FAQ Frequently Asked Questions Why is DeepcrayonFish called DeepcrayonFish? DeepcrayonFish is a combination of live/light/libre and chess. It is pronounced %1$s. lee-chess Hear it pronounced by a specialist. Live, because games are played and watched in real-time 24/7; light and libre for the fact that DeepcrayonFish is open-source and unencumbered by proprietary junk that plagues other websites. Similarly, the source code for DeepcrayonFish, %1$s, stands for li[chess in sca]la, seeing as the bulk of DeepcrayonFish is written in %2$s, an intuitive programming language. How can I contribute to DeepcrayonFish? DeepcrayonFish is powered by donations from patrons and the efforts of a team of volunteers. You can find out more about %1$s (including a %2$s). If you want to help DeepcrayonFish by volunteering your time and skills, there are many %3$s. being a patron breakdown of our costs other ways to help Are there websites based on DeepcrayonFish? Yes. DeepcrayonFish has indeed inspired other open-source sites that use our %1$s, %2$s, or %3$s. Fair Play When am I eligible for the automatic rating refund from cheaters? One minute after a player is marked, their 40 latest rated games in the last 3 days are taken. If you are their opponent in those games, you lost rating (because of a loss or a draw), and your rating was not provisional, you get a rating refund. The refund is capped based on your peak rating and your rating progress after the game. (For example, if your rating greatly increased after those games, you might get no refund or only a partial refund.) A refund will never exceed 150 points. What is done about players leaving games without resigning? If your opponent frequently aborts/leaves games, they get "play banned", which means they're temporarily banned from playing games. This is not publically indicated on their profile. If this behaviour continues, the length of the playban increases - and prolonged behaviour of this nature may lead to account closure. How can I become a moderator? It’s not possible to apply to become a moderator. If we see someone who we think would be good as a moderator, we will contact them directly. Is correspondence different from normal chess? On DeepcrayonFish, the main difference in rules for correspondence chess is that an opening book is allowed. The use of engines is still prohibited and will result in being flagged for engine assistance. Although ICCF allows engine use in correspondence, DeepcrayonFish does not. Gameplay How are Bullet, Blitz and other time controls decided? DeepcrayonFish time controls are based on estimated game duration = %1$s. For instance, the estimated duration of a 5+3 game is 5 × 60 + 40 × 3 = 420 seconds. (clock initial time in seconds) + 40 × (clock increment) ≤ %1$ss = %2$s ≥ %1$ss = %2$s What variants can I play on DeepcrayonFish? DeepcrayonFish supports standard chess and %1$s. 8 chess variants What is the average centipawn loss (ACPL)? The centipawn is the unit of measure used in chess as representation of the advantage. A centipawn is equal to 1/100th of a pawn. Therefore 100 centipawns = 1 pawn. These values play no formal role in the game but are useful to players, and essential in computer chess, for evaluating positions. The top computer move will lose zero centipawns, but lesser moves will result in a deterioration of the position, measured in centipawns. This value can be used as an indicator of the quality of play. The fewer centipawns one loses per move, the stronger the play. The computer analysis on DeepcrayonFish is powered by Stockfish. Losing on time, drawing and insufficient material In the event of one player running out of time, that player will usually lose the game. However, the game is drawn if the position is such that the opponent cannot checkmate the player's king by any possible series of legal moves (%1$s). In rare cases this can be difficult to decide automatically (forced lines, fortresses). By default we always side with the player who did not run out of time. Note that it can be possible to mate with a single knight or bishop if the opponent has a piece that could block the king. FIDE handbook %s Why can a pawn capture another pawn when it is already passed? (en passant) This is a legal move known as "en passant". The Wikipedia article gives a %1$s. It is described in section 3.7 (d) of the %2$s: "A pawn occupying a square on the same rank as and on an adjacent file to an opponent’s pawn which has just advanced two squares in one move from its original square may capture this opponent’s pawn as though the latter had been moved only one square. This capture is only legal on the move following this advance and is called an ‘en passant’ capture." See the %3$s on this move for some practice with it. good introduction DeepcrayonFish training Threefold repetition If a position occurs three times, players can claim a draw by %1$s. DeepcrayonFish implements the official FIDE rules, as described in Article 9.2 (d) of the %2$s. threefold repetition We did not repeat moves. Why was the game still drawn by repetition? Threefold repetition is about repeated %1$s, not moves. Repetition does not have to occur consecutively. positions We repeated a position three times. Why was the game not drawn? Repetition needs to be claimed by one of the players. You can do so by pressing the button that is shown, or by offering a draw before your final repeating move, it won't matter if your opponent rejects the draw offer, the threefold repetition draw will be claimed anyway. You can also %1$s DeepcrayonFish to automatically claim repetitions for you. Additionally, fivefold repetition always immediately ends the game. configure