Just played a match where I was losing in pieces but winning on time. My opponent was on 0:01 where he managed to promote a pawn. I thought it didn’t matter because what are you going to do with 1 second. But for some reason he was able to play 4 moves with his timer on 0:00 afterwards and ended up mating me. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. The timer kept running out but every time he made a move he seemed to get a fraction of a second back so he could make another premove. I’m very surprised as this obviously prevents someone from losing on time as long as you just keep making premoves. I’m especially surprised as I’ve been in the reverse situation before and I’m pretty sure I didn’t receive any bonus time even though I was making premoves as well.
I’m fine with it if this is some kind of rule that I don’t know of but it seems to defeat the entire idea of rapid chess as you simply can’t run out of time if you just keep making premoves.
There are two things to consider here:
- First, I recommend you check out the following support article. It "appears" that time is being added back to your opponent's clock, but this is standard lag correction: https://support.chess.com/article/423-why-did-the-clock-times-suddenly-change-the-clocks-seem-broken
- In the game you are referring to, you will see from the game the official times recorded. Your opponent finished with exactly 0.1 seconds left! Keep in mind that it takes a minimum of 0.1 seconds to make a premove so your opponent delivered checkmate right in time. If he had needed even one additional move, he would have flagged.
In short, your opponent is not actually being given extra time, but he was definitely treading on thin ice!
Just played a match where I was losing in pieces but winning on time. My opponent was on 0:01 where he managed to promote a pawn. I thought it didn’t matter because what are you going to do with 1 second. But for some reason he was able to play 4 moves with his timer on 0:00 afterwards and ended up mating me. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. The timer kept running out but every time he made a move he seemed to get a fraction of a second back so he could make another premove. I’m very surprised as this obviously prevents someone from losing on time as long as you just keep making premoves. I’m especially surprised as I’ve been in the reverse situation before and I’m pretty sure I didn’t receive any bonus time even though I was making premoves as well.
I’m fine with it if this is some kind of rule that I don’t know of but it seems to defeat the entire idea of rapid chess as you simply can’t run out of time if you just keep making premoves.