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Chess is booming and our servers are struggling

chess.com

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Re: Chess is booming and our servers are struggling

#101

Post by primitivesuave »

scrapcode wrote: post #84

I've re-visited the game multiple times but really have trouble engaging with the game. I've tried to read a couple of tutorials here and there on some simple strategies, but it doesn't seem like anything "sticks," and I always feel so clueless after the first few moves as to what I should do. Any suggestions from the HN crowd on what may have provided you an "ah ha!" moment for chess strategy in general?

I highly recommend Mato's chess videos on famous games (https://www.youtube.com/@MatoJelic), since he keeps them short (3-5 minutes), doesn't talk excessively about every single move, and only shows the interesting variations at critical positions of the game.

Re: Chess is booming and our servers are struggling

#102

Post by salamo »

scrapcode wrote: post #84

I've re-visited the game multiple times but really have trouble engaging with the game. I've tried to read a couple of tutorials here and there on some simple strategies, but it doesn't seem like anything "sticks," and I always feel so clueless after the first few moves as to what I should do. Any suggestions from the HN crowd on what may have provided you an "ah ha!" moment for chess strategy in general?

Sure, I'm not a pro but I've played for a bit so maybe this will help.

1. Choose a chess opening and stick to it. That means you'll always know how to react at the beginning of the game. 2. Counting. If your piece has more defenders than attackers, it's safe. If you're attacking your opponent's piece more times than it's defended, you can control that square. One of the biggest issues I had when starting out was literally just miscounting attackers and defenders. 3. Basic tactics. There are three fundamental tactics in chess: pins, forks, and skewers.

Other than that, watching chess Youtubers is pretty helpful. Some good examples are Aman Hambleton's beginner videos[1], and Daniel Naroditsky's "speedruns"[2]. The latter can be slightly more advanced but still very understandable imo. There are other good channels like Hikaru Nakamura's, Gotham Chess, chessbrah, and Eric Rosen but I think the two I suggested are the best.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axRvksIZpGc [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfjI4jEY58s&list=PLT1F2nOxLH...

Re: Chess is booming and our servers are struggling

#103

Post by gardenhedge »

I am one of the people now playing chess every day but I don't think it's down to all those reasons listed. In my case, I am using it as a replacement for social media. Previously I'd pick up my phone and go straight to Instagram or some other app. I realised that my time was just wasted scrolling through pictures and videos that has absolutely no value.

Chess is something I can open on my app and I can play on the bus or before bed. While it's not the most value adding thing in my life I am enjoying it for now.

By the way, I suck at chess. I struggle to beat 900 rated players. Any tips?

Re: Chess is booming and our servers are struggling

#104

Post by dunefox »

scrapcode wrote: post #84

I've re-visited the game multiple times but really have trouble engaging with the game. I've tried to read a couple of tutorials here and there on some simple strategies, but it doesn't seem like anything "sticks," and I always feel so clueless after the first few moves as to what I should do. Any suggestions from the HN crowd on what may have provided you an "ah ha!" moment for chess strategy in general?

> "ah ha!" moment for chess

Replacing chess with go. :P

Re: Chess is booming and our servers are struggling

#106

Post by kken »

For some reason, my perception is that random player selection on lichess leads to much stronger opponents than on chess.com in the lower ranks. Probably this is due to the more informed player base on lichess and a large influex of causals on chess.com

The problem is that this only fuels the cycle. Casual players are scared away from lichess, possibly extending the rift between both sites...

Re: Chess is booming and our servers are struggling

#107

Post by nappy-doo »

playingalong wrote: post #97
alexpotato wrote: post #74

> What does that mean? 250,000+ new accounts are being created each day. People are playing games (16,000 chess moves per second on average) I remember reading how Dropbox and other file sharing sites used hashing to create single instances of popular files and then just used pointers from accounts with that file to save disk space. I would imagine a LOT of chess games probably start out the same and you can therefor…

I don't play chess, but my finger in the air estimate is that the whole record of the game weighs a few kb at most. I'd venture a guess that all players data and their avatars take more space. Or maybe less, but not much.

Think of it this way. Every move is from 1 position on a 64 location board to another (therefore most moves could be stored in about 12 total bits). There might be a couple more bits to represent enpassant and promotion, and my simple representation could easily be compressed, but for a regular game (generally less than 100 moves), you can store it The game gets even more compact in that not all source and destination squares are possible at every move, etc. But, you're dead on in your estimate.

Re: Chess is booming and our servers are struggling

#108

Post by janalsncm »

dan-robertson wrote: post #30
tester457 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bad at the game, bad at engineering, but good at marketing. There's a lesson in here. Similar to how most of the software that runs the internet is poorly written and has bad fundamentals.

Is the lesson Berkson’s fallacy?

Thank you for mentioning this, it’s a very interesting thought actually.

For the uninitiated, the idea is that a product needs good engineering + good marketing to be successful. Products with only one of them will fail. The idea of Berkson’s fallacy is that even though it seems that good marketing is negatively correlated with engineering (and vice-versa) it’s actually because the baseline level of engineering and marketing is low, and products which happen to excel in one don’t need to excel in the other.

Re: Chess is booming and our servers are struggling

#110

Post by noir_lord »

playingalong wrote: post #97
alexpotato wrote: post #74

> What does that mean? 250,000+ new accounts are being created each day. People are playing games (16,000 chess moves per second on average) I remember reading how Dropbox and other file sharing sites used hashing to create single instances of popular files and then just used pointers from accounts with that file to save disk space. I would imagine a LOT of chess games probably start out the same and you can therefor…

I don't play chess, but my finger in the air estimate is that the whole record of the game weighs a few kb at most. I'd venture a guess that all players data and their avatars take more space. Or maybe less, but not much.

Depends, if it’s pgn that’s just plaintext.

SCID uses 1 byte per move which is close to optimal (it splits it into 2^4 for piece and 2^4 for direction, with some edge cases).

SCID vs PC is a fantastic tool for chess players, I maintain a massive database of master games using it.

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