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I wondered if the popularity of 'The queen's Gambit' would lead to a brief infatuation with chess in the popular imagination. The fact I've seen about 3 chess

I wondered if the popularity of 'The queen's Gambit' would lead to a brief infatuation with chess in the popular imagination. The fact I've seen about 3 chess related submissions on HN recently, where I don't recall ever seeing one before, suggests it does. I used to enjoy a game of chess back in the day, although I was never very good. And I always imagined myself playing chess with a remote opponent by post when I was a dusty old man [as featured in a few period dramas]. It's a shame that the advent of the internet has simultaneously increased your chances of finding someone to play with remotely but, at the same time, [for me anyway] pretty much removed all inclination to do so, as I'd never be sure my opponent wasn't just putting the moves into a computer and playing whatever it told him to play.

noir_lord 6y ago
> as I'd never be sure my opponent wasn't just putting the moves into a computer and playing whatever it told him to play. 100% sure, probably not however all the major online chess sites operate anti-cheat systems and heuristics plus dedicated teams. I play a lot online and nearly always look at the game with a computer afterwards and you can see that it was a human game (or someone been very clever with how they used the engine). I mean if you where a GM playing in a ranked tournament with a prize fund I could see the concern but at our level computer cheats are much easier to spot.
bttrfl 6y ago
google trends can help answer your question: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?geo=US&q=chess,fortnite https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?geo=US&q=chess,fort...
Lio 6y ago
> as I'd never be sure my opponent wasn't just putting the moves into a computer and playing whatever it told him to play. That's less of a problem than you might think. The reason being that most online chess systems will give you an Elo rating and use that to match you up to similarly rated potential opponents. Anyone that was using a computer to play for them would quickly gain a high rating and so either be matched against really strong players who stand a chance of beating the computer or others doing the same thing. Give online chess a go, it's great.
flr03 6y ago
Never been good either but I was occasionally playing when I was younger and The Queen's Gambit did get me back into Chess. On Chess.com the post game report gives you the move accuracy which is, I guess, some kind of standard deviation compared to what a chess engine would play. Never seen someone having a very high suspicious score, at least at my level.
- have_faith 6y ago
  I think the incentive to cheat online at chess wears off quite quickly, there's not a lot of glory. When someone cheats and wins a round of Counter Strike or other only game their win is immediately seen by many people. It's also relatively easy through analysis to spot a not so subtle cheater so auto-bans weed out the few cheaters left.
notagoodidea 6y ago
> I used to enjoy a game of chess back in the day, although I was never very good. And I always imagined myself playing chess with a remote opponent by post when I was a dusty old man [as featured in a few period dramas]. > It's a shame that the advent of the internet has simultaneously increased your chances of finding someone to play with remotely but, at the same time, [for me anyway] pretty much removed all inclination to do so, as I'd never be sure my opponent wasn't just putting the moves into a computer and playing whatever it told him to play. I play on ICCF servers that are the past postal federation. Centaur games (Human + Computer help) are allowed with large time clock (50 days for the first 10 moves, and so on). I play for my fun and taking my time to dig into the problems of the position without hurry. You have to be registered at your national federation to play there but it is fun and very different of the general online chess experience which tends to be centred around blitz games.
k__ 6y ago
[Spoiler Warning] As a person who can barely play chess The Queen's Gambit was a good show not because of the chess, but because it was a show about a women where everything went well. There was foreshadowing and all, but all went well in the end. It was very wholesome. Sure, it was about chess, but it could have been any sport, really.
- RHSman2 6y ago
  the character work is sublime.
  - jfengel 6y ago
    As an actor myself, I was very impressed. They played chess like chess players. Each move had a meaning to them. They told a story just with the way they touched the pieces. The emotions were both powerful and tightly contained, which I find more exciting than the kind of big, showy acting that usually attracts the most attention. It was an exercise in intention and specificity, things that get drilled into you in acting classes but rarely so clear.
- nullsense 6y ago
  I don't know if neglect, abuse and addiction is "going well". but she did overcome all the adversity to win in the end. I really enjoyed it, but she had a pretty rough time of it.
- the_af 6y ago
  I find this is the case with most sports (soccer, dancing, iceskating, etc) movies. They are mostly about character building and overcoming challenges -- the actual sport is barebones and could be mostly swapped for any other. I still enjoyed Queen's Gambit a lot. It did foreshadow but then subvert some common tropes.
