Playing many online chess games.

more than 20 at the same time will affect your play. I think it's good to keep it below that number. 

I love how the brain processes information in the background. When I have a tough decision in a game and can't decide after a few minutes, I just set it aside for a while. When I return to the game, it's clear to me that my brain has been analyzing the problem at some level, or maybe it just got rid of the junk files getting in the way. It's a good technique for crossword puzzles too. Works for all kinds of creative problem solving really. 

many many moons ago i had over 100 games going. i joined a bunch of tourneys and in all my games as white i played the ruy lopez, having just read a book on it. it was a good way to hammer home everything i read. as black, i lost about 80% of the d4 games. when all was said and done i think i gained about 100-120 pts on my rating, though it took awhile for it to catch up. 

as long as i could play in the morning and evening it wasn't so bad, but i think i missed an entire day and came back to 75 games waiting. that was a miserable 3 hours. 

Perhaps those with many active games feel they're getting more bang for their bucks.

The best feature with not being a premium member is that you aren't allowed to join several tournaments. The max 3 tactics/day is also good to motivate doing tactics the next day and at the same time not get to addictive of it. I would probably not do well without those features.

I like online for many, many reasons. One of which is that I can adjust how many games I have into the amount of available time that I have, which changes often. I do not like blitz in live. I really don't like live anyway, honestly, because with two young children running around, my attention can be needed elsewhere instantly, without any care for whether my live game is finished or not. With online, if I'm looking at a position, and that attention is taken away, I go and take care of the situation, then back I am at the same position, not in time trouble, etc. I like to keep 6-9 games going at a time ( I also like the layout when you log in with either 6 or 9, lol.) I joined a tourney not long ago, and it dropped ten games on me, with something like eight already in progress. Needless to say......I freaked a bit for a while. It's all about how many games one can handle. I think everyone's amount is different. People with 100 obviously can't be going to work. They must be independently wealthy, is all I can imagine!

Thank for all the responses. I’ve seen the point of playing a number of games and now started playing 3 or 4 games at a time (all I can cope with at the moment) and really enjoying it. It does seem to make sense now to have a few games at a time. Thanks. 

I try to play a negative number of games. That is, not only do I not play any games but the games I don't play are a mess.