I know we all hate limitations of any sort, but I think Chess.com might want to consider putting a limit on the number of games we play at once.  Every tounament I'm in always has at least one player who has hundreds of game going and waits until the last minute to make every simgle move, causing the game to go on FOREVER. In addition, many of them use vacation time to further delay the games.  Also, if you enter a conditional move in obvious lines, they will ignore it and make you wait for days to get their move when there is only ONE LEAGL MOVE!

One tournament I'm in has only 3 games currently going (nearly 6 months after the start of the round) and all 3 involve the same player.  These guys really put a kink in the flow.  It's hard to belive they're having much fun in their games.  All they do is make quick moves to keep the clock from running out. 

Sometimes a little limitation can be a good thing.

This seems like a fair idea. I have lots of games going, 120-160, but hundreds seems like a bit much. Perhaps players with that many games in progrress could be forbidden from entering tournaments.

I personally get overwhelmed with anything over 40-50 so I keep myself to that limit. Lately even 15 is much for me so I have no clue how some people have 200 games going at once. I agree with your guys that sometimes there is only 1 guy holding up the tournament becuase he has 250 games going at once. Kind of irritating. I am thinking some of my tournaments I started last year would already be over if it werent fot this one user.

A constant source of annoyance. Maybe some day the issue will become a priority.

In the mean time look for "Max Avg Time/Move" before joining tournaments. There is no guarantee in later stages but at the beginning, players will likely not be overburdened.

I would say that in theory this would work, but I am against this idea of limiting the number of games played so that tournaments can run smoother. I consider myself someone who plays a lot of games (300+), but in tournament games, I always respond to the move immediately because I know that my opponent might be a basic member, thus it is common courtesy to try to allow them to enter another tournament. Also, I know how frustrating it is to wait for the last game in a tournament to finish, especially if I'm advancing to the next round.

HOWEVER, I do not believe that this behaviour of extending games is only practised by people who play hundreds of games. I've seen people with only 5 games drag on a tournament, and others with hundreds of games being the first to finish in their group.

What I'm trying to say is that although this plan may be well-meaning, it defines everyone with a lot of games as a "slow tournament player", which may or may not be true.

I believe that it's one's right to screw themself over by playing tons of games, so the amount of games that someone can play should never be fully limited. There are already several limits for players with hundreds of games: You cannot create open seeks, and you cannot join several tournaments because of a time per move limit, and yours is predictably slower (It could just be in team matches, you never know) because of the amount of games you play.

I couldn't have asked for a better bunch of posts. THANKS to all of you.

This was supposed to be about slow play, but I deliberately gave it a contraversial title to get comments from people who had many games going. A few of you who said you have many games got to the point:  As long as you play at a reasonable pace, it's really none of my business how many games you play.  But..

TadDude's comment "In the mean time look for "Max Avg Time/Move" before joining tournaments." is of course, a factor, and I do.  But players can still stall.  Another website where I play another game (Go) has a creative way of dealing with this which I would like Chess.com to consider:

They have another type of time control which gives players a time per move plus a block amount of time for the whole game, enabling players to choose a shorter per move time, knowing that there will be some slow moves, but not every move. For example, you might take a "1 day per move plus 30 days" time control.  Players like me would make a move or more per day during the week, and then use some of the cumulative time on weekends and still not forfeit if we failed to move within the 1 day. (There would probably be far more players who would be the reverse, as most people work more during the week.) It's sort of like building in some vacation time to each game, so players don't have to slow play everyone when they get behind on a few games.

What do you  think?

No one likes having one exceedingly slow player dragging a tounament out for a year. I have at least four tournaments going like that. It is always just one guy. If you don't want to play, why join?  The worst case scenario was when I played in a tournament called "Fast" and the TD/Host went on "vacation" for a month at a time.

I enter tournaments and half the time don't even check the results. They go on and on and once in a while a nice trophy pops up, most of the time not. I jsut don't pay  attention they go on so long. 

I understand. I was that way until recently, when it became obvious that a particular player was holding up multiple tournaments. But you do care about slow play. I went to comsome of your other comments on other sites... to wit:

'I have an opponent in a game where I am a "clean" piece ahead. He has been on vacation for about a month--I've lost track, I would like to know if "the end is in sight" He has 22 games on hold."

and...

"I have just had a opponent go on vacation when it was his move. I thought that the site doesn't permit this. "

This would be logistically impossible, as it's alost NEVER your opponents' move in every game.

Until I became a premium member I had to move in all my games before I could go one vacation.