Chess.com Feature Requests and Wishlist #3

londonanimal wrote:

I'm thinking that an 'auto play forced move' feature would be useful in time saving. It'd come down to an indvidual's prefrence of course.

What I mean here is that if my opponent makes a move to which I only have one legal response, then the computer makes the move for me automaticlly.

I second this excellent suggestion.

I've seen auto-play forced moves implemented before and the site eventually took out the feature. It's a good idea, but there are some issues:

1. Players got confused when they got checkmated when they were maybe 3 or 4 moves away from mate and didn't see the end coming.
2. It provides you information--it tells you that you have more than one valid move in a position. Sometimes players think their move is forced when it really isn't.

The first issue was why the site got rid of it. If you make it a non-default option then the first issue goes away (but so does much of the speedup).

The "too short to effect ratings" should only be for games won or lost on time...

http://www.chess.com/echess/game.html?id=7850010

I second the "Lookup current position in Game Explorer" feature.

It would be nice to link your Facebook chess application to chess.com's account. It would make it easier to draw more people to play, play on a single website (chess.com) and keep a unique ranking.

Another idea would be to make an XBox 360 Live (I'm far fetched, I know) chess game, or speak to some people who developed one to link to our chess.com account; you see the point here: play on chess.com from anywhere!

From your list, I must say "Annotate games while in progress" is really my favorite! I do some blunders that I'd like to comment, so when I come back to analyse the game, I can concentrate on pertinent areas. Otherwise, wildcards in conditional moves and mobile support are also great; I'd use them for sure!

The updated timer in blitz chess that gives you 1/10ths of a second (in the final 20 seconds) is not helpful - it's distracting!  Does anyone benefit from knowing they have 5.4 seconds instead of 6 seconds?  I would vote for removing this feature!

In its current state, the member search function is not at all useful.  I find that I have to type a member's name exactly right in order to get any results, which defeats the purpose of having to use the search feature.

For example, if I search for "mon" it only returns 1 member who actually has that specific username; my username, or any others starting with those 3 letters, are nowhere to be seen.  It seems to me that it should return partial matches also.

Monicker wrote:

In its current state, the member search function is not at all useful.  I find that I have to type a member's name exactly right in order to get any results, which defeats the purpose of having to use the search feature.

For example, if I search for "mon" it only returns 1 member who actually has that specific username; my username, or any others starting with those 3 letters, are nowhere to be seen.  It seems to me that it should return partial matches also.

 I second this one.  I have had an equally difficult time finding players for the exact same reason.

bvangunten wrote:

The updated timer in blitz chess that gives you 1/10ths of a second (in the final 20 seconds) is not helpful - it's distracting!  Does anyone benefit from knowing they have 5.4 seconds instead of 6 seconds?  I would vote for removing this feature!

I agree.  There is no need to subdivide the second at all.  The second is fine enough a measure of time in chess.  This is not a 50 yard dash.  The tenth's of a second are much more of a hinderance than a help!  Please remove!

Not sure if this has been requested yet, but someone in live chess was asking if its possible for a new option to be added there, where players can continue their unfinished game if they've been disconnected.

How about  allowing games at odds? Giving weaker players odds, both in Live Chess and correspondence, would add a new dimension to the site. You could even stage odds tourneys where players were matched by rating difference, e.g. 100 points = pawn and move, 200 = knight odds, etc. with players of equal rating playing as normal. Time odds would also be interesting, particularly in Live Chess.

kohai wrote:

Not sure if this has been requested yet, but someone in live chess was asking if its possible for a new option to be added there, where players can continue their unfinished game if they've been disconnected.

I've never had much of a problem with disconnect on Live Chess, but its definitely another place where a cue could be taken from the long standing chess servers.  FICS will automatically adjourn a game if a disconnect occurs after X number of moves; either player can request to resume the game when they are both online again.

There is an issue which I am sure would be run into, as happens on FICS.  Some people will be "disconnected" conveniently when they are in a losing position, and they won't want to resume the game later.  FICS has an adjudication team to handle those matters.  I don't know if Chess.com has staff with enough time to go through such requests and adjudicate games when necessary.

Overall, its still something that I would like to see.  I've had several games where I won when my opponent disconnected, but it didn't feel like a proper win to me.

Is there any way there could be a "My Vote Chess Games" tab under My home. Have this include all the vote chess games the person is in including group vote chess. It would be more convenient than having to navigate your way through 10 pages just to get to your game.

Could you have in the piece view types(like classic and alpha) have the tyoe gambit publication use,its a bit small and irrevelevant but it would be nice!

Could there be a seperate "Groups" forum?  Now that groups are becoming more feature rich, it might be nice to have a seperate forum for group promotion and for arranging inter-group matches, etc.

After playing a game of live chess, one can review the game by following the moves in the move list.  It would be good if the last move of the displayed position would be highlighted in the move list.

Sometimes, like today, the 5th of August, the Daily Puzzle has more than one solution.  (I found 1 Bb8  Kxg8    2 Rd8#).  The puzzle should allow all alternative solutions (provided the alternative does not take more moves.) 

bowanza, today's puzzle has only one solution. 1.Bb8+ Kxg1 2.Rd1+ is not checkmate because Black can escape with 2...Kf2. The puzzles on this site are generally designed to have only one solution. If you think you've found an alternative, post it, and usually someone will be helpful and explain why it doesn't work. :)

Oh, I see why that's not mate, thanks.  Sorry to post here but I posted my question in the Daily Puzzle quite a few hours ago but nobody answered it, probably because there has been so much B.S. there lately that hardly anybody takes it seriously anymore. 

Mabey we ought to have two Daily Puzzle formums.  One for people who like to post first, in color, or to tell the world it was too easy for them, and one for those who actually want to talk about the puzzle.

lol. I know what you mean... I stopped reading the Daily Puzzle comments.