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robertowen1 ♡ 36 ( +1 | -1 )
Contrived situation The correspondence chess champion of the world is playing Kasparov, Kramnik or whoever the chess champion is at the time.

The correspondence player has three days per move and access to books past games etc. Kasparov has the standard world championship timings.

Who would win?

And the question that leads on from it. Are the best chess players in the world correspondence players?

Rob
cairo ♡ 32 ( +1 | -1 )
First of all, it would be very interesting, but only if both is playing with the same time per move!

I'll put my money on the CC World Champion, due to his abillity to analyse.
And that should answer your last question as well- YES!

Best wishes
Cairo
zdrak ♡ 40 ( +1 | -1 )
If the CC champion is playing at standard CC timings, and Kasparov is playing at standard OTB timings, this would not even be a contest, IMO - the CC champion would mop Kasparov off the board.

Now if BOTH are playing at CC timings - this one be one heck of a match I'd like to watch!! Still, my $$$ would be on the CC champ.

By the way, Peter Leko (ranked #5 in the world OTB) attempted to enter the Correspondence Chess olympiad a couple of years ago. His performance was ok, but not stellar.

peppe_l ♡ 22 ( +1 | -1 )
Question "And the question that leads on from it. Are the best chess players in the world correspondence players?"

If Kasparov has 1 minute per game and I have the standard OTB time control, am I the best chess player in the world if I manage to win? :-)

firebrandx ♡ 31 ( +1 | -1 )
It's an unfair situation to try and decide who the best chess player is. All it would prove is that you can't beat CC moves OTB. Now if Kasparov were playing CC, I'd actually bet on him to at least draw. This is because of his aggressive nature to find the best move. He would make absolutely sure of his research as he does in OTB theory.
robertowen1 ♡ 8 ( +1 | -1 )
Thanks for the response I was intrigued.

So who are the best correspondence players in the world and where do they play?
tulkos ♡ 11 ( +1 | -1 )
well, look at Kasparov wonderful play in his game against the world! my bet would be that kasparov would win.
zdrak ♡ 12 ( +1 | -1 )
www.iccf.com/downloads/top200.htm
dorisia ♡ 37 ( +1 | -1 )
Best correspondence players The current ICCF World Champion (XV) is Gert Jan Timmerman from Holland. The top three ICCF postal players are: 1. Hans Berliner (was world champion a few decades ago!), 2. Ulf Anderssen (OTB GM), 3. Gert Jan Timmerman.

The strongest postal and e-mail players can be found in the ICCF, but some very strong e-mail players can also be found at sites such as IECG or IECC.
robertowen1 ♡ 65 ( +1 | -1 )
Pitching for players Gameknot is obviously a fnatastic site with some very strong players. Cairo, Cyrano etc. Has anyone thought about inviting some of the top top players to Gameknot to play a few invitational games. The ease of use and quality of the site would hopefully tempt a few to stay.

Similarly with the GM's of this world. Is there any way of contacting them so we can claim to have one sitting. Obviously we would need some of the stronger and well connected players here to do this but it could be beneficial.

Kind Regards

Rob

p.s. If anyone would like to challenge me. I'm trying to learn how to play the Kings Gambit with varying degrees of success :-)
cairo ♡ 79 ( +1 | -1 )
If you robertowen1 look at the login page, you will see, that GK allready playing matches against both CCLA and IECC.
I'm sure this will tempt some of the strong players, to stay and play at GK. Allready players like genefisher is now playing here as well as nottop, which is and IM CC player.
Hopefully we will get more in the future, since I'm sure that the future Email and CC play, will be done by a server, like we have here on GK.

Best wishes
Cairo
indiana-jay ♡ 136 ( +1 | -1 )
I choose to disagree with Cairo
I don’t know who the CC world champion is, but he must be worse than Kasparov. I can’t see any reason why a CC champion must have a better ability to analyze (or may be cairo was talking about specific person?)

Whatever the formula, intelligence and practice are the component of a strong chess player. In most part of the world, chess (or other sport) is not the best place for geniuses to earn a living. What is the highest IQ of OTB chess player? CC player must have a superior IQ in order to be better than OTB player. If the top CC players are dominated by ex OTB players like Hans Berliner or Ulf Anderssen, it is obvious to me that CC players are in general worse than OTB players.

Do you think CC players will benefit from the 3 days per move? The question is, who doesn’t have the energy and the capability to analyze for such a long time? In OTB, “logic” (don’t know the correct word) is developed better than it is in CC because you think about the future positions without touching the pieces. To me, CC players are like chess program. The program is better when the computer memory is better, but human is different. Human can see the future (by logic) without knowing the exact process to come to it (as opposed to computer). Give a casual (or CC players) some time to think, it will act like a computer, no better than Deep Blue.
peppe_l ♡ 372 ( +1 | -1 )
Human players Are never like computers, not even CC players. I cant speak in behalf of everyone, but at least I start figuring out my next move exactly same way as in OTB games - based on general characteristics of position, plans and so on. The only difference is after finding a "candidate move" I can go further, moving pieces on board, spending more time for analyzing moves that look reasonable.

