Very upset with U-chess!........

I just finished a game with an opponent. It was a 5 minut time out with no time bank. As we are playing along I watch the clock jump up and down with just about all moves. My opponents time finally ticks down to nothing and I watch him hit '0'. Several times. (ten times to be exact). My time keeps ticking down and I am sure that it should do the same thing when I hit zero.........nope, the guy beats 'me' by a time out. What the heck.....Is this normal, because I see post's in the forums there about it, and it goes un-answered? If it is normal (which I hope it is not). I don't think I will be playing there anymore, nor will I recomend it to anyone. It is way too frusterating to lose to an opponent when you should win.


Very upset when screwed out of a game!
Mike

As I go through the forums I have discovered this gem.

"Poster Message
mateulose

11 Sep '04 06:39

A little bug you guys should probably know, if you perpetual check your opponent, the game does not auto draw. I have exploited this bug a few times by perpetualizing my opponent to gain time on the clock in incremented games, then stoping the checks, and then sometimes even geting the win. This is a useful little "cheat" (and I say cheat in quotations because your opponent can technicly do the same thing) if you are very low on time and ahead in material, for example, you perpetualize their king to gain more time, then get a routine win from a surplus in material."



I am not happy about this situation at all. This is what happened to me.

Mike

Originally posted by rapalla7
I just finished a game with an opponent. It was a 5 minut time out with no time bank. As we are playing along I watch the clock jump up and down with just about all moves. My opponents time finally ticks down to nothing and I watch him hit '0'. Several times. (ten times to be exact). My time keeps ticking down and I am sure that it should do the same ...[text shortened]... to lose to an opponent when you should win.


Very upset when screwed out of a game!
Mike

Read some more forums.

Its got something to do with internet lag.

D

Originally posted by Ragnorak
Read some more forums.

Its got something to do with internet lag.

D

I have been buzing through them. It is a prevailing problem that has not been dealt with, and should be immediatly or what is the point of even having it?
Maybe I should calm down about it, but it irks me to no end that some guy just got my points when I should have gotten them, and it even makes me madder that it may be possible to fool the clock. Material up, material down does not matter if your opponent cannot beat the clock.

Mike

Originally posted by rapalla7
I have been buzing through them. It is a prevailing problem that has not been dealt with, and should be immediatly or what is the point of even having it?
Maybe I should calm down about it, but it irks me to no end that some guy just g ...[text shortened]... does not matter if your opponent cannot beat the clock.

Mike

Further more, each opponent is given an alotted amount of time to make all of "their" moves with "their" own clock. We are not sharing a clock on a wall, like in some school tournaments where the time is up and you count the points. If that is the idea behind the time, it is incorrect and it should be corrected now. You cant have to seperate clocks and count points at the end. It is wrong! If it was a single clock you shared you can.

I have never had a judge in a tournament ever ask it the opponent was up on points when the time ran out if you were using seperate clocks.

Mike

Russ,

How is the time configured? Are points taken into account?

Originally posted by rapalla7
I have been buzing through them. It is a prevailing problem that has not been dealt with, and should be immediatly or what is the point of even having it?
Maybe I should calm down about it, but it irks me to no end that some guy just got my points when I should have gotten them, and it even makes me madder that it may be possible to fool the clock. Material up, material down does not matter if your opponent cannot beat the clock.

Mike

Its basically a glitch. It appears that the clock on your opponent's end goes down to 0 and hops back up, but on his side, his clock is behaving as per normal. As far as I can see.

The perpetual check routine is a problem alright. Russ has stated that uChess needs an update, but he also said that his time is better spent on RHP at the moment.

D

Originally posted by rapalla7
Further more, each opponent is given an alotted amount of time to make all of "their" moves with "their" own clock. We are not sharing a clock on a wall, like in some school tournaments where the time is up and you count the points. ...[text shortened]... en the time ran out if you were using seperate clocks.

Mike

In OTB chess, the players use a 2 sided clock which is basically 2 seperate clocks joined together. In my experience it's quite common to discover during the game (and sometimes afterwards) that one clock is running much faster than the other! Often one clock is fully wound up and is racing, but the other clock hasn't been wound for weeks...

Similarly in real-time internet chess, the 2 players are operating under different conditions. One will have a better internet connection than the other, causing less lag, and therefore he will have more time to make his moves than his opponent. So in a typical 5 minute game, a player who is on a super-fast broadband connection will effectively have an extra minute or two for his moves compared to someone who is using a poor dial-up service.