- hackerNoose 6y ago
  I thought that was the biggest weaknes. The challenges all feel small and made up. The depiction of substance abuse is just strange. It's like a teenagers dream of how it is to become a chess pro with some small speed bumps to not make it too blatant. As for the sport, her career was more similar to that of boxer than a chess player.
telesilla 6y ago
This absolutely rekindled my interest. I used to play as a young girl (pre-teen) and enjoyed it but as I got older didn't feel welcome in the chess club. It's nice how they show on TV that girls who wanted it just got in there and be involved but the reality was not as easy.. (hopefully it's easier now, the 80s was not kind to girls with a nerdish bent). I've started reading chess openings and tactics as a way to send me to sleep, on one of those chess sites that sets up a play for you. I don't think I'll ever play chess again - time is limited and I don't think anyone would suffer playing with me given what I've forgotten - but I'm enjoying learning strategies again. It's great stuff for the brain. I've put the Chess Tactics site on my weekend-lazy-reading list. Who knows, maybe I find my way back to playing games again.
- saeranv 6y ago
  Try chess.com or lichess.org! You're automatically matched with someone of your skill level, and can play games from 1 to 10 minutes (each).
  - SubiculumCode 6y ago
    I highly recommend Chess Tempo for tactics training. A large database of problems drawn from grandmaster games, insightful user commentary per problem, and a full classification of each problem by the type of tactic e.g. attraction.
    - philsnow 6y ago
      chesstempo is neat because they have ELO-like ratings for tactics puzzles. It's the first place I saw such a thing.
      - SubiculumCode 6y ago
        Alot of those puzzles are damn hard, ELO ratings there are legitimate. I feel that chess Tempo has really given me tools to recognize recurring tactical motifs in actual play.
sudhirj 6y ago
It absolutely re-kindled my interest in chess. I played as a child, but never took it seriously. Got a chess board for my 4-yo, but unfortunately she isn't a prodigy. Who'd have thought. Still has fun arranging the pieces and make up stories with them, though. And I'm playing on the Chess.com app. The puzzles especially are a neat way to get your brain running, and they're a better attention sink than Twitter / HN.
- srtjstjsj 6y ago
  The vast majority of grandmasters didn't play chess at age 4.
  - thiago_fm 6y ago
    That's incorrect. I did a lot of ending puzzles and knew a lot about openings and variations at age 5, learned mostly because a father of a friend was very enthusiastic about it. I quit playing around age 7 because some kids there were really out of my league and there wasn't enough government or support for me to continue playing given that I wasn't the best. I still play to this day, but mostly amateurish and very sporadically. Of course if you just want to do it for fun, it's fine. But if you can to become a GM and make a living playing chess, the bar is pretty high and it's very likely that you suck. You can start to play a bit later and become a GM, but it's a big gamble with your future. Most people I know who continued with chess nowadays are in the low 2K range, one made it to IM... all share extremely good memory and logical thinking and could just have been instead a lazy CS student and get top grades, eventually become a software engineer and enjoy a good life. But instead have a shitty life playing the same game all over again and have a hard time leaving it now to do something else, as it's the thing they dedicated their whole life to.
    - YinglingLight 6y ago
      Chess is like Boxing. Pays nothing. The workload is insane, the natural talent is insane, your competition is global. Only the very top 0.5% get name recognition (money). And like Boxing, these athletes could get paid more had they devoted their life literally ANY other pursuit with their work ethic and talent. With far less punishment involved. Concept of Talent Stacking: https://personalexcellence.co/blog/talent-stack/ https://personalexcellence.co/blog/talent-stack/
fileeditview 6y ago
Chess has always been an occasional topic on HN: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=chess&sort=byDate&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... You should not be afraid of cheaters online. In the lower rating levels the chances to meet one are pretty slim. You can probably have hundreds or thousands of wonderful games before you meet one and probably you would not even recognize it. What you meet more often are people that let their time run out to annoy you. Just realize it's only about internet points, resign and have a new good game. Have fun playing (maybe).
- rgoulter 6y ago
  chess.com's messaging is the opposite of "chances are slim". but they emphasise that they take the issue seriously, albeit with a low false-positive rate. https://www.chess.com/article/view/online-chess-cheating https://www.chess.com/article/view/online-chess-cheating From the comments, it seems there's also the risk that you'll think cheating occurred, when instead you just missed stuff.
  - fileeditview 6y ago
    Interesting article. They do however say nothing about the rating of said cheaters (or I missed it). What I stated before was that it is unlikely in the lower rating levels and I stand by that. If someone cheats he will gain rating fast and leave the lower rating groups. And yes people also tend to accuse other of cheating if they lose. :) As long as you are not a competitive player the best you can do is to just play and try to improve your own play and have fun.
