Daily Chess is ridiculous

I know this might be very polarizing/inflammatory, but I felt the need to express my annoyance with “daily chess”. And before anyone comments that I don’t need to play daily chess, I’m obviously aware of that. I am free to share my opinion. That being said, I’ve played a total of 6 daily games at the time of this post and will soon (hopefully) complete my 7th and last daily game. Here are my issues with daily chess:

1. Having access to opening books is ridiculous and makes this NOT a chess game. If you’re stronger at openings than someone, it means nothing because the game tells them what to play. There should be another sort of mode to practice openings with someone instead of a RATED, ASSISTED game mode. Working through openings against an opponent the way daily chess allows you to would be a fantastic tool, but have it be ratingless and have it end after the opening ends. Don’t call it a “chess game”.

2. Having a board where you can endlessly play out moves for several days before making a single move is ridiculous and also NOT chess. Chess takes visualization. Where is the visualization in a game mode where you can play out moves on another board?

3. People that wait til the last second to make a move. I literally have been avoiding winning endgames because of the prospect of these people making the next 30-40 moves take a few months just because they can. I’d prefer to go for a mating attack where the game can END.

4. There is a correlation between having more time to move and the potential for fair play violations. This is obvious in rapid games where several opponents of mine have later on been charged with these violations. This happens less often in blitz and even less if at all in bullet. Daily games probably have the most of this based on the trend. I’ve seen games of 1000 rated players playing with no mistakes. It just seems absurd.

5. It really consumes my life to have that active game running while my opponent waits 3 days to move. Seriously. I can’t even count how many times I open this app to check on the game, sometimes just to make sure he/she hasn’t moved and the app just never notified me.

Any of you also have issues with daily chess? Please share your opinions. Frankly, I am hoping to find hearing other’s rants therapeutic. To those of you who enjoy it as their sole chess game mode, that’s great for you. I’m glad that there is a tool that incorporates the rules of chess that has captured your interest because chess is a beautiful game. One day, maybe you can try playing unassisted, normal chess.

No way to stop cheaters in daily chess. That's why you need to try and build a friend's list of good people who play daily that you can challenge to games

A lot of what you say are feature of the mode not bugs. I really like it.

It consumes your life? You have to be fully prepared for a game to last months I’m afraid.

If you are hungry for moves just play 10 games at once and rematch the fast movers.

It would be a good idea for custom games to filter by average move time.

regardless of the reference material (as long as it's not a computer engine) they consult (i don't even do that), everyone plays their own moves in daily... otherwise it's considered cheating & they can be kicked off of the site.

i study very little opening theory... i usually win because i've trained with puzzles & endgames extensively & i have a good positional sense from reading hundreds (yes, actually) of chess books & taking a thousand lessons here.

daily chess is enormously beneficial for chess skill improvement:  by removing the clock pressure almost entirely it allows you to carefully examine every move in a game to consider tactics & strategies at a depth that is impossible to reach with live chess time controls.

much like puzzles do, daily chess instills in you the excellent habit of (patiently) searching for the best move on EVERY move.  🙂

bullet and daily chess are not official chess types, you can play them if you feel like it.. to have fun.

daily chess is designed to do exercises with your theorical knowledge, it's more like a study rather than a game play, but you still get rating points and feel good about it

same with the bullet, it is designed to sharpen your reflexes and time management. still not chess. but you can brag about your high scores and feel like a world champion

1. Daily chess IS a different kind of chess. It allows for deep analysis rather than the normal form of chess. A correspondence game between Estrin and Berliner is considered one of the greatest games ever due to the deep analysis. The benefits of analyzing deeply should be obvious though also not for everyone. You want to learn openings? Play daily chess. Avoid simple tactical mistakes? Daily chess. End game study? Daily chess. Despite the time, people do still make mistakes. Any book line will run out eventually then the better player takes over. 

2. Visualization. Chess is largely pattern recognition. Daily chess can help with other types of chess when the pattern recognition sinks in better. 

