Vote Chess

Being a member of a couple of smaller groups involved in Vote Chess, I find it increasingly frustrating to find that after discussing a move for 2 days or so...the game is then lost because nobody has actually voted and we've timed out.

There is a reminder for online games approaching time out, and theres a comment tracking facility....why can we not have a 'hurry up' time out reminder for these vote games.

I love the vote game concept but am losing faith in it. We are all busy, some of us struggling to find the time to look at the computer screen any more than once a day.

Could a time out warning be set up on vote games please...please...please...

Two of my vote chess games were lost yesterday on time outs simply because teamates were not aware that the time was running out. There is nothing to remind you. Out of Sight - Out of Mind

have to elect a good team captain for the game is how ive seen it managed...kati

So you don't think it would be better to have an automated warning system than to depend on a team captain who might be called in to work or who might fall asleep or who might go on a vacation or who might be called for jury duty or who might even just plain forget.

I think it would be a fine idea to have a warning......kati

I am estimating that in the past couple of months I have seen about 20 vote games go time out due to the fact that there is nothing to make the team members aware that time is running out. It seems to me that chess.com could institute some form of alert when a vote game gets down to about 4 hours remaining. A vote chess game represents months of time invested by several people working together as a team and it all goes down the tubes

Absolutely! There is no satisfaction in winning a vote game because the other team timed out. Sometimes it shows a lack of interest, but most the time the players were simply not aware.

Well, now, that is a very nice link. But it is certainly well hidden. How did you find it? Now that I have seen it I have tried to get those results but have not yet succeeded. Yes. It would sure be nice to have that information on my homepage. It would be nice just to have that link on my homepage. Just a little button like that somewhere would have saved a lot of vote games from going belly up. Now that I have seen this I am shocked that it is not already available. I can't tell you how many methods I have tried. But this list is arranged strictly by time remaining without regard for whose turn it is, so it is still somewhat time consuming to find games that are at risk of going time out. (Unless you have a better memory for pattern recognition than I do) I tried to make that link my [homepage link] on my public page for convenience but the system won't accept it.

This is the main reason I don't play many vote chess games, I never know when it's my move, and when I do happen to see it at the right time, I then have to remember to come back in 3 days to vote again, it would be much better if I could either "track" the moves or just have a reminder sent when it's my move such as the "group activity" emails I get. Perfect world I'd have them in the MY GAMES section.

I am constantly in fear, that unknown to me, one or more of my vote games is timing out and the only way to find out is to go through each of the groups I belong to and check the vote games. I play vote chess in 17 groups so it takes a lot of time just to do a quick check. The link above is a help but not a cure. The list doesn't care whose move it is so you still waste time checking games in which it is not your turn. Perfect world would include an alert when the time is <12hrs or maybe <15% of the total time per move. And, of course, an alert would not be necessary if you had already voted in that game.

One feature that would be nice is if there is a way to submit a 'provisional' vote, such that it doesn't get counted in the current vote tally, and can be changed by the user before the time for the move is up.  That way, at least a move of some sort could be submitted, as most times I like to wait a day before submitting my vote after reading team comments etc.

Totally Agree! I think the players should have the ability to change thier votes at will. I played in a couple of team games at chessgames.com and you could see the votes and also change your vote. It is soooo much better that way. I feel the way it is set up here reflects the wrong attitude towards vote chess. We should be competing against the opponent and not against our team mates.

Why don't you just make a move so that you don't time out

Ahah! I did not realize that the orientation of the board indicates whose move it is. That helps alot.

The pain of timing out on vote chess games is particularly galling as it is shared by many. I am in absolute agreement with the suggestions. Chess.com has made many great improvements to this site; hopefully they can do it for vote chess as well. Personally speaking, a police siren going off when votes games are nearing time out would be nice, but a "hurry up" message alert would do. 

Making a move just to avoid the time out is entirely the wrong reason for making a move. The whole idea behind vote chess is for the team members to discuss the moves. Another name for it could be "Discussion Chess". I think a person can learn as much about an opening from playing a game of vote chess as they can from studying a chapter in a book. The entire game becomes a mutual coaching/learning situation where everyone can learn/contribute from their own level of play. A vote chess game should, on average, be a higher quality game on both sides of the board.

Now using the link, great help, but chess.com could make it even better.

Thanks for all your comments.

Yes I agree.

Thanks for that. A beautiful validation of why we have vote chess in the first place. It is growing in popularity and winning new converts steadily.

It is for this very reason that I have stopped playing Vote Chess in so many groups.  I've been forced to limit my games just so that I CAN go thru each game and see which ones it's my turn in, which ones I still need to vote in, which ones are running low on time, etc.

There is an alert when it's our move in the game, but that doesn't do any good unless you're a drive-by voter who only looks at the game once.  Any of the serious Vote Chess players know that you should hold your vote until after the discussion.  Unfortunately I have seen a LOT of games in which we all agree on a particular move, but no one comes back to vote for it.

Some teams have someone who posts a "Vote Now" sign so that everyone who's tracking the comments will at least be alerted that a consensus has been reached, but as Wormrose points out, any system dependant on a human being's actions is inherently flawed.

I see a few possible solutions:

1) have an alert when the game is at less than half the allotted time (if it's a 2-day/turn match, the 2nd alert would sound at 24 hours, if it's a 12-hour/turn match, the 2nd alert would sound at 6 hours, etc.)

2) the current alert that lets us know it's our turn in the game does NOT disappear when you LOOK at the game, but when you VOTE in the game.  This would help you see (at a glance) all the games that you haven't yet voted in (this should obviously be arranged by time remaining).

3) there is a single link on our home page that takes you to "My Vote Chess Games" just like there is with "My Online Chess" and the games are arranged the same way (single line format with the time remaining - red letters if we haven't voted yet, etc - just like we have for our regular games).  I'd REALLY REALLY like to see THIS set up - the current format of "Vote Games I am playing" is not nearly as user friendly as the "My Online Chess" page, and is not even arranged by TIME REMAINING, but by TIME SINCE THE LAST MOVE (which is completly useless if you have games running at different speeds - it even lists games that are finished in with current games as if there's no difference).  Simply make "My Vote Chess Games" look and act like "My Online Chess."

4) the ability to change your vote before the last minute.  This way you can cast a provisional vote (to avoid the possibility of timeouts and/or not getting back to vote in time) and yet you're not locked in if something better comes along thru discussion.  I think almost every single one of us has voted for a move and then wished we could change it, so we are forced to scramble around finding other voters to cancel out the vote we already cast and then correct it.

I don't know what is easier or harder from a programming perspective, and I'm sure that the Chess.com staff is thinking, "Man, no matter what we do these people are never satisfied."    But I think you'd see a LOT of REALLY happy players if you could make option 3 and/or 4 a reality (preferably both).