I ABANDON THE PLATFORM PLAYCHESS

Chessbase's playing platform, Playchess, cheated again. 

Today, it robbed 30 points of my ELO. 

It is interesting to note that it always happens then and only then when I have reached the top 5 or 10 on the list of current-day players.

Today, in my rapid game Nanomaster—Sd75, I had white pieces. I suddenly couldn't make a move, and the system announced that my opponent had left the game and was playing another one.

Do I really have to wait politely? It is a rapid game that was interrupted.

Earlier today, the server was down for a while.

After approximately 5 minutes, I tried different buttons on Playchess, like "Refresh", etc.

Suddenly, Playchess declared I had lost a game because my opponent CLAIMED I had disconnected the game.

At the same time, I had a perfect internet connection, but I was technically unable to press the "Claim win" or "Abort" buttons.

It was technically impossible to report the problem. As always, the "Help" button gave an error message.

According to Playchess, my opponent closed the game and, therefore, I lost the game!

In a 15-minute game, I had used 5 minutes, and 10 minutes were left. I was not thinking about my last move for more than 2 minutes. 

Tell me, how could my opponent start a new game and make an official complaint if I had been disconnected for only two minutes?! What normal person would complain if the opponent was disconnected for only one minute?

Please explain how I could have been disconnected if my clock was running and Playchess was able to send me messages that my opponent started a new game, that my opponent made a complaint, and that the arbiter ascribed me a loss?

You are cheaters, Chessbase and your Playchess!

Despite paying for the service for one year, I will no longer play a single game on Playchess.

PLAYCHESS LOST MY GAME

Recently, I criticized the chess platform Chess King Play. Among other things, that platform lost one of my wins against a player with a high ELO. I did not see a notation of that game while the result was recorded, and, accordingly, my ELO was increased. The support team never answered my complaint. I abandoned that platform.

Now, I was playing on the Chessbase's platform Playchess. 

If you pay for it, it has some comfortable features. For example, if you enter Playchess through your Chessbase program, all the games played will appear directly on your computer in Chessbase without you needing to download them.

Unfortunately, not all.

Today, I achieved an ELO higher than 2050. Suddenly, a player with an ELO around 1400 accepted my challenge to a rapid game. That was some grandmaster or, instead, some bastard using the chess engine during the game. That opponent played exceptionally quickly and precisely. Its opening preparation turned out to be the best of the day. In a rapid game, I lost a lot of time. I do not know the opening theory. 

I lost the game. I lost about 30 points of ELO.

I do not know the username of that player. I do not remember the game except for the first ten moves.

While Playchess decreased my ELO, that game does not appear on my games list. Playchess has lost that game, and it has disappeared.

These are clear signs of manipulation.

Someone creates an account to decrease someone else's ELO. That account has a very low ELO. It plays against a chosen opponent using the chess engine. The account owner also has another account with a high ELO.

It is probably some admin of the platform, as it was able to delete the evidence.

So why should I continue to pay for such services?

And isn't it sick to use such manipulation to get revenge for a lost game? Is winning in a chessgame really so all-important?

Post Scriptum

A few days later...

When the time comes, I will not renew my subscription to Chessbase.

The only reason I subscribed was that I started playing on its Playchess. Playchess does not even record the games if not paid. No downloads are allowed, either. 

Unfortunately, even in the paid version, some games are lost.

Today, two games disappeared. The system announced that it failed to save the games:

Playchess failed to download the game

Fortunately, these games are still on Chessbase on the internet. Because of some technical mistake, they were not downloaded to my local computer's Chessbase program. I had to download the games manually.

But one game that disappeared earlier (I wrote about it above) has vanished altogether.

The other reason is that cheaters are not ruled out. 

I am pretty sure that today and yesterday, some of my opponents used chess engines during the game. They played very fast and, as my computer analysis shows, almost without any mistakes. During the game, the rhythm of their moves was also robotic. Human players take a pause when facing a surprise. And so on. 

How do you explain if a player with the ELO 2200 makes perfect novelties in two rapid games in random openings, improving the mistakes made by correspondence chess grandmasters?

There is one more problem. I do not know how to switch off the chat on Playchess. 

It is interesting to note that precisely those players playing very fast and without mistakes (as the computer analysis shows) disturb the opponent with improper remarks like "Why do you not move?" etc. You are in a zeitnot, and your opponent has wasted only one minute from fifteen. And he disturbs you with such comments.

Later, one of these players accused me in the chat of being impolite because I did not answer his comments during the game. He knew I was in serious zeitnot!

So, why is the option of turning off the chat not salient, and why cannot I find it?

Why should I pay for such services?

Today, I had some nice games. It is always a pleasure to lose a chessgame to a resistant opponent who plays human chess, makes some mistakes, but finally wins by masterfully exploiting your blunder.

More Technical Mistakes

It is very interesting. On my computer, in the Chessbase program, the file with my Playchess games was inaccessible for a while. 

Chessbase program cannot access the Playchess file

Later, it contained a large number of chessgames that did not belong to me. Finally, it started to include only my games, but some were still missing.

