Analysis Board: My Experience

Hello everybody,

Here I want to share with you my experience of using this new for many chess players tool provided by www.Chess.com - the Analysis Board.

To start with, I shall mention that the interface of the Board is quite nice, pleasant,  and, at the same time, not annoying.

Another convenient thing is that, unlike on some other chess servers, no special software needs to be installed so as to use the Analysis Board (as well as all other services on www.Chess.com).

On the one hand, the given Analysis  Board has the whole range of usual necessary functions: you can flip the board, take control of the moves from both sides, download your games,  observe notation and comments, and, of course, communicate with other users involved in the analysis. (By the way, I could decide myself whom to invite to my board, or to make it open for everyone)

On the other hand, this Analysis Board  provides several special tools which are indicative of  www.chess.com  and which may become its benefits in comparison with other chess servers.

I could speak with my collegue/friend/student not only by chat but also using "microphone" service - so you don't need even Skype to carry out the lesson.

For those who use www.Chess.com not only for analysis but also for writing blogs: there are very simple ways to make nice insertions of diagrams or even whole games you have analysed  into your articles/stories. I needed just a few seconds to do it.

 Then, you put extra pieces on the board, set any position just for a few seconds, as well as quickly reset the board or download a game.

What concerns the download, the Analysis Board accepts different ways to open a game easily and to save it after the analysis is done. For these aims you can use "FEN" or "PGN" buttoms.

As for me, I just copied the game I needed in Chessbase 9 (can be done in any version) and clicked on "PGN" to see the whole game together with its lines and comments.

Finally, I should notice that the Analysis Board I tried has a couple of slight drawbacks too. For example, one can't follow the moves in the notation using the keyboard during the analysis. Or there is no possibility to switch on an engine (Houdini or something).

But nothing is perfect. So do try the Analysis Board - it may really become an integral part of your online chess activity.