Wow, I'm surprised. When I was young it was pretty big because they're weren't many other games.
But I always found it so boring. Too pensive. I'm not a strategist at all.
Cool that this is getting picked up again though.
Chess is booming among teens
181–190 of 227 posts
Re: Chess is booming among teens
#182Earlier quoted context omitted.
I find it odd that all my friends & coworkers in the tech industry have ended up on chess.com instead of lichess. Even beyond the fact it's totally free (and free of ads), the architecture itself is super interesting: https://lichess.org/@/thibault/blog/starting-from-scratch/NI... It must be one of the best examples of a very large scale implementation of features that are simple and easy to understand
What are the differences? I'm not familiar with lichess, but chess.com has tons of bots at various levels that you can play against, and you can have one game per day analysed by stockfish for free (more costs money). I think that's a pretty good deal.
IMO the Lichess app is superior. On desktop, the analysis features of Lichess and its database are superior. Ding Liren used the Lichess database to prepare.
I also like Lichess because I can play in arena tournaments against players with a much higher rating than me, which helps me learn - I'm not sure if this is so easy to do on Chess.com.
I paid for Chess.com for a while, but I stopped subscribing when I realized I never used it. Meanwhile I have multiple days of playtime on Lichess. Also, the owners of Chess.com don't seem like very nice people.
I'm pretty sure the pros and streamers prefer Lichess too, but they're sponsored by Chess.com so they have to pretend to like it.
Re: Chess is booming among teens
#183Re: Chess is booming among teens
#184Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because chess offers more variety in strategy than "rush A", "rush B", "they're going squeaky", "rotate". It's particularly fun in-person, and shockingly, the generation coming up likes to look at screens less and less, and apparently isn't keen on smartphones.
CS at a high level is like chess where you can't see your opponent's pieces most of the time. At low levels, it's basically what you described. Check out a pro game on Twitch some time. Every time I watch pros play, I learn a new lineup for util, angle to hold, runboost spot, etc.
A family member used to be a professional CSGO player and another family member played Quake at tourneys back in the day.
Your point is moot because only 1% of people play at a high-level, thus chess is at least more interesting than what 99% of CSGO players will experience in terms of strategy. Their ability to react and aim in real-time isn't a consideration either, nor is their access to a pretty decent computer and internet connection to be able to compete effectively.
Re: Chess is booming among teens
#185Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because chess offers more variety in strategy than "rush A", "rush B", "they're going squeaky", "rotate". It's particularly fun in-person, and shockingly, the generation coming up likes to look at screens less and less, and apparently isn't keen on smartphones.
LoL is more complex than chess.
I never mentioned LoL. "Squeaky" is CSGO.
Re: Chess is booming among teens
#186Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think matching by level is quite psychologically destructive, and should be avoided. People grind for hours and they see no sense of progress as they keep always being around 50% winrate because the stronger they get, the better the opponent get. And inversely they can play drunk chess and still win 50% and burn time pushing random pieces for a little short-term fun. It probably depends on people but I think the av…
Interesting point, but of course it’s not possible to create a platform with an average win rate of 80%.
And yet when you see a professional boxing match, both boxers' win rate is usually above 90%, not 50%.
Re: Chess is booming among teens
#187Earlier quoted context omitted.
I can't recommend Lichess enough. It's free (freedom & beer), it has no ads , and it's feature-complete. It even has stuff that other websites make you pay for, like post-game computer annotation. It offers a web interface where you can play without even registering an account and free (again, freedom & beer) apps for iOS and Android. The only downside when compared to chess.com is that fewer top-level professionals…
Lichess is amazing, I play there exclusively. However, I am plagued by a terrible bug: the Android app has half a second of lag when opening any screen for some reason. It doesn't matter what connection I'm on, and the website is always instant, but the Android app always takes half a second to load any screen. It's infuriating when you want to view the analysis, or just navigate around the app.
I have a similar delay bug with the website itself. I've not reported it because I don't use my lichess account to play actual games, only puzzles. The lichess boards will only let you post a new thread if you have games on your history, and I refuse to comply as I've played thousands of puzzles and I should have clearance, and yes that's petty, anyway...
My bug is about Puzzle Storm. When you run out of time, the GUI shows you the post game screen and it takes a fraction of a second before it pops in a "daily record" banner. This fraction of a second is slow enough for me to drag my mouse cursor over the "Failed puzzles" filter, but fast enough for me to accidentally click "Play again" as it has been pushed down the page (by the daily record div) without me perceiving it yet. Once clicked, that button resets the page to start another puzzle storm and by then I've lost the failed puzzle history, so I can't go over it anymore.
It has happened already in the hundreds of times. I can't help it, hopefully the dev one day figures it out.
Re: Chess is booming among teens
#188My father has always been a chess aficionado, but I got turned off by the fact that he was the only available opponent, and he had 37 years of headstart (it didn't occur to me to go to a chess club). When I was in University, I discovered Go, which felt somehow deeper than chess (I do enjoy the occasional game of chess, but compared to Go it feels like a knife fight vs a military campaign). After school I stopped pla…
At your level, OGS and KGS are great Go servers. I've never been to a Go club or even played the game IRL, but I'm currently a solid 3k, which is ~1750.
Re: Chess is booming among teens
#189Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Andrew Tate was the most internet famous person for a period of time I think this may just be your recommendation bubble - most people only heard about him when he was arrested.
I don't use any social media (apart from this one, and visiting some subreddits without logging in) and Tate was indeed widely talked about for the 2-3 months before his arrest, at least in Britain. You don't have to be on social media - the UK newspapers and other sources will pick up what ever people are talking about on there.
Andrew Tate was basically unheard of in the US and this article is primarily focused on the U.S.
Re: Chess is booming among teens
#190Chess is having its soccer moment now. Here is why: 1- The entry cost has fallen dramatically. Before at a minimum you'd need to afford a chess set and a couple of books. Now, all you need is a parents phone. This is similar to soccer, where the entry cost is any ball you can find. 2- its egalitarian. Your size, sex, height, and even age do not matter. This has always been true but now its more pronounced with apps b…
That was all true ten years ago too so I don’t think that’s it. What changed is the Queen’s Gambit got popular, then covid caused online gaming to become even more popular, and then there were some things that made chess popular recently like chess boxing with streamers on YouTube.
> made chess popular recently like chess boxing
Because everyone is a boxer already.