I love the analysis board feature.  BUT...I played a "real" OTB game this past week and was pummeled!  It's as if the analysis board has crippled me.  I wasn't able to think ahead or something.  Kind of scary.

Anyone else feel this way?

i never use the analysis board, it feels like cheating to me. I suggest learn to see the moves in your head if you want to be a real chess player

The analysis board is part of the game on chess.com and you will be at too much of a disadvantage if you don't use it but your opponents do. Anyways, it helps you analyze positions very deeply. You don't have to do all the mental calculation, but you do have to pick the right moves which isn't easy and those picks are often based on a mental calculation first. Correspondence is different from OTB, but will help you with deep thinking skills and advanced strategy as well as crazy tactical complications you get exposed to.

I, personally, rarely use the analysis board because I want to exercise my ability to visualize and manipulate positions in my head. I have on occation used it in very complicated positions but only after deciding what move I would have played, largely based on intuition, had I been playing OTB. I will use the analysis board for vote chess, though, just because I feel I should use all resources available to contribute to the team.

I used it for a while, but then I stopped. I prefer to exercise my visualization skills. Use it or lose it.

Using the analysis board at every possible occasion is probably not a good idea.

Using the board (I prefer an actual wooden board) makes you better at correspondence chess. For OTB chess it probably has advantages and disadvantages.

The analysis board is amazing, and I love it! To be honest if I can see there is a tactical opportunity I won't risk getting it wrong, if I can see what to analyse then it's good enough for me. It's alot easier to spot any possible refutations as well!

I sac'd my queen in a recent game and I would have never tried it without the analysis board. There were just too many variations to consider, maybe I could've done it in my head but I didn't want to spend all day thinking about it. I worked things out in 5-10 minutes where as it would've taken at least 20 minutes to attempt it without the analysis board and I still wouldn't have been completelysure.

The analysis board pleases me.

Like a friendly cat who snugggles up to you on the couch.

Now you're saying I shouldn't trust the analysis board?

That it may betray me and leave me less capable?  Like when a cat takes a nap with you on the couch but then as soon as you drift off to sleep it suddenly bites you in the armpit?

I had the same problem (not about the cat biting me in the armpit).  I played on here for a year, using the analysis board all the time.  Then I entered an OTB tournament and kept expecting to use it somehow in my subconcious.  Kind of like when you watch a lot of baseball on TV and then go to a real game.  You kind of aren't really paying attention because you expect to see the instant replay like at home.

I try to resist the temptation to use the Analysis Board until I have studied the position at least as long as I would in an OTB game.  At that point I will (hopefully) have come up with a move and reasons for it, usually along with a line at least a few ply deep.  When I then look at that line on the analysis board it's pretty instructive to realize how much I did and didn't see OTB.  

No doubt the analysis board will mess up your OTB game.  All my on line play has caused a bit of "board perspective anxiety". During my last OTB game I had to keep standing up to view the positions because I was having trouble with the 3D view!

That's pretty funny.  Have you tried the 3-D boards?

lol that happens to me a lot, so I stopped using the analysis board and practice analyzing positions using a real chess board

I have been using the 3D plastic set, and it does feel a lot more like playing with real pieces.

The analysis board is a tool, just like a book is a tool.  Either, used properly can make you a better player.  Neither should be used as a crutch.

no but that is a great idea

This is an unfortunate fact... Erik himself says that the analysis board will 'kill your calculation', at the bottom of his blog:

http://blog.chess.com/erik/an-apology-to-my-opponents-in-the-national-open-09

(YES, I did just go and dig that up. What of it?!?)

I avoid using it altogether for this very reason.

And yet, you still manage the very respectable rating of 1950+... says something about the rest of us, eh?