claiming time out argument

I recently claimed two time outs in a tournament and was called a coward by the opponent. Following is my response and since he didn't reply I was wondering what other people think and if anyone doesn't like people who time out what is your argument against mine. Or if anyone has anything to add to my argument.

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From: Dave Branagan Active
Date: Jul 04 19:15
Subject: RE : Coward...?


Stupid....?

In response to your Email I have a few things I would like to point out to you.

first: We are entered into a tournament competition. It has rules and I was within my rights. If you play a regular sit down tournament and your clock runs out YOU LOSE! Whether your winning or not. When I'm in a competition I play to win and I play fairly within the rules.

Second: if it was a friendly pick up game I don't time people out. We were in a tournament and I plainly say in my profile "I don't time people out UNLESS IT'S A TOURNAMENT or they are dragging the game out."

Third: If you read other peoples profiles 90% of them say they will time you out unless your vacation flag is showing. I saw no vacation flag on your part. So I just did what I would expect others would do to me in those circumstances.

Fourth: I checked your profile and saw that at the time I timed you out that you had moved two and a half days before. Our games had a 3 day time out and a seven day time bank. If you had not moved in all that time I would have not timed you out and given you the benefit of the doubt because maybe your computer died, Maybe a personal incident kept you away, like a death in the family. But you had moved within that time frame so I had no idea what was with you but also as I mentioned I don't like games that get drawn out. You say some people have to work and don't always have enough time. If you take on more games than you can handle, it's your fault not mine. I like to keep at 30 to 40 games for that reason. You have 58.

Fifth: If you think I'm such a coward then challenge me to two opposite color non-tournament games and you have my word I won't time you out. Currently I have two or three non-tournament games that I could time out, but I don't.

Sixth: I believe if you look at our dispute subjectively you would find that I make a better case than you do. I give my real name because I play ethically and fairly and I am not ashamed to let people know who I am. To accuse me of anything less just shows me your ignorance and intollerance towards Americans.

(note: he had made a comment about no wonder why people don't like Americans)

So does anyone have anything to add?

One more thing:
Tournaments take way too long to finish as it is, if everyone lets people drag the games out, they will take well over a year to finish. Personally I would prefer more banded tournaments with tighter time controlls like 1/7 or 0/45 The 0/45 would be 90 days if each player used his time bank. Most games finish within 45 moves, so at one move a day this would be doable.

"war is war, loser." could've been more to the point.

Originally posted by Sicilian Smaug
Oh my gosh!! I read the first post earlier then when I came back into it to read your reply, I thought "War is war loser" before seeing it, and I havn't actually seen you use it before. Mental!😲

You had the right to claim the timeout, but I can understand why someone would get upset when they were winning in both games, which it looks like this guy clearly was.

Honestly, I felt like I was ripping off a player that was beating me when I claimed a timeout once in a tournament. Tournaments auto claim wins after 2 days in timeout anyway, so that is the method I use now. It cost me to lose a game once because the player started moving again before the 2 days auto timeout. However, I felt better about it in the end by losing, than claiming the win just because I could

I was losing one game and had a slight advantage in the second. Normally I do the gentleman thing and let the sight auto time out, but this guy moved in the last couple of days and didn't have his vacation flag up. As I mentioned I would expect others to do the same to me and I wouldn't cry about it either. But in the future maybe I'll take the high road and wait for the sight to do it to avoid bad feelings. AS chess is a gentlemans game. But being in a competition tournament and if I'm close to making the next round I'll do it again. I would like to get at least one tournament under my belt, but as I get better and progress I never win because there's always a ringer that shoots up 200 rating points. What do these people do? get a bunch of losing games and time outs to bring their score down for a month then enter a banded tournament? I would think it be more fair if banded tournamen. ts took the adverage rating over the last 3 months. If your normally 1500 player and peek at 1608, I would think it's fair for you to play a 1500 band and not the 1700 player coming back from a bunch of losses last month. Before I had a long winning streak and broke and held above 1600 I would play out my losing games and resign when my score got close to 160

Nothing is sweeter than timing out someone when you have a dead lost game. Nothing.

Originally posted by JokerFive
Nothing is sweeter than timing out someone when you have a dead lost game. Nothing.

Did you send any reminders to your opponent? RHP makes this politeness very simple.

The rules are very clear, so it has in my opinion nothing to do with politeness of being a gentlemen.
In a OTB game everyone will claim the win when the opponents flag falls. Why does so many people think that is different from here?
And if you realy want to be polite, consider that is also not very polite of your opponent to let you wait so long for the next move and ignore the time controls that you agreed to.

I think that everyone that starts whining when they loose on time walk away for there own responsibility, that is, just watch the clock/calendar and move in time!

Adje

I have no sympathy for people that lose because of a timeout. I've played 365 games here on RHP and have not run out of time once on a single one of them. I travel for work plenty and have been on vacation during that time.

To me its real simple when you start a game you make an agreement to finish it on time. If you fail to do so then you've broken that agreement and deserve to lose. If you don't like it, don't whine just start playing games and tournaments with longer timebanks.

It is very annoying when players take on 200+ tournament games simultaneously and can't complete them all on time so their rating plummets well below what it is in reality and the people who don't have the opportunity to claim timeout victory on those people end up paying the price.

Really if people just honored their agreements then we wouldn't have this problem in the first place.

If there are some difficult circumstances like illness or death in the family that is causing you to miss your games then either notify your opponents or put it in your profile. I always check the profile before clicking the skull.

If someone is timed-out, then it's usually their fault, and shows a lack of respect for the opponent, who could wait forever. so do not have any qualms about claiming a win; it's all within the rules anyway.

I'm not suggesting that what you did was against the rules. I'm only saying that clicking the reminder button is more polite and as easy as clicking the skull button. Furthermore, a reminder can be sent before the skull button even appears. I have always done this, and I think it is the most considerate course of action.

Also, please don't compare CC to OTB in this regard. Unlike in OTB, you have no idea why a CC player failed to move. Perhaps he was very sick, in a car crash, on vacation, etc. You have no idea if there weren't extenuating circumstances. In OTB, you can see your opponent the whole time and are more apt to make an informed decision.

He asked for opinions. Don't expect them all to be like yours.

I click the skull whenever I can.

Except...

(1) When he is on vacation *and* give a return date *and* not plays during his vacation.

(2) When he by mail asks me politely not to time him out with a plausible reason why not.

(3) When there is another reason not mentioned above (my boss daughter is the opponent, the the Pope has problem with the Vatican internet connection or something)

If he is a young boy, perhaps he needs a reminder, but then he has no responsibility of anything anyway.

So - Skull him and take the win without any feelings about it. I would, and other would to me.

Originally posted by FabianFnas
If he is a young boy, perhaps he needs a reminder, but then he has no responsibility of anything anyway.