vacation time

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?

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!

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.

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.

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.)

I think he just means the numbers don't corrospond to FIDE ratings. However we all know that, so his smug attitude is a bit misplaced.

 Lol - you're so convinced of your own ideas that you refuse to consider this logically. Of course the ratings on chess.com don't correspond to Elo, Fide, or USCF ratings, but they do accurately represent the strength of players on this site, relative to one another. Think about it - as Nytik said, one's rating increases when they win and decreases when they lose, awarding more points if one beats someone much higher than themself. Once enough people have played each other, we end up with a good demonstration of each player's strength based on who they have beaten and who they've lost to.

I can't wait for your next post; I've been laughing my butt off between your attitude of superiority and flawed arguments.

its useless, some people will never understand.

i only agree with the arguments about situation where vacation is used with the intention to gain extra time to make a move . That is indeed a problem. If instead of 3 days, a player uses vacation and has 7 days for a move, then thats dirty playing. But, thats done by only a group of players. Not everyone does that! Its unfair to gather everyone in the same groups as cheaters!

But, most of the people who are against vacations are just guys that dont know what real life is, for sure.  They are even ridicullous most of the times with their arguments.

Guys, i repeat, people have jobs, people have other things to do than just log in in chess.com and make moves in all the games. I will give concrete examples:

I know people who have to do long business trips (for example) that are part of their jobs, that can take some days. Some of them, have to do that in regular periods, from ex 1 time each 2 months.  So, what you are saying is that those people shouldnt be able to put vacation, just because you guys cant learn to wait? In this case, it would mean that this kind of people would lose almost all the time with timeouts?

The case about the cinema is a joke. Its completly different to online chess. Again, you are giving example of things that finish in one day!!!!to compare with chess game tha can take months to end!.....

And i also repeat, if you take out vacations then you will also suffer consequences. Or do you think that people who regularly have periods where they cant log in would play 3 days game??? Most of them would probably quit, and the rest would make longer games with 14 days per move, and you would still have to wait to finish you games...

I've read a LOT of post about this controversial topic, and this is my conclusion. I think that vacation time has to be initiated by the user, and not put in automatic use when they run out of time (I believe that’s what happens, right?). I also think that for tournys there should be a setting allowing a certain amount of vacation time, say the default is a week? All in all I think this would be a good compromise.

Basically, in my opinion, people who are against vacation are most of the times just selfish.

Its really not your business if other people take vacations or not! I really dont understand, is it really that hard to accept the vacations? Some of your opponents take vacation, and so what? You can play some other games, is that really a problem? You dont really lose anything because of other players putting vacation, so thats just selfish talk of those who cant win on the board and so the have to get excuses to claim wins.

You say the ratings are useless, but arent you saying the opposite? After all, what you really want is to raise your ratings with wins by timeouts!

another joke!

So, you guys want to play chess???

I thought you wanted to win games on time!!!!!

Oops, seems like i got to the point of this discussion! after all, its all about interests.

And for the record: Those who use vacations without dirty playing, are people who like chess, who prefer the games to end in the board and not by timeouts!!!

So play on live chess. Or play in no vacation tournaments.