Some people who maybe abuse of vacation

hello

I look at that some player use too much vacation function. For Example, this player (http://www.chess.com/echess/profile/AWARDCHESS?show_all_current=1) have a lot of games in vacation (a lot of pages of vacation game)...

I think it will be a goof thing if chess.com limit the number of games who can put in stand by by vacation...

I think you have to keep it such that you are either on vacation in all your games, or not at all. Picking and choosing games to go on vacation would really lead to abuse. Unfortunately Awardchess is "relocating" and has over 1,000 active games pending.

ok then. Hes got 1000+ games. If he goes on vacation all of them should be covered.

All the games are on vacation. The games that are listed as "waiting" are the games in which it is his opponent's turn to move. The games listed as "vacation" are the games in which it is his turn to move. If any of his opponents make their move, those games will then switch from "waiting" to "vacation".

So when you, Dimitri, do go on vacation or get sick or move or your puter dies or you have a death in the family or whatever, should we all crap on you for abusing vacation? You can't abuse vacation. It's not possible. 

what's mean relocating ?

Moving to a new place, maybe actually going on vacation?

Well awardchess really has too much on and he is going to lose his games if he doesn't start playing soon. I also don't understand what he means "relocating".

hum i understand...it's long to wait :))

thank you for your advices

This is a significant problem that if you look around there are many forums complaining about this - the staff should rethink the auto-vacation protection. I for one think it should not be allowed for tournaments or if it is allowed maybe only once per tourney.

 the previous forum on this was locked....

We live in the imperfect world the super-programmers of chess.com have created for us, it is not for us to judge them, as they are all great and wonderful, and love the game, and the site that we all love too!

I agree ozzie - the problem lies not with the staff but those who abuse this "luxury." Again, I am only speaking about the abuse within the tournament world.

It should not take 14 days for an opponent to make a move when the tournament is set to 3 days per move. What is happening is the opponent has auto protection so he continues to play his 500 - 1000 games but all those close on time get put on vacation while he continues to play. Thus allowing him to indefinitely put off other games - particularly the ones within tournaments.

I hope to convey a desire to improve the tournament play and not just an opportunity to gripe.

You missed Baseballfan's explanation in post #4.

"All the games are on vacation. The games that are listed as "waiting" are the games in which it is his opponent's turn to move. The games listed as "vacation" are the games in which it is his turn to move. If any of his opponents make their move, those games will then switch from "waiting" to "vacation"."

I have had this in one game, another person who regularly had 1000+ games on the go and the auto-protection would kick-in to stop games timing out; my 3 days per move game would regularly take 5-7 days for a move. I would watch them playing a few games whilst online and as soon as they logged off the vacation would kick-in to stop the other games timinig out, they would then log back in later the same morning and play a few other games.  That, to me, is not true vaction.

Without being one to "complain" without offering a solution I would suggest the minimum amount of vaction time per block is, for example, one day rather than at them moment the vactation clock ticking down in minutes. This would more likely only capture genuine vaction rather than allowing "game protection", or at the least your vaction would run down quicker if using it as game protection.

Respectfully, I did not miss his post. My point is the abuse of auto-vacation which happens automatically whether the player places himself on vacation or not. This is what causes games to drag out indefinitely. Read the post above from Yanner for more of the same type of issues. These individuals are not on vacation - they are merely using the "luxury" of auto-protection. I am in a few tournaments where these individual drag the games out for months and are still in the single digits on moves. If you join a tournament because it has a 3 day per move stipulation and didn't join another tournament because it had a 14 day per move setting - it seems ironic that you may be forced to do so anyway.

For clarification I am not saying do away with this feature but we should be able to prevent these individuals from not meeting the "spirit" of reasonableness especially when it comes to tournaments.

Apologies for misunderstanding.

Possible solutions to auto-timeout protection abuse:

- An optional setting for maximum auto-timeout period. Vacation runs down for the auto-timeout period. The status would be "timeout protection" not "vacation". After X hours or X days of timeout protection, or vacation runs out, whichever is sooner, the game clock no longer stops. Of course X does not reset. Once used up it is gone.

- An optional setting for maximum number of uses of auto-timeout protection per game. Once they are used up the clock does not stop. This could be set to zero at the start to disallow any auto-timeout protection.

Those who over-extend would have to find games where these settings are not used.

I am thinking keeping track of all this may not be feasible. The suggestion from Yanner is much simpler. "...minimum amount of vaction time per block is, for example, one day rather than at them moment the vactation clock ticking down in minutes."

Perhaps there are other suggestions.

That is a good thought - I also think it should be eliminated entirely for tournaments or only allowed once per tourney. The reason behind this thought is that tournaments are different from standard chess.com games.

Keep the the thoughts coming - this is a community and I think communities should solve their own problems...Ultimately it would be nice if these individuals would just refrain from joining tournaments until they have a game load they can handle.

 Absolutely Ozzie. It's just that I don't think that the current rules ever anticipated someone like awardchess.

I know any thread that is "critical" of awardchess' use of chess.com often gets locked - but it is legitimate, in my opinion, to point out that when the rules of the site were made re: tournaments and non-paying members (that they can only be in one at a time) - none of the admins anticipated that there might be a member who would strategize his use of vacation to enable him to have as many games as awardchess does.

A lot of members join torunaments imagining that at most it might last a month or so. Because of awardchess' "antics", some of these tournaments get dragged out forever.

No - he's not breaking any of the rules of the site. Yes - he is an unanticipated PROBLEM.

At some point, the administrators are going to have to figure out what to do about people like awardchess... wait, scratch the "people" part of that sentence - there aren't any others. About awardchess.

Well put Rael and just as an additional point - the player you mentioned (shall we call him the name that must not be spoken ) is not the only one - I have run across at least a couple more who are doing the same. This may be a increasing problem as more premium players become aware of this "luxury." The sad thing is when you report the abuse the staff just respond with an automaton answer and I don't think they realize the full scope of the complaint. Please know that I think they are doing a great job and fully support them - I just don't think any of us have fully communicated the issue clearly, YET.