New to chess.com. How did I lose the game because of time despite being up on pieces?

My last game I was up a few pieces still had my queen and had my opponent in Check. Yet the game ended abruptly with no warning saying opponent wins on time? This has happened to me twice now and both times I was up pieces.

I'm new to chess.com by the way so I don't know how all the rules work. I was playing the 10 minute game

There are two clocks, one for each player. A clock only ticks down when it's that player's turn.

If a clock reaches zero the game is immediately ended as a loss for that player.

(A rare exception is if your clock reaches zero when your opponent only has a king the game is ended as a draw.)

Ok thanks. For the 10 minute game how long does each player have to make a move? Does the clock run down for 1 minute for each move?

You have 10 minutes for the entire game. The clock counts down when it's your turn. A minute is deducted every 60 seconds of thinking time.

It doesn't matter how much time you are set to play a game. 

You can be up all your pieces if your clock runs out you lose the game . . .

Got it. Thank you.  It's my first time playing Blitz chess and I just played a few games ad got the hang of it now. 

reading this thread begs the following question "...what's the sense in playing it then.." ?

Blitz is more fun than chess by telegram. Quicker paced and what not.

And chess by telegram is more fun than chess by carrier pigeon.

The only clock that matters is the server clock. There is a delay between you moving a piece and the server acknowledging the move. There are time stamps to reduced that problem to a bare minimum, but ultimately, the clocks on each player's computer is just a best guess to the exact time on the server. Depending on lag, it could seconds or just milliseconds difference between the server clock an the player's computer, but it still a best guess. The server updates the player clocks each move, so the net difference is only 1 cycle (that is the time between you moving and the information being sent to the server and back to a player's computer), but even at that, it's impossible for the server to keep track of anything between packets being sent. Actually, time stamp packets are sent frequently between moves, even if it's just telling the server what's on the player's clock, but like I said, there is ALWAYS room for a bit of error due to lag. 

I hate to contradict you, but if your opponent has, for example, a king and a bishop it would also be a draw. Basically, if they have insufficient material to checkmate you.

I do enjoy birds, though.

This just happened to me and is so annoying. I had my opponent checked twice and was threatening mate and still lost. Grrrrr

Same question as flipperjk. How can I have won more pieces than my opponent and lose on time? I don't understand. The answers don't make sense to me. What's the use in playing intelligently ? I could just play any piece quickly and win? I'm new to chess.com. I couldn't find the rules for the 10 minute game?

If losing on time or being under time pressure is not to your liking then you should play longer games and games with increment (time added to your clock each time you move). I don't see what's hard to understand though...you had more pieces than your opponent and were 'winning' but so what? You need to actually win, not just be close. How can you expect to win if you use all the time which you were allotted to play the game and have not checkmated the other guy and actually won? Any game of short time control like 10 minutes is a trade off between speed and accuracy. You were more accurate but too slow. Your opponent was less accurate but faster. In the end your slow play cost you more because you ran out of time and lost whereas your opponents inaccurate play cost them less because they were able to avoid being checkmated before this happened. In a 10 minute game a strategy of moving as fast as possible but aimlessly trying to win on time is doomed to failure anyway. 

10 min,1 min, 3 min, 5 min, or 30 that's how much time you have to play the game. It is the same for both players.. You can also have increments or delays on the time as well. Being up pieces doesn't really matter if you get check mated. Or your time runs out. 

What does having more pieces having to do with time?

Note that having more pieces doesn't mean that you are winning. And even if you are, the clock is just as important as other aspects of the game. You have to checkmate without timing out - that's the whole point of playing chess with a time control. And no, you can't just play any piece quickly and just win, because there is always an opponent ready to checkmate you.

I understand that when your time is up you lose. My question is how can I lose if I still have time (i.e.) 5 min utes, etc  ansd while i am thinking about a move for a few seconds suddenly the other guy wins.  Is there a time limit per move?  Or  is it some momentary disconnect that cause that?  

In ten minute chess "do you have to jump?"  

As has been said, it doesn't matter if you're up or down - if you mismanaged your time, you lose. 

https://support.chess.com/article/338-how-does-game-abandonment-work

So ce you didn't provide the game, it's hard to say for sure. Looking at your archive, it looks like maybe you got disconnected?

https://support.chess.com/article/213-how-do-i-fix-my-disconnect-lag-issues