ELO

Hi

I'd like to suggest that the impact of timeout games on ELO calculation be changed. If a player has won a few games thru opponent timeout, it can really distort their ELO rating. I agree there should be a penaty to the player who times out, but not such a benefit to the "winner".

Yes I agree, timeouts do distort the true ELO of the winning player.

The problem with reducing the benefit for a winner that was won against a timed out player is that a clearly losing player could delibrately timeout to spite the winner player so they wouldn't get the full benefit of the win.

Most of our chess players on here wouldn't do that of course, but it a sad fact that it would happen eventually with a bad loser playing.

How do you think we can get around this problem? Any suggestions will be looked into.

Perhaps an algorithm along these lines :-

- player timing out still loses what ever points he / she does now.

- for the wining player - discount the score if they are down on material (or discount less if equal in material)
- for the winning player - discount score if timeout occurs in first xx moves (maybe with a few breakpoints : first 10 moves / next 20 / thereafter).

nice suggestion

Who is going to determine who has a winning position, drawn position etc.? Time is part of chess, even coorespondence chess. If your opponet can't play under the set time controls too bad for them. I shouldn't have to suffer for it.

I agree with catfishcore, I wonder if some players realise the state of there games
and start to loose interest, and it bugs me, and many others, that they start to "drag thier
heels' and eventually time out, wins are hard enough to come by (for some of us) without
this caper going on. these players could send a message to thier opponent if they find it
difficult, maybe through unforeseen situations, we are very understanding, I hope.!?
Having fought a hard campaign ones win should not be thwarted by timed out players

How about limiting how many times players can time out?

Yes ,you can limit time outs maybe to 3 and then after that incure a 50 point penalty per time out after 3 . To encourage less time outs after 3 reward the player if he/she plays
10 games with results and no time outs by "striking off "one time out. If one looks at the league you will see there are 50% in the green zone with no time outs, after that it seems to increase, there are players that have timed out on almost all games, What the answer
is for this situation is more difficult to solve. I think, by now, most players have "wised up"
to the time outers, and will not both to play them. Sorry to offend any genuine time outers
out there, perhaps Andy will respond.

I guess I'm just a hardliner when it comes to time control. I don't think you can do it on this site, but on some other sites I have been asked not to time someone out for one reason or another. I have done so, because of a feeling out there that winning on time is not an honorable way to win. Since that time I have changed my stance on this issue. Time is apart of chess. That's why there's chess clocks. LOL. Even in turn based chess time is a factor. I have lost on time, usually because of computer problem or I had too many games on too many sites going on that I dropped the ball on one. That's my problem, not my opponet's.
Time waits for no man. LOL.

People (and Andy), take a look at this (last games):
http://che55.com/game-players/view-games-history.phtml?user=1669

Just "thousands" of resigned games from new opponents and somewhat sequential usernames?
I think that resigning games like this should not change the opponent ELO and league point, do you? Maybe this prevents cheating.

I have banned this player from che55.com. He was clearly starting multiple accounts and deliberately losing and quickley got his player to top of the league. Boo.......

I've now coded in a simple way for me to ban players. I could also perhaps change banned players usernames to a different colour, red maybe. Just to shame them and more importantly allow other players to see their ELO score has been faked.

As with the timeouts, I'm just honestly don't know what to do with it. There no way of doing it without upseting some people and pleasing others.

Though I am quite keen on the idea of perhaps allowing a few timeouts without altering a players league points. Say perhaps 3 and after that they count.

Some more ideas and suggestions will be most appricated.

I personally like the time out rule. What does bore me to death are players who take 5 to 15 days to make just a single move and then log out for another 5 to 15 days.
Even Grand Masters do not take 15 days to play each and every move.

The time factor IS am important feature of a chess game, (space, resources & time) players already have the option to

1. Set up lengthy day moves, so that if they are away, say driving for the week, they are not peanalised by their employment and in which case, knowing this, they should not have accept a 2 day move game in the first place

2. They have 50 holidays to use. I only get 28 days a year so 50 gives plenty of flexibility.

Just as a footnote, I have played over 300 x 2 day move games on this site and have never timed out. So please leave it alone, the T/O rule is fine.

I must say that I agree with White_Pawn regarding players taking 5-15 days. The best way
to avoid this situation is to decline the game. What annoys me are players that go online
every day and wait until the last hour on the last day to make thier response.
Anyway, we only get caught out once.
My views on timeouters have already been aired!
What I want to know is, when are we going to hear something on the tournament front, it's
been months now and I think members should have some kind of response.

I've just started a new post on my tournament ideas in Compliments, complaints and suggestions forum section.

I say, put an option there for the winner of a timed out game to take the points or not. the winner would choose, and there must be no problem with that.