Ah, I wasn't picking up on that. Yeah, if there was such a thing as a one-day-per-game time limit it would make sense to not allow vacation.
By one-day-per-game is meant not "per game" but "per move." In the online chess option we have 24 hours per move. But if you take a vacation after making a move it "costs" a full day.
I know, huh? Wished I had earlier.
I think they do have a one-day per game option... it's called "Live Chess" but they won't let you create one for 1440-minutes; you max-out at 120.
No, I'm not talking about live chess. The one day option is in "Online Chess," which is a type of correspondence chess, but the vacation policy treats it as if it's live.
I still can't understand what the rationale behind this is. Vacatation time and time per move are two completely different types of time -- why would they be exchanged in this manner?
pla
Exactly. Why not let us play a 24 hour per move game and then make a move, pause the game for travel or other obligations, then sign on again, and resume the game with the existing minutes?
When two players agree to a time control they expect the moves to be made as agreed. There is an exception to this rule, except for in No-Vacation tournaments. If a player is away from the computer for an extended period of time they can use banked vacation time. It is, it seems to me, supposed to be an uncommon exception and not intended to be used for normal day-to-day activities. If you know in advance that you will frequently be unable to play according to the time control then you should choose a longer time control.
I have played and am playing one-day games that have gone to over 50 moves--that's 100 days. If you start a game in the summer, you can easily have to "take a vacation" 60 or 90 days later.
Hi! Whenever you go into vacation it'll remove a minimum of 24 hours from your time bank and add it back onto the game that triggered vacation. So you'll see the game after this has happened- the 20 hours- even though it was at ~90 minutes when auto-vacation triggered.
So you can't use minute increments- to avoid using vacation to manage game load, you may want to work to reduce your number of games or play at higher time per move, if simply being cognizant of the rule is not enough to help you manage the games from here onward.
I'm not using vacation to manage game load. I have only used vacation time when I was traveling overseas to different time zones, like 14 hours difference, 20 hours in an airplane, etc. However, once I was at my destination, I had to fit game play in around other activities, which are not part of my usual, non-vacation schedule. I repeat, last June in Korea I was able to turn vacation time on and off during a 24 hour period in order to move in one or two games. Furthermore, if you look at my games list, I have games staggered: a 13 day game, a 6 day game, a 5 day game, four or five 4 day games, four or five 2 day games. I am quite capable of managing such a game load, and I'm getting a bit tired of the paternalistic attitude of this website. I am a paying member, after all.
The rule is the same for both gold members and diamond members- the reason you could turn vacation on/off back then without losing 24 hours and can't now is because the rules have been changed on a site-wide level since then.
So it just depends what you think is the best option: keep vacation on for the whole duration while you're travelling, keep it off if you think you can manage the games, or you can use vacation time here and there, but it'll always remove a minimum of 24 hrs.
edit: here's the other thread about it if you haven't come across it: http://www.chess.com/forum/view/community/important-change-coming-to-vacation-use
"keep vacation on for the duration"? What's the logic here? Don't you want people to play chess during their vacations? And since I'm not on vacation but simply in a situation where the internet is completely inaccessible (on planes for over 20 hours at a time) why should I have to lose days instead of minutes?
"keep it off if " I think I can manage the games? Huh? I'm telling you that I have several 24 hour games and I'd like to move frequently, but because of this policy I have had to put my opponents in limbo for several days, simply because I only have an hour or so per day when I have any access to the internet. If you doubt this, please email me privately at ccm@ccmambretti.com and I will provide you with a detailed calendar of my recent internet access in Europe. Very spotty.