About the clock at games ends...

Hi all!

It happened a lot recently, like 2 games ago: when my next move would clearly checkmate the opponent, well, the clock instantly went from 8 seconds to zero and lost the game...!?

I know that most online chess websites use clock correction system for players that have low bandwith connections and it's fair in someways, but losing many many match because of that system is not that much fair at the end. I played against many players that were disconnecting too much times in the last minute of many games to finally won, when my clock was bugging like described, then ended by a lost.

Can I avoid these players so I could only play against players with reliable connection? Or is it a programmation that try to correct both clocks abit too much but ends with an inequity for the players with reliable connections?

AFAIK lichess use time correction to compensate lag, but differently form other sites that use servers replica across the word they use client side algorithms (last time I checked).
So basically the site ask your opponents what compensation he deserves.

Few years ago there was rumours someone abused such systems, so they tweak it a bit to make it a bit harder to exploit, but AFAIK it's still exploitable today and there is no solution in sight (server across the word costs money).
So I would not be surprised if tomorrow we discover there was a lot of cheater that abuse that in bliz.

It is probably this game:

@tpr said ^

It is probably this game:

https://lichess.org/YSC5sWmz/black#101

You went from 0.8 seconds to 0.2 seconds and you lost on time.
Instead of promoting to a second queen you could have checkmated Qh4# right away.

Can you see the opponent disconnections history while playing this match, and the lag that been caused by those disconnections, and how the clock is not shown on my side as like as what it is recorded by lichess.org site? Etc, etc, etc... That's why I wrote that my clock went from 8 to 0. I saw it. Even if I should have played queen and win with a checkmate, next move would have had the same result but the game promptly ended. And it happened quite a lot with patent disconnections from the opponent.