What is vacation abuse?

I have read most of the threads about vacation abuse.  I still dont understand what it is.  It seems to me that either a person has vacation time and chooses to use it or they dont have time and their clock ticks down.  What is vacation abuse?

When you play here, there is a chessboard and some buttons.  There is an offer draw button, a resign button and a vacation button.  The first two are pretty self explanatory.

When you press the vacation button, it does several things.  You add 30 days to your clock.  If you hit the button, it apparently also adds 30 days to all games you are playing.  Some people feel a sudden need to go on vacation right this very minute if a game starts to go against them.

The silver lining to the person not on vacation is knowing that the guy is de facto sitting in a corner in a self imposed time out.

"I have read most of the threads about vacation abuse.  I still dont understand what it is."

It's when your opponent moves quickly until you reach a clearly won position, and then suddenly they decide to go on vacation. It's annoying to be bamboozled, even if it's only temporary. My guess is the abuser hopes you will get frustrated and leave chess.com so they can reap a win from a loss. Luckily this has never happened to me here!

Chantel, sure. If you click on the game you should see a message like this:

"Your opponent is currently on vacation! They have 1 month 5 days of vacation time left, but may be back sooner." 

I have just had an opponent go on vacation when it was his move. I thought that the site didn't permit this.

Not a bad idea, but I can see that getting abused as well...

I think the whole vacation thing is stupid.  If you can't commit to making one move per THREE DAYS! or even ONE WHOLE DAY then you shouldn't be playing. 

 Get rid of the vacation thing entirely.  Shorten the time to allow people to create 2-hour move games.  This is a lot of time!  People who still want 3 day/move games can play those.

Calmbuddha> Shorten the time to allow people to create 2-hour move games.

A 60-move game at 2-hours per move per side without adjournments or vacations could become 10 days without REM sleep. I can't imagine too many people would play that, and even most of those would only do it once. By the way, if you want really quick games, there is a Live Chess feature on this site. Click on Play | Live Chess.

Some ideas on how to stop vacation abuse :

1) When the player wants to go on vacation, it applies to all his games. Previously I played one guy who selectively applied vacation to his games. At another time, I played one guy who when he went on vacation, he vacationed all his games. 

2) Cut down the length of the vacation. A player becomes entitled to more vacation time if he plays more games.

3) If the player wants to go on vacation, he needs to get approval from the other player. If a player gives approval to another to go on vacation, then the giver must have the patience to wait for the vacation to be over. If vacation goer doesn't get the approval, he can still go on vacation but he is considered to have lost the game.  So if it is a ploy to wait out the player who is leading, it's pointless. If he comes back from vacation and wins the game, so be it. If he loses, he has already lost. 

Klee - in this case, I get in contact with those whom he didn't vacation and message them tips how to beat the cr*p out of him. When he's back from vacation, you tell him all about the help that you given the other players he played !!! Hurrahhhhh !!!

Matalino - Huh ? And vacation abuse is not against the rules ?  Wait until it happens to you and you will think twice. Imagine this - you are on the last game in the round in a tournament, everyone else in the round robin has finished - you are winning and suddenly, your opponent puts you on one month's vacation - you can't get to the next round. Wait out that month - and you come back and tell me how you feel.

www.chess.com is a great site but this vacation thing is a HUGE mistake. If I know I am about to go on vacation, I either don't start games or if I do, I tell my opponents and also the fact that if my games aren't finished by the time I go on vacation, I would resign all of them - so that they don't get angry with me.

Bodhidharma> Matalino - Huh ? And vacation abuse is not against the rules ?
 

Giving people advice on games in-progress violates the rules, and yes, if either party reports you, you might be banned from this site. Taking vacations is not against the rules of this site. If someone takes a vacation in a hopeless position, and it's holding up a whole tournament, simply report it to the chess.com staff so they can take appropriate action.