I’m starting a new thread since it was brought up in a different threat that was NOT about premoves.
Using premoves is certainly not cheating. And certainly premove isn’t blocked from some opponents and not others. It’s merely an option a player can turn on or off.
In any event, there’s an inherent risk to using premoves.
Accidentally moving your piece to the wrong square,
Not anticipating your opponent finding a better line that renders the premove a bad choice. -Although it certainly can happen at any stage of the game, it’s more apparent in the endgame when nuances of moves can become critical.
I don’t use premoves personally. It does force me to better manage my time. Although in general I rarely get into time trouble anyway. So it’s fairly rare for me to get into the position where premoves would make a difference in winning or losing.
Well certain sites like chess.com, you have to be premium member. I can see how it’s not cheating, because a lot of my opponents have blundered their pieces against me do to premvoes, especially in 1/0 bullet games when I, let’s say, play unconventional openings…
You can use pre-moves with virtually no risk in some situations.
For example, he attacks your undefended queen with his queen, and you defend your queen with a pawn. It’s safe to pre-move your pawn capturing on the square your queen is now on. If he doesn’t take your queen, the pre-moved move is not legal, and so does not happen.
Pre-moves are not just for online chess. They have long been supported in USCF postal play, in the form of conditional moves. E.g., you might open the game by sending “1. e4” and include conditional moves, such as “if 1…e5, then 2. f4, or if 1…c5, then 2. Nf3”.
One of my friend’s postal games ended quickly when he sent 1.e4 and his opponent responded 1…b6 if any 2…Bb7. That opponent resigned after 2. Ba6 Bb7 3. Bxb7.
Basically, you tell the computer, “If it’s legal, make move “X” after my opponent’s next move, regardless of what he does”. Notice, “if it’s legal”, not “if it’s good”. Why would you do this? In most environments, a premove takes almost no time. Using premoves, you can make ten or more moves while using less than a second on the clock. The risk is that your opponent may do something unexpected and your premove will cost you the game.
If your opponent is close to flagging and you suspect he’s using premoves, often giving check is an effective antidote.
I think it’s like an “if” move in correspondence chess. Especially in the days of chess played by snail mail, it was a useful time-saving device. For example, instead of just moving “5.Nxe4”, you could say “5.Nxe4, and if 5…Bxe4, then 6. Re1”. The opponent was not obliged to play 5…Be4, but if he did, it would save one round trip of postcards. The opponent could acknowledge the past three half-moves and send his next move, e.g. “5.Nxe4 Bxe4 6.Re1 Qd3”.
“If” moves can be handy when the opponent’s reply is virtually forced, but can be dangerous otherwise, especially if you say “if any” instead of “if” a specific move. Jeff Wiewel recently provided an amusing example. White began “1.e4”, black responded “1…b6, and if 2.any, then 2…Bb7”. This allowed white to come up with 2.Ba6, whereupon black was stuck with 2…Bb7, losing a bishop and a rook.
I don’t know about “premoves”, but you can even as a non-premium member on most sites be prepared to play your next move. For instance if you play the Larsen’ opening. After you play 1 b3, you can immediately pick up you Bishop and hold it over b2. As long as you don’t release the piece before your opponent moves, you can reply almost immediately. There might even be a slight advantage over “premoves” as you can always replace the piece/pawn you were planning to move and move something else if you opponent’s move dictates some other action [maybe mate].
This is definitely more prudent than a promove, although it takes more time. Still some risk. More than once, I’ve let the piece hover and then my finger twitched and i dropped the piece even though I knew it was a bad move, but that knowledge didn’t seem to make it to my hand in time.
Huh. Well, that’s new–to me, anyway. That’s something that might work well for someone who can see the results of several possible lines, several moves out…kind of like melange-huffing spaceliner pilots in Frank Herbert’s “Dune” universe. But it’s been decades since I could do that sort of thing. These days I’m a one-move-at-a-time kind of guy.
I remember one match a long time ago where everything seemed just perfect. I planned a series of moves and my opponent just fell into my trap. At the time I felt like I was literally seeing into the future. It was a strange and deeply wonderful moment. The match was against a very pretty girl from East High School in the fall of 1974. I just “saw” every best move she could possibly make, and had my counter planned out even before she extended her hand to move a piece. It was a very long time ago, yes, but one savors one’s glories where one can.
Using premoves doesn’t require that sort of extensive vision. For example, 1 d4 Nf6, 2 c4. Now if you suspect your opponent will play the Budapest (2 … e5), you could set the premove 3 dxe5. There’s no way you can get stung with this, since the only way the move is legal is if your opponent puts something on e5, and in this case, that pawn is all he’s got that can reach that square. Many premoves are no deeper than this.
Not cheating, but certainly, questionable. This goes against the basic
principles of chess–ie, playing with priorities. You cannot know
threats to your king, or opportunities for checkmate, or other
attacks, defenses required until you see your opponents move.
Premoves CAN be questionable, but they don’t have to be. They deal with a facet of the game you don’t mention: clock management. Technically, they’re about the same as “if” moves in postal chess. “If any” can be pretty risky, questionable. “If x” may involve no risk at all, or at least, no perceived risk.
One reason I don’t play with premoves is that on occasion, I’ll get to thinking over the chessboard and not paying attention to the clock. So I’ll try and move a piece thinking he’d already moved. So I’d be stuck with that particular move, having no idea what move he’d be playing.
Many online sites allow you to clear a premove or to make a different premove. I find it easiest to quickly make an illegal premove, which ends up clearing the premove. Of course, if the opponent moves before you can clear or change your premove, then you’re stuck.
All this beckons one question: What were you doing touching the pieces on your opponent’s time? Bad habits, you know… (If you don’t know whose move it is, turn on the volume and move sounds.)
From my experience, premove is only beneficial in the final 5 seconds, or on recaptures, or if the opponent has only limited legal moves (e.g. check).
As I stated, I thought it was my move. Even Bobby Fischer once fondled a piece while deep in thought. In any event, if the internet connection is a bit fritzy, it can be hard to know who’s turn it is without manually typing “time” in the main console.
