Recommendations On Ways Chess.com Can Improve

Recommendations On Ways Chess.com Can Improve

Avatar of LeeEuler
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Below are a list of areas that I think would make the chess.com user experience better. Let me know what you think or if I left anything out:

1. Daily Games:

  •  Ability to make "true" pre-moves so don’t have to do tons of different lines (i.e. no matter what the opponent plays, I go here, similar to live chess).
  • In the same vein, make it easier to pre-move variations so don't have to go through the entire line each time (e.g. can make a sort of "branch off" at move 5 in the sequence so don't have to enter the first 5 moves twice).
  • Make forced moves in daily games automatic (i.e. if king is in check, and only one move to get out of check).
  • End daily game if you can show a forced pre-move to mate (prevents vacation abuse).
  • A random one, but I have encountered sporadically-- the ability to claim a draw when you're the only one with the ability to win (1 pawn vs. lone king for example). 
  • One that is also relevant to live games-- a "decline all future draw offers" button so an opponent can't spam you with draw offers.

2. Forums

  • Pin common questions (e.g. "Why did my opponent capture my pawn sideways?", "Why can't I castle here?", "Why is this a draw, I had my opponents king trapped?", "Can I become a grandmaster if xyz?", "How can I get from wxyz rating to abcd rating in n amount of time?", etc.)
  • Structure the forums similar to like a Stack Exchange, where points come from upvotes rather than quantity.
  • Better ability to track and sort through all of your comments, rather than just on topics you created or topics that you're following.

3. Tournaments

  • Better ability to sort through available tournaments in both live and daily (filter by max rating, start date, total players, time control, standard vs. variant vs. position, arena vs. swiss, etc.)
  • Have clubs be able to host live tournaments accessible to those outside the club.
  • More opportunities for rating-specific live tournaments (e.g. a 1000-1200 section). It can be fun to match up with higher players in open tournaments, but a. there is not much to gain on the other side of that matchup and b. it is improbable to actually try and place in open arena tournaments as a lower rated player.
  • More consistent tournament schedule. There is no reason why there isn't (for example) a 1|0, 3|0, 5|0, and 10|0 arena tournament every hour (and maybe the same time controls for a rating specific swiss tournament for all those time controls starting on the half-hour).
  • Allow games that start before the tournament ends to finish and count for the tournament. As is, it makes no sense to say start a 3min game with 4 minutes left in the tournament, get a Q v lone king position with 2 minutes on your clock, and have your opponent run down theirs without the game counting as a win or a loss.

4. Points and Awards

  • Eliminate some frequency awards (e.g. no need for a separate award for playing 100 games and one for 1000 games).
  • Gain points for suggesting themes for puzzles

5. General

  • Better match mobile UI to desktop. The layout on the site is much better and more intuitive in my opinion, plus you can do multiple premoves which stacked on top of each other which is handy in bullet games.
  • Some improvements in game play. One being when trying to stack premoves, it is often useful to hover another piece over a square in case the opponent doesn't follow the premoved line. Unfortunately, when you currently do so, the piece you are holding returns to it's square which is a minor thing but has big impact on bullet games for example.
  • Better ability to sort your archive (by opponent country by example, or by common themed mistakes, or material advantage/disadvantage, etc.)
  • Ability to see live in-game chat, after the game
  • IP ban accounts for egregious rule breaking so that someone can't just easily keep opening new accounts and following the same bad behavior. Edit: am hearing rumors that chess.com has been doing this, but on the other hand have also seen repeat offenders back in action through different accounts as well
  • Add a classical time control. Grouping 10|0 and 60|0 or 45|45 games together as rapid seems wrong. I'd imagine this would be popular among the purists.