"please don't time me out"

You have to draw the line somewhere. Simply honoring the time control makes it an easy decision. Nothing to feel guilty about.

why bother playing if you don't accept the rules , the blokes got no character.

My six year olds (just starting on chesskid.com) know the rules and laugh if they get timed out.

sports sport

My only time outs in all the years here are from a power outage. I had no control over that. I don't blame my opponents, however. I would have taken the skull too.

I had this happen to me once, when the said person went on a vacation. The opponent had chosen the time controls, not me, and it was 1/0 game. He had also started the game barely a week earlier, so presumably he had know he would be gone. I ended up taking the skull.

If the circumstances had been different, I probably would've waited. Now I'm not so sure I would. If you're going to be gone for a week or even if there's a chance that you're gone for a week, don't play games with timecontrols that don't allow for that. I'm occasionally gone for a weekend, so I don't generally play 1/0 games. If you don't do the same, you have only yourself to blame.

If you're a non-subscriber, if your opponent is dragging out a clearly lost game or if he/she stops moving altogether, fair enough. Take the skull. But I joined RHP to play chess, not to hand out life lessons or inflate my rating. When a skull appears in an undecided game, especially a tactically complex game, I get annoyed because I want to play it out. So I'll wait. Allowing an opponent extra time for a move does not give him/her any significant advantage (for multi-day time limit games). I've had several games where an opponent has overstepped the time limit for one move, then played inside the time limit for the rest of the game. So I'm not buying the argument that not taking skulls encourages time-wasting. It merely deprives yourself (and your opponent) the chance to play out a chess game over the board - where chess should be decided.

I've yet to hear anyone claim that taking skulls increases their enjoyment of chess. But not taking them certainly does.

Originally posted by Vartiovuori
I had this happen to me once, when the said person went on a vacation. The opponent had chosen the time controls, not me, and it was 1/0 game. He had also started the game barely a week earlier, so presumably he had know he would be gone. I ended up taking the skull.

If the circumstances had been different, I probably would've waited. Now I'm not so s ...[text shortened]... t generally play 1/0 games. If you don't do the same, you have only yourself to blame.

It is part of the RHP rules. You are supposed to click the skull. That is the way RHP designed it so you can claim the win on time. Even in OTB chess one must claim his win on time; it doesn't happen automatically.

Originally posted by RJHinds
It is part of the RHP rules. You are supposed to click the skull. That is the way RHP designed it so you can claim the win on time. Even in OTB chess one must claim his win on time; it doesn't happen automatically.

You're not "supposed" to click the skull. The rules allow the choice of clicking or not clicking. And from RHP's FAQ:

Please be considerate with timeouts – send a reminder if possible

Originally posted by Surtism
If it's a friendly game then I never time out.

What's a "friendly game" when it comes to chess? Unrated?

Originally posted by divegeester
What's a "friendly game" when it comes to chess? Unrated?

A game against friends that is not a Clan, league, tournament, siege or ladder game.

Originally posted by divegeester
If you recieved this PM from your opponent, who then without waiting for your response, went off of a few days and exceeded the games time controls. Would you time them out?

Nothing more than the thread title? Click, sooner than if he hadn't sent it. Without the message, I'd have at least sent a last reminder. With the message, I know that he doesn't need reminding, so I take the skull.

If there is a good excuse in the message, I might not take the skull. And no, a holiday is not a good reason - it's among the worst. Being in the middle of a natural disaster may be a good reason, and I've refrained from taking a skull on one such occasion.
But even then, a tornado coming along when you live in Tornado Alley and know that they're a regular occurence in your life? Sorry, you knew that in advance, you should've taken it into account. A tsunami, that's more like it. Or being hit by a bus.

Richard

I had a skull clicked against me once just a few mins after the timeout. As I thought it had been a really interesting game up to this point, I asked the opponent why he had been so quick to do so. Had I misread the game?

The response was something along the lines 'I was really enjoying it as well and was looking forward to seeing how it would turn out.'

Weird.

Originally posted by geo86012
You're not "supposed" to click the skull. The rules allow the choice of clicking or not clicking. And from RHP's FAQ:

Please be considerate with timeouts – send a reminder if possible

Good point.

But I think we have already clarified on this forum that some players on this site are impervious to anything outside of narrow confines of the rules.

A polite and reasonable request from the people who built and run the website that they enjoy so much is not going to change their minds.