OTB chess vs Internet chess

 jemptymethod said:

So in OTB tournaments you don't have hordes of players who just know the rules but have never read a chess book for instance.  Rather, you have more serious, better players.  

 Not my experience at all. When I lived in NYC in the early 1970's,  I belonged to a great chess club (requiring paid membership) that had a couple of hundred members. There were players at all levels from NM to beginner. At that time I had a rating of 1200 +, yet I won the beginners section trophy in one tournament, proving there were even weaker players than myself.

The competition here is pathetic, I'm glad I didn't pay for an extra year of premium membership

Again, not my experience here at all. Just as in OTB, I've played against stronger and weaker opponents. But apparently you are so very talented that the rest of us members really do seem pathetic to you.

And the premium membership I purchased has been so worthwhile that I would consider a five-year deal if it were available. But that's only the opinion of pathetic me.

I am new here and I guess I don't get the big difference between playing online and OTB. Yes , you can cheat online by using a chess engine, but what is the point to that??. If you won a game , did you really win against the person you are playing against, or are you just on some sick kind of ego trip? I am just getting back into chess now, and am probably a pretty bad player, but I enjoy the heck out of winning a game, and I don't think I would feel the same way if I had to cheat to do it. I am certain that I am playing alot more games and learning alot more, than if I had to wait until I got a chance to play a couple of games a week OTB, due to my limited access to those games.

Bottom line is you do the best you can , at whatever level you are at, and I think the more frequently you play and study, the better you will get, and online affords many people an opportunity to do that, that they wouldn't have otherwise. 

There's a clock ticking even in correspondence chess. If I'm playing 3 days per move and don't have time to stop and really think deeply about my move for the first two days, I'll sometimes have to log on when tired and not able to really pay attention just to make a move to keep from timing out.

This is why I try to play slower time controls than that (usually 5+ days per move) and limit my number of games, though I made the mistake of signing up for too many tournaments lately. So now I'm making mistakes a lot more and dropping 100 rating points here, because I have too many games going at once to have time to play them all well.

I guess I'm not perfect. Go figure.

One day a week a small group of us chess players play at a local book store in Biloxi an its lots more fun.We play game in 5 -10-15 blitz thru quick chess.this may sound strange but i have played so much 2d view chess online that i see the combos faster an after taking time to practice an go over games on a real board that the past few sundays i play myself in to 2nd spot last few weeks.both types of chess are fun however i think some players have quit playing live over the board chess as online play is to easy to do that they blow off making the time to drive somewhere to play other players.At age 50 back in the mid 1990 s when i started to play online i had a hard time becoming used  to the 2-d compuert boards.strange how after last playing in a tournament in 1995 that after 15 years of online play i feel more at home with a 2D computer board.

The chess I actually enjoy most is when I just get a few friends together and we meet somewhere and play blitz for hours. We talk trash during the games, have food/drink and sometimes play for small wagers and sometimes just play for "braggin rights".  This kind of chess playing is the most fun to me.

Much of your post exaggerates the differences and is a little too inflammatory, but your generalizations tilt in a direction toward truth. I'm in the top 2% in live here; in turn-based I'm in the top 5% here and nearly every other site where I play. My USCF OTB places me in the top 10%, which might be the top 25% of OTB tournament players world wide.

That is not to say that there are not many hundreds of excellent adversaries for players at all levels here. But, generally, OTB players on average are better informed, more resourceful, stronger players. OTB players rated over 1600 that lack elementary knowledge of openings and endgames are far less common than 1600s online.

I like OTB tournaments because it gives me an actual measure of what I've learned.  It takes a lot more concentrated effort to play for six hours in a day with a decent amount of pressure and stress.  There's no excuses for bad moves and rewards for playing well.  It's like a test of chess ability.

I like online chess because you can play anywhere anytime.  The quality is more variable, even in my own games because there's many games at once and sometimes one just makes an ill-advised quick move.  It's my own fault for not being as disciplined online, and not reviewing games in as much detail.  But it's nice to look at some games and positions while eating breakfast.

Well, the conversation was about playing on the Internet and playing OTB, not specifically "OTB tournaments." (Surely your kid also plays "OTB.") The insistence to talk about tournaments and compare the strength was his idea. It stands to reason that the population that plays in tournaments will not have as many beginners, and that it will have more high-level (master and above) players, so that it will be stronger on average than the population on an Internet site. One could hardly expect it to be otherwise, and there was hardly a need to keep screaming that. We also know that the turn-based ratings here are somewhat inflated even in comparison to Live Chess ratings. However, I see that he played here against an opponent who is a master in OTB, winning one game and drawing one and losing one apparently. It would seem that he in fact plays stronger than his OTB rating of 1800 indicates then. It may be that he is a really strong player, but even so there is no need for such 'look at me' behavior, insulting his opponents etc.

online cannot be compared with otb chess. One vs one, face to face nothing artificial-inteligence or something else. Bettle of two knights...when you look at your opponents face and see that he is lost and he knows that, that is real beauty of a fight.

I've always done online, but i like otb better.

well said, padman

I apologize if someone's already posted something to this effect, I didn't read all 5 pages.  I just wanted to say that as someone new to online chess, it is quite different for me from OTB chess, and both styles have their own advantages.  I tend to be a little more focused in my online games.  I take more time to plan my moves and visualize the board (which is something I never quite mastered back in my high school chess club).  In the last week of playing verses the computer, a couple of live games, with a couple of turn-based games  in process, I've seen noticable improvement in my games. 

However, I still feel myself longing for a real life, face to face game, if for nothing else but the pure enjoyment of it.  There's something about the 'click' of the pieces when you set them on the board, the look of panic on your opponent's face when they realize they've made a mistake, the discussions, the feel of the pieces, etc.  All those things really contributed to my overall enjoyment of the game.

I guess I like to have a balance between the two styles, but that's just personal preference.

The aroma of online chess is far different than the playing hall of a weekend tournament.

True. My computer really smells!

Replace the fan.

Pattern-recognition, logic, and time-pressure...that is why I like OTB better.  

And it's harder to look up best moves in databases, unless you use those government-sponsored microchip thingies to communicate best moves...you know, the ones that every world championship candidate has used since Fischer-Spassky 1972 (also notably in Topalov/Kramnik).

Oh yes, I have never played in an OTB tournament.  

I started playing chess last year, on this site. I have never played OTB, and do not own a chess set. I suspect my rating here is probably much higher than it would be OTB (I am 1600 here). 

One big difference for OTB vs. correspondence chess online: in OTB you can not move pieces when you analyze the position.

Which is huge difference for me. In correspondence chess online I sometimes analyze 5-6 moves deep rather easy using Analysis board. While in OTB I feel my chess calculation is not more than 3-4 moves (6-8 ply) deep.

Also in correspondence chess I can play "by-the-book" opening moves up to move 12-18! While in OTB one of the players exits "the book" on move 8-10. In fact I had one game on iccf where book exit was on move 21. I guess me and my opponent had the same book. 

OTB is just more fun for me.   (I'm talking, in my case, about casual OTB, not tournaments, which I have never played in nor do I care to.)

There's nothing like a real board, real pieces, a real clock to punch, and a real person sitting on the other side of the table.

Sadly, such moments are fewer and farther between for me.

A computer screen is not nearly so nice...but it does give me a chance to play with people all over the world...how great is that !

Amy

 In theory, there is no need to play OTB to become a strong player - certainly in some countries where chess is a prevalent pastime you find players who can play at the class A - expert level. However, it is very rare you find a strong player who didn't at least get their toe wet in OTB rated play.