To OTB or Not to OTB
- Jun 5
- 8 min read
Howdy! It’s The Chess Friends!
Today we are sharing the article we wrote for the June issue of the NW Chess magazine!
Howdy! It’s The Chess Friends!
To OTB or not to OTB: That is the question that comes up in the lives of many chess players. We know it has in ours!
Why should we wake up so early to drive to a tournament to play over-the-board (OTB) chess? We can just play chess online.
Should we travel to a 7-day tournament? Drop everything and put our lives on hold to play chess?
How about a 2-day tournament? Should we really spend our weekend staring at a chess board for hours while our peers enjoy time off from school, balling in the park, playing videogames, or chilling out with music and ice cream?
Now the simple OTB or not to OTB question turns into an existential one! One that deserves a play worthy of Shakespeare’s Hamlet!
Chess was already an ancient game during the life of William Shakespeare, and there is strong evidence that the English bard played chess.
We don’t think that this line from his tragedy Richard III is the evidence, but there is a chess scene in his play The Tempest, where a young couple, Miranda and Ferdinand, talk over the chess board (Act V, scene 1):
Miranda:
Sweet lord, you play me false.
Ferdinand:
No, my dearʼst love,
I would not for the world.
Miranda:
Yes, for a score of kingdoms you should wrangle,
And I would call it fair play.
Talking about fair play in the early 1600s? Most definitely Shakespeare was a chess player!
To play OTB chess or not was an easy question to answer during Shakespearian times: it was the only way people played chess back then. Plus, there were no distractions like the internet and videogames; basketball wasn’t invented yet, and ice cream was still an exotic dish. The answer was a no brainer: of course, let’s play OTB! Even better: let’s have a tournament so everyone can play!
The first international chess tournament took place in 1851 in London, organized by English Master Howard Staunton, who was also a Shakespearian scholar. The tournament was won by German Master Karl Ernst Adolf Anderssen, perhaps the best player in the world in the 1850s and 1860s. You may have heard of the Anderssen Opening (1. a3) or the Anderssen Attack in the Scotch Gambit (1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 exd4 4. Bc4 Nf6 5. O-O Nxe4 6. Re1 d5 7. Bxd5 Qxd5 8. Nc3).
In 1886, the Austrian Wilhelm Steinitz and German Johannes Zukertort played the first official World Championship match, which Steinitz won 10-5-5. In 1924, the International Chess Federation, or as we know it, FIDE (Fédération Internationale des Échecs), was founded in Paris, France. FIDE’s motto “Gens una sumus”, Latin for “We are one family” highlighted FIDE’s mission to bring together the chess community, a mission it continues today, both OTB and online.
Even before that, people longed to connect with each other to play chess, even when they couldn’t meet OTB. The correspondence chess games were played via carrier pigeons and later the postal service! Those games must have taken a long time! Shortly after the telegraph was invented in the 1840s, chess matches started to happen faster, when moves were transmitted miles and miles through cabled wires. One of the first telegraph chess matches was played by… you guessed it, Howard Staunton again. What a legend!
Once the internet became more accessible, long-distance chess games grew astronomically in numbers. In 1992, the Internet Chess Club (ICC) was launched, letting players from all around the world play each other! In 2007, Jay Severson and Erik Allebest, two passionate chess friends who met in college, launched a new chess website called chess.com, and as the saying goes, the rest is history.
Now, to play chess, you simply go online and you can instantly play with your buddy or with someone from the other side of the world! There are almost 260 million members on chess.com and they host 10 million games a day, but there is no need to be intimidated! All you have to do is pick your favorite time control and start a fun game of chess! Ah, the convenience of modern technology! Carrier pigeons, be free!
But what about the good ol’ OTB chess? Should we OTB or not? Why?
The Legend Vivaan:
To OTB or Not To OTB is not that big of a question
Any chess, online or OTB, is good for me, and I am fortunate to always have both at my fingertips.
I’m growing up in a house where everyone plays chess and will play with me anytime. We even have a chess table that’s always ready to go and multiple boards, sets, and clocks ready whenever we want to play bughouse! Most chess players aren’t lucky enough to have this at home. This is why online chess is so amazing. People from all over the world can connect through the game we all love, and all they need is the internet!
I love that when I play online, I can get games very quickly, analyze all my games easily, and play bots whenever I want to assess my level. I can also do puzzles that adapt and grow as I improve. Bullet, blitz, rapid, or games of any time control you can think of, the variety of options online and the ability to grind and test lots of ideas quickly really can’t be beat! Through FIDE Online Arena and worldchess.com, even titles are possible that never existed decades ago. In fact, I’m an AFM (Arena FIDE Master), which I got through blitz, as is my brother, through bullet, and my Dad, through rapid.
FIDE adapted to changing times just like this Northwest Chess magazine. Northwest Chess was founded in November 1947 as the Northwest Chess Letter and remained as a print exclusive publication until December 2020, when it became widely distributed online as well. Today, roughly 1/3 of subscribers get exclusively online editions, while 2/3 of subscribers get both, print and online editions, whatever they prefer. This is similar to chess. Some prefer it only online. Some may prefer it only OTB. That said, most like the best of both worlds!
