One click messages for better communication

Many people actually don't know this, but there is a actually a way you can communicate with you partner with one/two clicks.

If you look right to your chat, you will see three dots:

If you click on it, you will find various symbols you can use to ask for pieces. There is an icon for literally every piece, so instead of typing out queen 5 times, you can just click on its icon.

Instead of going there and clicking,

We can simply type 

p-pawn

n-knight

k-king

q-queen

b-bishop

r-rook

Switching between mouse and keyboard wastes time.

You can use mouse with right hand and keyboard with left hand

Oh yeah! That never occured to me.

Its Ok.People have their own ways.

I sometimes have a partner ask for a pawn; I can take it, but it costs a piece.  I'm never quite sure if it's worth it... I sometimes ask "is it worth a N" and don't generally get an answer...

You should check his board and see why he's asking for a pawn. In fact, you might evaluate it better if you are stronger than your partner (which I am, generally)

Those icons don't represent whether you want a piece (+N) or instead you want to stop your opponent from getting that piece (-N); nor does it have important commands like "sit", "trade", "don't trade", "watch your clock", etc. 

Yeah, it surprising how lazy these C.c developers are. It's been a month since Bughouse was launched here and it looks pretty much the same way how it looked in the beginning. I mean, how long does it take to add a few icons that say +N, -N etc like in FICS!

Before Thief had the partner buttons with only one plus or minus, there was a text version:

One plus, like P+ (good if you can get it, but don't kill yourself)

Two plusses, like P++ (worth a queen, or equivalent positional advantage, so sac for it)
Three plusses, like P+++ (mates, so sac everything for it)

And a similar scheme for the amount of minuses after a piece. I believe Thief will say these out loud if you type it into partner chat, though, so people can continue to have visual focus on the game.

P+, P++, P+++ (and the equivalent P-, P--, P---) - that's great if it can become standard such that most people know what it means.  If we start using it, and explaining it where needed, that will aid rapid communication.  Buttons would be nice, though.

It would be nice if chat was more prominent in bughouse.  I think a lot of people don't really notice it because they're focused on the game.

Yeah, we really need something like FICS with a voice command. Is that even possible to program on chess.com's interface, though?

+k is particularly useful when you are crooked and you are asking a miracle to your partner

I have very little bug experience and when a partner demands a piece it is most frustrating for me.

I panick and stop thinking normally (about my position).

And I have to access the situation (is it worth to give my queen for the required knight) - which depletes my time.

So piece demand should be for something strong (like: immediate mate) or not be at all.

Well, sometimes a knight means winning a queen, or starting a dangerous attack, but isn't quite mate.  It's appropriate to ask for that, but you should do so in a way that communicates that it's not worth giving up a queen and two rooks for that knight.

MGleason was posting in 2016? I was not aware!

Oops, I just bumped a 9 year old thread

Join FBI

I became a moderator in late 2016. I was active on the site before that.

I've been around since 2009.

oh ok