What level of assistance so you use?


Mate on h7! My grandson played non-stop for three hours yesterday. Usually he plays level 3 assistance against my no assistance and clobbers me. We played one game even and it was much harder for me to beat him. His game is improving!

My wife uses level 3 against my no assistance and beats me also.

What do you folks like to use for settings against family and friends who aren’t experienced chess players?

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It really depends. I tried all sorts of settings with my 6-year-old. Against AI and 2-players, with and without assistance, with and without hint limit. I ended up finding assistance distracting for her. She has to multitask thinking all blue means she reached the hint limit. Or red might mean an incoming checkmate in five neither me as player 2 nor her would see, leading her to make green moves without consideration for the following moves, or disregard any red, even blunders, as “meh the computer must see too far”. I guess at an older age she could integrate the learning value of assist, but right now, at her developmental level, it’s more of an instant reward or a crutch. So we ended up disabling it all and she’s not looking back. She did the same with ChessKid. She either soloes a bot around her level or we alternate turns cooperating against a bot between our levels, without assist.

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I’ve found that full hinting for my grandkids doesn’t really help them to learn. They just touch every piece until they find the right move. The new hint limiting feature would make a real difference I think but the last time I played with my 10-year-old partner he decided he didn’t want any hinting at all and it was a fun game.

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Thanks for the insight. I think I see improvement in our grandson, but I don’t know if that’s from his home schooling chess club or playing the bots. I’ll keep an eye on if it becomes a crutch.

Thank you! I hadn’t thought of using the hint limit that way.

At the moment, when the hint limit is set, every touch of a piece reduces the amount of hints, even if it is not possible to move that piece. For example at the starting position as soon as you touch Q, K, R or B, the limit counter goes down, even as there is no legal move with those pieces. Limit counter should only go down, if you touch a piece that has a legal move. Maybe that could be added to the todo list for future updates. Should not be a huge deal to do.

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I agree with you and in the meantime I can understand the idea between decreasing the count if there is no legal move. It forces your opponent to think a bit before touching a piece. It bothers me so much when my kids are touching pieces which can indeed not move (not speaking there is no legal moves because of an ongoing check for instance but common…) What’s the point of touching one of your bishop at the first move, makes no sense, you need to learn and if you try, you may try once and then will realize it’s unnecessarily costly to do that.

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Ever watched Magnus Carlsen play over the board? You can bet he will for sure touch his Bishops, as well as every other piece in the starting position before he makes his first move. :joy:

To be serious, of course it does not really make any sense besides adjusting the pieces and it is not that important. I just think it does not make sense to decrease the amount of hints for touching a piece that has no legal move.

Speaking of assistance/hints… Why once you reach the hint level and move the piece the square still flashes with the hint colour after its moved?

Is this intended?

Maybe it’s inteded. Makes somehow sense, because so you get a confirmation if you found a good or a bad move.