Another factor that affects the move times and causes lags is the physical distance between the players time zones. So if you have a poor internet connection, you should try to play people as close to your own time zone as possible.

Originally posted by David Tebb
In OTB chess, the players use a 2 sided clock which is basically 2 seperate clocks joined together. In my experience it's quite common to discover during the game (and sometimes afterwards) that one clock is running much faster than the other! Often one clock is fully wound up and is racing, but the other clock hasn't been wound for weeks...

Similar ...[text shortened]... internet connection, you should try to play people as close to your own time zone as possible.

I use an anolog clock for OTB, with casual chess. Usually when the first game is done you switch the clock, so you are playing with the other. In tournaments I play with a didgital clock. If you cant do it in the time you are done.

In school tournaments, because they usually don't have the money for clocks, the players will play for 10 minuts or what ever. They share the minuts and when the 10 minuts is up the judge counts the points and awards a winner if there is no check mate.

I understand the problem with the lag I am running a 1.5mb connection here.
The problem I see is that when connected to a server (which keeps the time) The time on the server should keep ticking down irregardless of either opponents internet connection. It should be a standard time that starts ticking after the first move is made. If the time is based on ping values then I don't see how this is fair to either opponent.

It is not my problem if someone has a crappy connection. I should not be punished for that, and neither should anyone else.

I want to see a ping value before I accept or recieve a challenge or be able to block users that have a low value.

The game I played this guy extended his game by over three minuts. It made it even worse because I had to take a leak. I think there may be something to the bug that was pointed out above and people are exploiting it.

What you are witnessing is because of internet latency - but you have not unfairly lost this game.

This is why.

(I hope I can explain this clearly.)

You have your clock. Your opponent has a clock. As you make a move, your move and the current clock details are sent to your opponent.

Your opponent's board reflects the move, and his clocks are updated with the current time values from YOUR machine, and the clocks carry on ticking. Your opponent makes a move, and all details are then passed back to you, your board is updated, and your clocks are updated with the time value from HIS machine.

So, each machine passes back and forth the responsibility of keeping time. They will both do so very, very accurately.

BUT, internet latency comes into effect here. So, lets review this again.
You make a move, and you see your opponent's clock tick down. But, due to latency (it will depend on the connection of your opponent), it may be some time before your opponent receives the move, with the current timings.

So, even though it may have only taken your opponent 10 seconds to make a move, we need to consider the time for 2 * the round the trip (move being sent and move being received. Lets say 1 second each way.)

So, the time that you see for your opponent is really only provisional, UNTIL a move arrives (when it is corrected) and even if it counted down to 0 seconds, your opponent may really have 2 seconds left. The updated clock will reflect this. This is why you may see clocks jump up and down by a second or two. You probably only notice it at the end when time gets tight.

So, a 2 minute game could in fact take 240 seconds + (num’ moves*latency delay)

Clear as mud?

-Russ

Originally posted by Russ
What you are witnessing is because of internet latency - but you have not unfairly lost this game.

This is why.

(I hope I can explain this clearly.)

You have your clock. Your opponent has a clock. As you make a move, your move and the current clock details are sent to your opponent.

Your opponent's board reflects the move, and his clocks are ...[text shortened]... ute game could in fact take 240 seconds + (num’ moves*latency delay)

Clear as mud?

-Russ

I get what you are saying, but this guys clock was going from 0 on my clock and after his move it would bump up to 1 minut and 40 seconds. It is hard to keep a rythum with this lag. Knowing it going forward I will take it into account. Would it be possible to avoid players that have problems with this latency?

Really though if the latency is huge, theoretically could'nt a game last forever?

First off, the latency period is dead time when neither player can move.

But, having said all that in my previous posts, clocks will resync every move, so there should never be a correction of 1 min 40 seconds, just a couple of seconds maximum.

This evidently is a problem after all. (I have never seen this issue myself.)

-Russ

I will be adding ping values to uChess to show connection speeds on the next release. This is probably more urgent that I suspected.

I will try to get a maintenance release out sometime soon.

-Russ

Originally posted by Russ
I will be adding ping values to uChess to show connection speeds on the next release. This is probably more urgent that I suspected.

I will try to get a maintenance release out sometime soon.

-Russ

I did post up above someones post from uchess. It seem that a problem with being able to buy off the clock by keeping the opponents running. I kept watching this guys clock go down to zero and it would sit there for about 10 or 15 seconds and then a move would be made, and his clolck would jump up to 49+. A couple of seconds I can deal with.

Mike.