instantchess.com

I tried playing on this site tonight. I had a great game against a pretty good player (about 2050 rating). I was better in the ending when all of a sudden, he lost his connection. I waited 60 seconds for him to reconnect. Then I waited another 60 seconds. Then I was advised to wait another ten minutes (although I could have claimed a win during this time). I carried on waiting, then his flag fell and a little window appeared saying "Timer lag correction". it counted down from ten seconds to zero... then restarted 10, 9, 8, ..., 0, and restarted again, and again, and again. I had lost the option to claim the win and now I've been staring at this damn "Timer lag correction" window for half an hour.

This seems like a pretty good site, but if people can avoid losses by disconnecting then it's a bit of a waste of time.

Originally posted by Fat Lady
I tried playing on this site tonight. I had a great game against a pretty good player (about 2050 rating). I was better in the ending when all of a sudden, he lost his connection. I waited 60 seconds for him to reconnect. Then I waited another 60 seconds. Then I was advised to wait another ten minutes (although I could have claimed a win during this time). site, but if people can avoid losses by disconnecting then it's a bit of a waste of time.

I hate it when i'm playing a game and winning and my opponent suddenly disappears or begs me too draw or something like that.
I wonder if the moderator at instantchess knows about this problem.

Kinda sounds like a blitz site too me from what i'm reading.
Have you ever heard of a site called pogo.com? They have a pretty good blitz chess section. And from my experience an opponent cannot cheat you out of a win by running away or disconnecting (on pogo's site, i mean). You should check it out. I think you'd enjoy it. I'm Pavlo43, there.
I've seen a few over 2000 rated players there as well, at times.

-- Paul

Originally posted by Fat Lady
I tried playing on this site tonight. I had a great game against a pretty good player (about 2050 rating). I was better in the ending when all of a sudden, he lost his connection. I waited 60 seconds for him to reconnect. Then I waited another 60 seconds. Then I was advised to wait another ten minutes (although I could have claimed a win during this time). ...[text shortened]... site, but if people can avoid losses by disconnecting then it's a bit of a waste of time.

They can't, you said yourself that you could have claimed a win.

Originally posted by Pavlo87
I hate it when i'm playing a game and winning and my opponent suddenly disappears or begs me too draw or something like that.
I wonder if the moderator at instantchess knows about this problem.

Kinda sounds like a blitz site too me from what i'm reading.
Have you ever heard of a site called pogo.com? They have a pretty good blitz chess section. And fro vlo43, there.
I've seen a few over 2000 rated players there as well, at times.

-- Paul

I used to play at pogo, and it was riddled with players rated 2200+ who got 'assistance' with their games. There was also a huge problem with people who figured out a way of disconnecting so that when you took the option to claim the win, you actually lost! And then there were the people who found a way to let their clocks run out, and when you wait for the auto flag to kick in, viola, you've lost and they have a full clock. It was very frustrating, and these are a few of the reasons I prefer FICS.

ICC, a whopping $5 a month. Otherwise FICS. The rest range from ok to terrible. Whoever designed that 'new' yahoo fiasco needs to be taken out back for a beating.

Originally posted by Fat Lady
I tried playing on this site tonight. I had a great game against a pretty good player (about 2050 rating). I was better in the ending when all of a sudden, he lost his connection. I waited 60 seconds for him to reconnect. Then I waited another 60 seconds. Then I was advised to wait another ten minutes (although I could have claimed a win during this time). ...[text shortened]... site, but if people can avoid losses by disconnecting then it's a bit of a waste of time.

I have been a member there for three years now, and what you described should not happen at all. When an opponent disconnects or genuinely loses his connection, after a certain amount of time the option to claim the win appears and *should* always work. Well....it always has for me 😉

MSN has gotten better, though I still wouldn't recommend playing there. Probably comparable to yahoo, though I haven't tried that one. The only good improvement they made to MSN was to penalize disconnection with a loss, so you have fewer panzies trying to stop their loss. However, if you have a bad connection, you would suffer from this too.

RHP is the most "serious" chess site I have found. Of course, I haven't played ICC, but I didn't need to. My search ended here, I guess you could say

Originally posted by AlphaAlekhine
MSN has gotten better, though I still wouldn't recommend playing there. Probably comparable to yahoo, though I haven't tried that one. The only good improvement they made to MSN was to penalize disconnection with a loss, so you have fewer panzies trying to stop their loss. However, if you have a bad connection, you would suffer from this too.

RHP ...[text shortened]... , I haven't played ICC, but I didn't need to. My search ended here, I guess you could say

RHP is for correspondence/turn-based chess, and ranks among the top in this category (I put it at #2).

ICC and FICS are for live chess.

My rankings:
1. ICC
2. playchess (I play here because buying a new version of Fritz is better economically than paying the fees at ICC). #1 and #2 are very close, each offering certain features that the other should emulate.
3. vacant
4. "
5. "
6. "
7. "
8. "
9. ChessLive
10. FICS
11...99 sites similar to FICS (lots of vacancies)
100. Instantchess
...
1001. yahoo
1002. pogo

you get the idea

Ive been a member at instantchess off and on for 5 years.They use to have a unmoderated forum that was vulgar and nasty! Then somehow the admins at talento ind. let all of the personal info be known to all these members that were real mad at each other. Most of these players left and one of them started his own site called infinia chess.Its totally free and has a pretty good interface.Instant chess is a pretty good site.Theres a lot of good players there.Its a site developed in Russia so you have a lot of good russian players.If you join as premium member you have access to all player stats. They have senior master cat. master cat ect. ect.Oh and a computer abuser catagory which these players have a big red C next to their name. You can choose your time segments and opponents strength of play so your playing players of your same abilities. You can also chat with your opponent if you want.If someone gets out of line you can report that player for Chat Abuse.lol

I apologize for posting on an old thread, but I felt it worth mentioning that in addition to ICC and playchess, worldchessnetwork has a good reputation.

I play on instantchess.com from time to time and I think it's a good site. I like the analysis feature and the way the site is designed. Don't give up on it just yet, what you experienced is very strange and unlikely to happen again.

Came across that time lag thing once or twice myself on instantchess, but i've played there on countless occassions without seeing it. There's some tough players on that site!!! I get my ass kicked there fairly regularly.

Originally posted by AlboMalapropFoozer
I apologize for posting on an old thread, but I felt it worth mentioning that in addition to [b]ICC and playchess, worldchessnetwork has a good reputation.[/b]

Indeed it does; there is nothing wrong with bringing up old threads.