I'm sick and tired of seeing ICC boast "ICC: where the grandmasters play" as if they're the only site with titled players.  If you take a look at chess.com's leader board you'll easily find tons of titled and title-strength players.

Don't get me wrong, I know other sites were there first, and they do deserve credit for paving the way for chess into the Internet age.  Sites like them let chess.com founders know there was a healthy market.  Who knows, if it weren't for these pioneers of Internet chess, chess.com may not exist as we know and love it!

But times keep changing, and today, currently, chess.com is the best place to play chess online, bar none.  How can I back up such a bold statement?  Take a look!  While some titled players are clearly much more modest (only 11 out of our top 300 esteemed players admit to their titles), chess.com can boast hundreds of titled (or titled strength) players!

I really think this is something chess.com can use to it's advantage if it advertised correctly.  What do you guys think?

what do you really want chess.com to do ?

That's a good question.

I was thinking a good idea would be to contact some of these guys or otherwise give some incentives to getting their titles on here.  That way they can start "showing them off" so to speak (the number of titled players that is)

I know they already have the free diamond membership deal going on, but hey, I'm talking incentives like even paying these guys real cash (which would be made up for in the revenue advertising them would generate).

I know it doesn't matter to most players because they'll never get to play these guys one on one... but I think it adds an air of legitimacy to the site when you can say hundreds of titled players play here every day!

... this may not be doable (erik may not want to start writing checks to these guys ya know?) but this idea is just off the top of my head.  Some of you other people on the forum are likely to think of something better.

GM vs GM playing here, not a bad idea.

It would also be cool to highlight some of the top games on the front page.  I've seen this on a few other sites, but you could see _____ vs ______ (whatever the top game going right now is, I think Gonnosuke is in it actually).  Could even work this in with live chess too if they think it's a good idea.

Wafflemaster are u a grandmaster in need of CASH! but jokes apart.

ICC has its own business model, chess.com from my own understanding is built more as a social site. It encourages almost about everything, building friendship, sharing pictures, uploading videos,  chatting text/voice, creating your own blogs and least i forget playing chess!

It was this model that most dedicated chess website missed!

Haha, why actually yes :D  I was hoping for a cool million

That's a good point.  I guess this site is based more off of a social networking and features that offer improvement (tons of articles and videos and all that).

Still, without dropping that notion of a social site it couldn't hurt to reach as varied a public as you can.  If you highlight the elite of the site, I think it helps draw more people in.

Come for the GMs, stay for all the friends you make

As long as we can stay on topic and not get sidetracked by trolls I think it should go on for quite a long time.

Are you saying a 2500 player here is really a titled player being modest? I don't know about that

I know there are some strong players that don't have titles yet.  That's why I say "titled strength" players.  (Not everyone goes out to play in tounrys and all that).

I've seen people like Reb, Tonydal, dupress, and others who hover below 2500 (dupress might be higher than that actually, I'm too lazy to look up his current rating). 

So anyway, I don't think it's unreasonable to assume that if you can make it to 2500 on chess.com that you can put up a good game against masters and international masters... I mean, the proof is in the pudding!

The trick will be for chess.com to get them to register their titles with chess.com.  The biggest problem I know, it's probably a hassle for little reward (the diamond membership is cool, but GMs don't need video lectures )  This is why I think this is a good idea and an untapped resource.

All in all, when you're looking at less than 5% of your titled players registering with you, it doesn't take a genius to see there's unused potential there.

Oh.

Yeah, kinda makes you think ya know?

About what?

I couldn't have been the first to notice how these strong players gone largely unnoticed. It can only do chess.com some good if more people realized they were here.

ICC has well known titled players. I don't think many people know the ones here. It's really up to the titled players here to win some prestigious tournament or something. It's the titled players fault

We are assuming of course that all the high rated players we have are legitimate.  I have heard from one player that 2400+ players admit to each other that they use Rykba for "certain positions".  Personally, I do not see the fun nor achievement in that but if its widespread then maybe titles are not appropriate.  As for the ratings themselves being accurate in the first place, I think we all know they are inflated.  Maybe 200 points worth.  Aside from that I totally agree with wafflemaster's assertion that its A GREAT SITE.

I suppose so.  But if chess.com could get them to come out to the public it would be worth it.  So even though chess.com isn't at fault for the situation, it would do a lot of good to start aggressively trying to run all these guys though the system and get their titles on the profile for all to see.

That way you can start advertising what a great place (well it's already great... so even better!) it is to play here at chess.com.

 is allowed as long the game is unrated.