Bug in analysis board?

My original thought was like yours, but I think the case has been made that the official playing board only disallows an illegal move if it is your next move. It does not keep you from making an illegal move somewhere down the road in a wayward analysis. Neither does a physical board and pieces.

Then, nimbleswitch, it is not outside help because wayward analysis based on an illegal move somewhere is not analysis at all, just as my hypothetical poker player was calculating odds on a fifty-two card deck when he was playing with a deck of fifty-four.

Mhtraylor, let me quote myself (in this thread) :

(Defending enforcing legal moves on the actual board):

"A more pricipled defence of enforcing legal moves could be that it is enfocing chess itself; illegal moves are simply not a part of a game of chess. But thinking about such moves (or anything, really) surely can be." (from my first post here)

If you won't bother to read the discussion before you post, please, at least think a little about what your going to say. The difference between enforcing legal moves in actual play and in analysis is not that hard to see.

Nimblewitsch, that is an interesting question. Perhaps you could ask Erik. For the record, I think that a board that records moves is of another nature than a board that enforces legality, but I agree it's a slippery slope and there are probably not many boards out there that only do the first.

Edit: again slow reaction, but Mhtraylor, yes it is a part of chess. Thinking about illegal moves is. Making them isn't. Edit nr.2: And sorry if I was a little harsh in this post, but it is annoying to see arguments you have refuted brought up time and again.

Well, actually, a wayward analysis based on an illegal move is an analysis--a bad one--and if you take that back to the real playing board and make the first move along that bad analysis line, you may not find out until you get to the illegal move that you screwed up in the analysis. Then you lose. But a smart analysis board prevents that possibility by alerting you to the fact that that line of analysis is based on an eventual illegal move, so you won't then make the first move in that bad line of analysis at all.

If you want to talk poker, it's more like a poker player trying to calculate the odds in a given situation but incorporating into his calculation the gross mental error that a straight beats a flush. Now, if the rules of the poker tournament allow you to use an electronic poker-odds calculator at the table, that would prevent that type of gross error. If the rules don't allow that, you could still make such a blunder. (I submit that making an illegal chess move in the middle of analyzing a line of chess moves is a similar type of blunder.)

Nimblewitsch, now that's a good comparison.

Yes, you're right, of course. I just double-checked and my outside analysis board does prevent you from making illegal moves, too.

So, I suppose--so that Erik would be more likely to see it--I should start a new thread with my question:

Are Chess.com administrators going to officially outlaw the use of any analysis board other than the official Chess.com board or a physical board and pieces?

Whadyathink?

mathijs, I have read this entire discussion. Not only have you not shown that disallowing illegal moves is outside help, you are repeating another unproven assertion:  that thinking about illegal moves, or anything at all, is a part of chess. I didn't address that earlier because it is nonsensical. Perhaps, a la Ockham, we shouldn't multiply entities unecessarily.

Thinking about illegal moves, or unicorns, or scratching my rear while playing a game might be a part of participating in the activity of chess, insomuch as those things can be part of an activity of anything. They are not, however, a part of the game of chess. I can think about there being no laws of gravity, and think that I am flying off the face of the earth, but that says nothing about the actual reality. And the reality of the game of chess is that some certain moves, while possible on a physical game board, are not part of the game. Just as slapping all the pieces off the board is not part of the game.

I'm still waiting for someone to show that having a computer board that enforces legal moves is a form of outside help. I believe this was stated to the effect that is "trivial" and "obvious."

Matthew, I've come to the conclusion that if my post #67, above--to which you have not yet responded--doesn't explain it to you, then I'm not going to be capable of doing so. So, I'm not going to try anymore. I just want to make clear that that does not mean that you've persuaded me--I'm just recognizing that I'm not capable of persuading you.

Mhtraylor, it is trivial. I have shown it. But look at the example that Nimblewitsch gave as to how thinking about illegal moves is a part of chess. Ockham has nothing to do with this.

I don't know how to add to the combined  logical force of my analysis and Nimblewitsch example. Anything I could say would be repeating myself.

Nimblewitsch, you could that, but maybe you should send Erik a personal message and let him announce his policy before we discuss it.

Ok, you've got me, I'm going to give it another shot. Your argument as I see it may mean either of two things:

-You define the game of chess as all the all the legal positions, nothing more, also not the decision making. In this defenition it is impossible to help anybody with the game of chess, it is a static body, not a game that can be played. Clearly this is not what most people mean when they talk about the game of chess in relation to actually playing it.

-You define the game of chess as above plus all the decision making insofar as a player thinks about legal positions (I expect this what you mean). When he makes an illegal move in his analysis, he stops playing chess. In this case, pointing out to him that he stopped playing chess would constitute help.

