Conditional moves in daily games are essentially cheating, but easily fixable

Hello,

I had a thought regarding "conditional moves" (CMs) in daily games. If you aren't aware, when playing daily games, you have the ability to predict your opponent's next move(s) and respond to them. It's a great feature for when a series of moves is highly predictable (trades, forced moves, etc) and you want to save some time. However, as implemented it is essentially just allowing the player to cheat. If I'm trying to visualize the board after a predictable line, it takes a great deal of effort to keep all the positions in mind and plan accordingly. Using CMs, I can literally just play the moves and see the board after the line. Perhaps I realize a piece is hanging at the end. At that point, you can simply remove the line from your CM's before the opponent has a chance to play against your line. There is NO penalty.

Luckily, this problem is easily solvable! Simply force the player to "lock in" their CMs. If you enter a CM, it should be treated as if the move has already been played. No takesies backsies!

Here are some conditional-counterarguments:
-I realize that "arrows" could potentially argued as being cheating by the same logic, but CMs are just on another level. Arrows still require a significant amount of visualization.
-If people are going to cheat, well, cheating is trivially easy. But at least if someone is going to set up an analysis board, they KNOW they're cheating. CMs seem gray area, or condoned. I'd never cheat in a game, but I did plot out some moves in CM, realized the line didn't work, and then promptly felt the need to stop using CMs altogether. "Cheating" or not, it feels incredibly unfair as implemented.

-You could argue that both players have access to CMs, so it's not cheating. Well, I didn't actually know CMs were a thing and was going to request it as a feature. Plenty of people don't know about CMs. Technically, both players have access to Stockfish too.

Thoughts?

Daily chess, aka correspondence chess, allows the use of the self-analysis board.

you DO realise that the analysis board doesnt even require conditionals (and it isnt even cheating lol)

if youll be angry, be angry at the right thing

and you cant really ban this sort of stuff coz a) its impossible to detect and b) even removing the inbuilt analysis board... there are many others

atleast adding one inbuilt will make people gravitate towards it (good because it doesnt have engine, and it can save)

But at least if someone is going to set up an analysis board, they KNOW they're cheating

lmao why would chess.com literally include a cheating device in their interface think for a moment 

What chess.com calls daily chess is, in essence, correspondence chess.

In correspondence chess, you are allowed to analyze and move pieces. There is even a feature to do so. It does not take conditional moves to move the pieces.

Correspondence chess is not the same as over the board or internet bullet/blitz/rapid.

It is not cheating.

Yeah, I will admit that I missed the analysis board button entirely. I'm not sure how, I think I thought of it as the engine analysis button that appears after a shorter term chess game ends. In my defense, I also asked my daily chess partner and he was oblivious to the analysis button.

In any case, my argument is unchanged. The analysis board is cheating too*. Saying "it is not cheating" is not an argument.

Why would it not be cheating? If I used an analysis board with the engine off in a 45|15 game, it would be considered cheating, would it not? Why are the rules arbitrarily different because the time constraint is longer?
If Chess.com wants to have a weird separate category of chess where people can use analysis boards or engines or whatever that's fine, but why does "correspondence chess" replace the normal rules of chess if the time constraint is 3 days rather than 60 minutes?
IMO analysis boards and reversible CMs should be opt-in with a notification. As I mentioned, my chess partner also did not know about analysis board. If I were using the analysis board, I would be conferred an unfair advantage. Full stop.

EDIT: *Uhh big caveat. Obviously if both parties are aware of the rules around analysis boards and agree to them, it isn't cheating by any stretch. But it is still odd in any case.

Ridiculous. If the facility didn't exist to experiment with moves in daily games on the server, you'd just set up a real board and do the same.
There's no point in comparing daily games to other time controls, either. They're not the same type of game.

It's uo to you to make yourself familiar with the features of the site.

This is a result of different rules that Chess.com has in place for live and daily chess games.

In Live Chess, you cannot use ANY kind of assistance during your games.

The rules are not as strict for Daily games on Chess.com. You are allowed to use the analysis board, as well as opening books/databases such as the Opening Explorer, to help you make your moves. You still cannot consult other humans, engines, or tablebases though.

You can find more information about that here and here.

