a few chess.com questions

Sort:
Avatar of PkPum

1. When you make a move, there are some black and grey bars (for black and white I guess) with numbers listed to the right of the move notation. Usually when you have something listed like this, there's a label at the top to indicate what the value means, but there's no indication, so what do those bars/numbers indicate? (and really, the interface should have a label above those parts)

2. A moving bar showing +white numbers or -black numbers. I'm guessing this has something to do with the quality of the move, but what do the numbers represent?

3. what's the definition of a "blunder?" moving a piece into a spot to easily be captured I understand, but I just had a game where the opponent moved his checked king into the position that would result in a checkmate instead of a safer spot, but it was only counted as a "mistake." Shouldn't a more severe error be considered a blunder, especially moving your king, unforced, into a checkmating square?

4. Sometimes I see a move like offering a queen exchange as a blunder. I guess if moving a piece into a dangerous square counts as that, I can understand, but surely it's not a blunder if you're aiming for a queen exchange?

5. What is the most underrated feature on chess.com that I should be checking out?

Avatar of notmtwain
PkPum wrote:

1. When you make a move, there are some black and grey bars (for black and white I guess) with numbers listed to the right of the move notation. Usually when you have something listed like this, there's a label at the top to indicate what the value means, but there's no indication, so what do those bars/numbers indicate? (and really, the interface should have a label above those parts)

2. A moving bar showing +white numbers or -black numbers. I'm guessing this has something to do with the quality of the move, but what do the numbers represent?

3. what's the definition of a "blunder?" moving a piece into a spot to easily be captured I understand, but I just had a game where the opponent moved his checked king into the position that would result in a checkmate instead of a safer spot, but it was only counted as a "mistake." Shouldn't a more severe error be considered a blunder, especially moving your king, unforced, into a checkmating square?

4. Sometimes I see a move like offering a queen exchange as a blunder. I guess if moving a piece into a dangerous square counts as that, I can understand, but surely it's not a blunder if you're aiming for a queen exchange?

 

5. What is the most underrated feature on chess.com that I should be checking out?

5. Search button. Google is good too when you include chess.com in the query.

 

Avatar of PkPum

Bringing this up again because after the new "game report" there was a detailed blog post describing what everything in the new analysis is for. It would  be nice if there was an explanation for everything in the old analysis panel. Of course you can google everything, but it seems pretty user-unfriendly if I have to go to a web search site to find out what the features of this site mean. At the very least there should be info shown when hovering over any part of the panel.

Avatar of blueemu
PkPum wrote:

1. When you make a move, there are some black and grey bars (for black and white I guess) with numbers listed to the right of the move notation. Usually when you have something listed like this, there's a label at the top to indicate what the value means, but there's no indication, so what do those bars/numbers indicate? (and really, the interface should have a label above those parts)

2. A moving bar showing +white numbers or -black numbers. I'm guessing this has something to do with the quality of the move, but what do the numbers represent?

3. what's the definition of a "blunder?" moving a piece into a spot to easily be captured I understand, but I just had a game where the opponent moved his checked king into the position that would result in a checkmate instead of a safer spot, but it was only counted as a "mistake." Shouldn't a more severe error be considered a blunder, especially moving your king, unforced, into a checkmating square?

4. Sometimes I see a move like offering a queen exchange as a blunder. I guess if moving a piece into a dangerous square counts as that, I can understand, but surely it's not a blunder if you're aiming for a queen exchange?

 

5. What is the most underrated feature on chess.com that I should be checking out?

1. Time used by each player, in seconds (eg: 2.7 = 2.7 seconds).

2. If in analysis mode, that's who has the advantage and how much. Scaled so that one pawn = 1.0 and positive numbers are White advantage, negative numbers are Black advantage.

3. A blunder drastically worsens your position, compared to other available options. So exposing your King to a mate in two might only be "a mistake" if you're going to get mated in three anyway. It would be a blunder if you got yourself mated in an even position.

4. A Queen exchange might count as a blunder if you had a winning line that you could have played instead. A serious missed opportunity counts as a blunder.

5. Cat pictures. This site has some great cat pictures.