09 Mar '13 13:51>1 edit
In another thread, Fat Lady asks a great question:
"Do you think playing on this site has improved your OTB chess at all?"
I thought it was worth a distinct thread, as I wanted to share my experience and hear about the experiences of others.
When I first joined the site, I mostly played here in the style of OTB, with the exception that I would look at opening books until we deviated. I think it definitely helped my OTB chess at that point, as it worked like a regular pattern of study.
A conversation I had with nimzo5 led me to apply myself more to the CC technique, where I put more work into the games. I started plying the databases, doing searches for skeleton pawn structures, isolating players to emulate, and even doing endgame searches (very valuable, I might add).
My rating here went up (which doesn't mean much to me), but I think it actually hurt my OTB play in some ways, as I found myself at the board thinking "if this were RHP, I know exactly how I would dissect this position, but here I just have to sit and think about it." I remember sitting at one game, thinking "what a source-dependent idiot I have become."
I didn't change my RHP approach ( it has value for learning openings and endgames), but I stopped depending on RHP as my study, and started adding study methods that apply much better to OTB.
I'd like to hear from others, and if anyone wants to share techniques that have helped them, that would be great. Everything doesn't work for everybody, but anyone can pick up something new.
"Do you think playing on this site has improved your OTB chess at all?"
I thought it was worth a distinct thread, as I wanted to share my experience and hear about the experiences of others.
When I first joined the site, I mostly played here in the style of OTB, with the exception that I would look at opening books until we deviated. I think it definitely helped my OTB chess at that point, as it worked like a regular pattern of study.
A conversation I had with nimzo5 led me to apply myself more to the CC technique, where I put more work into the games. I started plying the databases, doing searches for skeleton pawn structures, isolating players to emulate, and even doing endgame searches (very valuable, I might add).
My rating here went up (which doesn't mean much to me), but I think it actually hurt my OTB play in some ways, as I found myself at the board thinking "if this were RHP, I know exactly how I would dissect this position, but here I just have to sit and think about it." I remember sitting at one game, thinking "what a source-dependent idiot I have become."
I didn't change my RHP approach ( it has value for learning openings and endgames), but I stopped depending on RHP as my study, and started adding study methods that apply much better to OTB.
I'd like to hear from others, and if anyone wants to share techniques that have helped them, that would be great. Everything doesn't work for everybody, but anyone can pick up something new.