What else does the Chessbase program upload and download from the users' personal computers without their consent and knowledge?

I ABANDONED THE CHESS PLATFORM CHESS KING PLAY

There are so many mistakes on this chess platform that I don't have time to list them.

Perhaps a little later, I will describe them in more detail.

For the moment, I will mention the following mistakes:

1) In one of my first games there, I played against a player with an ELO of over 2200. The moment I made a move that made it clear that I would win in a tactical combination, the game was interrupted. I scored a point, but my ELO didn't change. The archives had no game notation, even though the game metadata were recorded there. Chess King did not respond to my complaint.

2) Despite setting a limit on the ELO I wanted to play with, I was constantly being confronted by players whose ELO was, for example, 500 points lower than mine.

3) Even though I set the restriction (as I remember) not to ask for a move back, my opponents managed to do so. However, asking for a move back in rated games should be automatically impossible. Unfortunately, some players asked for a move back many times in a row, and for no reason, just disrupting the game. If you can't bid a draw more than three times in a game, why can you ask for the move back dozens of times in a row?

4) On Chess King Play, there is a widespread habit of hooliganizing, for example, accepting a challenge to your game only to cancel it. On dozens of occasions, my game was accepted, but the opponent either didn't move or immediately cancelled the game. 

5) There is a widespread bad habit of abandoning the game when the position on the board is bad. The opponent is forced to wait another five to ten minutes even though the game's fate has already been decided.

6) There is a technical means of blocking rogue players, but it works only half-heartedly. I have managed to block about thirty hooligans. Still, I have failed to block another thirty or so, either because it proved technically impossible for some reason or because it suddenly turned out that there was no such opponent on the list of players.

7) Chess King Play players use chess engines en masse, even though they have declared that they do not. Already from level ELO 1800, cheating is done massively. I understand this very well when a chess engine is used against me in a quick game. I've played hundreds of training games with the grandmasters with fast time control, and I know perfectly well what they can and can't do in a short amount of time.

8) It's not just that this chess platform technically allows hooliganism and cheating. This platform itself is likely doing dubious manipulations. For example, this platform "randomly" gave me black pieces about seven times in a row yesterday. Such coincidences do not happen in real life.

(For a similar reason, I stopped using the Chess.com platform a few years ago. Namely, in correspondence chess, this platform "randomly" gave me the same opponent ten times in a row despite many options for providing opponents. This opponent always played the same opening variant I knew perfectly well because of my previous ICCF games. He later officially complained that I was cheating. In fact, after I got out of the opening, I made many mistakes in those games before I won. Cheating was probably done by Chess.com instead, who manipulated it for political reasons, which I do not wish to discuss here. I abandoned this platform.)

9) ChessOK and Chess King Play platforms are mixed. While it is difficult to find information about it, the Chess King Play is a newer version of the ChessOK Playing Zone. In this case, however, mistakes are not avoided. 

I had to make a separate account in both. They managed to get me to play with myself even though I had the same username and the same details on different platforms.

Nanomaster is playing against itself. - Chess OK

Nanomaster is playing against itself. - Chess King Play

10) Meanwhile, I could not download my game notation (PGN) on the Chess King platform. Finally, I got the PGN file, which initially opened in the chess programs. However, sometime later, the game disappeared - the game notation was empty! The PGN files downloaded were broken.

11) Audio notifications are not working properly. Since everyone plays blitz with a time control of 5 minutes or less, but I like to play slow games, I sometimes have to wait hours before someone accepts my offer for a match. I was doing other things then, such as reading a computer book. However, it has often happened that I did not notice that the game had already started. Namely, the sound notification works only when the Chess King Play window is opened. If, simultaneously, another window is open in which I am reading a book, then the game starts secretly, completely unnoticed. (In the Windows app of the ChessOK Playing Zone, the notification about the beginning of a game did not work at all.)

Chess King's hostage

This platform also has learning files under Chess King Learn. Generally speaking, these PGN files are comfortable, interesting and useful. 

However, I wonder why they sell study files for money that give the reader a headache because they are written in broken English? If you're making thousands of dollars selling these files, you could spend a hundred dollars a year fixing your grammar mistakes.

Of course, I have nothing against the professionalism of Russian grandmaster Alexandra Kosteniuk. However, these files teach children outdated opening theory. It is a haltura. 

For example, in one of the main variations of the Queen's Gambit, in one position, one move has been known for decades. It is the most frequently used, successful and the strongest according to chess engines. Surprisingly, this move is omitted from the study materials without any comment. There are many more examples.

Finally, I would like to ask whether this Alexandra has a reason or a conscience? Today, I liquidated my account at their Chess King Play. Earlier, as I remember, I had to create a separate account there in addition to the Chess King account through which I bought the study files.

And behold a miracle. After liquidating my account on Chess King Play, I also lost access to my study files, which shouldn't have anything to do with the playing zone because those study files are in the store and not the playing zone. Without any warning. (On the ChessOK, an older version of the Chess King, there are two separate accounts - one for the shop and the other for the playing zone.)

As a result of all this mess, I feel I no longer want to have any business with this Chess King platform!