How to learn and not cheat

I agree it was a clumsy metaphor. But you know what I was getting at. Playing a known book opening for the first 7 or 8 moves simply sets the scene for a damn good chess battle. After that it's down to you to play it out. I think people are getting engines and databases totally confused in their minds.

For all the people who don't agree with databases, have any of you learned the first 4-5 moves of an opening?

I'm sure most of you have. How did ye learn them? Through reading books over and over again, and maybe playing the openings on a board yourself? I choose to use correspondence chess as my learning tool by playing within the rules, and checking databases to try to memorise my opening games, for use when I play OTB or blitz, when the rules don't allow use of databases/books.

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Couldn't agree more - playing at RHP has really helped me focus and improve my OTB games. I have increased my opening repatoire by studying the top players games and then looking them up online at Chessbase to see how the GMs have used them.

I can't recommend the book 'Journal of a Chess Original', by Stephan Gerzadowicz, too highly - excellent annotated games from a US postal master, and some very interesting descriptions of his uses of game references, ECO, etc in the opening phases.

I would also say that there is no way I could play aginst the Dragon, or play the Ng5 sacrifice line in the Open Spanish, the Caro-Kann Advance, and various mainline Slavs without a serious amount of checking - they are simply too complicated and mostly not yet in my OTB rep. Also GM novelties make a big difference to assessments of these lines. But I've won and lost some of my most fun games here in those lines.

From my experience here, I don't think many players below 1600 use a lot of theoretical material (compared CC by e-mail players especially), but I would recommend it - its a good learning tool to help make sense of positions, conceive plans, and will make for a more interesting game against stronger players.

I'm pretty old fashioned too, I used to never check any books while the game is in progress, and I'm only 23.

This stuff certainly wasn't allowed when I started playing chess in elementary school a long time ago, but in fairness, I retired then, came back, and it seems it's common rule/tolerance now. Even now, I still wouldn't bring myself to use a book to lazily check the openings for me. I wanted to learn them on my own, but after hours and hours of opening study, and being demolished game after game in the opening by RHP players who obviously consult opening databases and me having to play catch-up game after game, I feel I may have no choice but to follow suit. I already have for some games, but not for every game like most RHP players tend to do.

Right now I am playing openings I did when I was younger, like 12 years old (I looked up some of my old pencil and paper annotated games then). When I was young, I apperently was notorious for playing out of book openings in which my higher rank adult peers would tell me they were crap, but couldn't explain why. In fact, based on the results I had against other child players, some up to 1600-1700 OTB, I can find no evidence they are really unsound at all. In fact, as a 12 year old, I invented 3 white openings I routinely used that although they seem to lack agression for white, I cannot find any reason for them to be unsound. So now I'm playing/learning some of my own wacky younger creations so RHP players cannot rely on opening thomes.

Interestingly enough, all 3 of these unique white openings all involve a different first pawn push, they are not the same at all. I must of had a lot of time in chess when I was young to do this, I was surprised just how good these new openings could be, especially considering no GM found/pioneered them. If I was a stronger player, I could perhabs demonstrate their potential way better.

Originally posted by mateulose
Interestingly enough, all 3 of these unique white openings all involve a different first pawn push, they are not the same at all. I must of had a lot of time in chess when I was young to do this, I was surprised just how good these new openings could be, especially considering no GM found/pioneered them. If I was a stronger player, I could perhabs demonstrate their potential way better.

Originally posted by ChessMom
My humble opinion:

Any time you're playing chess with another person and you solicit input about "what move would be a good move here?" from any source other than "your own brain", you are cheating.

Question: if you were playing a game in real life, would you ask bystanders what move would be a good move? Would you even be ALLOWED to do that? ...[text shortened]...
Or you can simply Copy and Paste any other of your games in notation, and folks will comment.

Originally posted by ChessMom
???

Excuse me?? You're saying that it's officially okay with RHP for people to be playing their RHP games simultaneously on, say, their Palm with Chess Tiger, and to be moving according to how Chess Tiger would move?

