Does anyone have more concurrent games than I do?

1231 at the time of posting this.

Let me address any likely complaints or comments.

Yes, I'm crazy.

No, I don't really have a reason. 

Yes, I'm managing to keep my 1800 rating after all that.

Yes, I complete 10+ games a day and the count still goes up somehow.

I know that people like (wallyweinberger) had about 1400, but he ran out of time in many of them and is working to get his rating back up (kudos if you see this, Peter!). Not sure how many people are even close to my count... let me know if you find anything.

There was some guy who had 5000 but he went crashing down recently. 

wallyweinberger is watching you

ephemeron-17 is watching you back. It was staggering how you managed that many games and kept your average time per move at like 8 hours - pretty darn impressive.

Are you cra-... Never mind.

You know you want to say it. And you know it's probably true. The sad part is, I know it's true and I don't fix it - I embrace it. The perks of being a college student with a lot of time on their hands!

How much time do you spend per day making moves?

Most days, especially since it's summer right now, I can have the whole day free, and I can switch between chess, reading, going out and being productive, exercise, spending time with the dog, Scrabble, Sudoku... etc. But with this as my primary focus over Scrabble for the time being, I devote 5-6 solid hours to chess and I'm trying to fit in at least 30 minutes for tactics.

Why? I don't really have another outlet. Games like this and Scrabble let me focus all my mental energy on something I feel confident in and it lets me ignore a lot of the distractions that accompany living with a 12-year old brother and a mom that likes to talk.

People often ask me why I would bother with this, especially since it's seemingly insurmountable. But I only have to attend to about 400 games a day to avoid anything timing out. And a good amount of those are in the first 10-12 moves of the game, and those usually are similar positions, so I know what to do in them without having much thought.

Once I have to deal with a real full-time job (I worked one during high school summers, but ended it for the transition time to college), a family (if I even find a girl who's willing to put up with my craziness) and a number of other things, it's just not going to be feasible to deal with a game count of this magnitude. So I'm enjoying it while I can. 

Taylor Swift put it best. There's really no other substitute.

Haters gonna hate...

Samuelplayer has 1467 as of this writing. I've seen him at over 1500 before. He gets lots of hate for regularly waiting until the last moment to make his moves.

https://www.chess.com/members/view/samuelplayer

And I see a bunch of hate on his profile. I get a lot of that too. I always tell people that there's more than one way to play on this site, and there's plenty of tournaments that require fast player speeds (3, 6, or 12 hour per move maximum). Get over it!

Thanks for pointing him out - I've played him a few times but did not realize he was that busy.

Avery, you're not crazy, you're an enthusiast for chess, thank you for that very honoust and entertaining answer as to why you play so many games.

There must be wonderful girls out there who maybe are even more 'crazy' than you are!

Your 30 minutes on tactics also confirms my own daily tactical puzzle training. theres so much I still don't see!

All best

Marc

They insult you because you take your time to make your move? Is not you who are nuts (or at least you are not the only one).

I feel it's disrespectful when an opponent regularly waits until their time is almost up before making a move. As I wrote elsewhere: "If a tournament has a 7 day time limit per move, you have the right to take 6 days 23 hours on every move. That doesn't mean you should. In life, you also have the right to be an inconsiderate jerk, but that doesn't make it a good idea. Nor does it mean that everyone else should find it socially acceptable."

My current tournament has a 7 day time limit, with two games per opponent, played consecutively and not concurrently. In the first round, my group had one player that took 6+ days every turn. Now that we're in round 2, I'm facing another opponent who's almost as bad. This holds up the tournament for everybody, irritating many players. The first round started in September 2014, and there's a good chance that the tournament will last three years before we finish round 2.

In my view, most turns should be made within 24 hours. A long time limit is meant to give you a safety margin in case real life circumstances keep you from playing for a few days, it's not meant to let you take forever to finish your games. You do have a valid point about there being many tournaments that require faster playing speeds. I was unaware of that when I started this one; I expect I'll stick to such tournaments in the future since this experience has been frustrating.

@Bramblyspam,

Some people just value the time to think. The games are made with a 7-day time limit, and if a person wants to be 100% sure that he has found the best move, he can do so. Against a person your strenght, that is only natural .

One must also think of other possibilities why the person is not moving. Perhaps he has limited internet access. Like the OP here, perhaps has so many games that it is just impossible to constantly make moves in all of them. There could be thousands of reasons, so I think your irration at this is misguided. 

A gentleman as always - thanks for the kind sentiments, Marc. 

We found the gray matter! What's really bothering people, and are they to blame?

My answer is no. They have the right to be irritated with me. Every right in the world. Verbalizing it is fine as well, but it needs to be done in a way that isn't hurtful or rude yet still conveys frustration. And their frustration likely doesn't stem from just "taking 7 days per move" or whatever. It's likely because I don't NEED 7 days per move. It doesn't take any player 7 days to look at a board to come up with a move. That's just silly. 

But to echo what Robert just said, there's a plethora of reasons that people take their time in these games and don't play fast. But I don't really fit any of the common ones (limited access to the Internet, busy schedule...) because I'm clearly on this site for hours each day.

What I try to do is focus more on the games where people have given me disconcerting comments about my speed, just to speed the process along. I offer draws in games that do not affect the outcome of tournaments and also offer the opponent the chance to continue playing if they so desire. But as I've seen a good amount of people say on here, I do have every right to use the 3 days. It's definitely not recommended, and I see where Bramblyspam is coming from. But there's a number of precautions you can take to avoid slow players, including live chess (as fast as you want it!) and tournaments restricted to the fastest players on this site.

This isn't toward anyone in particular, but don't get annoyed with me if I'm not breaking any rules. Maybe it's not "sportsmanlike" or "ethical" or (insert other adjectives here), but it's not illegal or against any rules.

In my case, both of the opponents in question were on line and playing every day. Each day, the made their turns in games that had 24 hours or less to go. Access was not an issue.

Anyway, as noted, I'll probably handle this problem by only playing in tournaments that are restricted to fast players.

You sound like me 40 years ago she would have a fit if she knew I was over 100 consistently. Keep up good work. As long as you you keep up with school/ work play to your heart,s desire.

take my hat of to you , ive thought in the past certain players must be insane to have so many games going but im judging them on my abilities (ie i struggle with too many games) and not theirs

its a good eye opener to hear your view on this and ive learnt to appreciate your way too although im too much of a wimp to emulate you

Youre likening being an inconsiderable jerk to playing within the time limits that were agreed on? That's something an inconsiderable jerk would say, if you ask me. We all have different priorities geez