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Posted by ccmcacollister
projectrosetta.com

11/19/2008
23:28:57

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Subject: Going Both Ways; Corr. & OTB Chess

Message:
Hi All. In another thread SCHNARRE brought up KON GRIVAINIS , which led to comments
from IONADOWMAN and some recollections for me. So here we are.
I WOULD LIKE THIS THREAD TO BE RELATED TO PLAYERS WHO HAVE PLAYED OTB CHESS BUT
ALSO POSTAL CHESS OR SOME FORM OF CORRESPONDENCE PLAY, SUCH AS NOW INCLUDES
MANY ONLINE SITES WHERE THERE ARE MULTI-DAY GAMES PLAYED...

I AM ESPECIALLY INTERESTED IN GM'S WHO HAVE PLAYED CORR aor POSTAL. ALSO PLAYERS
WHO HAVE MASTERED BOTH FORMS. (Eg. From Iowa or Nebraska alone are these who have
Master(ed) in both OTB & CORR., just that I am aware of: C.T.Campbell aka BOGG, Mitch
Weiss, Siamack Bondari, Anton Sildmets, David Bragg, possibly Carolle Schmidt & Alfred Post.
I failed in OTB, only reaching Expert, or Candidate Master as FIDE has called it.)

BUT ALSO about ANY OTHER(s) player(s) involved in OTB PLUS POSTAL OR other CORR. PLAY,
such AS HERE AT GAMEKNOT / CHESSCOLONY dot com's~! For instance, are any of you in
the process now, of trying to attain both Master titles? Or Expert? Do you find one or the other
more rewarding? Or perhaps complementary, as I do?
(It seems to me that each can improve the other. The Danger being too much time use in
OTB trying to decipher a position I could in Postal but not in OTB! Conversely, being too
shallow or trappy in CORR games!? That problem I Don't have since ALL my games are
shallow now! ha. But mostly just as enjoyable :))

OR ANY OTHER COMMENTS YOU HAVE ABOUT PLAYING BOTH, OR ABOUT THOSE WHO DO ...IF
YOU DO NOT. And IF YOU DO NOT, then WHY NOT~! ?? Is it access to OTB events? OR ...?
Here is the PASTE from that LATVIAN THREAD, brought me to here. And A LINK will follow
this.
*****
Isn't Kon Grivainis a quite highly rated Postal Chess player ...? Or once was, if retired now?
Brings to mind the game of Fischer with Berliner. Trying to recall if it was also he who played
Penrose from England!? Of course, Fischer himself, and Keres were at one time Postal Chess
players as well. And Fischer apparently thought highly enough of Corr. play to remark what a
great instructor of Chess was WC (of postal play) Purdy, from Australia.

Believe I will start a thread on players that have gone both ways . . . and I DID. THIS is IT.
}8-)


Posted by ccmcacollister
projectrosetta.com

11/19/2008
23:32:12

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LINK / HyperLink to Latvian thread

Message:
Since the Latvian Thread is parental to this one, Link & H-Link to it from here . . .

gameknot.com/fmsg/chess/4234.shtml

gameknot.com

}8-)


Posted by bhidragon
projectrosetta.com

11/20/2008
05:04:52

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Rating System?

Message:
For CC ratings - are you looking for ratings from sites like GK, or "sanctioned" ratings such as a USCF CC rating? There may be a bit of difference.

Regards
———
Four Are Tied for Lead of U.S. Chess Championship — After three rounds, the four top seeds — Hikaru Nakamura, Gata Kamsky, Alexander Onischuk and Varuzhan Akobian — are tied for the lead of U.S. Chess Championship. Each has yielded a draw, so no one has a perfect score. Nakamura and Kamsky won their first two games before they drew with each other in Round 3. Onischuk drew with Larry Christiansen, a three-time chess champion, in Round 2 before beating Sergey Kudrin in Round 3. Akobian, who had drawn with Ben Finegold in Round 1, joined the other leaders with consecutive wins over Jesse Kraai in Round 2 and Irina Krush in Round 3. Akobian’s victory over Krush was a marathon, running to 113, and he was fortunate to ...
Posted by ccmcacollister
projectrosetta.com

11/20/2008
05:42:28

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That's True~!

Message:
a Good point. Really it's your choice. I was thinking of FIDE or national organizations such as
USCF for the OTB bit of it. But surely not for Postal or Corr, since some other orgs proved
equally as strong as USCF ratings in the 1st National Team Championship of Postal play in the
USA ...or comparing ratings of theirs to USCF ratings of the same player also. EG APCT &
CCLA compared well or favorably for strength.

