Are a lot of players implementing the strategy of slowing down games that they're losing so as to improve their ranking on the ladder? It could potentially ruin the ladder if lots of folks do it. A player that routinely waits for three days in between each move could drag out a game for months.

I'm not sure I have a good answer on how to fix it though.

I do notice that many people start to move considerably slower when they are losing.

That's pretty common. I'm not really sure that it's going to be a huge issue, though, since we can only play a maximum of 5 games at a time. Pretty soon they are going to run out of game slots to stall with, so they'll have to start taking the losses if they want to get new games.

Well, it seems like some people are more interested in keeping their high ranking than actually playing games. If you look at Doushibag's ladder games, he's gone two days without moving in four of them. But he's played two entire (winning) games during that two day stretch, so it's not like he hasn't been around. Seems to me that once he has a game going that he might lose, he just slows it down to a crawl. He can probably keep his #1 ranking for a long time doing it, because it will take forever to end the games at this pace if he chooses not to surrender.

I'm guilty of playing a lot slower when I'm slightly losing or the game is very very tight. I see 2 or 3 ways to play it and I don't want to mess up. I go back and forth and become frozen with indecision. Eventually the deadline looms and I force myself to choose. Usually that's when I realize I'm totally F-cked and surrender shortly thereafterwards. People who p[lay with me int eam games have seen me do this there too. I admit it's a terrible habit. A solution woudl be shorter autoboot times. If they were 48 or 25 hours I would go within that time frame.

In an easy game where I'm winning I make every move in a few minutes.

While I admit I have the same bad habit, I don't think it'd be a good solution to shorten the boot times. I generally don't play during the weekends since I'm out with my girlfriend and not near a computer generally...so occasionally the games go dangerously close to the three day limit.

How about something like this for a possible solution?

- If you currently have two or more ladder games that have been waiting for you for more than 1.5 days, you cannot submit orders in your other ladder games without first moving in these games. If you have one particularly tough game, this would still give you the ability to think things over carefully, and continue with your other games. But this would remove the ability to drag out all your losses by waiting 2+ days for every turn. Well, actually it wouldn't prevent it completely, but you would not be able to advance in your winning games, so there would be no real advantage to delaying.

there would still be an advantage.. a 19-1 record with no additional results is still a 19-1.. and now while the bayeselo system would still modify him based on past opponents, he wouldn'thave any drastic modifications due to new games.

|>"there would still be an advantage.. a 19-1 record with no additional results is still a 19-1.. and now while the bayeselo system would still modify him based on past opponents, he wouldn'thave any drastic modifications due to new games."

Yes, but with this system it would be much more difficult to make it to 19-1 in the first place. You would pretty much have to stay active in all of your games. Currently, an excellent player can probably run up a record like that without much trouble if he drags out all his losses. So I do think this would pretty much eliminate the advantage.

the point remains, once he gets a good rating.. either by 19-1, or by 10-10 vs the right players.. if he has say a 1950 rating.. he can drag out two games equally, and not have a noticably change due to the fact that there is no new direct news related to him.. and considering that he likely beat good players to get to his rank, he'll likely stay at that rank due to those players continueing to do well.

That's not a big deal in my opinion. As long as you got your rating legitimately (without dragging out all of your losses), then the rating should be a pretty accurate representation of your strength. So it's not really a huge problem if you start dragging out your games. Yes, your rating will be somewhat slower to change, but since the rating is already reasonably accurate, there is no major issue.

The bigger issue is if someone piles up a bunch of wins while dragging out all of their losses -- then their rating can be inflated well above their actual strength. I still maintain that the system I proposed would severely curb the ability to do this.

the problem could be with anyone else getting a chance to show their relevant strength.. imagine thetop 15 players suddenly are dragging out their games to the limit so they still stay in the rankings.. then anyone that is good, would still be kept to a lower degree by always being matched up with relatively weak opponents because all the opponents of their level rarely ever get new games..

|>"imagine thetop 15 players suddenly are dragging out their games to the limit so they still stay in the rankings"

But if their ratings are relatively accurate (which they will be if we prevent dragging out all losses), they don't need to drag out their games to stay near the top of the rankings -- because they are legitimately that good! And if they do start dragging out all of their games, that will probably hurt them in the long run, anyways -- they will get rusty and probably lose ground to other rising players who are playing more games and improving their strategy.

Yeah, he's openly taking the maximum amount of time on every move, and he said sorry for it but it was his strategy. I asked him in the game chat, and he popped into the game to answer me, but didn't move. He's 2 days and 12 hours into his turn.

This is seriously killing the game for me. I paid $30 in part because I wanted to say thank you to Randy, but in part because I wanted to participate in the ladder. This is not what I signed up for. I guess the system encourages it, though. I don't know how to fix it, but I do have a problem with it.

I've had a couple games that have stalled like this - although none as badly as this. Meanwhile, I'm not stalling the games for weeks where I'm losing (like most people, I've slowed down in losing games, but not to this extreme). And he's rewarded for it as my ranking drops (because I don't get the win against him) and his keeps going up (because he never takes a loss). Meanwhile I'm only paired against other top players, which means if a couple more decide to do the same thing, I just don't get to play.

That's not what I paid for. I'd really like this to be addressed.

a banking boot time in ladder games might help address the issue.. maybe 25 hours with banking of 25%.. would still allow stalling, but would be minimal

Reason for banking, Imho, instead of just straight 25hr AB, is that sometimes there are tough turns that you want to take extra time to figure out and are not always able to as soon as you'd like.. would give you some time for those turns, while not allowing repetitive stallers to stall quite so repetitively

Personally, I'm only annoyed when people do this because it slows down the rate of new games I can get. While I obviously would love to be number 1 on the ladder, and I'm (rather inefficiently) doing everything I can to get there, I mostly just enjoy playing new games. I love 1v1's on this site, as you can readily see by how many I've played compared to team/FFA games.

When someone extremely slow-rolls a loss, when losing is inevitable, it delays how long it takes for you to get a new game, which is the most frustrating aspect for me. I know I do this sometimes as well (same reason as Duke, I think that mentality is natural) so I can't really complain too much here, but it can be annoying for sure.

i had three people delay three full days at once, leaving me with just two other games. only doushi has been doing it for a week and a half.

I know the reason for wanting a minimum number of games. What's the point though for a maximum number? Why not allow people to 'request another game' and then the system will give them another game. It will still enforce the minimum, but then if a game stalls they can get another if they want without forcing the current ones to go faster. And if the current ones are clearly won then finishing them out should be easy so it shouldn't be as much of a burden having more games going at once and doing so is still at the person's discretion. Granted they still need an opponent to play it would atleast open them up for more 'active' games if some stall. Will also help once there's a monthly membership and hopefully more people get on the ladder then there will be more people to play against.

if there were no maximum number of games then everyone would do what you're doing, and nobody would ever take a loss, so nobody would ever take a win, either. of course, not everyone is an unethical game player.