Conditional move etiquette

I'll play conditional moves in the openning, say a Ruy Lopez Chigorin. I might enter a full set of 22 conditional moves and let my opponent decide which sub-variation he wants to play. If he wants to take a month to decide because his drawers are in a  knot, fine.

ih8sens are you reading this? ( He just did this to me in our RL Marshall game :) )

One method to achieve this - Extended Personal Profile- was cited in post #9.   (http://www.chess.com/forum/view/community/who-is-player-x)

If I could know before hand if players will use good moves I would choose not to play them , since I think that it takes all the fun out of it .

I post an interesting game with copious notes, I get like one guy responding three days later: "nice game."

But ask about conditional moves...

I was meaning to ask: did you actually use Conditional Moves in that game?

I love conditional moves=)

Unconditionally?

doh!

You shouldn't worry about etiquette in this case, if you want to speed up your games use conditional moves, your opponent will decide whether or not they mind you using them. And I think that in the long run if you are a fan of conditional moves they will save you a lot more heartache then they could cause you by the few people that would mind it

I have done both.  I've set up conditional moves so that my opponent walked right into a checkmate when I was not even online, and I have walked right into checkmates that my opponent had set up in the conditional moves back when he was online.  Regardless of which way it goes, it's always cool to see.  I think it shows great foresight, and I can't imagine anyone getting offended by it. 

Conditional moves almost ALWAYS help speed up a game when both players are not online at the same time.  I use them as often as possible (especially since I don't have time to get to every game every day, and so it can be days before I even see that board again).  I will sometimes program a conditional move for EVERY POSSIBLE RESPONSE, regardless of how foolish and unlikely some of them may be.  Too often I've made a move with a plan, and when I come back days later, I have no clue what my plan was.  Conditional moves makes sure that all the time I spent on the analysis board was not wasted.

They are especially useful in the openings.  I have a few lines that I enter almost every game.  The repetition helps me remember my game plan, even tho they usually deviate from it before getting to the end of my conditional program.

The longest string of conditional moves that I have set up so far is 16, and only once has someone actually played out that entire string without deviating from it.  I think that most people after triggering 3-5 conditional moves almost feel like they HAVE to do something really off-the-wall just to intentionally break the string.

You know Ray, for a minute, I honestly thought you were talking about me there.    I remember being in that position recently, and (as you know) I can often take days before making a move, but it wasn't our game that the QxQ+...KxQ played out (I had to check), so I don't feel as bad anymore. 

One thing that strikes me as being a particularly useful, would be if we could set up multiple opening repertoires in conditinal move format.  Thus, if you were White, at a start of the game you'd pick White repertoire #3 (assuming you have at least three...) and the computer would simply make your first move and then set up the conditionals -- and keep doing so up to the point where the opponent deviates from your prepared lines (or your prepared lines end).  An interesting option would be to allow random selection from your repertoires so you don't have to pick each game, but you also don't get too predictable... 

While it would not only speed up the start of games, the work necessary to set such a thing up and polish it over time would be very useful for keeping things organized if it were set up to allow easy management.  It's too much work to do something like this for each game, but if you could manage and reuse your initial conditionals it would be a really cool feature.

 Beautiful - apsolutely stunning!

Conditional Moves are a great feature, I think, but I do find it slightly rude if players use it for more than 2 moves.  I think that that is not very good manners.

OG

'Being offended by conditional moves is ridiculous. Repeat after me, kids: ri-di-cu-lous.'

Repeat after me: NO IT IS NOT. Conditional moves take all the fun out of online chess against a real, live opponent. Firstly, because they make me feel like I am playing a computer. Second, because they sometimes force a move where another would have been more effective (yes, this happened to me). Third, I do not understand people who say it speeds things up. I am playing chess, not PSP.  A game of online chess depends on an immensely complicated set of factors that should not be circumnavigated by a 'conditional move'. Lastly, and most importantly in my view, conditional moves are wrong because they limit your freedom, and that should never be allowed to happen in chess.

Huh?    How does it do that?  Conditional Moves don't force you to make a certain move, your position forces you to make a certain move. 

If I put someone in check, and I know they only have 1 or 2 options to respond with, I am going to program in conditional moves for both possibilities.  This is because in making my move (to put them in check), I've already thought out how the next few moves might play out, and I'm going to enter all those possibilities now before I forget and/or have to re-examine the position and figure out a move that I already figured out.  I've got enuf things to do, I don't need to be doing them twice.

Also, in the openings, conditional moves are great because there's only a few different ways that certain lines play out, and you may as well program your moves in ahead of time and skip to the good part.  Of course there have been plenty of times where I'll program in a long line of moves for the opening, and my opponent takes me somewhere new early in the line.  At that point you simply look at where they went different, and adjust your game plan accordingly.

I use conditional moves at every stage of the game (openings, midgames, and forced mates).  I never take offense at anyone who uses them on me (in fact sometimes, my move is so obvious that I wonder why they didn't), and I don't understand how anyone can take offense at someone else using them.

After 2.5 years, the tempest in the tea pot rises again...  Sigh...

I don't think conditional moves run into ettiquette, really. But I would never program a mate into a conditional, I like delivering mate myself! It also might come across as a bit insulting to say, "I don't need to beat you in person, my conditional moves will do away with you!" I like it to be a little bit more peronal.

If only we had an option that said: "don't tell me if my opponent's moves are conditional", then sensitive souls need never suffer.

Yeah, but would it not be a bit obvious when the opponent's move is made immediately after your own?