Daily Chess as a key to improve the game

More and more I am convinced that playing seriously Daily Chess is one of the best ways to improve your game.

1. You are allowed to use books and databases to play through the opening. This is really a great thing! This is an easy way to learn a new repertoire. You follow the lines giving by the author, and at the moment your opponent deviate from the book you have to find the refutation (if there is one) or check a database (as for example chessgames.com) to see how other players reacted to this move. Perhaps you have different options and you will go through all to make your decision how to proceed.

2. You are allowed to use an analysis board. Some of the strong players will tell you that you should not do this, that you should use your brain to calculate and so improve your visualisation. Although this advice is correct, we should remember that other people playing Daily Chess will use the analysis board, so you will have a clear disadvantage if only using pure calculation. And you still can use a mix form: try to calculate first and afterwards use the analysis board to confirm your findings or to go deeper in the position.

3. You are allowed to use books on middlegame and endgame. I don’t know how many players are doing so, but I cannot imagine a better way to improve middle and endgame skills than using books as a guide through your own games. Finally you begin to unterstand the concepts of material imbalances in the mg and eg, how to draw a position with material down, how is the correct technique to win a rook endgame and so on. There is huge difference to use such books in the post-mortem or in a training hours, or to use them in a game going on right now!

4. You see the importance of spending enough time to find a good continuation in a complex position. In no other form of chess you can spend 2 to 3 hours in a single move. I usually play games where I have 5 days to make a move. In a complex position I will often come several times per day for analysis, postponing my answer if I think I didn’t see enough to commit myself. These analyses are very helpful, as you will get a feeling for how to play such positions (in such pawn structures and with this material).

I am aware that for real games OTB I will not have an analysis board or books to help me, but I am convinced that the experience acquired in Daily Games will nevertheless help me to play a decent game.

torrubirubi wrote:

More and more I am convinced that playing seriously Daily Chess is one of the best ways to improve your game.

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Dedicate 4 hours to study and play:

1. 1/2 hr. tactics visualization pattern  memory bank

2. 1/2 hr. endgame visualization pattern memory bank

3. 1hr. opening visualization patter memory bank

4. 1hr. middlegame visualization pattern memory bank

5. 1 hr. rapid transit and/or standard game(s)

My experience is that most people are not cheating. Most people are too proud to use an engine.  Most of us feel that at the moment that you check once a position with the engine you are betraying not only the opponent but themselves.  And the post mortem is full of innacuracies and blunders. 

No Daily Chess in your opinion because... ?

Good point.

Also: I have not noticed anyone obviously cheating in my Daily games so far.

 

Doesn't sound overly inspiring. Is this 4 hours per day? Not many working people can devote that much time to chess daily?

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No Daily Chess in your opinion because... ? 

You misunderstand.  The Standard game is of 1-2 hrs. duration.  Each player gets 1-21/2 hrs. per game.  The rapid transit games are to keep yourself sharp in the handling of the chess clock in time pressure.  Also for quick assessment of visualization pattern memory banks.  The instant vision of the position on the board causes what seems a move(s) to jump up off the board and smack you on the forehead!!

 

I have not noticed anyone either in my daily games.  

 

I could see some people cheating, but they are only cheating themselves.  What would be the point of hauling in an engine for help?  These rating points have very little meaning, so why cheat to win?

This is fine. but the thread is about the value of Daily chess to improve the game. or arguments against daily chess. I don't think that Daily Chess is the only way to improve the game. But I would like to hear people's experience with this specific kind of chess.

Cheaters do not play such an role in online chess from what I could see from the analyses. Or they are really too stupid to use the engine. otherwise they would not blunder all the time.

torrubirubi  wrote:

This is fine. but the thread is about the value of Daily chess to improve the game. or arguments against daily chess. I don't think that Daily Chess is the only way to improve the game. But I would like to hear people's experience with this specific kind of chess.

Practice leads to an approximmation of exellence.  Too much practice makes johnny a dull boy.

From my perspective the goal is to accumulate thousands of visualization pattern memory banks in one's brain.  In other words, positions on the board that we have seen before and we know the solution and can perform it in our sleep.

Er... I don't use books or databases, too, in an ongoing daily game. Because - you probaly guessed it - I'm lazy. Speaking of daily games, I'm still a bit pissed off because my rooks were fork by the knight. See, folks, I ain't cheating.

 

After receiving the following message from chess.com, I will no longer start any new correspondence chess games here, or anywhere else.  I realize that players can get engine assistance in live chess, but at least I haven't invested weeks or months on those games.

