the silly 3 move rule

i just "won" a game against an opponent who timed out after 3 moves. so i don t gain any points and he doesn t lose any. if players agree to play a rated game i fail to see why they should get the first 3 moves for free. 

in effect, this is like saying that you can try an opening that might not work with the option of timing out if you feel like it. this isnt the first time this has happened.

Yeah 3 moves is too much.

In my book if you agree to play, you agree to play from the first move. That's when the game starts (unless an opening line is agreed upon). If you make a bad choice, you suffer the loss. imho.

Seems fine to me. Rating points aren't meant to be rewards for playing someone who quits, or taken away as punishment for not finishing a game. They are meant to be a measure of skill.

Maybe a fair play system would be more appropriate.

Well black wouldn't get many points anyway because white would have to be rated close to 0 to play like that.

Is it worth changing a policy for such an unlikely scenario. Too many people join tournaments and only take part in one round or not even that and end up with timed out games, would distort ratings too much for the tradeoff to be worth it IMO.

Scottrf makes a good point. Perhaps I misunderstood the poster's inquiry.

@ Firebird - I thought you were equating the outcome of your "won" game with the outcome of a draw. With that, I stand by my opinion. If your opponent resigns or times out even after the first move, you win (although not a very satisfying win).

i think that if its billed as a rated game then it must finish with a rating adjustment. if not, then its a non-rated game with option to become a rated game after the 3rd move. personally, i find this irritating. i understand that some people may think that a game rated after only 3 moves is not a proper game etc...but at this point they are appealing to some qualitative idea of what constitutes a "proper" game. some games last 70 moves and, depending on your view, may hardly qualify as "proper" games: its a very subjective issue. so why not keep it simple, if both players have agreed to play a rated game, rate it!  

No. All it does it make ratings less accurate. As I said, it's not a reward/punishment system.

What do you actually feel you achieved here? White has an advantage. If you are given rating points for winning all that happens is your ratings are less accurate.

http://www.chess.com/echess/game?id=76591180

again, you seem to be appealing to an idea of how a game needs to be before it qualifies as a game. how complicated!

i am currently playing a game against "poland81". my 3rd move was not good. according to the rules we currently employ, i could simply have timed out after this move and avoided the very real possibility that i ll eventually lose points. i wonder if you feel that giving players this kind of option aids accuracy when giving them a rating? 

Better than the reverse, definitely.

like a football match where a team can walk off the pitch after 5 minutes and stay in their dressing room till the final whistle... hey, its a draw! 

Study and you'll get points for winning games properly and wont have to worry about this.

what concerns me is the principle of introducing a rule that gives a player the option to quit without loss of points after the game has started.

i have yet to win a game "properly" (but thanks for the advice).

update....i notice that on another chess site, "gameknot", they have a similar policy re-players timing out of games early, but their minimum number of moves is 2 rather than 3 before the game becomes rated.

i don t know what the worst first 2 moves in chess can be ( although i feel certain i must have done then somtime ) but this seems a better number than 3.

one final point: regardless of the minimum number of moves, and taking into account what previous respondants have said on this matter, i still think that at least a token number of rating points should be awarded to the winner and deducted from the loser. my suggestion is 2.