One Change to Save Thousands of Members Months of Time

The problem with online tournaments is that they do take a loooooooong time and if you are in one, then you have to realize it may take years to finish one.  

I do agree that if you are at the top of your round and have clinched, that you should be able to advance to the next round even if some players in your group haven't finished their games. 

if you want fast tournaments then you better only join 1 move/per day with no vacations allowed. Otherwise you just have to be patient. That's the nature of online/correspondence chess tournaments.

The game itself can have no impact, but the passage of time can have an impact.

Yeah, that's spot on ozzie -- I was being a little bit disingenuous with that comment, and certainly if the new round were started a player's withdrawal should be applied to that new round, not the previous one.

It's all those chinook winds up there.  Freeze dries your brain a bit at a time, year after year.

Why don't you just set a time limit on moves, like a week, then you forfeit, problem solved, also all games that can continue without being effected by unfinished games should automatically get the go-ahead.

Why would they name a wind after a helicopter?

Have you ever stood near a helicopter?  That should be obvious....

Beats me.  Why would they name a Native American Nation after a helicopter?  

Have you tried freeze dried brain?  Delicious!

But how do you get thin slices without it crumbling?  That's always a problem for me.

Somewhere, Ray Liotta is cringing.

"Oh, I've cut slices so thin, I couldn't even see them."

YEA, YOU ARE THE MAN!

We need "Vacation Police".  I have read that this site has a policy against vacation abuse but have yet to see it enforced.  My opponent in one tournament has obviously made moves in other tourneys but remains obstinant in this one.  If this site can bust cheaters, then why can't they bust the slackers?

In principle, game time and vacation time are the resource of the player, to be used as they see fit. Case in point: I currently have 4 games, 2 of which are "really serious" games. (And when I say "are" I actually mean "were", since the opponent has been banned for cheating). But before I knew that, I really sensed that those games would have to be played very carefully. So I would play my other games very quickly, making moves without analysis, but in the two games against the 2300 I would take up nearly the full 3 days worth of time. Even when my move was forced. I was always looking ahead -- why make a forced move right away when I can have that much more time to think about the position?

But the other side of it is that it is possible that my opponent got annoyed at that I suppose. I mean, I was moving all the time in my other games, but I took the full 3 days against him? Without a "good reason"? Well I guess the lesson is that sometimes people do have good reasons (and obviously sometimes they don't). But how can the site really know, you know?

Exactly-- the site couldn't know, the opponent couldn't know, and even if they could, so what?  The bottom line is that people who aren't capable of waiting 3 days without tearing their hair out or whining shouldn't play 3-day games, they should only play 1- or 2-day games.  That's a much better solution that setting up a games or tournaments as 3-day games and then looking for new rules to prohibit people from actually using 3 days per move or punishing them if they do.

Granted, the biggest problem in my opinion is vacation abuse, and that is a TOS violation, if difficult to prove.