I guess we could use this thing:
http://www.chessvideos.tv/chess-diagram-generator.php

Or this one, which generates a unique URL. I guess we could take previous positions more easily that way:
http://www.jinchess.com/chessboard/composer/

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be immersed

Kirby, I'll be completely old-school and just use screenshots.
Too bad my ancient set (from Borders!) is buried somewhere in the garage, and missing a pawn or two. Just some iOS app screenshots.
(more fun than algebraic)
(Ugh. iOS gives a .png file; forum complains it's not jpg... )

OK. I guess you can start the thread - probably in the Off Topic forum. White goes first in chess, right?

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be immersed

Kirby, yes, starts. If daal minds we can move, later.

Ah! If I don't crop, L19 takes it!

While I am amused that I've inspired other go players to play a game of chess, I would appreciate it if you did it in a separate thread - I think there's still more to talk about here.

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Patience, grasshopper.

Sounds like a plan. I didn't initially intend to do something on L19 - I meant to play on a server or something with someone I knew from the forums.

We could make an off topic thread on L19 to play like a Malkovich like game, but maybe that would be a turnoff to go players on a go forum

Not really sure - just interested in playing someone I know, since I'm a total noob.

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be immersed

daal, Thanks.

I just tried this out. It is indeed a great feature. I particularly liked that during the learn-from-your-mistakes part - the computer would let me try and find a better move for one of my bad ones, and after my attempt it would evaluate it and then, nodding it's head sadly, would say: "you can do better."

I suppose that what's keeping go servers from implementing such a feature is that:

a) It takes longer - stockfish had analysed the whole chess game in about a minute.
b) It requires more resources - leela makes my computer go red in the face. It would probably be quite a burden on a server to handle hundreds of such requests. Or not?
c) Go is less clear cut. This one is up for discussion. Stockfish presents its analysis verbally. It considers a move to be either a blunder, a mistake, an inaccuracy or good enough (I haven't yet seen it praise any of my moves). I guess a drop in winrate by x points enough to call a move in go a blunder, but what about moves that are less than x? Are they wrong? Does it depend on the level of the opponent? For example, if I make a move that will result in a winning position for my opponent 20 moves down the line assuming perfect play, is it still a bad move?
d) Licensing?

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Patience, grasshopper.

Someone just made a start of something like this for go: http://racetam.com/lzproblems/.

Nice to hear! I guess go is not that far behind.

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Patience, grasshopper.

Oh yeah, resources are definitely a major issue. As you point out, we're not anywhere close to having programs as strong as Stockfish that can run easily and quickly on basically any hardware (I think Lichess runs Stockfish in the user's browser, so the server itself isn't doing the analysis, but I'm not sure). Hopefully one day!

I think it might be possible to adjust for the greater degree openness of Go by tuning the problems so that it's somewhat generous about what counts as a good enough answer, and of course, if it does the analysis of any suggested move, this means that moves it didn't consider but which actually turn out to be good on analysis, will still be allowed as correct answers.

And even in Stockfish's case, it's not perfect. In losing positions, it tends to recommend very defensive moves that are likely to prolong the inevitable, rather than moves that complicate the position but are refutable. The latter are what you are likely to want to play against human opponents, since if you are losing significantly, your best hope is to start complications and try and outplay your opponent.

On the two chess websites I've tried, lichess and chess.com, neither of them seems to have a system in place for reviewing the game afterwards online with your opponent. Am I missing something? If not, it seems a bit of a shame, as talking about the game afterwards has a lot of benefits. In general, online chess feels a bit more impersonal than online go (chess players apparently never say "hi," "thanks," or much of anything when playing online. I guess online chess opponents are a bit more expendable...

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Patience, grasshopper.

I am almost certain that lichess doesn't; I don't know about chess.com.

ICC has this but it's kind of the KGS of chess servers (once the leader but hasn't kept up with the times) and also costs money.

I think one thing with chess is that mostly people play very fast games (by go standards) and don't want to spend more time reviewing than playing, especially when many of the mistakes are blunders you wouldn't make in a slow game. There also may be less of a review culture online because it's so easy for both players to go back to their corners and instantly get a computer analysis, so there's less point in "Did you consider this move?" "Yeah, but I thought you would have done this" "Oh, ha, I didn't even see that" sorts of conversations. Live postmorts after tournament games, on the other hand, are very common.

I've been playing online chess since 1994 (back in the days of AICS and EICS - American and Euro Internet Chess Servers, respectively).

It's a sad reflection of a common mindset among chess players that saying "thanks" is often seen as being shorthand for "thanks for the ratings points, sucker" when you win. And, given that 3 0 and 5 0 are popular time controls, nobody wants to spend a few precious seconds typing a greeting.

Still, there ARE many nice people to be found, too. A good way to make friends on chess.com is to compliment your opponent on a sweet move after they've beaten you. Also, you can make a kind comment on their bulletin board in their profile. Since posting abuse is a lot more common, you'll stand out for the right reasons if you say something kind!

I don't see why you can't love chess at the same time as loving go. I find both games enthralling. I've never been able to get into shogi or xiangqi (Chinese chess), but I'm sure they're terrific games as well.

chess.com is absolutely superb. If only a go server would appear that combined its many virtues: clean interface, easy customisation, ease of finding opponents of any level, news, chess TV, and instructional material for players of all levels of ability. If you want to play me there, I am "Gemella".

