Vacation Abuse

So does post 20. 

Correspondence chess requires concentration and focus. These forums and an occasional blitz game, less so.

Vacation should be a time interval for our immd.necessity in which we areabsent for some reason-sickness,family or professional problems,actual

vacation or tour etc.or even technical problems internet disconnection

not in all countries but in some-computer or mobile unserviceable etc..

if a person logs in his vacation should be deemed to be over..-----

what I find is that people take vacation only for game against me and they are very much online and attending to other games..also play blitz etc.. as said by Khuri..the idea is some times to make u lose focus on the game and interest in it so the other player can come with renewed energy and win..

That's not how vacation works.

I only narrated my experience of matches against players in Team matches. as I am only playing those since 6 months may be 1 or 2 friendlymathces in btn. I may have played.

but vacation was availed by Tm players only against me hence the comment.

not knowing the experience of other players on chess.com.. 

Traditionally, a correspondence game lasts two years. The average correspondence game on this site lasts a month. A little vacation time might extend that to six months. It's still speed chess by correspondence standards.

If you stop analyzing because your opponent is on vacation, you are a fool.

I'm sure you're not. But on this one point, yes.

If you stop analyzing because your opponent is on vacation, you are a fool.

I'm sure there is some vacation abuse. But the solutions offered are too extreme. 

I have taken vacation to slow down a lost game against an obvious cheater to give the site mods a chance to implement the ban. Do I deserve to win such games? I certainly don't deserve to lose to an engine.

Vacation has many uses other than going fishing.  

There are a lot of strange notions of "fair" that don't make much sense for correspondence chess. Yours is in that category.

I don't have time to catch cheaters, either. But, I can play the "dead man's defense" against them. Quite a few of my recent opponents have been banned.

I didn't intend to insult you personally, but to express my view of your idea. Maybe we just disagree. I analyze when I'm on vacation. Our cabin is remote and has no internet, but I can take a chess set to look at when the trout are not rising.

What is wrong with playing some blitz to relax when you don't have time analysing 30 games that you have to make your move within 8 hours for example.

Just don't play 3days/move game where vacations are accepted, and be ready for sometimes 6 month+ lasting games if you still play thoses.

Some posts have disappeared from this thread. A natural consequence of unethical behaviour.

This is a joke. so what if you go on vacation? shouldnt have started a game if that was the case.

Everyone in this thread has no life...

I can't believe you all took the time to post this lol

I'd just like to add my own perspective to this discussion:

I'm new to chess and trying to learn to play; I recently found this website and joined my first game here.  Well it was supposedly a 24-hours-per-move game, and naively I thought: That sounds good - I can manage that.  It's difficult for me to commit a solid block of uninterruped time in order to play a live game, with enough time to really think, all the way through; running a small business and raising small children interfere too much with that.  But I'm happy in the morning or evening, to come back to a game in progress, and spend ten or fifteen minutes looking at what my opponent has done, applying what limited analytical powers I have to the question of what to do next.  I don't want to play blitz games or a whole pile of simultaneous correspondence games, either of which would feel counterproductive to my efforts to build concentration and focus, etc.

But now I see how this site actually works: My opponent is a premium member, and he's playing around fifteen other games besides mine.  I assume he can't pay attention to all of these games he's committed to, especially when life gets busy, so he's got his settings configured to automatically put him on "vacation" when one of his games runs out of time.  So the way it works for me, is that I have 24 hours to make my move, and he has 24 hours to make a move - unless he feels like taking longer.  In which case I suppose I just wait...  I'd much prefer, though, for the game to move along to a clear ending; I'd like afterwards to analyze it with a computer, so I can see where I was going wrong while there's still some of me being able to remember what I was thinking.

Really there ought to be an option to create "non-vacation" correspondence games.

As things are now, I can't see paying to join this site; it's just too annoying the way it is, so I'll go look for another without this irritating policy.

Just my two cents...

--dc

To play correspondence chess, you need some patience. If you don't have that patience, you can always start additional games or play no-vacation tournaments.

A clear sign of abuse is that the opponent logs into make moves in games he is not losing and then logs out again. I'm in two games with a guy right now who is doing this. It has been almost two weeks since I have made a move. What is the point of having a 3 day limit when someone can have unlimited vacation. I've never needed vacation. I think if I had a life incident which made playing impossible, I'd just withdraw. It's not that big a deal.

If chess.com wants to continue making money by selling players the right to take unlimited vacation, maybe they could offer their opponent the ability to cancel that vacation by upgrading. Don't move in three day,s you lose on time. What a concept!

Maybe chess.com should just offer a membership level that guarrantees a player will win all his games: a double double black diamond or something.

This is by no means "a clear sign", since it is absolutely compatible with regular vacation use.

Thank you Sred. I'm still learning about how to use chess.com. Now that I know what is consistent with regular vacation use, I'll probably drop my gold membership and scale back my use of chess.com. Perhaps the meaning of a three day per move game and the meaning of vacation could be made clearer. I've only run into this a couple of times. Most of the players here practice really good sportsmanship and I've enjoyed playing chess with people from all over the world.

Maybe you could answer a question for me. When joining a match it seems like the pair ups are automatic. Is there anyway to control things a little better. What if I wanted to play in matches but did not want to play members who have paid extra to take vacation time.? Is there a way to do that?

The only way I know is playing no-vacation tournaments or playing selected known opponents. There may be other ways - I didn't care that much because I didn't care how long the games take.

Thanks for your reply. I'll try to have more patience. Most people I've played against have been really good sports and fun to play. I do think chess.com should stop calling them 3 day per move games and call the correspondence games or whatever.

According to forum posts from the staff, it actually has been designed to be a replacement for the good old correspondence chess.