Chess.com encourages players to be kind and show good sportsmanship. Our Sportsmanship policy expects that players will not...
intentionally disconnect during games
stall to make opponents wait unnecessarily
frivolously abort games because they don't want to play black, etc. (Note that we have now implemented a limit on the frequency with which users may abort games; please Abort only when necessary. Also see below.)
If your account is flagged for habitually breaking this policy, your play will be restricted, requiring you to wait 5 minutes between games (including aborted games).
Please note, our Fair Play Policy also prohibits use of outside assistance (including engines, tablebases, other players, etc.) which you can read up about here.
Tips to Avoid Aborting Games
Aborting games too often will temporarily suspend your ability to abort games. This means that if you cannot play, you will have no choice but to resign (or risk further sanctions described above, by abandoning your game or disconnecting). If you have to abort, then do so of course, but whenever possible, use the features available to minimize your need to abort chess games!
Do not Abort games if your opponent will not move at the beginning of a game: The server will do it for you!
On his or her turn, each player has 15-20 seconds to make their first move. If this does not happen, the game will be automatically aborted. This has a negative effect on the Fair-Play record of the player failing to move. (But if you hit Abort, it affects your record! It's best to be patient for a few seconds.)
Do not Abort games to find preferred opponents: Restrict your challenges and/or filter the Seek graph instead!
Don't just hit Start Game and hope for the best! If you are not willing to play just anybody, go to your Live Chess settings, and look for your incoming and outgoing ranges:
Here you can configure your challenge to get a game you will really want to play.
Use the drop-down menus to choose a range that's relative to your own current rating for the relevant game type. In the image above, the player is seeking opponents whose rating is not more than 150 points lower, or 150 points higher, than her own current rating. If she were rated 1400 in Blitz, her Blitz challenges would seek opponents from 1250-1550.
And if you're willing to play unrated games, you can even pick the color you want to play.