The facility doesn't exist to experiment with Stockfish in daily games, so this isn't a very convincing argument...

And it should be clear that I would not do either.

The rule change seems very arbitrary and non-transparent. Again, I believe that these tools should be opt-in, with a notification of the non-standard rules at the start of the game. I'm not sure why that is such a contentious idea...

Saying it is not cheating is a legitimate argument, as is saying that you are clearly clueless as to what Correspondence Chess is.

Also, if you really want to know what TRUE correspondence chess is, go to ICCF.com (INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENCE CHESS FEDERATION).

In REAL Corresondence chess, you can do a lot more than the baby correspondence they have here. In real correspondence, it's 10 moves in an amount of time (usually 30, 40, or 50 days) and whatever time is not used in the first 10 moves carries forward. So if you had 18 days left, and it was 10 moves in 50 days, you now have 68 days on the clock.

Oh, and computers, unlike here, in real correspondence chess, computers are allowed! It's a totally different beast than blitz chess.

Get over it - you are WRONG!

Oh, and you say you using the analysis board would give you an unfair advantage? WRONG AGAIN! They can just as easily use the analysis board as well. As long as the rules are the same for both players, there is no unfair advantage!

Tell me you didn't read to the end of the comment you're quoting without telling me you didn't read to the end of the comment you're quoting.
Anyway, that's all well and good. Thanks for the insightful lesson. Correspondence Chess sounds like an interesting niche, I guess. But why should it stealthily replace actual Chess on a longer time scale?
You all can pretend I'm the only one on the planet that didn't know the rule set is different in Daily Chess, and behavior that would otherwise be considered cheating is allowed in that time constraint. I would wager that you're wrong.

There are some clubs that play Daily chess without any of the allowed resources. If the allowed rules are not to your preference, finding like minded individuals is probably your best bet

The rules are there. If you are too lazy to read them, that's your problem!

You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make them drink!

You choose not to drink, that's your problem!

Your opponent chooses not to drink, that's their problem!

There is no caveat. IT'S NOT CHEATING! PERIOD! Learn to read the rules!

If you go into a bingo hall, do you just assume all games are a straight line? As you are going for 5 in a row, everyone else is going for the small picture frame. You have no idea what game you are playing, that's your problem. Game 6 says "Small Picture Frame", and the announcer says at the start of the game "TED Users click Change Game, 6, Enter. Paper packs gray trim cards. It is the small picture frame. Small frame pays, $300. First number, small frame!" (Ball in the camera for 15 seconds) - (Ball removed) - "G53" - "No B's" (flashes B2 in the camera) - "No O's" (Flashes O75 in the camera) - (N33 ball placed in the camera) - ... (TED = Totally Electronic Dauber, for those who don't play bingo in a bingo hall.)

Everyone else is playing the small frame because they read the schedule sheet and listen to the announcements and observe the rules. You don't do that, tough luck! Your own fault!

I just found a site called www.manners.com - it offers free downloads.

I think the issue here is that you're both talking about different things. You're talking about literal facts (not literally facts, which is the inability of people to post without putting the word "literally" in sentences for no reason at all) whereas BongHito is talking about it from an ethical point of view.

Is it cheating on this board? No it isn't. Is it ethically cheating? Of course it is.

I just looked into this thread as I experienced this move today and I'd never seen it before and didn't know what it was. It was quite insulting, in a way. Not as insulting as you, obviously, but a little. It's like the opponent is saying "Your move was so predictable I couldn't even be bothered to move the piece myself."

Conditional moves aren't cheating legally or ethically. Conditional moves are usually used to speed up the game and in some cases your opponent might set up a line for every logical reply.

Would you feel the same way if your opponent happened to either be on or got on immediately after your move and did their move? It's not really any different.

In this sense, I kind of agree. I should have left more of a gap between points.

I encountered a conditional move for the first time today.

I did not have the first idea what a conditional move is, so I did some research.

My opponent did not inform me he was using these conditional moves in our match.

If an opponent informs me, he or she is using computer assistance or AI to plan moves, then I choose not to play against him or her. I like the old my brain against my opponent's brain matches...

I blocked the player, who was using a CM in the match.

Conditional moves are not computer assistance. The player still have to make the move based on what they think your move will be. They are still using their brains to pick the moves.