I give you an example from one of my games here, in reality I analyzed more moves than I am giving here (many of them being the bad ones heheh) but I am not willing to spend all night typing :-)

1.c4 e5 2.g3 Nf6 3.Bg2 d5 4.cxd5 Nxd5 5.Nf3 Nc6 6.0-0 Nb6 7.d3 Be7 8.Nbd2 Be6 9.a3 a5 10.b3 0-0 11.Bb2 f6 12.Qc2 Qd7 13.e3 Bf5 14.Ne4 Rad8 15.Rfd1 Bg4

A typical English "reversed Sicilian" position where I have central pawn majority and semi-open c-file. To stop the pressure against e5-pawn black has played f6. I am not willing to play d4 because of Qf5, leaving my both knights pinned. Black has played Rad8 and left his another rook on f-file. Also he has played Bf5-Bg4. He is propably going to play f5-f4 to launch a kingside attack. Playing Nc5 looks appealing, but Bxc5 Qxc5 e4! wins an exchange, because dxe5?? Qxd1+ Rxd1 Rxd1+ Bf1 Bxf3 loses the game. But here I got a crazy idea - what if I play Nc5 anyway, allowing black to win an exchange? If he doesnt take it and retreats his queen, my position looks ok - after Rac1 all my pieces are very active and I can prepare central advances and pressure on c-file (in hindsight I have to say after Qf5 black looks quite good, I mainly focused on analyzing the consequenses of game continuation, overlooking other possibilities). So, back to the exchange sacrifice : Nc5 Bxc5 Qxc5 e4 (here too I failed to analyze other moves, Qf5 looks ok for black) Nd4 (wait - what if Nxd4 now...ok, Bxd4 Bxd1 Rxd1 transposes back to the game continuation). Ok, what now? I have lost an exchange but gained a really powerful bishop pair. Also, Im threatening to win a pawn by playing Bxe4 or Nxc6. Two threats, plus the fact that my knight in d4 looks very good. Surely Nxd4 must be good here? ok, Nxd4 Bxd4. Now exd3 looks very bad, Im threatening Bxb7 or Qxa5 and pawn in d3 is hard to defend. I cant find a reasonable way to defend the pawn in e4. So, after I play Bxe4 I get pawn and powerful bishop pair for an exchange, plus black queenside looks weak. Overall it looks like I am getting good compensation for an exchange. Etc. So,

16.Nc5?! Bxc5 17.Qxc5 e4 18.Nd4 Bxd1 19.Rxd1 Nxd4 20.Bxd4 Qf7! 21.Bxe4 Qxb3 22.Rc1

And the game was eventually drawn, although it was black who had better winning chances.

Overall, I am not sure whether my exchange sac was correct - perhaps not - but at least IMO it was interesting and very complicated! Even after spending LOTS of time for analyzing it there was so much I missed. Would I have played 16.Nc5?! in OTB game? Not likely. I found the "candidate move" just like in OTB games, but here I had enough time to analyze it - not only in my head but on chess board - to convince myself that there were no missed tactical opportunities (as I know now, there was...but when I was playing the game I thought differently!). Also I had a chance to have a new look at the position after playing the reasonable lines (the ones I DIDNT miss heh) trough.

So, what I am trying to say - and I hope I am making a point here - is up to certain point OTB and CC are not that different, in CC you just have possibilities you do not have in OTB. I like both, so when someone puts CC down by comparing it to computer chess, mathematically calculating millions of moves, I have to disagree.

Well, enough gibbering for one day, I hope at least someone reads this :-)

Yours,

A fan of Correspondence Chess, Peppe
peppe_l ♡ 8 ( +1 | -1 )
Oh forgot to say Sorry about spelling errors (again!). Its late and my grammar is as bad as ever :-)
olympio ♡ 28 ( +1 | -1 )
I can't see how any of you think kasparov could w I don't see how any of you think kasparov could win. maybe you're overlooking the fact that he only has about 3 minutes per move and the other player has 3 days.

If kasparov played correspondence chess i'm pretty sure he'd be the world champion at that.. but if it was him with 2 + 1 + 30 min. controls and vs. a 3 day per move control. he'd lose..
macheide ♡ 58 ( +1 | -1 )
This is a really interesting question very fertile for speculation. Once, I read that wherever Kasparov goes, his second Yuri Dokhoian carries with a pair of handcuffs a laptop with 8-9 Gb of secret analysis made by Kasparov and his team. 8-9 Gb!! of the best analysis made without time preassure. Some of the lines had been analysed almost to move 35 or even 45, practicaly to the endgame phase. So, as I said, it is a very interesting question. My humble personal opinion?: Under equal circumstances, CC or OTB, Kasparov would win. Under CC vs OTB...Who knows...?

Regards,

macheide
indiana-jay ♡ 86 ( +1 | -1 )

Peppe_l had mentioned that if Kasparov had 1 minute per game and he had the standard OTB time control, if peppe_l managed to win he wouldn’t be the best chess player in the world.

Zdrak mentioned that CC champion with CC timing and Kasparov with standard timing wouldn’t be even a contest. Still, zdrak thought that his $$$ would be on CC champion if BOTH were playing CC timing.

Cairo had answered YES to robertowen1 last question: “And the question that leads on from it. Are the best chess players in the world correspondence players?”

It was sufficient for me to assumed that (to answer the question) both must play the same timing, in this case CC timing. This was to base my judgement that Kasparov is a better chess player than CC champion even at CC timing he less familiar with.