3. Opponent waiting until the last second. If you aren't prepared to deal with the time limits, then it's not for you....don't play it. Personally I don't mind playing out a game where I'm winning. If I'm clearly losing, I resign and put it behind me after hopefully learning from my errors. Errors made with this kind of time need to be corrected to better yourself.

4. Cheating. Not much you can do but I feel I can tell if someone is cheating. You just don't play them again. I can also tell that the great majority of my opponents are not cheating. The only thing you can do is ask yourself, "What moves did the cheater/computer make that beat me? What can I do better in that situation?" In the end YOU will be the better player, not the cheater. 

 

 

How do you deal with people that speed flag all games with no skill. I'm stuck in 300 because of it but puzzle solve 1200.

Also lots of one move cheating.

Sometimes the full game

My complaints definitely apply to correspondence chess in general. You’re also dead wrong to say that having access to opening books isn’t “highly significant” at my level.  It’s significant at every level. I’m a class A chess player. Opening resources are significant. Sub 1600 games often have mistakes in the first 10 moves, but not if both sides have an opening book. I’m fact, many sub 1600 games are decided out of the opening! So how can you say that it’s insignificant until you reach 2150. That’s absurd. And as previously stated, I don’t plan on playing it again

I don’t find blitz/bullet to be real chess either. Play long time controlled rapid games with increment. Like 15+10 or 30 min. It isn’t possible to flag when you get 10 seconds back with each move.

its not just daily chess its the whole web site i have blocked over a hudred people on here and all you have to do is get a new email  and join back up if any one has really been kicked off they need to redo the whole thing

I agree that it is not really chess. My main issue is that the winner is usually the person who is willing to invest more time (and I am not willing to do that). 

daily is a richer, deeper way to play chess than a host of tilting, bullet blunder-fests.

there are options to reduce wait times with daily:

make a custom game & toggle 'avoid time outs'.

set the time control to 3, 6 or 12 hours.     🙂

What I don’t understand is how you cheat at 1100 rating. Do you cheat just on some moves?

Re opening book. From experimenting it seems worth about 50 rating to my 1050 score. But I can’t beat stronger players than 1000 using book. I still blunder, you see

Thanks for this post. I agree with pretty much everything that you’ve said and it has been my experience as well. I don’t play correspondence games anymore, but when you are playing somebody that you know and someone that you can trust it can be a fun way of playing some games. As mentioned in this thread the safest way to play is over the board. Cheating just ruins the experience for everyone. That’s why I mostly play bullet chess. Seems that there is less cheating in this format. But even if you are playing someone who is using an engine or whatever during longer time controls it’s a good way to learn if you take the time to do it. I have found that playing longer time controls and ignoring the possibility of cheating has slowed the game down for more thought and analysis and that you learn more. Then I go back to bullet and I am a much better player. I used to hover around 800–900 in bullet, but then I slowed down, practised tactics and read some books, and then went back to bullet and improved to 1200 –1300. Just my collection of random thoughts…

nervesofbutter:  not very often if you put a special focus on tactics!  i'm an A-player & i win most of my games tactically.    🙂

The opening book can run out fairly quickly (generally by move 10).  After that it is basic skill vs basic skill.

I've seen some reasonably high CAPS scores in daily chess, but they are also from people with reasonably high ratings.  I'm sure every time control has some fair play violations but (with the exception of one opponent banned due to other games, while we were still in the opening) I haven't run into any in daily chess (the few banned violators I ran into in blitz were not doing so while playing with me and I generally won against them while they were pulling in CAPS in the 60s to 80s).  If somebody is violating fair play it would seem like you have a better chance of getting the win in daily chess (when they are banned and time out) than in blitz or rapid.

The use of conditional moves has allowed me to set up a 10 forced move sequence that is automatically played as the opponent plays, resulting in me getting that completed game message the next time I log on.

I've played some 40+ move daily games (2 days per move) and finished within four days because my opponent and I were willing to play quicker while using some conditional moves.

I like daily. It reminds me of the old playing chess through the mail. I don't like being rushed to make my moves.