[mlthoughts2018]

Yes, but the rules govern intentionally abandoning games, not disconnections you may not have control over.

> “If you're disconnects are significantly higher than that, you're probably not the target market for on-line blitz chess.”

It’s not very common and it’s not predictable or uniform (not even in subway tunnels). But if someone reports you for disconnecting, it autonatically locks you out from playing and emailing to the support email gets no response to unlock in false positive cases.

Also, just in the basic rules of chess, your opponent can do whatever they want with their clock time. You’ve agreed to abide by that rule by agreeing to play. If they want to take 4:00 to think about their sixth move in a 5/0 game, they are perfectly allowed, and may even still win if you blunder.

There’s no time limit per move beyond the first move and the overall clock time. Disconnections (when the player might return) are no different.

[gmiller123456]

>Also, just in the basic rules of chess, your opponent can do whatever they want with their clock time.

This is incorrect. At this point I'd like to point out that I was (and soon will be again) a USCF certified TD [1], and have run my own correspondence site for about 20 years [2]. Abandoning a game has the unique distinction of being mentioned three times in the USCF rulebook, and carries with it the most severe penalty specifically mentioned which is ejection from the tournament (with more severe penalties are up to the TD and USCF). FIDE has a similar rule, though they don't mention abandoment directly where a player has stopped trying to win under the "normal means". Not all rule violations have to be intentional, specifically similar to your case is "annoying behavior". When you fail to finish a game, for whatever reason, it's annoying and an inconvenience to your opponent, and some punitive measure is warranted.

[1] http://www.uschess.org/msa/MbrDtlTnmtDir.php?12709934

[2] http://www.net-chess.com

[mlthoughts2018]

Why do you feel that federation-sanctioned tournament & correspondence rules are relevant to this situation? Abandonment in those cases would be deliberate if not because of an emergency.

You’re obviously not going to get punished if the “abandonment” is revealed to have been because you get accidentally locked out of the tournament hall through no fault of your own, which is the right comparison for something like online chess disconnection.

I don’t see a reason to feel that your comment is applicable.

[gmiller123456]

You're the one that brought up the "basic rules of chess", I was pointing out that abandonment is a basic rule, and taken very seriously. Of course abandonment has to be done intentionally, and that's a judgement call on the TD's part. Like I said, your behavior falls more under "annoying behavior". So any disconnection breaks one rule or another, and the TD/organization needs to do something to encourage you to stop doing it.

[mlthoughts2018]

> “Like I said, your behavior falls more under "annoying behavior". So any disconnection breaks one rule or another,”

This is the part that does not seem to be true. The way this works for federation-operated tournaments is not the same thing at all as basic rules of chess, and instead is highly specific to that physical format of chess. Moreover, the physical constraints of an in-person tournament would make its rules about abandonment less relevant for comparison with internet disconnections, not more.

On the point of “annoying behavior” — still, you’re not addressing the fact that disconnections are not the fault of that player and often are not anticipateable or controllable.

For things that happen in federation-operated tournaments that also are not intentional or controlled by the player, it would clearly be mitigating circumstances such that the rules you’re trying to cite would not be relevant anyway.