Yesterday, we told you about the secret command that allows you access a hidden chess game on Facebook. If you haven’t read that article yet, check it out. Today, we’ll look at how you play the game.
Playing commands
To move pieces on the Facebook chessboard, you type in commands via the keyboard, instead of using the mouse. This, in my opinion, makes the game feel even more authentic, especially since you can go back and read through all the moves you and your opponent made. Great for those who are learning to play chess or want to improve their game.
You need to issue the following commands to move the respective pieces: –
K for king
Q for queen
B for bishop
N for knight
R for rook
P for pawn
Easy-peasy. You can easily figure out the position where you want to move a piece by looking at the chessboard grid. For experienced chess players, this should be very instinctive. So the command ‘@fbchess Pe5’ will move a pawn to E5. A command like ‘@fbchess Rhd6’ will move the rook that is currently positioned in column H to D6.
To claim an enemy piece you’d type in a command like ‘@fbchess N3xc6’. This will make your knight that is currently placed in the 3rd row claim the opponent piece in C6. So the command to claim a piece is ‘x’. This might seem tedious at a glance, but given the pace at which most of us play chess, it is not at all so. Besides it allows you to really focus and study the whole grid for the options available to you.
To promote a pawn to queen, we use the ‘=’ command. For e.g. g8=q, will turn the pawn in G8 to a queen. If you want to castle then used the command ‘0-0’.
To undo a previous move (in agreement with the other player of course) you type in ‘@fbchess undo’
Endgame commands
All chess games come to an end, one way or another, and often it is one of the players who initiates it. So if you want to offer the other player a draw then you insert the command ‘@fbchess draw offer’. To claim a draw, for instance in a 3 fold repetition, type in ‘@fbchess draw claim’.
If you are close to losing a game and there is no way to bounce back, then make a graceful exit by typing in ‘@fbchess resign’. The best part is that by typing in ‘@fbchess stats’ you can analyze the stats of the game and try to find something to brag about, even in the case of a loss.
If the chat window gets closed accidentally, or if you want to resume a previous game, then instead of starting a new game, simply type ‘@fbchess continue’ and the previous game that you were playing with the same person will resume from where you both left it.
Heck if you are bored and have no one to play with, you can simply message yourself on Facebook messenger and start a game against your own self. Just make sure that you keep all the commands mentioned above handy or type in ‘@fbchess help’ if you need a refresher.
Facebook chess is without a doubt, a great way to spend time on the social networking site. You can browse your feed as well as sharpen your mind and enjoy a little game of chess on the side. So if anyone says that you are spending too much time on Facebook, just say that you are indeed spending it productively by playing chess.
~ Yogesh