Well, some here are worried about cheating. I'm worried about my convenience (analysing a few moves in 2 mins instead of 10). If you look at what will hamper people's fun (it's a game afterall) more, I think it's the latter. Especially since cheating (if you want to call it that, i think it's hardly worse than a co-worker walking in and saying 'he, thats a bad move') cannot be ruled out in correspondence chess anyway.
Sorry, but I'm just not that puritanical.
Anyway, what's going to stop someone from setting up the board in an external chess program that will enforce the rules and prevent illegal moves? Frankly, I see no administrable way to make that against the rules (compare that to someone using a chess analysis program to select the best move, which would, theoretically, be detectable). The only difference, then, is that you're annoying people who will do that. Annoyance = a bug, not a feature.
I'm with DeepGreene on this one. For a long time I've wanted an online board that acts more like a physical board than what the Analysis Board had provided. This is a big step forward for the site.
I'm sorry, but I just don't see how the board as currently offered is any worse than a real chess board. I think the danger of mis-clicking is being a bit blown out of proportion.
And dmvdc, a bug is when something is not working as intended, not when it doesn't work as you WISH it were intended. I'm sorry some are annoyed by this feature, but that doesn't make it a bug. Perhaps it could be considered a mistake in direction if the majority felt the way you and DrPhil do, but you'd have to demonstrate that first.
I know what a bug is. I was playing on words/concepts.
I still think the middle position is: make it optional. Or make it optional for premium members. I'd be ok with that. ;)
Yea same thing just happened to me. I was moving my King and accidently captured my own Queen. Beneficial? Really?
I know what a bug is. I was playing on words/concepts.
I still think the middle position is: make it optional. Or make it optional for premium members. I'd be ok with that. ;)
Again, for those who think it should be an option to have a move planner with a legality checker, what do you say to a little icon next to your avatar to show those of us who would meet you in battle that you guys feel the need for a little extra help observing the rules?
I'm thinking something along these lines might be quite appropriate:
I feel that this new development is an improvement. I've always felt that the analysis board in its prior form was a form of analytical help. I have no principal objection to that (in any form), but, since it is site policy to forbid that in general, I see no reason why an exception should be made here.
Most of the arguments against this change (in fact, all I could discern), such as those abbout the misclicks and the losses, are clearly irrelevant, but one is of some interest nonetheless, the argument ("the core of it", as DrPhil erroneously believes) that legal moves are enforced when an actual move is made. Although this argument is also principally irrelevant (when someone points out a flaw, claiming (even correctly) that the flaw is not unique is no defence), it merits some discussion, I feel, because the exception that is made here, i.e. the help that is allowed, can be defended to an extent. In games with a normal time control, it is Fide policy that arbiters are obliged to correct illegal moves if they see them. The chess.com policy is analogous.
I agree that this is in itself hardly convincing; Fide is known for it's many idiosyncratic indulgences (electing its leader from the ranks of cruel tyrants and their associates is among the starker examples), but there is some ground for this particular rule. Allowing illegal move at the discretion of the players involved has chaotic consequences. Should a move like a2-a41/2 (meaning halfway between a4 and a5, a common blitz trick) be allowed? Or placing an extra piece on the board when the opponent isn't looking? There is practical merit to simply not allowing any of that.
A more pricipled defence of enforcing legal moves could be that it is enfocing chess itself; illegal moves are simply not a part of a game of chess. But thinking about such moves (or anything, really) surely can be.
In the end the choices boil down to deciding what type of help we wish to allow. That decision is arbitrary, but it should not be confused by issues of misclicks. I feel that, given the policy not to allow outside help in general, chess.com has struck the perfect balance between that principle and practicality.
On a side note, from the above it should be clear that to allow legal move enforcement in analysis as an option is allowing a form of outside help as an option.The strange situation was that outside help was more or less forced upon you if you used the analysis board.
Edit:
Deepgreene, lol.
...what do you say to a little icon next to your avatar to show those of us who would meet you in battle that you guys feel the need for a little extra help observing the rules?
(1) Chess is not battle. It's a game.
(2) I have no pretensions of being any good at chess. The sole reason I paid to be a premium member: I enjoy playing it. I'm not here to compete, to try to replicate a FIDE tournament experience, to replicate an OTB experience, or anything else. It's online chess, for God's sake. If you want to play OTB chess, turn your computer off, get out of your house, and go play OTB chess. When that's the experience I want, that's what I do. When I want to play online chess, I come to chess.com.
