What are timeouts in chess? I mean theres no button. Whats the point of it and how does it know if your using a timeout?

Do you mean being timed out or taking vacation time?

The help section of this site is quite handy ;)

What are timeouts and why can't I join tournaments because of this?

As Sunshiny suggests.. ye can take vacation time.. to prevent timeouts..

 I’m going to be out of town for a while, but I don’t want to lose my games!

its not a timeout in the sense of American football fer example.

 Here's the link to the vacation FAQ:

http://support.chess.com/index.php?_m=knowledgebase&_a=viewarticle&kbarticleid=31&nav=0,6

 

Looks like Pistoleer posted the same link first.

A Timeout means that you lost by running out of time to make your move.  Vacation prevents this from happening - it's like freezing the clock.

 

If you don't have any vacation time left, but you're not going to be able to login for a while, resign all your games.  Your rating will recover a lot faster than your timeout percentage.

being timed out

 

right

^ _ ^

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