6 ms·

You should use lichess.org instead. You would have unlimited tactics per day which come from real games played on the website, endless number of studies made by

by prune2000 6y ago

You should use lichess.org instead. You would have unlimited tactics per day which come from real games played on the website, endless number of studies made by other players on opening theories, free analysis of your games, and all these statistics about your progress and more! Like "do I win more often or not when Queens are traded?". Good luck!

petepete 6y ago
I asked which Chess service to set my dad up with on his iPad a few years ago on here and someone recommended lichess. He's put hundreds and hundreds of hours in since and absolutely loves it. Amazing service.
- j4yav 6y ago
  Open source as well: https://github.com/ornicar/lila https://github.com/ornicar/lila
danielskogly 6y ago
Seconding this! Lichess is also free/libre and open-source[0], and has a really nice API[1] allowing you to do pretty much anything you could think of wanting to do when it comes to online chess. [0]: https://github.com/ornicar/lila/ https://github.com/ornicar/lila/ [1]: https://lichess.org/api https://lichess.org/api
shric 6y ago
Highly recommend lichess.org too. Completely free, open source, runs on donations, no ads or constant nagging to try premium.
mrslave 6y ago
A quick second endorsement for this absolute gem of a website: lichess.org. I've gone from a player who can't beat the computer on level 1 (estimated ELO 800 LOL) to winning 50% of matches on level 3 (est. ELO 1400). Still pretty poor, but so is my study effort. And I'm OK with it. My colleague from another time zone struggled to recommend a book for my level and kinda laughed (albeit politely). But now we can play a quick game in our work breaks online. Thank You Lichess! canned applause Edit: DO THE PUZZLES!!! (sorry, tired)
- fabian2k 6y ago
  I would strongly recommend to play against real humans, not the computer. The computer with a handicap just plays in very weird ways, and that is not really helpful for learning. I also played the computer at first, and level 3 is the first level where it actually puts up a fight. But it plays very weird combinations of strong moves and then completely blunders at times. The problem is that it blunders in a very non-human way, so it doesn't help you that much to learn how to take advantage of the kind of errors a human tends to make. The rating of the computer on Lichess is also kinda weird, you can't really rely on those. I'm a pretty weak player (I have only played a bit online recently), I did beat the level 3 computer on Lichess when I concentrated well enough on a game, but I'm certainly not 1400 against real humans.
  - mrslave 6y ago
    Thank you. I do play against humans (I hope) but less than half the time. I too have noticed the blunders. What is the first level where you estimate it plays consistently?
    - fabian2k 6y ago
      I never played it above level 3, and I would assume that any handicap will result in weird plays. And without handicap it is too strong for any human.
      - lizardmancan 6y ago
        i just play at the highest level and lose pretty much all of the time. it does greatly improve my analysis but you grow a fear of attacking which makes a boring player. beating the computer is done by sticking to positions you know well and winning before material leaves the board. every pawn removed makes the computer 100 times stronger. again, very boring
  - MauranKilom 6y ago
    That has also been exactly my experience. Beating level 3 is just about capitalizing on the obvious blunders it makes. It feels completely unrewarding. Playing against humans, even significantly stronger ones, is so much more fun and rewarding. It's just way more exciting when both sides can capitalize on smaller mistakes, so the game becomes about building and maintaining an advantage. Or setting up a tactic that feels great to pull off. The computers will usually not yield any incremental advances at all (and they won't fall for tactics) until they make a dumb move that invalidates all the advantage they built up. Whether you win or lose depends mainly on how often the latter happens, and learning how to make that happen is both opaque/unfun and useless for playing against humans.
Trufa 6y ago
I’m a huge fan of lichess for playing and analysis but I think for tactics, it’s the one place it’s lacking, it’s always too easy for me for some reason and I go to chesstempo instead. Does anyone else experience this? By the way, when I say easy it’s for me that I’m an average player.
- prune2000 6y ago
  I love chesstempo too and use it a lot also!
- watwut 6y ago
  For me it tend to be more of difficult, but doable. I am beginner. Mostly it was not helping to improve at my level at all, they were sort of pointless exercises in my level. What helped were chess king exercises apps where you solve simple situations that are not even puzzles. But they are common in game and made you start noticing opportunities and own mistakes in game. E.g. at super beginner level, you improve a lot.
- emerongi 6y ago
  What is your puzzle rating? As a novice player (1300 rating), the puzzles are plenty hard for me personally.
  - matsemann 6y ago
    For me (1700) the problem is that they often aren't real tactics. One can get a puzzle where there's really no obvious tactical move, only strategic ones. It's mostly okay, but there's a big difference between puzzles extracted by an algorithm from games, and from hand-picket/crafted tactic puzzles.
  - whimsicalism 6y ago
    Disagree. I'm a 1500 player and get 2100 on the tactics, which is obviously not representative and means something is up.
- nebulous1 6y ago
  The puzzles on chesstempo are much better but the interface is much worse, particularly on mobile. Honestly the puzzles on chess.com are better than lichess. The lichess ones just seem to have limited scope, I'm not sure why. That said the interface is good and if you're finding them too easy then your puzzle rating should be rising to the point where it's offering you puzzles you'll find more challenging.
billfruit 6y ago
Anyone know something similar for Scrabble, with ranked online play? It is good once in a while to get the feeling of getting better at a game by putting in some time and effort. Scrabble looks like just the thing for someone who finds chess too abstract and deterministic.
yewenjie 6y ago
Lichess is something that strikes pure joy to me as a service. Full of features, free and open source, privacy friendly, zero ads or 'freemium' tiers, blazing fast, yet catering the 'non-tech-savvy' regular user (compare the last point with GNU/Linux vs Windows).
coherentpony 6y ago
I have found that lichess has a more intuitive interface but the lessons and puzzles on chess.com are far superior. The explanations are clearer in the lessons, and I think the puzzles are less confusing on chess.com. To each their own, though.
komali2 6y ago
Lichess is a god-tier piece of software. Nearly every time I use it I'm surprised by some new, incredibly well-implemented feature. For example, I recently discovered that if you hover over someone's username, and they're playing a public match, a little box (an iFrame? I haven't inspected yet) appears next to your pointer with their game, updating in realtime. I really need to take a look at the source code, I'm sure I would learn a lot.
mrpotato 6y ago
> Like "do I win more often or not when Queens are traded?". Could you point me to where/how I can do this? It is definitely something I'd like to see! Thanks
- rozim 6y ago
  Go to your 'Profile' page, then 'Chess Insights' and you end up at a URL like: https://lichess.org/insights/atabotix/acpl/variant https://lichess.org/insights/atabotix/acpl/variant ^^^^^^^^ user name

