Abandoning a game

I prefer to play blitz chess in live chess and the one thing Ive noticed is how many poor losers there are. Everytime you box above your weight and the guy gets whipped, he gives you the discourtesy of abandoning the game which forces you to watch the clock tick by. 

Players that abandon games should be penalised either in points or in time. A player that abandons a game should either drop 1 or 2 extra points or have his reconnect time allowance diminished. Thus if a player persistently abandons games he will get to the point that he loses the priviledge of a legitimate disconnect. If the player still persists with disconnects he should then get penalised in points.

After the player has lost 10 points due to this state his counter gets reset and he is allocated a full disconnect priviledge.

Chess.com encourages players to be kind and show good sportsmanship. Our Fair Play policy expects that players will not:

     intentionally disconnect during games
    stall to make opponents wait unnecessarily
    frivolously abort games because they don't want to play black, etc.

If their account is flagged for breaking this policy they account will be restricted. They will still be able to play games with friends or accept direct challenges, but they will not be able to create or accept open challenges until they play more games that follow the fair play policy.

Their game behavior is detected by our server

told you I m not insane. it drives me absolutely crazy.

This is happening to me quite frequently and occurs when my opponent is losing. Often the wait time is ten to fifteen minutes on a fifteen minute standard game! Once the system even logged me as the losing side because of running out of time when finally my iphone app froze.

Possibly this is what these people are up to? Hoping they will have a won game because of a system and application error?

Sometimes they log off wait a while and log back on. Such cowards.

How are players encouraged exactly ? I know it is requested but encouragement is something different. Regards the thrust of this tread it happens to me also on a frequent basis and nothing ever seems to happen and this unsportsmanly conduct is experienced again and again. Do the game behavior sensors possibly need a tweek ?

Funny I came into the forums today to post a similar thread... 

This also happens to me frequently and I was wondering if there was something that could be done about it. I can think of maybe 2 times that I have had opponents legitimately lose connection, but at least one per day where an opponent disconnects to be a jerk. Personally I don't think that a person should be given the option to reconnect. I understand that the site is trying to assist those with bad connections, but they are far in the minority to those who abuse it. I wasn't even aware that I could flag my opponent. And if I do, will it be followed up?

On a similar note, maybe have an option to chose white or black when searching for live games as many people abort a game if they are black. It is a good site, but a horribly abused one 

+1

I don't think you flag your opponent.  I think the idea is that the server flags players who abandon too frequently.  

I think giving us the ability to flag opponents would be helpful.

I find this to be a questionable statement; I have reported a player who abandons 80%+ of his lost games and NONE of his won ones (every abandon game is with him down and on a lost board), instead of the staff looking into it; they gave me this cut and paste answer.  I doubt the game server detects much; since the player I reported is still doing it, and the server hasn't done squat.

I do agree with the op, the suggestions he made would seem to adress the issue

this issue is my one major negative regarding chess.com with it happening pretty much on a daily basis...i would be dubious around claims of accounts being restricted because, as someone has already pointed out, a lot of the time when you click into their home page there are several comments directed at the sore loser

The server will flag each game your opponent doesn't  play fairly on. If it flagged and restricted on just one game, there'd hardly be any players in live chess at all.

And yes it is a copy/paste response as its alot for me to type out, or type various responses saying the same thing several times a day on support tickets.

Many don't even know that fair play policy is even there :(

when they abandon, you still get the win right?  I'm just curious. 

Yes. If they disconnect and don't reconnect within 2 minutes you get the win.

If they leave their clocks running and don't move, they still lose either by 'game abandoned' or on time.

Thank you for the response Kohai; but I don't think any of us are requesting such draconian actions. I believe this thread was started out on the bases of players who routinely abandon lost games. The poor souls out there with bad connections or buggy computers tend to have a mix of abandon games that are won, lost or undecided.

The ones who do it on purpose have 100% abandon games on lost boards. While at the end of the day a win is a win is a win; it is slightly aggravating to win in that fashion. Personaly, I just type gg, and hit resign. Since I know if I just got up and walked away from the table at a club house, I'd be rightfully drug out in the street and beat. Heck the whole club right down to the six year olds would get in on the beat down...

That 'draconian' action is already in place in live chess and was added only a couple of months ago.

Please don't use the forums to name and shame others.

Since starting to post in this thread, I have now started to block members who play this way. I don't know if it will change anything, but hopefully players that are blocked are also flagged by the server for review? I doubt that I can block all members that do this as it happens so often and I rarely play the same opponent twice unless I intentionally do so.

I was referring to the punishing players who disconnect due to acts of god or accidental mishaps as 'draconian'.

punishing people like the one I listed today who at the time of this *NEW* post has already 'abandoned' 2 lost games since I posted his name is not 'draconian' but falls more in the line of 'just' action.

I applaud your service to us as a official chess.com staff member, and the time this duty must take from you. I understand that you and the others do not have the time or the resources to police the players; therefore it is left to the server to flag said behavior. And so when we write you; you cut and paste the official answer approved and written by chess.com. And if the system worked that would be the end of it. But the problem is the system does not work. It takes no actions against violating players, and the well worded cut and paste answer feels just like that... A well worded cut and paste answer to pacify the complainers. I'm half temped to go out and throw 20 games straight abandoning every one once the board is lost to see if anything happens. I doubt it will; if I go to that much trouble I should at least win the 'Brave Sir Robin' medal... (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4SJ0xR2_bQ)

If you're sure the system works, go follow the player who's name you removed from my post.  Watch him for a month or two, and see what happens without your interference. I bet nothing happens to him, and all his abandons and timeouts will be on lost boards. I do agree with the op idea of diminishing the players disconnect clock, to the point where they forfeit the right to a legit disconnect. As far as players who have 10 minutes left on there clock and a obviously lost board who make you sit there for the 10 minutes so you can get your win there should be a flag button we can hit and have the server review the game. If a player abuses the button, remove the button and send them an email.

I just ended a game (can anyone guess how it ended?) with a player who has four critical comments on his "Notes" regarding how he abandoned games.  Four... and those were only the people who complained to him about it!

Forgive me if I'm skeptical that server detection is doing anything to solve this problem.