Improve with Daily Games

I never realised just how powerful daily games could be as a learning tool!!

Thematic tournaments are great- you can get to grips with a whole bunch of different types of positions and analyse them in quite a bit of detail if you wish. I play d4 and c4 set-ups as White and Grunfeld and Caro-Kann as Black OTB but on here I'm taking part in Najdorf, Evan's Gambit, and QGD tournaments (plus more)- a huge range!

Strangely enough I feel l can play without as much fear as faster time controls. As long as I don't bite off more than I can chew and time out on every game I'll be fine! What do you think about Daily Games?

   Sounds good to me.  You talked about timing out---what are the time controls you are playing?

Thematic tournaments are good!! I always say that developing players should play as wide a range of openings as they can to broaden their chess understanding. Thematic events are an easy way to do that with no pressure.👍 Enjoy the games!!😁

Mostly 3 days. I know it sounds pretty silly that I would time out but sometimes I have 20 games at a time and other commitments get in the way. One guy I'm currently playing has 2070 games going and never seems to be offline- I would go mad.

Thanks!!

One of my c.c. friends in Brazil had 150 top level games - he was number 12 in the world - going at the same time!!! Insane!!🤣

Crazy! He must have had one or two Guinness-aided analysis sessions of his own. Or should that be 'Antarctica Original', apparently the most popular brand over there? And the price of stamps!!

Yes, daily games are good way to practice, especially if you lack the patience or the free time it takes to play long time control in one sitting. Just remember to keep your daily game count reasonable, as playing too many games at once, and rushing to get them done, doesn't really teach you any more than playing blitz would.

I think 5-10 games at a time has been the best combination for me personally. Enough games to avoid long waits, but not too many to make it feel like a chore to keep all of them going. Currently I'm playing just one game at a time, because I'm taking a bit of a break from chess.

I'm currently balancing 35 games, with another tournament starting soon. I also used to play 10 or so games at once but recently I've been starting new matches and tournaments left, right and centre.

The case for "daily" chess vs rapid chess...
https://www.chess.com/article/view/longer-time-controls-are-more-instructive

https://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/how-blitz-and-bullet-rotted-my-brain-don-t-let-it-rot-yours

Obviously under present circumstances i can not comment on anything alcohol related!! 

The player in question was from a very rich family - he did not have to 'work' as we would understand it, and treated his c.c. games in the same way that someone like me would view going to work. Genuinely nice guy, and a fabulous player. He was featured on the iccf website whilst I was playing him.

I made a 'clerical error' in our game, and was condemned to passive defence for about 4 months. I managed to wriggle out with a draw, thanks to some endgame trickery, but it was a truly painful experience!! Good guy, and I genuinely - despite the social differences, etc. , liked him.

P.S. In those days it cost me 85 pence to send a letter to the Americas. At that rate he was probably spending about £25 a day on postage.  I was spending 3-4 pounds a day.  A lovely chess friend in Japan used to send postcards, as they were cheaper. He would type on them with the tinyest letters you can imagine to fit as much chat as he could on to a card. It was a joy to receive them, but had to buy a magnifying glass!!!! 

You guys in the internet/email/ online chess etc world, are very lucky!!! 

Great stories- thanks as always for sharing. As I've probably said before, computers are useful but I think I would choose to grow up in the age before chess computers. More thinking for oneself and... correspondence chess!!

Cool links, I enjoyed reading them

Just depends on what you can cope with I suppose

I'll put my bet on @NAVEENJAIN108 with a total of 2037 currently. Any advances on 2037?!

I just did a bit of browsing on the forums and found someone who claimed their friend once had 4000+

Other - sane - people said ~200 was their breaking point. 

I think using the 'save' feature for your analysis can be quite useful and help you keep track of every game so you can quickly resume your thought process when you get to it.

Everything's coming up novacek! A flurry of 5 wins today