<mjp1a2>
When I play corr. chess there's really no limitation, as I don't have to "carry around" all of my calculations in me lil' head... I'm not prone to errors of faulty visualization several moves into the line, etc. - I can set it all on a chessboard (thanks Scid vs. pc) and even write my notes.
So it can go pretty far... sometimes you need to get some impression of what play is likely to continue like (and of course as an amateur you miss loads of key ideas - but you have to do with what you know) - and sometimes you really need to calculate, to evaluate critical variations, or to try and see how certain imbalances in the position will pan out.
In some cases, after I share my annotations here and/or once a game is complete, I fire up Houdini to see what I missed and what I misevalued... of course I make mistakes by the millions - but if I didn't, I would beat "Houdini and Rybka 10:0", wouldn't I?
With experience you're supposed to have a better idea about how a game would go from a certain position, and also better judgment re. how a position is to be evaluated. This is the art of chess :-)
And I think that I've shared quite a lot of my annotations :-) both in this thread and in most of my other threads. Enjoy! :-)
Yeah that's the beauty of it -- you have a lot of freedom in how to play. I can think for a little bit or a lot depending on how I feel at that time.
I actually had started writing reams of notes myself, because I would often forget about what I thought on a previous move while the game is still going on, because the game takes so long :) I ultimately stopped because although it did keep me from forgetting things, it added too much extra time for me. So now I accept that I will forget things that I previously thought about; oh well :)
Chess is such a deep game isn't it?