Clock-rundowners...

In a 15+5 game, I had an obvious upcoming mate and 10 minutes on my clock to my opponent's 13 minutes. Rather than resigning or playing to checkmate, he let his clock run for twelve minutes before playing his final moves.

He told me it was an accident--that he was playing three games simultaneously. Accidental or not, such situations detract from the fun of blitz. I was curious if chess.com had an anti-clock-rundowner strategies in the works.

Unpleasant.  I've been stung like that a few times on other sites where I was able to add them to my avoid list.  I don't think we have one here yet.

Excuse my ignorance! Is it really possible to play 3 simultaneous blitz games on our site?

Yeah i agree its happend to me as well.Its just unethical and bad sportsmanship.

bad sportsmanship no doubt

Admins should do something about it.

Happened to me a few times... Sadly, on two of them I got disconnected and lost the matches...

I just remember their names and avoid them like the plague now.

Dozy> Unpleasant.  I've been stung like that a few times on other sites where I was able to add them to my avoid list.  I don't think we have one here yet.

Good idea. I added it to Erik's latest feature request thread. :)

happened to me just yesterday, i got disconnected whilst he was taking his 10 minute move.  Luckily it was unrated but there needs to be someway of avoiding this.  Even a prompt button would mean they couldn't 'forget' they were playing.

wonkyedge> Even a prompt button would mean they couldn't 'forget' they were playing.

Nice! An "Are you there?" button. It becomes enabled after the opponent has not moved for 3 minutes, and they get 3 minutes to respond (or lose).

and if they sit there and click YES and still let it run down? :)

adding people to your BLOCKED list is the best solution.

A bit of devil's advocacy here. I often have three kids and a puppy running around in the background while I'm playing blitz; and on rare occasions I've had to bolt right up from the computer to run to someone who's screaming.

Now before you say it, yes, I agree that when you mix together the offender's absence and a losing position and then bake in a disconnection-prone oven for 10-12 minutes, what you get is something that smells bad. But I just want to say that there's a tiny chance that it's not poor sportsmanship.

erik> adding people to your BLOCKED list is the best solution.

Great, I didn't see that option. For anyone in the same situation, it's under:

http://www.chess.com/home/privacy.html

Thanks. :)

DimKnight> But I just want to say that there's a tiny chance that it's not poor sportsmanship.

I have children, too, but no puppy in the background!

I never disputed that he forgot about our game for twelve minutes due to other games and remembered when the clock hit one minute. From my perspective that doesn't matter, only that it made my evening less fun for twelve minutes or so.

This was a small thing... I just wanted a way to handle it. Life and chess goes on!

naming no names, adding someone here to your blocked list is the thing to do. Its a pity that (un)said person cannot do it I think...

I agree that this is very annoying and bad sportsmanship--when the game is obviously lost to waste everyone's time to lose on time (which is different than being mated) should be punished. I actually called a guy a "jerk" on another site for doing this and he reported me for bad sportsmanship and I had to answer to the moderator. Playing on these sites is supposed to be fun, win/lose or draw and when people are unpleasant they should be banned from the sites.

Why do you care? It's his time he's using up.  He is entitled to his 15 minutes to use as he pleases, no?  Play 5 minute games if you don't like it.

swilkmd> Why do you care?

Are you serious?! Because life is short and precious; I don't plan to waste mine twiddling my thumbs. I don't do that anywhere else.

swilkmd> Play 5 minute games if you don't like it.

Then it's fortunate Erik owns this site and not you, because if my only option were to play 5 minute chess I would never play chess here. He created blocked lists. :)

Its the rules of the GAME. People are allowed to think as long as they want within the time controls. Of course if he knows anything about chess he would realize he is lost. Its something you have to live with in chess especially with long time controls. I would suggest that you play people with higher ratings when playing this long of a time control, or play people you know. Also use the multiple games feature if you know the game will be an easy win.

I do agree there should be block lists(I actually thought that there were?). I also agree that he should have resigned long ago.  I just don't think he should be punished or taunted for it(ie, the "are you there" button), as it is within the rules. I also think a cool feature if you see all of the continuations to mate would be the ability to set up conditional pre-moves.

Wetpaste; 'I do agree there should be block lists(I actually thought that there were?). '

Yes there is, read above post for the link:)

Hi guys,

This was simply rude.

Likesforests, like I've told you before, I don't play live blitz chess. It sounds like unsportsmanship action, but I don't understand the time thing. He carried a game on too long for no good reason other than to resign, right?