(3) Responding to mathijs' claim that the analysis board was a form of outside help and "given the policy not to allow outside help in general," that the new analysis board matches that policy better, I can only quote the site's statement of policy: The only type of computer assistance allowed is games databases for opening lines in Turn-based Chess and Vote Chess. I think it plain beyond argument that use of a database for opening lines is a much, much more significant form of outside help than an analysis board that disallows illegal moves. In the case of a database, you can literally copy opening lines, find statistics for lines in response to what your opponent plays, etc. With the old analysis board, you simply couldn't make illegal moves. I've only ever used the analysis board for turn-based games, and I've never used a database for opening lines in turn-based games.
(4) I personally agree that the misclick argument is not very compelling. Nevertheless, I still have yet to hear one good argument for why it shouldn't be optional. If you really want your online chess experience to be just like a correspondence game, just like a FIDE tournament with arbiters, just like whatever, that's fine with me, as long as I get the option of refusing those things.
(5) I couldn't find the icon for wanker, so I won't reply to DeepGreene's icon suggestion.
...what do you say to a little icon next to your avatar to show those of us who would meet you in battle that you guys feel the need for a little extra help observing the rules?
(1) Chess is not battle. It's a game.
(2) I have no pretensions of being any good at chess. The sole reason I paid to be a premium member: I enjoy playing it. I'm not here to compete, to try to replicate a FIDE tournament experience, to replicate an OTB experience, or anything else. It's online chess, for God's sake. If you want to play OTB chess, turn your computer off, get out of your house, and go play OTB chess. When that's the experience I want, that's what I do. When I want to play online chess, I come to chess.com.
(3) Responding to mathijs' claim that the analysis board was a form of outside help and "given the policy not to allow outside help in general," that the new analysis board matches that policy better, I can only quote the site's statement of policy: The only type of computer assistance allowed is games databases for opening lines in Turn-based Chess and Vote Chess. I think it plain beyond argument that use of a database for opening lines is a much, much more significant form of outside help than an analysis board that disallows illegal moves. In the case of a database, you can literally copy opening lines, find statistics for lines in response to what your opponent plays, etc. With the old analysis board, you simply couldn't make illegal moves. I've only ever used the analysis board for turn-based games, and I've never used a database for opening lines in turn-based games.
(4) I personally agree that the misclick argument is not very compelling. Nevertheless, I still have yet to hear one good argument for why it shouldn't be optional. If you really want your online chess experience to be just like a correspondence game, just like a FIDE tournament with arbiters, just like whatever, that's fine with me, as long as I get the option of refusing those things.
(5) I couldn't find the icon for wanker, so I won't reply to DeepGreene's icon suggestion.
1) Pardon my metaphor. I'm not sure why it matters. Anyway, if anything, games are even more rule-bound than battles, so have it your way.
2) It doesn't matter if you're good or not. I just want a level playing field as regards the aforementioned rules - hence my opposition to an "option" for a "smartboard."
And I do play OTB at least once or twice a week, but I'm not sure why that matters here. Suffice it to say if I whipped out a portable computer and told my opponent that I just wanted to check my plan to see if I was overlooking an illegal move, I'd get some resistance. But I guess you're saying that this is the big advantage of online play - i.e. you can get away with that sort of thing 'cause, you know, it's 'casual' 'n' stuff. (That is, I think, the crux of our difference of opinion here.)
3) Correct me if this is an unfair summary, but you're saying that using an outside source to check for legal moves is nothing compared to using a database. If that's right, then I think you are adding your own interpretation to the rules that effectively changes them. I could argue that it's probably better to consult a database than an engine for advice on a well-known position from early in a common opening line. I might be right. But I'd still be cheating if I opted for the engine.
4) See above re: level playing field. I could buy it as an option that *both* players agree on for a given game, but this is more effort (in my opinion) than it's worth.
5) Ouch. :-)
DeepGreene:
(1) It doesn't really matter. That's just a personal twitch of mine. I grew up around the military. Can't help myself sometimes.
(2) I wonder what your opponent would say if you whipped out a MacBook Air in order to consult with a database because you want to see the statistical breakdown for opening lines in response to his Najdorf. The analogy doesn't hold. Which was my point.
(3) My point was that the rules allow use of a database. If the argument is that the new analysis board is better because it forecloses use of an outside resource, and the chess.com policy is to foreclose use of outside resources to the greatest extent possible, then it makes no sense to allow recourse to databases. Rather, the database exception cuts strongly against the idea that "outside resources" are strictly verboten. It also should clear the air of the "cheating" rhetoric, which is sadly misplaced.
(4) Why is it more effort than it's worth? Presumably it could be implemented with a little check-box or something of the sort on the create game screen. Especially if we're talking about turn-based games. It is probably more trouble than it's worth for Live Chess, given how you have to time it just right to get the kind of game you want to play (Blitz, 5 0, 1100-1400). [That's not a complaint about Live Chess, by the way. :)]
(5) I appreciate that you have a sense of humor. :)
As a general note, I'd just like to say/admit that I see the link between the "smart" analysis board we've had up till today and any activity that could legitimately be called "cheating" as far more theoretical than practical - that is, in terms of how often someone's butt is actually going to be saved by a tip from the analysis board.
