Timeout Protection Allowance

Hello All,

I have just been discussing with Russ some options to try to improve the way RHP handles periods when players are on holiday.

We are thinking of implementing a T/O protection allowance. This could be used at anytime to prevent anyone from claiming timeouts against you, but you would only be able to use it up to the maximum allowance of, for example, 21 days per year.

In any holiday system, something that had concerned us was that you could return from holiday with a whole bunch of games waiting for your move and before you had a chance to complete moves in each of these games, someone could be timing you out seeing that you are no longer on holiday.

With this proposed system, you would still be able to make moves even with your T/O protection turned on, so you could complete moves in each of your outstanding games. It would be totally up to individuals how they made use of their allowance.

The other main concern is that the current system works on the honour system which requires honesty both on the part of the player claiming to be on holiday and the player wanting to claim a timeout.

I believe this new system would address both the issues above and effectively end most of the concerns that have been expressed about holidays and timeouts.

Please let us know your thoughts on this...

Thanks,
Chris

basically sounds good. I assume not applicable in tourmnaments? (or at least, not fast tournaments)

TOs purpose as far as I can see is to end games where one player 'looses interest', leaves the site altogether or for league / tournaments to hurry play along.

This change if implemented should help to defeat the 'aggressive' TO cheat of playing out a lost position at the miniumum move rate and hoping for your opponent to go on holiday and thus win by TO.

Nice and simple idea. Well done.

I think that this is a very good idea, but how does it work with tournament and clan games?

Olav

Originally posted by LivingLegend
I think that this is a very good idea, but how does it work with tournament and clan games?

Olav

My initial thought is that it would work in the same way for all games.

Originally posted by Chrismo
My initial thought is that it would work in the same way for all games.

I think it is a good idea and worth a try, because this problem
is calling for a swift solution. Too many people are having bad
and frustrating experiences with this.

IvanH.

Now the thread is on page 1 and easier to find ...
unless you were looking for it on page 2 ... 😳
In that case ... sorry

Joe

How about if you are going on vacation and are not able to move, give your opponent the option of granting the extention or deleting the game all together, that way your opponent is not stuck with a game that never ends. I think that would end any abuse by players.

Mike

Originally posted by Chrismo
Hello All,

I have just been discussing with Russ some options to try to improve the way RHP handles periods when players are on holiday.

We are thinking of implementing a T/O protection allowance. This could be used at anytime to prevent anyone from claiming timeouts against you, but you would only be able to use it up to the maximum allowance of, for ...[text shortened]... bout holidays and timeouts.

Please let us know your thoughts on this...

Thanks,
Chris

Great idea Chris. That would be useful and hard to abuse. 🙂

Personally, I think the TO system is fine the way it is. Each player has complete control of what conditions they play under, made even easier with the filter. I fail to see any "abuse" going on at all. Every time you start a game you make an agreement. Failure to fullfill your part of the agreement has its penalty. In my eyes, this is only fair.

If we really want to do something that is fair to all, why don't we change the default TO time? Make it so that when we start a new game the default TO period is 21 days instead of 7. If this was the case, it would then be a simple matter to set your filter to 21 days as well. This would solve a lot of the problem right there. This would let everyone have three weeks, just like in the proposed changes, but allow players who like a bit faster to continue with what they like.

I mean no disrespect to anyone, but I think this whole mess with TO's is a bunch of nonsense. The system is fair and equal to everyone as it stands. If you can't move, that's not your opponents fault. It may be due to circumstances that are out of your control, but why should that affect your agreement? If I'm late for work, to see a movie, or any other time sensitive event, I still have no one to blame for my loss but chance and my own choices.

I really like Chris's proposal. The idea of a yearly budget means that it is not at all the same as having a 21-day timeout on games: you would only be able to delay the timeout on one move for that long.

I generally move every day, but I know there will be times when I will be away for a few days, so under the present system there is no way I could enter a tournament with a 3-day TO.

21 days of allowance might be more than absolutely necessary - if one could book 'protected days' in advance, 12 days a year would probably be enough. In that case it could accrue at one day per month, perhaps with an upper limit of 15 days in the bank.

Suppose you have 20 games going.
You're going away for a holiday for let's say 14 days.
You'd need at least a time out allowance of 14 days per game.
In total that would be 20 x 14 = 280 days.

The specific time out allowance should be attached to a game rather than be given to the player as such and it should be valid for a period of one year or maybe better for the duration of the game.

The more you think about this problem trying to come up with a reasonable solution, the more complicated it becomes.

Joe.

Originally posted by ivanhoe
The specific time out allowance should be attached to a game rather than be given to the player as such and it should be valid for a period of one year or maybe better for the duration of the game.
Joe.

I agree you need the timeouts on a per game basis. The way it works on my backgammon website is:

You have two clocks (A and B) - Both are set to their max value when the game starts.

When its your go, at first only clock A starts ticking down, and each time you make a move clock A gets reset. Clock A is your move timeout which would be set to 3 days or whatever.

If clock A expires then clock B starts ticking down, clock B never gets reset, so you lose time off it for good if you let clock A expire. This Clock B is your timeout allowance and could be set to 14 days or something like that.

If clock B expires you've lost that game.

It seems to me that the game length option as it exists could stay and be used to set clock A. Clock B perhaps could be the same for all players and all games, to minimise rejigging of the existing pages.

Halleluyah! 😀

This sounds like a much better idea than I was suggesting (in another thread). 21 days seems about right (it matches my annual leave).

I'm also interested in the other idea of doing it on a per-game basis. Not sure which is better tho'.

Nice one Chris!

It sounds like a good idea, but will we still have the vacation icon as an option? If not then someone who travels with work a lot (or gets an outragous amount of holiday) will run out of TO protection time half way through the year and then be stuck. Even if the vacation icon still exists I think it might be ignored more, with people assuming that if you're not using your TO protection time then you're not seriously away. Still a good idea though. Probably.

Originally posted by iamatiger
You have two clocks (A and B) - Both are set to their max value when the game starts.

If clock A expires then clock B starts ticking down, clock B never gets reset, so you lose time off it for good if you let clock A expire. This Clock B is your timeout allowance and could be set to 14 days or something like that.

If clock B expires you've lost that game.

This is even better than Chrismo's proposed solution and would, I hope, be hardly any more difficult to implement. I agree that all games could reasonably be given the same 'Clock B' allowance

If it were implemented, I would probably want to play all my games on a 3-day timeout.