Over-the-board and Online Chess

Photo by rawpixel on Unsplash

Many people would say that if you want to improve on chess, it would be best to play over the board since it’s a whole different feeling from staring at the computer screen and clicking away your moves. But I think there is merit to both and I believe I have been talking about this many times before, and I would just like to reiterate those things. I guess it would be best to see the pros and cons between these two types.

Convenience

In terms of convenience, it depends on your context and situation. If you have a local chess club where you have a lot of regular players coming and going, with whom you can play and study chess then it would be better to simply have a game with them over the board. However, if you don’t have a place like that in your area but have a computer and a good internet connection, then online chess would be better.

I think online chess would have a little edge though because you can play with a variety of players from all over the world and all you need is a computer with a fast internet.

Learning opportunity

I think over the board offers more in terms of being able to learn because you are technically using more than one sense when you play with someone in a personal one-on-one match. And in that sense, you would be able to associate the experience with the memory that you had of it and so, you may easily recall certain moves or positions that you have had when you played against someone and that adds up to your knowledge database.

However, online chess does give players a chance to learn something new but it just feels too one-dimensional and static. That could just be me but I find that when I am able to see, hear, and feel a certain experience or event, then it becomes embedded in my system far deeper than something I would simply on the screen.

I just feel that over the board play is more conducive to learning than online chess. Furthermore, there are more distractions when you are playing chess on a computer. Aside from the light that the screen emits, there are other things that you can do on your computer that would drive your attention away from playing chess and make your mind drift off. You won’t be able to concentrate as much when you play online.

Perspective

One thing that I noticed when I played a few chess tournaments is that I have a different feeling when I look at the board compared to when I look at a digital board on the screen. I don’t know, I think the way I conceptualize moves and process the information is just different when I’m facing an actual board as opposed to the screen on the computer. I feel like I see more on the screen than when I have an actual board in front of me. It may just be the way my brain is wired but I can process a lot more information on a two-dimensional chess board than a three-dimensional one.

It may be different from other people who have been used to playing a lot of over the board games. They may find it a lot easier to see all the moves in their head just by looking at the board. Although I can simply stand up and have a bird’s eye view of the board but that would just be tedious and make me lose more energy than I have to. So I think it’s a matter of taste or preference.

Training

I do think that over the board is better when you want to train your brain to think a lot more critically when it comes to chess. Apart from the distractions with online chess or computer chess, it just makes you lazy since you have engines that can do the work for you and you just need to click on a certain variation, and it will show you what to do.

However, it does provide a vast resource and a lot of databases wherein you can review and study a lot of games from various people. Compared to when you are training over the board, the only thing you have to go on is memory unless you have copies of game notations which would be a lot tedious.

I tried studying over the board with a book but I just don’t think that the format enables me to easily pick up the concepts since you would have to look at the book and play the moves as opposed to simply seeing the moves being played out for you. In the latter’s case, you have more time to analyze and think about the rationale behind those moves.

Which is better?

There is no one method or approach that is better over the other because they have their own pros and cons. I find playing over the board a lot better if you want to absorb more concepts and have faster recall. When it comes to finding resources for training, I think computers enable us to have a wide variety to choose from and they are a lot more accessible. So it depends on your objective and preference.