Escaper FAQ

A person who leaves a lost game instead of resigning is an escaper. Every go server has them. On KGS there is an automatic system to deal with frequent escapers, admins do not handle the situation.

For more details, keep reading...

1. Commonly asked questions.

My opponent just left a game without finishing, can they do that? Firstly, sometimes people get disconnected. So you might want to wait to see if they come back. Other people leave on purpose, they are generally called Escapers.
So, can an admin finish the game for me? Sorry, no. Admins might want to do this, but they cannot.
That's not fair! How am I going to win now? KGS has an effective anti-escaper system that assigns wins when certain conditions are met. (Read More at 4)
Can I leave my game? Yes!You can leave and it won't be counted against you.
My opponent came back. Can we resume the game? There is a Resume button by the Custom Game button that will allow you to resume.

2. What do I do when somebody logs out when they're losing against me?

Best thing is to leave them a nice message. Sometimes people get upset and leave, but if they get a nice message, they'll cool off and be willing to finish the game later. It's also possible that

they had connection trouble
their client crashed
they were able to log back on quickly but did not know how to get back into the game
they got booted in the middle of the game (perhaps for behaving inappropriately in the game-room chat area while they were playing the game)
an urgent event required their immediate attention and they neglected to tell you they were leaving the game

3. What if they don't log out, but just leave the game, and won't resume? Or what if they logged out, but when I see them later, they won't finish the game?

OK, so maybe they really are running away from a loss. First, don't stress about it. Whatever you do, don't start screaming in a chat room about it. It won't help, and it will annoy other people. What has to be done is for the server to know that the person escaped, and that happens automatically.

The first person to leave a ranked unfinished game¹ (whether by closing the window, logging out, or disconenction) is marked as escaping that game. You can do this a few times without any penalty, but do it too much and you will start losing the old unfinished games by forfeit. If you keep escaping then you become a "chronic escaper" meaning any ranked game that you escape will be instantly forfeit.

What does this mean to the people victimized by an escaper? It means that if the person really is an escaper, just wait. You will get your win. Yelling, screaming, complaining to the admins, won't help, only waiting will help.

Very, very few people escape only once or twice. If somebody escaped from your game because they can't stand to lose, then they'll do it again next time they're losing, and once they do it enough, you will get your win.

4. How exactly does the server decide who is an escaper?

The goal of the server is not to punish anybody. It is to make sure that you can adjourn a game from time to time with no problem, and also to make sure that players who walk away from lost games are counted as resigning them. To perform that goal, every time that you are the first player to leave a rated unfinished game¹, the server will put you into one of three groups:

Most people will be non-escapers. When you leave the game, it is marked as adjourned, and you can finish it later with no penalty. You are marked as the escaper for this game, but the mark is not visible to anybody and it will do you no harm; when the two players resume the game later, the mark is removed. Additionally, after 6 months, the game is dropped from the server's memory and the mark erased.
If you already have some escaped games, you may be forced to forfeit your oldest escaped game. This will happen if you have 5 escaper marks, and you have fewer than 10 legitimate losses for each escape. Only losses are considered because people who walk away from lost games are escapers. The system doesn't allow more than 10 pending escaped games.
If you have several forfeits already, you may be considered a chronic escaper. In that case, all your escaped games will be forfeited immediately, including the game you just left. If you have 10 forfeits already, then any new game will be instantly forfeited.

Note that only ranked games are considered for escapers. Escaping from an unranked game is considered to be an impolite way of saying "I resign."

Escaper FAQ

1. Commonly asked questions.

2. What do I do when somebody logs out when they're losing against me?

3. What if they don't log out, but just leave the game, and won't resume? Or what if they logged out, but when I see them later, they won't finish the game?

4. How exactly does the server decide who is an escaper?

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