    - colechristensen 6y ago
      In other words, you would have to be rather bad at cheating to maintain a low rating. Chess competition is driven by various rating systems which match people fairly well. Computers are very much better than beginner to intermediate players.
      - 6y ago
Arnavion 6y ago
>as I'd never be sure my opponent wasn't just putting the moves into a computer and playing whatever it told him to play. Their ELO would likely be higher than yours if they did, so you wouldn't be matched with them.
tlamponi 6y ago
> I wondered if the popularity of 'The queen's Gambit' would lead to a brief infatuation with chess in the popular imagination. There are some indicators that yes, that show has increased interest in learning chess. For example, check the Google search trend for "learn chess" over the last 12 months, or even 5 years to ensure it is no periodic increase of interest: https://trends.google.de/trends/explore?q=learn%20chess https://trends.google.de/trends/explore?q=learn%20chess
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- Fiahil 6y ago
  Wow ! That's amazing !
fcatalan 6y ago
COVID lockdowns had already started the chess surge, for example look at the numbers for chess streams on Twitch: https://twitchtracker.com/games/743 https://twitchtracker.com/games/743 I started playing in June after reading this: https://www.wired.com/story/hikaru-nakamura-twitch-chess/ https://www.wired.com/story/hikaru-nakamura-twitch-chess/
jyriand 6y ago
There was some sorts of renaissance of chess in twitch community. All the big streamers were playing chess for some reason. Not sure what happened there, might be related somehow to Hikaru Nakamura starting to stream and growing pretty big. But that was before "Queen's Gambit".
- Newky 6y ago
  It was tied to the beginning of Covid lockdowns as well. Chess has had a very strong year in terms of numbers coming to the game. Queen's Gambit seems to have exploded that again.
- slx26 6y ago
  Here's what happened. Excerpt from the wikipedia page [0]: > PogChamps is an online amateur chess tournament hosted by Chess.com. Players in the tournament are internet personalities, primarily Twitch streamers. PogChamps takes place over the course of two weeks and has a prize pool of $50,000. Basically, very strong chess players trained twitch personalities for a few days, and then had them play against each other. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PogChamps https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PogChamps
ricardo81 6y ago
I'm perhaps in the same boat. Played a lot as a child but very rarely nowadays. I am a member of chess.com but haven't played in a while. I think the better players tend to play a quicker timed game to better avoid bot activity. Personally I prefer a more slower game, particularly because I'm out of practice.
maaaaattttt 6y ago
'The queen's Gambit' has definitely lead to a rise in chess popularity [0] and I as well assumed this submission was a side effect of that. In mid-November, more than 100,000 new members registered for Chess.com each day. This is roughly five times higher than average. [0] https://www.businessinsider.com/the-queens-gambit-netflix-online-chess-app-interest-2020-11 https://www.businessinsider.com/the-queens-gambit-netflix-on...
l33tman 6y ago
You might end up playing a cheater at some point (though it's uncommon). But you're much more probable to end up playing someone better and you'll think they're a cheater.. Look at this livestream where Magnus Carlsen, the world champion, is logged in under another account and crushes Jan Gustafsson (another grandmaster) and he can't believe it's a human playing him :) (or at least suggests he is skeptical) https://youtu.be/Ka5sh6hBvSI?t=219 https://youtu.be/Ka5sh6hBvSI?t=219
yodsanklai 6y ago
> I wondered if the popularity of 'The queen's Gambit' would lead to a brief infatuation with chess in the popular imagination It did for me. Hadn't played chess for decades. After watching this show, my gf wanted to learn and it renewed my interest in the game. Not sure I want to go down this rabbit hole though... > It's a shame that the advent of the internet has simultaneously increased your chances of finding someone to play with remotely It works very well. I played a few games on lichess (recommended in the comments of another HN thread). I could find opponents who played at my level in a matter of a seconds. There are also tons of youtubers who do a good job explaining strategies and such. It seems Chess never goes out of fashion, still a cool game! It's amazing the amount of resource you can find nowadays. Back in the day, it was extremely limited. I remember I had a couple of books from my grandfather, plus a few friends I was playing with, and "chess master" on Amiga and that was it.
