Vacation time

20 days vacation sounds to me a more appropriate limit per year than 40.

I would like to see a lower limit being applied to tournament games than non-tournament games: implement two different types of vacation?

yeah good idea. i hate playing tournaments when people take ages vacation :S

40 days of vacation is already too much. That's almost 7 weeks of vacation every year, and you want to give paid members more? How many people take 7 or more weeks of vacation every year unless they have no job and sit home all day? Giving paid members even more vacation time is going to lead to more vacation time abuse as they will accumulate more vacation time and be able to hold up games even longer when they go on vacation. Look at this way, If I have 40 days vacation on January first, start a game, then take my 40 days vacation, come back and make a move but in the meantime I have accumulated more vacation days, I take those, come back make another move, and then keep switching my vacation flag on every time I accumulate more time, how is that in any way fair to anyone? You can have games dragging out for years. 40 days vacation time is already way too much and should be reduced for everyone. A more realistic amount would be 28 days.

I guess people aren't allowed to have lives outside of chess.com...

when vacation time is done the clock starts so you are correct.

Is vacation time counted in milliseconds - or rounded up to days? If someone went ON VACATION for an hour every day, would they be able to do that 24 x 40 times under the current 40-hour allocation?

I've already burnt through my 40 days and have lost games on time because of this.  So I wouldn't be in favour of a further reduction unless we went to a system of proofs whereby members had to submit proof for all vacation time.

Not sure the admins would want that though.

It might be easier the other way round and provide proofs of when you're NOT on holiday. A punched time-card or a signed off time-sheet should do it.

Boring....this topic is done to death many many many times. Rest assured....nothing will ever be done about it. So don't bother banging your head against the wall. Tournaments aside - I prefer to play with people I played before - all fun but no agnst.

yeah i agree...

but seriously can not stand players that make 1 move then vacation , 1 move then vacation and so on ... especially in tournaments

I think that vacation should be limited to 7 days in a row.  40 days a year is fine, but someone can't use them all in a row.  where are these people vacationing for more than 7 days at a time, where there is no internet access?  the middle of the ocean? 

i understand that people take vacations, but this will remove the people that just recently signed up, went on vacation, and ruined a tournament for 40 days.  at least it will only be 7 days now.  or 10 days, whatever.  but 40 in a row is a big pain. 

also, i think there should be an option for friendly matches to approve whether or not you should take the win base on timeout.  i have a friend that i play with, we had a great game going, and then he ran out of time.  i should have the ability to give him more time to make the move if i want, instead of taking the win.

Vacation should NOT be limited to 7 days in a row. Seriously - I'm about to travel to Guatemala for two weekends and a week. Just think through your suggestions a little bit more. Why is chess.com so IMPORTANT that it can dictate how long people's vacation time can be?

While I can appreciate the intention, this is one of the worst ideas I've seen.

For what it's worth, I think that "no vacation time" tournaments might catch on - or "max 3 consecutive days vacation" or what have you -- that way it is an opt-in situation. Also, maybe people would care less if the tournament games were unrated, no?

gigliott2000: You already have this option. Go to your preferences, and there is a checkbox for "claim win on time automatically". It is checked by default I think, so if you didn't know it's there, then that's why the website called your friend's flag.

We need two things.

1. The ability to put ourselves on vacation when we will be away for a while. I think forty days a year is plenty for that.

2.  Chess.com time warning. Perhaps the players could be allowed three extensions on every move, each equal to the time period per play. The first would just prod you, the second would warn you and the third extension would let you know that if you didn't move within the alloted time you would loose the game. These three extension could be available on each move without any limitations.

Then you would only loose a game on time if you went away for an extended time and ignored your games and the warnings from chess.com and without bothering to put yourself on vacation.

Tunatin: thanks for that link!

Does vacation time accrue when we are on vacation ?

Also what happens if when the next round of tournament starts when I am on vacation ? I'm sure there is an answer in the many forums started on this topic but can someone give me a quick jump on this ?

vacation does NOT accrue when you are on vacation (i believe).

if you are on vacation when the next round starts, you are still on vacation.

erik wrote:

vacation does NOT accrue when you are on vacation (i believe).

if you are on vacation when the next round starts, you are still on vacation.

Thanks, erik

The reason 'vacation time is a bit of a mess is that it is attempting to serve two purposes. I think there should be user chosen vacations and chess.com 'loss relief'.

Vacation time should be an option so that a player may suspend for a length of time they choose when finding the need to do so.

'loss relief',  which is meted out by chess.com is a warning to players who over run the alloted time per move. I think that once one has had three warnings in a row on a given move (at the most), each giving the player one move time to make a move, the player should then loose.

Players who lose after 3 loss reliefs are obviously seriously away from the tempo of the tournament they are in and should have put themselves on vacation.

I favor separating vacation into the two tasks it is now performing so each can be dealt with in an optimal way. Vacation now servest two functions: 1) to allow people to suspend their play when life (ugg) interferes with their chess play and 2) to protect players from loosing a game abruptly when they miss a time limit. Here are my suggestions for each feature.

VACATION: The user may put themselves on vacation when they won't be able to play for while, this could be like the current vacation but up to the user to activate.

ELAPSED TIME WARNING: This would be an automatic pause of the offending game when you failed to move in the relevant time. After another period went by without response there would be a second warning. If time ran out a third time the game would be lost.

My thinking is that if someone was going to be gone that long it should be their responsibility to go on vacation. It puts a small amount of pressure on the players as it should, but it is pretty soft.