Is there any major downsides to almost exclusively playing Daily/Correspondence?
I find it difficult to set aside time for live games due to other hobbies and two young kids, so chess was mostly eliminated from my life for a while. Until recently when I discovered daily/correspondence chess.
I've been playing 24hr games exclusively lately, usually with 3 games going at all times. I love being able to make a move wherever I am, and it lets me play much more than I would otherwise. I'm currently ~1100 and slowly creeping up, and I'm wondering if there's any real downsides to only playing dailies vs live games?
The main issue I normally see associated with it is that using an opening book/analysis board would hinder my memory and calculation, but I personally don't use them at all, and only use the draw/arrows functions when at my computer vs on my phone. This will probably be detrimental to me as I get higher in elo.
So I'm wondering, are there any other major downsides to playing only dailies/correspondence and spending some free time doing puzzles/some study? Would I be better off just playing rapid games when I know I have free time instead, and limiting my time to analyze/do puzzles?
Posted Dec 29, 2025, 6:33 PM UTC