Experiment with responses to opponent's anticipated moves

When it is not your turn you can use 'conditional moves' to experiment with future possible positions but what about when it is your turn?

I would like to try moving a piece and then move my opponents piece in the way I would anticipate they would respond and then experiment with moving my own pieces again in response to their anticipated move so I can see how the board would look if things went in that direction.

I can only do this currently by having a physical board set up that matches the current position of the online game.

Is it possible that such a feature would be considered?

I am not sure if it violates the spirit of the game since part of the chess skill is in visualising the board after future imagined moves in your head so maybe doing it visually and taking the strain off your brain would be considered not fair. I am not sure.

You can open Explorer in a separate window.

Oh right so I guess that is the 'analysis' button.

That seems to provide the facility to do the experimentation I was talking about.

I thought that button was for resorting to computer analysis (cheating!) so I never pressed it (I am to honest to do such a thing!)

So is using the 'analysis' button for visual experimentation with future positions considered semi-cheating? since you are no longer relying on the limitations of your minds eye - which would be the OTB skill required.

I wasn't referring to the analyze button, rather Explorer, which you can find under the Learn menu.  It doesn't provide analysis.  It just shows you the board and a list of common moves from that position.

Thanks. That looks like an interesting feature which I will explore some more.

I was not looking for suggestions on moves. Just wanting to use a play board to visualise the position after a series of anticipated counter moves.

The 'analysis' button seems to do exactly that. It opens a board with identical position and you can then make a sequence of moves and anticipated counter moves.

Curious to know if people consider this cheating since you are getting visual help with seeing the board in a future position instead of having to imagine it with your mind's eye?

Every time I click on analyze, it starts analyzing the game, which is something I definitely don't want while playing.  Is there a way to disable that?

As for Explorer, it's not showing anything that isn't public knowledge, it's not providing any analysis.  I certainly don't think it's cheating when playing against the computer, which has all that information programmed into it.

Is playing around with various conditional moves considered cheating?

Well that is another very similar question to my question although you aree committing to moves in that case so not quite the same. But the essence of the question is still there.

Obviously if you are imagining future positions in your head that is exactly like playing OTB so certainly not cheating.

But using a visual mock-up to actually see the imaginary future position clearly gives you a major advantage over trying to see it in your mind's eye as any threats and opportunities are much clearer with the actual future board position in front of your eyes.

So is that cheating when playing daily chess against an opponent in a rated game?

When I click 'analysis' during a daily game in progress it brings up a copy of the board with the move sequence notation for past moves and it gives me the opportunity to step through future moves manually where I move the pieces for myself and my opponent in turn.

It does not give me any analysis of the strength or weakness of past moves. It does not suggest any future moves.

OK. That's definitely better then. Cool.

I do this all the time, and I don't consider it cheating. But it certainly gives an advantage over those who don't use this feature.

They wouldn't put an analysis button there if it is cheating