Top ICCF-US Players

In the long run, we may be heading to a Lake Wobegone of chess, where everyone is a GM!

(At least on line.)

Please sir, do you not see the folly in the continued beating of this dead horse? These ratings have no more in common than his chess rating has with his checkers rating. Further, Elo ratings from different pools have no meaning. What, exactly, is the point you are trying make?

The point I am making is that since engines are used now in modern correspondence chess one can get high ratings and titles ( in correspondence chess )  even if they are not strong chess players . Correspondence chess has little to do with chess anymore and more to do with engines / technology and how to use them . In fact it shouldnt even be called correspondence chess anymore as the name that best suits whats going on is centaur chess .  This would be far more accurate . 

I understand what Reb is trying to say, I feel the same way. I believe the correspondance player's rating should be close to their otb rating. Meaning I am ok for them to use database opening and games but not engine. When using engine is just more of machine vs machine really.  

I guess we feel the same way then. But you seem unsettled by it. What change would you like to see? No titles given? Name change from correspondence chess to centaur?

Yeah no titles would be about right. Sound funny to give titles to computers really.

Yes , changing the name to Centaur chess would please me .  I also think they shouldnt use titles like GM and IM because these titles are already used for OTB chess , so they could change theirs to something else so people arent confused .  CGM  and CIM  or someting similar , the C = centaur and/or correspondence . 

You cannot call ICCF chess as "centaur chess" as there were many years it was played before chess engines.

This whole Forum was created by Reb as he wanted to continue to disparage my abilities and also he wanted to disparage the abilities of current correspondence players.

He apparently has an intense dislike for me because I am a strong liberal. So much so that he repeatedly called me "pornz" in Open Discussion even though others told him to cut it out.

He neglects to mention that I am NOT a current correspondence player and played in an era when chess engines were not used. 

He even asked me how many players in the 7th USA Correspondencee Championship were USCF masters? [I won the finals with 13 1/2 out of 14]
When I gave him an answer, he ignored my answer and then asked the same question again.

He ignores the fact that I have a strong plus score against USCF over-the-board masters.

As for current correspondence chess:

As TheGreatOogleBoogie mentions:"One cannot deny that correspondence games are highly instructive due to their unbelievable quality. Very powerful novelties are oftentimes found in correspondence."

Many non correspondence chess players have incorrect ideas about how this type of chess works. I will not go into some of the incorrect ideas here.

Sure, many players do not like correspondence chess but there are tens of thousands who do.

I do not "like" bullet chess. Why? because I do not even have the ability to play that type of chess. But I can understand and recognize that bullet chess is as different to my kind of chess as is "marathon runners to bikers". And I can admire bullet players who get to the top of their class. But you will not see me writing a whole column on how "bad" bullet chess is. [or disparaging another player's abilities] 
 

I was active in ICCF from 1986 to 2000. I twice qualified for world's championship cycle, and won a gold medal for Team USA in PATT#3 early 1990's. I know of 3 players on the list.

Zilberberg was an emigree from the USSR about the year 1980. 2300+ strength OTB, I had two interesting losses to him 1980-81.

Fleetwood was over 2000 OTB when I played him twice in postal about 1991. those game can be found if you dig, and he picked me clean in both....He was very strong, winning lots of games back then. He stuck with it and got better.

Edwards, I never played, but he was far and away top dog of APCT for years. Mid 1990's on...and really did his work. He was over 2100 OTB, don't know if he ever hit NM.

I remember a Dr. Christine Rosenfield back then who was rated 1600 OTB but maintained a 2200 correspodence rating in a few organizations. She worked hard as well.

Today's correspondence players (Online chess here) have no clue how we did it back then. we spent hours on moves, and researched every opening and ending. Now, players think it's a replacement for OTB and will hammer out 25 moves or so in a day if their opponent is online.

So, of course,  you cannot use an opening novelty you saw in a book as it is not your own idea? You cannot play a tactic as you learned the tactic from an instructor? You cannot play certain endings as someone else taught them to you? You cannot use middle game ideas if these ideas are from a book? 

And, of course, you cannot play correspondence chess which produces the very top quality games.  

Should not write a book on chess or a chess puzzle? 

And you cannot look at the wonderful chess games of the masters as you think the whole reason for chess is to play the way you describe?

There is more to chess than just over-the-board chess in the specific way you describe. 

I wish you would stop your lies ponz .  I created this forum so that you and I could continue our " discussion " without  ruining/derailing other threads . We were doing that to several .  That is WHY I created this thread , so stop lying.  ICCF used be actual people playing correspondence , before the engines .  Now the engines have taken over so it would be more accurate to call ICCF chess centaur chess , the same acronym fits and they dont need to change it .   I know you played correspondence chess before engines were in heavy use and I am not attacking correspondence chess before engines , only the centaur chess now being played that they now erroneously call correspondence chess . 

I used to call you pornz because of your defense of porn . I didnt call you that long because I felt it childish but if you want to keep throwing that in my face I can go back to calling you that if you like .  

I also played correspondence chess before engines , starting in the late 70s and played until 94 or 95 then quit because of increasing engine use . Since engines have come into use its not the same as before engines came into use ... do you disagree with that ? 

You dont seem to have a problem disparaging people when it comes to Christians , why such a hypocrite ? 

Reb

I did not "defend" porn. You think a rational discusion about porn is defending porn. 

I do not disparge Christians. My wife and daughter and one of my sons is Christian and [as you very well know] I have written several columns praising the Christianity of my wife and also of my daughter and also of my son. 

That you bring up these bogus subjects is an indication of your motives for trying to disparage me.

Porn and Christianity right here in this thread

My curiosity is aroused!

They are soul mates.

I say keep religion and (especially) porn out of the forums.  I believe one should have a right to look at porn and/or worship a false messiah (Father, Son, Holy Spirit, how many gods or parts of God is that again?) if they want.

http://www.chabad.org/library/bible_cdo/aid/9970/jewish/Chapter-6.htm

"Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God; the Lord is one" 

Not three, one.

Yep, the Jewish religion is just as cuckoo as the Christian religion, if that's what you're trying to say, TheGreatThreeOogieBoogies

I played two exhibition matches here on chess.com. In one I took the Black pieces against a strong group of players where I took the black side of the Ponziani.  In the other exhibition, I took the black side of the Kings Gambit.  In both exhibitions my score was a bunch of wins and a few draws and no losses.

These were not rated games and chess engines were allowed and encouraged to be used. [played with the permission of chess.com]

At least from these two exhibitions, I find your statement to be incorrect.

Also, in the past, I played an exhibition game vs a powerful TCCMB Team. Before the exhibition they had thousands of pages on their particular opening which I was required to play.  Their top players were strong and their leader is now a ICCF grandmaster. I had ZERO pages of information on this opening and used ZERO "reams of information" on the opening I was required to play. Both sides were allowed to use chess engines. This exhibition was open to the public with a time delay. [I won the game]

Again, per that game, I found your statement to be incorrect.

One reason they lost is that while they had thousands of pages of information on their own opening, this amount of information pales vs the number of possible moves in chess and in their or ANY opening.

Think about it. Any opening may have thousands of pages of moves but in such openings there are trillions of pages of possible or even reasonable moves.

 Also, in that game I found a very complicated tactic which chess engines alone, could not find.

I find from my experience that your statements are not correct.

I can see how some people would think what you seem to think but per my experience your idea of how the current [this means allowing chess engine help] ICCF correspondence [at the highest levels] works. 

Nobody likes to toot their own horn as much as ponz does ....