vacation time

 Hmm . . . so you're saying that if you don't have access to a computer for a while, you'd want all of your games to time out? You don't think that people should be able to go on vacation without having to finish all of their games first? You don't think that anyone should be able to simply take a break from chess for a while? I'm sorry, but I think that vacation time is an important component of correspondence chess. Since CC games take a long period of time to play, situations are bound to come up where someone simply can't make their moves for real-life reasons, in which case vacation time is vital.

obviously he doesn't think people should be able to ignore their games to "vacation"

vacation time is a terrible "component of correspondence chess"

but to each his own.

You're entirely correct.

It's correspondence chess.

Perhaps since some people want it, some people don't, there should be an option to allow it. There already is for tournaments, and presumably they could implement it for regular games too.

Then there would be a choice. And... on the issue of choices... it's so easy to convince people, and to convince myself, that more choice is better. More options are better. But - and I think this is one of many things which the ipod got right - sometimes it's good for the company/management/whoever to just decide, and not to give the user more choices. This is one of those things that it's really tough to get right. Because it's usually counterintuitive to remove options or to remove choices. But there's a couple of good points here. First, while people love choices, people also love simplicity. As long as it's simplicity done right. (i.e. the right choices were made). And the other thing is that there is a famous study that concluded that when people have more choices they get sort of paralyzed and don't choose anything. I think it was with toothpaste. When people were presented with three choices (roughly equivalent to "regular", "better" and "best"), they could get their head around it and they bought more. But when there were many more choices (for example 24 choices, where some have baking soda, some have mint, some have whatever else, but 24 choices in all) they basically didn't buy anything.

What were we talking about now?

i still think all you suckers should have to wait for the movie to continue while i pee.

Bring a 2 liter jug and a funnel.

I would agree with the fact that games are set up on a time limit.  Respect the time limit.  I am playing in a tournament right now with a three day time limit. One of my opponents keeps going on vacation. When ever my opponent's time dwindles to about 10 hours or left for a move, they put the status on vacation.  This has happened about 4 times now and there have only been 7 or 8 moves made total.  The tournament started the first week of May.  I agree with the momentum factor and the time limit on making you move.  Now if a friend and I lived in different states and had  chess boards set up in each of our homes and we could only play when we visited each other...cool no time limit, but good grief....make a move already!

great metaphor

How can you take the time to log into chess.com look at your profile and games and then not make a move but you can place your status on vacation.  Seems to me there is access to a computer and chess.com......hmmmmmmm......

Of course there is. You're there just before you go on holiday. That's WHEN you turn it on. Sometimes you can make the moves then and there, sometimes you have a plane to catch.

 Speaking of movies and peeing what ever happened to intermissions ? I go to a theatre here in Lisbon that has them and I like it ! It seems better for business to have them as well because there is always someone going to buy more junk during the intermission . Why did they get rid of them ?

GCeezy, to answer that question, and speaking for myself.

My routine for making a move for the most part requires some uninterrupted time looking at the board. Maybe on average 5 min per game. OK, there will always be some checks and some recaptures which are easy, or maybe the first couple of moves in the opening are easy, but I'm talking about the other moves. I am sometimes on vacation when I have out of town visitors, and then I might like to come here and post a couple of posts, but I don't really "have time" to make my moves. I probably shouldn't even really be reading the forum topics, but anyways that's a different issue and one which is less about this site and more about my houseguests! :-)  I guess I've personally had situations where I had time to login, clearly had access to the site, but wasn't really available to make moves.

I don't know, does that make sense?

Harpo wrote: "Yes, so keep quiest about it and do not pull back the curtain because Oz likes his privacy."

Yes, I like my privacy.

And, for what it's worth, I totally disagree with you.

@Reb good question, no idea.

good point...  especially wiht some of these 2 hour plus epics that hollywood is putting out...

plus you wouldn't have to pause the movie just for chess.com members.

Q Is Richie_And_Oprah's Q&A session accurate?

A No. The ratings are not comparable, we're simply using an ELO (or specifically Glicko) system that gives numbers in this range... They ARE reflective of playing strength, but strength in CORRESPONDENCE. It is possible to be good at one but bad at the other.

it's also stupid to allow vacations...  so,.,.,.,

I  can still watch a 3 hour movie if its a good movie. I think most people can. It seems movies are getting shorter and shorter though and I think it has more to do with the greed of the film makers than with attention spans. I remember when Costner wanted to do Dances with Wolves and had to sink a lot of his own money into it because film makers said something like what you are saying and that it would certainly be even more true for a western ! The film won lots of awards and was a block buster ! Prices only go up , and quantity and quality goes down in most cases .......GREED. imo   We pay more and more for less and less......

Hmm... "not reflective of anything"... not sure what that means because on face value it makes no sense... :-(

If they're not reflective of anything, I'll construct a team match of players rated 2200-2300 against a team match of players 1400-1500 and I guess it would be a coin toss to see who wins?

Don't get it.

How could that possibly be true? You win, you gain points, you lose, you lose points. Beat someone much higher than yourself, win more points. This system would work with anything. It MUST be representative. How could it be anything else?

(Perhaps average opponent rating is a consideration. But you can always check that.)