Whenever I have some free time (eg. waiting in line at the Bank).  I like to play a little chess game I have on my phone.  It's not all that strong, but then again, neither am I.  I've been playing and winning pretty consistently on the second hardest level, so i moved up to the "master" level on the game, where I tend to lose more often than I win.

There's a limitation in the game that doesn't allow me to flip the board when playing as Black.  Therefore, I always played as white.  This time, I had the idea of playing as black from the top of the board.  I figured that if i practiced playing from the top, it would help me to see enemy threats in normal games.  I didn't think that i'd be able to play as well as I normally do, but I was willing to try it.

I tried it and played the best game of chess ever against my phone.  I completely dominated the computer on the "master" difficulty setting. Ending the game with a pawn promotion/checkmate. During the game I was able to force the computer to give up a rook for a pawn by getting two pawns to the 2nd rank, then exchenging queens and promoting the second pawn to regain my queen.  The game eventually ended with another promotion/checkmate. I was really surprised since I have so much trouble beating the computer as white from the bottom up.  Unfortunately, the game is not stored in the phone, so I cannot post it here.  All I can show you is the final position. . .f1=q#

Has anyone else tried flipping the board and playing from the top-down? Did you play better or worse?

I tend to visualize the board from white's side no matter what way the board is. I think it's because I've read too much algebraic chess notation.