Quitting games right from the start

@Cedur216 said in #9:
> @skystalker 1) you don't see when the banning comes, so how can you claim it should be quicker
> 2) even if people know they would lose rating, it sometimes happens by accident or disconnect

Daft thing to say ,if it happened more often non starting of games would not be so frequent ,as for disconnecting this rarely happens during game play .
Contentious response .

@Cedur216 said in #9:
> sometimes happens by accident or disconnect

It happens to me quite often that I "pause" (or so I thought) a tournament but somehow the tournament still counts me in.

okay, then, what does it mean "a game started" ?

both opponents are sitting at the table, handshake, the clock is ticking, white opens with 1. SNf3 , black stands up after some considerations (maybe thinking: ...well, this move... not my taste of coffee... too many options... boring stuff... ), doesnt make a single move, although ready to play (!), (signing the notation sheet, handshake, sitting at the table) suddenly leaves the building, and was not seen anymore for the intire "playing" time... white ask the arbiter, the arbiter doesnt know of the disappear from black and ask someone to look for the missing player. after an hour or so a guy arrived and says, he couldnt find black, chief arbiter decides the game should end with a loss for black because Fair play rules were violated.

example from Spasski vs Fischer WM 1972:

2. Game

Fischer–Spasski 0:1
Reykjavík, 13. Juli 1972

not played


Fischer lost due to failure to appear.

so, in conclusion, the game is STARTED when both players agree to play and therefore the clock gets set in motion, either through arbiter or player - in online games - with the algorythm of the playing site after both player agree to play.

if somebody leaves during an online game, which was started, without making a move, he violates the rules of fair play.

on lichess nothing happened in such a case. the violating players get an automated message, the game is not counted although technically started, and thats it.

@Pipapoh #13
No-one is disputing that the player who doesn't make a move is violating the rules of fair play and should receive sanctions for it. In Fischer's case in his world championship match that was a zero in his match score which he had to pull back by playing brilliantly later on. Here on Lichess the player is sanctioned too. You mention the automated message but it goes further than that if the player persists in starting games but then not playing. They are banned from playing for a short time, then a longer time, and I believe their account can even be disabled completely if they carry on doing it. There is no argument about this.

The point of contention is whether the rating should be adjusted. The only argument put forward here so far for taking rating points off the offending player is as a deterrent. But that deterrent is already in place with the warning and later sanctions preventing them from playing here. Meanwhile we need to keep the rating system as accurate as possible, which means not changing the ratings for games where one of the players makes no moves.

You guys know what, aborting a few games is perfectly allowed. Even staff members make use of it. It is not allowed to abort REPEATEDLY or CONSISTENTLY. There are comprehensible reasons, such as:
-> you don't like the rating difference or you feel the other guy might be underrated
-> you don't like to play russians or people with provocative profile text
-> you misclicked in the lobby
etc.

@Cedur216 said in #15:
> You guys know what, aborting a few games is perfectly allowed. Even staff members make use of it. It is not allowed to abort REPEATEDLY or CONSISTENTLY. There are comprehensible reasons, such as:
> -> you don't like the rating difference or you feel the other guy might be underrated
> -> you don't like to play russians or people with provocative profile text
> -> you misclicked in the lobby
> etc.

I'd agree that the third reason (misclick) can be a justifiable reason but I take issue with your other two examples.

My profile text and my rainbow flair are considered by some people to be "provocative" and in my more paranoid moments I sometimes suspect that players occasionally refuse to play me because of my profile. My position would be that who a person is, what they believe, etc, is irrelevant where a game of chess is concerned.

How is "you don't like to play russians or people with provocative profile text" a comprehensible reason?

@OctoPinky said in #17:
> How is "you don't like to play russians or people with provocative profile text" a comprehensible reason?

There have been loads of people expressing discomfort with playing russians, so it is a personally comprehensible reason for many. Note that "comprehensible" doesn't imply "fair".

@Cedur216 said in #18:
> There have been loads of people expressing discomfort with playing russians, so it is a personally comprehensible reason for many. Note that "comprehensible" doesn't imply "fair".

Sorry, I misinterpreted it. Thanks for the explanation.

@Cedur216 said in #9:
> @skystalker 1) you don't see when the banning comes, so how can you claim it should be quicker
> 2) even if people know they would lose rating, it sometimes happens by accident or disconnect

they give a sh*t of the banning, because they can make amends if they start their games regulary!

the same with letting time run out in a lost position. happens often because of frustuation, not of annoying the opponent. if you normally resign and have received a message of a possible temperally ban before, the system benifits it and the first case of letting time run out instead of resigning, is cleared. if this is not the case, this doesnt matter, because people believe this!
but i admit, the message of a temporally ban disziplines player, who resign in a lost position. the higher you get in rating, the behavior of letting time run out decreases significantly.

i face 2 cases with quitting right from the start:

1) opponent doesnt like to play against my first move
2) opponent realizes that he plays against a weaker rated (!) player and fears losing points

i estimate 30% of my games with white i realize an opponent which quits right from the start.