Insufficient Material

Hello, today I played a game of live chess and the game ended for insufficient material, even though I had a rook which could have checkmated my opponent. I don't understand

You had sufficient material, true, but you ran out of time.  It was a draw because your opponent had only a king, which is not enough material to merit getting a win on time.

You ran out of time, but your opponent didn't have sufficient material to checkmate you, so he had to settle for a draw instead of a win:

http://www.chess.com/livechess/game?id=574931021

Count yourself fortunate you got away with a draw -- usually a timeout is a loss.

This comes up over and over again in the forums -- maybe chess.com should include a "Why did this happen?" link on the message in the game that leads to a help article explainning the rule.

That's a good idea, TheGrobe - especially if it also explains those situations that's more like Insufficient Losing Chances than true Insufficient Material.

Yeah, since there's not arbitrator the current rule kind of acts like a blend between the two.

The only problem is that it says insufficient material when there is a forced win with for example, this position:

That's because the ability to automate the accurate arbitration of these positions is prohibitively difficult to impelment, so an approximation based purely on material is used instead.  As demonstrated, it has a very limited number of edge case exceptions such as the one posted above.

Rather than an orientation (though there is one), links to help articles that get presented in conext would be better I think.  For example, before they retooled the site the member points on each post's header linked through to a page explaining what they were.

Membership icons still link through to the memberships page.

More of this kind of cross linking would really help address some of the questions, often before they're even asked.

pw41361
this player is cheating ,How do I report

A.) What does this have to do with the topic of the OP?

B.) You can report suspected cheaters at http://support.chess.com/Tickets/Submit using the "Report Suspected Cheating" option

C.) Most people suspected of cheating are innocent.  It is often because of quirks in programming ("time cheats"), not knowing the rules correctly (en passant), or simply a bad reaction at a legitimate loss ("nobody could possibly have seen that [relatively simple, 2 or 3 move] tactic on their own").  Because the innocent player's reputation can be sullied by untrue allegations, there is a policy of "no naming and shaming" on this website.  If you truly believe that your opponent was cheating somehow, then quietly report them using the link I gave you in B, and if they really are cheating they will be dealt with.  And if they aren't, then you don't inadvertently cause harm to their reputation without just cause.

From what I saw of the two games between the two of you that I saw, both of you made some bad moves.  That player had a bit of an unorthodox play style (which actually makes it less likely they're using a computer), but nothing looked out of the ordinary.