Tournament directors should have the power to manually disqualify players for vacation abuse. And they should also have the power to adjust the structure to allow the tournament to run more smoothly in elimnation games 2/1 type structures. There should also be a rating system to rate players and directors to isolate problem players and unfair tournament directors. There is nothing worse than having your tournament ruined by an inconsiderate player. And there is nothing that can be done. IT MAKES NO SENSE!! bEING HELD HOSTAGE BY A JERK AND I AM A PREMIUM MEMBER (but not for long). A few bad apples can ruin the whole barrel.
Lee2000
Well said.
Lee, I just looked you up and found that you are in the same tournament as I am. My group finished over a month ago (1st to finish) and now I am waiting months for that sicilian tourney to complete the first round. I am sorry you are upset, but I'm starting to accept that some people come to play, and others just push the limit to when they have to enter.
It's kind of like the person who pushes off work to the last minute to the point they have to get it done. There are players here who seem to move because they have to, not because they are looking forward to it.
If you are talking about the few players that hold up tournaments then there is nothing that can be done about this.
May I suggest joining this group if you qualify (move speed very fast):
http://www.chess.com/groups/home/fast-players-group
I have played in 2 tournaments started by players of this group and each round of the tournament is wrapped up within a couple of weeks.
Otherwise, I suggest patience and you can always start another tournament, a team match, or a regular game while you are waiting.
I agree, the vacation rules are too relaxed. Great post!
Dear Lee2000,
I can understand the frustration of having to wait ages for your opponent to move!!!
I have just resigned 2 games because my opponent plays a lot of games simultaneously ( more than 100 at the same time ) and he was taking the full 5 days to make a move... I couldn't stand that torture anymore... Just because you have 5 days to make a move, it doesn't mean that you have to wait 4 days and 23 hours to do it! At that pace, I probably would be dead before finishing the game, hehehe...
However, I don't see this as a reason to leave this excellent chess site!
As others have already pointed out in this topic, try to play in the Fast Players Group, start another tournament, match and mainly, have patience!
Don't let a few people spoilt your enjoyment here!
A vacation is a vacation.
All players are entitled to choose when and how he consumes the vacation days given him.
Nobody has any right nor any reason to complain when and how a member chooses to consume his vacation days.
What is needed in a tournament to avoid unnecessary delays is to specify the maximum days of vacation a player can take and the tournament organizer or director be given the capability TO DROP A PLAYER FROM THE TOURNAMENT ROSTER WHEN THAT PLAYER EXCEEDS THE MAXIMUM DAYS OF VACATION ALLOWED.
Although the player is dropped from the tournament roster he will continue to play all his games except that all his games won't count for the tournament but would count for rating points.
Or the player can still remain in the tournament roster but all his scores will be erased as having taken too many vacation days.
All these things would be legitimate because all who enter into a tournament would have to agree to a limit to the number of vacation days that can be taken by a participant and agree to the penaly to be imposed upon anyone exceeding the vacation day limit.
I agree. At work I don't get one month vacation a year. Also the function that allows vacation to hit in when the time to move almost runs out encourages people to play too many games at once. Also even on vacation most people still have some Internet access. Also if you know you are going to be away for three weeks why start a tournament? There needs to be stricter guidelines for vacation time and how they used.
Great post!
I vigorously agree with the people objecting to vacation abuse: I am currently in a tournament that has gone on for about three months because of a player who constantly goes "on vacation" when his time is about to expire and takes forever to move when it is his turn. What's more, he used up all his vacation time, then had more days credited to him. This is insufferable!
I have ran across the same type of thing and the guy is dead lost.
I agree, this holiday allowance is an issue that have to be addressed because some people tend to abuse the system...
Typically, players start using vacation and drawing the game out once they realize they are lost. Perhaps chess.com could implement a Fischer clock time control for correspondence events, eg. 10 days for the game/tournie plus a one day increment for each move played. That would make events move much faster, and players who know they are going to be away could save up some of their ten days by moving faster initially.
What I want to know is how can a player be on vacation time and still log into Chess.com?
It has happened a couple of time to me where one of my opponents is taking vacation time, and has been for a couple of days, but when I check their profile it says that their last login was today!
Seems to me that it would be a fairly simple fix to not allow anyone to stay on vacation time if they are logging into Chess.com.
I agree with s7silver--if they can log onto chess.com it should nullify their vacation leave --once logging onto the site they should have to make every move required in their games or have the clock tick down.
Half my Juniors are on vacation at the moment. The schools are on holiday.
Most people have a laptop. A lot of players have this site as there home page.
They may check their e-mail each day. Thus each day they would log on as this site is their home page. Don't assume that someone logging in but not playing chess is abusing the system. There could be a thousand reasons for it.
This site calls itself an e-mail/correspondence site. If we were playing UK v USA
correspondence you wouldn't complain that it took 5 days to get a letter to you.
Just play your moves and stop assuming that just because someone won't play to your tune that they are cheating.
Their is no assumption of cheating in these posts nor trying to invalidate legitimate vacation --the thread deals with the abuse of vacation and how it detracts from the enjoyment of the game. I am playing in a tournament where an opponent took 39 days to move--that is well within his rights. But to prolong games due to excessive vacation time is wrong and should be addressed by Erik and team
In a tournament I am in at the moment there is a player who had not moved in nearly two weeks, but has finished multiple games in that time. This needs to be addressed in a meaningful way yet I notice that not one staff member has commented on this.
I would like to see two changes enacted:
I don't see the problem. If you want to finish more quickly then join a tournament with a 1 or 3 day move.
Vacation time is limited. So therefore the problem is self-correcting.
Be patient.
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