Upcoming Changes to Chess.com Memberships

here is what we have decided for tactics trainer:

first off, because we care about you :D, we are changing to WEEKLY limits vs. DAILY. that will allow you to rollover your non-usage so that you won't feel punished for not using it.

basic/free members will now get 10 tactics per week. we know it's a cut to some of them, but to the majority of them who only login a few times per week to Chess.com it will actually help them. most basic members do 10 on average anyway.

gold members will get 200 tactics per week. to put that in perspective, the average silver/gold member does 26 tactics per week. the average person who even used tactics trainer at all did 110. only 4% of gold/silver members did more than 200 last week, and of those who did more than 1 problem, only 17% did more than 200.

the total count of people this affects just isn't large at all. and those who are using more than that can now, for $1 a month, get unlimited.

in addition to all of this, i will not semi-spill the beans on the next feature, which should help even more to calm any concerns: it is a product somewhere in between tactics trainer and chess mentor, and gold members will have access to a fair amount of that as well. no more details will be given on this, but i personally am very excited about it for my own training!

Well, I gave away the gold membership to a friend of mine, and the t-shirt is underway.. but can I really use the remaining er.. $$$ for the new upcoming diamond yearly? If so that'd be really cool.. I dont mind paying a bit extra for it if I have to either..

200 per week, sounds reasonable. Much better than restricting us to a daily number.

and as an FYI, those of you who were concerned about tactics, here is your usage this week:

• brandonQDSH - zero
• ratkins - zero
  
• LOB - zero
• greasyfingers - zero
  
• neospooky - zero
• xbigboy - zero
• staggerlee - 5
• BorgQueen - 11
  
• The_Pitts - 11
• CauseyT - 15
• god - 61
  
• Philidorian - 80
  
• bondiggity - 147
• krishaqua - 192
  
• Dragonknightx - 226
• TheIronDuke - 396
  
• pauldratemill - 434

there are a handful of power users in there that will be affected by this. i hope that the lowered prices for other memberships, hugely lowered price on chess mentor, and new features will please you.

I would like to give my chess mentor time & or facilities appart from recieving spams to another person that wills, how, if, can I go about it?

Well with the table above: what people do in 1 week might be because they don't have the time but will in the next. But 200 sounds good for when exams end by summer.

agreed. it's just to provide some perspective.

I use all my allowed Tactics Tainer problems when I can, and it has improved my rating by nearly 200! I could quite easily complete ten in one day let alone ten in one week, and your proposals are going to more than half the amount I can do each week! :(

you'll be getting some new features that will help make up for it. i'm happy to provide a full refund at any time :)

If I can I'll give you mine!

Sam, so it's a valuable service... the developers have to make a living, yes? If you celebrate Christmas you could always add a £20 gold membership to your list, or if you have to pay message Erik yourself and ask if he might work out a student discount.

thegab03> If I can I'll give you mine!

Very nice. 'Tis the season. :)

Very tact Erik, I like your style :D

Go for it, I'm just happy to be part of Chess.com.

I am happy too. Gold is still reasonable. Platinum costs less. Chess Mentor costs less. Diamond is treated fairly. Good for probably 90% of members and the site.

My parents think I spend to long on here as it is, I would never be able to persuade them. But a student discount might tempt me to pay for it myself... ;)

you are right about that. Also I heard there would be a number on your icon(Gold, Platinum...) saying how long youv'e been a member in years like 1, 2 or even 0(Instead of zero 1M for one month.).

And why is membership in members section? It doesn't have much to do with it.

OK – cheeky question but let’s ask it anyway.

I upgraded from Gold to Platinum last week.  I’ve ordered my t-shirt & I’m trying to give away my free Gold membership in my competition (http://www.chess.com/forum/view/off-topic/who-wants-a-free-gold-membership-to-chesscom) which no one seems to want to enter – but that’s another story :-)

It says here http://www.chess.com/membership.html that if you become a Diamond member you get a free t-shirt and a Gold membership to give away.  If I upgrade to Diamond before the 15th do I get another t-shirt & Gold giveaway?

FYI - this all may not happen until Jan 1. still a LOT to do.