Pro's and Con's of Chess.com

That sounds fine, as long as by 'popular' you mean: a feature which - if implemented - will induce basic members to become premium, and/or induce premium members to subscribe to the next higher level of membership.

Well yes, that would be the cynical way of looking at it. But it's not just that. chess.com also needs to keep the current paying members happy. I can always cancel my membership if I feel like chess.com does not keep up with some reasonable expectations.

I know that the Chess.com proposal is different from other servers, but the annual diamond membership is almost twice what is being charged by Playchess (US$ 50) and ICC (US$ 57).

If one's compares the features side by side he will probably be sold to chess.com. But the first impression is normally what people remember....

Well, that's just the diamond membership. But for the first level of $30 you already get more than the other two offer (debatable, but still ...)

I don't think chess.com is expensive relative to the competition. I'd be happy if they could get enough money to allocate more resources to development.

Would someone be kind enough to list ALL the benefits of signing up with Playchess and ICC and compare them side-by-side with chess.com's benefits?

That will be the true apples-to-apples comparison without discussing the value of every video and exercise puzzle on all the servers.

@paul - did you really just say there are only four dimensions to a quantum theory guy?  last i remember there were 11 or 12 and an argument about the 12th or 13th.  i think some people have come up with closer to 20.  i personally like the ant on a wire one (or two?) because it can be explained in lay terms.  basically, if you are an ant on a telephone wire your two dimensions are along the wire and around the wire.  i am sure there are better names for this than "ant dimensions", but you know...i'm not a physicist, but i watch a PBS special on string theory one time.   

Hey, how'd you know?  In a recent business decision, chess.com indeed bought out the entire 7th dimension.  With a domain in cyberspace together with a dimension in imaginary space as home bases, the website moves that much closer to pushing forward with its ultimate goal.

Your mixture of scientific theory and personal belief makes it all very confusing (though maybe intentionally ?). I'm quite sure the holographic principle is unrelated to the 5th dimension, and the 6th dimension probably wouldn't be the cause of (female) intuïtion. 

Even more to the point, string theory requires many dimensions, not Quantum theory. And in string theory, it isn't so important in which order dimensions are listed. Depending on the subspecies of string theory (there are many variations) up to 13 dimensions are needed.

This all sounds much more exciting than it really is though.

The appeal of string theory is that all particles are really just strings of energy vibrating in certain patterns. That makes things simple.

The downside is that these 'simple' strings need to be sufficiently complex to explain why there are apparantly many particles. And they can only be this complicated if there are many dimensions for strings to vibrate in.

So basically, without the extra dimensions string theory falls flat. Assuming they exist there are some interesting results, but it ain't rigorous proof of anything (yet).

The ant explanation is really nice :).

To summarize:

It is fairly certain that there are four dimensions (3 spatial, which we can move back and forth in, and 1 time which we can only move forward).

It is supposed that there may be more by string theory, which is popular but lacks available evidence.

The appeal of string theory is that it allows Einstein's gravity to be applied at the "quantum" level. It is an interesting parallel to the problems of the 1900's which led to relativity and quantum mechanics.

Wow this topic is red hot...

I'm lost with all the untestable dimension theories.

If I stay on the dimension that I am in now, where's the advantage of chess.com then?

pro of chess.com - can learn chess and physics. 

so strings are not part of quantum physics? 

so RC, what exactly do you do in the real world?  are you a physicist or just an informed amature?

Actually, anyone can sound like an informed amateur. All you need it google.com.

Now if you happen to find someone's real name under a roster of masters or doctorates in Physics, then that's what I would call a true physicist.

-- (to my knowledge) The opening explorer doesn't save the position you were looking at if you watch a game from it. Many times I'll watch a game for a really long variation, hit back, and then find out I have to enter in the whole variation again to see another game in it. Is there any way past this?

-- It doesn't do my Engineering homework for me =(.

++ Your all in one chess stop. 

++ all the groovy dudes and dudettes.

"Is there any way past this?"

Right click on the game link, select "Open in new tab" from drop down menu.

For Vote Chess games, the Explore button takes you directly into Game Explorer at that position.

For turn-based games, the Analyse button takes you to the Analysis Board; from there, the Explore button takes you directly into Game Explorer at that position.

I used my 6th dimension to find out

how can you not lke live chess chat???

With regard to the science speculation earlier , I believe science has gone down a blind alley of mathematical masturbation and lost contact with what can observed. String theory to me is just Ptolemaic epicycles reincarnated. People who manipulate string are very clever, but cleverness doesn't equal widom. The maths should follow observation not determine it....

Perhaps only getting limited access to all of what Chess.com has to offer is a motivator to upgrade. They offer a great product, free and paid. It just makes sense to support the site and invest in your growth and development by upgrading; I mean, who cant afford 3.99, 5.99 per month?!

CMON people.