Yeah, the average rating was just 2500. Sorry, I exaggerate: 2494. Bunch of pathetic hobbyists there. Unnamed patzers constantly ship the Corus C. I lied. It's a completely irrelevant tournament.

My bad. I was looking at 2008. 2009 group C was 2521 average. LOL, not even 2600.

Someone might care. When people get their ameture games published in chess life because they beat someone 500 pts higher or whatever I think wow nice job by this guy. When people post similar achievements in these forums i/we all think that too. Are you going to tell me you care the same if its a big time INTERNET WIN? I just don't but it.

As for big time pro players, my point is more proven. No one ever made a name for themselves in chess by playing on the internet. Look im not bashing internet chess im just saying it is mearly a means for improvement in OTB chess/entertainment and winning at it is meanigless.

to adress the poker comparison, its totally 100% different.

The goal of chess is to win, and to win meanigful tournaments, with all the big players.

The goal of poker is to WIN MONEY! You don't play it to get judges or to be compared, you play it to win money. This can be accomplished both on the internet and live. Yes both are different animals but it really doesn't matter how you profit, as long as you profit.

The goal of chess is to win meaningful tournaments? So somewhere around .00000001% of chess players are able to ever accomplish anything at chess? So most masters have never even come close to the "goal" of chess? Again I think you'll find yourself incredibly disillusioned with chess if that's your goal in playing.

The goal of chess is to have fun.

No one ever made a name for themselves playing online? I'm willing to bet any amount of money that more players know then name YaacovN than Evgeny Tomashevsky ( a randomly selected player from the top 100 in the world as I know you have never heard of him either ). So far as I know, Yaacov still doesn't even have a FIDE rating.

Again, I don't really think the goal of chess is to impress people so I'm not really going anywhere with this or even implying anything - but I couldn't help but point out how wrong you were in your assertion.

Ugh, the definition of meanigful obviously changes based on your skill level. My goal might be to win a large field U1800 tournament at the World Open or something. Kamsky's goal may be to win the Word Championship, Anna Zanatoskih's goal might be to cheat at a Ladie's Event. I agree the great majority of the tiem you lose, and you can have fun in losing/trying and it can be exciteing. Can playing/winning in internet tournaments be nearly as fun? Are you honestly making this argument? OMG ITS THE INTERNET.

In fact ill turn your own argument against you. The goal of chess is to have fun? Well whats more fun live poker or internet poker?

flawed argument. YEs i admit I've never heard of this Tomashevksy guy but I'm an American. I guarantee anyone you take off that tiop 100 list who is American i know the name. I'm sure everyone in Tomashevsky's home town jacks off to his chess prowess.

Well I don't think that's saying too much given that there's only 3 Americans in the top 100. One of them who just competed in a world championship semifinal, another who is probably the most well known internet player there is and a third who is known just as the third american. Of course if I pick a random name off the list of the top 100 Americans, not a chance in hell you or I will recognize the name.

I'm not really sure where I'm going with all of this besides to saying that impressing people certainly is pretty far down on possible goals of chess.

I'm not sure I understand the rhetorical purpose of asking somebody who's played numerous 30 hour marathon sessions of internet chess, but has played exactly 1 rated live chess tournament in his life (it was a fancy national one too, and I won my division) which he enjoys more?

EDIT: Wait, poker? That makes even less sense. The answer would also be the same though.

Then you don't know that you don't enjoy live chess since you've never played it.

Dude, I've won a live national tournament. lol.

What, do I need to win a category 20 invitational to finally "get it"?

Perhaps you don't appreciate winning live chess because you havent lost at it. You need to play one and lose to get it.

I've lost plenty at live. I do play, but I've only played one big tournament.

There are plenty of players who when I play them in blitz online I'm a monstrous favorite where this wouldn't be even close to true in a regular tournament game. You have to be really careful extrapolating such things. If I didn't ever play in tournaments and had only my internet ratings, tactics ratings or whatever, I'm almost certain I'd consider myself to be 50-100 FIDE points stronger than I really am (the difference between 2450 and 2550 FIDE is ridiculous huge also, so this would be a tremendous mistake to make). This has not as much to do with the fact that it's online, but more with the fact that I'm good at blitz, and I take every online game very seriously and that tournament chess is just so different than most chess played online.

Note that this is at a high level where this is less variation, and the same effect should be much larger at lower levels.

Also using a CTS rating as a serious barometer is almost completely worthless.

Well it's mainly about time control, not about it being live. Also the fact that your opponents will take the game much more seriously in a live tourney, whereas online if you are super serious you immediately have a huge edge over your opponents.

But ok its very hard to play a 40/2 SD/1 game online, and this is where the biggest difference lies.

Also note that I get the feeling that Dire is quite a decent player and almost certainly one of the strongest posters in this forum. I dunno how strong he claims to be or if he ever has made any claims, but probably he's at least 100 points weaker than whatever he thinks he is if he has no real live tourney experience, just as I would be if I wasn't experienced with real tourneys. (as I already stated I'd figure myself around the 2500-2550 level from solely ICC play and etc)

I think this is also the major difference and the main reason I want to start playing more otb. Slow chess is fun but online it's pretty much a rule that almost nobody decent plays slower than 5 0.

I know who Tomashevsky is but I have never heard nor read about this Yaakov guy; and I would be willing to bet money (not any amount, just a tiny bit because I am as bad at poker as I am at chess...) that a lot more players know the top 100 player than some unknown internet screenname.

I also think that internet chess is not "real" chess. Sure, it is fun to sit down at home and play some internet blitz games, but a real game is when you sit down at the board in front of your opponent, shake hands with him and start playing, with a real clock and a sheet etc. It's just a different atmosphere.

Also, I think what curtains says about not playing serious on the internet is completely true. My internet rating is 400 points lower than my Fide rating. This is mainly because I suck at blitz but also due to the fact that they are just fun games and I really don't care if I lose five in a row. If I lost five real, OTB games I'd be depressed for days.

Back to the topic of the thread, it took me 14 years from absolute beginner to reach my highest rating.

This thread has piqued my curiosity: What is your OTB rating (USCF, FIDE, whatever), Dire? How about ICC Blitz or 5-min?

PS: It's silly to compare Tomashevsky to Yaacov (a friend/friendly acquaintance of mine, FWIW) in chess achievement; Tomashevsky is a Grandmaster and European Champion (!) while Yaacov is a master and fantastic blitz player.

Chess Forum get-together in Las Vegas for the North American Open (12/26-12/29)!

Hey now! I said it first! :P Good post though, gotta fight those damn interneters. Though depressed for days? over-react much?

Any hot Chicks in the chess forum?

No.

6-7 years to get to my strongest point, 3-4 years now of maintaining due to being busy

What a weird debate this thread turned in to. Live poker has a whole separate skill set than online poker. Not the same in chess. Why would there be anything wrong with online chess? It's just about the same as blitz OTB chess. The only problem is when people estimate their FIDE/USCF strength based on some random online rating. The only less accurate way to estimate your OTB chess strength is to base it on the randoms you play every Friday at the coffee house. I've had more than a few super quick first round games paired with these morans who just had to enter the open section cause their yahoo rating is >1600.

lol internet chess