnected, all the players share the same equal risk to get disconnected. Life is like a lottery, there are risks in life. There are expected number of risk factors in life, one risk factor was being disconnected. Your opponent won the lottery for that type of risk factor, your opponent was disconnected. The next time you can win the lottery, you could be disconnected.
You can send me all the email you want, to prove your opponent was disconnected in error over disconnected by free will. The risk factor are all equal, as all the players have the equal risk to disconnect by free will or disconnected in error. If you want to prove one over the other, that is fine but I cannot change the judgment of some other director. In fact I would not change the judgment, as the risks was equal to all the players.
Hi! Okay, I haven’t played on USCL for probably two years now because of issues with it and play on ICC so don’t know what USCL does lately…having said that -
At ICC, when your opp disconnects because of being booted/lagging, the computer will hold open the connection for two full minutes waiting for them to reconnect. Then it adjourns the game. I don’t know if it does same in tournaments because I haven’t played in one.
In case of a tournament though, most places seem to require a player to log back in before the start of the next round or forfeit loses and won’t be able to rejoin the event.
Even though I understand that sometimes you get booted off and cannot get right back in (took me an hour to reestablish my DSL connection the other night after help from my DSL provider), at the same time, in order to correctly pair the next round of the event, you need the result of the last game. Players with 2 points play 2 points, etc.
Also, even though you didn’t feel right about taking the win, in fact, you do have the win. If your opponent doesn’t reconnect, then he has to forfeit. It is one of the “risks” of online chess. Being down on material but winning on time might not feel right, but it is a large component of quick chess as opposed to regular time controls.
I am a strong proponent of the essence of the game so wouldn’t feel badly about that win. What I feel badly about is playing a game with R & K vs. R & K and losing because I have 20 seconds, my opp has 25 seconds and won’t accept a draw because they can win on time. Online there is no insufficient losing chances rule.
Unfortunately, this is one of the differences between online and over the board play. There are some limitations to online chess due to necessity.
Still glad to hear other players who appreciate chess essence.
