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What are your biggest pet peeves in chess?

The solution is to have a separate tab, like the present correspondence tab. but do not use a word, use an icon on the tab.
Therefore, there would be one for Bullet, Blitz, Classical, Correspondence, King of the hill, Three-checks, Training.
Each would have an Icon on the tab and when you click on the tab you get your explanation of the game than can be disabled once you know what the icon stands for.
A default setting is essential to keep the main page with Classical games unless someone states 960 or other types of tabs in their preferences.
Every problem has a solution. Usually an idea brings out a better one. With no input on how to solve something, the time it takes to find a solution takes longer.
galaxie-500 wrote:

"3) people who slow play 85% of the alotted time, and suddenly turn on the afterburners as a tactic to gain an advantage."

Right.
I'm finding many players seem to fine-tune their time+time settings to suit their "tactics" beyond merely a style-of-play.

I played a clown recently, in like a "15-minute" game, where he literally took three minutes to make his first move -- and then six or seven more minutes to make his second move.
So, after pissing you off, then "turn on the afterburners."

If I wanted to play a 3-minute blitz game, I'd join that type of game in the first place :(

Another annoying variant is the long-play game; say 60+time.
Fine, I figured that you just play until you beat them (which won't take an hour... or so you think).
Well, I learn that there are players who can agonize over every pawn movement and make what should be a 5+8 game take an hour. LOL
Worse though, are the clowns who alternate 15-minute moves with "afterburner" tactics.

Don't know what I'll do when I get a guy walk-off with 53-minutes still remaining.
[Sam Kinison]Aaaaggggghhhh! Aaaagggghhhh! Aaaagggghhhh![/Sam Kinison]

I also learned that short+long games (e.g. 7+30) are perpetual, and never end until someone actually wins. Talk about moving that King around for 20-minutes to avoid the ultimate draw anyway (which, of course, they refuse).

So, In my short time here I've learned two things:
(a) Join games with moderate time settings that are more difficult for someone to bust your balls with "tactics"
and
(b) Only play members (i.e. no anonymous players), unless you're playing as an anonymous yourself. For some reason, having a named opponent moderates the clowns to some degree.
@toscani #31,

good ideas. i see the only problem being for those who play all types of games (i play almost exclusively 960) that they'd be staring at a blank page for any variant most likely, since i'd hardly to 960 game listed more once if even that. what's nice about having a single page listing all the available game is that they are visible.

when they used to have it with "960" written next to the icon, it almost never was a problem. i know, bc they didn't used to before and the problem disappeared when the wrote "960", but alas, it didn't last long before they decided to change it.
These are my over-the-board chess pet peeves, mostly.

Chess boards that don't lay flat.
Plain black and white squares and pieces that are also plain black and white.
Clocks that audibly @#$)(* tick.
Unnecessary noise of any kind.

Online it's basically just cheaters. Oh and the whiny people that expect rematches.
I don't mind the rematches. That seems perfectly reasonable. It's the demands for take-backs and offers of draws in losing positions.
In a casual game I will almost always honor a rematch request, regardless.
When I'm playing rated games, I give it more thought.
Did I just get my ass kicked?...
Did I just kick a newbie's and/or much lower-rated player's ass?...
Is there a 200 points or more difference in our ratings (either way)?

I totally agree that "the demands for take-backs and offers of draws in losing positions" gets very annoying sometimes.
Also, I find players giving me extra time credit -- especially early in a game and for no good reason -- to be very annoying.
I've lost quite a few games -- when I was clearly in a winning position -- because I simply ran out of time. And, that's how it should be.

To date, I've only granted one take-back offer (the guy obviously dropped his King on the wrong square during a castling attempt). He even did it a second time again on the redo :)
I asked for some time back, as the request and thought process came out of my time, and he gave me 30-seconds.
Happy campers.
The thing with the players who like to try to play ridiculously slow for a couple moves and then move super fast, just remember, they have burned a lot of clock. It doesn't matter if they suddenly start moving quickly, you have time advantage now, there's no reason to play their game. If they take 3 minutes off their clock to choose an opening, and then they want to start playing super fast at move 4 or 5, you can irritate them just as much as they irritated you by refusing to play fast. Take at least 30 seconds a move...after all, it'll take 6 moves of you playing 30 seconds a move and them blitzing to make up for their lost time. Better yet, if you are comfortable with the opening, go ahead and blitz it out and then when it gets to a critical position, stop and take a couple minutes back so they get really flamed that you aren't just jumping right in and making a mistake. There are ways to counter the clock wars and turn it back on them.
Oh I didn't post my pet peeve, so I'm going to double post.

My biggest pet peeve are players who play through to the bitter end no matter the odds.

Now let me clarify. I'm not talking about the players who shuffle pieces around under clock pressure when they have a significant clock advantage. I'm not talking about the players who don't resign when there is at least some slim chance they might get a stalemate because all the pawns are locked or off the board and you have a lot of pieces. I'm not even talking about those people who continue down a whole queen when they have lots of other pieces on the board and lots of activity.

No, the players I'm referring to are those who you have ransacked their entire army, you have brought them down to virtually nothing but pawns with your middle-game tactics, capitalizing on their every blunder and are likely at an engine evaluation of at least +50 (assuming White), but there is no mate immediately in sight because your pieces are slightly out of synergy in capturing all their misplaced pieces to get you there. Obviously mate is coming, they have no pieces to defend, their king safety is wrecked, and they'll probably always have pawn moves...and yet they press onward...even in a terribly long clock or correspondence game, forcing you to grind through a completely won position for another 10-15 moves because they refuse to flag.

Forget what grampa told you kids, when you're lost you're lost and it's ok to tip your king.
Most kids learn by moving the pieces. They are kinesthetic learners. Therefore, they need to finish a game completely to grasp the skill to avoid or to approach a checkmate opportunity.
So my pet peeve is seeing people quitting before the end of the game. We learn best by finishing what we start. Every move is important to better our chess games.
I find that I win quite a few games from behind, usually by a piece or a few pawns, sometimes by more. Apart from anything else, I use the gaps to create attacking lines. This being the case, I find it peculiar to find opponents resigning after losing a single piece (although it's fine for my ratings).

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