As far as online, I was thinking places like GK where the ratings are reasonably comparable to
other Elo systems of official national orgs, and such. And not so much of sites where the
highest rated player is 3800 for instance. But still, maybe that just means their Master is at
3200 !? But really, I am happy for anyone who can do a Double anywhere. And there are
usually ways of converting ratings into approximating those of other sites. Player to player
comparison, standards of deviation, or algebraic conversion formula.
One other reason for the flexibility in my thought being that so many players would start corr
in USCF for instance, but into their career somewhat switch to another leaving their USCF corr
rating to gather dust. Also, especially with ONLINE sites; they can come and go away after a
few years, like several I can think of.
So I'd just as soon hear it all ... and if someone wants to remark on an opinion of
inflation/deflation of some site they bring up, or of how to convert it to terms of GK or FIDE or
ICCF, that's just as well to me. Mostly I think it is a good thing to be able to note the
achievement as it is. And maybe hear a bit about how they got there, if it is a GK player. Or
other thoughts. It is intended as a broad topic, insofar as possible.
———
Vishy Anand defeats Veselin Topalov to retain World Chess Championship title — It was scarcely a vintage or error-free world chess championship, yet Vishy Anand's 6.5-5.5 victory over Veselin Topalov proved a combative scrap with subtle match strategies. The 40-year-old title holder from Chennai beat the Bulgarian 3-2 with seven draws in their €2m (£1.7m) series in Sofia. Anand won the crown in a 2007 tournament, then comfortably retained it against Vlad Kramnik in 2008, and so joins a rare elite of multiple chess champions. This time the margin was narrow, the games tense and long as Topalov, five years the younger, spurned draws and kept up sustained pressure. The Bulgarian had his chances, but a poor sense of danger proved his fatal weakness. All his ...
Posted by blake78613
projectrosetta.com

11/20/2008
09:26:15

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Message:
As I understand it Fischer had a very short postal career. When He was 12 years old he entered a USCF sanctioned Golden Knights Tournament. He would have been paired against 6 opponents. He lost one game in 12 moves. Its not known what happened in the other games, but there is some evidence that he abandoned some of the others.

The problem with CC ratings is that some players use them for different things. Some players use them as training for OTB and don't move the pieces when they analyse and also use them as a method of learning openings.
———
With One Blunder, Challenger Lets Chess Champion Keep Title — Some consider chess an art form, others a math problem to be solved, but at its heart it is a competition. Anyone who watched the more than 2,000 children competing at the National Elementary School Chess Championships in Atlanta last weekend could see that. At the top levels, the competition is fierce, and the psychological pressure can be overwhelming. That is why even the best chess players make mistakes. The world chess championship match between Viswanathan Anand of India and Veselin Topalov of Bulgaria, which ended last week in Sofia, Bulgaria, illustrated that pressure. Each made blunders, culminating in one that led to Topalov’s loss in Game 12. It was ...
Posted by ionadowman
projectrosetta.com

11/22/2008
23:30:50

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Some players prefer to specialize...

Message:
... in this country there were a number of specialists who were regulars for the CC championship but who were fairly indifferent OTB players. That is probably still true. Mind you, the very top New Zealand OTB players often proved to be top notch (by this country's standards) CC players as well.

On the world stage, I recall a couple of years back discussing Paul Keres's early correspondence games. It seems he used them to train up his imagination. In around 1960 Keres played a pair of CC games with New Zealand's then top player Ortvin Sarapu (himself an Estonian by birth). Both were hard-fought games.

The only correspondence game I've heard of Mikhail Tal playing was one between himself and the readers of a Soviet schoolboy paper "Pionerskaya Pravda". The thing ended in a draw, but I've sometimes wondered if maybe Tal was being generous to the readers...

Cheers,
Ion
———
Favorites Begin Quickly at U.S. Chess Championship — Hikaru Nakamura, Gata Kamsky and Alexander Onischuk, the top three seeds, all won their first games Friday at the United States Chess Championship in St. Louis. Five other chess players also won as the tournament got off to a fast and exciting start. The chess championship is being held at the Chess Club and Scholastic Center of Saint Louis and has a prize fund of $173,000. It has an unusual format this year. The first seven rounds will be a regular Swiss system in which players with the same number of points are paired. After seven rounds, the top four scorers will be separated from the rest of the tournament and play a round-robin amongst themselves, with the winner becoming chess ...
Posted by ccmcacollister
projectrosetta.com

11/27/2008
18:02:19

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Specializing ...

