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My coach wants me to play 100 slow games per year (slow: G/60 or slower) against USCF 2000-2100 opposition (roughly 1930-2030 FIDE).

I just played in the U2100 North American Open last week, which was good for 7 games, but traveling and paying high entry fees is a tough way to get games. Playing slow games online is difficult because no one wants to sit for 5 hours online, not to mention the chances of running into cheaters.

Finally, I live in Boulder CO which is a pretty dead chess scene, so finding live opposition is quite difficult.

What is the "best" way to find training partners, either live or via video Skype (to forestall cheating and give a "live" feeling) in the proper rating range? It doesn't seem USCF publishes email lists of players, so it's difficult to reach out to their members.

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  • (I would like to send you a PM, but it's not available here) I play exclusively slow games and am around 1800-1900. I won't play that much, but probably can cover part of your 100 games homework. I'm on chess.com and fics – jf328 Jan 4 '16 at 15:16
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There is an online chess league, All Nations Chess League, pretty much the same as a regular chess league, but online. I used to play there 7 years ago, at the time they were playing league matches on playchess.com, probably the same today too. ANCL community was quite respected in playchess.com.

And about cheat: They are investigating games upon complaint, there are statistical techniques to reveal cheaters. But it rarely happens in ANCL. All the players there are real chess fans, they simply don't play for cheating. After all, who would like to spend tons of time playing chess to cheat? It's not like cheating in a blitz game, a cheater wouldn't devote that much time to chess.

I recommend you to play there.

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  • exactly as I thought. Cheaters will like blitz much more than slow games. Why spend 60+ minutes just to cheat? – jf328 Jan 4 '16 at 15:05
  • Cheating often arises after the cheater begins legit, doing his best, but then gets into a crazy tactical situation. Or perhaps he begins losing. I just dont' want to deal with folks having the temptation... I realize putting a webcam on someone doesn't really solve the problem, but it makes it a lot less convenient to cheat. – Fixee Jan 5 '16 at 21:14
  • playchess.com is full of cheaters. It's unbelievable. Many 1800-1900 players can find crazy tactics in a crazy sicilian position all the time and correctly is almost impossible! – Guess601 Aug 11 '20 at 2:24

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