petepete 6y ago

I asked which Chess service to set my dad up with on his iPad a few years ago on here and someone recommended lichess. He's put hundreds and hundreds of hours in since and absolutely loves it. Amazing service.

j4yav 6y ago
Open source as well: https://github.com/ornicar/lila https://github.com/ornicar/lila

danielskogly 6y ago

Seconding this! Lichess is also free/libre and open-source[0], and has a really nice API[1] allowing you to do pretty much anything you could think of wanting to do when it comes to online chess. [0]: https://github.com/ornicar/lila/ https://github.com/ornicar/lila/ [1]: https://lichess.org/api https://lichess.org/api

shric 6y ago

Highly recommend lichess.org too. Completely free, open source, runs on donations, no ads or constant nagging to try premium.

mrslave 6y ago

A quick second endorsement for this absolute gem of a website: lichess.org. I've gone from a player who can't beat the computer on level 1 (estimated ELO 800 LOL) to winning 50% of matches on level 3 (est. ELO 1400). Still pretty poor, but so is my study effort. And I'm OK with it. My colleague from another time zone struggled to recommend a book for my level and kinda laughed (albeit politely). But now we can play a quick game in our work breaks online. Thank You Lichess! canned applause Edit: DO THE PUZZLES!!! (sorry, tired)

