How LAG and TIMESEAL work on US CHESS LIVE

What is lag?

Simply put, lag is a delay in the transmission of data within a network or system network. Every person has a different "path" to USCL. Each path passes through different routers and cables, with varying amounts of traffic and delay. The most common analogy is lag is like traffic on a freeway at rush-hour. Sometimes things are moving along fine and then for no apparent reason, everything suddenly slows to a crawl.

Hopefully most of the time when you play chess on USCL, your lag will be minimal.

What is Timeseal?

Timeseal is a program that was developed to help improve chess playing on the Internet. In very simple terms, along with sending to the server the actual move made, the program "seals" the time it took for your opponent to decide upon his move. Timeseal is "built into" the USCL interface.

Timeseal will not prevent lag but it helps make the games fairer when lag occurs.

1) While sitting in the comfort of your own home, you make your move: 12.Qb3. The software sends it to the USCL server. (Note: it may go through many routes and networks before it actually reaches this destination.) In addition to just the move, the program sends along the time you spent thinking of your move.

2) Let's pretend in this case the server receives your move almost instantly and confirms it was indeed legal for the position and type of chess game you are playing. It then...

3) ...sends this move to your opponent.

4) Having received you're move, your opponent starts thinking of his reply. He immediately decides 12...Nf6 is crushing and sends it back the server.

5) However, at this point your opponent starts to "lag." There may be several reasons for this. For example, one or more of the servers along his route to USCL may be having problems communicating with each other, and may have to send the data packet back and forth, to confirm the information is correct. This may take time.

6) Meanwhile, at your end, you don't realize he's already made his move... and you're watching his clock tick down... tick... tick... tick... You think you're going to win on time!

7) Finally, your opponent's move reaches the USCL server. The server verifies the move is valid and reads the time that was "sealed" with the move. "Sure enough, he was lagging," the server says. "The move took awhile to get here but it made it... and it was indeed made a while ago." The program updates the game clocks and then...

8) ...sends this information back to you. Your program makes his move on your chessboard for you to see and updates the game clocks, to reflect the actual time he used to consider his move.

This is why it may appear on your end your opponent is "gaining" time with each move, above and beyond the increment you may be using. But as you can now see, this is not the case.

If you are continuously having a problem with lag, you may wish to consider changing your Internet provider. A different provider will have a different route to USCL which will probably be less troublesome.

Also, you may wish to...

(1) Play games with a higher increment per move and, in general, longer time controls. A loss of two seconds in a Lightning game is usually much more crucial than a loss of two seconds in a Standard game.

(2) Play unrated games for a while until your lag problem seems to have improved.

(3) Tell your opponent about your lag. "Ah! Sorry, but I'm lagging!" In response, your opponent might do one of several things:

(a) Give you more time occasionally with the moretime command.

(b) Turn autoflag off, if they have that feature turned on, or at least decide not to flag you as soon as your time hits 0:00.

(c) Agree to abort your game and cancel it.

(d) Agree to adjourn your game and continue it later.

However, please realize he is not obligated to do any of the above. It is not considered unethical to flag someone when they have lag.