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Hikaru Nakamura's Forbidden Platform

lichess.org

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Re: Hikaru Nakamura's Forbidden Platform

#81

Post by password54321 »

throwaway290 wrote: post #8
jdthedisciple wrote: post #2

I already wasn't a fan of chess.com simply for their inferior user experience compared to lichess.org. But damn did this make me like them even less.

If Chess.com allows chess players to make a living from playing chess, isn't that a good thing/valid tradeoff? A non-commercial volunteer-supported project wouldn't be in a position to do that.

... None of the people that get paid by Chess.com need Chess.com. There are plenty of sponsors out there and have earned plenty of fans from their own skills and level of entertainment they provide on Twitch and Youtube.

Re: Hikaru Nakamura's Forbidden Platform

#82

Post by codeflo »

ginnungagap wrote: post #30
kzrdude wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I considered getting a chess.com subscription because their puzzles are a lot better than lichess'. However, the default tier/starting tier of subscription only gives access to a pittance of "puzzles per day" which is ridiculous.

There's also chesstempo for puzzles if you are not aware of it already, the puzzles are great and free, with subscription tiers for more features (unlimited endgame puzzles, custom puzzle sets, opening trainer etc.). The UI is ugly, clunky and old, but as long as it is only for puzzles and not playing I can stand it

I’m getting increasingly frustrated by the puzzle quality. Puzzle difficulty is determined algorithmically using an Elo system (where essentially puzzles play against players). That sounds great in theory. The problem is that there’s no penalty for guessing, in fact, the UI forces you to make a guess. This means the rating partly measures guessability instead of solvability. At my low-ish rating, I get a mixture of puzzles I can realistically solve, and extremely hard puzzles where the obvious dumb guess happens to also be the correct solution. I’m not sure if anybody else is annoyed by that as much as I am.

Re: Hikaru Nakamura's Forbidden Platform

#84

Post by bfgoodrich »

password54321 wrote: post #81
throwaway290 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Chess.com allows chess players to make a living from playing chess, isn't that a good thing/valid tradeoff? A non-commercial volunteer-supported project wouldn't be in a position to do that.

... None of the people that get paid by Chess.com need Chess.com. There are plenty of sponsors out there and have earned plenty of fans from their own skills and level of entertainment they provide on Twitch and Youtube.

No post body was provided.

Re: Hikaru Nakamura's Forbidden Platform

#85

Post by xrd »

shric wrote: post #77
register wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, an…

This conversation is very nostalgic for me as I used to play a lot with my father (who passed away almost 20 years ago). Now, my seven year old daughter seems to be very intrigued by chess.

You said you don't analyze your games? Is there a standard methodology for analyzing chess games, especially given that everything being discussed here is happening electronically?

I would be fascinated to hear about how people are combining technology with the practice of chess to ramp up their learning efficacy.

Re: Hikaru Nakamura's Forbidden Platform

#86

Post by shric »

xrd wrote: post #85
shric wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, an…

This conversation is very nostalgic for me as I used to play a lot with my father (who passed away almost 20 years ago). Now, my seven year old daughter seems to be very intrigued by chess. You said you don't analyze your games? Is there a standard methodology for analyzing chess games, especially given that everything being discussed here is happening electronically? I would be fascinated to hear about how people ar…

Sites like lichess allow you to run a computer analysis of every move so you can find how often you made what the chess engine considers the strongest move. It will also clearly show you any blunders regardless of whether your opponent took advantage.

Further, you can easily compare your responses during openings to what master level players play and you can also just look at how effective certain opening lines are just for your own games.

Lichess also has an "insights" feature where you can look at all your games in aggregate and ask questions like "how often do I win playing Ruy Lopez opening compared to when I play the Italian opening", etc.

These sites also have endless tactical puzzles which you can practice with.

I guess deliberate practice to improve consists of some or all of these tools plus studying certain aspects such as end games and openings.

I'm too impatient to do any of these which is why I improve very slowly despite playing thousands of games.

Re: Hikaru Nakamura's Forbidden Platform

#87

Post by casion »

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…

Hello fellow chess traveller! I was one of the first 100 on ICS, first helper on ICC, TD on FICS, ran 2 popular chess bots, wrote 100s of help files etc... Sadly I'm long over 100k games, I was around 80k when I left ICC :(

I feel similarly. I play mostly on Lichess but chess.com has features which I feel are easier to use, so I use both. I find this either/or discussion to be strange since both have their strengths and weaknesses. It's a pittance for anyone working in tech to support both, and the competition has largely been amazing for the improvement of both services.

It's interesting how 27 years ago the same type of drama happened, even when FICS (the free option at the time) was a carbon copy of ICC, AND you could connect to either with the same clients. Somehow people still found ways to say one was better than the other up until the point where they became sufficiently differentiated and the discussion largely stopped.

Re: Hikaru Nakamura's Forbidden Platform

#88

Post by synu »

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…

Lichess has >300 contributors. Probably not all of them could take over the project, but probably some could if needed. It also accepts donations, so isn't an unpaid model (it's just designed to cover costs, not generate profits).

- https://github.com/lichess-org/lila

- https://lichess.org/patron

Re: Hikaru Nakamura's Forbidden Platform

#89

Post by synu »

fragmede wrote: post #65
radarsat1 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lichess is a platform though, not an accessory. I think a better comparison would be, would Nike be happy if Ronaldo played in a tournament on a field owned by Adidas, in a world in which Adidas is a nonprofit company giving shoes to anyone who wants them. The answer may very well still be "no, they would not be happy," but I bet the public reaction to being forbidden from a public tournament would be different than…

If we want to use sports analogies we don't have to use Nike and Adidas as stand-ins, golf is undergoing this right now, between the PGA and LIV tournaments, and members with exclusivity clauses in their contracts.

I understand PGA and LIV are both for-profit. Do either/both forbid their athletes from competing in charity/non-profit tournaments?

Re: Hikaru Nakamura's Forbidden Platform

#90

Post by loansindi »

codeflo wrote: post #82
ginnungagap wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's also chesstempo for puzzles if you are not aware of it already, the puzzles are great and free, with subscription tiers for more features (unlimited endgame puzzles, custom puzzle sets, opening trainer etc.). The UI is ugly, clunky and old, but as long as it is only for puzzles and not playing I can stand it

I’m getting increasingly frustrated by the puzzle quality. Puzzle difficulty is determined algorithmically using an Elo system (where essentially puzzles play against players). That sounds great in theory. The problem is that there’s no penalty for guessing, in fact, the UI forces you to make a guess. This means the rating partly measures guessability instead of solvability. At my low-ish rating, I get a mixture of p…

The biggest benefit, in my opinion, of doing puzzles is building pattern recognition. If that obvious dumb guess is consistent for the structure presented in the difficult-but-guessable puzzle, then I think there's still value to doing it.
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