Should Chess.com Change How Vacation Works?

Place a way to stop people from vacationing if they are trying to stall if they are losing in daily.

Just a suggestion, nothing harsh on people if they need to go on vacation.

Vacation policy is fine. There is no problem that needs to be solved. Eventually, you run out and then you get no more vacation time...problem solved.

1. Make the max vacation time 2 weeks and you regain 1 day every day until you reach the max. 

2. There shouldn't be an auto-vacation time thing. It's strange how it's only for premium members currently. It should be optional so people who care enough will find it. Maybe make it easier to find too.

3. Some people are suggesting that vacation times should be divided among the games which is ridiculous. If someone actually has something going on in their lives they shouldn't be punished for it if they have 50+ games. If you divide the vacation days then you must increase the max days which will result in people who have fewer games abusing vacation days.  

4. Someone mentioned it already but I'll like to add to it. If you were on vacation and logged back on then your vacation days turn off and you have 24 hours to move. 

EDIT: I'm glad chess.com is actually listening and asking for suggestions hopefully you guys can do more stuff like this. Maybe you should make a mega thread for a bunch of little suggestions to improve this site. You might find a few good ideas.

I dont know if it's a bug or an oversight, but it no longer states how long an opponent has left on his vacation time it just says vacation, while it used to say your opponent has x amount of time but may be back sooner, I find this very annoying, as for the current discussion on whether  vacation time should be banned or reduced, I am totally against this, on account that a lot of members have paid for premium membership, this is not fair on them it is after all one of the perks of being a premium member, if the none premium members want to benefit from this then pay for the privilege, but saying that from a match point of view I CAN see where you are going with this as it has happened to me where an opponent is losing big time and then goes on vacation for days or weeks at a time, now THAT is annoying

@superdrewe53 You CAN still see the vacation time, within the game, press the i = information tab and you should see something like this: 

I like a lot of points that have been made and as someone who uses the automatic vacation weekly when I have a day off, and someone who handles both a lot of requests for games to be restarted because someone was in the hospital and didn't have vacation time or couldn't turn it on, as well as requests to terminate the game for vacation abuse. (in Support, we see it ALL!)

Here are my thoughts, bulleted:

• There should be vacation time, and automatic vacation, and perhaps we don't need the current maximum amounts, but some is nice. Life throws curveballs. If you are playing a Daily game and you don't want to wait for your opponent, play live chess! Are you leaving the site? Are you dying tomorrow? No? What's the rush? Why not relax, and think, or do something else.

• I like the idea of having non-tournament games be vacation or no vacation (as @Amanda and others suggested.) I would choose vacation games all day.  I would think that vacation shouldn't turn off when you first enter the site, but it should turn off if you go to play any kind of chess.

• I think limiting the total number of Daily games is a part of this system, as the people who have the most trouble with vacation are those who play 100+ games at a time. Fantastic if you have the mind power to play so many, however, easy to get into time trouble. I think we should limit Daily games to 100 or so. Or maybe you can have 100 Vacation games and the rest non-vacation? Flexible here. 

My view is a bit different: Chess.com should NOT regulate or have any say on our vacations. Regarding the daily chess, chess.com serves as a post office, if I am playing a chess game with someone through a post office, the post office is supposed to carry the moves. That is all. The participant sides should have say on vacation time.

Where does it say they are changing vacation time?  I don't see it.

I will say though that changes do need to be made.  90 days is way too much.  ICCF allows 45 per year if I recall correctly and USCF allows 30 per year.

The changes they need to make are as follows:

1) Time Controls - 3 days per move or 1 day per move or 14 days per move is bullsh*t.  It should be like your normal correspondence sites (i.e. ICCF, USCF, etc).  10 moves in X number of days.  USCF is 10 in 30, ICCF is 10 in 50.  Take your pick.  The way it works then is you have, say, 30 days to make 10 moves.  If you spend 8 days, your 22 days carry over.  So you now have 52 days to make moves 11 to 20, etc.  What this does is allow for extra time in a difficult spot, and it discourages dragging out time in blatant situations.  I get opponents in 14 day games that take 14 days to recapture an only legal move.  It would cost them 14 days in the other scenario, 14 days that ought to be saved for a more complicated scenario.

2) Vacation - requiring it to be your opponent's move in every game is also bullsh*t.  You have, say, 20 games going, and 3 of your opponents have no life and do nothing but sit at their machines, and by the time you make a move, they make a move before you get the chance to go on Vacation.  It shouldn't matter whose move it is when you go on vacation.  Clock stops.  Period!  If you make a move in 1 game, your vacation ceases in all games and your clocks run.

3) To avoid vacation abuse, require all vacation to be set a minimum of 5 days in advance.  If you really want to abuse vacation, you better have 5 days left.  This way, vacation can be scheduled in advance and used for its true intent.  For example, I'll be on vacation from somewhere around July 8th thru the 22nd.  I should be able to set up those days in advance, and it doesn't matter who is to move at 11:59pm on July 7th.  All games where it is my move, clocks would stop at 12am on the 8th, and for those where it is not my move, the clocks continue to run until my opponent makes their move, and then it stops until July 23rd.  All players should be informed of the date range of the vacation.  July 8 thru July 22 would be 15 days.  I would have either 15 or 30 left (depending if they went for 30 or 45) for the rest of 2019.  No exceptions.

