timer problem

I dont understand: my opponent hasn't made a move since

24 April, and every day gets 24 hours, so our party seems to last forever. I know, that there is the possibility of

20 days of vacation, but my opponent has at least two other

games(last moves on the 25th of April), so by my calculation his timer expired on the 12th

of May.

Well, his 240 hours will take ten days to run out. This takes you to about the 2nd of may? (I'm useless going over months)

Anyway, after that he gets 20 days of vacation taking him to around the 22nd of May is he hasn't used any vacation days before that.

I know, it's a loooong time, I've had to wait ages too, none of my opponents have moved for ages, I always have 240 hours :-)

Niall

how do players seem to gain time? i have played games where my opponent will nearly run out of time, then at the last minute start making moves again. their timer will increase back to 240 again. am i imagining this? does making a move give you time?

Yes. The time control is 240 hours + 36 hours per move. Every time you make a move, you gain 36 hours. But your reserve time is subeject to a maximum of 240 hours (which can go up to 264 hours if you get charged with a vacation day).

why get 36 hours for each move? if we have a timer of 240 hours, why not leave it at that? this seems to allow games to drag on forever. there tournaments from last november and december that aren't even close to ending. could we make this a negotiating point at the start of a game? if a player needs that kind of time structure to complete a game, let that be an option. and let players who want quicker games have shorter timers or no time added each move. sorry if this has already been discussed here.

I agree, these times are rather annoyingly long for me.

However, it all comes down to one person, Richard Malaschitz (sorry if I misspelled that) programming this whole site and hundreds of people asking for hundres of improvements...

I reckon we can sort out time problems with a 'gentlemans' agreement no? Leave the programmer to program :-)

Niall

> hundreds of people asking for hundres of improvements...

> I reckon we can sort out time problems with a 'gentlemans' agreement no? Leave the programmer to program :-)

> Niall

i understood that the purpose of this forum was for discussing among other things suggestions for improvements. pardon me for being "ungentlemanly" by providing some feedback if that is not the case. of course it is richard's perogative to do with this site as he sees fit. his generousity of providing this site (for free even) is not lost on me. suggesting alternatives and and demanding changes are two different things.

"leave the programmer to program"? what is that supposed to mean?. just trying to be constructive.

The games are timed so that someone can check in several times a week and not forfeit. A faster time control might be nice for manyh of us, but a fixed number of hours would IMO be awful.

The whole point of correspondance play is too allow deep analysis when desired. Over the course of an 80-move chess game (160 moves as reported by Little Golem) that means each side may well want to use 60 days (currently 130 days are allotted.) But some chess games are over in 20 moves. I wouldn't want my opponent allowed all that time for a short game. The initial 240 hours is just seed money. Your real time is the 36 hours per move.

thanks for the better perspective DVD, that makes a lot of sense.

bump