A New Way to Look at a Game

I was thinking the other day, while playing a game... in which I am playing black.  I tend to prefer white, not because white has a supposed advantage, but because I prefer considering the board from the point of view of the kingside being on my right.  And I thought to myself: What if, when playing black, I were able to view the board in that way?  In other words, flip the board left to right so that it were a mirror-image of itself.

It seems to me that no potential moves by either side would be affected - there is no chess piece that has a move limitation based on LEFT and RIGHT.  Furthermore, this could be a selectable option for either player, so that my opponent would not need to have their game affected in any way.  The only difference would be that my board would be displayed to me inversely.  I feel that this would be a great benefit to me, as I would then be viewing the black side with the same layout as white, except that the board colours would be reversed.

Does anyone else have any thoughts on this - perhaps there are potential faults that I have overlooked?  Or does anyone think this would be a valuable and useful option?

onosson - there's an option to flip the board!

Go to Settings<Board Settings and uncheck the 'only show white on bottom' box.

lol, only the colour would change. do you also want the black pieces have the first move?

Thanks texaspete, but that's not what I mean.  I mean being able to view the board, when playing as black, with black on the bottom but with the FILES reversed, h on the left and a on the right.

Read my comment to texaspete, above.  Not only the colour, but the order of the files would change.

I realize this isn't "kosher" chess, but it occured to me the other day that this is really the reason I dislike playing as black.  It might not be to everyone's taste.

I wondered about this myself, 

I thought it was weird that it wasn't mirror, but Queen stays on her color...

well to me rules are there only to be replaced with better ones, so why not?

in fact, seeing the board inversed when youre black comes exactly as the situation if you were white. So in fact, the point is that you are unable to play well with black, then it means that you have to practice with black if you want to improve your chess. As simple as that. Chess is a game played with black and white, and the position of the king is not the same depending on either color you have. That IS chess. Chess is like that. Now if you want to have a reflexion of the board when youre black, you might be able to play better, who knows, but I will be aloud to tell you that youre not as good at chess, because chess IS a left-placed king when you are black ;) My point is, you have the right to look at the board the way you want, who cares, but somewhere, maybe it will not be called chess anymore.. Its like, if i like to play checkers but I change the layout, will I still call it checkers ? I am not sure.. it will certainly got pieces that move LIKE the regular checker pieces, but will it be checkers ? Checkers have their rules, and the starting position of both players are included in those rules. As chess. Anyway, I am not telling you that you should not do that. I am only telling you that it will only make your problem worst.. when youll play real chess again with black, youll be even more fucked because you will not be used to play it..  As for having that option possible when we play online, forget it. Not in serious chess sites tho. A black player has to play with black, letting 2 players play both with white is not called chess anymore ;)

laporte, I respect your points.  However, there are a number of things that are available in online chess which are not possible with OTB chess (and, incidentally, I don't really ever play OTB, only online...)  There is an analysis board, replay of all the moves played in the game, ability to flip the board and view from the other players' perspective.  Certainly, all of these make online chess a very different animal than "real" chess.  My suggestion would not allow black to play differently than otherwise, and would not give black the first move - which is arguably the greatest and most important difference between black and white in chess.

P.S. I might add that I don't actively avoid playing black, and every game seek I've ever posted has been random for which side I will play on.  I play as many games as black as I do for white - I just dislike playing black more.

This is just a user interface change - and a potentially useful one at that. Analagous to changing telephone handsets from rotary dials to buttons, or changing keyboards from  QWERTY layout to DVORAK. As such, expect it to meet determined opposition!

On a related note, I would like music keyboards (and, indeed, music theory) to be simplified to get rid of the complicated black notes, sharps and flats - so that, whatever key you have to play in, it feels like playing in 'C'.

Back to the (chess) drawing board, I would quite like my opponent's pieces to appear slightly smaller than mine to reinforce my sense of being the more powerful player.

Most modern electronic keyboards allow you to do exactly that, artfizz, and furthermore to make the keyboard MORE complex if you so desire... as to theory, well, standard notation hasn't changed in quite some time, although there are alternative styles of notation out there.  See: http://musicnotation.org/ for one example.

 All those are available in real chess. You have access to all the moves played, you can analyse a game as long as you want, you can even stand up and go look over your opponent's shoulder !. But never will you play black with a right sided king. Thtas all my point. And thats all why you can do it, but dont pretend you are good at chess after that, cause you will be good at something that is not chess anymore, since you dont follow chess rules ;)

Chromatic Staves: A Better Approach to Music Notation

All of these features of traditional music notation combine to make reading music much more difficult than it might be with a better notation system. For an analogy, imagine trying to do arithmetic with Roman numerals. It can be done, but the notation system makes a big difference. Of course it is important to view traditional notation in its broader historical context and to keep in mind the innovations and reforms that it has undergone over time.

I think you should seek a patent for the onosson left-handed (or sinister) chessboard - without delay.

Black's king is on the standard white square e1. Black's queen is on the standard black square d1. All of the pieces are on their traditional squares. The move notation is unchanged. The board has simply been reflected left to right - on an axis running from white's king and queen to black's queen and king. It is precisely what you would see if you were looking at the board from underneath. Set up the pieces on a glass chessboard and try this sometime. Do you maintain that it not following chess rules to view (and play) the board from below?

 Sure, because chess rules are that one play the black piecers, with the king left placed, and the other with the white pieces, with the king right placed ;)

The coincidence between your username - and PORT being the LEFT side of a ship (when viewed from aft) may give rise to this insistence on the left-placed black king. :{

 that has nothing, but absolutely nothing to do, haha

its not port, its Laporte :D anyway.. lool

This would be incredibly trivial to implement in a computer chess client. If you are solely playing online i see no problem with it, if thats your style. However, i don't think it is a very good idea. For one, it will be very difficult to readjust when playing on an actual board in a tournament setting for example. Secondly, it is good to be able to see the board standardly because it would be difficult to understand positions otherwise, it almost seems you would have to relearn them when playing white. Say, for example, that white plays the ruy lopez against you, and you take advantage of something white does wrong. And then, you also like to play the ruy lopez as white, how do you translate what you've learned playing against it as black? It would be difficult.

And laporte, I think you are wrong. The two are topologically equivalent, so as long as you maintain an official image of the board with standard piece placement, the way the player percieves it is irrelevant. Would you object to a player making his moves while looking at a mirror on the ceiling? I don't see how this defies chess rules as long as the master board is maintained, or in some situations, like online chess, a recording of the game is done in standard notation.

Hmmm, interesting discussion so far!  I'm not really advocating for making this change, in truth... it was just a thought that came to me.  However, I am not convinced that this "would not be chess", were it possible to do (and if I were a computer programmer, I could probably come up with a way to make my browser do the job for me).  If I put a mirror beside the board in a real chess game, and looked at that instead of the actual board as I played the game, I can imagine getting a lot of funny looks, but I'm not sure anyone would say to me "That's not chess", or "You're cheating!"  Would they?

 Lol. what you think and what you dont think has no weight here, since i am right, i am only saying that it would not be chess anymore, and im right. think what you want, but who cares, seems like you will argue and argue and argue, but im done now, lol, i had to say it, and i said it. what you do with it is your choice, but still chess is not one of the players looking at the reflexion of the board while the other looks right.. like it or not ;) i stop tracking this anyway.. ciao lol