Adjournment > Vacation

I think that when someone takes Vacation time, it should be treated like adjournments used to be. The player with the move would record his move and seal it, unseen by the other player, with the benefit that both players would be unable to continue analysing the position during the downtime (beyond a certain point anyway--as both players are unable to say what the other is about to do).

This could be accomplished here by adding in the ability to input your move after clicking on Vacation, but have it stay "sealed" until you return from Vacation. As it is currently, we have to make a move in order to have our Vacation time activated, thereby giving our opponent the opportunity to study the position and plan his next move with the benefit of our Vacation time.

Thanks!

While you are on vacation, the opponent's clock ticks down normally when it is his move. So the opponent will not get any more thinking time for his next move just because you are on vacation.

Would you agree that this information removes the need for your proposed change?

Ok, but then you can see what he played in response, right? So that gives you more time to consider your move while on vacation. Then one could argue that the person with more vacation time accrued has an advantage.

Yes, one could. In the same way, one could argue that people with a more busy life are at a disadvantage, because they usually have less time for analysing their games. Or that in some time zones, you will typically be at some disadvantage when you play with people who send their moves to you during their evening, which may be in the middle of the might for you, or in the morning for you when you will be able to deal with chess only during your next evening.

However, I would say that the advantage of correspondence chess time controls is that they can be chosen such that both players usually have somewhat more than enough time per move available, and that for many people, an important purpose of their time per move is to have enough time until they usually are able to log in and play in their games again.

So I would say that in correspondence chess, time controls and vacations make sure that there is enough time for both to play in the chess game, while making sure that the game is proceeding reasonably.