Holiday blocks are a great function of the site that let you pause the clock on all your games so you can go on a vacation, or if you're just too busy, and you don't have to worry about running out of time.
Available Holiday
Each player is entitled use up to 42 days of holiday.
New holiday days are assigned to all players before the beginning of a calendar year (in some advance - most likely a month or even a few).
Newly registered players obtain part of the holiday proportional to the remaining time of the year (so, for example, a player registering on the end of the July will get about 21 days - half of the normal holiday).
The exact formula is: ((366 - day of year registered) * allocation) / 366
Additional holiday allowance can be allocated under difficult circumstances, message Austin in such case. Please note that additional holiday will only be granted in unforeseen and unavoidable circumstances (for example hospitalisation).
Using Holiday
Holiday must be spent during the calendar year it is assigned to. Unused holiday is lost. Holiday assigned for future year can not be taken earlier (but can be booked in advance).
Holiday can be allocated in periods of any length, from single day up to all remaining holiday days.
Holiday always starts and ends at midnight GMT.
You can't take holiday for past days, or for today.
Note that 'today' might be tomorrow, or yesterday, depending on where in the world you live, to be safe book the holiday at least two days in advance.
Taking Holiday
To take a holiday, go to the holiday form (Holidays in the My Details menu). Here you can choose how many days of holiday to take and when. Simply click the days you want to book holiday for. The selected dates will be highlighted, that's the mark of booked holiday.
Future holiday can be also cancelled here, just click the booked date to cancel the booking.
The information about your holiday will be added to every game you play (Player X is on holiday for y days from z).
You can modify your holiday also while you are on the holiday.
How the Holiday Works
When you use holiday time;
- your clocks in each of your games will be paused for the duration of your holiday,
- you can not be challenged by other players until your holiday is over,
- you will not be allocated any welcome games.
You can move in your games whilst on holiday, however time increments will not be added to your clock for these moves.
If your opponent accepts conditional moves while you are on holiday, you will not get the increment too (this is considered to be a flaw and may change in the future).
The holiday applies to all your games, including the games started during it – also in the games you start whilst on holiday, or games started on your behalf (for example new tournament or team game), the clock remains paused.
Checking the Holiday End Date
The holiday ends exactly at the midnight GMT at which the last allocated day ends. So if you take two days of holiday for January 20th and January 21th, the clock will be frozen for exactly 48 hours – since the midnight GMT ending January 19th and will start ticking at midnight GMT ending January 20th.
The information when the holiday ends is shown on the Holiday form, shortened notes are also visible on the games list and game board windows.
The time can be shown in GMT, or in your local time, depending on your preferences setting.
Holiday Limitations
Holiday does not extend the time you have to join dropouts, mini-tournaments, organise team matches etc.