Yeah, I'm sitting here waiting on his next move. Guy drives me nuts. His rating is also (un-naturally) deflating, so it's to the point where if I win I gain like 5 points and if I lose I lose 28. At one point he was healthily above 1400 now he's almost into the 1100s. What an annoying person he is.

I can't seem to find this info, but is the rating adjustment on chess.com made based on ratings at the start of the game, end of the game, or peak during the game?

I had thought they were static once the game started but no they adjust after every rating change of either player. Not sure which system is better but it's kind of silly when a player loses 20 games by timing out then maybe comes back and beats you and you lose way more points than you should. I realize in the longrun it evens out (if he times out I get "free" points, etc.) but it's of course annoying. It's also hard to know how strong your opponent is when his correspondence rating is "somewhere between 1100-1500, depending on his timeouts". He's clearly stronger than an 1100 player so 1100s playing him might make moves thinking he'll miss it and he doesn't. Dumb.

On chess.com if you are in the game window (meaning looking at your correspondence game board), simply click on the "Details" tab then then on the "show ratings adjustment" link. It will give you current rating adjustment. And I happened to notice it does change.

If he does time out I would love to continue the game against one of you, if you want. I think I'm in a good spot but would love to see how good it ends up being against a better opponent, or at the very least, a similar opponent who shows up.

OK this jerk just made a move with 9 minutes left, after timing out a handful of games. I am beyond enraged. 23:51 to make what is basically a forced recapture move. And I had an automatic conditional move set up so immediately he could have maybe looked for his next move but it appears he just moved onto the next game. I asked him again in chat if we can speed up but no response. I just PM'd the Admin. He needs to ****ing boot this guy. Life is too short to be in a chess group ruined by 1 bad egg. I will go join other speedy groups if he's not ****canned. What a jerk.

End of game, as far as I know.

Like, I seriously don't understand something. You are playing correspondence chess and you are mad about your opponent taking his time? :O

Maybe you should try live chess if you can't live with the wait man

I'm generally full of rage. SERENITY NOW!!!

You should probably add another game. Kind of sucks that chess.com doesn't have a better filtering system, though.

Another bullet game (w/ white): http://www.chessvideos.tv/chess-game....php?id=100743

Opening + early middle is nonsense, but that's bullet for you*. Really happy about spotting certain things instantly (like not having to defend d3 on move 29 because I could double on the back rank if it was taken). I missed a mate in two (!), but this time because I was executing the plan to win a bishop that I'd spotted ahead of time, so that's fine.


*Lost a miniature yesterday after trying to play 1. e4 2. Qe2 like Naka, lol (mouse-slipped 3. g4 instead of 3. g3 too). Tiltquit so no pgn.

Is 32. Nxh6...Kg7 33. g5? Or Nxf7?? worthwhile? Exploiting his bishop pin, winning a pawn, and keeping your knight more active, as opposed to retreating and empty-threating his Rook.

The sole Super Admin (I know the guy personally) PMed me back saying unfortunately there's nothing he can do. He went on to say 3 day tourneys drove him nuts and that's why he started 1 day tourneys. I don't see why he can't boot the guy (since it was via invitation only "people who will play fast"), or, like just ask the guy if he could play faster to do the dozen other group members a solid. But I'm not gonna push it. I've let my voice be known and don't want to be a squeeky wheel guy. He obviously doesn't want to get confrontational with this dude.

I'll just never join any other event with this turd burgler. I wonder if there are 12 or 18-hour/move tourneys??

1 day is the shortest available time control, but all chess.com correspondence players have "time/move" as a tracked stat, and you CAN run tournaments with a maximum in this value. Still doesn't technically GUARANTEE fast movement (we all know how averages work), but find an event that has a maximum time per move and "no vacation" as options and you're a lot less likely to find yourself in this situation.

This one for example: http://www.chess.com/tournament/28th...outs-1401-1600

Is it possible for admins to reject entrants?

That line with g5 works. 32. Ne3 gains a tempo for Rcc8, so it isn't bad either. 32. Rxf8 is best of all. Mate in three (not two, as I mistakenly said) if he captures and a slower mate otherwise.

After the tournament starts: definitely not. Before the tournament begins, I *think* it *might* be an option to drop people from the field? I'm not 100% sure about that though. Haven't started a chess.com tourney in a while.

Edit: Actually I might be wrong about the first part too, despite my overzealous use of the word "definitely". Looking at the 2+2 Ruy Lopez tourney that I'm TD of, there is a "manage players" button, and it brings me to a screen listing every player - and those that are not yet eliminated ("active" players) have a little red "x" next to their names that looks like *maybe* it would remove them from the tournament? Not gonna' test it, lol. Looks like maybe even after an event begins it is possible to remove people though.

