A goldmine for chess excavations

Conclusion:

The tournaments collected and published here are of the obvious highest quality, “featuring all games of the correspondence chess world championships 1-18, correspondence chess olympics 1-15, correspondence chess european championships, national chamionships (AUS, CSR, DEN, GER, NED, USA) and memorials (1965 SUI jub75, 1991 FIN jub30, NED jub 25, NBC Millennium Email, ICCF 50th Jubilee Elite and ICCF 50th Jubilee World Champions)”. OTB players may as well benefit from researching these games, as they contain masterpieces that can be useful in pursuing novelties necessary for modern tournament preparation, ideas that can only be found in games such as these. Correspondence games, although its players might argue differently, are relieved of typical OTB time control stress situations, thus hinting on potentially higher quality precision techniques in openings, middlegames and endgames alike. Even with the growing powers of computer chess engines, having witnessed a number of regular correspondence chess players spending countless hours in analyzing their ongoing games over the board, without external aid, I have no fear of software overtaking the human element in producing competitive and evergreen correspondence games of chess.

My personal earlier experiences with experimenting OTB chess, using Correspondence Chess based knowledge, have brought me success on more than a few occasions and will always play an important part in tournament preparation and general study of the game of chess.

ChessBase continues its quest in storing the history of chess, updates it on a regular basis, to the joy and convenience of all chess friends and professionals. This jewel, enriched by the powerful features of ChessBase’s software, is a must for all past, present and future correspondence chess players and a goldmine for chess excavations."