Online chess has also evolved to be a place where you can make great friendships and compete as a team. I play weekly online through Rookly.com, an esports platform for youth teams around the country! The Man Benji and The Myth Sarang are on my WIISER team, and we won the National Championship in the fall! The format is called an Arena, which many online platforms, including Chess.com and LiChess.org use. The idea is that there’s a fixed time control, in our case 10 minutes per player per game, and as soon as you finish a game, you get another one, and the goal is to get as many points as you can in a fixed amount of time, in our case, one hour.
The Myth Sarang
To OTB or Not To OTB: that depends
I make my decision based on what’s going on in my life, while comparing pros and cons of both options.
Like my brother, I love online chess, but I do see the downsides. Online games can encourage speed over deep thinking, and cheating is way more common because players can access outside help or even use engines without people watching them. Cheating is sadly so rampant that even honest players could get banned just because there are a lot of trolls online who will try to ban anyone they play and lose to, so be careful. It particularly hurts when you get banned and haven’t done anything wrong, which happens far too often, particularly for young players who are rising fast. The online chess playing experience is also way less social, so it may not build the same skills that OTB chess brings to the table.
There are several major strengths of OTB that the online just can’t beat. It gives you a real tournament atmosphere, which can improve concentration and make games feel more meaningful. It also helps players learn skills like notating, handling a clock, playing under pressure, making friends in person, etc. There’s something about face-to-face interaction, body language, the environment, the pressure, and the competition that is just next level OTB.
OTB chess also has many drawbacks. Games often take way longer, so players can fit in fewer games in a day or week. It also requires travel, scheduling, and a proper quiet, large setting, which makes it less convenient than online play. The OTB matches are usually fixed time controls and round times, so you can’t play your games whenever you want, unlike some forms of online chess. Affordability is another major drawback of OTB tournament chess, as there is also often a high-price entry fee. Of course, OTB playing with buddies in casual unrated settings is amazing, but there’s also the challenge of coordinating schedules, etc., and it’s often easier these days to set up friendly chess meetups online.
The Man Benji
To OTB or Not To OTB: that is a loaded question
One that requires soul searching and sometimes sacrifices. For me, traveling to a new place for a seven-day tournament means going out of my comfort zone and using expenses that could have been spent otherwise. A local chess tournament oftentimes implies that I will miss my volleyball practice or a volleyball tournament. I mean… I can just play a few games online in the evening instead, right? Right! I do play online, but not in tournaments (besides with our Rookly team that Vivaan mentioned above). I usually play blitz or rapid games online to test a new opening, or practice positional ideas I read about, or even for fun!
When the question to play in the OTB tournament or not comes up, I think really hard about it.
The first criterion for me is the time control. When I want to play OTB chess, I don’t like anything faster than G60 (60 minutes per game per side)! Once I decide to play OTB chess, that’s it. I lock in. I need time to really slow down and dedicate all my brain power to the game.
The next criterion for me is my weekend schedule. I do have a few favorite yearly OTB tournaments that I go to, no questions asked. (Hello, Washington Open! Long time no see, US Open!) But the rest of them depends on the price, location, and my volleyball season.
When the volleyball season is slow, I go to some chess tournaments, here and there, not every week, and sometimes not even every month. I still find the time to play OTB regularly, as it is the best opportunity for me to practice my current skills and see how my training matches against opponents’.
When I do play OTB, I savor every moment of it. You venture out from the warm depths of your home and whiz through traffic to come to your OTB tournament of choice. When you arrive, you feel the buzz in the air, clocks ticking, minds on the battlefield, and friends in the hall. OTB feels so competitive and lively, and there’s something different about playing with real wooden pieces!
Now and then, there are times when other commitments, like volleyball or family, compete with the importance of going to a chess tournament. You feel torn between your choices. You wouldn’t want your volleyball team down. You wouldn’t want to miss the chance to meet with your family. You want to do everything, but it’s impossible to be in two places at once (at least until the next science breakthrough). Having to choose might feel frustrating, but that’s OK. There’s always the next tournament to practice even harder for!
Let’s take this home or to a tournament near you…
In OTB chess, the competition just feels more real, there are better tourney experiences, less cheating, and stronger focus. Online chess is much more accessible, easier to get reps in, has flexible time controls, and is great for daily practice and quick games. In the end, OTB chess feels better for serious tournament play and handling real competitive pressure, while online chess is better for convenience and experimenting. Most strong players today use both, and this is what we would recommend for most of you:
Play online for daily practice and preparation for OTB, and once you’re ready,
play OTB for real competitive growth.
In the end, it’s up to you. We’re in a world today with an abundance of great choices. Choose your own adventure and find the balance that’s right for you. To quote Shakespeare’s Hamlet again:
“This above all: to thine own self be true.”
Three Cheers, Fellow Future Master Chess Friends!
The Man Benji, The Myth Sarang, The Legend Vivaan
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