The growing trend of abandoning games.

Is anyone else getting fed up with the growing trend of players abandoning games rather than resigning or playing it out? I just played three games in a row where my opponent abandoned the game rather than resigning or playing on. I know things happen from time to time and I’ve accidentally abandoned games but I always try to resign if something comes up and I can’t finish the game. But there seems to a very rapid and increasing trend in players just obviously abandoning games recently. I personally think Chess.com needs to find a more proactive way to remove these players and I report them regularly. Maybe if a person abandons a certain number of games in a specific time period then their account will be automatically flagged for review? Am I the only one frustrated by this?

 

Members that abandon too much, as a percentage of their games, already get flagged and get placed in a poor sports pool.

 

https://support.chess.com/article/627-sportsmanship-policy

I think it is a sign of immature player. When they feel they lost a game they cannot stomach resigning. For a daily games they also start playing ‘clever’ tactics (they think it is clever): they prolong the game as much as they can hoping you will get tired: they start making only 1 move per day. I would hope the site’s pairing algorithm takes into the players age. This way I would imagine many frustrations would go away.

There is no way to know for sure the age of any member. The site doesn't collect that information and the only way to get accurate information would be to do an in-depth verification which would likely be cost prohibitive and massively decrease the number of members. It also wouldn't stop the issue since there are adults that do the same thing.

just listen to some epic spotify tracks and enjoy your winning position

There is nothing wrong with playing one move per day (or one move per three days) in a Daily game. That's what the format is FOR.

I have not seen anyone actually stall or abandon in my recent games except for one person. He was close to flagging me (I had 8 seconds) in a rapid game, but I could premove a checkmate. So he just disconnected (lol).

I mean, I don't really care.

"...they start making only 1 move per day."

That is called Daily chess. 

“Members that abandon too much, as a percentage of their games, already get flagged and get placed in a poor sports pool”

The policy says nothing about getting a written warning and that if they continue to do so they will be removed from the site. All it says is that they won’t be allowed to play for five min, or abort another game for (I’m guessing) the same five min period. They fair play policy also only address cheating, and not habitual abandonment.

 

When games are abandoned, there is a warning message given in the interface. The following discusses abandonment.

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

Very succinct but I have to agree. If u know ur beat, then resign. If u want to fight🥊🥊 to the bitter end, then do so. If my opponent has a checkmate coming up and it’s really close, I’ll let her( or him) have the satisfaction of a checkmate. But DON’T let the clock ⏰ run out and DON’T abandon the game ♟. That’s just RUDE.

Agreed.

Except for three time-outs (which occurred while I was moving to a new town to start a new job) every one of my losses is by resignation.

If you're beat, resign.

Age and immaturity do not always pair well.

No, I haven’t seen this trend first hand. 

a lot of the people on here are super aggressive so I personally stopped caring about being pleasant or respectful to those types of players. I'm not condoning abandoning games but there are people who I wouldn't think twice about their experience while playing.

which is not who I am in real life but enough people are jerks to you and you just stop thinking of them as people

 

More like blitz. Correspondence chess should be 3 days per move to allow time for research and reflection.

 

Probably not a trend. More likely an old problem recently discovered by the OP.

I've seen it happen many times. Ten years ago. Five years ago. Six weeks ago. Two days ago.

Maybe the OP has some data showing that this happens more often than in the past, but I suspect not.

The man doth protest too much.

huh?