I notice one of my opponents appears to be stalling his games for the third time in the tournament and I noticed some things. I haven't reported him because he has only five days left, so if he wants to waste it doubling his thinking time when he can't pass the group thats up to him; and of course it could be legitimate vacation time.

However I noticed that he was able to go on vacation when it's his move, yet I can't - presumably this is an advantage of being a premium member. Surely this just makes vacation time more abusable?

Also, although the automatic timeout protection is a feature that may attract paying customers, surely it violates the "this is legitimate vacation time" rule? I wasn't aware that premium members were allowed to cheat, but going on vacation when its your turn to move is, as is extending the length of time available to you before your games time out.

Could someone clear this up for me?

EDIT - actually, the automatic timeout protection is abusable in another manner. When you intend to go on vacation (legally or not) instead of setting vacation time on, you just leave your games to run down until the automatic protection kicks in, thus maximising the total amount of vacation time you get in a twelve month period. Depending on subtle timing factors and the positions in question this may or may not yield any overall advantage, but certainly no disadvantage, especially when used unscrupulously.

This is a feature of Premium membership. Without searching through your games to see which member this is, I'm guessing that he is not putting himself into vacation mode, but rather his account is heading into that mode automatically when he runs low on time in any of his games.

I don't think so, I'm pretty sure he has 3 days or so left. But of course he may another game that has triggered the protection.

But regardless, it doesn't really answer my question - how come its cheating for a non-paying user to enter vacation time during their move, but not for a premium member? (I don't really see a distinction between manually setting vacation time and it triggering automatically)

Whatever advantages chess.com wants to offer to attract payments surely offering anything that gives an in-game advantage just doesn't seem right, IMO.

Anyway, thanks for responding. =)

thanks for the input. in order to provide auto-timeout protection we have to allow the auto-timeout to work no matter what the state. i respect your position on the matter, but everyone has the opportunity to get the same "advantage". :)

Well to me its a feature that is broken by design, but hey, Its not my site and if I don't like it I can go elsewhere or pay right? :P

Anyway, a last suggestion I would make is that tournament games are somehow not protected in this manner, even if standard rateds are - it would sure speed the damn things up and cut down on some complaining about stallers!

Ironically, I'm right now going on vacation, so thanks for responding quickly enough that I got to read this before I went. Warmer climes here I come!

hello g i have the same problem

support should see these things a not let them happen

play your move then go to vacation

good point