OK so this is the scenario: You start a game with a player whose
ranking is higher than your own and play a few moves each. Your
opponent stops playing and you get the chance to claim a time-out
victory but instead you decide to wait and send reminders. A week
later you realise that many of your opponent's opponents in his other
games have claimed time-outs and his rating has dropped to
something silly like 1100 rather than his actual 1400+. It is at this
point that he comes back, beats you and puts a severe dent in your
rating!
This has happened to me more than once and I'm getting to the
stage where enough is enough - so unless we get some sort of
automatic time-out system it's 'No more Mister Nice Guy' ;-)
Rhymester
i totally agree (at least with your frustration). it seems that the
current system encourages players to claim an immediate timeout to
gain as many points as possible (1400 vs 1100 for example).
are there disadvantages to calculating points based on the
players rating when the game was started instead of realtime? what is
generally done on other sites? is there a rule that governs this issue?
i too have been bitten by this: its personally offensive when you are
WINNING a game and your opponent claims timeout victory - not only
because of the rating. I was sick for a few days and couldn't even get
out of bed, never mind log on and play, and came back to find i had
lost 2 games in which i was
a: in a strong position
b: standing to benefit in rating
so...
...one solution would be: cancel the 'rated' nature of the game as
soon as timeout victory is claimed, that way there would not really be
any point claiming victory. after all, its not like we all have the
bandwidth or time to play 'clocked' matches, precisely why this type of
service is popular bla bla bla. i think its rude to claim a victory like
that...
l8r
O_O
i'm sure we all understand your frustration about unjustly being on the
receiving end of the timeout function but...
i've also played too many players who ignore games with me when we
near the end of the match and they're in a losing position.
this isn't a perfect system. rated games come with caveats.
If a player accepts a three day timeout and does not play in that time
they ought to stop crying and get on with the game. I've never heard
of someone playing in a timed tournament being given more time
when their clock ran out. Yes, at times a player may lose some game
for illness or other reasons, That is the breaks of life.
..and some people don't like it one bit:
I quote:
"you piece of shit........aol....has been screwed up for a week.....it just
opens back up today......and you claim the win on me.......now i know
how you have won as many games as you have.....why do you even
bother playing"
this came from ozhkozh who says AOL has been screwed up for a
week - well I'm on AOL as well and haven't noticed it but even so I
don't think this sort of reaction is at at warranted. I did a search first
and saw that there were other timeouts being claimed and as I
explained in my previous post to not claim could be suicidal.
The sooner the time-outs become automatic the better!
Rhymester