Large game loads vs quality

Having only been on RHP for about 6 months I am always surprised when I see people with huge numbers of games in progress.

However, I often find myself sitting around wishing someone would move so I could play.

Do those of you who have large numbers of games in progress find that you blunder or your playing quality suffers?

What is a good game load to stay busy and not suffer to much in your playing quality?

Thanks for advice.

Originally posted by zeilgang
Having only been on RHP for about 6 months I am always surprised when I see people with huge numbers of games in progress.

However, I often find myself sitting around wishing someone would move so I could play.

Do those of you who have large numbers of games in progress find that you blunder or your playing quality suffers?

What is a good game load to stay busy and not suffer to much in your playing quality?

Thanks for advice.

i subscribed and entered about 5 tournaments giving me about 50 games. i started off ok but quite recently i have missed up quite a bit and made quite a few mistakes that normally i would't make. it really depends what you are comfortable with.

it depends on the time controls. but generally, 4 is about optimal, 20 quite good, and after that the quality keeps decreasing. you can fight that by putting in more effort, but eventually something will give in. either quality or your endurance, resulting in burnout or/and scrapping loads of games in a short period of time.

on the flipside, fast movers always commit mistakes, and it's your responsibility to punish them for it.

Originally posted by zeilgang
Having only been on RHP for about 6 months I am always surprised when I see people with huge numbers of games in progress.

However, I often find myself sitting around wishing someone would move so I could play.
....

I had the same problem, 6 games running, sitting in front of the monitor but no one moves. I took out my credit card and subscribed. What the heck I though, this is the website I spend most of my free time on, the ads are really annoying and I want to play more. Suddenly I was playing a dozen games and saw my rating take a plunge. In the worst case I was clearly winning a game, than blundered it away. I used to spend several minutes on a move but then I was moving fast. Now I try to slow down a bit again. Picking up new opponents only when finished one or two other games.
So I think it doesn't matter how many games you are playing. The question is how much time you spend on each move.

i take on anywhere from 30 to 70 games at a time. i use time controls of 21 and 7 that way i can take a long time on moves if i need to keep thinking about the position. sometimes i'll finish 10 games and let one just sit there till the last minute. then i make moves on that when other tough games have finished. some times i have 4 games waitinf for me others i have 30 but its just your preference. as long as your taking your time and analyzing all the positions you'll do fine.

I like to play with quick timers but less games.

That way the games don't drag out forever and you can focus on a few game. I lose interest if the games last more then 2 months.

Before I was mostly playing 1/7 with 4-6 games going on. Now i'm trying out 1/14 with 2-3 games at once. Not to much time for chess right now, but still get in a couple of moves everyday.

I originally signed up at RHP because I was spending a large amount of time sitting around hotel rooms wasting away. Playing chess seem like a good alternative to watching TV and a chance to improve my game with hopes of getting back into tournament play. Now I spend my time sitting around waiting for the opportunity to move.

Currently running 7 games and thinking maybe I should play more regardless of the downsides. Thanks for the input

Can you tell me what the point of playing 50, 21/7 games is compared to 10, 3/7 games?


You have adequate time in both cases, play about the same number of games in a year, why not play less quicker games?

I actually prefer 3/na but the Tourny games are always 3/7 or greater. Not sure if I can answer your question.

I have 3 here. I really don't like the time control system here. Plus a lot of people seem to think that a year for a game to finish is 'too long'? This is correspondence folks.

I have 10 games in a thematic tourney at the ICCF. An open to start anytime soon. The time control there is 5/50 which accumulates like it is supposed to.

When you have many games with long time controls you can choose which require thought and which don't. Also, in real corr time controls you can accumulate a lot of time in the opening. I have a couple of ICCF games that went book to move 12. I have 100 days to make the control at move 20.

For me 25 would be the absolute max. For others it's 10-20 times that. To each his own. Both of my real wins on this site have been due to opponents making mistakes where they just didn't think.

most games never take that long. the time controls are for just in case someone is out for a long while. the plus to this is you can have a huge game load learn a lot from all of your games while still being able to think about the other ones. thats just the added plus of being a subscriber. although if your not a game with 21 days to think would really suck.

Originally posted by zeilgang
Having only been on RHP for about 6 months I am always surprised when I see people with huge numbers of games in progress.

However, I often find myself sitting around wishing someone would move so I could play.

Do those of you who have large numbers of games in progress find that you blunder or your playing quality suffers?

What is a good game load to stay busy and not suffer to much in your playing quality?

Thanks for advice.

I found that 30 games was good for me... my rating is dropping now that I have around 130. Dropping pieces is more common for me now, but its still fun. I have seen some with over 500 games and have a 1900-2000 rating so if you are good it doesnt matter... I guess.

Originally posted by kmac27
most games never take that long. the time controls are for just in case someone is out for a long while. the plus to this is you can have a huge game load learn a lot from all of your games while still being able to think about the other ones. thats just the added plus of being a subscriber. although if your not a game with 21 days to think would really suck.

I think you can learn more once the game is completely over.

What's the point of having 50 games going on at once when you can have say 10 games finished, so you can go over them and 10 more games in progress?

I just don't see the point in 21/21 or something similar. Like the above players said, once round 2 starts they are resigning right away. How much time do you really need to make a move.

zeilgang, greetings. i have read your comments; based on what you say, i very, very strongly recommend you look at chessEmrald.net. once you get used to the interface, it is a wonderfull place to exercise the thirst for chess. about 5,000 users, of which, some 1500 are active, and 400 very active. have you tried it?

http://chess.emrald.net/ctsActTact.php?Rows=50

if you do start, perhaps do some guest sessions first, to get used to the interface. nevertheless, similar to here, you touch the square moved from, then the square moved to, but the key distinction of penalty for time short term.

also, the cd rom trainer, CT-Art 3.0 and Positional Chess Trainer fill out the set, which you probably know from the now well ballyhoed Rapid Chess improvment, but well described in two summary articles:

http://www.chesscafe.com/text/skittles148.pdf

you can follow the links to part II. many bloggers also write on this subject:

http://temposchlucker.blogspot.com/ (a strong club player and leader at CTS)
http://burncastleburn.blogspot.com/ (plays at RHP & CTS)
http://dk-transformation.blogspot.com/ (mine)

regards, dk

It depends on how fast you move and the rate you come on the site...I am able to play on the site during my time between classes, and i take breaks from my university load or hw to play. On the weekends i tend to move a lot more because i have the time. Wormwood is right though, you tend to burnout, i find i can spend several weeks being very alert and in to each game. But every once and a while, due to lack of time, ill move to quickly and make some horrible blunders trying to keep up with my game load. Consequently, i can have bad streches. My advice is, if you can handle 50 games, play it, but make sure that you have the adequate amount of time on a daily basis to go through your games. You may use a database which can take up time when playing several games, which a lot of players dont realize initially when they take on so many games... looking up opening positions against 20 opponents will take sometime to do...let alone 100s of opponents.