Is it possible to have a skittles room to go through the game and annotate a pgn file with your opponent? Or to look at a position or oppening with someone else to discuss it.

 

Magicmunky wrote:

Is it possible to have a skittles room to go through the game and annotate a pgn file with your opponent? Or to look at a position or oppening with someone else to discuss it.

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One of the forum areas is Game Analysis; you could submit a position or opening there. As for annotating with an opponent, I would just go with messages and/or e-mail.

I think it would be a good idea to be able to have a board where both players can take back and try moves, like you would when analysing at the club. 

I guess this could be done using the board for setting up the start postions of annotated games, as long as both could move the pieces.

Then all you need is a chat box to discuss it.

good idea. how do you keep people from overwriting the moves? can both people make any moves? does the board have to make only legal moves?

This is probably best implemented through the live chess feature. I think what people want would be similar to "examine" mode at FICS. A player who is examining a game makes moves for both sides. You can have more than one examiner and either can move or go back at any time. Of course there are problems if one is trying to go forward and the other back, but as far as the server is concerned, one even will happen first and the other is just an error. There would be a real time chat so that the players could work out what they are doing and share ideas.

 

This is very useful for postgame analysis. 

erik wrote: good idea. 1.how do you keep people from overwriting the moves? 2.can both people make any moves? 3.does the board have to make only legal moves?

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1.  Have a turn button.  So I show you what i think, then I press it and its your turn to show me.

2. Yes. You could move for both sides.

3. If I'm analysing with a board with someone, I will say 'if your king can get to h6' pick the king up and put it on h6 (from wherever).  So allow illegal moves.

 

Very good suggestion! It might also be usefull if you could email yourself a copy of the Char session from the game/postmortem.

I think mxdplay4 has nailed it as far as I am concerned, as long as you can take a pgn for the analysis as you can on the analysis forum I'd be as happy as a pig in muck.

 

I like mxd's suggestion of a turn button so that if necessary you can show a line without being interrupted. I think there should also be a mode where both players can move. Sometimes in an analysis session one person will demonstrate that a position is winning to the other person by playing the position out against them. In this case, I wouldn't want to have to be clicking the turn button all the time. So, I think both modes are useful and a way to switch between them would be great.

ok. so we have:

- ability to import PGN

- ability to make illegal moves

- a TURN button to show who is in control (or BOTH)

- a DOWNLOAD CHAT button

this will certainly take a lot of time to do and is months off, but it is a really great suggestion that we WILL work on! 

thanks Erik

As for the ability to make illegal moves, I think we should be careful. I think there should be a "gameplay" mode where only legal moves are made and a "board setup" mode where you can setup the board however you like.  If illegal moves are allowed in general, then you can run into a situation where both players try to make a move at close to the same time (I think within a few seconds is enough to cause problems) and the site doesn't know how to handle it. If illegal moves are forbidden, the site just accepts the first move and rejects the second because it is illegal.

 

I realize I just made more work for you Erik, but that could have been a potential disaster. Even if this feature is a long way off, it will be greatly appreciated when it arrives. I think teaching/analysis should be one of the cornerstones of a chess community. 

Loomis wrote:

As for the ability to make illegal moves, I think we should be careful. I think there should be a "gameplay" mode where only legal moves are made and a "board setup" mode where you can setup the board however you like.  If illegal moves are allowed in general, then you can run into a situation where both players try to make a move at close to the same time (I think within a few seconds is enough to cause problems) and the site doesn't know how to handle it. If illegal moves are forbidden, the site just accepts the first move and rejects the second because it is illegal.

 

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OK I see the point. How's this; you generally play through a game turn based with legal moves, but when one player only takes control to demonstrate, it allows illegal moves. At the end of the demonstration, it returns to the previous position.  If its a problem, dont allow illegal moves, it just takes a little longer to show what you mean, no big deal.

All I thought originally was to use the board you have when posting a game to a forum, because you can add variations to that and take back moves while you make the game. Also you can take pieces off the board in set up.  Or clear the board.  I guess its quite a different thing to make that work in real time over the internet though.

 

mxdplay4 wrote: Also you can take pieces off the board in set up.  Or clear the board.  I guess its quite a different thing to make that work in real time over the internet though.

 

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And be able to record "skittles" analysis as a part of the annotation process. This would help the less skilled played. In keeping his analysis. Think of it like the "record conversation" of an instant messaging session.

mxd, there may be some sticky issues and I'm glad we've had a chance to discuss them here. Luckily the chess.com team seems pretty good at handling this kind of thing.  Hopefully they can take our suggestions and make something nice out of them. :-).

Erik,

I like your style... presented with a consensus of opinion and a knotty problem, you don't dodge the issue, but confront it head on. This "can do" attitude and personal touch will ensure success. Bravo!

Great idea!

I'd like to be able to go through an opening variation, annotate it and then post it on my blog or elsewhere after multiple annotations and variation inputs.

As for over-writing, I think the point is to discuss the options and allow one person or both to go through a variation from a common starting point. However I don't like the idea of one person controlling where the analysis goes so much but I appreciate there are likely to be technical issues otherwise.

 The chat download sounds good, I think that would add alot on the previso that you can add text to the pgn as well (the same as the board function for posts).  

Awesome Idea, and thanks to Erik for seeing the post and taking the time to see if our fellow chess.com-ers suggestions could become reality.  I can't wait for this great feature to be implemented!