Have your say about ChessCube.com

I like the interface and no-nonsense approach to getting a game.
I can login, press seek and i will be instantly playing.

The major problem is the cheats and abusers who use engines. If a per-user banlist was
implemented it would go a long way towards fixing that issue. Right now i have no way
to flag someone as a cheat or simply as a person i don't want to play another game
against in the future.

As the monkey above me said, mobility would be a great feature, and I'd love ChessCube to venture into the mobile world, creating apps for Forza ChessCube.com!

Haha! ..bry, sean called you a monkey

Alrighty, here goes.

LIKES:

1. The speed at which games can be played. Excellent interface and large size is super sweet.
2. Chat rooms are usually quite entertaining...
3. Warzone - good fun to take on loads of people back to back. The no waiting around part is the best.
4. Spectating your mates games, or those of others. I wish one could view even more games though.
5. Ability to change the colour of the board and different pieces. I haven't tried the sounds yet.

DISLIKES:

1. No searching in game history. Would be great to be able to search for games against certain users.
2. Not being able to deregister from a tournament.
3. The lost move bug where you wait for your opponent to move, but it's actually your turn. Refresh usually works but on low time control games you lose on time.
4. Insight for premium users seriously sucks. Seriously. Can't chesscube utilise a decent free engine (like Stockfish) and allow engine analysis of past games where you can decide how deep to analyse and give several options for moves, not just one, and also ratings in centipawns as the game goes along - the full deal?? That would be excellent!
5. I personally think there isn't a huge difference between being a paying member and not. Chesscube needs more incentives. A proper engine analysis would be a huge plus already. The personal stats don't seem to differ whether you're premium or not, even though it advertises as more advanced there is no change or benefit.

Final

I still think Chesscube is the best site to play online chess at. Keep up the great work guys! And keep up the new concepts like Warzone. I'm looking forward to seeing what's next.

LIKES:
1. Awesome chess and networking

2. Best Interface available online

3. Good Management (Tournament, Moderators, etc)

4. Effort in making chesscube better

DISLIKES:
1. Knockout based tournaments. Also there are many tournaments which don't have enough cubits as prizes and crowns for many other time controls.

2. Players are not distinguished based on their rating. Differentiating by some titles would be nice.

3. The current chess piece moving feature involves the pieces to be dragged and dropped. There is also one another mechanism of clicking on the source piece and then clicking on its destination square.

4. Feature to block friend requests.

5. Section for chesscube daily puzzles (Say, initially the puzzle board is invisible. After we start it, its visible and we get some specified time to solve it. Winning would reward us cubits or crowns)

6. More number of free cubits everyday

Hi All,


First I thought of not mentioning my opinion here,But still ....

Likes.


Everything.



Dislikes


NOTHING

the "not being able to switch between monitors" is not to my liking. If I wanted to listen to my music while I play online, is that really cheating!? I know that a lot of other players listen to music while they play so this feature might actually turn off some of those users.

[Sean]

the "not being able to switch between monitors" is not to my liking. If I wanted to listen to my music while I play online, is that really cheating!? I know that a lot of other players listen to music while they play so this feature might actually turn off some of those users.

You're right, it might turn off some users - but others would applaud it, as it's just one of the steps ChessCube is taking to stop potential cheats. If however, you want to have a friendly game and do many other things, then please play UNRATED games. We do not care what software you use during these games and will not force you to resign. We must lock-down rated and tournament games, so please cut down multitasking during those games. We allow you some interaction with other software, so listening to music should not be a problem at all.

Advice: If you're playing music on YouTube or last.fm or any online (or offline, for that matter) service, simply create a playlist before you start your games/tournaments.

Thanks,
Sean

Likes:

1) Crowns! (Haven't cashed out yet, but it's good to know I already can.)
2) Wagering cubits - it's not about ratings anymore.
3) The concept of sit'n'go tournaments.
4) The concept of warzone tournaments - non-stop action, rewarding faster play.
5) All in all the best casual chess server around - has many important features (pre-move, auto-queen, lag compensation, anti-cheating measures, etc.) that really separate the good chess servers from the bad.

Dislikes:

1) The execution of warzone tournaments. The single biggest gripe is the imbalanced points handicap system. It's ridiculous how as of now it's much more rewarding to play at the 1800 level rather than 2300, for example. All it does is alienating stronger players. When the idea is to encourage players of all levels to participate in the same tournament, a much better solution is separate prize categories restricted to players within certain rating ranges.
2) Tournament cancellation. Why sit'n'go tournaments are ever cancelled is beyond me. After all, the idea is for a tournament to automatically start when enough players gather, whenever they gather. Also, even though the situation has improved as of late, it's worth mentioning how annoying it was to wait a few days for some big tournament, only to see it cancelled despite over 20 rather strong players showing up. Another tournament related issue is the inability to withdraw from a tournament.
3) The auto-seek system could always use more flexibility. As of now only the rating parameter is somewhat flexible. Sometimes I have to wait a few minutes before someone accepts a rather specific "rated, 1-minute, 500 cubits, ±300 ratings range" challenge from me, when in reality I'd happily auto-accept any "rated, 1-5 minutes, no increment, >100 cubits, ±300 ratings range" challenge, for example.
4) Ratings system. Bullet, blitz and slow ratings should be separated. On the contrary, there isn't a reason whatsoever for a separate tournament rating.
5) Clumsy design of game database and statistics - mainly the lack of search capabilities whatsoever. Also, there isn't enough variety and detail in the stats.

Likes

1. The board itself is fairly clear and the system of matching opponents works well.
2. The implementation is generally very good (lag, automated crowning etc., openings auto-identified etc.)
3. The chat rooms - an unforseen consequence I'm sure; but these can perform an important community service especially in countries with repressive regimes and social norms, for women for example - chess might appear to be an inoffensive topic!

Dislikes

1.
As I've mentioned elsewhere I intensively dislike the 'wagering' system - I'm sorry to me it's just betting... this is bad because,

a) It's impossible to absolutely prevent cheating with chess engines because of keyboard/mouse interface exploit and worthwhile because you can now make money/crowns/call it what you will.
b) There's a whole new strategy of losing games for peanuts and winning games for crowns - lots of fake games.
c) it encourages children and vulnerable people to gamble ('wager').
d) most importantly, it's contrary to the spirit of the game.

Personally, I'll never wager, which unfortunately means I am excluding myself from all the tournaments as well, but I guess I'm not your target customer anyway.

2. Wish I could just have a simple large screen without all that other distracting stuff cluttering it up.

What I Like:

1.The wide variety of rooms
2.The default board colours
3.The crowns
4.The cubits
5.The different speed times.

Dislikes:

1.No option to play for more than 500cubits.
2. Not a very good enforcement of detecting cheaters(too many sandbaggers everywhere)
3.No sit and go rating restricted crown tournaments.
4.No playing for crowns yet. I understand this may encourage cheating though
5.No separate ratings for bullet, blitz and standard time controls.