Please explain someone!

I just joined chess dot com.  I am not impressed.  The basic rules do not cover the basics.  The whole site quickly jumps into a shorthand script with numbers, letters and X's etc. that are not always intuitive or make immediate sense with no place anywhere to access any explaination for how it works.  A beginner is assumed to know the shorthand without being told, even though the rules and basics tell you obvious things like what checkmate means.  I tried dozens of key words in the search to no avail.  If chess dot com is not willing to offer beginners access to how your coding works in detail, what good are you?  Isn't it a stupid thing for a site to expect beginners to know this and not give any explanation or acess to explanation?  Steve

Steve, sorry to see you are so upset. you could for starters go to the Learn tab . Here, follow this link :

http://www.chess.com/articles

As for chess.com itself, there is always a way to find out things.

to be easier, I will challenge you to play and we will be able to chat in the game.

greetings.

This is a commonly used notation throughout chess, not just chess.com.

Here is a good place to learn about it on chess.com:

http://blog.chess.com/seraphim407/learning-algebraic-notation

Search for notation.

I disagree, I think the site is very easy to navigate, with most options being in several places and given clear and descriptive names.

In reference to the trophy issue, there's a huge clickable bit of text saying Give a Trophy displayed on the game screen when the game is completed. Going to the online chess screen allows you to see previous games and you can go back in and give trophies that way if you clicked away from the game, or you can do it from the trophies page.

Issues like this are mostly solved by a little exploration, and Eric has done a fantastic job of welcoming newer people to the site. Chess notation is not needed for newer chess players wanting to use the site, and so isn't held in the basics, a quick google of chess notation would give you the answer, or even using a well-known online encyclopaedia which comes in a variety of languages.

I don't understand where you have found notation that isn't shown with a game box unless it's with analysis in forum topics, but I'd be quite happy to explain it to you via messaging if you are still troubled after looking up google or the other particular site I mentioned.

If you're really having that much trouble starting out, find "50 chess games for beginners" in whatever search engine you use.  It seems to be geared towards absolute newbies.  It's done by Ian and Douglas Macgregor, and is VERY easy to follow.  After a few hours there, you should be fine here.

The site map is very extensive and there is a link to it ... browse the site ... in the new, shorter, friendlier text on greeter games.

CHESScom: You have been matched to play with artfizz, a volunteer Chess.com Greeter.

Your opponent might not be online right now! This kind of chess is called "turn-based" and is a little slower than regular chess, but your Greeter has been notified and will make their reply move soon! They can then answer any questions you might have about Chess.com.

After you make your move feel free to browse the site - you will automatically get an alert when your Greeter has moved!

Want a faster game? Try Live Chess!

To send a message just type in the field below and hit Enter.

The following will answer all your questions regarding rules/basics/notation:

http://www.chess.com/learn-how-to-play-chess.html

It can be found by hovering the cursor over "learn" (top green bar, left hand side), then selecting "rules and basics" from drop-down menu.

The way I approach a new site is to subject anything I like the look of (a word, a picture, a symbol), to the following process:

1. Hover cursor above (maybe drop-down menu).

...nothing happens

2. Left click it.

...nothing happens

3. Double left click it

if nothing happens again, then there probably wasn't a link.

Site navigation depends upon exploration... c'mon fellah! click about a bit!

hey artfizz, glad you posted ! can you please tell me how to find this "browsing site " page by myself ? Although I have been here for a while, I don't always check the novelties . Please be so kind as to show me. I want to know , so that I can show other newbies here in the future. Thanks.

METHOD 1: At the bottom of EVERY PAGE that you can look at on chess.com, there is a link to it. 

It's the one labelled Site Features. 

METHOD 2: Click on the CHESS.COM Play Learn Share logo at the top of the page. This takes you to the chess.com homepage. In the address box of your browser, it will show the page address as http://www.chess.com/

Change this to http://www.chess.com/sitemap.html (by adding sitemap.html on the end) and press ENTER.

METHOD 3: Type sitemap into the Help box at the top right hand corner of any chess.com page. Click on the Search button. Click on the first item that is returned in the results list. It will take you to the site map.

puzzle look

thx for the tips artfizz

thx to you , now I know how to get back to chess. com's home, which was a mistery to me. up until now.

