What the heck is a pre-move???

The word says it all. Very useful in quick games, it's like a conditional move but if you pre-move, no matter what the opponent plays, you play that move. Sometimes it's risky. Not recommended in long games.

On FICS it won't let you make the premove if it is illegal, so there is a sort of priority list. You can make move1, then move2, then move3, all while your opponent is thinking, and when it is your turn, it will make move1 if it is legal, else it will make move 2 if it is legal, else it will make move 3 if it is legal, otherwise your clock starts ticking!

Well isnt that a little too risky too be useful?

no, because you can set it to just make moves that you know you will make if they become possible.  For example recaptures, where you set it to capture your own piece, so obviously if your opponent doesnt capture your piece it cant make the move.  Only in certain positions like forced combinations, and in easy endgames will you use it to make moves that are already available and will be made no matter what your opponent does. 

Ozzie, it's not FICS that let's you do that, it's your interface to FICS.

I played someone on FICS once and noticed he was really fast at recaptures. I realized it was very easy to beat him by capturing when it was necessary to make an inbetween move before recapturing. The guy was clearly more interested in making premoves than playing chess. This is the danger of premove.

the babaschess fics-interface allows multi-premoves! [ie lots of premoves together; made in the order they were put in - if legal.] The seq stops on encountering an illegal premove iirc.

normajeanyates wrote:

the babaschess fics-interface allows multi-premoves! [ie lots of premoves together; made in the order they were put in - if legal.] The seq stops on encountering an illegal premove iirc.

When I used it, it was more a nuisance than useful, because I click and drag pieces around a lot to see my next move position, and if I accidentally let go and my opponent makes their move, I'm ****ed.

It sounds easier to have a Regular Game than this...

ADK

nah, It definitely has its uses.  Yesterday I was playing a game and I was in my last couple of seconds, but I had 2pawns on g7, and h7, both with rooks on g1 and h1.  My opponent had rooks on h8 and on the 7th rank.  So in under a second I had to see, which pawn had been captured, and recapture with the relevant rook from all the way down the bottom of the board.  Very difficult without premove.  Also, premove would make promoting easier without autoqueen.  Atm you have to click the queen just right, because if you are in a rush and move slightly while clicking it, it seems to just move it around a bit, so I've found atm you have to allow maybe an extra second for promoting, but with premove, this would be a second of my opponent's time.