New Features & Fixes - Mar 12 2009

hi chess.com staff --

i just want to say thanks for reverting back to the "rules-based" analysis board (with an option for an open analysis board.) it's great to know that you guys listen to your members. i look forward to retaining my chess.com membership long into the future.

Hi guys,

Good stuff here.  I like the no points for 'timeout' games of 1 or 2 moves.  Actually I would like it better if it were, I dont know, 5 or 6.  What do the rest of you guys think?

Watch your backrank!

I think with 5 or 6 moves, it starts to be challenging, because it means that if you "don't like the opening", you can just stop playing and abort the game. 

However, I just wish the staff would completely review the Vote Chess rating system, introducing penalties for losing games and, maybe, introducing a "Team ELO".

A team ELO would be very cool, much better than simply stacking up points assuring the the bigger teams will always stay highest ranked.

If we keep talking about this, soon or later Erik and co will have to listen to us...

I think if they went to any of the "good games" and looked at how much effort the teams are putting in vote chess, they would raise the priority of this quite a bit... 

excellent changes.

not to be a jerk, but i noted a strange (feature/bug) relatively quickly with the analysis board...if you have the board set to 'analysis', and make an illegal move, then set the board to legal moves only, it leaves the pieces in the illegal position, and judges what's legal based on that position, so it's not truly "legal move" based.

like i said, (feature/bug), either way, it's amusing.  i expect to upgrade my account this week, so please don't take this as freebie-whining.

Nice updates Erik!  I have tweaked my board size and group alerts...thanks to everyone for their great suggestions!

Excellent! I've cut my group membership down to 7 groups and now no longer receive those annoying vote chess / team match notifications. I think now it will be much easier now to participate in groups the ways I want to. :)

cool! I have been waiting all year.

Have you fixed the group admin problem?

I would like to see a timestamp option on the turn-based moves. In post analysis I am sometimes curious on how long it took my opponent to make a move in a position.

A suggestion...  Can we have computer analysis on completed vote chess games, viewable by all?  Possibly even (if it wouldn't be too difficult) best move vs. "you voted for"...