Worst Defeats on Lichess (Bullet): Losing on Time

Photo by Lukas Blazek on Unsplash

Flagging someone may be considered a cheap tactic in chess but it's a valid one and though I've been on the receiving end countless times, I've also done the same to many others so I wouldn't say that it's invalid or illegal, especially when you're playing bullet chess which almost all the time would come down to how much time you have left on the clock rather than the position on the board.

However, there are some really annoying instances when the browser freezes and after refreshing, you will just find out that you already lost without even being able to do anything about the matter. I'm not sure whether it's my internet connection or whether my opponent is doing something with his internet connection but it has happened to me several times before as well so it's just frustrating to encounter that.

Anyway, checking my stats, I saw that some of the worst defeats I had on Lichess were because I ran out of time and oddly, my opponents had ample time left on their clocks which brings back those memories of getting pissed off because I couldn't do anything about it. Let me show three of those games in which this happened. In both games, I had a pretty solid position but my problem was the clock.


In this first game, I admittedly made several mistakes that led to an uncomfortable position but it was neither lost nor in a disadvantage. It's just that I could've had a better position if I made the right moves at certain important parts of the game. Anyway, fast forward to the final position, you can see that we were in a somewhat equal position but the problem was that I already lost on time so I wasn't able to finish the game. In fact, it was still pretty playable for White and there were a few things that I could've done to salvage the game. My opponent still had 22 seconds left on the clock.

The next two games were weird because I wasn't even able to get past the opening phase of the game when my clock already ran out of time.


Clearly in this game, I was already at a good position because my opponent's pieces were in awkward positions whereas, though I haven't developed all my pieces, they were in better squares than White's. However, for some reason, with my opponent's clock still having 1 minute and 2 seconds remaining, I strangely ran out of time. This was most likely due to my internet connection but I'm not completely certain because if that were the case, I should have been able to at least reach the middle game or even later than that part but we only stayed in the opening and my opponent had so much time left so it makes me wonder what really happened then. The next game is not so weird but it's still a bit strange to me.


In this next game, I probably let the clock run out of time. I was petty back then, and even now at times, whenever I make a mistake and I would just throw the whole game because it's no use trying to continue playing when you know you're already in a losing position and you can't do anything about it. So it's either that or something happened with my internet connection again. It was probably the former and I didn't have the energy or drive to continue the game even further. Understandably, I was a pretty low-level player at this time still so I had so much room left for improvement. And I worked hard in order to get better.

Anyways, I just wanted to share these games and how frustrating it can actually be. Have you ever experienced being beaten by a much lower-rated player because you lost on time? Because if you have, you know what I mean. It would be okay if they beat you, not on the clock, but on the board by having a better position and making the right moves more than you. However, there's just some small frustration when you're beaten without even being able to fight with all you've got.