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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

#81

Post by Waterluvian »

noxvilleza wrote: post #79
Waterluvian wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good question. A web chess game is turn based with some basic logic to sync the clock. There are no secrets or complex state like many video games. Seems rather straightforward. The hard part is scaling up everything around it: - Stockfish real-time predictions - anti-cheat monitoring - the moderation tasks any social website needs

Anti-cheat monitoring can happen after the fact though, and Stockfish can run in-browser (there's a JS-compiled version of it).

Oh cool. Does it run in the browser for This website? That would scale far better.

Re: Chess is booming and our servers are struggling

#82

Post by Euphorbium »

slm_HN wrote: post #18

Chess.com has the somewhat unique property of being a chess server run by people who aren't good at chess and aren't good at technology. I think they used to hire devs off Fiverr. However they are somewhat good at business as they've convinced thousands of people to pay $17.00 per month for something that can be found for free at Lichess.org. They do pay a ton of money to streamers to use their site exclusively, whic…

For just playing they may be equivalent, but for learning and analysing chess.com is way better.

Re: Chess is booming and our servers are struggling

#83

Post by quadcore »

Dont forget tiktok, ive seen a tutorial that changed so much my beginner view of the game it gave me the urge to play some games. It says ultimately what you have to do during a game is, you want to have some positive difference on pawns and then you exchange your pieces then promote then win. How cool is that?

Re: Chess is booming and our servers are struggling

#84

Post by scrapcode »

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?

Re: Chess is booming and our servers are struggling

#85

Post by oldstrangers »

slm_HN wrote: post #18

Chess.com has the somewhat unique property of being a chess server run by people who aren't good at chess and aren't good at technology. I think they used to hire devs off Fiverr. However they are somewhat good at business as they've convinced thousands of people to pay $17.00 per month for something that can be found for free at Lichess.org. They do pay a ton of money to streamers to use their site exclusively, whic…

>run by people who aren't good at chess

To be fair, Danny Rensch is a 2402 FIDE rated player. That's better than 99.9% of people on the planet.

Re: Chess is booming and our servers are struggling

#86

Post by conor_f »

gronky_ wrote: post #65

> We made a lot of investments in hardware… Sounds bizarre until you remember that over 80% of servers are still on prem

Wow really? Have you got an article or something indicating that? Seems absurd to me that all cloud providers account for less than 20% of servers, either by traffic or sheer volume.

Re: Chess is booming and our servers are struggling

#87

Post by oldstrangers »

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?

If you're not motivated to play the game then there's no reason to continue trying to play it really.

If you're not motivated because it's confusing and unrewarding to fail, then persistence and practice is really the only solution.

Re: Chess is booming and our servers are struggling

#88

Post by lukev »

chaosbutters314 wrote: post #62
lukev wrote: post #53

I was going to post that I suspected this was due to some sort of automated or bot activity... a couple months seems like way too short a time for that much organic growth. However, Google Trends also indicates a doubling of interest in chess as a search term over the past three months. Interesting!

likely due to queens gambit (netflix show) and shotgun king having some influence for both being viral hits

Yes, the article covers those (some of them don't fall into the time period under discussion.)

There's a few possible drivers that are no doubt helping but it does appear that between one thing and another, chess itself is going viral.

Re: Chess is booming and our servers are struggling

#89

Post by marshmallowmad »

slm_HN wrote: post #18

Chess.com has the somewhat unique property of being a chess server run by people who aren't good at chess and aren't good at technology. I think they used to hire devs off Fiverr. However they are somewhat good at business as they've convinced thousands of people to pay $17.00 per month for something that can be found for free at Lichess.org. They do pay a ton of money to streamers to use their site exclusively, whic…

I prefer their analysis over lichess’s and I think they are a lot more feature rich. Also, I think the company in general is pretty good at chess? I’m an 1800 elo player for reference.

Re: Chess is booming and our servers are struggling

#90

Post by 1270018080 »

slm_HN wrote: post #18

Chess.com has the somewhat unique property of being a chess server run by people who aren't good at chess and aren't good at technology. I think they used to hire devs off Fiverr. However they are somewhat good at business as they've convinced thousands of people to pay $17.00 per month for something that can be found for free at Lichess.org. They do pay a ton of money to streamers to use their site exclusively, whic…

I did not realize lichess was so much better. I just switched. The UI was a little off putting for some reason when I first started getting into chess.
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