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Garry Kasparov launches a community-first chess platform

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Re: Garry Kasparov launches a community-first chess platform

#31

Post by rectang »

unlog wrote: post #26
mustafa_pasi wrote: post #2

The community first chess platform is lichess, which doesn't even get a mention because it is non-profit. This thing sounds like some botched together platform with Kasparov's name attached to add legitimacy. It will 100% fail.

lichess has very big problems with the chat, so I won't call it "community first", it's nice if you are just there to play chess, but playing chess with your actual friends its a problem, the chat is heavily censured so having any casual conversation while playing it's hard. To give some examples they ban chat messages that look "similar" to the previous one, so lets say you type a2, and then you type a3 (... a chess…

Whatever they're doing, it's kind of nice to have far fewer homophobic slurs hurled in the lichess chat in comparison to other chess servers.

Re: Garry Kasparov launches a community-first chess platform

#32

Post by [deleted] »

iratewizard wrote: post #11
faeriechangling wrote: post #6

Chess.com not only ran forums but held community events like collaborative games vs master players early on. This just seems to be copying the community aspect of MOOCs and incorporating that into a chess course promoted by a strong brand (Garry Kasparov). It's pretty derivative.

Chess.com and lichess have done wonders for chess, and its revival can mostly be attributed to Chess.com's collective smart decisions and hard work. If it weren't for that, Kasparov's copycat wouldn't catch the slightest bit of traction.

[deleted]

Re: Garry Kasparov launches a community-first chess platform

#33

Post by francisofascii »

beforeolives wrote: post #12
iratewizard wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chess.com and lichess have done wonders for chess, and its revival can mostly be attributed to Chess.com's collective smart decisions and hard work. If it weren't for that, Kasparov's copycat wouldn't catch the slightest bit of traction.

Isn't the revival attributed mostly to The Queen's Gambit being released on Netflix?

Not just that. Chess.com also saw a huge surge when Covid began.

Re: Garry Kasparov launches a community-first chess platform

#34

Post by Cullinet »

schaefer wrote: post #10

I would anticipate that if the site had actually launched, I could register and play right now. But as it stands, I can only pre-register. For a chance to be one of 6400 players granted early access.

I really seem to have a filter how I see thy this that I just found confirmation about the original disappointment of when I was a impressionable young chess fan, in my comment above,

but I can only say that I really would have felt very hurt by this limitation if I could transplant my childhood me to today. I have such a distinctive memory of the way I felt about arbitrarily elitist and opaque barriers to intellectual pursuit.

I'm not doing a very good job expressing myself probably because I have such a clear recollection of the way I was as a kid, but I think that my earlier comment about how better PR and marketing would be a help with Kasparov's image when you consider this limitation remains opaque in functional reality even if the reason of the limit is clear any inquiring mind has to ask why not take it more slowly / soft launch, as you suggested, or if something else isn't quite there yet.

Re: Garry Kasparov launches a community-first chess platform

#36

Post by yazaddaruvala »

unlog wrote: post #26
mustafa_pasi wrote: post #2

The community first chess platform is lichess, which doesn't even get a mention because it is non-profit. This thing sounds like some botched together platform with Kasparov's name attached to add legitimacy. It will 100% fail.

lichess has very big problems with the chat, so I won't call it "community first", it's nice if you are just there to play chess, but playing chess with your actual friends its a problem, the chat is heavily censured so having any casual conversation while playing it's hard. To give some examples they ban chat messages that look "similar" to the previous one, so lets say you type a2, and then you type a3 (... a chess…

When I play chess (on lichess) with my friends, I am typically in the same physical/Discord room with them. We do not need another way to chat.

With everyone else, I'm very happy to be limited to "GL", "HF", "Thanks", "Bye" (localized to their language of choice).

I'm also not trying to make friends/community on lichess, its not like WoW or Dota where teams matter to the actual game. Historically, chess teams existed because of geographical boundaries. People needed other chess players of a similar level to: 1. get better at chess, 2. amortize the costs of traveling to a tournament, 3. try to estimate their global ranking to satisfy ego.

Players on the same chess teams happened to become very good friends because of the time commitment to the game and therefore each other. Eventually the friendships were the more important commitment. However, with lichess (or just the internet in general), I can satisfy all 3 benefits of having a chess team by playing alone on lichess and have really great friends orthogonal of chess (especially since travel isn't part of my chess hobby's time commitment).

Re: Garry Kasparov launches a community-first chess platform

#37

Post by jasonwatkinspdx »

eterm wrote: post #27
jasonwatkinspdx wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Queen's Gambit only got funded because the Netflix folks saw the boom happening in chess streaming before it. Pogchamps was probably the biggest single factor if you want to go looking for that. It's almost certainly why Netflix wrote the check. For anyone unfamiliar, Pogchamps is a tournament organized by chess.com that paired famous streamers with chess pros as coaches. It's genuinely some pretty fantastic content.…

I hate to burst your Twitch bubble but production started way before chess streaming took off: "On March 19, 2019, Netflix gave the production a series order consisting of six episodes"

Chess streaming had gained critical mass before that, and as the sibling comment points out, there were a lot of conversations happening in relation to how chess was clearly gaining momentum, particularly on twitch, before the first actual pogchamps. I was more using Pogchamps as a placeholder term for referring to the overall boom of chess on twitch. That is definitely why Netflix funded it. I've been told this somewhat directly but can't elaborate further than that.

Re: Garry Kasparov launches a community-first chess platform

#38

Post by radicalcentrist »

> "I was so happy because it was the first time where we could see chess as a positive factor," he said. "We had so many years with chess being seen as potential destruction and something that could push kids to the dark area of psychological instability."

This surprises me, could someone expand a bit on this? I've only ever heard chess referred to positively in popular culture. I would assume most non chess players' understanding of chess is based on idioms like "thinking N moves ahead" and "playing 4D chess."

(I'm not sure I'd consider Beth Harmon a shining example of psychological stability either...)

Re: Garry Kasparov launches a community-first chess platform

#39

Post by CamelCaseName »

beforeolives wrote: post #8
mustafa_pasi wrote: post #2

The community first chess platform is lichess, which doesn't even get a mention because it is non-profit. This thing sounds like some botched together platform with Kasparov's name attached to add legitimacy. It will 100% fail.

Yes, lichess is by far the best platform and a great example of an open source project. The founder had an AMA on reddit a few days ago, it was a very wholesome read - https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/mpasyl/i_started_lic...

I loved everything about this thread. Thank you for sharing.

Re: Garry Kasparov launches a community-first chess platform

#40

Post by bjourne »

beforeolives wrote: post #12
iratewizard wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chess.com and lichess have done wonders for chess, and its revival can mostly be attributed to Chess.com's collective smart decisions and hard work. If it weren't for that, Kasparov's copycat wouldn't catch the slightest bit of traction.

Isn't the revival attributed mostly to The Queen's Gambit being released on Netflix?

With the top player in the world being a hunk, chess became a lot more palatable hobby. :)
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