New online phenomenon

[NickFaulks]

And it's revealed a few holes in my opening knowledge, which I must fix before I play real games again.

If you wait until you are confident that you have done that, you will never get back to the board.

[JustinHorton]

Exceedingly wacky game yesterday (casual, 5+4) began 1 d4 Nc6 2 Nf3 Nb8 - OK, I've seen it played, I thought - 3 e4 Nf6 4 e5 Ng8. At this point I smelled a rat, thought maybe they were playing for a bad position and then letting the computer take over, and at very least weren't interested in a proper game, so I played 5 c4 and offered a draw. They declined with 5...Nc6 and play continued 6 d5 and then 6...Nb8 again.

While I was pondering my options they then proceeded to add lots and lots of time - about half an hour - to my clock. I have seen this done before but have never understood why it is done (at least, in bulk and without permission). Since I'd got all this extra time I thought I'd make a cup of tea and look at their profile and I saw to my surprise that they had a couple of other games going - blitz, not correspondence. I didn't even know you could do this.

Anyway their next six moves were Na6-b8-a6-b8-Nh6-g8 and I do not think we require the complete game score unless anybody really wants it. I eventually won on time (I had mate in two, plus they were playing another game) and I blocked and reported them. My computer theory obviously wasn't right, but I have no idea in the world what they were up to.

[Joey Stewart]

https://lichess.org/2Tk0ImdswtDE

Nice easy win here thanks to a petulant resignation when I wouldn't play his favourite theory !

[JustinHorton]

At the time of writing, this user has done nothing for the past five hours but resign games after one or (if the opponent is White and gets it in quickly) two moves. That's dozens and dozens of games. I stopped scrolling when I had counted two hundred. Yes, two hundred.

[Geoff Chandler]

Hi Justin,

I've not looked but maybe they are trying to break the world record for number of games played in a day or is being
sponsored to the tune of let's say 10p a game for as many games they can play in a day. (200 games = £20.00)

That is the only sane explanations I can think of.

(are the games rated? Seeing if they can get a minus rating, or maybe one of the site's techno team doing a bug hunting test...)

[JustinHorton]

Amazing stuff. He picked up where he left off this morning (or whatever time it was where he is) and resigned 57 consecutive one-move games. He then played a handful of real games, a couple of which he won, then resigned another 25 one-move games, then threw a dozen or so longer games (but where he was plainly playing stupid moves) and then seems to have started playing properly again.

[Stewart Reuben]

If somebody does that type of thing in otb chess, the arbiter should first forfeit the player and than bar them, on the basis it is bringing the game into disrepute.
Perhaps he was trying to find the effect on his rating? Or how badly he could play and yet not lose.
Perhaps he site was trying to impress with the number of games on that website?
Deliberately losing in order to lower one's rating is an old ploy, where there are rating prizes.
Or perhaps the person is revelling in the thought that he was puzzling a large number of people?

[Matt Mackenzie]

Looks like a form of trolling to me, and should be treated accordingly.

[JustinHorton]

Well yes: and it seems to me that if you aborted multiple games in that manner without playing any moves, you'd be serving a long ban

[Joey Stewart]

Lichess used to be very heavy handed with their punishments, I remember for a while they had a system where you were penalised for losing on time too frequently which was hugely unpopular with the blitz community, but they have gone very much the other way now and let people get away with murder. There is even a little warning I see pop up when one of my opponents fails to start a game saying that if you do this too often you will be punished but that is obviously not being enforced with this guy, perhaps because his strange behaviour is only mildly amusing rather then something that really hurts his opponents?

[JustinHorton]

Well strictly speaking he is starting the games, that's the thing. (Come to that we don't know for sure that he's not receiving any bans, though my feeling is he couldn't have racked up so many one-move losses in such a short time if that were the case.)

[Joey Stewart]

Yes it's possible he is already on the "naughty list", I read recently that lichess flags certain accounts as being unsporting, abusive or suspected cheats and rather then outright closing the account they get put into a pool where they can only play opponents of similar ill repute so they can all ruin each others days and not be any the wiser that they have been segregated from proper players so will be less inclined to create a brand new account.

[JustinHorton]

Though if that were the case, how could they play so many games so quickly?

[Joey Stewart]

Cause, judging from the sort of people I encounter, there must be tens of thousands of chess players who behave in such a way online... I'm sure lichess has an extensive rogues gallery.