It's a Lonnnng wait

I've just gone into hibernation (excused time) in both of my correspondence tournaments. In my USCF tournament, one player has not moved in either of his games for 28 days. Normally I'd have about two months to go to wait him out, but fortunately the event is played on ICCF's webserver, and although they have a time control of 10 moves in 50 days, there are two additional rules that are to my benefit.

1) Duplication after 20 days. If a player does not move for more than 20 days, every day used after 20 will be counted twice (so somebody who does not move for 21 days would use 22 days reflection time, somebody who does not move for 30 days would use 40, etc. Excused time is not counted.

2) Forfeiture after 40 days of no moves. Again, excused time is not counted.

So although he still has more than 30 days left in both games, I may be able to claim two wins come early December. That's some good news because I've done very poorly in that four-player round robin, and those two games are likely the only points I will be scoring.

In my ICCF Open section, my games are moving right along. I've seen several crosstables where games begin ending just a week or two after they start! Fortunately that is not the case in my tournament, as most of my opponents are taking at least a day or two to make their response.