The green command toolbar on chess.com that appears at the top of every page

is fantastic for providing access (via dropdown menus) to virtually all of the site's facilities.

The links at the bottom of every page, however, are virtually invisible. Very few people are aware of them until they are pointed out by someone else. There is seldom a need to scroll to the bottom of the screen. Would it be a good idea to provide a copy of these bottom-of-page links as a dropdown menu to a new command toolbar item EXTRAS at the TOP of every page - alongside PLAY LEARN READ etc. ?

Art didn't write that, I did.

p.s. Glasses, ever use them? if so, when?

EDIT:     (just in case).

I think the site is easy to understand etc, but may be not for an absolute beginner.

May be could have a link called "Beginner" or "Beginner's  info" on the same place on every web page (at the top or bottom) which when clicked displays a context sensitive help info page for that particular web page. The help page could also give an index of all beginners help links info available at the bottom of the help page eg "Rules of chess" "Chess notation" etc.

you need to learn the basic notation....

notations are used for recording in tournaments I mean recording the moves in the tournament

youo just need to follow the numbers and letters in the board!

This seems like a GOOD IDEA to me.

The original poster SteveAdams enquired about algebraic notation - which someone new to chess might well not be familar with - or even know what it's called. People (via the forums) are a great source of answers to fuzzy questions - easier to use than FAQs or Help files.

paul211 enquires about browser facilities. There are many layers of subsystems that we have to use in order to play chess on chess.com - most of which are nothing to do with chess.com itself. It's a big ask for the chess.com website to provide guidance on EVERY aspect of PC use: operating system, editing, graphics files, utilities like Word, connection speed, browser caches, etc. Fortunately, the chess.com community is a friendly bunch and - whatever the problem (be it computational, psychological, educational or motivational) that is preventing someone from enjoying a rich chess experience - some other chess.com member somewhere always seems prepared to pitch in and help.

These features vary from browser to broswer. I use mainly Google Chrome.

The TAB control (shown circled in red) is always directly accessible - no need to do CONTROL and T (as in Firefox and Safari). Internet Explorer 7 has a similar mechanism to Chrome for opening a tabbed window. I would use a tabbed window for running Game Explorer alongside an existing game. The Analysis Board and Conditional Moves board open their own floating windows - so a tabbed window does not apply there.

BEFORE clicking on any link, I consider whether the newly opening window should replace the existing one. If I don't want it to, then I right click, and choose: open link in new tab (or open link in new window). Otherwise I left click. I COULD set my browser to ALWAYS open a clicked link in a new window - but that is not generally the behaviour I want.

Regarding PRINTING: Let me guess that you are using IE7 (though you might be using IE6 which is quite different). There is a PRINT icon (a picture of a printer) to the right and above the main displayed page. File -> Print also works.

SAVE: It all depends what you are trying to save: an image, some text, a link to a page, ...

In summary, if anyone has a problem while using chess.com, by all means post in the forums about it. Use the Help & Support category. Try to give a clue (in the forum title) what the problem is about. Who knows: there may be someone out there just waiting to help you!

There are many different types of object on the site (games, members, groups, articles, photos, forum topics, videos, puzzles, blogs, site information, ...) and, certainly, the various site search facilities have varying degrees of effectiveness.

As far as searching the forums go, some of the blame must be laid at the door of the individual posters. Sloppy titling of topics leads to dozens of topics with the same (or very similar) vague titles e.g. Help!   Help needed   Problem.  It would take an extraordinarily clever search mechanism to cope effectively with that.

Secondly, the site is primarily focussed on providing facilities to play chess. Supplementary features (forum discussions, blogs, sharing photos, organising groups, ...) have to take second place.

Thirdly, Google can be used to search the forums - so chess.com can be forgiven for not wanting to re-invent that particular wheel.

Fourthly, the guy behind the site (Erik) is open to member suggestions for improvements to search facilites (and site facilites in general). However, he does have to weigh up the cost/benefit of each idea - when considering which of the suggestions are, in fact, genuine improvements.

So although the SEARCH facilities are not all they might be, there are often ways to overcome their limitations - provided we can harness lateral/flexible thinking and apply previous experience from other fields.

HAPPY HUNTING!