Chess

[Cornflower MM]

I'm not either, but the site shows you all the available moves and everything.

[shisteer of nothing much]

Wouldn't that kind of defeat the purpose of the game?

[Booklover]

If it was a chess engine, yes. But I think it just shows you where you can move if you click on a certain piece, it doesn't tell you how good the move is.

[shisteer of nothing much]

Ooooh, okay. That makes a bit more sense.

[Booklover]

I made an account two years ago (on Chess.com) and probably only used it once or twice. Went back on today, changed my username (it is now NotTheOnlyBookworm, which is also my username on a couple of other things), and sent a friend request to anybody who's put their username on here. Anyone want a game?

[Cornflower MM]

Accepted! I'm terrible at chess but next time we're both online I wouldn't mind playing a game, I haven't played in a while. (I'm really bad, though.)

[Booklover]

New ECF grades are out! My standard went up but my rapid went down.

[shisteer of nothing much]

What's a rapid?

[Booklover]

There are different time controls, when you play with chess clocks. Often there's a number of minutes plus an increment (generally an increment is 30 seconds or less). For working out how long you have altogether, it's based on the assumption that a game will last 60 moves (though I think some organisations use 50 moves as the estimate?), so the number of minutes plus the increment times 60.

Rapid is more than ten minutes but less than one hour (I've played a tournament when they made the time control 59 + 10 just to keep it rapid) each.

Standard is anything longer than one hour each. The longest I've ever had is three hours (including the thirty second increment, so could go on even longer) each, which could go on for as long as six hours. Usually games will get adjudicated if they go on for much longer when people are running on the increment.

Blitz is ten minutes or less and bullet is three minutes or less (but based on 40 move).

I prefer long rapid or short standard, anything less than half an hour is too short, for me, although online I generally play blitz. I usually don't write down if it's less than 25 minutes, because then I just get really low on time.

[shisteer of nothing much]

Oh. Honestly, I've never played chess with a timer. I just set the pieces up, find an opponent and play for as long as I need to before I win. (or lose, but I prefer to look at the bright side)

[Booklover]

Or draw.

[shisteer of nothing much]

That too. Generally, if we have to leave halfway through, we see who's got the best/most pieces and decide from that. I don't think we've ever had the same pieces so it normally clears things up.