Purpose of correspondence chess in modern era

[Cornfed]

cornfed,

well i see your point, corresp. chess has been an interesting
distraction for me, and in the meantime i learned more about
opening theory; but Iccf chess may become meaningless,
and possibly later-on obsolete,
As for normal chess, no comments, while i'm working on
(an update of) a handicap system; most online nowadays
is blitz or rapid, whereby computer cheating is possible
as well, i guess, if you do it in a sophisticated way to
avoid the detection systems as eg with chess.com>
This doesn't mean online chess will become obsolete,
ofcourse; especially not (later) with handicaps !

Online: Sure, it is 'possible' and the cheaters largely do get caught with some impressive algorithms and more and more tournaments go the extra mile of requiring one to be on camera the whole time. While this same 'cheating' is essentially mandatory in 'Correspondence Play'.

Anyway, interested in hearing of your handicap ideas...I don't think one is needed in probably anything but 'Correspondence Chess'.

[jefk]

Cornfed

interested in hearing of your handicap ideas...I don't think one is needed in probably anything but 'Correspondence Chess'.

It's your opinion, as approx 2300 rated player (just for curiosity
at which age did you start ? just for my own info, i want still
can advance but it won't be realistic to achieve 2300 i guess..)

Meanwhile (without a handicap system in normal chess) comps are still
banned from official (Fide) tournaments (a shame isn't it
Also, some players in lower rating classes and/or beginners
probably would be interested in such an option, i.e. extra variant
to have the chance once in a while to play against a higher
rated player (who then would start with less material).
Servers as chess.com and lichess.org already have some variants,
it would be easy to include the 'Fair-chess' system i'm going
to propose but i need to update the rule-set (rating diff vs
material odds). And nope, we can't call it handicap chess
because that name already exists :
https://www.chessvariants.com/play/erf/Handicap.html

As for Fairchess, i already mentioned it :
https://www.chessvariants.com/rules/fair-chess
with soon an update (to the zillions rule file)
https://www.chessvariants.com/zillions/fair-chess
with f2 and c7 missing when b/w ratings are approx equal

[Cornfed]

Cornfed

interested in hearing of your handicap ideas...I don't think one is needed in probably anything but 'Correspondence Chess'.

It's your opinion, as approx 2300 rated player (just for curiosity
at which age did you start ? just for my own info, i want still
can advance but it won't be realistic to achieve 2300 i guess..)

Meanwhile (without a handicap system in normal chess) comps are still
banned from official (Fide) tournaments (a shame isn't it
Also, some players in lower rating classes and/or beginners
probably would be interested in such an option, i.e. extra variant
to have the chance once in a while to play against a higher
rated player (who then would start with less material).
Servers as chess.com and lichess.org already have some variants,
it would be easy to include the 'Fair-chess' system i'm going
to propose but i need to update the rule-set (rating diff vs
material odds). And nope, we can't call it handicap chess
because that name already exists :
https://www.chessvariants.com/play/erf/Handicap.html

As for Fairchess, i already mentioned it :
https://www.chessvariants.com/rules/fair-chess
with soon an update (to the zillions rule file)
https://www.chessvariants.com/zillions/fair-chess
with f2 and c7 missing when b/w ratings are approx equal

I mentioned I did not have much else to say on this...but need to correct some things.

First, I never said I was approximately 2300.
ICCF my peak was 2399 (and rising) when I quit 20 yrs ago.
USCF peak was 2175 - also about 20 yrs ago come to think of it.
I started as a Senior in High School.

I personally am not interested in 'variants' having played a few and certainly not handicaps. Handicaps - in tournaments, just will never work if that is what you were angling at. A good Swiss tournament gives lower rated players the chance to play higher rated players. I know if I played Magnus in a tournament and he offered knight odds, I would refuse....I think about anyone would.