Yeah this is supposed to have a 3hr/move average stat also. Maybe there needs to be a secondary way to track using median time/move? When more than half your moves are over 20 hours (about 83% of max.) that's awful. Yet the mean average gets pulled down dramatically when during the endgame you finally sit down for 10 minutes and make like 8 moves before resigning or being mated. Silly. I just don't understand how you join a group then hold everybody in that group (aka your fellow groupmembers) because "hey, technically I'm playing by the rules".

ARC — Seriously, just fire up a blitz game if you are overly impatient about the next move of a particular correspondence game. There is literally infinite chess options you can be playing in between moves.

Also, his intention probably isn't to take 23+ hours on moves. Most people make a lot of commitments or plans and don't follow through properly. I would say that may be more likely than people being able to follow through properly. E.g. diets, "soft" deadlines in general, saying you'll call someone back, etc.

I mean, I don't keep track but I'd guess I see multiple examples of this every day at my job working with clients. And that's without being very nitty at all. I certainly don't deliver on all of my plans for a day since things come up and I'm sure I even miss "official" deadlines that are somewhat casual. E.g. telling a client I will have more info for them later that day and then pushing it a day b/c I know it's not urgent. Ideally I'd never do that but it certainly happens.

BBJ — Is ARC in that tourney? Maybe he'd volunteer for "testing," .

The Yugoslavian,
Please put me back on ignore. Thanks.

Lol. Sounds good.

Alright, guy finally timed out. I'd given up on the idea of that happening since he'd made several moves with less than an hour to play and not even online. Is anyone interested in playing out this match as white? Starting from his move 22, 23, or 24? I'd like to play it from any of these spots if so.

It's not a great game by either of us but I'm curious to see how it would play out. And yes, I realize 22.... b4 traps his bishop. I considered it but opted for this Knight move instead.

Black's attack looks unstoppable. You should decide if you agree and try playing it out against a strong engine, they are perfect for playing positions where you think you should be totally winning

How do I find a strong engine to play? I kinda figured the white position was a mess. You just telling me it's unstoppable is enough for me to feel content about it so I don't really feel like I need to finish it off. I analyzed it trying all kinds of stuff for white and no matter what it ends with me either winning or winning a large amount of material. I don't think I found a line variant where I wasn't crushing.

The obvious plan for me was to play Ra1 followed by Rxa2#. So he basically needs to start with Rd2 now then Kd1 and try to start running. I think. He also cannot force a Queen trade I don't think.

If he played something stupid like fxe6 on move 22 (I thought he might, since he'd been marching that pawn down and it removes f7 as an escape square for my potentially back-rank mated King) I was going to continue with ....Nf2 23.Bxf2 (forced, since it's a knight fork of his Queen and both Rooks)...Nb4 which threatens mate and his Queen, and he doesn't have the tempo to add another defender of c2. If he tries to trade off queens with 24.Qc3 then ...Na4+ wins his Queen due to fork, and the game shortly thereafter.

Meant to ask you how ARod is doing this spring. He have anything left in the tank?

There is some chess software listed in the faq. Maybe it could be updated a bit. Some gratis programs you can try are Chessbase Light for Windows or Droidfish for Android.

In that game you are right that Rd2 seems to avoid mate, but if you continue as planned Ra1, Rxb1 you win at least both rooks. Nf2 in the other line is a very nice deflection tactic.

Yeah, sometimes comps disprove our optimism.

On the other hand, in a position where I've recently accepted a draw offer (because, honestly, I'm too exhausted to play well), the comp gave me +1, but, as always in the endgame, with no clear plan...

Glad to hear this "confirmed" from a player who actually knows what he's doing.

I was pretty excited when I spotted it 2 moves out. I posted about it itt but said I needed the game to not change dramatically and I'd say it did. He accommodated me with his first move, though, which got me excited. This would have been by far my best deflection tactic employed in any game. It started because I obviously wanted to bring my other knight to b4 but kept being bothered by his bishop's ability to exchange on that diagonal, immediately threatening my Queen and giving him time to play Rh2 negating the potential knight fork (and adding a defender of c2) on f2. So I thought "what if I sac and get his bishop off that diagonal first?" The sack wasn't forced but a player at this level is almost certainly going to take it because I don't think they'd see how bad my next move would be for them. Maybe they would, but I'd win an exchange if so.

Improve your position gradually.

You should post the position. Computers can easily get confused in endgames, seeing an advantage for one side but missing that the advantage can't be converted into a win. Unless computers have gotten much better since when I knew this to be true.

Edit: even humans get tripped up by this. The way we evaluate positions in the middlegame doesn't always work for the endgames, where the relative value of pieces and various positional considerations changes.