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Hikaru Nakamura's Forbidden Platform

lichess.org

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Re: Hikaru Nakamura's Forbidden Platform

#71

Post by angled »

Sesse__ wrote: post #52
soegaard wrote: post #25

There is plenty of room for all of Chess.com, Chess24 and Lichess to exist. Lichess has the best platform to play on and is free to use. Chess.com is a business. As such they want to earn money. However, without a large, online chess community there will be no subscribers. The amount of effort chess.com has made to sponsor events, streamers etc. is tremendous. Making a living as a chess professional is tough. Streami…

> Would Nike be happy if Portugal’s Cristiano Ronaldo suddenly appeared in Adidas shoes? Back when Nike Vaporfly came out and the other shoe manufacturers de facto didn't have an answer yet, you would see e.g. Puma-sponsored athletes in Nike shoes. It's simply better for Puma to have Puma athletes win (quietly) in Nike shoes than to have them lose in Puma shoes.

(The Adidas Predators were on a whole other level…)

Re: Hikaru Nakamura's Forbidden Platform

#72

Post by jdthedisciple »

register wrote: post #70
shric wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I joined lichess in Nov 2018 and have played 15,269 games. It'll be more by the time most people read this :p

Chess is quite a popular topic here on HN new. I propose to do a HN league / Tournament. Who is willing to join?

I'd join, though I'm really only a casual (bullet) player

Re: Hikaru Nakamura's Forbidden Platform

#73

Post by BurningFrog »

mtlmtlmtlmtl wrote: post #39
mythz wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Their product is simply inferior in every way Completely untrue, I've played on both and the UX + post game Analysis, video content library, etc is far better on chess.com. I do hope lichess.org is able to improve and find better monetization options that's able to pay for more dev + UX resources, championship prizes + GM commentators which makes watching chess far more entertaining.

Some people will always disagree, but it's been my experience that when people try both sites, most people end up preferring Lichess. Certainly when comparing lichess to Chess.com's free tier, there simply is no contest. When people say the opposite, it seems to always be people who have been chess.com customers for years, suggesting a possible post-purchase rationalisation

The fact that many paying chess.com like the product mostly suggests it's a good product.

Re: Hikaru Nakamura's Forbidden Platform

#74

Post by matsemann »

blub wrote: post #59
sireat wrote: post #46

Chess has always had this dichotomy over free/paid services. (a bit not unlike programming tools). I love lichess.org but make no mistake: without the dedication of one talented Scala programmer willing to underpay themselves that site would not exist. Commercial sites can provide more services and offer more opportunities to chess professionals simply due to the funding model. Disclaimer: I've played over 100k onlin…

Don’t you regret wasting so much time? Or do you just suppress these thoughts :-)

I've got "Time spent playing: 17 days" on Lichess. Over a few years, so not too bad. But I feel it's worth it. It's not like it's all-consuming. Just a few games a day to relax.

Same when I played World of Warcraft in HS. Had probably multiples of that total playtime. I got "nothing to show" for all that time. But it was time well spent I feel. I had fun, and it's where I would hang and chat with friends during the evenings etc., so no regrets.

Re: Hikaru Nakamura's Forbidden Platform

#75

Post by nextaccountic »

mythz wrote: post #33
mtlmtlmtlmtl wrote: post #6

Paying off Chess streamers is pretty much the only way Chess.com can keep people using their site. Their product is simply inferior in every way, except for their library of master lessons, and all these GMs exclusively streaming through Chess.com. I figure all this spending on sponsorship and GM content is why the rest of their site is so inferior to Lichess. Lichess can spend all their time perfecting the platform,…

> Their product is simply inferior in every way Completely untrue, I've played on both and the UX + post game Analysis, video content library, etc is far better on chess.com. I do hope lichess.org is able to improve and find better monetization options that's able to pay for more dev + UX resources, championship prizes + GM commentators which makes watching chess far more entertaining.

> better monetization options

Not gonna happen. Lichess is simply not this kind of product. It's like the Wikipedia monetization

Re: Hikaru Nakamura's Forbidden Platform

#76

Post by eloisant »

sireat wrote: post #68
synu wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Open source in general wouldn't exist without lots of people who contribute and underpay themselves for it, but I'm not sure what I'm not supposed to be making a mistake about? Can you clarify?