The way it is currently set up allows for abuse in more ways than one, and doesn't allow for legit think time when it is really needed unless you play 14-days per move, in which case, you get 2 moves with long thinks and 30+ moves of delay abuse.

I believe the maximum is too high right now - 2-3 months for diamond members is simply ridiculous if someone decides to drag out a lost game.

I'd suggest the following:

1. Decrease the maximum time.  Maybe something like three weeks for a diamond member, one week for a free member, in between for other membership levels.

2. Change the way it recharges; perhaps add four days per month for free members, seven days per month for diamond members.

That way, it will recharge your maximum vacation time relatively quickly, allowing those who have a legitimate need for regular short vacations to do so, but decreasing the ability to drag games on indefinitely.

There idea of alternative time controls is also interesting, either "X moves in Y days" or live-style time controls where you get an initial number of days and add a certain number of hours for every move you make.  I don't think that's sufficient to eliminate vacation time, but it would perhaps be sufficient to decrease the maximum vacation time further; if you have a regular need for significant vacation time you could just play games with a larger increment or slower time control, and that plus your reduced vacation time should cover it.

I would not eliminate the automatic timeout protection.  I've seen too many interesting games saved by it.  It also rescues those who run into unforeseen circumstances where they're not able to come online.

Also, it should be possible to create challenges (unrated-only?) with no time control.

I feel that vacation days should match real life. In real life, if your working, you get so many vacation days, say two weeks (14 days). You also get so many sick days, say 10 days. I know this is not the same for everyone, but it's a start. So I would say set the max vacation days to something like 24 days. I think it should be use it or loose it. After a year you start over, you do not get save you previous years days. 

Chess .com gives way to many perks for PREMIUM members. I think this is wrong. 

I also feel that you should not start a game if you will not be around to finish it. If something comes up where you can not finish you game then just take the loss. Going on vacation, for whatever reason, affects both players. Why should on player have to wait to the end of the games time control just to find that now the other player in now on vacation, for who knows how long.

I do not think you should be allowed to take 90 days of vacation at a time.  I've had a couple daily games where I've had to wait that long to get a win and, with either me or another player having to wait, it greatly delayed the start of the next round of the tournament.

There have been times I've been on a Cruise where I didn't want to pay extra for Internet and wouldn't have access to it for over a week and I could see 4 weeks where something like that could occur. But if you need more than 4 weeks of vacation time, you shouldn't have entered the match.  Tournaments might be a little different, since multiple rounds can last a couple years, but there should be a shorter limit than 90 days for any single round.

Also, there have been times I've decided to wait until I had almost no time to make a move in 2 day/move games because I knew that, in 2 days, I would not be able to look at the board at an earlier time.  But chess.com put me on vacation long before my time ran out.  It shouldn't do that until there is 1 minute or so left.

At the end of the day, premium membership helps pay chess.com Bill's, they will not risk that, and rightly so

Another proposal could be not to call it 'vacation' any longer.

The term doesn't cover many cases. I'm quite positive that what is being called 'vacation' may very well correspond to a surge in work, rather than to "going on a holiday".

Personally I haven't been on a holiday for the last 10 years at least, so it sounds 'weird' to hear folks suggesting I may be 'abusing' my vacation time.

I arrived late to this discussion, but this is my opinion if I'm still on time:

• We need vacation time. Not just for vacation, we also travel for work, need time for study and take exams, or just because we are stressed, or need to pay attention to familiar, economical, or wathever issues.
• 3 months of vacation is too much time to wait for ONE move of an opponent, but could happens in a sumatory of differents moves during a long match (several months, more than 50 moves). Maybe you can limit the maximum continuing vacation time to a logical amount, but this number is difficult to set up. I think I could need a month without playing in a special situation (for example for an special trip)
• We can report vacation abuse, then if somebody set vacation when he/she is lost, we can win the match automatically (it could there be an option for easily claim a victory when vacations abuse exists)
• It could be useful if admin can set vacation time for team matches.
• We play daily in differents ways. Some people play a whole match in hours, some people play for months and need vacation. 

I agree that 90 days is a bit much. 45 days should be enough. 

Never made the experience an opponent took 90 days.  

I think vacation time shouldn't be spend more than 15 days in a row

Greets!

I once experienced. In a losing position (if I recall correctly I was ahead by a rook and a bishop + 2 or 3 pawns in the endgame) he went on vacation. That position was reached on October but the game ended on February or so. Even after vacation he took too much time  for each of his moves playing till checkmate.

Then the second game started, I did not want to play him/her. Played my first two moves and offered a draw. Draw was agreed

I wouldn't have an issue with vacation time being removed altogether. Given that's probably too radical a step from a business standpoint, I definitely think it should be drastically reduced, maybe 5-10 days per year allowance for genuine emergencies such as lost phone etc.

Did you report this? It's vacation abuse.

In almost 300 games played and more than 3,5 years playing here my only experience waiting for lot of time was against a diamond member that stop playing and didn't log in during all that period (has been connected after that). Maybe something happened to this player, I don't know, but I had to wait 90 days for both games we were playing (in an even position both of them)

At the time I was unaware of the concept of vacation abuse but I did not care it much. I just kept on playing other games, live games and solving puzzles.

while I agree with you there is one more down-side:

In team matches or tournaments (in short collective progress) someone goes on vacation and the rest of the collective progress depends on that vacation. People want to advance but they are kept by the vacation