I never tried playing chess at the tepid pace of one move every 24 hours. I think that qualifies as correspondence chess.
I was actually looking for a chess forum that focused on chess as a game.
USCF forum isn’t exactly the “go to” forum for discussing the game of chess.
So after I joined the website, it invited me to play a game… So I played a move.
True postal chess was an even more glacial pace, because your opponent had a day or two to think about his move, put it on a postcard and mail it to you, then several days in transit, then you had day or two to work on your next move, etc. Games often took 2 years or longer.
Prof. Hans Berliner, a world correspondence champion, claimed that he could defeat most grandmasters in that time frame because he had time to work out detailed analysis extending many moves into the future.
Computers have changed that type of chess forever. Whether that’s an improvement is a matter of opinion.
I don’t think players are allowed computer engine assistance on the website I signed up for.
I think my opponent got out of book on move 3.
Perhaps it’s frowned upon by the members, so nobody uses engine help.
I suspect at a more formal level by the organizations that make the rules for correspondance chess, engine help will be banned at some point in the future, due to artificial intelligence making it impossible for a human to spot a better move.
Perhaps engine help already has been banned. I haven’t paid attention to correspondance chess in over 10 years.
I don’t think I’m having much fun with correspondence chess. I’m just not used to waiting hours or days for a move.
I’ll finish the game I started though.
The ICCF does not prohibit the use of computers.
Young people these days, they expect instant gratification 
From looking at the forum on Red Hot Pawn, and they disallow engine help, is that most other correspondence chess websites also ban engine help.
Perhaps ICCF is an island unto itself, even if they are the leading organization. I always wondered exactly how ICCF actually rates people if everybody is using a chess engines. I mean, you have to be GM level to be able to look at a chess engine analysis and find an improvement.
“I got this. Mate in 23.”
-Maurice Ashely
You’re going the wrong direction, Jim. I believe they once banned it, but realized it was totally impossible to enforce.
About 15 years ago I reviewed a great book by Robin Smith called Modern Chess Analysis related to computer assisted analysis. Of course computers have changed and the methods he cited then are no doubt mostly obsolete, but it was a fantastic read in those days.
I’m going to finish the game I started, I just can’t into chess that plays out so slow. Perhaps not in a few years, but at some point, even if a human using a chess engine and spending days on a position isn’t going to outplay AI. At some point in the future, online AI is going to take the wind out of computer assisted human play and just be One guy feeding moves into some named online AI, and the opponent will just feeding his computer into some other AI online… so it will be AI (insert program name) versus AI (insert same or different program name).
“I got this. Mate in 23.”
-Maurice Ashely
That reminds me of a cartoon I saw in my college newspaper, decades ago.
In scene 1, a professor was lecturing to a bunch of students. In scene 2 (the next day), a couple of the students had been replaced with tape recorders. In scene 3, many more students had been replaced with tape recorders. In scene 4, all the students had been replaced with tape recorders. In scene 5, the professor had also been replaced, with a tape recorder slightly larger than those of the students.
And those were reel-to-reel tape recorders, not cassettes, let alone VHS or DVD or anything like that.
Bill Smythe
Not a bad observation of where western society is headed toward.
You might want to try chessworld.net which is also another site for internet postal chess [1 move every 3 days, although most of my opponents have always seemed to play 1 move every day], but also has forums and analysis of games done by members of the site. You might find it interesting, and maybe the discussion area will fill the need you were looking for.
Larry S. Cohen
I fear I’m hopelessly addicted to regular OTB chess or regular chess servers with clock play.
In any event I’d only get, if I recall, 12 games for free on Red Hot Pawn before needing to pony up for a subscription.
Without a doubt, I spent more time looking at correspondence chess rules in the last 24 hours, than in the last 5 decades of my life… and didn’t spend more than 30 minutes on it, mostly trying to nail down if ICCF still allowed engine help.
ROFL
:mrgreen:
True AI would come to the conclusion that it had better things to do with its computer time than play chess. It might decide to play “Nuclear War” to rid itself of the pesky humans. 
Hmm, I’ve been working on a plan, and it looks like it might come to fruition, on that game I started.
If all goes to plan, I’ll double 2 of his pawns on the “c” file, as an island. (None of his pawns on the “b” or “d” file.)
I actually could have done that a couple moves earlier, but I’m maneuvering both my knights to pile on the assault. That is, I’ve got the time to get my knights into play, so I’m taking full advantage of that. I have a nasty pin on his knight, which is in front of his queen. In the end, I should only be up a pawn for the entire affair, but his pawn structure on the queen side will be permanently out of sorts.
EDIT: I woke up, and my opponent made a move last night. He didn’t play the best move, so it’s going to turn into a rout. It won’t be worth posting the game. I’m playing a provisional player, and as I am, so it’s impossible to know what my opponent’s skill level is.
But on a different note, now that I’ve played the better part of a game, I do see there is some entertainment value in correspondence chess. It takes a bit of getting used to, but there is a certain satisfaction of being able to really look at a board, ponder the position, then if you want, just close the game out and mull it over or forget about the position, then come back later and take a fresh look at the board.
-BTW, that Maurice Ashley vs chess hustler is on youtube. It’s actually very entertaining. The hustler tried to cheat, but Maurice wasn’t going to let that happen.
-Second best quote is when Maurice tells the Hustler that he’s heard of “en passant”.