Have you ever been playing a game of chess, and taking a while to think about your move, only to suddenly see the game ended, and you lost?

Or maybe you already played your move, and were waiting for your opponent to play when it happened. Then you look at the game record, and it shows in the info tab that you lost due to timeout, or abandonment. What happened here?

The most likely cause for this is that you disconnected, and your computer was not able to reconnect in time.

After someone is disconnected for too long, the system thinks that they've left the game, and declares the game abandoned. You can read here about how the disconnect timer works for each time setting.

If the game info says that you lost by timeout, this means that your time ran out while you were disconnected.

Sometimes it can even appear that you've already played your move. But if you are disconnected, then the move never reached our servers, and your clock is still counting down!

Disconnects can definitely be very frustrating, especially if you are winning! If this happens to you a lot, please check out this article on how to improve your connection. Or, if you play on mobile, please consider reinstalling the app!

Note: If you are playing Daily chess, finished games will always show the time control on the clock. So for example a 3 day game will always show 3 days on the clock at the end of the game, regardless of how much time was left when the game ended.