Etiquette around non-starters

Someone challenged me to a ladder correspondence game yesterday, but is still to make their first move as black. What’s the etiquette around this? Is challenging when you’re not ready to start playing considered impolite, absolutely fine, or what? Am I free to cancel the game before my opponent makes their first move or will I be penalised? Any guidance gratefully received.

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Usually people play the first stone almost immidietly when they get black after challenging in a ladder, but since its correspondence game, so they have 3 days until they lose by a timeout.

You are free to cancel the game, but it counts as a loss for the ladder, so they will jump ahead of you. But your rank won’t be affected (games that end before move 6 will be automatically annulled)

Tho, that being said… It seems to be extremely new account, just registered yesterday and have not played any games so far. So if i had to make a guess, i’d say theres quite high probability that they joined the ladder without realising what it really is… So you could just as well wait 2 days in case they just time out without playing any moves ://

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It’s black to move. Blue Timer is also 3 days, so 6.

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Yeah, I’ll probably wait, thanks. My opponent’s new account spooked me a bit.

Helpful to know about cancelling before move 6 not affecting ranking

I know that it may be rude to talk in the game chat but considering that he’s new player, you may just ask him directly and politely.

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Good suggestion. Done. My opponent may not understand English, but machine translation is available and it was worth a shot. Thanks.

Nothing more you can do.
In approximately 35 hours you will know more.

Time enough to play some other games. :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:

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