 

"We have detected that one or more of your recent opponents has violated our Fair Play Policy. As compensation for potentially unfair rating losses, we adjusted your following ratings: Daily: 1837 + 31 => 1868".

i have tried daily chess a bit
and it really helped me when i first started playing since live games were too fast (even 30 min games); i needed everything to slow down

however, the last 6 months playing daily chess are lukewarm; i usually play when i am too much of a wimp to play live games; too drunk, too tired, whatever; and end up playing like a "correspondence blitz match" usually, ironically, playing the game quicker than a standard 30-min live game if my opponent happens to be online at the same time (as they usually are when one first accepts/lists a daily challenge)

i definitely do not attempt to get the most a daily game format; it is certain i have a problem not completing a game in "one sitting"
there is also the ocd in me that starts getting fidgety when all those daily games are just looking at me in the app when i log on; after awhile i cant take it and i resign every game just to clear up my interface

Cheating seems not be a issue at lower levels as in my level of 1590. I can't tell you about Daily at 2000+ level, but I don't think I will get so good, so this is not relevant for me right now. Concerning time management or the fact that in Daily you are allowed to consult a book: I don't think Daily will improve everything in your game. My argument is that in Daily you have an additional motivation to study chess books. You can do this in the post-mortem, but we know that most people are good in buying books but less good in working with them. In Daily you are trying to understand things that are relevant right now and not somewhere in the future. In Daily you can be forced to play for example a rare N, B and K vs K, and never have this constellation again in your life. If you get this in Daily you will do a lot to understand this ending to get the full point.

Leon, at least chess.com detected a cheater, right?

I will not give a single point away in a Daily if I am not absolutely forced to do so: fire, a bomb exploding near my house, or something like this.

C.c was not that specific, but that's the implication.  I think they avoid being specific, because it's bad publicity for the site.  I suspect that engine assistance will continue to increase over time, and cheating will become increasingly difficult to detect/prove.  Especially with human-like chess engines based on neural nets.  It was only a matter of time before we reached this point.  I don't want to invest extensive time and effort playing against centaurs.  So I'll just stick to OTB tournaments and speed chess from now on.

I don't know. I have very mixed feelings on this. I'm a much better player, the slower the time control. For example, back many years ago when I was playing USCF OTB and correspondence, I was about 200 points stronger in correspondence (1628 vs 1437). Likewise, I am absolutely hopeless at blitz (checkout my rating here).

I really like correspondence chess, but I'm dubious about it being an efficient training vehicle.

It is just too slow. In a game that can take months, you may see fewer tactical patterns than you do in an hour of specialized tactical training.

Likewise, when learning a new opening (something I have been doing as I have been completely and I do mean completely revamping my repertoire), you see a few of the lines in a system, but not all the offbeat stuff you need to learn to be able to at least handle to play it OTB. Or vice versa, you may get an unusual sideline in a game that you will rarely see OTB. That happened in my first and so far only correspondence game on this site. I have been learning the London system as white, and my opponent selected a pretty offbeat sideline. I learned very little about the system as a whole from that game. I learned far more practical lessons for my new repertoire in 3 games I played at longer time controls yesterday than I did in the hours I spent playing that daily game here.

Certainly you learn playing correspondence. I'm just dubious that it is time efficient.

I'm somewhat of the opinion that to get good OTB, you play OTB, to get good playing correspondence, you play correspondence. To get good at blitz, you play blitz (and I clearly have not played enough of it).

One area where playing correspondence might help is if you are first trying out a new way of thinking you way through a chess game (for example if you want to use Silman's methods). That is a real slow process at first, and perhaps correspondence is a good place to do that until you get a little more proficient/quicker at it.

 

I get a lot out of daily chess because it makes me look at the opening again and again so that I understand those I choose better: I never played anything except 1 e4 in competitive chess since my first rated games in the 1970's until this year when I decided 1 d4 and the London System for fun. I'm 3-2 with it, mainly because daily chess forced me to seriously study it.

The same goes with middlegame and endgame strategies and tactics.

"You are allowed to use an analysis board. Some of the strong players will tell you that you should not do this, that you should use your brain to calculate and so improve your visualisation."

I wouldn't take such advice seriously.  Note that in World Champion, etc. Matches and Tournaments where White has made the 41st move on a sealed card and the game resumes the next day. analysis boards are out in full bloom.

USE analysis boards and I mean don't just make moves on them. Look at the patterns that occur and when you finally see an excellent, ask yourself why you didn't see it sooner and what is the tactic/combination involved.