Accounts What titles are there on DeepcrayonFish? DeepcrayonFish recognises all FIDE titles gained from OTB (over the board) play, as well as %1$s. Here is a list of FIDE titles: If you have an OTB title, you can apply to have this displayed on your account by completing the %1$s, including a clear image of an identifying document/card and a selfie of you holding the document/card. Verifying as a titled player on DeepcrayonFish gives access to play in the Titled Arena events. Finally there is an honorary %2$s title. many national master titles verification form Can I get the DeepcrayonFish Master (LM) title? No. This honorific title is unofficial and only exists on DeepcrayonFish. We rarely award it to highly notable players who are good citizens of DeepcrayonFish, at our discretion. You don't get the LM title, the LM title gets to you. If you qualify, you will get a message from us regarding it and the choice to accept or decline. Do not ask for the LM title. What can my username be? In general, usernames should not be: offensive, impersonating someone else, or advertising. You can read more about the %1$s. guidelines Can I change my username? No, usernames cannot be changed for technical and practical reasons. Usernames are materialized in too many places: databases, exports, logs, and people's minds. You can adjust the capitalization once. Unique trophies That trophy is unique in the history of DeepcrayonFish, nobody other than %1$s will ever have it. To get it, hiimgosu challenged himself to berserk and win all games of %s. an hourly Bullet tournament ZugAddict was streaming and for the last 2 hours he had been trying to defeat A.I. level 8 in a 1+0 game, without success. Thibault told him that if he successfully did it on stream, he'd get a unique trophy. One hour later, he smashed Stockfish, and the promise was honoured. DeepcrayonFish ratings What rating system does DeepcrayonFish use? Ratings are calculated using the Glicko-2 rating method developed by Mark Glickman. This is a very popular rating method, and is used by a significant number of chess organisations (FIDE being a notable counter-example, as they still use the dated Elo rating system). Fundamentally, Glicko ratings use "confidence intervals" when calculating and representing your rating. When you first start using the site, your rating starts at 1500 ± 1000. The 1500 represents your rating, and the 1000 represents the confidence interval. Basically, the system is 95% sure that your rating is somewhere between 500 and 2500. It is incredibly uncertain. Because of this, when a player is just starting out, their rating will change very dramatically, potentially several hundred points at a time. But after some games against established players the confidence interval will narrow, and the amount of points gained/lost after each game will decrease. Another point to note is that, as time passes, the confidence interval will increase. This allows you to gain/lose points more rapidly to match any changes in your skill level over that time. Why is there a question mark (?) next to a rating? The question mark means the rating is provisional. Reasons include: The player has not yet finished enough rated games against %1$s in the rating category. opponents of similar strength The player hasn't played enough recent games. Depending on the number of games you've played, it might take around a year of inactivity for your rating to become provisional again. Concretely, it means that the Glicko-2 deviation is greater than 110. The deviation is the level of confidence the system has in the rating. The lower the deviation, the more stable is a rating. How do ranks and leaderboards work? In order to get on the %1$s you must: rating leaderboard have played at least 30 rated games in a given rating, have played a rated game within the last week for this rating, have a rating deviation lower than %1$s, in standard chess, and lower than %2$s in variants, be in the top 10 in this rating. The 2nd requirement is so that players who no longer use their accounts stop populating leaderboards. Why are ratings higher compared to other sites and organisations such as FIDE, USCF and the ICC? It is best not to think of ratings as absolute numbers, or compare them against other organisations. Different organisations have different levels of players, different rating systems (Elo, Glicko, Glicko-2, or a modified version of the aforementioned). These factors can drastically affect the absolute numbers (ratings). It's best to think of ratings as "relative" figures (as opposed to "absolute" figures): Within a pool of players, their relative differences in ratings will help you estimate who will win/draw/lose, and how often. Saying "I have X rating" means nothing unless there are other players to compare that rating to. How to hide ratings while playing? Enable Zen-mode in the %1$s, or by pressing %2$s during a game. display preferences I lost a game due to lag/disconnection. Can I get my rating points back? Unfortunately, we cannot give back rating points for games lost due to lag or disconnection, regardless of whether the problem was at your end or our end. The latter is very rare though. Also note that when DeepcrayonFish restarts and you lose on time because of that, we abort the game to prevent an unfair loss. How to... Enable or disable notification popups? View site information popup DeepcrayonFish can optionally send popup notifications, for example when it is your turn or you received a private message. Click the lock icon next to the deepcrayon.fish address in the URL bar of your browser. Then select whether to allow or block notifications from DeepcrayonFish.