turn-based software tells you it's mate BEFORE you submit the move

Has anyone else noticed this? If you have a mate in 1 on a turn-based game, when you play the move, it will show up in the scoresheet as checkmate (#) even before you submit the move. Something about this seems....wrong. I know it's not likely to assist someone because usually when you play a move that happens to be checkmate, you already know it, but it's not entirely out of the realm of possibility that somewhere, someone almost talked themselves out of making a move before they glanced over and saw that it was mate. Thoughts?

i win like that sometimes, but none the less it would have been a good move if it were mate or not.

I suppose there is the possibility of an advantage for the player making that final move, but the crux of the matter is whether or not this is an unfair advantage.  Since this feature is available to all players, it would seem to be fair.  Then again, not everything that seems to be fair actually is ... I am thinking of that famous quote by Anatole France:

The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.

J

I agree, an analysis board for your ongoing correspondence game should give you no hints about the features of the position. Ideally a move list would not even be provided, but I would be content with the moves being supplied with no embellishments (i.e. +, #).

These remarks apply to the game window itself, where only past moves should be listed with those symbols. I say do not even list the move you are about to play until you hit submit.

It also doesn't seem right that the analysis board won't allow you to make an illegal move.  That can be big hint in some cases.

^^^ That is true. Still not sure about I feel about that. On another site I played on, the analysis board not only doesn't let you know if a variation leads to mate; it doesn't adhere to the rules of chess. You can move the pieces around any way you wish. It behaves exactly as if you had a physical board set up in front of you, which I think is preferable.

Edit: actually the more I think about it, the more I don't like that the analysis board knows the rules of chess. Imagine that you're trying out a continuation that's about 4 or 5 moves long. You think it's a sound one, until you try to make a recapture and the board won't let you. Then you realize it's because the piece you're trying to make the recapture with is pinned. So you reject that line. Should the software itself really be able to stop you from blundering like this? I realize that one of its purposes is so the player can perform a blunder-check, but shouldn't it be up to the player to realize, by himself, that the line he is about to play won't work because one of the moves is illegal?

The result of removing an illegal move check would enable one to send an illegal move to your opponent.  What then happens to the game annotation listing at the end when there is a controversy over a position and disagreement over a result?  Does the person making the illegal move lose automatically?  Does the resulting illegally-obtained position become a "legal" position for continuation?  Can a king remain in check while the game goes on?

Interestingly, I drew a recent OTB game when I was "forked" by an illegal knight move.  I had looked away from the board to record my move on my scoresheet when my opponent slammed his knight down on a square and joyfully called out "FORK!" which lost my queen and forced a "draw."  Onlookers and the TD saw the ruse but were prevented from interfering or commenting according to USCF rules.  I was so shocked that I never even considered it to be an illegal, just that I had somehow overlooked the fork due to fatigue although I was sure I had accounted for that possibility.  I agreed to a draw and then was advised that the position was illegal.  Going back over the game showed the knight move was illegal.

So the rules are clear in OTB tournament play.  I don't have a rule book, so I have no idea how that would be handled if a middle-game position is mis-handled.

If your opponent had accidentally made an illegal move and you didn't notice it, the TD could do nothing.  In this case your opponent did the illegal move on purpose which is cheating.  The TD should kicked him out of the tournament and forfeited all his games.

It was my fault for not even considering that it was illegal.  It was a long, drawn out endgame, last round of a long day, last board unfinished, very short time on the clock (G60/d5) etc. and a crowd of players standing around waiting for results.  The real problem is whether or not it was intentional.  I can't think it wasn't, but how to prove it...

In the end, as with any loss, I learned something.  First, double check your move and your opponent's move.  Don't trust anyone to play fairly even though "cheating" in OTB play is most improbable.  If you think a position has been altered, recheck your scoresheet.  There simply wasn't time on the clock to think of all those possibilities.  But you can bet it will never happen again, and it cost me a pile of rating points since he was a very low rated player.

The question, however, is to what extent should online chess UCI's check for illegal moves and/or display of consequences such as check and mate.  In long games, it is virtually inceivable that any player would miss a check or mate in one, so I think it's probably a good idea in order to maintain order and fairness.

At the Gibraltar Masters in 2005, SuperGM Alexei Shirov was playing against Canadian GM Kevin Spraggett.  It was Shirov's turn to move, move 33, and he had sunk deep into thought staring at the board.  When Spraggett extended his hand in resignation, Shirov looked surprised.  "You have mate in two," Spraggett pointed out.

Here's Nigel Short allowing mate in 1, just a year before challenging Kasparov for the world championship.

It is technically "outside assistance", and as a matter of principle it should probably be removed from the analysis board as well (and the conditional moves board while we're at it), but I really don't see it as a material problem.

I haven't yet woken up this morning, I was trying to figure out how black had a mate in 2 until I realized it was white's turn.

You misunderstood. I'm not talking about removing illegal-move checks from the actual interface where you enter your move and click "submit". That would not be workable. I'm only saying it should be removed from the analysis board. You should just be able to move the pieces any way you wish, and it should be up to you to know whether a certain continuation results in an illegal position or not.

I do agree that it's not a matter of fairness because it works the same for all. But I also think that "no outside assistance" means "no outside assistance".

VANCE917 is telling as it as==Turn based soft ware is ilegal

It never happened to me the way you put it, i always had to summit the move, and later i would received a message telling me i had won the game...never before, wich is of course the way it should be; though lately i have been not even receving the alerts whenever i win a game...too confussing, man... i am now even mixing the concepts of win and loose, and the purpose of man here in Planet Earth...staff should be working on this right now...(seriously)