[jefk]

the motivation for me in inventing a 'Fair-chess' system,
was mostly a gap between home players and club players
(not a gap between superGM's and NM level).
Having been member of a rather old fashioned chess club for
years (maybe comparable with the famous Manhattan chess club),
https://www.dd1852.nl/page.php?i=274
i noticed that in the internal 'competition' (a more informal
'tournament' with weekly games), quite a lot of newcomers were
quitting their membership after a year, having lost most games.
A pity for such a chess club, because in some way it also as a social
function at least within the chess world. At (slightly above)
average club-player level, i wouldn't mind to play with a
handicap against such newcomers especially not when formalized
with a proper system. It's not that i would 'offer knights odds',
but simply that , based on the rating difference, i would
be [i]required[/i] to play with a handicap, against eg. a weaker
newcomer. Such a system could be setup as alternative, besides
the regular internal competition.
It also can work on chess servers, probably as a start, a test
phase. Also, the youth might like it, as there's no knowledge
required about the conventional opening system(s) and variations.
In the Dutch training system with the step method, opening
theory hardly is discussed until the highest level (6) or so,
besides general rules as development, etc. (which is why i
wrote a book about openings for beginners/intermediate players,
btw; but it's not such an easy book for younger youth, and also
there's not a Dutch translation (yet) ).

Then, It might also work in correspondence chess, again as
an extra option. I believe i can design an initial system for
such play, with the premises that the classes of rating ration's
vs material handicaps may be (and probably will be) updated until
a final version still settle itself.
In Shogi there is a handicap system, and it works, although it's
not obliged; LK even wrote a book about the handicap system,
and i don't see why a properly designed handicap system
couldn't work in chess. But for those who dislike chess variants
almost as matter of principle or wouldn't like to play against
a weaker player with material odds, it's simple, don't play it,
it simply will be an alternative, not replacing main Fide
chess rules, but more as an extra option.Simple, isn't it

For the rest i don't want to waste my time on discussions with
negative people as i better can spend that time on updating
my awesome Fair-Chess zillions prototype (and descriptions)
and probably make a FC Winboard variant. with some suitable
engines; it also could maybe be implemented in e.g. Lucas Chess,

[Cornfed]

the motivation for me in inventing a 'Fair-chess' system,
was mostly a gap between home players and club players
(not a gap between superGM's and NM level).
Having been member of a rather old fashioned chess club for
years (maybe comparable with the famous Manhattan chess club),
https://www.dd1852.nl/page.php?i=274
i noticed that in the internal 'competition' (a more informal
'tournament' with weekly games), quite a lot of newcomers were
quitting their membership after a year, having lost most games.
A pity for such a chess club, because in some way it also as a social
function at least within the chess world. At (slightly above)
average club-player level, i wouldn't mind to play with a
handicap against such newcomers especially not when formalized
with a proper system. It's not that i would 'offer knights odds',
but simply that , based on the rating difference, i would
be required to play with a handicap, against eg. a weaker
newcomer. Such a system could be setup as alternative, besides
the regular internal competition.

Ah, so not in tournements(?) Good, just off-hand club stuff. That's fine. One can do whatever one wants.

But really, even then, why bother to 'create a different game' (less pieces for one side or letting the weaker side play two moves before you even play one)'? Why not simply play a normal game of chess, but give time odds? That could vary by 'rating'...say one side gets 10 min and the other 2 min as an example...and both sides are still playing the same good ol' game of chess?

[jefk]

As for time odds, this seems to work in blitz/rapid at higher
rating levels, although very strong players can think in
our time, and their time handicap often doesn't lead to
such a big disadvantage.

For slower time controls, at lower playing levels, especially
in the gap between home players and club level (certainly
here in NL), but possibly also in school clubs in the
USA (or elsewhere) giving material odds as optional
playing system has two advantages, first, giving
the weaker player a better chance to 'survive' the game,
second not having to rely on opening theory.

Combined, i give the come-back of a handicap system for chess,
if worked out properly, and simply as an extra option (as
competition system) quite a reasonable chance of success,
although there always will be skeptics, like cornfed et al

[Ovyron]

Then years ago there was IECG, but that was discontinued,
and then games were continued on this server;
https://www.chess-server.net

(did a quick search on computer play, without results,
probably they still don't like the use of computers).

Oh, they use computers, and they might actually use them better than the guys at ICCF or FICGS. Years ago I joined their site and faced surprisingly strong opposition. I believe their 2150 rated guys played at some ICCF 2300 level, though it may just be that ICCF and FICGS just have much higher rating inflation.

Who knows what happens nowadays, perhaps NNUE was the great equalizer and now all the centaurs skills of those people is barely noticeable.