In any case, I think takes significant philosophical muddying of the waters to obscure the fact that telling someone he makes an illegal move in his analysis is help.

Impossible to police, I think.  :)

Of course, but that doesn't necessarily mean it should not be forbidden. If they allow it , they could just as well offer it.

Totally.  To exhume my original example, if I *think* I see a Knight fork three moves ahead, and I *overlook* the fact that my forking Knight is actually pinned to my King at that point, I *am* playing chess the whooooole time.  I'm just not playing it all that well, perhaps.  And if I lose because my analysis board doesn't forewarn me about that blocked attack on my King, it's just desserts for careless planning.

Well, yes, it is, of course. And I think your point is that the continued use of two of the things that are currently outlawed--computer engines and tablebases--can possibly be enforced through analysis procedures that Chess.com administrators have indicated already are in place. But the third thing that is outlawed--getting help from another human player--is also something that I would think could not be enforced. We're simply on our honors there. I guess that also would have to be the case if the administrators outlaw the use of electronic analysis boards other than the official Chess.com analysis board, too.

You know, if it's really an issue, it's worth noting that the conditional moves board still works the way the old analysis board did.  (Just beware that you're comitting to the line you're analyzing while you use it)....

...which brings me to one of my pet requests:  It would be fantastic of the conditional moves board were merged with the main board, you could enter a line without comitting it (whether it was your turn or your opponents), and the "submit move" button were changed to "commit line" as soon as more than one move was entered.

This would allow you the choice of using the main board just like the old-style analysis board or using the analysis board in its new free-form format.  Furthermore, It would remove the risks associated with making a mistake on the conditional board (which currently commits you to the line immediately, as opposed to when you click "commit" and is also a little slow and clumsy as a result, having to refresh after every move) and it would also allow you to enter contitional lines when it is your move, not just your opponent's.

Yes, I think I will. Although, Erik might well want to consider the arguments we all make here before he decides on his policy. But he always has that option.

Okay, I'll let you know what happens--but I don't think I'm going to have to because if Erik outlaws outside analysis boards that advise you of an illegal move, and by doing so also effectively outlaws outside analysis boards that allow you to save your lines of analysis--this is going to be such a big deal that I'm not going to have to be the one to tell you about it.

I'll bet that not being able to conveniently save my lines of analysis would drop my Online Chess rating a couple hundred points, at least--I rely on that feature that much. That loss would seriously bother me; I don't care much about the illegal-move prevention. But I can't separate the two without somehow persuading the maker of my outside analysis board to add the option of removing illegal-move prevention in a future version. I'll bet he won't want to do that.

Hm..

First off, ChessDB has an automatic "suggested move" feature that shows the app's preferred target square when you mouse over a piece.  Have you found a way to disable that AI when you are analysing games-in-progress from this site?  Because if not, to partly address Nimbleswitch's question above, you *definitely* shouldn't be using *that* database app because you're cheating by any definition.  In short, there's no reason anyone should need anything above and beyond the analysis board we have today to aid visualization in a game of e-chess here at chess.com.

Chess.com *has* made a decision - and one that makes total sense.  Suggesting it should be a personal option misses the point:  I don't want you to have the choice to use a smarter analysis board, just like I don't want you to look at ChessDB's suggested move, just like I don't want you to use an engine.  I want a level playing field where it's your calculation & visualization skills against mine.

Suggesting that it should be a game-level option to be agreed upon by both players is fine... I guess... Call it "Analysis Board - Beginner Mode" or something.  But wow, of all the fantastic things developers of this site could be working on...  that ain't one of them, imo.

Good, Godfrey! The plot thickens. I'm now beginning to wonder if I should raise this outside-analysis-board point to Erik at all. Maybe we've got a teapot tempest going here.

Nimbleswitch, I see your predicament. If he should choose to ban it though, you could always resort to pen and paper (or some virtual equivalent), but I agree that's not optimal (although I do it). Maybe chess.com would develop such a smart but not overly smart board if there is a need for it.

By the way, sorry for consistently misspelling your name, I thought it was a pun on nimzowitsch.

To Mathijs-

Ha! I didn't even notice your misspellings. And nibleswitch is intended as a pun on Aron Nimzowitsch's name--an auditory one. But my name is Jack, anyway, so I don't mind.  :-]

Seriously, though, with TheGrobe having pointed out that the Conditional Moves feature still prevents illegal moves like the Analysis Board used to, this thing is taking on new dimensions. As I added to my comment #82, above: "I'm now beginning to wonder if I should raise this outside-analysis-board point to Erik at all. Maybe we've got a teapot tempest going here."

You having any second thoughts?