Dear Chessfriends,

 

About the new webserver feature "Use 40 days+" which sends a message to the Tournament Director (TD) (and Team Captain (TC) in a team event.) and your opponents, you are essentially saying, “In this particular game I will use more than 40 days of my reflection time on my next move”. This is called extended reflection time and is only valid for the next move.

 

Compare to playing rule 3b):

 

When a player is sent a final reminder after 35 days of response time, he/she must either move or report to the Tournament Director and to his/her opponent, the intention to continue the game, within 5 days of that reminder. If a player does not move or otherwise report his/her intention to continue, during the 40 days of response time for the same move, the game may be scored as lost by the Tournament Director.

 

 

This has been the rule from the beginning, allowing a player to use more than 40 days as long as he or she informs their opponent and TD that you will, but it has been necessary to find out what email your opponent has. Many times this had to be dealt with via HelpDesk. The automation is to make it easier and less work.

 

It now appears that some players are using this feature without the intended purpose of exceeding 40 days of reflection time without moving.  Please do not use this feature unless you intend to exceed 40-days of reflection time for one move (a very rare occurrence).  One could argue that it should not even be available until after 35 response days (calendar days but vacation days not counted) has passed, but we want to offer the flexibility to our players.  It could be possible that you wish to celebrate your 25th anniversary of your wedding by taking a 10-week cruise around the world.  If you have saved up enough reflection time in your remaining games, you could do so.  Your spouse has told you that if you even look at the computer during this cruise, the divorce papers will arrive promptly.  So, we trust that we can allow our players the opportunity to send the message as soon as he or she is on the clock.

 

Of course, misuse of the feature, for example, by sending the message every move and then still reply a few hours later, can be a reason for the TD to impose a penalty.

 

For TD's the message is saved in the game log, so before you confirm a loss according to rule 3b, you need to check the game log. You need not to keep the message.

 

Amici Sumus,

 

Per Söderberg

 

ICCF Rules Commissioner