limit on a player's max. concurrent games?

Why is a single player allowed 500 concurrent games?

Take this person for instance: http://www.chess.com/echess/profile/wannabelawstudent

Probably a nice guy, but he just timed out of 100+ games last night. I sincerely hope nothing terrible happened to him.

But why was he allowed to start so many games in the first place? He's not adding anything positive to the tournaments he joined. A simple limit on max. games could prevent such massive blow-outs.

Why not set a maximum limit of 50 or even 100 concurrent games per player?

You could make individual exceptions for Kasparov and people who don't abuse their vacation to string along several hundred games. ;-)

Cheers, garbo999

If a player over-commits and ends up timing out games, then his tournament privileges become curtailed. So, there is a self-limiting constraint in the system. If, however, a player manages to stay current on hundreds of games, he/she is permitted to enjoy that benefit. Yes, when the time-outs occur, they are annoying to the tournament sponsor and participants, but the process is self-correcting in any case.

Different people have a different number of games they can manage. Compare a bed-tied patient with an overworked single mother. They'll have a different personal limit, one solution doesn't suit everyone. It's up to them to decide how much they personally can manage.

As DrawMaster noted, a long average time per move and high time out rate will bar you from tournaments anyway. This motivates players to only take on as much as they can handle.

Of course there are many instances when the player takes on too much, but that is unavoidable. A set limit would be restricting and unfair to people who really have the time and commitment to a lot of games at a time.

And to be honest, a massive time out is no great tragedy.

actually these player seem to me to be cheap. They want to so called get there monies worth if you think about it

A player has a right to play as many games as they want.

here is another http://www.chess.com/echess/profile/mplandshark

not the point. they should have a limit like any other common sense thing we do in life!!!!

Hard limit is not a good idea. As pointed out, what each person can handle differs across people. One can handle 10, another 100, and another 400, 500, or more. I've never timed out, and I had 140 at one point.

Why should somebody not be able to play chess? I mean that's what this site is all about; anybody can play unlimited chess. Is this player's large number of games hurting anybody?

These liberals always want to micro-manage every aspect of people's lives -- just let the free market figure everything out!

The free market just spoke to me in a vision; he says waffles are better than pancakes.

When signing up for tournaments, it is not easy to forecast precisely how this will impact your games count. For instance, if you sign up for ten 12-in-a-group tornaments with both games starting simultaneously, you have committed to 220 games.

Usually, there is no indication about when these tournaments will start; if they did all happen to begin at the same time, that would be a heavy playload.

Also, chess.com does not provide any tools to count the number of games you have committed to - but not started - (in tournaments and team matches).

erm, I think that's 22....

with both games starting simultaneously: 10*12*2 = 240

This, on the other hand, would be the best feature ever. It is quite impossible to remember every team match for which you've registered. A "show games not yet started" or something page would be perfect.

I think players are responsible enough to determine their own gameload, but they must also have the information availiable in order to make smart choices.

You don't play against yourself.

It's a little telling that some people think everyone *needs* limits on their behaviour handed down to them by a govorning body.

Here I was, feeling guilty for having 10 to 20 games going at once.  I'm going to go start a dozen more, because there's nothing more annoying than sitting around with time on my hands, waiting for everyone else to take a turn.  

If someone couldn't log in for whatever reason, it would affect you just the same if you were in a tournament with them and those were their only games.

I played against wannabealawstudent recently in a tournament. 1st game (he won) i thought i was playing against the world champion (?) , 2nd game he would move just in time to not -timeout. put him on a list ( avoid ), obvious a timeout /under 8 moves was to come , just read in forum = the expected happened.

upcoming-matches-displayed-at-a-glance would be neat; then we wouldn't get  people asking: where-are-my-tournaments?

Man have I been overwelmed having six games at once.  They need to set the limit to five and everyone must submit to my demand because they are being unreasonable.