Question about a gray area in the rules

I'm curious what the chess.com admins think about using a chess engine to analyze a game from the Game Explorer (or other game database) while a similar correspondence game is in progress. It seems like there's a gray area in the rules here, as the following hypotheticals illustrate:

Situation A: My opponent just played a theoretical novelty in our correspondence game. I fire up Rybka to analyze it.

Verdict: Clearly forbidden. Anyone doing this should be banned.

Situation B: Nakamura just played a really cool 15th-move theoretical novelty in his latest game at Linares. I fire up Rybka to analyze it.

Verdict: Clearly allowed.

Situation C: Same as situation B, but coincidentally I'm on the 14th move of a correspondence game that's following the same opening line.

Verdict: Maybe sketchy, but it seems hard to draw a line between this and situation B. I'm guessing this is considered allowed.

Situation D: I'm in the middle of a correspondence game that's progressed beyond established opening theory, but is in a position that's been reached once before, in an old game by Tal. I fire up Rybka to analyze Tal's game.

Verdict: I have no idea!

If the position relates to one in your ongoing game, don't stick it in your engine.

I think this is a good sensible policy (and it's basically the one I've been holding myself to), but only as long as you trust all players to interpret it in good faith. Otherwise there's too much room for hair-splitting and rationalization with respect to what "relates to" means. That's why I'm hoping for an admin to state something more objective.

Maybe "relates to" wasn't clear enough.

If the position you plug into your computer is one that occurs in an ongoing game, you are cheating. I suppose any rationalization is possible for those who really want to cheat; nothing to be done about that besides the typical enforcement.

I don't think that rule works the way you intend. Under that rule, it's cheating if you analyze the starting position while any game at all is in progress, and it's not cheating if you analyze something that differs from your current position only by an irrelevant pawn.

if you're annalysing a position that relates to a current game then it's cheating.  i feel like that's already been said here (at least twice).  all ifs ands and buts apply.

The trick with correspondence games is that they can take a long time, as in weeks going on decades.

You can't be reasonably expected to halt your study of your favorite lines during such time frames, so some discretion is simply required.

During correspondence play you're also not supposed to consult with other players regarding your game, but if you play favorite lines over and over, you're going to be picking up information in Game A that's immediately relevant to Game B. At least this is true in my case.

Just last week I played blitz games at the chess club, and stronger opponents pointed out where I'd gone wrong in ways that came up in CC games here on the site. I still lost those games, but I had acquired relevant knowledge.

Where rules don't explicitly touch on a situation, ethics can come into play. Would you feel comfortable telling your opponent what you were doing? Would you feel perfectly fine about her doing it? Do you feel that your behavior in the situation is both appropriate and in the spirit of the game?

 Highly illogical, but fascinating.

Please don't fret too much about Ret, here... his heart's in the right place but he has a rather short fuse for this kind of thing. But what he says is correct and your examples are quite accurate, really.

Using an engine to analyze the opening position of a game is more or less equvalent to using an opening book. When you're playing a game, it's against the rules, even if no opening move has been made yet. The same goes for games where you are only a move of two in. If you're analyzing a game in an engine whose position is active in a game of yours, that's cheating.

Your example of analyzing a "similar" position is somewhat cloudier. In most cases, there's hardly such a thing as an "irrelevant pawn". For similar but not exact positions, it is usually ok to use an engine. A lot of this comes down to your discretion (or in some cases, the staff's discretion) as to what is an ethical use of your machine. Simply put, if your use of the machine will in any way impact a game you have in progress, you are cheating.

I realize that this isn't as cut and dry as you would hope, but I think anyone would be hard pressed to create such a rule which is. There has to be some discretion on the part of the people enforcing the rule.

i too prefer next generation.

but this:

kinda ruled them all for me.

can we agree that deep space 9 sucks?

Great point.

The grey area can't be excised, unfortunately. For example, consider this scenario: let's say I'm playing a particular variation in a CC game. Concurrently, I play that variation repeatedly (as often as possible) against the strong players in my local club, being careful to record the games and engage in extensive post-mortem analysis. In this scenario, I have not violated the rules of CC play ... yet ... something is still wrong, isn't it?

don't use a computer until the game is over.I personally would not enjoy winning a game where a machine had done some of the work.