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Hikaru Nakamura's Forbidden Platform

lichess.org

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Re: Hikaru Nakamura's Forbidden Platform

#91

Post by synu »

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.

Chess.com isn't _allowing_ anyone to do anything, right? There are sponsors and streamers, and chess.com there in the middle but there's no specific reason it has to be them, or that streamers for example couldn't be sponsored directly. I think for chess.com they want to insert themselves as a kind of broker because it's good for business to put themselves in the middle like that.

Re: Hikaru Nakamura's Forbidden Platform

#92

Post by nebulous1 »

jstx1 wrote: post #27
hackerlight wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wasn't lying. Tweet was old.

He wasn't necessarily lying but from the given information I don't think that you can conclude with certainty that he wasn't lying.

"with certainty"? Perhaps not. However, the given information leads us to believe that it wasn't lying.

Re: Hikaru Nakamura's Forbidden Platform

#93

Post by Tarsul »

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…

Michael Jordan famously had in his contract with the Bulls a "for the love of the game" clause which entitled him to play in any game that he wanted to.

Re: Hikaru Nakamura's Forbidden Platform

#94

Post by chucksmash »

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,…

chess.com satisifices. Have had several times where I thought "Even I could make a better platform than this" (for instance: their PGNs always used to show today's date in the game metadata instead of the date the game was played and it took four emails over a week to make support understand why this was wrong).

When I open the app and look for a 10/0 match though, I always find one right away, and this + cursory game reviews covers ~100% of my use case, so shrug.

Re: Hikaru Nakamura's Forbidden Platform

#95

Post by nebulous1 »

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…

I've never had anything against chess.com, and I used to be a premium member but have since moved to lichess.

I think that the chess world could do with more money so I have nothing against a site providing a revenue stream, even if their actual aim is to profit themselves.

It would be disappointing if chess.com are engaged in clandestine anti-lichess behaviour. There might already be some information out there that I'm not aware of.

Hikaru is the biggest name in chess streaming. If he's signed an exclusivity contract with chess.com that would be unfortunate, but whatever it's just one person. If chess.com have started to to add exclusivity into all of their streamer contracts then that would be much more unfortunate. It's seems likely that they do have other exclusivity contracts, perhaps Gotham or the Botez sisters. Although you could argue that "they have the right", by a similar vein we have the right to hold it against them.

> It works the other way too: Wen did you last see Magnus play on Chess.com?

Actually, I don't get your point here. Ideally players would be free to make their own decisions on an ongoing basis, which is what we assume Magnus is doing.

Re: Hikaru Nakamura's Forbidden Platform

#96

Post by permo-w »

apetresc wrote: post #56
jstx1 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but you have to seek it out, I don't think there's any seeking out necessary - you have 3 things to click on after a game - rematch, new opponent and analysis. Like is there really a user demographic that (1) is interested in game analysis and (2) doesn't notice or understand the button that's shown as an option at the end of every game?

To be fair, I'm pretty sure by "analysis" they mean "engine analysis" (since that's the part you have to pay for on chess.com, not just getting an analysis board of your PGN). On lichess, "Analysis" is one button, but "Request Computer Analysis" is another button _in_ the analysis screen, and its often below the fold and behind a tab on most display resolutions. Probably because even fishnet wouldn't be able to keep…

precisely

Re: Hikaru Nakamura's Forbidden Platform

#97

Post by throwaway290 »

synu wrote: post #91
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.

Chess.com isn't _allowing_ anyone to do anything, right? There are sponsors and streamers, and chess.com there in the middle but there's no specific reason it has to be them, or that streamers for example couldn't be sponsored directly. I think for chess.com they want to insert themselves as a kind of broker because it's good for business to put themselves in the middle like that.

Would clubs etc. be interested in sponsoring players, if players would just play elsewhere? I assume in that case clubs will not get any brand recognition boost from being advertised?

Re: Hikaru Nakamura's Forbidden Platform

#98

Post by lupire »

loansindi wrote: post #90
codeflo wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's not; that's the point.

Level 1000 puzzle: obvious pattern move is correct, no surprise.

Level 1400: obvious pattern move is correct, but you have to check a potential threat unless you are guessing.

Level 1800: obvious pattern move is incorrect, need to notice the threat and findnthr better move.

Re: Hikaru Nakamura's Forbidden Platform

#99

Post by permo-w »

mythz wrote: post #50
permo-w wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the lichess post game analysis is as good as that of chess.com, but isn’t presented in quite such a shiny appealing way. it’s not hard to find, but you have to seek it out, whereas chess.com shoves it in your face and tries to get you to pay for more

As a subscriber I do "pay for more", so I see the complete analysis available after each game which has better UX and available content. You make it sound like chess.com shoves heaps of dark practice's IAP in your face, which isn't true, after I've paid for a subscription [1] I've seen no more paywall content or any more monetization options, I get full access to their sub content & features, which because it's great…

>after I've paid for a subscription

in lichess you can computer analyse the board as many times as you want, for free, without even needing an account. the only catch is that you might not notice the feature if you weren't looking for it.

chess.com shoves it in your face, lets you do a few analyses, and then asks you to pay for more. whether that is still the case after you've already paid for more isn't really the point

Re: Hikaru Nakamura's Forbidden Platform

#100

Post by LocalPCGuy »

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

I have accounts on both, started both when free, and eventually decided to pay for chess.com. I find the UX and overall experience better, particularly the analysis side, and I like the mobile app better as well. I feel pretty confident in a fair evaluation and not a post-purchase rationalization here.
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