Is nothing sacred?

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Shady Bill

I was surprised to hear about this also, but then not so much, because the reigning Norwegian champ has a tendency towards the dramatic and often appears unstable.

I used to be an avid correspondence chess player. I would buy the packs of cards from USCF...I think they even came pre-stamped in those days.

With the rise of the internet, and other modern perversions, sacred things like correspondence chess, and not cheating at chess, disappeared.

I started going to chess clubs and some of the parks around Cali in the late 90s, and the more I would lose, I would see my opponents rise up from the table before me, look at me with pride and declare how they were smarter than I. It's at that moment I would pity them most.

I never played chess again after that. I stick to games of chance. Godly things.

I would argue that correspondence chess in professional manner is meant to use any tool of analysis, including computer and theory books, and that that is no cheating as long as one does not pose as somebody not using these anyalsis methods. Back in the days it was the reason why professional tournament players also turned for correspondence chess: to benefit from the deeper analsis work. For correspondence chess I qualify play via postcard (I did that), and emails (I did that also, until recently). Timewise, both methods made little difference in matches. At leats how I and my partners played. One email every 1-3 days or so.

Playing online live however, that is somethign different to me, and I do not see it as correspondence chess at all, and here I take it as cheating indeed if players do not play themselves, but use assistances, although there are match formats where it is explicitly allowed - but then everbyody lnows that peope do it, and so its fine.

What goes not is to use analysis helps of any kind, but claiming one does not. The cheat is in this lie.

It was nice to have the chess matches we had in the forum, over ten years ago. I used a chess GUI to create and post the diagrams illustrating the moves, but I never had any reason to assume that somebody participating was using a chess engine, nor did I.

Man, its so long ago. Many of us have had some good, some hot and some other times in this forum, hadn't we. Today, compared to my youth days when I played tournaments, I am a chess noob again. Its like shooting: a perishable skill. Rest, and you will rust.

[Shady Bill]

Originally Posted by Skybird

I would argue that correspondence chess in professional manner is meant to use any tool of analysis, including computer and theory books, and that that is no cheating as long as one does not pose as somebody not using these analysis methods.

Yea I agree. I played CC in the late 80s and very early 90s. I remember if I had a position that I wanted to analyze, it would often require me to ride my bicycle to my high school library.

You really couldn't run CC as it once was. You would just have a group of people using their 2800 rated chess apps on their phones to cheat. It has become so easy to analyze any chess position to the nth degree, that it is almost hard to know where "analysis" ends and "cheating" begins.

Interestingly enough, my chess correspondence hobby let me to start collecting stamps. I played with kids from Germany, The Netherlands, France...I would get all these little cards in the mail with the coolest, colorful stamps. European stamps always tended to contain more colors than American stamps.

..then they turned beautiful, lickable stamps into stickers..adults can't really collect stickers, so that ended that hobby.