Stalling in Daily Chess.

Its excessive vacation that annoys me. Currently in a daily tournament where a player in my group has been on vacation since May 14th

Why start If you are going away for 2  and a half mo this?

You dont know the circumstances of the vacation.

I am one of these "stalling" people so maybe I can try to at least explain my view on the subject.

I would love to play 30-60min games but I have found that I get more games played if I play daily games. When playing a 60min game I need to be sure I have that I have that whole hour available, uninterrupted by say work calls or some plans I have made. It is a commitment. In daily games I do not have that restriction. I can log in and do my dailies and get on with my life. I might also do puzzles, lessons, or even look at some ongoing daily games without making any moves yet, deciding to "sleep on it" -- and here my opponents would see that I am in fact online. If I have to go do something else, even in the middle of looking at a game, it is no problem as I can return to it later. This flexibility unintuitively enables me to play more games per month when I play daily games than when I play 30-60min games!

Sometimes I do play faster: if we are still in the opening, if I have a forced move, or if I just have more free time to look at my games. But it is not a given that I will do that.

I must say I did not really understand your Tour de France comparison. It seemed like some morbid exaggerated fallacy. No one is breaking any bones by people taking their time in chess.

     Long ago when I was relatively new to organized chess I played postal chess. Each player had three days from the receipt of his opponent's move to reply, so complaints about only one move/day seem petty to me. I usually used most of my allotted time to reply, as I took a good amount of time to analyze and decide on my move, then waited until the next day to re-check and see if some better new idea had come into my head.

     For me, the point of these games was a deeper study of the openings and endings and an improvement in my analytical prowess. I had zero interest in getting the games finished quickly. I learned a lot by going over these positions again and again, resulting in a better overall understanding of chess.

     Some of your opponents wish to give you the highest quality game possible. Why complain about that?

I learned a great thought regimen for daily chess a from a friend. 

Day 1: Find your 3 candidates moves.  Calculate them out as far as you can. 

Day 2: Go back over your candidate moves, finding out what doesn't work, improving on the lines the do work, and replacing what doesn't work with something new.

Day 3: Go over your candidate moves with "fresh eyes" one last time, making any final adjustments you need to.  Decide on your move and live with it. 

I miss the days of real postal chess with the post cards.  It was like Christmas day when you went to the mailbox and there was the card!

It may be within the rules for anyone to take the full vacation allowed. That doesn't make it fair. There could be, for example, a  tournament with groups of 6 players. If they each took 2 months  vacation every year at different times that tournament would never finish.

In my opinion the rules on vacation are too relaxed.

There are tournaments that doesn't allow vacation. It might be a good idea to look those up if you prefer to have a quicker daily tournament.

Did it occur to you that some people who play dailies do it precisely because they want to take their time to thoroughly analyze the games they are playing? They do not want to rush though the moves and they also have things in their lives other than chess.

If you do not like it, do not play dailies, it's that simple.

As for vacations, I understand that many of you are kids or teenagers with almost no responsibilities, but some of us aren't. Sometimes things happen that make it difficult for us to find time to play chess. And we cannot always predict when.

@AntiMustard If people are too busy and/or can't predict when they will be, they aren't going to thoroughly analyze their games because of that lack of time as well.

Anyways, a lot of people commented on things I already explained from my point of view. Making the same argument that has already been answered is running in circles really.

In my opinion there is no good reason to just do one move a day each day. Sure there are days in which you don't have time or feel like doing other things, but if that is the case, chess sounds more like a chore than a hobby to me. On other days one might have more time and play more moves, which makes sense and also saves you some rethinking about the fresh in your head positions. So again, I think there is no reason that one only makes one move a day each day other than just for the sake of it.

Every game has rules. Every game has unwritten rules, gentleman's agreements and things that are considered unsportsmanlike. I think one move a day everyday falls into the latter category.(IMHO)

It can seem annoying, but since you are annoyed, you seem to have lots of time. Just calculate and go over the games and assess the positions in your games. 

 Thank you for your non constructive answer that adds nothing to the discussion.

No problem! Maybe someone else can find this useful.

Agreement? I do not remember agreeing to making several moves a day when playing dailies. Who are you to call me a bad sport just because you've made up some "unwritten rules"?

@nklristic

"In my opinion there is no good reason to just do one move a day each day."

Opinions are just that, but the fact is there are several good reasons to do just one move a day, the best reason is that's all that was agreed to. Other less formal reasons have been pointed out by other posters and are related to daily schedules and habits etc, those reasons are still valid even if you don't like them. 

Try thinking of it like this... It's one move a day, anything more is a bunus. That way you will be happy more often than annoyed.

Lastly, even gentleman's agreements need at least a tacit agreement and unwritten rules need a common understanding of some form, but in this case you don't have a gentleman's agreement or a common understanding. Quite the contrary, you are unhappy because you have different expectations and want him to behave in a way that was never agreed to either tacitly or otherwise.

Bottom line... Don't expect things that were never agreed to. That way you have fewer disappointments and if they happen anyway, it's a bonus.  

@AntiMustard Good job at pulling it all out of context, read it again in an objective manner and you will get my opinion. Only the first sentence was directed at you.

 I agree, stalling for 2 and a half months with vacation is excessive in my opinion. 

@BishopsPawn3 I know it's within the rules, I know I agreed to the rules, I mentioned that, but it is besides the point for me. I'm not calling anyone out on it, now am I?

One move a day every day is just weird, which is enforced by looking at tournaments in which a huge amount of people are waiting for months longer than necessary for a few people that wait the maximum amount of time every time. Is it legal, sure. Is it good sportsmanship, I don't think so.

I don't expect anything to change, I'm not disappointed, I just get annoyed by it once in a while and hope that people know that a lot of people are annoyed by it. Just look at a random tournament pages comments.