Hi, im fairly new in here, and found this place to be an absolute paradise, for a chessplayer like me... I have not been playing chess for 10-15 years, but when i was young i played a lot... The amazing thing is that, its all still there, and im maybe even a little better than when i left the game...

Seems that the years passed havent hurt my game as much as i feared. But there is still a lot of room for improvement, and maybe now as im older i can finally buckle down and get some extra tools in my chessbox...

My question is: Is its better to play a lot of games simultanious (20-30 games) to get into a lot of differnt openings, middle- and endgames, or is it better (for my quest to become a better player) to keep it down to 5-10 games and then really going deep in the thought-process, and make sure to post-analyze them proper...?

I understand that this is all a relative matter, depending on which player you ask, but seen in the bigger picture what would you recommend, and how did you yourself get from A to B... (Besides reading books, forums etc....)

Btw... Set up a tourney if anybody wants to join. Its called: This is some real "crab"

http://www.chess.com/tournament/this-is-some-real-quotcrabquot

Its nothing serious... Just trying to have a good time in a opening that people hopefully never play... The games this opening can lead to, can on the other hand be pretty interresting...

Hope people have the time to give their input on my first question on this forum, and maybe even join the tournament...

Sincerely M....

I can speak with some experience after returning from a 20+ year break. First don't take the game too seriously. Remember, unless you're GM material, it's just a bit of fun. Second play as many games as you like. I would be bored playing only 1 game with a 3 day limit, which is why I only play blitz chess (another reason is I don't want to end up playing against a GM strength chess engine!). Play as many games as you like and see how it goes.

Thanks for the reply Chadwil, allthough it seems that we are looking on this from opposites sides of the the board...

Its not that im taking this to serious, but like most people, whatever they do, i still like to feel some sort of accomplishment... Winning or losing at chess, there is always something to take with you, and i want to take all i can...

Was just hoping to get some input from people, about where they feel they get the most experience from this site... Sure mostly people play for the fun of it, but alot of people must also use this site as some sort of a training tool...

Being a long time semipro-pokerplayer, i can say the all my internet games have certainly helped when i have played liveevents (WSOP etc....)

Unfortuantely i dont have the luxury of playing in a chessclub (due to my work) so my only outlet for my chessplaying is in here...

Was hoping for people to share how they feel they get the most out of the games they play in here... Quantity or quality... Thats the question :-)

well im usually playing no more than 35 games

playing 35 games together : but it is verrra verra baaad!

oh  chawil, you too (like me) are returning to chess after a 20+ year break? Nice to find someone who can understand.... in 1988 i had VOWED never to play chess again :) Never did, till mid-2005.

Maybe you should play as many games as you are able to.

I mean, if you play 5 games at the same time, ok, you will be able to take your time to think about your moves.

If you play 100 at the same time, you won't have time to think properly, that will become blitz chess.

As for me, my limit is around 10 or 12.

Actually, depends on how strong you are and what sort of player you are :) what is good for an NM is not necessarily so for the mere connoisseur :)

[oh i play lots of games for ozzie's reasons sometimes: but not at correspondence time-controls! more like 15 0. (at another site...) ]

i signed up to a lot of turnaments, and now it's a nightmare trying to move in all of them in time!!!

but it's more fun like that (i think)

i am playing 6 games [only here] plus 6 on ficgs - plus 6 bigchess [16x16 chess] to start anyday now ...

What I dig about playing "Turn based" games is that I can really search positions thoroughly and seem to retain the knowledge better.  5 seems to be a good # for me (leaves me plenty of time to play live chess).  

After one year of usage of this website, I finally concluded that staying bellow ten games is the best way of having the time to corrrectly study each move for each of them if you don't want to spend the whole day here.

When I have more games (20 or more) I often have to move quicly and therfore I do a lot of mistakes. Furthermore with lots of game, I cannot remember my global plan for each game, therefore I try to search for the best move each turn but I play with no plan which is very bad at chess, you need to play correct moves but also have a plan to keep control the situation, else you just hang on and pray for your oponent to blunder.

Hope this helps.

Cheers

Alex

agree with  payet_alexandre, except for masters and above.

And masters&above KNOW what they should do :) [depends on the individual master+]

I started playing again, on this website, January of this year, after not having played since high school, over 30 years ago!  (I did try playing again a bit against my computer briefly in the 90s, but it was only for a week or two, as best I remember.)

As for the number of games being played simultaneously, I remember seeing people play 30 or 40 games, and thinking that was too many!  I think the most I have seen anybody play on this website was over 900 games.  I was amazed he could keep up with all those games.  Eventually, he was not able to do so, ran out of vacation time, and began timing out.  So, I guess it can be way overdone.

As for me, I am currently at about 100 games,  I mainly wanted to do it just to say that I had done so.  Now, I want to begin to cut back, little by little; back down to about 30 at the most, maybe.

Even so, I will say playing so many games in tournaments against players of all skill levels has exposed me to a lot of different playing styles and strategies.  At times, to be honest, it has felt like a bit of a chore; but I feel like I have learned a lot.

But now, I want to cut back and learn more slowly, take my time making my moves, and just enjoy the game.

So, playing a lot of games can give you a lot of exposure, but it can get tedious.

Whatever you decide to do, I hope it works out well for you.  Enjoy the game!

Take care,

George

I guess there are a lot of us(mine was a 30 year vacation from chess)...# of games depends on you and how much time you want to devote. for me 6-20 at once is about the right amount.  Good luck on your endeavors.  Maybe we should start a torunament for those of us that hav'ent palyed for long periods of life!   Al

as u may c on my profile ... i play alot of games ... i think this is good 2 learn differnt openings etc... this may not suit some players.. but as i play for fun and dont take it 2 seriously i find it helps me out

Too much games, lots of fun and lots of mistakes either!

It's a question of choice I do suppose. To me the ideal amout of games is 20.

Chess greetings, Tony

I'm tempted to say just play how many is a fun amount to you, but it seems you're asking what amount is the best for improvement. I'm no authority but I think 10 or less is a good number, and you can use live blitz chess if you're wanting to polish your openings.

I like to keep between 10-15 games here and around 3 on the other site I play on (I play there because the entire chess team of my college does, for some reason.  So instead of trying to drag them all here, I compromised).  I also usually have around 3 games going with friends on the facebook application at any given time.  This load is about the maximum I find I have the time for.