New time controls for Correspondence games, opinions please ?

@Spartako

And what do you say about the obvious drawback ... that of players using all their banked time in lost positions and let their flag fall?

This would be a constant complaint. To be heard in the forums to no end. There are far too many players who will take the tack of hoping the opponent ends up forfeiting themselves for any number of reasons. This is the main reason lichess does not offer vacation time. It is a very valid arguement, the potential for abusing vacation time.

Most players posses a smart phone where the lichess app can used to make correspondence moves if necessary. Play only the amount of games that can be comfortably handled. The example of in the event of a sudden hospitable stay, I would think losing a few internet chess games is the least of worries.

A 2nd drawback is auto-pairing. Would players who set a seek with banked time go into the auto-pair pool? If so, the days set would have to match - otherwise no game match. So these players would have to go into the lobby, to be clicked on by players accepting the amount of extra banked time.

An easier way is to simply create a correspondence time control with an added 7 days of vacation time added to the starting time for players that so agree. But this entails creating a whole new pairing pool.

I think what many people forget, it's not simply a matter of writing new code, adding a new option or feature. Making additions often entails the necessity of rewriting old code, to make the new feature compatible with the existing interface.

As per the baby language explanation of #28, the timebank is individual per player and per game. It was agreed when the game started. A help page link could be added. An animated GIF could give everyone a quick understanding of the feature.

Whenever one uses a large amount of "game time" (timebank), it would make sense to choose a smaller amount of "move time" (timeout), such as 1-day. Lichess can enforce a limit in the total time (gameTime + moveTime).

It is uncool if someone lets his time run down but this is a problem with all time controls, i dont think this is an argument against a time bank or a vacation flag. Also, such dudes can be reported and admins will close their account if they do it repeatedly.

So... there is no difference between letting 14 days of time run down compared to a few minutes of a blitz game ???

Think again.

No one has addressed the issue of auto-pairing. Each chosen time bank of days must be matched exactly in order to be auto-paired, otherwise seeks go to the lobby.

Adding vacation time is an idea. But for it to work, a set time of say 7 days is agreed upon at any starting time of days. You simply can not have a "sliding bar" allowing everyone the option of choosing 1-14 days. Impractical. Again , a separate pool of players needs identifying that want to play with vacation time.

If correspondence time controls are changed to where everyone has up to 7-14 days of vacation time, trust this, it will be greatly abused with players simply stalling in losing positions. I for one would find another site

i didnt say it is not different, i said its no argument.

yes, i dont think a slider is neccesarily needed, three different types of flag/bank is ok too in my opinion.

Edit: For example like 7 days, 14 days and 28 days.

Edit 2: maybe even just one flag/bank is enough, seven days, because one should be able to access lichess at least once per week from any place in the world.

Edit 3: maybe 28 days is better then. We could do it like this that if one takes a vacation flag he is not able to play on lichess during that time. If someone misuses this he will probably do it just once and then never again :)

Edit 4: a vacation flag could be global and it can only be taken twice per year.

@no_bullet_thanks

It is a valid argument. I see you have not played a single correspondence game. Waiting 7-14 days for a player to make a move in a lost position will happen frequently. You may think, no big deal, players will get warned. You are not a correspondence player to make comparisons to blitz games. Players stalling in blitz, the game is over in minutes. Correspondence an entirely different matter.

Anyways, I agree. A single vacation time of 7 days is workable. Would suffice. Again. A separate pool of players wanting vacation time is needed. Adding vacation time to everybody is not an option that would be agreed upon by most.

This is observed at CC. Tournaments get hung up forever. Complaints abound about players stalling in regular correspondence. They accumulate vacation time, stop moving until last moments, make a move and take vacation time again. No vacation time works a great deal better in my experiance, starting with postal chess 40+ years ago.

I'm not saying vacation time is a bad thing. Is beneficial in some circumstances. But you either have it or not. Which works better? Opinions obviously are on both sides. But having no experience (no_bullet_thanks), at least here, I would tend to listen to those who have played a few years of correspondence chess.

It seems little consideration has been given to taking vacation time when the suggestion is to include the amount of time in the seek (now called a time bank.) It is suggested a lichess developer write a program to track the 10's of thousands correspondence games, (starting time + banked time) on a daily basis with players all playing multiple games with varying time banked?

When vacation time is needed, it has to apply to all games in progress. How is this to work when multiple games all have a different banked time? Vacation time is for an emergency, players are not able to connect and make the required moves. Therefore, all games are halted. Different banked time in games ... some resulting in being flagged... it's simply impractical to set a banked time for each game. I get how banked time can be set, used in games, each game having a unique time control. What happens is players begin to manipulate the time for every game in progress. What a headache for programming, records, status...etc etc.

A possibility is to have say 14 days available out of a years time. But all games are halted and resumed at the same time. But this opens up a whole can of worms that needs further addressing.
lichess policy is no vacation time. Works just fine.

@Spartako (#38)

The reason is because I don't spend time to read every single post, so I didn't read #32. I was talking about a different post when I said 'increment'. Someone was talking about a 0.5 day increment. :)

So a Time Bank is time you get after you run out of time? When do you stop using it? Or is it that these, say, 14 days is all you have to make all your moves left and it becomes 14 day 'real time'?

I see the timebank as a safety extra-time. I don't see how it might be abusive, it's just a few more days (never renewable) in the middle of a months-long game (and I don't even expect 1-day players to ever create/accept games with a full-week timebank).

And again, I'm always playing some 20 simultaneous 14-day games. I only play 14 days because (1) yeah, I'm a procrastinator and like to chew on positions, and (2) I hate the pressure of having moves to make in time and keep track of the clocks, which goes against playing many games simultaneously if you eventually have busy weeks or a busy trip.

I totally would play shorter games with timebank, just so I don't have to worry about time-outs, which were really frustrating to me in the past (luckily never happened on lichess). I would preserve the timebank of my games for satefy reasons, and make moves more often (as in switching to 7-day movetime).

What I don't like about the reaction here to this suggestion, is to talk as if people would be forced to swallow opponents abusing vacation time. If they care so much about correspondence games ending soon, why even select a game with timebank? (or why even play long correspondence for that matter? lol)

If that's a problem, even 14-day games are a problem, because I may have a forced mate in a dozen moves, and my opponent is still using their full move time despite having only one or two legal moves available. I don't think that has ever happened to me, and perhaps I wouldn't even notice. But that's a case in which you may write to your opponent, ask in chat or message if they can make more-obvious moves faster. Same goes for games with timebank. Again: I would play even shorter games. Timebank doesn't mean longer game. The only problem might be a longer move once in a blue moon.

As for the auto-pairing issue, I think that's easily dealt with by giving players very few options for timebank. As suggested by @Dopaminergic_Chess , even a total-time limit may be enforced by lichess. And, honestly, I play a lot of correspondence and don't think I ever used auto-pairing. I always check the seek list before creating a seek myself, and other players probably do that to enter my seeks, more often than auto-paired. I mean, those who play many 1-day games will still go without timebank and get auto-paired if they will.