MNb, 
My 'thin-skinned' comment was directed at HgMan's rather thin-skinned post, not your replies, which I consider very measured.

I completely agree that to get anywhere in CC is damn hard. It's a competitive enterprise, and the people at the top of the tree are extremely good. My question is 'good at what?'....which brings us full circle back to TN's initial question.

Perhaps crisis is the wrong word. But certainly CC is a completely different game than it was say 10 years ago, especially at duffer level. The two can't even be meaningfully compared. So for crisis, read revolution; if you're with the Reds, there's no crisis; the crisis is only for the Whites...

If someone told me x years ago that they were a Grand Poobah of CC, I would have been impressed. Now its a completely neutral piece of information, as if they'd told me their star sign. Perhaps I'll even marvel at how well they pass the Turing Test.

If you guys are happy to play this new sport and take pleasure in it, who are we to complain, but if we have the odd laugh at processor battles, wondering whether the human element adds or subtracts value to the enterprise, wondering whether Roman Abramovich will be the next World Champion etc, CC'ers will just have to acknowledge that the situation does lend itself to such musings, anqd get on with it. no point in thin-skinned reactions which deny the nature of the beast.

HgM,

I understand you take CC seriously, and bristle at OTB-types taking the mickey.

But it does seem that CC is going through something of a crisis due to the strength of the comps nowadays. When you have rank patzers able to compete with world-class players for the price of a takeaway meal, and  the current ICCF WC having command of vast resources, silicon and carbon based, you can't really blame us OTBers for looking askance at the whole show.

I'm sure that TN was trying to raise a legitimate question somewhere with his original post in this thread, but this discussion has devolved rather predictably into a rather sophomoric rant about who "real" chess players are.  I must admit I take some offense (though, according to the gist of recent contributions, maybe it's my computer that should be offended).  On a forum devoted to chess theory, I would argue that correspondence players probably do have more and better experience in topical lines, because their opponents don't need to deviate for fear of not remembering the critical line.

But what do I know?  I don't have an otb rating, so I guess my opinion and 1500+ posts here have been a waste of your time and mine...

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I fully agree with you

Now a crucial question comes up: Can one buy success in corr. games with bits and bytes?

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I think at least you were deciding for the best variations based on your excellent chess knowledge - and you sort out positional rubbish. And you were certainly not playing the Latvian , cause you know that it is (?) losing - but the comp may be tempted to go along long lines, which lead to a dead end somewhere.

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I wonder what he is doing in a tournament - say playing 14 games at once. Does he get up every 2 hours, or is the whole cellar filled with comps? A lot of cc-players have dozens of games running - just go to ICCF-Webchess and tip on names to see how many tourns the play.

You're right. 2500 is roughly the bar where a human adds, rather than subtracts, from the engine input.

Viking wrote on 12/22/07 at 15:01:09:

I think most decently rated CC-players (ie those over 2200) will beat you if you solely rely on Fritz and friends.