Because both Chess Tiger and Fritz constitute "databases", don't they? And you can *say* that you're only looking up openings, ...[text shortened]... r *other* computer, and you're playing according to how Fritz would, then that's cheating.
'

Originally posted by ChessMom
Okay, Ragnarok, thanks for clarifying that.

But maybe I'm old-fashioned: it still seems to me, personally, that while you're in the actual process of a game with another person, even if it's correspondence chess, that if you're seeking help from another source, no matter if it's a "database" or a "book" or "your uncle sitting there in the kitch ...[text shortened]... encounter, like setting Fritz on "assassin" and playing anyway. It wouldn't be *fun*.

Originally posted by ChessMom
Well.

Color me surprised, then.

And a little bit disappointed. 🙁 I hadn't realized that apparently, everyone playing games on RHP is using books and databases to tell them what the good moves would be. So, all those games I've been studying here, that people are linking to, are the results of two people playing chess, not on their own "tick", b ...[text shortened]... --I want to play chess with *you* alone. Mano a mano.

Well. Different strokes, I guess.

The point remains. If you don't like database use during games then correspondance chess isn't for you. Of course that doesn't mean you can't play here and just ask that your opponents respect your request to play unaided games. Of course they are under no obligation to do so if it's a clan or tournament match.
I probably know enough of my standard OTB openings to play here without a database. However with the database I can afford to try new openings. Because of this freedom I can change to openings that better fit my style of play. It's all about becoming a better chess player.

Wow...some thread going on here. It seems obvious to me that this site, and likely corr chess in general, accept the use of books and chess databases as PART of how the game is played.

It seems equally true that quite a few people see virtue in only what you can do unaided _during_ play.

Everyone seems to agree that engines that choose your move is out of bounds....as do I. If I wanted to play the computer, I'd just play the computer.

Nonny

The use of books during a game of correspondence chess has been allowed since correspondence chess has existed, even when it was just postal chess. Databases are simply a more modern (and vastly superior) version of opening books. Personally, I don't consult books or databases in any of my games, but I understand that it is a fundamental part of CC, and I don't have a problem if someone else uses these tools. Just my $.02

BLR

The best learning I ever did was from Welsh GM Nigel Davies.
http://tigerchess.nigeldavies.net/training.htm

His distance learning is great.
I don't know if you have done the same as me but I would learn an opening get so far lose a few games and move onto the next opening.

What nigel does not teach is openings. He ensures you know the basics and what you are trying to do. So its not parrot fashion. It's learning what is going on in positions and your games. He has done this distance learning for years. You phone him (so you pay the cost of the call) then you get an hour. Send him a few games where you lost or got lost before and you can go over them.

He changed all my openings and moved my chess skill up a few levels in a year. I just don't play much any more but I have stopped buying books and sold a lot of them. If I spent money again it would be with Nigel.

My only regret was not having lessons when I was young. Now I can afford them its to late. C'est la vie.

Originally posted by mateulose
I'm pretty old fashioned too,

It has nothing to do with being old fashioned. It has to do with the difference between correspondence chess and over-the board chess. Books have always been acceptable in correspondence chess. Consulting books during play is old fashioned in correspondence chess.

I used to never check any books while the game is in progress, and I'm only 23.

23? Book use has been permitted in correspondence chess since before you were born.

This stuff certainly wasn't allowed when I started playing chess in elementary school a long time ago,

Did you play correspondence chess in elementary school, or over-the-board? I already know the answer.

Here's one for you. I'm a correspondence chess player, so I always have games in progress. All my chess games require tactics. Now, are you allowed to study tactics while you have an over-the-board game* in progress? Of course not. Are you allowed to study tactics while you have correspondence games in progress? Of course! It's no different with openings.

* An important exception is adjournment. Over-the-board players may study anything they want during adjournment. They are even permitted to consult other players and computer engines about a game in progress while it is adjourned!!!
Think of correspondence chess like it was over-the-board, but adjourns after every move.

Or don't think of it that way. It doesn't matter. Every couple weeks we get a thread whining about database use. If you guys don't like it, don't use them. But don't expect the entire correspondence chess community of the world to change its decades-old traditions just for you.