Comment by blub | Hacker News Reader

Comment by blub | Hacker News Reader

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The tournament UI has been broken on iOS for years. It doesn't register taps properly and some UI elements are not shown where they should be. OTOH, the website works pretty well on mobile, scrolling aside.

In general, I also had the feeling that the lichess UI is a bit more immediate, it was easier for me to get around.

But I think a big difference is not in features or UX, but the behaviour of the players. Because of its free nature, lichess has several problems that I haven't seen on chess.com. I do use chess.com significantly less, but I've always had civil interactions there.

On lichess:

* people are free to act like jerks, since they will likely get away with it. My chat's turned off, but I can't do anything about people abandoning games when they lose, trying to pretend that they've left so that I don't pay attention and lose on time, etc.

* severe lack of gentlemanly behaviour. As an example, I don't think I've ever seen someone concede a game, it's almost always a bitter fight way past the point a reasonable player may accept defeat.

* Now that I think about it, lichess brings the worst in me. I want to crush my opponents and taunt them. Yet another reason why my chat's turned off.

Blitz is a vicious game, full of trickery. :)

I mean such behaviour is not uncommon on chess.com either. I've reported multiple people for game abandonment / abusive language / acting like jerks / taking super long to make moves in a game that's obviously been lost / etc.

My inbox is on chess is full of such generic boilerplate messages from chess.com; I doubt they really kick anyone off their platform though (unless the player does something extreme):

We've taken action on one of the Stalling / Quitting Games reports that you submitted. (To respect the privacy of our members, we don't specify usernames. Our response may have included warning the member, restricting their activity, or even closing the account.)

You can review our Community Policies here https://www.chess.com/legal/community.

Thank you for helping Chess.com stay fun and friendly!

Thank you very much, Chess.com Support support@chess.com

> taking super long to make moves in a game that's obviously been lost

I'm a novice still (~1500), but at this level you can easily come back from a lost game. Opponents sometimes think that I'm stalling, but in reality I'm trying to make the best out of a lost position. My opinion is that if you go into a game with a certain time limit, the players have full right to use that time how they please. If you are in a hurry, play a different time limit.

I don't play that much chess, but:

If a player has 60 minutes for all their moves, then spend less then a minute for each move, until they are so far behind that in your mind, the game is over, now, they are spending 20 minutes on one move. And I have to still sit in front of the computer, because if I leave, they might make a move just before their timer runs out, hoping that I have already left the room, and now I will lose because it's my timer that runs out.

Isn't the idea to set the maximum time permitted per-move to match whatever your personal patience level is?

Play a different time format then. I don’t understand players, several in this thread alone, who complain when their opponent uses some/all of the time that was allotted under the rules of the game that are agreed upon at the start. (I am similarly against the awarding of extra time.)

There's a wide gray area but surely there's some point where you think a person is just being rude.

Eg if someone mouse slips and blinders their queen on their 5th move in a 90 minute game. You have no concern with having to sit there for 1.5 hours where your opponent makes no further moves?

When I used to play, I also found that people otherwise at a similar level to me were really bad at endgames. Perhaps they resigned too often, and therefore got little endgame experience? Anyway, that meant that it was worth pushing to the end if I wanted to win, because sometimes it worked.

Presumably they can see how many times a player has been reported to abandon a game ahead of time. If it is the first report, I can understand they do nothing. If it is report number 10 ...

> severe lack of gentlemanly behaviour. As an example, I don't think I've ever seen someone concede a game, it's almost always a bitter fight way past the point a reasonable player may accept defeat.

I almost never concede at my (low) level: at my level it's very possible that someone lets me go into a stalemate which is preferable to a loss.

I’m also a low level player but I fundamentally don’t understand the chess culture of “gentlemanly” concession. It’s a game you’re playing to win and even at the highest levels players can and do make mistakes. It’s not over until it’s over. When you compete you play through the whistle. You run past the finish line. You keep throwing towards the endzone even when it’s 28-3 and things are looking pretty bleak.

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