Has "No Vacation" Reached A Tipping Point?

Of the 344 upcoming tournaments that I can see, 157 (46%) stipulate No Vacation.

Interestingly too, you can view a list of upcoming No Vacation tournaments - but you can't view a list of upcoming Vacation Acceptable tournaments.

Food for thought!

I'm all for vacation time. However, it drives me nuts when an opponent is most likely going to lose a match or tournament and they use their vacation time to avoid the loss. Again, vacation time allows a player to deal with emergencies, vacations etc so I'll all for it. I do like the fact that there is a stipulation regarding vacation time. I've read forum posts where people had complained that the tournaments/matches should be akin to OTB tournaments/matches. If that's the case, there's no vacation time OTB, only a loss if you don't show up or walk off when the game goes bad. So, according to the above number,a little more than half the tournaments allow vacations while the remaining number do not. It sounds reasonable to me.

A 3-day-per-move game can easily take 8 months. If vacation is not permitted, you mustn't be away from your computer for more than two days throughout that entire 8 months. Tough break!

The trouble with timing-out in numerous games is it distorts your rating.  Plus I'd prefer my opponent play the game out, rather than be forced to lose because of some emergency.  My vacations (due to illness) are brief due to  chess addiction, and I'd guess many players are the same.

No vacation tournaments are fine. However perhaps chess.com could create 2-3 day vacation tournaments, as in you can only use 2-3 days of vacation per game. You avoid the people who go on vacation for 2+ months, but allow people with real emergencies to not lose on time.

For those who can access the internet any time, any place, anywhere (via a mobile phone) - the concept of vacation is somewhat outmoded.

-1

I don't think that Mrs. Cobblepot would like me logging in to chess.com to make moves when we're on vacation.

I think that Erik has done a fabulous job of creating this website, and vacation time is one of the core attributes of it. When no vacation tournaments first came out, I created one (1). This was my first and only experience as a TD (2). It had 32% of games time out, and that was at 3 days per move. Does anybody have data on timeout percentages in 1 day/move no vacation tournaments?

(1) http://www.chess.com/tournament/ginger-ale-open

(2) By the way, being a TD is basically zero work. To those who make it sound like more than that... it's really not. You just create the tournament, and make a couple of comments on the page.

 what about those without a mobile phone?

Or for those who wish to vacation without them. Or for those who might not wish to pay international data roaming charges.

Sheesh.

No stop, you two are making too much sense. You might scramble their brains.

It is not vacation time that is so irratating it's the abuse of it. I have played against people who were on vacation and playing live chess at the same time. 

I've pointed out many times that I can do that and I don't see a problem with it.

If there were all sorts of (unused) TLs here vacations wouldn't be such a big deal, except of course to the peeps who have to hate them out loud on a never-ending basis. Some other sites allow you to accumulate your unused time - for instance with a TL of 10/30 if you make your 10 moves in 10 days now your next TL is 10/50. Or the TL might be 3 days/move, with unused days accumulating so if you make 10 moves in 10 days you now have 20 extra days to use as you please, although if you run out of them you're back to 3 days/move. Of course there are undoubtedly some whiners here who would complain about that too - after starting games with this TL of course. Other TLs inc. a # of days for the entire game, and even at that some sites such as LSS still offer a vacation option.

It sounds like players who hate vacations can find no-vacation tnmts here pretty easily based on artifzz's stats. I won't play in them because occasionally I have something more important to do than play chess for a few or several days in a row, unbelievable though that may seem, esp to some of the respondents here who like to make up facts, such as the incorrect "thought" that this is the only site that offers vacations.

Can't we all just get along?

I've got a great idea, here's what we'll do.  It's a two-fold plan.

1.  We'll have a period of time (let's call it vacation) set aside for people who need to be away from a fun, albeit non-essential, chess website.  In case of emergencies, this time will kick in automatically as people are about to time out.

2.  Since people will abuse said period of time, we will make an option to have tournaments that don't allow vacation time, whereby as many people as possible will be happy.

I think this is a great idea!  oh wait...

I am a single parent with 2 young children. Last week my youngest son fractured his ankle in a car accident and I could barely eat and sleep let alone concentrate on my chess.com games. However due to my level of subscription I went on vacation for just a couple of days to sort what I needed to do.

Is that so wrong? I am eligible towards the games I play and it was my choice to not resign the 30+ games I had/have. Why should I?

YES my emergency is now over he is well on the road to recovery so I am back off vacation and playing my games on a daily basis.

Guess what? Not all mobile phones will allow you to actually play chess - mine being one of them. The game board simply will not load

Like I said vacation days are a good thing, but how are you vacationing from chess and playing live chess on the same site? This is what is annoying.

Take a look

http://www.chess.com/livechess/profile/blackfirestorm666

I haven't played live chess since January

I don't see the hurry to get to the end of a tournament. You can always start a new one, or start as many games as you like. Surely chess is about the journey, not about impatiently wishing the journey to end?

I was not referring to you or anyone who takes a ligitimate vacation. But being on site (frequently), playing live chess and having games on vacation status...