I meant to say that lichess.org is a bit of an outlier for a great service based on FOSS principles and a donation model. There are many chessplayers who think lichess > chess because it is absolutely free. That is not a sufficient condition for greatness. Having a paid model is not a horrible thing. It is not given that a nice FOSS project is sustainable. There are plenty of free projects which went nowhere. Only a…

I guess we'll only know for sure when Thibault loses interest in lichess or gets hit by a bus, but I think lichess could continue without him.

There are only people working with him, he's not alone in the project. And other people have access to the servers so even if he dies suddenly without having time to do a hand-off the project could still continue.

Re: Hikaru Nakamura's Forbidden Platform

#77

Post by shric »

register wrote: post #69
shric wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I joined lichess in Nov 2018 and have played 15,269 games. It'll be more by the time most people read this :p

With an average length of 5 minutes per game ( given a 3+2 time control ) and assuming you don't play more than 8 hours per day this is around 162 full days spent playing chess. Also this is an achievement!

Yeah, not particularly proud of the "achievement". I play for fun. My rating has not increased much since I started because I don't really do deliberate practice. I don't analyse my games, etc.

You're pretty much spot on. My average game length is 5 minutes and 7 seconds. lichess tells me my time spent playing is 54 days, 5 hours and 6 minutes and now 15,273 games.

It works out to average just under an hour a day, and I play most days.

Breakdown: 6,157 bullet (90+% are 1+0 but a few 2+1) 7,430 blitz (90+% are 5+0 but a few 3+2) 1,368 rapid (99+% are 10+0) 184 classical (100% are 30+0)

I've also played a small handful of correspondence, chess960, etc. which is why it doesn't quite add up.

Re: Hikaru Nakamura's Forbidden Platform

#78

Post by shric »

register wrote: post #70
shric wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I joined lichess in Nov 2018 and have played 15,269 games. It'll be more by the time most people read this :p

Chess is quite a popular topic here on HN new. I propose to do a HN league / Tournament. Who is willing to join?

Sure, I'd join, also just a casual player -- still rated 1700 on lichess (1200 on chess.com) despite 15,000+ games :p

Re: Hikaru Nakamura's Forbidden Platform

#79

Post by dubeye »

mtlmtlmtlmtl wrote: post #58
dubeye wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It could be also said, those who tend to talk up lichess don't tend to have much experience using the paid features, so overall tricky to analyse these comments. As often it's the free versions being compared. With com users extolling the paid features, and lichess users extolling their free features.

As someone who had diamond membership on Chess.com for several years(cancelled when my card was accidentally overcharged, triggering an alert with my bank. Chess.com refused responsibility and eventually offered me a free month to make me go away. I refused and just went away instead). I then found lichess. I realised all the features I was paying for on chess.com were available for free, either through lichess, or y…

I personally prefer the chess.com lectures. But as long as we can agree to not use terms like 'lichess is objectively better' I'm happy we can disagree

Re: Hikaru Nakamura's Forbidden Platform

#80

Post by robertlagrant »

dalbasal wrote: post #63
bluecalm wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think commercial vs communist has anything to do with it. Thibault is just a very good, hard working programmer. If his political views were different then Lichess would still have the best platform and he would have way more money. There is no reason what so over for chess com playing area being as bad as it is other than them not being able to find a programmer as good as Thibault. It's not only about money…

I would agree with you in a lot of cases, especially public administration but... In Thibault's case, he has consciously and deliberately made it so that his political views do affect choices at all levels. A lot of it is quite direct. If you are "communist^," then you think differently about login, data retention. You make feature decisions differently. You also make hiring/expansion/strategy decisions differently.…

This doesn't seem to be much to do with communism. You can operate not for profits or charities in capitalist systems (in fact some of its strongest proponents would much prefer people give money directly to charities to help people, rather than pay taxes to a government that might help people).

I don't see what's communist about it. It's just that the developer has arrived at "charity" via the route of communism. The biggest societal difference is that chess.com allows people to play chess for a living, whereas a free platform does not.

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