I use the heck out of the analysis board, and in some people's eyes, I'm well aware that this makes ME tantamount to a cheater - or at least somehow less 'manly' or honest or [insert your adjective here] as a chess player.
Values are subjective, and I base my notions of right/wrong on seeing e-chess as an online equivalent of (non-engine assisted) correspondence chess. Databases are ok and openings references are ok because they are documents; completely static, any resemblance they bear to the current game is a matter of coincidence or convention. Engines are different, and for the same reason (albeit to a much smaller practical degree) analysis boards that can interrupt your grand scheme with a quiet "you can't do that" are also different.
There are those who think that engine-assisted correspondence play is a fantastic pastime. It's all perfectly arbitrary, and all's fair wherever both players have the same tools at their disposal. But it's hard to argue effectively that today's change does NOT bring the analysis board more in line with the rules that have defined e-chess at this site all along.
Better yet (and I think it's a little tragic this point is getting overlooked here), you can do a lot more with the analysis board than you could before - and that's what folks have been asking for.
lol @ the crutch :)
Deepgreene's response seems quite convincing to me, but I'd like to add a few points.
(2) I don't really understand what you're saying here, but it seems like you're reacting to my argument about a Fide rule that is analogous to a chess.com rule. If so (I'm not at all sure, so forgive if I'm wrong), then you misunderstood the argument. First of all it wasn't about the rule change under discussion, it was about a a case where I consider enforcing legal moves is legitimate, i.e. when actually making a move. Second, although I mentioned the fact that Fide enforces such a rule, I acknowledged that that in itself was unconvincing and I also gave the reasoning behind it, which was legitimate here too. But remember that this argument did not pertain to the general discussion, but rather to an exception.
(3) Although Deepgreene is particularly convincing here, I must admit that I overlooked the fact database use is allowed (silly me, I even use databases extensively myself). But, as I said, deciding what help to allow is entirely arbitrary. There are good reasons for allowing databases (I'll go into them if you like). There are none that I know of for allowing a computer to check your analysis for legality. I think that once you realise that that is what the old analysis board did, helping you (incidently, in a rather lame way, as pointed out by Deepgreene), the arguments in favour of it (if any) should in at the very least shift to explaining why such help should be allowed.
(4)It is a rare occasion when one can quote oneself without reluctance:
"On a side note, from the above it should be clear that to allow legal move enforcement in analysis as an option is allowing a form of outside help as an option.The strange situation was that outside help was more or less forced upon you if you used the analysis board."
Edit:
Please forgive my slow reaction time. My respone should be read right after deepgreene's numbered response (hope that is clear).
About the new info, I think the following should suffice:
(2) The analogy doesn't hold, nor is it used, not in this discussion.
(3) my point seems more apt now.
My analysis board doesn't work at all. I open it, but there's no 'analysis' button that makes it tell me the best move. It's like I'm expected to analyze my own moves or something...
I think I misunderstood the argument about allowing the old analysis board as an option. I suppose you mean that if both players agree to it beforehand, it should be allowed. I agree with that, in fact I feel that it should be the case for any rule you can think of. Computer use, allowing castling when in check, let the queen make knight moves also... The list goes on. Of course some of these would require some work by chess.com programmers. I cannot judge what is feasible here, but I feel that allowing the old analysis board ranks among the sillier requests. But if they'll do it, you've got my blessing (whether you want it or not).
Neospooky... you made me lol. How dare you.
There is still no GOOD reason why we shouldn't have the choice. I appreciate the amount of time and effort that goes into making chess.com better, but it shouldn't be too hard compared to all the other amazing functions of chess.com!
And since 2 pages of argument has ended up fruitless, whatever is wrong with it on moral terms?
OG
It's really strange that the argument is missed time and again. Both DeepGreene and I have gone into this. I'll summarise my point of view:
If by having the choice you mean that a player could decide for himself whether or not to use the "smartboard", then that is allowing outside help (and a rather silly form of it). Whether you want that or not is arbitrary; it is site policy not to allow it and I feel that allowing only this weak form of help would be silly.
If by having the choice you mean that players could agree to allow the "smartboard" for a particular game, then there is no principal objection. Players can agree to whatever they want - not using the a-pawn, not occupying the c3 square,... - it's just that it needs to be implemented. I personally have no need for such a feature, but if people want it and chess.com programmers find the time, then they have my blessing, as I said.
I didn't even know this had been changed until I read this topic. Finally I can set up fantasy positions. Go Chess.com, keep the good work coming.