HORRIBLE!!!!!!!!Verbally abusive players.Players who cheat.Players banned for no reason.Chess.com wrote me: “Eight months ago, you sent a message to another player claiming to be pedophile. You are banned for life.”This is patently absurd on so many levels. Obviously, neither I, nor any player would send such a message. I never chatted or interacted with other players during play.I received this reply immediately after complaining about a player who sent me the nastiest, most abusive message I ever received on Chess.com. I came to this site, because I Googled “chess.com complaints.” I was always a goos sport, and I am always polite. Many players complimented me on my active play style. I figured if I had all this issues, if I was banned for no reason, chess.com must have a lot complaints. It does! However, I’m surprised there are not a lot more complaints. I have been playing on LiChess ever since. On LiChess, I have never experienced verbal abuse or poor sportsmanship, ever. On LiChess, you don’t have to wait until your opponents clock runs down to zero to win a game when bad sports abandon the game when they have lost position, which happened on Chess.com all the time. In fact, I haven’t encountered any bad sports on LiChess.I suspect a large number of players on chess.com are children. On chess.com opponents can harass you by rapid fire requesting a draw every second. This can cause you to lose a lot of time, because Chess.com forces you to respond every time an opponent requests a draw. It is more like playing a video game than chess, as you have to rapid fire dismiss all these requests for a draw. If you report other players, they ban you. If you have a paid account, you may have difficulty getting your money back. Each time bad sports request a draw the board (and maybe also the clocks) are blocked from view until you respond. No player on LiChess has ever requested a draw even once in a lost position. I contacted Chess.com support, and never received a reply. I wrote the head of Chess.com and never received a reply. The playing experience on LiChess is infinitely better. Since playing on LiChess I have not had a single problem with another player.I estimate one in every five players on chess.com is a bad sport who engages in childish verbal abuse, rapid fire draw requests, harassment, cheating (every few games, I received a message from chess.com that one of my opponents had cheated and my rating would be adjusted), players sending you a messages to move faster, players taking twenty minutes to move in a thirty minute game, and countless other forms of bad sportsmanship. Chess.com responds to complaints here with replies that make them seem like they care. Nothing could be further from the truth.
