Pawnbroker wrote on 01/02/08 at 22:03:13:
It’s a fair assumption that most strong CC players now use computer engine assistance. It is a long time since I last won a game through an opponent’s blunder!
I sometimes think that the current strength of computers can be overstated. Yes, OTB they are very strong and now seem to be dominant, but in CC their limitations are more apparent. My own experience is that opponents who seem to rely solely on computer analysis are not too difficult to beat. A couple of years ago I would have said easy to beat, so that is perhaps an indication of growing strength. Nevertheless today’s best engines still play many endgame positions badly, are naďve in the opening and most surprisingly are capable of missing deep tactics.
I play CC because I have time on my hands and I find it relaxing. In spite of the obvious similarity it is quite different to OTB, an altogether more stressful experience. We are lucky to have two forms of a common game that give so much enjoyment to players of widely differing temperaments!
Too many points too little time, but let me start by correcting an error of ommission on my part in a previous post where I stated that a 2300 Fide rated player in Surinam and a 2300 rated player in the USA should be more or less around the same playing level. Of course that should have read 2300 Fide rated player from the USA. Thanks Mnb for bringing that to my attention, although if you were more focused on the thrust of my argument, rather than nit picking, you would not have missed the wood for the trees.
Ok, granted the comp has limitations, but CC players do not. By that I mean that what the comp lacks the CC player simply compensates for by utilising some other external resource, such as endgame books,cd's,dvd's other humans, moreso than their own intrinsic chess skills. I suppose this is neccessary considering the nature of the scientific exercise, because surely this is not a sporting contest in the true spirit of the term.
This well worn reason that many CC players give, about bad memory being responsible for their poor OTB play and results, I believe to be only partly true. The problem as I see it is that many CC players are more used to relying on external means to compensate every defciency, that they have forgotten how to problem solve and adapt relying only on themselves.
Suppose for instance your memory is truly bad, as mine also is by the way. The logical course for an OTB player would be to choose opening systems more conceptual, thematic and logical in nature than ultra-sharp ones where it is more important to remember exact line sequences that are not always logical to the naked eye, but neccessary due to a process of elimination, with elimination used here to denote developments in opening theory.
An OTB player with a good memory may choose Sveshnikov or Najdorf lines, while a player with a not so perfect memory might choose 1...e5 or even the modern defence which is in fact more thematic and conceptual than many think. In any case a CC player need not concern himself with such problems, he can play anything he likes and then look it up during play, etc. and this crutch more than anything else is why so many dedicated CC players fail to impress OTB, they simply do not exercise the muscles that develop and hone abstract but essential chess skills, such as intuition, a sense of danger, being able to sense the critical moment in a game as well as detect good and bad piece co-ordinations. These skills can only be developed and honed properly by playing chess OTB and competing with the silicon umbilical cord well and truly severed.
It is my considered opinion that Correspondence Chess when aided by computer engines and the rest of it, does not in anyway, shape or form improve chess skills. Yet it is the hope of improvement and success, enjoyment too, that drive most to continue playing the game long after learning how to move the pieces.
So if the motivation for Correspondence Chess is not about developing chess skills or improving, all we are left with is enjoyment and or a dispassionate academic pursuit to find the absolute illusory 'truth' in every position. Should that be the case, again I see no need for the ICCF to award life titles with the term Master or Grand Master in them, as those are often way too misleading. Awarding a trophy along with perhaps some monetary prize to the winner or winners should be incentive enough for CC Players.
Pawnbroker wrote: I sometimes think that the current strength of computers can be overstated. Yes, OTB they are very strong and now seem to be dominant, but in CC their limitations are more apparent.
First of all OTB competition is between human beings, while computer vs human contests are simply unrated novelty events usually hosted by the company behind the software. The idea for such contests is to raise visibilty for the software being marketed. To talk about domination in this context implies that man and machine are somehow competing for supremacy OTB, which is not the case, such is only the case in Correspondence Chess where the use of engines/software is allowed in competitive play.
Computer programs running on fast machines are so powerful nowadays, that in many Correspondence games one is often left wondering about the value of the human element and the level of their contribution. In many respects such games bring to mind that well known idiom about the tail wagging the dog.
Toppy
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Correspondence Chess vs Over the board (Read 61511 times)