fabian2k 6y ago
I would strongly recommend to play against real humans, not the computer. The computer with a handicap just plays in very weird ways, and that is not really helpful for learning. I also played the computer at first, and level 3 is the first level where it actually puts up a fight. But it plays very weird combinations of strong moves and then completely blunders at times. The problem is that it blunders in a very non-human way, so it doesn't help you that much to learn how to take advantage of the kind of errors a human tends to make. The rating of the computer on Lichess is also kinda weird, you can't really rely on those. I'm a pretty weak player (I have only played a bit online recently), I did beat the level 3 computer on Lichess when I concentrated well enough on a game, but I'm certainly not 1400 against real humans.
- mrslave 6y ago
  Thank you. I do play against humans (I hope) but less than half the time. I too have noticed the blunders. What is the first level where you estimate it plays consistently?
  - fabian2k 6y ago
    I never played it above level 3, and I would assume that any handicap will result in weird plays. And without handicap it is too strong for any human.
    - lizardmancan 6y ago
      i just play at the highest level and lose pretty much all of the time. it does greatly improve my analysis but you grow a fear of attacking which makes a boring player. beating the computer is done by sticking to positions you know well and winning before material leaves the board. every pawn removed makes the computer 100 times stronger. again, very boring
- MauranKilom 6y ago
  That has also been exactly my experience. Beating level 3 is just about capitalizing on the obvious blunders it makes. It feels completely unrewarding. Playing against humans, even significantly stronger ones, is so much more fun and rewarding. It's just way more exciting when both sides can capitalize on smaller mistakes, so the game becomes about building and maintaining an advantage. Or setting up a tactic that feels great to pull off. The computers will usually not yield any incremental advances at all (and they won't fall for tactics) until they make a dumb move that invalidates all the advantage they built up. Whether you win or lose depends mainly on how often the latter happens, and learning how to make that happen is both opaque/unfun and useless for playing against humans.

Trufa 6y ago

I’m a huge fan of lichess for playing and analysis but I think for tactics, it’s the one place it’s lacking, it’s always too easy for me for some reason and I go to chesstempo instead. Does anyone else experience this? By the way, when I say easy it’s for me that I’m an average player.

prune2000 6y ago
I love chesstempo too and use it a lot also!
watwut 6y ago
For me it tend to be more of difficult, but doable. I am beginner. Mostly it was not helping to improve at my level at all, they were sort of pointless exercises in my level. What helped were chess king exercises apps where you solve simple situations that are not even puzzles. But they are common in game and made you start noticing opportunities and own mistakes in game. E.g. at super beginner level, you improve a lot.
emerongi 6y ago
What is your puzzle rating? As a novice player (1300 rating), the puzzles are plenty hard for me personally.
- matsemann 6y ago
  For me (1700) the problem is that they often aren't real tactics. One can get a puzzle where there's really no obvious tactical move, only strategic ones. It's mostly okay, but there's a big difference between puzzles extracted by an algorithm from games, and from hand-picket/crafted tactic puzzles.
- whimsicalism 6y ago
  Disagree. I'm a 1500 player and get 2100 on the tactics, which is obviously not representative and means something is up.
nebulous1 6y ago
The puzzles on chesstempo are much better but the interface is much worse, particularly on mobile. Honestly the puzzles on chess.com are better than lichess. The lichess ones just seem to have limited scope, I'm not sure why. That said the interface is good and if you're finding them too easy then your puzzle rating should be rising to the point where it's offering you puzzles you'll find more challenging.

billfruit 6y ago

Anyone know something similar for Scrabble, with ranked online play? It is good once in a while to get the feeling of getting better at a game by putting in some time and effort. Scrabble looks like just the thing for someone who finds chess too abstract and deterministic.

yewenjie 6y ago

Lichess is something that strikes pure joy to me as a service. Full of features, free and open source, privacy friendly, zero ads or 'freemium' tiers, blazing fast, yet catering the 'non-tech-savvy' regular user (compare the last point with GNU/Linux vs Windows).

coherentpony 6y ago

I have found that lichess has a more intuitive interface but the lessons and puzzles on chess.com are far superior. The explanations are clearer in the lessons, and I think the puzzles are less confusing on chess.com. To each their own, though.

komali2 6y ago

Lichess is a god-tier piece of software. Nearly every time I use it I'm surprised by some new, incredibly well-implemented feature. For example, I recently discovered that if you hover over someone's username, and they're playing a public match, a little box (an iFrame? I haven't inspected yet) appears next to your pointer with their game, updating in realtime. I really need to take a look at the source code, I'm sure I would learn a lot.

mrpotato 6y ago

> Like "do I win more often or not when Queens are traded?". Could you point me to where/how I can do this? It is definitely something I'd like to see! Thanks

rozim 6y ago
Go to your 'Profile' page, then 'Chess Insights' and you end up at a URL like: https://lichess.org/insights/atabotix/acpl/variant https://lichess.org/insights/atabotix/acpl/variant ^^^^^^^^ user name