jadarite: I guess what I am looking for is a "draft" mode like in email. You can look at it later but you haven't sent it.

jadarite: I do not see the need for this since you can check your move before you enter it. Just make the move, look at the board, and then decide to enter the move. I rarely just click, move, enter. Maybe if the move is forced or something, other wise I check the move before I enter it as I too have been burned by clicking the wrong piece and not realizing it. If I do that, I just live with it. And I am glad we cannot ask our opponent to take the move back. Just imagine the headaches from having that option. The games with hidden information, such as Dark Chess or Battleboats would be trouble. For regular Chess, let's say you take the move back. Nah, I don't like. I grew up playing you could touch and move any piece and put it back as long as you didn't take your hand off of it and this exactly how it is done here. So don't take your hand off the piece!

Backgammon has a warning when resigning a game in match play. This is a good idea for backgammon in match play as some positions can be worth two or three times the game point. The warning will ask if you really want to resign and tell you how many game points the resignation will cost you.

This draft idea, would it mean something like a surrogate board that had the game set up and all moves, but wasn't connected to the actual game? I already use the game in progress for this, but it has the dangers we are discussing. I don't know if I see the need for it. I know some people set up a position on a real board to help them think of moves, but I just look at the screen and think of my moves, or I used to take notes and that works too.

Walter Montego: I am trying to adjust my eyes to a real board. So, I have the pieces set up to the position on the computer. If I were planning the moves all online, yea you are right. However, I tell myself "Move knight" then walk to the computer room and move a knight. I don't think about the game during this time. I just move the knight. I am not double checking.

So, a draft idea would simply record the move in private and then I would sign back on to double check.

Think of it like this, you spend 20 minutes or so looking at a position and come to a decision. You get a phone call, so you make this "draft" move. Take the phone call, and the come back to the "draft" mode. Ask yourself, "Do you really want to do this?" Instead of "Did you really want to do this?

It gives you time to double check. I don't think putting 2 or 3 buttons on a page serves this purpose. When I clicked move I didn't realize I moved the wrong knight. I came back after clearing my head and then saw the mistake.

It was a clerical mistake at worst, it had nothing to do with the 20 minutes while I spent considering the other knight. It makes a big difference in the game, not so much in computing.

Anyway, the messages can be private, so perhaps we can have a private option to record moves we are thinking about. We could commit to them later.