Vacation Setting during Hardcore Tourney

There is a closed thread in the Tournament Forum about this subject. It mentions there perhaps getting better results in another forum. Like this forum on Site Ideas. Anyway, I'm in a Tournament that is a February Hardcore with no timeouts, just the allotted time bank. I think of it as a month long blitz. Most games have been completed or are about to, this one particular guy, Brad Esta, has the vacation flag up most of the month and is only, on average, on his 12th move per game. This does not seem to be the intended nature of this tournament and I think that the vacation settings should be excluded from Hardcore type Tourneys. This is the message I sent Brad, to show you I was civil.

It's obvious what you are doing in the February Hardcore Tournament, and I don't think it's in the "spirit" of the nature of the fair chess play by taking the extended vacation. Now everyone has to wait for your games to find out the results. I don't play many tournaments, but I'm going to discuss this with Russ, I don't feel vacation works well with a tourney that has zero days to make a move. It's more like a month long blitz.

I take that the Site Idea reads:

either:

Don't allow the vacation flag be put up as long as a person is in an active hardcore torunament. (Maybe it can be booked beforehand if one is on vacation and a second round starts)

or:

Disregard the vacation flag for hardcore tournaments.

better still:

enforce an automatic timeout of any hardcore tournament at the second the falg falls.

Didn't all tournaments at one time ignore vacation settings?
It seems there was a statement warning that vacation settings would not be honored for entrants.
I think this applied to all tournaments.

Originally posted by mwmiller
Didn't all tournaments at one time ignore vacation settings?
It seems there was a statement warning that vacation settings would not be honored for entrants.
I think this applied to all tournaments.

Well it's certainly not automatic if that rule is still in place. I wonder how to enforce it.

I agree that vacations should not be permitted in Hardcore tournaments. This question has come up before and the idea had support, but for some reason nothing ever happened.

I would like the option of having tournaments of other time controls beside 0/X (timebank only) that are immune from vacation.

Just add the option for all tourneys. And give the users a warning that the tourney is vacation-immune when they enter, so they can pull out if they don't want that.

Originally posted by gregsflat
There is a closed thread in the Tournament Forum about this subject. It mentions there perhaps getting better results in another forum. Like this forum on Site Ideas. Anyway, I'm in a Tournament that is a February Hardcore with no timeouts, just the allotted time bank. I think of it as a month long blitz. Most games have been completed or are about to, ...[text shortened]... works well with a tourney that has zero days to make a move. It's more like a month long blitz.

His flag's down now, so there'll be a run of timeouts as people notice. I thought timeout was automatic in tournaments but apparently not.

Originally posted by Kewpie
His flag's down now, so there'll be a run of timeouts as people notice. I thought timeout was automatic in tournaments but apparently not.

I think automatic timeout occures about two days after the falg fell. Probably at midnight.

Sit idea for tournament games: put a marker on games, when the flag fell and program the interface to watch for that flag. Take the timeput when the person tries to open the game or at midnight.

EDIT should this go to "developers" forum?

Yeah, everybody timed out on him, I don't think it was automatic though. It's silly, even if you make all your moves before your flag runs out, you still have no time for your next move in a hardcore, only time bank tourney.
I actually put my flag up for a few days on the tourney and it works like a normal vacation. There should be something like, you can't select a vacation time when entered in Hardcore, or if entered in Hardcore while setting vacations, you automatically lose those games, but the rest of your game load is then be saved. And to some folks, in stressful situations, at least they have their normal game load protected. This guy has since emailed me, saying I have no idea of his situation. I shouldn't have to know, but it wasn't fair to hold up that tournament for 2 weeks.

Originally posted by gregsflat
Yeah, everybody timed out on him, I don't think it was automatic though. It's silly, even if you make all your moves before your flag runs out, you still have no time for your next move in a hardcore, only time bank tourney.
I actually put my flag up for a few days on the tourney and it works like a normal vacation. There should be something like, you c ...[text shortened]... situation. I shouldn't have to know, but it wasn't fair to hold up that tournament for 2 weeks.

It is a bit daft that a hardcore tourney gets held up like this. It is fairly clear that someone who is not playing at all will lose the hardcore games, as you describe.

There have been problems in the past with people playing on underneath the vacation flag - they get protection from timeout, but their opponent has none.
The chap in question does not appear to have been doing that, so was probably using vacation to give himself breathing space for his normal games.

Is the solution simply to disregard the vacation flag for games with timebank only and no timeout increment? Tournament or not should be the same thing.

It is fair to those who are really on vacation - they would lose anyway as soon as their opponent gets on line and makes a move. And it blocks "abuse" of vacation to play on in hardcore games under the flag.