I play correspondence chess because I find it to be a very useful training tool. I'm really lazy to analyze my games after they are finished, so when I analyse a game afterwards, I use a chess engine to do the analysis for me. The reason why I'm so lazy is because I can't alter the outcome of the game anymore. When I'm playing correspondence chess, however, I can alter the course of the game to some extent. It is more enjoyable to look at variations by myself if the result of the game has not been decided yet.

I know that some people say that they play corr chess but they use like a day or two to finish the game... To me, it is not real correspondence chess, real corr chess games take much longer than that. I have played 94 correspondence chess games in my chess career, with the average duration being somewhere between two and four months... My longest game so far lasted 11 months or so, now that's dedication to the game... My philosophy, if you really have long thinking times, 7 to 14 days for a move, for example, why not use that time to really think about the crusial variations and improve your chess skills.

The thing I really like about corr chess is that you can fall asleep during a game and you won't be losing on time... I also like it because it is more relaxing way to play than OTB long games. By the way, I have never understood why people would want to cheat in chess. If you would win every game because you used some chess engine to play for you, the engine would deserve the credit of winning and not you. All you would learn from the game would be how to use a chess engine and not how to play chess... "Real hardcore" chessplayers like me, usually take few days to move in corr games and think to the edge of sanity about the best move... Ok, I have to admit, I haven't really used that much time to think about my moves lately as other things have started to take my time away from chess. Someday I'm going to try to play 100 games or more simultaneously, maybe next year if I have the time.