What's up with Premium members not finishing games?

One of the members of this site is 3 moves from losing the game we were playing and he decided to put me on indefinite hold...WTF?  

I won't name names but Shango needs to finish about 25 games that apparently he has lost but won't finish...is this normal?

I am new to this site and plan to upgrade but only if the play is fair...

It is not normal, but it happens.

 a) he is already lost but it will be many more than three moves to mate him b) he isnt on vacation (he still has normal time for his move so i'm not sure what you mean by "indefinite hold" o_O) c) those types of games take weeks, even months to complete...if you are winning you will get the win eventually...

Well he was able to ignore the 2 day deadline. It is 3 moves and I think he is just trying to make me miss the 2 day deadine and gift him the win.  

I just think it is bad ettiquette and the site shouldn't allow it!

I find a similar pattern of play: when the game is close, play happens more frequently, but sometimes my opponent, once in a losing position, will play less frequently because he/she realizes that defeat waiting.  I feel it may be out of spite that players do this, or in hopes that you will forget about the game and make a blunder so they can get back in the game. idk.

If it seems like he is "ignoring" the time limit, it may be that he is getting put automatically on vacation - possibly from some of his other games.  When this happens, a minimum of one day is removed from his "bank" of vacation time.  If he returns from vacation within a day, the time is added back to his clock.  (Personally, I disagree with this practice... I can see adding back a couple of hours so they have time to make moves without falling back into auto-vacation, but not the full amount.)

The only things you can really do is block the player (so that you don't have to see them again, except possibly in tournaments), set up a conditional line, then forget about it and start up a new game.  Eventually, he'll run out of vacation time and have to either move or lose.  If you have the conditional line set up, you won't even have to worry about whether you'll catch it when he does move as your conditional line will automatically do your moves for you.

I know I usually play faster when winning (or I think I'm winning) and slower when I'm losing. I will look over a position many times over the time control period and may not move until towards the end of the time control. I'm searching for the best continuation and hopefully something that will give chances of a draw or advantage. 

Sad to say, blunders in won positions do happen. Also, just because you see a forced/winning continuation doesn't mean your opponent does.

Slow moving in a lost position doesn't always have malicious intent.

Ok thanx for all the inputs...I am new to the site and don't want to ruffle feathers but its not cool if someone gets you and you don't accept the defeat.  I dont have a schedule right now that allows for live play.

It was a very hard fought game and its a shame it ended poorly...I would have liked a rematch!

One of the reasons I enjoy the Turn-based games is the time allowed per move. If I get in trouble, I like to take a little extra time for my next move. However, this is the exception and only done infrequently. If my opponent takes their full time for moves when they are in trouble, that is their right under the rules we agree to when we play Turn-based. When this happens to me, I simply go on with my other games. Sometimes, we need to take a deep breadth and not let the little things bother us.

True True

If you continue with the correspondence (turn-based) games you'll see that there's a big variation in behavior, but you will run into a lot of people who for a lot of different reasons use most of the alloted time for their moves (repeatedly going on vacation is a different story).  That doesn't bother me, and I'm one of those who often returns a move after more than 2 days (my average move response time is just under 1 day), but there are a couple things you can do if you're getting irked by slow play.

First, just be mentally prepared that each move might really take as long as the time limit for the game.  You do have some control over that, since correspondence games can have turn times of 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 10, or 14 days.  Most games are 3 days, but if that ends up being frustrating, you won't have difficulty finding plenty of 1- or 2-day games either.

Second, one way people handle this is to play more games.  The number of games at a time that feels comfortable varies for people, but by having more games not only do you average more moves per day, but you also have a better chance of getting a variety of slow and fast players as opponents.  You won't mind the people taking their full 3 days so much as long as you have other games and moves going on.  Sure, you'll still have games dragging on that should be resigned by your opponent, but at least you'll have good games still going, and eventually you'll get the win in the dragged out game too.  

Ok good advice, I am just frustrated by this person because he was all over the game while the game was undecided, until he knew he would lose...then he disappears...it's just poor sportsmanship and I wont play him again.

There you go.