What is Zen Mode?

I enabled zen mode and did not notice anything different. I can't seem to find any info on the site. Can someone enlighten me?

All it does is hide the players ratings.

@Tasho said in #1:
> Can someone enlighten me?

It removes all "distractions": left sidebar (chat, name, rating) , right sidebar (move list, opponent rating) and bottom game history.

If you get paired with someone you don't know (for example in an arena, using the quick pairing buttons or creating a challenge in the lobby), you wouldn't know their rating and get distracted by it. It's supposed to help you focus on your chess and not get distracted or stressed about such things as ratings, chat, game history, etc.

Some people find it more useful than others, depending on how much of a distraction those elements are for the player vs how much of useful information they are for the game itself.

It only changes things while you are playing a game. It simplifies the interface to hide things that could be considered distracting from the game.

Pressing z WHILE playing doesn't change anything?

Pressing z while playing will toggle zen mode on/off. I use this because I *do* want to know my opponent's rating and see if we've played each other before, but then I like to play with the minimalist view.

I use it mainly to turn off chat. Sometimes an opponent will try to distract by asking questions ("Where are you from?" for example). It could be a sincere question, but it's still a distraction. It's not as widespread here as on other sites, though. Once I encountered "trash talk". I got rating points refunded because he/she/it/they "violated terms of service." I believe the violation was the use of a chess engine. When I turned off Zen Mode I discovered one comment (among others) of "checkmate in 9". That's a clue. :)

This was helpful. Thank you very much.

zen mode is a mode which is like in an arena, just the clock and the board and sometimes,maybe the opponenet name. No ratings no chat no moves or anything. just like in arenas