What do I like about chess: number one, the fact the pieces can move. The fluidity of the game can be incredibly exciting.

My tip for getting stronger at chess: study endgames, because that teaches you the unique properties of each piece.

Congratulations on taking up chess. It has been a lifelong friend to me, and you'll really enjoy meeting Tal, Nimzowitsch, Kasparov, Nezhmetdinov (THE fiercest attacking player ever) and all the others.

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Learn the "tea-stealing" tesuji! Cho Chikun demonstrates here:

I remember that when the game tended to become locked between two players who knew how to play positional chess, I lost interest. It's precisely the freedom and the resulting fluidity of Go that made me fall in love with it.

Then I learnt shogi and its reinvestment of captured pieces: a marvel!

Well, I haven't played a go game in about a month and I haven't missed it. I have played quite a few chess games and although I won't make a final verdict, it turns out that there are a ton of things that I like more about playing chess than playing go.

First of all, I haven't once gotten angry with myself. This is a big deal for my personal well-being. When I play go, I regularly get furious at myself. I recently told this to a friend who was dumbfounded and asked: "why do you play it then?" I didn't really have a good answer. I said that I liked the fighting element, but that's only half true. I like the exhilaration during a fight, but I don't enjoy getting outfought. Usually the result of getting outfought is that I feel bad about myself, and who needs that?

I'm not sure why this hasn't happened yet with chess, but I have a few theories. One is that chess games are just shorter. This seems to have the effect that I don't feel so invested in the game. When I lose, I run the game through the computer, see what I did wrong and go on to the next one. This is what I think I ought to do when I lose a go game, but reviewing is so much more work, and more often than not, I can't figure out what I did wrong anyway. Another reason is that I'm still a beginner, and I am not faced with a wall that I can't overcome. Actually, I find that I am hardly interested in my chess rating. I just enjoy playing. Essentially, the way I have been going about chess is the way I ought to have been going about go: I review my games, do problems, don't care about my rating and I have fun.

Chess also feels less draining. Partially, this has to do with the shorter games. Concentrating and deciding what to do 40 times is less work than doing it 200 times. It also has to do with the smaller board. One doesn't need to try to figure out what "whole board thinking" is. In chess, whole board implications are readily apparent. In general, chess seems more straightforward. Pieces and their qualities are readily identifiable and I find it easier to see what is going on.

Apparently, my years of playing go have helped prepare me to play chess. When I tried playing chess as a kid, much of the game seemed a matter either of incomprehensible calculations or pure luck. Pieces disappeared. Checkmates happened. Now I see weaknesses where pressure can be applied, tactics to gain an advantage, momentum and drama. Go of course has all of these things as well, but it is also burdened with the demand for extraordinary patience and prolonged concentration. Neither of these are my strong suit. With chess, you don't necessarily need to be patient. If you want, you can start throwing your weight around practically from the get go. I've been mostly playing chess on chess.com's "rapid" setting, which is 15 mins each, so games last anywhere from a few minutes to about half an hour. This is fine for me. By the time my concentration lapses, the game is already over.

One last aspect that I want to mention, is that the two games have a different dynamic, stemming from the fact that in go the board gets fuller as the game progresses and with chess it is the other way around. This has the effect that while the games start similarly, often with set patterns, the endings are vastly different. Where a go game typically ends with trying to get another half a point here or there, a chess game becomes all the more exciting as a game progresses, with the pieces getting more room to move and the stakes getting higher. Go doesn't manage to offer anything as final and satisfying as a checkmate.

I hope you forgive me for writing a pro-chess post on a go forum, but most of you know where I'm coming from. It's not coincidence that my longest-lasting KGS nick is "agony." I'm sure I'll find my way back to go at some point, but for now I am quite happy that go has oddly enough offered me a stepping stone to a game that - at least for now - I really enjoy playing.

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Patience, grasshopper.

Welcome to the chess world! It is pretty fun too. I keep meaning to write a long article about the differences between go and chess at some point. You have hit on some of them (the difference between their endgame stages is a big one for sure).

I suspect that a lot of the reason for your lack of stress is the fact that you are a relative beginner in chess, so you are less invested in proving that you have justified the effort you have put into improvement. The bad news is that as you improve, your stress may increase...

I think playing 3-minute 9x9 games on GoQuest is a nice way to get that "I'm just playing for a few minutes to have fun, no pressure" feeling back in go.

By the way, this may sound pretty stupid, but one method of reducing game-playing stress that has worked really well for me is to force myself to smile as I play. It reminds me that I should be enjoying myself.

It's not about Go. At all. It never was.

It might not be about go, but go is what brings it out. There are plenty of things I do that I don't do so well, and none of them make me feel as miserable as when I blunder away a go game. I may have some high expectations, but with other endeavors I am a lot more forgiving with myself. If you are implying (and if you are, I would prefer you said it) that my emotional reaction to failure at go is really about some other failure in my life, then what good is this substitute rage doing me? I think I'm better off without it.

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Patience, grasshopper.

Not necessarily failure, but something else. Something else is the real issue. If the root is uncovered, understood, and if feasible, "dealt with" (e.g. resolved), probably other nice things will emerge.