Do you set up a real board , when playing online chess ?

I've set up a real board to mimic live games.  Never occurred to me to use it to play out variations.  I just prefer a 3-D view over a 2-D view, nothing more, nothing less.

Maybe its an age thing, chess has always been a 3-D game to me.

The problem as I see it is this. I regard online chess as training for over the board. You can't willy nilly move the pieces around on a side board in real life, so why change essential the nature of the game for one self? if you use another board you are not playing chess, but a chess variant. Let's call it 'Sideboard Chess'.

Databases are allowed for Daily; the site even provides one. Engines certainly are not allowed.

@Martin_Stahl, You are right of course, my mistake. Thank you for the correction.

I'm visually impaired.  I don't use the regular board as my second board.  But, I would think that there are certain players doing that method.  Nothing's wrong with that.  I do use the self analysis board to analyze the moves before I make my next move.  I mostly play 3 day per move games.  Don't think it's cheating because it's the self analysis thing.