Prevent lag compensation at Ultra and Hyper Bullet games

Lots of good points raised here. As many have mentioned, there has indeed been a major overhaul to lag comp this month.

Nowadays, the clocks behave as if you were playing over the board -- the time you see is the time you get. Or, more precisely, your move's time is the time between when your opponent's move appeared and when you make your own move. If you premove, you lose 0 time. (these are the normal case, really bad lag means you'll lose time)

I'll continue by using this fake conversation with nobody:

> How does a game look from the perspective of a lagger?

It's as if their connection was fast and everyone else were lagging. The time they use is how much time they got to consider the position after the other side's move appeared. And their opponents clock goes down slowly and has a long delay. Just like if they were the one with the fast connection.

Think General Relativity but with fewer inspirational Einstein quotes.

> Then a lagger has an advantage, right?

Not in any single game. When you play someone with high lag, the experience is the same on both sides. BOTH sides see their opponent's clock drop slowly and see a long delay before their opponents move arrives. BOTH sides have extra opportunity to premove during the delays.

> What about in tourneys?

Well, since a lagger has a consistent experience of delay, it's possible for them to adopt strategies that take advantage of this delay, for example by entering premoves. So they might be able to outpace someone who's expecting a low lag game.

On the other hand, high lag means all your games take longer, and that means fewer points. So it might not be much of an advantage in tourneys after all.

> Fine. Whatever. Just limit lag comp for fast games.

Not so fast. A player with high lag could still enjoy 1/4+0 time control. And for games between friends, I suspect most players would prefer both side's time be accurate regardless of time control.

I can see the justification for limits in tourneys to ensure that the games all have a similar style and pace and eliminate possibility of advantage, that's certainly something we could consider. But then that means the [rated] tourney games were played with different conditions than the rated lobby games, which screws up the rating accuracy.

> ...

Anyway, that's why we haven't changed it yet, but we're looking at options. Your concerns are heard and taken seriously. Suggestions welcome.

-Isaac

BTW, @mCoombes314 writes:
> It's a disadvantage in time scrambles because there is no compensation if a person's time reaches 0

False. The game does not end when the server sees 0 time for a player. In general, the time you see is the time you get. If your clock says .02s when you let go of the mouse, then you will get .02s, and won't flag. There's been a couple bugs in this area fixed recently (i.e. yesterday) but it's been mostly true for a couple weeks.

@isaacly Thanks for such an in depth response. To quote you -

"Well, since a lagger has a consistent experience of delay, it's possible for them to adopt strategies that take advantage of this delay, for example by entering premoves. So they might be able to outpace someone who's expecting a low lag game."

The issue here is that when someone is lagging, they know they have a bad connection before the game even begins, and therefore know their opponents moves will be coming in slowly, regardless of how fast they're actually played.
Their opponent, however, isn't aware of the bad connection initially, so they wouldn't know whether their opponent has a bad connection, or is just moving slowly. This can cause them to get way down on time, since they assume their opponent is playing slowly when they're actually premoving.

An easy fix to this, which I actually suggested in another thread a couple days ago, is to show the connecction strength of both players right next to their names, instead of having to hover over the player's name. This wouldn't fix the problem entirely obviously, but personally I would find this to be extremely helpful, since when I play someone who has 1 bar I would know to expect slow moves even when they're premoving.

This is quite a argument though. It could go either way. Both sides have made a pretty good point. Either way I believe it needs to be worked on.

I literally timed a 50 second ultrabullet game. Average I'm getting is 45. (Also adding the remaining time on the clocks after the game is complete)

Well, as far as the "don't know if they're moving fast or lagging" part, ultrabullet is very fast; if you slow down you lose.

I agree with @isaacly. I do not think that the reduced compensation is necessary.

Thanks, Ultrabullet Grandmaster idh82bu.

Things have obviously changed a bit since I last played bullet then.... does this mean that the "jump back" problem I mentioned no longer exists? @isaacly

The simplest way would be to check your opponent's ping before playing him. Thanks.

I agree with @Aquinas. Since we are discussing Ultra and Hyper Bullet which by definition are xtremely fast variants the experience should be analogous to their name. Does not make sense to run the 100 meter sprint like a marathon or in a slow motion fashion.
The feeling is ridiculous
Also lag should not allow lower rated players to damage their opponents rating.
As Andrew stated lag by definition is a negative expression.
I was just participating in an Ultra Bullet tourney and a guy with super lag was present winning games and at the end the players , including me, started leaving the tournament.
If this goes on for long i believe that these variants will fail to attract interest as they used to.

Thanks @isaacly, that was a great response.
Yeah, the problem I had with laggers was only in tournaments, because @Deizou1 you can't pick your opponents in tournaments. @Aquinas explained why it's a disadvantage in a tournament game again quite well, it's really difficult to play a lot of opponents with a good connection and suddenly adjust to facing a lagger. When each move takes a couple seconds to come in it just feels riskier to premove and I end up playing a lot more slowly, while also underestimating how much time my opponent has left. This leads to situations where I'm down time in a time scramble, while the lag makes it easier for my opponent to premove, making it even harder for me to catch up on time.

And a good amount of lichess players only play tournaments, so lag of course is a big issue. When I read the OP's post, the only change I can really see coming through is the one on setting a rating range for your own tournament, but aren't there lots of high rated laggers as well?