DGT Board Play on chess.com

Jan 16, 2024 - Still doesn't work right.

Game Video

Hi Hamilton, I watched your video, but it seemed to me that the moves were correctly recognized by chess.com. Did I skip anything? What's the issue?

Look at the end of the match. It won't recognize a move where you place the opponents king in check. Those moves have to be made with the mouse. It also won't recognize the castle.

That's about it and it's a shame chessdotcom won't fix these issues, because it seems so close to being functional.

You probably didn't pick up on the issue due to how I edited the video, but you can hear me saying, "it didn't see that move" multiple times when I place the king in check.

Side note: They have Picochess 3.2 running the DGT Pi/wired 3000 clock on on a Pi 5 and 64 bit Bookworm. That's pretty cool. I posted a video on my YT.

Video

Hi Hamilton, thank-you for your reply; you're right I missed the part where you realize it didn't see the move. Until that point, everything seemed to work fine.

You're right that Picochess 3.2 exists, however Picochess doesn't connect (yet) to any chess server. It's a pity they are not investing time in implementing this feature in Picochess. It it had this possibility, it would be probably the best chess "system" ever. Given how advanced the programmers are with Picochess, I don't think it would be impossible for them to design and implement the connection feature to either chess.con or lichess. Having tons of MAME old engines in Picochess is fun and nice, but having Picochess work with chess.com or lichess would be of a completely different nature!

I noticed there is a "lichess" engine listed in Picochess, however, I'm not familiar with the purpose/functionality. Opinion: Most Picochess programmers are Linux based and the connection drivers are Windows based, so they are not using their boards to play online. Hence, the lack of development in that area.

In a Google Group discussion with the developers, they indicated that the lichess menu option refers to an old functionality (whose aim was to establish a connection to the lichess chess server). Such functionality, however, was pretty buggy (it was not able to correctly handle the time lag between Picochess and Lichess, so that the Picochess user eventually was always losing on time). Since that, nobody tried to fix it. One reason could be the one you mentioned - lack of expertise.

It probably falls on deaf ears, but once again I sent chess.com help desk this message:

The DGT board play option is SO close to being fully functional. Currently, it doesn't recognize the board move on a "Castle" or when the "opponents king is is put in check". The DGT option was fully functional when the menu option "LIve" was available, but suffered some portability issues when it was placed in the main menu.

Hi @Hamilton53, FYI I'm participating in the beta test of a new Chrome extension that connects DGT boards to both Chess.com and Lichess. The extension seems great, I will provide soon more info.

Is this DGT Angel?

No, it's a new one...

Good news... Hope they come up with a solution. Keep us posted.

You bet. Testing is in progress, so it won't take much and finally both chess.com and lichess will be fully supported.

Hamilton, the chrome extension is called "Chessconnect".

You may want to follow this thread, install the extension and use/test it. Please see here: https://www.chess.com/forum/view/chess-equipment/chessconnect-a-chrome-extension-for-chessnut-air-and-chessnut-pro-smartboards

The website where to find all the info is: www.chessconnect.de - The programmer is a very smart, competent and available guy from Germany. From my side I'm taking part of the Beta testing of the new releases, related to the DGT boards.

I don't see a DGT board listed. Is that not an option?

If it is an option how do you use it? I have the extension in Chrome, I have DGT board enabled on chess.com. I don't see "DGT board not found", so it might be seeing it. I have Bluetooth chessnut, millennium selected. Do I need to start the DGTLive Driver software?

DGT support is being released this weekend to the public, please see here:

https://www.chess.com/forum/view/chess-equipment/chessconnect-a-chrome-extension-for-chessnut-air-and-chessnut-pro-smartboards?page=7#comment-99653137

The version I have is a beta version, which already has it, but the developer is releasing the official version this weekend.

I would recommend you start following that specific forum thread, since the main updates/news are discussed there.

Thanks for the update... Looks like it is Pegasus specific. I have a DGT Bluetooth, so I may (for now) be out of luck.