The best way to play chess is by post. You’ve got plenty of time to think about your strategy, you’re not stuck wondering what else you could be doing while your opponent takes forever, and you can go about your day after sending your move. And now there’s a modern, digital equivalent, in the form of Facebook Messenger Chess.
Hidden inside the program is a command @fbchess. Simply punch in “@fbchess play” into any Messenger window; it works with both the website and the mobile app in our tests. Each command is entered in classic algebraic chess notation, where the vertical axis of the board is numbers and the horizontal is letters, like so:
Then just send commands to @fbchess with the piece capitalized and the square picked. So, for example, if you wanted to do a typical opening, you’d type in @fbchess Pe3 and move the center pawn up so your bishop and queen can come out to play. Which hardcore chess fans will probably deride, but hey, I never said I was any good at it.
If you’re going to play, we recommend using the Facebook Messenger app on your phone. It fills the screen and it’s less distracting for those times when you want to carefully ruminate over your next move to crush your opponent utterly. And if nothing else, at least it’s more intellectually stimulating than a match-three game.
(Via The Verge)