I guess it is time for me to leaving LiChess. My power company is so utterly unrealiable, that I gain a reputation as a wilful disconnector, despite most of the power company's induced disconnections happening in positions that are better for me, if not outright won.
As such, I am basically left to hand out rating points at random, courtesy of said utterly unreliable company. I don't enjoy that, and it leaves me frustrated, because I am left at the mercy of forces beyond my control.
It is fine if I get beaten on the board by a better player (as frustrating as it is at times), but to lose because of the incompetence of an external service provider is really not much fun. It just leaves me frustrated - sometimes on missing out on nice games, sometimes for having opponents who claim the wins in dead lost positions.
Would Correspondence games be an option for you? Then you have several days to make your move and an unreliable power company won't easily make these games lost for you.
@InsanityImpaired Well, perhaps avoiding rated games is what you could do? I have the exact same problem (probably just as severe as in your case) and have done that. Definitely disappointing but the only option if you don't like losing games left and right as a result of an unreliable connection.
I'm sure a lot of us deal with such issues. In my country internet is extremely unreliable and prone to going out at any time. And even when it just 'flickers' I usually lose.
It's absurdly frustrating but in the end it's only rating points which are not just arbitrary numbers but representative of your skill. The point being that they'll come right back as sure as your power and my internet eventually do.
It would be an option in terms of dealing with the random power outages, but I prefer games at a reasonably quick time control. And that is of course something that is not happening in correspondence play.
Also, if I am say a queen up, I don't want to continue said game for another 6 months, because my opponent may not know that resignation is an option, and just plays on in the hope that I lose interest.
Today I lost two games, not on bad play, but on this exact same issue - and it has happened to me before as well, and one time I got lucky, that I had premoved what turned out to be the last move of the game when power went out.
Other times I get short disconnects (either through issues with the ISP or power company), and then I lose a substantial portion of my time. That can happen to everyone - but it happens in about 10% of all the games I play.
It just leaves me frustrated. I really don't enjoy having a good game, being ruined because of circumstances I cannot control or foresee. Power outages are very common here - it is not like say Europe, where the average power outage per capita is like 1 minute / year. Then I would just chalk it up to bad luck, and it certainly would not happen in more than 0.1% of the games played there.
In short, I never know how much time I have to conclude the game, before external factors decide the game for me.
As such, I'd rather have my account closed, so that I don't have to deal with these frustrations.
I certainly don't blame LiChess for any of these woes.
Can you afford a UPS ( Uninterrupted Power Supply ) unit? If you are strong money-wise to buy one, then all your problems are solved !!!
"most of the power company's induced disconnections happening in positions that are better for me, if not outright won"
Coincidence? I don't think so.
If your power supply AND ISP are that unreliable then you should probably play correspondence only.
K, cya. I hope you enjoy Chess.com more. Maybe they will help fix your abnormal disconnections.
And again.
Back for a day, more or less, and the Kenya Power and Lighting Company decided that having supplied ten hours of power was too much. And thus I lost in a won position (with 6 minutes on the clock), courtesy of KPLC.
So, should I congratulate my opponent on having more reliable power supply? Wow, that is a real chess skill.
I am done here. There is no fun in losing, because of something beyond my control. At least if it were the ISP, I could look for better ones.
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