Message:
in corr isn't just for those with trouble finding Chess activities in their area, either. Myself,
although I played OTB tournaments for much longer than Postal, I found the latter was just
more more congruent with my talents for research & new ideas.
***
Corr. permitted much better analysis due to both time factor difference & simply being able to
shuffle pieces. Thus my corr Class or Title was at least a level above my otb play. "A"/Expert,
then Expert/Master. And tho always a goal to play creatively in both modes, Hopefully
artistically, I realized corr Chess was my own best chance to ever try emulating the level of
an OTB GM ...perhaps play some publishable games. Certainly better for seeking perfection,
illusive (aka Impossible :) as it is. Those can be real attractions for many, I suspect.
***
I'm not the only one to find themself better at corr. I recall an OTB "A" being Master in Postal
[ back in "Computers-are-duffers days too.] named Kingston Taylor or Taylor Kingston. (Why
can I never remember that? Perhaps the same reason I tend to forget move 32, or was it 33?,
in my OTB Ruy !?...) He wrote for ICCF newsletter for a time in the past. Conversely, some
who ARE OTB Masters can find it unachievable in corr. play.
I have seen many give up corr due to incompatible temperment; calling it "too slow". Or a
lack of patience. Or just inability or unwillingness to adapt their play to requirements of good
corr play. A bit different in nature for many. EG., I had to remove much trappiness from my
own game, unless the line was sound enough to keep some 'plus' even if played against well;
to start seeking The Best move I could find, to do well in Postal.
{Tho Fischer said of OTB that it is necessary to find a GOOD MOVE each turn; implying that
it is insufficient mixing BEST or even BRILLIANT moves with BAD ones. Surely we all find, ONE
BAD MOVE can spoil a game...even tho it often takes 2 or 3 to lose; other than critically sharp
positions or diminished endgames.}
Had to sharpen my openings for corr to the max, so to allow opponents maximum opportunity
to err, which could also exceed my own ability to analyze in an OTB mode. [...mainly in terms
of Breadth, rather than Length of analysis. That was okay for the most part. There is seldom a
need to analyze a forcing line in otb longer than about 8 full-moves. Or even more than 4, for
most of a game. ]
***
I read a past article this week on the ICCF-USA site, that Dan Fleetwood of the USA
made ICCF GM this summer~! And so, want to mention that and say "Congratulations~!!" to
him. Dan, I don't know if you play any GK, but "Well Done!" in any case. And I don't know
what his OTB strength is now, but not GM ...so another with their niche in corr. play. And he is
also another who started corr & played quite strongly before computers were an influence.
***
———
Day After Chess Championship, Victor and Vanquished Reflect on the Match — One day after their title match in Sofia, Bulgaria, ended, Viswanathan Anand, the once and still chess champion, and Veselin Topalov were tired, but proud. In separate telephone interviews on Wednesday, Anand and Topalov expressed satisfaction with their own efforts and said it was the most intense chess match they had ever played. “This is my first world chess championship match that has gone the distance,” said Anand. Referring to his earlier title matches against Vladimir Kramnik in 2008, which he won, and Garry Kasparov in 1995, which he lost, he continued, “With Kramnik it went like a dream, with Kasparov it went the opposite way.” Topalov said, “Every single game was ...
Posted by ionadowman
projectrosetta.com

11/27/2008
23:13:51

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My reason for quitting CC Chess...

Message:
... apart from the expense, was that from about the mid '70s I began to find that I could sustain the "chess appetite" only for a few months at a time, and then had to leave off for several months. Just didn't want even to look at a chessboard. Not a good thing for Correspondence games (and not that great for improving one's OTB play, neither). I'm finding on GK that at least I'm maintaining some kind of interest throughout the year, though it still varies, and I'm not all that interested in stepping up the numbers of games...

I do sometimes wonder what sort of player I might have become were it not for that loss of interest that led to my playing a game or two a week for 4 months in a year, and then stopping. And what caused that "don't want to know" feeling anyway?



Posted by bhidragon
projectrosetta.com

11/28/2008
04:24:48

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Agree with Craig

Message:
I started CC due to the lack of local chess. However, I've found it's a form of the game/art/science/religion that really allows me to stretch my mental envelope. Not that I seem to stretch it enough in a lot of my games!

I also play on ICCF through the USCF. You would think that with a "10 moves in 50 days" time limit one would be able to reach a "near perfection" understanding of a particular position ... of course that doesn't happen due to a multitude of reasons.

The point is this: CC gives you the opportunity for seriously deep analysis that borders on some sort of zen concentration exercise. That we don't take advantage of that opportunity is simply another human failing.