Turn Based Chess for OTB improvement

How do you use TBC to improve your OTB chess? Do you use any methods?

My OTB thinking process is awful and without system. I cannot create sound plans and end up playing hope chess. I was thinking about creating a checklist and use that for working my way through the TBC games.

My thoughts:

1) Use my checklist at every move

2) Use my opponents move to repeat my opening repertoire

3) Write down the reason for each move and expected reaction from my opponent and compare with computer AFTER the game.

Any other suggestions or is TBC waste of time regarding live OTB improvement?

Of course, the only perfect substitute for OTB is OTB! The way I play turn based chess, I don't use an analysis board, so the play feels like an OTB game without time constraints. But I am still calculating and visualizing everything by hand! Shadowknight's first point is of course true, but I don't think that keeps TBC a useful method of practice. After all, you are playing chess and thinking about your moves -- that's much of what practice is about!

As far as opening databases go, I usually only play a move I believe to make sense. That means if the database tells me (in the rare event that I use the database at all) a certain move scores well, although I will consider the move, I will not play it if I don't believe it makes sense, or can't find a consistent plan with it. There are two possible results of this: One, you are wrong, and end up playing an inferior plan; two, your less played move/plan is correct and you have perhaps found a novelty. Only in the former case do you become able to understand the motivation for a move you previously thought didn't make sense (a book move you reject). When you play an inferior plan, it's very noticeable as the position unfolds: you find that it is very hard to realize your objectives. That kind of learning might never happen if you reject your own move, assuming that the book move is correct. The point is, even if the book move is correct, you probably won't be able to have an effective follow-up without an understanding of why.

Your previous posters make some good points.  For instance, relying on the database for opening play.  However, let me share my own experience of using TBC on this site to my benefit OTB.

Over two years ago (about when I joined chess.com) my USCF rating OTB was about 1450.  I was in a stagnant position.  Now my USCF rating is 1577 and I feel it will improve even more.

When I started playing TBC here I was determined to play the best games possible.  So, if I had 3, 5 or more days to make a move...  then you better believe I was going to use the Analysis Board.  All due respect to Elubas; for those at my level The Analysis Board is a great tool.  I agree that I don't have the benefit of the A'Board while playing OTB but after 2 years online here it has helped me OTB.  Before I used to spend too much time in the opening OTB.  Even in lines I had studied, I would find myself using too much time OTB in supposedly "familiar" situations.  Now that is a thing of the past.

So go ahead and use all the tools available to you now.  Who knows maybe one day you won't need them anymore.

The first issue is that in OTB, you have a train of thought going that is persistent the whole game.  In TBC you have to reestablish that on every move (ShadowKnight)

Very true indeed, and it makes a huge difference. TBC is only good for opening and endgame research I think.

You can just take notes in the "note box" in your online games.  That way, when you log back on, just quickly review the notes you made for yourself and re-establish where you left off last time.

It's not a good enough substitute for the continuous flow of thoughts you experience during an OTB game. In particular, there are a lot of patterns that your mind takes note of and can re-use a couple of moves later. You can't write down all of this in the notes (or you'd be writing an introspective chess novel...)

My own OTB thinking process:

1. Why did my opponent make that move and what will he do next?

2. Are there tactics available to me in this position.

3. If not immediate tactics, think strategically for a plan (Silman imbalance technique)

4. Come up with candidate moves and evaluate each one

5 Before playing the most promising candidate move do a quick "idiot check" to make sure my move does not immediatley lose to a simple tactic or forcing move.

Speaking of the notes, it is something I have started to do rather recently, to address the problem of forgetting your intentions when coming back to a game whose last move had been made days previously. At first I tried to write almost everything I was thinking about, including lots of obvious variations so that I would know what I didn't consider. Of course, that became tedious so now I only record the most important bits, like a precise variation that either validates or refutes a move. It works well, during a game, and especially after a game, because I can plug my variation from my notes right into houdini, and I'll be able to know about any flaws in my analysis or evaluation of that variation. This is useful because it's very easy to forget such ideas that were once floating in my head, given how much time a TBC game can take; but the notes are a remedy to that.

Again, hicetnunc is absolutely correct that you can't get the exact same flow in a TBC game that you get in OTB, but nonetheless, I still find TBC very useful -- chess is chess. And as anpu said, sometimes the extra tools/time can help you think about and experiment with the game in ways you wouldn't normally be able to.

Intuition is a lovely thing, keep playing OTB where you take games very serious and your patterns of thinking (where the point is to ultimately crush your opponent!) will flourish

NM aww ratts has a group on here and he swears by the tbc. He contributes his achievement of becoming a nm to playing CC chess ans analyzing the games thoroughly. I happen to love it. Its pretty much all I play. I understand what people are saying about losing your train of thought when playing. However I kind of like this as it gives me the opportunity to assess the position each time, look back over the last couple moves I made and take my time to come up with the best move.

Now, the question is, how many is too many?

It is also good for middlegame research.  CC type games help your overall understanding of chess, but if you want to get good at OTB you need to practise with OTB conditions.  CC play is about looking for perfection and the ultimate truth of a position, OTB is about practical results.  You can of course play CC by trying to simulate OTB conditions, giving yourself a limited time to think and not moving pieces, not consulting books or data bases; but it is not correct to expect your opponent to do the same.

A slight nit-pick both CC and OTB are turn based, in neither do both players move at the same time.