"Bob Musicant" wrote in message
...
"ray doetsch" wrote in message
om...
The USCF has had a chronic illness for years. Now it will soon die.
The ultimate cause of its demise, other than extremely poor and
inefficient management, is something over which it had no
control,namely,the COMPUTER.This invention has eliminated the main
reason for the USCF in that no longer is it necessary to attend
tournaments to play. Furthermore, internet servers like FICS
and ICC(if you want to pay a membership fee) have removed the long,
often boring,onerous, and often costly week-end Swiss tournaments. I
have played more people from more countries than on internet chess
than I ever did as a USCF member. True, the play is not quite like
OTB, and there may be some cheating, but all in all this is the coupe
de gras for the USCF. Comments ?

Ray,

I may be totally old-fashioned for feeling so, but as far as I am
concerned,
the only "real" chess is over-the-board, a clock next to it, with an
initial
time control of two hours.

While online chess has been a blow to the viability of the USCF, and may
ultimately do it in, serious management errors for many years prior to
the
wired era had the organization in trouble years before.

Bob Musicant





Over the board chess is called "over-the-board" chess. Online chess is
called (you guessed it) "online chess". Neither one is more "real" than the
other, just different. If OTB was so much more "real", then why is it losing
so much ground to it's online counterpart?

Personally, I enjoy both forms of the game. OTB is nice for it's visceral
and social qualities, and online affords the convience of play at any hour,
any time control desired, any strength of opponent, and the opportunity to
play people from around the world. Just like the ridiculous suggestion that
blitz/bullet chess is somehow "not chess". Usually the only people making
such absurd remarks are those that have no ability at that form of the game,
and so to protect their fragile egos, they claim it isn't real chess. Chess
is chess, whether its played underwater, blindfold, or at fast time
controls.