Russell Sherwood Monday, August 29, 2022
An area which tends to split Correspondence Chess players is that of vacation time: Some believe it essential, others something that a player has more than enough time to play the game!
Both of these views are accurate at times, but I came across a different interpretation of the use of this time or its built-in equivalent in Tripe block – that of an insurance policy.
This alternative view came to surface due to the discussions held around the removal of the withdrawal system. A behaviour seen more often than you might expect is that a player will have to go into hospital and immediately wants to make an accepted withdrawal.
Let's consider this for a moment – players tend to either use or not use leave time (you will notice the change in naming!) and for many, most, if not all of this time is unused at the end of an event.
Taking this into account – if we have 45 days available – why not simply take this time out instead of withdrawing. This means we now consider this time as a kind of insurance policy or insurance time.
Widening this idea out a little bit more, if we keep a health balance of time in Triple block, the same concept can be used.
In all cases – consider keeping your time balance as an insurance policy – not simply for vacations! With the removal of Withdrawals in Jan 2023 this almost becomes essential!
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