How good are CC players

I drink, I smoke, I gamble, I chase girls -- but postal chess is one vice I don't have.

Mikhail Tal

I'm sure the OTB champs would dominate the correspondence chess world if they applied themselves to it...like some here said already,there's no money in correspondence.

Did Alekhine or Keres "dominate" correspondence chess? It's not a rhetorical question... I don't know the answer and I'd like to -- anybody know? ... what was their won/loss/draw against high quality CC players?

Most OTB players (who also play CC) don't waste too much time on CC - they only spend time where there is money (and of course fame) involved. As CC games are slow and don't draw public interest, there is little or no money in CC. The public want excitement (hence the popularity of Blitz, though the quality of games there is extremely poor).

I seriously doubt that Alehin played CC at the peak of his carrier, because there were no prize money. He did play CC when he was a teen. I don't know about Keres, it seems that he also played CC at the beginning of his chess carrier. Look up the information yourself:

http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessplayer?pid=21922

http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessplayer?pid=10240

Every chess player is a chess player - some deliver their moves on the board, some by post, some by e mail.  SAME GAME!!

See my earlier comments on all of this.

no win loss record is needed.it's common sense...

think about it...if someone in OTB can think 10-15 moves ahead with accuracy in a time-pressured environment,then just imagine what they can do in correspondence chess.

Illogical. 

why is it not logical?

OTB is all about visualization and  memory - an OTB player can visualise the moves without physically moving the pieces - a CC player usually relies more on actual physical movement on a physical board or computer-generated board (e.g.: Analysis Board), and incidentally also has access to vast databases (OTB has to rely on their past memories of databases, book knowledge and experience). The OTB player develops a sense for moves called intuition, whereas the CC player only develops experience (but can also develop intuition after a long time).

One is walking on natural legs, the other is using a motorised wheel-chair or bio-engineered cyborg legs. This data alone cannot decide which will practically win in CC games! But capability-wise, the OTB player is certainly superior to a CC player, as natural legs are superior to all sorts of contraptions you can devise!

Hmm, after reading all 5 pages, I am quite suprised that nobody has really highlighted a very simple truth: OTB players STUDY chess.

and what does this "study" comprise of?  sure, some of it will be very specialised toward OTB play (i.e committing theory to memory, practicing thier visualization skills/blitz, etc) but a great deal of it will be looking at the very heart of chess: opening novelties, for example, are not prepared by playing a couple of blitz games, rather they do exactly what serious CC players do (analyze ruthlessly with powerful computers)

Thus, I think we can promptly dissmiss the idea that CC players have better understanding since OTB players (when not playing OTB) are doing all the things all good CC players do.  

This is not to say however, that OTB players would crush CC players at their own game: someone in this thread pointed out that a team of sub 1800 players with some computers managed to defeat GMs with computers. What this demonsrates to me is something very simple: the question of positional understanding is actually a bit of a red herring. CC play requires a great understanding not necessarily of chess, but of the workings of computers.

since, Cc players have this understanding in abundance I think it is highly likely that Cc players will dominate OTB players @ Cc chess (until or unless these otb's have good engine knowledge).

Sorry but I cant agree, the best OTB players uses engines all the time, just not while playing. So I think they know the engines good enough to play against CC players. (How do you think Kramnik, Kasparov, Annand and Carlsen find new moves?)

 Anthony CG    I do not have a clue what you are talking about??

LOVELY   

 Above is what I said in a previous post. I also said that Anand, Kramnik,Topalov, Short or any other top- middle GM would definitely defeat a top CC player in any match either OTB or by correspondence. So clearly OTB players do not suck.

Uhhh...

OTB is like CC except with less time

OTB exclusive players would have a conditional advantage to beat CC players at OTB because, theoretically, the CC exclusive player would not be able to abridge their thoughts into the proper time frame. OTB player is abased. CC player is detrimented.

During CC chess, the time limit is larger. This allows the OTB players to EXPAND their thoughts. CC player is abased. OTB player is ameliorated.

Under both circumstances we notice that the OTB finds the theoretical advantage

HOWEVER

There's no such thing as an exclusive CC player or an exclusive OTB player. This entire argument's premise is a false dilemma that states that there are ONLY two types of chess players. That is REALLY, REALLY wrong. To start with, there are bullet and blitz variations of chess. To end with, everyone is unique.

Is anybody able to come up with SIGNIFICANT theoretical novelties discovered in the pre-computer CC games? It looks that people prefer ranting randomly!

Costelus. I can't cite the novelties discovered I don't know them offhand... but you could delve into it following this link:

http://www.chess.com/article/view/ultracorr3part-i

It's a (glowing) review of a big CC database and has some interesting postions from Alekhine and Kere's games. The author sounds like he's talking from experience when he writes, "Correspondence games are a rich source of new ideas in openings.Not a day of my life passes  without seeing a master acknowledging his debt to some correspondence game or the other." 

I admit this isn't actually giving us any moves to discuss, or games to peruse, but FWIW I can't imagine why the author would make this up if it weren't his experience.

At any rate I agree that much of this thread has been taken up with pure idle speculation. Many people seem to think the OTB GMs can "wipe" the board with CC GMs at CC, which makes no sense to me at all... and we've got all kinds of imaginary scores of how OTB Champion ABC would fare against CC champion XYZ -- it's all made up, it's just hogwash (I owe Reb royalties now) but no one seems able to produce any freaking data.  Yet the data exists! I've been trying to find it, but it's not easy to do on the cheap.  I think this database would answer some questions. I'm pretty sure Tim Harding or the guy that writes the Campbell Report would have some good data...  the speculation here is tiresome IMO. 

I can't imagine that the best CC games to be given as examples were played by Alehin when he was 13-14 or by Keres before he achieved OTB fame. Besides, that source does not give any specific variation, it's unfortunately just a publisher's blurb.

Some strong players have played CC, I could mention for instance Yakov Estrin. I don't think that any GM-level player from that period could have wiped the board with him in CC, but probably giants like Taimanov, Petrosian or Smyslov would have won CC matches against him (they all defeated him OTB).

The point is that, OTB games between top players are the best games produced by humans. In those games most theoretical novelties appeared and were tested afterwards in CC. More importantly, anything that is significantly better than top-level OTB games is modern CC chess, or shortly, computer-assistance.

 Uogele variation of the Accelerated Dragon immediately comes to mind. Also the mainline I play in the closed Sicilian comes from a string of interesting correspondence games.

that being said, if there was significant money in CC chess, I have zero doubt that the super gm's and even the mid level GM's would be crushing the CC elite.