Vacation abuse

I have an opponent, in a 3 day time/move time limit tourney, who started the tournament with 2.5 months of vacation time available.  Finding himself in a losing position with 12 minutes on his clock, he went on vacation for 5 weeks. Then, he made one move and has gone on vacation for another three weeks.

All games in this round have been resolved, except his, and he will probably lose both games.  Even if he won both games, it would not change the results.  I will be the only player advancing once these games are resolved.

Technically speaking, he is playing within the rules, but he has delibirately held up the entire tournament for eight weeks to date.  Moreover, he will continue to play one move every three days once he is "forced" to move (after he has used his remaining two weeks of vacation time).

This is either a call for changing the vacation rules or an admonition to NEVER play in an online tournament where vacation is allowed.

I know most people legitimately use the vacation feature, but this kind of lame play ruins the experience for everyone.

Ditto vacation feature should have its limits!

Update:  He has one day and 12 hours to make a move.  He now has burned almost 2.5 months of vacation time.

I am betting that his "vacation" miraculously will end in the next 36 hours, and he will make a move...

I don't know who is more lame - him for playing this way or me for waiting him out.

The most fair solution to the vacation issue is to have a time bank + increment format for correspondence games ( say 30 days + 1 day/move ) and completely do away with vacations.

Is there a way to see your available vacation allowance without using the vaca feature?  

I have never taken vacation time.

well, it should be standard practice that a mod can assign a game if it's a in clearly losing position.

This should be a judgment call, and for example K+R vs K could still be worth to be played if the players are around 1000 or so, if they're 2000 or so it should be assigned.

The game is not definitively over - like mate in one, but he clearly stopped playing when I gained the upperhand.  

After waiting for five weeks for him to move and now another five weeks for his next move, I want to see if he has the balls to move again.

Just out of curiosity, can you give the links to the game.

By the way i' ve had some problems with the vacation feature too, it's quite abused and it's not amusing.

Supreme:  Are you my opponent's mommy or something?  Everything I said is true - my opponent in a lost position, mathematically with no chance to advance has made two moves in 10 weeks.  That's lame.

If you want to see the game, look at my online history, but don't comment on best play because that might be considered cheating.

It's much more likely that he is simply bored with chess (or this site) and is simply forgetting about this game.

...and so he should resign his games, then.

I also have an open game with my opponent on 2 months of vacation, which they started as soon as I got a protected passed pawn that clearly ends the game...

No, I have played a game as black and now white against this guy.  He suddenly got "bored" when he got in trouble.  He also takes vacation at the last minute (with less than five minutes on a three day clock the move before and now with only 84 minutes after 5 more weeks).  

tmodel66 wrote:

Is there a way to see your available vacation allowance without using the vaca feature?  

I have never taken vacation time.

You can see your remaining vacation time under your online chess settings (towards the bottom)

Final update:  Opponent timed out and forfeited game...

This guy made 14 moves in two weeks, got in trouble, then went on vacation for five weeks, made one move and went on vacation again.  After five more weeks, he timed out.

Rest in Peace...

At least he didn't come back and slow play you after his vacation ended. Seems like every tourney has at least one abuser. One reason I play lots of tourneys. Can just forget about the ones being stalled.

So, I won the tournament.  The last two games took two weeks each. This was a 16 person tournament with three day time control.  It took seven months to finish.  If time was distributed evenly, I guess seven months isn't a big deal, but the point is that one guy held up the tournament for nearly three months while making only two moves and cashing in ten weeks of vacation time.

I don't object to people "fighting to the very end", particularly in blitz games where time is a factor, but why be so lame in an online game?  It's a mystery because it doesn't change the results.  And, we are playing for fun/pride only...

I played this guy twice in the tourney.  With the white pieces he drew me (my only non-win for the tournament, I went 9-0-1).  In this game, he played rapidly. He isn't a bad player. He has played almost 600 online games on chess.com. In our second game, after 14 moves, he got in trouble.  After five weeks of vacation, he moved once. After another five weeks he timed out, despite being online several times.

This is my last online tournament with vacation allowed.  I definitely didn't want to lose because of someone being lame, but life is too short to check chess.com every day only to see if your opponent has resigned or not.

The vacation mode should be eliminated; at the end of the day, it's a cop out. If chess.com servers went down, that time should be added to everyone then playing. If time is an issue, set up a 1 day or longer game. Internet access isn't an excuse; don't engage in tournaments if you're having access issues.

I think the vacation time chess.com gives is excessive.  No one needs more than a week or two per year.  When I was a member I had something stupid like 60 days of vacation saved up.

I think vacation time should be restricted perhaps per tournament. I am playing in a knockout tournament and everyone has finished the first round except for one pairing who haven't even finished the first game due to someone taking three weeks so far! The problem is you have no idea when they will restart. Perhaps you should have to say how much vacation you intend taking? It's within the rules but seems very unsporting to do these things. They should try golf where unsporting,immoral, cheating etc are all frowned and can get you thrown out of a club.

There are "no vacation" tournaments.