I would really like to use my DGT board on chess.com. I keep waiting for them to add that feature, but obviously they still haven't.
Being able to use a DGT Board
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It would be really helpful if a member of Chess.com staff could give their opinion regarding the use of dgt boards, and whether it is feasible for Chess.com to be adapted to allow the use of dgt boards when playing games on this website.
What's a DGT board?
A DGT board is an electronic chess board (manufactured by DGT) that looks like an ordinary nice wooden board and set of pieces, but it recognizes which pieces are on which squares and transmits that information to the computer. If you google "DGT board" you will find lots of info about it.
Oh... thanks for the info, Mr. Worm
yes, I would liker to use the dgt chess board on this site.
being a software engineer myself I'd say it's not feasible to integrate it with the chess.com website directly. The only solution that would be the most likely candidate if I were to attempt something like this would be to develop a seperate application for the windows desktop, have it run on your own computer and then integrate that application with the backend of the chess.com website/portal.
However to me this is at best a niche item/development that would only benefit a very small portion of the total chess.com website, and for that reason alone it's not feasible.
There are plenty of other features that would not require the creation of entirely new technology when those new features could be integrated directly into the platform chess.com has already developed directly.
What makes chess.com work so well is how simple it is. You jump on the website, you play without downloading/installing software directly, the chess.com devs will surely stick with that stragety.
Chess.com software development is pretty slow. Just now, there are no Live Chess tournaments, or Live Chess for iPhone/iPad, for example.
It's a pity, but I think we will never be able to use DGT boards in Chess.com.
I asked Erik (Eric?), the main boss, if/when we would get to see DGT board support. He said it is so far down on the priority list that it will never happen. :-(
His response is on the chess.com video from 13Sep2011 toward the end (but before Danny and David start playing bullet chess games) in case anyone wants to see it. The recording hasn't been posted quite yet, so I can't give you a time index.
Sorry for the bad news.
pity :(
What are your DGT board experiences? Can you recommend it or do you think it’s just a very expensive chess set without much practical use?
I'd love to be able to use the dgt board on chess.com as well. It is a wonderful tool for live games over 15 min/game/player long, preferably even longer. It is useless in bullet or blitz and i don't think it is of any use either in turn-based chess. So if you like to play slow live games and are sick of looking at a computer screen all day, then you'll enjoy the dgt board. But until chess.com integrates it, you've got to get an account on chessbase.
You can also use the DGT board against a human opponent. If you like to record your games but are too lazy about doing it on paper (or if you tend to make too many mistakes on your scoring sheets), plug in you dgt board and it will automatically record your games (roughly 500 moves) into its internal memory. A little program called queen 5 which runs under Windows allows you then to retrieve the games as pgn files.
Thank you! It’s on my wish list for quite some time, was just looking for arguments not to buy it ;) But I have to admit they are beautiful and much more pleasant than on-screen chess. They also seem to be great tools for game analysis.
You can use DGT board in FICS and ICC too... It's great for long games!
I have a DGT Board. I have own one for about 5 years now. At First I was hesitate because of the price, but once I received I will never go back to playing internet or computer with a mouse. I started playing on Fritz and Playchess.com. On playing chess.com I play 16min time controls, I also play on FICS 15 min time control and dasher the computer opponents only. There are people who spend a lot of money billiards table and swimming pools and cannot or do not use them everyday or even weekly. Since I purchase my DGT e board I use it constantly. First thing I do not play any games faster than 15 minutes.. trust me a 15 minutes per side is faster that what most people think, the slower time controls that better the moves, second with the board no more mouse slips.. I love the feeling of Over the board play with wood pieces with nice size board. I the DGT E-board along with several GUI list below is chess heaven. This is the best of both worlds.
DGT E-board Dim: roughly 22 x 22 (inches) I think the king is 3.5 Height
In short DGT E-board is great size, and the pieces good height and weight
DGT e board with Babaschess GUI (FICS) works outstanding--- rating 5 stars
DGT e board with Fritz/Playchess.com works-- great rating 4.5 stars
DGT e board with Dasher GUI (only computer opponents)--outstanding 5 starts
DGT e board with Arena GUI ( engines & FICS) great-- 4.5 could be a five I just need more time to explore.
In my opinion the DGT e board is great investment for playing internet games or chess engines on above mention GUIs.
Someday maybe...it would be great!
Of course id chess.com wants to be the premier chess site it needs to support top end products like DGT boards.
I am reacting to Threebeast...
Its hard to compare overly expensive chess set to pools or billiard table where you can justify the price, but its not able to justify price more than 500 for chessboard with electronic position detection. Its so expensive only because DGT is monopoly in this area. I earn tons of money, i have billiard table myself, and i am big chess fan, but i will never buy electronic board for that price. The same set without electronic capability would cost 20-30% of the price at most and to make it electronic it would not cost much nowadays. Its pretty simple electronics. Why the heck one chessboard with primitive e-functions costs more than a computer ?
I am starting this thread to get an idea if there are people out there that have dgt boards that would like to use them on chess.com, Maybe if there are enough people Chess.com may be willing to add it. So please if you are interested in seeing this feature please post here.