10 Things Chess.Com must do RIGHT NOW!
Hi Chess.com higher-ups,
It’s me 🙋🏽♂️ (a player who has spent a lot of time on your site and app)
I'd like to preface this by saying the I love what you already have to offer, otherwise, I wouldn’t be here as a paid member, but I’d also like to propose a few adjustments that would make this place even better. Please remember that this open letter comes from a place of deep appreciation.
For a change from the usual chess player grievances, I won’t be talking about cheating in this post. Yay!
I want to focus on other things, like these 10:
1- Conditional moves on mobile
When I play rapid games, I’m always on my computer. The bigger screen and the arrow effects makes the experience smoother. However, for daily games, I’m often on my phone as I only need to make one move at a time.
With this format, I can open up a game, analyze it for a few minutes then decide on a move. I really love daily games! Yay for daily games!
Since the time control on these bad boys* are lengthy, I often find myself waiting until the next day for my opponent to make a predictable move, like a recapture.
Then, it’s his turn to wait for me to make a move he might have anticipated. Those 48 hours of waiting for two moves could have been avoided if the conditional moves feature were accessible on my phone. Daily games would more dynamic and more fun.
*I’m sorry daily games! I didn’t mean to insult you by saying you are bad! I love you! COME BACK!!! I'M SO SORRY!!!
2- A list of tournaments I’m currently registered in.
Once the tournament has started, I have to find a game to quickly access the tournament info (but it doesn't work on mobile).
When I have no active games left on my homepage and can’t access the tournament info, I have to dig through my inbox and search the Chess.com message that contains the tournament link just to check how many games are left to be played. Those steps aren’t very intuitive.
However, the situation gets even worse with live tournaments. If I register for a tournament that starts in 45 minutes, I am afraid to close the tournament tab and do something else - like puzzles - in fear that I will be unregistered if I leave the page. Popups notifications would be great to clarify that.
Also, I haven’t found a way to confirm simply whether I’m registered for a live tournament or not. I’ve even unregistered without realizing it… probably because I’m becoming old and bad with technology.
A dedicated tab or section showing upcoming tournaments I’m registered in would make my life so much easier.
3- Courses on mobile
I guess that it’s already in the works, but please just make it happen. I’d love to read a short chapter of a course before going to sleep.
4- Gender parity in Pogchamps
I won’t get into all the subtleties of gender disparity in chess. But I can point out that women make up half of the world’s population.
If Pogchamps is a gateway to chess for new players, seeing a mostly male contestant field feels a bit off-putting. Even if it might reflect the current chess fanbase, I would love to see the next Pogchamps feature an equal number of men and women competing.
This would send a positive message and help combat against gender disparity in chess by encouraging more women to take up the game.
5- Add classical time controls
Danny, you really got me hyped up with this survey in 2024!
I know that integrating classical time controls and rating would come with its challenges. In an era where everything moves super fast, I guess that the percentage of people disconnecting could become an issue. A filter that prevents players from continuing this format after a certain number or percentage of disconnects would be great.
Personally, I feel like many adults improvers out there want to work on their game. When every coach says we should play longer time controls, we should be able to do so on the biggest chess site on earth and have an appropriate rating for that time format. That’s why even though we can play longer games, we don’t.
We don’t want to mess up our rapid rating. Yeah, I know, I've written that we shouldn’t care about our elo rating, but we can’t help but to care too much!
6- The ability to set a personal game limit
Two months ago, streamer and Pogchamps alumni MoistCr1TiKal explained that he quit chess because it became an addiction.
As a comedian, I can share a scoop that I will be involved in a responsible gaming campaign here in Quebec. (A CHESS.COM EXCLUSIVITY!!!)
From everything I’ve learned, I can say for sure that chess addiction is real, even if there is no money involved. The dopamine, the psychology and play patterns are similar.
As a business, you’ll be better off with people playing a set amount every day for years, rather than losing them forever because they couldn't control themselves.
And morally, you’d have done your part in addressing the problem. Yes, I know, players could create alternate accounts, but they wouldn’t have access to paid features and in the end, that's on them.
Also, addiction often stems from compulsion, the screen notifying them that they’ve reached their limit can be enough for them to realise it’s time to take a break.
7- More customization in puzzles
I won’t link to the other site, but their puzzle themes are more detailed and customizable. It would be nice to do something similar… or even better 👀.
8- A game review that considers the player’s level
For me, some of the things that you do better than the other site are the post game features. Yours are intuitive, colorful and simple.
However, on my way to becoming a 1350-rated player in rapid, back when I was rated 900, I was sometimes confused by the classification given by the engine to a move I played. I was given a miss or a mistake for moves that didn’t make me lose my advantage.
I don’t think it’s fair to label it a miss or a mistake when a 800 doesn’t see a mate in 9. That 800 still made a good move for his level. Chess is already a complex game and I was genuinely trying to understand what the system was trying to tell me, but I didn’t yet have the knowledge to interpret it properly. At times, I drew the wrong conclusions.
Going from +5 to +3 after a move is technically an inaccuracy, but still good for a 700-rated player. Slapping players on their fingers with a stick isn’t the best approach here. It would be great to include in its code a way to avoid negative feedback for moves that don’t drastically lose the advantage for beginners.
Beginners mostly just want to avoid blunders. It’s fine for them to waste a move or two. Later in their development, those would obviously count as mistakes so they will learn from their imprecision. But not at the start.
9- More live tournament options
As I mentioned earlier, I love playing tournaments. They’re fun journeys!
However, I feel like the split between “under 1200” and “everybody” is a little broad. As a 1000-rated player in blitz, I get paired against a lot of 500-700-rated players, whom I end up obliterating. I’ve written here that winning against really lower rated players doesn’t give much. I can speculate that this mismatch for the lower-rated-opponent isn’t fun for them either. I’ve checked with Marie Kondo and she said that I should play them if these games don't spark joy.
You have the numbers so you would be in a better position than I am to make the call, but I feel like, maybe, the split could be something “under 900, “901-1200” and “everybody”.
That would represent
- Still learning to not blunder anything
- Getting the hang of it
- Bring it on!
10- Make a top blogger!
I’m a professional writer, I’ve written a double bestseller and I’ve won Improvers Post Of The Month twice... and there are still a few months left to this challenge to rack up more wins!
People have also seen me on TV, dripping in sweat talking about chessboxing. Ok. Maybe we can forget about that time I looked like a mess on national TV.
But they did a different segment for their social media. They really want people to see how ugly I can be!
So, make me a top blogger so I can talk more about you not only in my newsletter, but also in real life (and on stage as I'm writing a bit on chess as we speak!) [MY GOD CHESS.COM GETS ALL THE SCOOPS!!!]
The top blogger title would help reach out to some companies to make better content for Chess.com and the readers!
And also… IT’S MY BIRTHDAY TODAY! 🥳🥳🥳
(If this argument doesn’t tip the scale I don’t know what will)
So, there are 10 things that would make my life easier as a chess player, and hopefully many others around the world, better here.
❤️ With love ❤️
Pierre-Luc
