After much pestering, my wife allowed me to get a DGT board. At the time, I questioned whether it was worth the marital friction. Now I am happy to report that my wife has seen the wisdom of my purchase, and it was all worthwhile (at least that's what I tell myself).
For those that have not heard, the DGT board allows you to play chess against your computer on a real, wooden board. The board is a nice size with squares that are about 2" on a side. The wood used in the board looks like maple and walnut. The piece sizes are well matched to the board (the King is about 3.75" tall). While they are made of wood also, the pieces are a little on the light side - they don't feel like an ebony set, but they're not plastic either. The board uses a serial port on your computer, with a 9 pin connector. I got my board directly from the manufacturer (DGT Projects), and it came with a European-style AC adapter. If you buy your board from someone in the US, you might want to ask which adapter is included.
There is also a provision for using the DGT clock in conjunction with the board and the Lost Boys Chess Presentation System (CPS). There will be more information on these two products in an upcoming review.
You are probably wondering why you would want to pay a fair amount of money for the DGT, when you can just set up a board along side your computer screen and use that.
Well, here are several reasons:
- Looking at a board display on a computer can get tiring on the eyes, especially for long games.
- Looking at 2-D boards all the time can throw off your game when you go to play on a real board. I can attest to this, because I play a lot of games on a computer screen, and it takes me a good 10 games or so to get used to a real board.
- Constantly switching back and forth between the computer screen and board is extremely distracting.
- Convenience is also a factor - when you want to examine a position with a little computer help, you just set it up on the board, fire up your computer, and away you go...
The board allows you to play a game against the computer (or over the internet with winboard), or setup a position for analysis (it has piece recognition, so it can tell what piece is on what square). You can also have it calculate in the background while you play over a game from a book, assuming your software supports this. Fritz does, but versions of Chessmaster up to 6000 (inclusive) do not. You can't enter variations with the board in Fritz (i.e. examine a variation, then go back to the main game score). The default is to overwrite moves that are taken back. I am not sure how exactly you would implement this feature - so it's not a big deal (also, you would have to be meticulous in how moves are taken back).
With any product of this type, the availability of software that works with the board is quite important. The board ships with a Fritz driver created by Chessbase, and Chesssrv, a program written by Rolf Gustafsson that supports programs like Chessmaster 5500, Genius 4, and Winboard. In general though, Chesssrv will allow you to use the DGT board with almost any windows chess program. Chesssrv supports programs that require piece movement with the mouse, or keyboard input. To make the program work with your particular computer, you may have to play around with the so-called "sleep parameter" in the program. I figured out the proper value after 10 minutes or so of experimentation.
The programs that work best with the board are those that support some sort of voice annunciation of moves (this way, you need not look at the board). As of this review, there are only three programs that have this feature: Chessmaster, Fritz and Chess Partner. Of these three, only one currently offers a direct interface to the DGT board, and that is Fritz. So the bottom line is that these other programs will work (with Chesssrv), but Fritz has the most seamless integration with the board.
Any moderately savvy computer user that can write a macro is capable of writing a small custom initialization file for the Chesssrv program. This is only necessary if you want to use a program that does not have an initialization file yet.
Potential purchasers should also note that when playing black, you need to physically rotate the board, especially when using Chesssrv. Rolf Gustafsson has been considering a software solution to this requirement, so is may disappear in the future. While Fritz does not have the requirement to rotate the board, it is easier to screw up Fritz's board representation if you should move a piece onto the wrong square. It would be nice to either have some sort of switch on the board, or some software support so that one does not have to turn the board when playing black. This is pretty much the only thing I would change about the board if I could.
Overall, I am very happy with this board. It is ten times better than staring at a computer screen. There is also an intangible effect to using a real board - maybe the mind reasons best with objects that one can touch, but who knows for sure? Anyway, since I've gotten it, I've been spending less time on the ICSs. I think that if you have the money and inclination, you should go for it.
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