I agree with chess.com's logic that online-chess-isn't-life, so vacation time should be allowed in tournaments, specifically the official chess.com tournaments, meaning, sometimes you have to go somewhere without the internet or time or desire to log on and make moves in a chess game. In other words, I support allowing vacation time during tournaments.

HOWEVER, from looking at some of the official tournaments that have been going on for over a year now, it seems that people intentionally and unintentionally abuse the policy (check out the comments on tournaments as rounds drag on forever -- especially when players use up 30 days of vacation time, then 2 days for their move, only to time out in the end). I wonder, instead, if there's a way to limit the amount of vacation time in tournament games? So the rules would read, "15 days of vacation time allowed." That's half an unregistered player's allotted vacation time, plus plenty of time for a TWO week long vacation (oh, to be so lucky) and a little time on either end to pack and catch up. Seems like a nice compromise -- still get SOME vacation time, but not as much wiggle room for abuse -- especially if you're telling folks up front that that's how it's going to be.

It seems like it might be tricky to implement on the back end. Maybe a "limited vacation" option might be a checklist that says "Number of vacation days allowed" with the options being 0 - 90 (or whatever the most you can have is), and then "per round" or "per tournament," so you could you 10 days of vacation per round, or 18 per the whole tournament or whatever, with zero being the equivalent of no vacation allowed.

Does anyone have any thoughts on this specific idea?

(Note: this is a repost from elsewhere -- the elsewhere having been deleted and moved here. Sorry about the doubling)

http://www.chess.com/groups/home/amazing-chess

what about the summer if you go visiting relatives in another country

i take 1 month vacations