The main issue is simple and very clear. The OP was NOT using his time as he saw fit.
Reason: He was in check. There was only 1 legal move to be made. No choice involved. Next move was Checkmate.
If optional moves were available to be made, he'd have a very weak argument at best. With only one legal move to be made and not moving, he demonstrated intentional poor sportsmanship.
Rules exist regarding this behavior. Specific rules can not be written to cover exactly all examples of what constitutes unacceptable behavior. They are "common sense" rules accepted by reasonable people. To attempt to write specific rules regarding what constitutes poor sportsmanship (which is against the rules), runs into too many issues of interpretation.
Suggest reading USCF and FIDE rules regarding the topic. They are much the same, using terms as "common sense and reasonable".
The OP later went on to say he thinks he has the "right" to start a game, make 1 move only, and if he so chooses can let his flag fall, that no rule exists prohibiting him from doing so. Clearly he is misguided as are a few others who have posted here "There is no rule against it".
The thread-starter had not few aborted games after move one in my opinion (I noticed yesterday). You won't find too many now, probably they were deleted after 24 hours.
If you play some thousands of games with a certain playing strength and then pretend you won't know what's happening!? If it happens once, ok, then you have the FIDE rules. Of course one can regard it as a cumulation of issues which supposedly are not in the spirit of (li) chess. Then the community rules count or as we call it in Germany "Hausrecht" (house right). The owner decides and he hasn't give a single reason.
PS: One can always argue that everything is "legal" - even
lichess.org/uebAvMlyThat's the best part of this, he has over 4000 games played and is trying to convince us he had to spend almost 4 minutes in a 5 minute game thinking about a position where he has one legal move.
No, he was trolling his opponent, and now he is trolling this forum.
@Yezy why not just stop being a sore loser instead?
Little doubt the OP was trolling and knew the rules. I for one had no interest in setting him in particular straight. The points made disputing his "there is no rule, why am I warned?" is good information for new players who may not be aware of chess etiquette.
#30 I've played nearly 30,000 games here and I've never heard of such a policy.
The OP is probably a troll, I'll accept that; but he MAY have been thinking several moves ahead OR he may not have worked out the only legal move.
From a legal perspective, if this was in Court, the OP wins every time. It isn't about one's perceived moral obligation but about written down rules.
If the administrator and/or mods wish to interpret rules, they should give us the rules they will be interpreting - otherwise the decisions are not fair because those who have to abide by the rules have no official set of rules to look at.
I think "don't be an asshole" pretty sufficiently covers it. You'll argue it's subjective, and you're right, but that is literally true of any written rule. All words - all of them - are open to interpretation.
In any case, this user's behavior is clearly in the wrong no matter what set of terms are laid out, and there is no defending it. This is not an example of the ethical gray area. So maybe it wasn't made clear that this specific type of behavior would lead to a ban, but that's not a defense of the user's behavior. This Web site would be better off without him or, better yet, him playing here but abiding by the rule I laid out in sentence one.
INTRODUCTION
FIDE Laws of Chess cover over-the-board play.
The Laws of Chess have two parts: 1. Basic Rules of Play and 2. Competition Rules.
The English text is the authentic version of the Laws of Chess (which was adopted at the 84th FIDE Congress at Tallinn (Estonia) coming into force on 1 July 2014.
In these Laws the words ‘he’, ‘him’, and ‘his’ shall be considered to include ‘she’ and ‘her’.
PREFACE
The Laws of Chess cannot cover all possible situations that may arise during a game, nor can they regulate all administrative questions. Where cases are not precisely regulated by an Article of the Laws, it should be possible to reach a correct decision by studying analogous situations which are regulated in the Laws. The Laws assume that arbiters have the necessary competence, sound judgement and absolute objectivity. Too detailed a rule might deprive the arbiter of his freedom of judgement and thus prevent him from finding a solution to a problem dictated by fairness, logic and special factors. FIDE appeals to all chess players and federations to accept this view.
A necessary condition for a game to be rated by FIDE is that it shall be played according to the FIDE Laws of Chess.
It is recommended that competitive games not rated by FIDE be played according to the FIDE Laws of Chess.
Member federations may ask FIDE to give a ruling on matters relating to the Laws of Chess.
Please read Fides's Preface to it's rules. Try to comprehend. Specific rules can NOT be written to cover all examples of misconduct and poor sportsmanship. Sound judgement and absolute objectivity are used.
A "list" of what is not acceptable, specific rules against this or that behavior is not practicable and leads to grey areas of interpretation. 99.9% of all chess players will agree that starting a chess game, making a single move and then letting your flag fall,or refusing to move when in check and there is 1 legal move with 3:45 left in a 5:00 minute game allowing the flag to fall, is unsportsmanlike behavior, not in the spirit of chess. Hence, common sense, fairness, and logic tells us taking appropriate action to prevent this behavior is warranted.
A further example to illustrate the point.
It is against the rules to intentionally "distract" your opponent.
A single rule will suffice. It is the arbiters decision as to what constitutes a distraction. A warning is usually given 1st.
It simply is impracticable to specifically list all the 100's of ways someone could distract their opponent. This applies to OTB and internet play.
@Toutatis I'm sorry you've not heard of the policy in question but how many games you've played doesn't mean you will or should have known about it. You'd have to read the website rules and policies regarding it. We are on a free access website and they are allowed to make whatever rules and policies they wish for the site which I believe is public so it's up to the users to understand and know of them. Concerning the OP game in question, it's pretty easy to discern if he was actually using his time to think or not.
Once again I encourage you to contact Lichess on this matter if you'd like clarification.
There's a certain type of person that likes nothing more than to talk about the rules. You will never satisfy this type of person because they like argument, not resolution. These people need a rule for everything, they argue endlessly about the letter of the law, and they are destructive to any community. Unfortunately I've seen more than 1 chess club destroyed because the rules freaks were allowed to take over. I hope that never happens to lichess!
