Blitz games not counted properly

[joooom]

Hello! I recently played my first two blitz games and lost by a decent amount both times. When I checked my profile I noticed that the losses counted against my rank for normal 9x9 rather than blitz, which is a bit annoying since I would have played much differently in a normal game. Am I missing something?

[_Sofiam]

Hi jooom, welcome here
Did you play with scrictly less than 10 seconds per move?
10 is considered live.

Edit: Assuming that this is your profile, I see that you played with exaclty 10 seconds of byo yomi. If you want to play games that are counted as blitz, put 9 seconds or less.

[joooom]

Hi _Sofiam, thanks for the info! I believe I did as I selected “Blitz” from the quick match finder, but maybe it was exactly 10s. Is there any way for me to retroactively see the timing used? Also, if it was exactly 10s, why would it be called a Blitz game in the match finder if it won’t count as such?

[Conrad_Melville]

I think the main time also factors in. A minute in one game and 40s to start in the Fischer game take them out of the blitz category, I think.

[_Sofiam]

@joooom

Is there any way for me to retroactively see the timing used?

Yes, click on “Game Information” on the menu in the right.

@joooom

Also, if it was exactly 10s, why would it be called a Blitz game in the match finder if it won’t count as such?

I don’t know

[joooom]

Got it, thanks. It says “Japanese Byo-Yomi: Clock starts with 1 minute main time, followed by 3 10 seconds periods.”

[_Sofiam]

@Conrad_Melville

I think the main time also factors in. A minute in one game and 40s to start in the Fischer game take them out of the blitz category, I think.

I confirm that it has an influence.
I have tried a 5m +5x7s and it’s considered live.
But no main time +5x10 is live too.
I assume the main time only makes a difference with less than 10 seconds

[Conrad_Melville]

My recollection, which may be wrong, is that there is some calculation leading to an average time, which is the determinant. It has always been unclear to me.

[joooom]

I guess my main question is then why a game created under “Blitz” is not required to have settings that actually count as Blitz?

[fmansa]

This is an old bug…
But in the end of the day there’s no such a thing as “counting as blitz”. All games count the same for your rank.

[joooom]

Then why is there a blitz category on the ratings page?

[fmansa]

yes, that’s why i say it’s a bug, the “intention” is there, but it does not work as intended.

but otherwise it’s cosmetic, it has no effect other then stats, filtering.

[joooom]

Got it, thank you. I am still slightly confused though because some people’s profiles do actually have different (and not greyed out) ratings in that column. Should I report this as a bug somewhere?

[gennan]

@joooom

Should I report this as a bug somewhere?

This is known to be “By Design” (Not a Bug).

Also see Overall rank calculation - #2 by Eugene

[joooom]

I understand that the overall rank is calculated differently than one might expect, and that some things might be “features not bugs” but why leave the blitz column if it will not be updated or used?

[stone.defender]

when there is “blitz” button which create games that not counted as blitz, there is only 1 correct word for this: “bug”

[gennan]

Ah, I misunderstood.

I suppose the inconsistency in categorizing games as blitz / live / correspondence is indeed a bug.

I thought you wanted to report a bug about different ratings being calculated at all for different categories.

[joooom]

Ah, no I was talking about the blitz categorization.

[shinuito]

@_Sofiam

I confirm that it has an influence.
I have tried a 5m +5x7s and it’s considered live.
But no main time +5x10 is live too.
I assume the main time only makes a difference with less than 10 seconds

I’ve looked into it before, but I don’t know for sure if the categorisation of live and blitz for the ratings is the same as for the symbols (it would make sense if it did, but it would make sense too if the “Blitz” games were counted as Blitz for ratings too )

Blitz Game Problem

Here’s a list of guesses of what I think are the thresholds for Blitz settings irrespective of the board size. The only issue is that this is going by what the game history symbols are classifying as Blitz/Live as opposed to what the ratings algorithm might be doing. Now I imagine since the various functions I highlighted are being imported, they aren’t randomly different for different aspects of the site but who knows. I was going to thrash my own rating by testing with rated games but so far …

One idea was

@shinuito

Maybe the quick fix is for the front end to relabel/change the display blitz ASTs and the blitz auto match button to say something like “fast live” or “rapid” instead.

Just remove the word Blitz from the automatch. I imagine that’s quicker and less confusing than changing the time control assigned to that button (and all the tournaments etc) so that they’re counted as Blitz. We just need to tell people that “Rapid” is still counted as live.

It still doesn’t solve the problem though I suppose, that people who want to play Blitz, and have a Blitz rating need to know what time settings to use. Maybe those thresholds need to be relooked at in any case.

[anoek]

Thanks @shinuito for bringing this to my attention again, I reckon the best fix would be to actually make those blitz games, ie dropping the average move time down below 10s per move. So poll time, what should be the time increment / byo yomi time ?

• 5 seconds
• 6 seconds
• 7 seconds
• 8 seconds
• 9 seconds

I’ll update both the site wide scheduled tournaments and the automatch settings accordingly.