Engine use in ICCF tournament
Human + engine is better than engine alone. If you only submit what an engine says then you'll do poorly.
To do well you'll need a high quality database (with ICCF games) and use multiple engines. With knowledge about the strengths and weaknesses of the software you're using, and of course chess in general, you'll guide the analysis down relevant paths.
If your chess.com ratings are accurate you'd probably need something like a computer science degree to stand a chance. Some low rated players do well because they understand the various software and databases.
#1
"how a player does this?" ++ Use data bases to select a line. Use more than one engine to generate top moves. Then as a human look deeper than the engines. Use engame table bases.
"Am I to just vacantly submit what Stockfish 14 says is the best move while my opponent does the same and eventually one computer will beat the other?" ++ If you just follow an engine then you will lose.
@llama51 that makes sense. I'm not sure what the discrepancy is, but I'm 1820 correspondence on lichess (I still won't stand a chance I'm sure), but I've only played a couple games on chess.com Thanks for the feedback
I've been playing in the ICCF for a while now. Most of the time I don't consult databases at all. What I do is read opening books from cover to cover.....including every subvariation and footnote and try to apply what I learned from the study. Also for my engine assistant I use Fritz 8. I realize many of my opponents use stronger engines but the thing is I don't want my games to be decided by the strength of the engines. I actually haven't done that badly playing like this. I play in the open class tournaments every now and then and I usually finish in the middle of the pack somewhere. I have also begun playing in the friendly matches series over the last year or two and have done better in those compared to the open class tournaments. So far I have 3 wins 1 loss and 2 draws. I have also participated in a few thematic tournaments one in the Grunfeld and one in the Russian. I was the lowest rated player by a pretty wide margin in both tournaments. I lost every game in the Grunfeld but in the Russian defense I scored a draw against a titled player and another draw against a 2100ish player.
I played one match of two games on ICCF. I spent a horrendous amount of time on three or four key moves to lead my opponent's use of Stockfish down a path that looked equal at first but ultimately gave me opportunities to centralize my king first in the endgame and also gave me a superior minor piece. It was a satisfying game, but I chose not to continue playing in that manner.