Must know tips for Correspondence (Daily) Chess!

Yes, everyone has and uses an engine. Don't waste your time there.

I have no doubt improvement is possible following Coach-Bill's recommendations even in part, but there is much more to his method than simply taking time and playing carefully - that much will obviously improve everyone's play, and is universally recommended. My question was more about focusing on playing correspondence chess in the "correspondence style" (for lack of a better term) and whether it's been seen to provide steady improvement OTB without bad habit generation (inability to calculate or laziness regarding calculation without moving chessmen about), and whether that even matters, since consistent correspondence style play will obviously improve your chess over time no matter what - the real question is how long is the lag between correspondence improvement and OTB play with regards to the bad habits.

My question was to Coach-Bill, but I am interested to see others' feedback - mainly coaches regarding their players, but also the players themselves, so thanks!

No cheat detection team like in chess com correspondence game cheat detection team works and identifies cheat what's kind of game they are organizing

Is this the website confirming please

https://www.iccf.com/

Right, I understand, and that was one of my worries as well, that if I used the self-analysis tool too much, it would affect my ability to calculate OTB.

I've also been analyzing my games in post, just not as much as coach recommends, I don't have a lot of time. I'm going to go back and do the work eventually tho. I'm limiting the number of games I play now so that I can do the work.
I'm still going through the videos, and so I'm just starting out on coach's regimen, but so far it has absolutely improved my OTB play as well as my puzzle/tactics performance. But I'm pretty low-rated and have a lot more room to improve than you, you're already near master-level according to your rating. I'm quite interested to find out what happens in your play, will you keep me updated?

I don't think the masters in question (I have heard this advice from about a dozen masters, among them two or three GMs - but now forget from whom) were making a value judgement about correspondence except that they were addressing an audience who prioritized OTB play over or even to the exclusion of correspondence. Their advice was that correspondence play could be used to improve OTB play (of course - I think this is obvious), but they warned against developing "correspondence thinking" habits, which I have definitely seen in a few lower rated (about 1200 and below) cases, but never with higher rated players.

No one ever offered any experiential evidence, though, that one way would be better than the other. As you know, there is a real prejudice against correspondence among OTB masters, though I've never really understood why, since all of the dozen plus correspondence masters I know of were either also OTB masters or could compete on the level against them.

My problem is that in OTB play, I have NOTHING like the clarity of mind that I have when I play these correspondence games, so evidence from my own case is either quite unreliable, or negative. Then again, I am not consistently playing OTB, so that may be the main factor there.

I am nowhere near master level.

The closer you get, the farther away you realize you always were.

I have had some very promising signs, though, and I must admit that I would almost certainly be closer except that for a couple years now, my improvement efforts have been, shall we say, chaotic - which is a big no no for improvement in any field.

If you look back at 2013, that's when I really took chess training seriously enough to at least be consistent in my efforts to a much greater extent. I saw Coach-Bill's website, gave him some games of mine to analyze, joined this Chess.com group, entered some daily theme tournaments he created, and played in a local 4 round swiss every month. I ended up winning most of the tournaments I entered, raised my Chess.com daily rating from 1800 to over 2000 iirc, and raised my USCF OTB rating from 1700 something to around 1850 - I even defeated my first master in an OTB tournament (actually, if I'm honest, he beat himself, before the game even started, but I felt that and was there to collect the point).

So yes, continue to follow his guidance.

Oh? I thought master level was around 2200 or so, am I wrong?
Re: closer you get - yeah tell me about it.

Not wrong at all, unless you mean FIDE Master, which is 2300 minimum - I am currently 1800 something over the board, so I am two classes away, and I feel like I am further from the mark than I did when I was 1700. The 400 points that separate me from being 2200+ have much more weight than all of the 1800+ rating points that separate me from an inanimate object. Or at least it feels that way.

Ah, I was looking at your daily rating, which is near 2100, so near master level, no?

that 100 points is less than the 400 otb, but it's still a heavy 100!

Yeah, I just dropped 10 points to a weaker player, and I've been working hard to get to 1200 (and the top 50%). I'm certain it's much harder to advance at your level, you're near top 1%.

Awesome, Thanks again for all your Dedication and Great Instructions! 

Thank you Coach Bill, yout advice are really useful to me. Especially now that I am playing 55 games at the same time... Too much. And especially because too often I Don t think more than 10 seconds. 

Engine assistance helps you win. However, it doesn't teach you the game nor does it actually show your true level in chess. I think it's a good call to not use any sort of chess engine except if its in the opening. What coach bill said about using a chess engine in the endgame doesn't show your true level of chess. Chess isn't about who's using the engine better. It's about 2 people using their knowledge to the best of their ability to win. Use your brain! Not a computer brain!

I agree with all this, and obviously this is also the philosophy of this club, and a philosophy that has helped me improve immensely in just one month! However I would differ slightly with the popular assessment of engine assisted play in general, and I would make the following assertions.

- You still have to be a very good player to be in the top-tier of engine assisted play.

- Engines are not perfect, and in fact there is no such thing as perfect chess. Even the best engines sometimes miss moves that are seemingly obvious to an above average human player.

- Just as in OTB chess, a grandmaster plus an engine will beat a low rated player with an engine (even the same engine), nearly every time. If I were to enter an ICCF tournament, I would lose badly.

- A great player using an engine for analysis will handily beat any engine of the same strength without a human pilot

Engine assisted play is simply a different game that takes a different overall set of skills than regular correspondence or OTB play. I heartily agree that it's not a great learning tool, especially for low rated players, but that doesn't mean it's a worthless endeavor or that it's not "real" chess. It's just not well-suited for the purpose of learning the game.

I'm undoubtedly biased because I'm a software engineer and I also know a great deal about chess engines. In fact I'm currently working on my own for a commercial product I can't name at the moment (because I'm under an informal non-disclosure agreement). I just feel there's a point of view not being fairly represented here, and that I should speak up for the honorable cyborgs among us.

Having said all that, let me make clear that anyone who uses an engine to CHEAT at chess.com is a dirtbag who deserves to be banned, and I have no respect or tolerance for that (nor for cheating in general). Those would be the DIS-honorable cyborgs among us

Cheers.

I think all player have come across lower rated players that make incredible move sequences that a Grand Master would envy. It's obvious the players using engines. I was playing a guy who would always beat me when all of a sudden he was gone and Chess.com said he was eliminated for the Fair Play rules. I would rather lose a "game" of chess than cheat.

I've gotten about 5 ratings adjustments from chess.com for daily matches where I was cheated, but I never could figure out who was cheating. None of my opponents have been high rated other than a 1400 I'm still playing matches against. So how does someone have a 1200-ish rating and cheat, but still lose? I still can't wrap my head around that.

Hey I don't see a link to your Jeremy Silman book seller. I'm interested in getting both of those books, can you provide a link in this comment section? Thanks.

I was told  no advertising and had to pull the info.