Why do I see the clock running on my opponent, then come back?
You are probably seeing the disconnection timer. Sometimes referred to as Zeus (for the lightning bolt).
This means that if a player leaves the game page for 5 straight minutes, they lose by disconnection. Too many of these losses can lead to a player getting banned, as our intended means of concluding a game are by resignation if you have definitely lost, or else finishing such that scoring can be quickly and accurately done.
The purpose of the disconnect timer is so that for longer games, if one player leaves, the other is not forced to wait out the full length of the remaining time until their opponent times out.
The disconnect timer does not pause the game in any way, and if it is their turn their clock will continue counting down normally even though the disconnect timer is counting down seperately.
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Wait, who’s calling it “Zeus”?
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Thanks. But the opponent leaves for a couple of seconds then comes back, then the clock runs again for another couple of seconds and comes back. It keeps happening on and on. Many do that and I don’t know why. I am curious. Are they going to see who is ahead/behind? and if so…where can one see that?
The disconnect time happens when someone loses connection or closes the browser window/tab. It’s difficult to say exactly why this happen in a general, since individual cases will be different.
This could be happening simply due to a spotty internet connection, or it could be someone rage quitting without resigning (although then they typically would not come back).
It’s a possibility, but someone using an external AI tool (which is against the rules), would not have to close their browser window to do so. If you do suspect someone of using AI to cheat, or if someone is wasting other’s time by abandoning games, please do report these cases to the moderators, and we will look into them.
A common answer to this is that they are playing two live games at once. They need to quickly move between both so that they are not disconnected from either.
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As I said, they go for only a couple of seconds…come back and do it again. Can they cheat in that short amount of time?
People can cheat while keeping the game open. It doesn’t make that much sense to close the browser, when alt-tabbing to an AI program seems more convenient and less likely to cause a disconnect.
Can be someone putting the game on a real goban. (And trying to spare time )