- bluGill 6y ago
  There are also youtubers who do a good job of convincing people they are good teachers, but real chess experts look at their explanations and think "sure if I make the right stupid moves that complex tactic gets you some material, but why would I make those moves when you created a forced mate in 2 with a different move"
- geebee 6y ago
  I'm definitely down that rabbit hole now. Online chess has cut into the time I used to spend reading and playing music, but I'm an amateur at all those things. Plus, I've started playing more with my kids in the evening. I'm sure I'll get back over to music and the "long novels I need to read" project eventually, and no real harm. Brief infatuations can have a lasting tail, and I hope that's what happens here, for chess, which really is a phenomenal game. Kind of like archery and "the hunger games", the initial bump isn't sustainable, but there may very well be a lasting increase in interest.
fabian2k 6y ago
I don't think the chance of cheating is a serious issue if you're playing at a low level online. You're generally matched against playes with a similar rating, and someone using a computer heavily would drastically inflate their rating. Which also increases the chance at detection significantly. Computers are scary good at chess, it's not exactly invisible if you use them to cheat. If you're a beginner it's also quite hard to understand why the computer makes certain moves, so if you just sprinkle in some computer moves in your game it's likely you might just fail to capitalize on those moves because you don't understand their purpose. The computer also plays some quite non-human moves at times, which is also likely to draw attention if someone is cheating a lot. I'm not saying people don't cheat online in chess, but I don't think it's anywhere near prevalent enough to ruin the game.
- jjeaff 6y ago
  I suppose if you are really cheating, you wouldn't sprinkle in some computer moves. You would just move your pieces in the computer game exactly as your human opponent does. Then you move your own pieces in the human game exactly as the computer does in the computer game.
  - fabian2k 6y ago
    Then you're playing at something like 3000-3500 ELO. That's very, very far from subtle. And that is something you can detect by analyzing the games, a human won't pick the engine moves all the time.
    - faceplanted 6y ago
      I've never looked into it myself but when I was graduating someone in my graduating classes final project was a cheating detection system for chess that essentially ran your moves through a variety of different chess AI's like stockfish such and over the game built up a tally of matching moves for each system, and if you matched one too closely flagged you as cheating. I asked the guy how he would cheat against it and his suggestion was basically finding chess engines with variable "skill" levels and varying it over the game, essentially pulling out miraculous recoveries or having a good start but then forcing your AI to try to select a win state a few turns later than optimal but using the same heuristics, so it's still practically unbeatable but drags people along a bit longer to disguise itself. Also I don't know if this exists, but is it possible to tune an AI to a specific ELO to begin with? If so you could set it to gradually ramp up over a long time so it looks like you're steadily improving over months or years and get to the top, but I imagine that wouldn't appeal to the people already willing to cheat anyway.
Steko 6y ago
You can avoid 99% of cheaters by not logging in on lichess but you're at the mercy of much less appropriate matchmaking. You can also play at faster or less unusual time controls.
dalbasal 6y ago
I think the show is part of a zeitgeist that was already there. Streaming & such is popular. Famous GMs like Magnus & Naka are charismatic and extremely online. There are some great sites to play on these days, especially lichess. Lockdown makes for more game time. Chess is on an upswing. It's an old game, I bet there have been a lot of peaks and troughs.
gameswithgo 6y ago
chess.com is pretty good about catching people who cheat with computers, as well, there is an ELO system, so people cheating without getting caught would be rated much higher than you. I think if you thought of reasons to play chess, instead of reasons not to, you could just enjoy yourself rather than complain about nothing!
darepublic 6y ago
Lichess.org is a good site for playing other humans, and they have bot detecting measures built in. Not to say it's impossible you're facing a computer but most of the time very unlikely
koonsolo 6y ago
> I wondered if the popularity of 'The queen's Gambit' would lead to a brief infatuation with chess in the popular imagination There is no question about that: https://www.insider.com/netflix-queens-gambit-spike-interest-chess-2020-11 https://www.insider.com/netflix-queens-gambit-spike-interest...
nemo44x 6y ago
COVID + that show have only helped I’d say. It’s a fun game at all skill levels. Learning fundamentals (don’t hang pieces, sone tactics, a few openings) is an investment but not a huge one and can get you pretty far very fast. So you see rapid progress in the first couple months of playing. Of course it’s at around that point you need to decide if you want to continue to invest for exceedingly fewer gains or just sort of be happy being a mediocre player that will go 50-50. And by all means a mediocre player is very good (like someone who can golf at near scratch level) but there’s a lot of really good players globally.
nickmancol 6y ago
About postal chess, Woody Allen wrote a quite enjoyable short story. The Gossage—Vardebedian Papers. http://maxxwolf.tripod.com/woody.html http://maxxwolf.tripod.com/woody.html
jgwil2 6y ago
Honestly, why even worry if your opponent is cheating? You can learn equally well regardless. Just worry about what you do; as long as you're not cheating it's not a waste of time.
Buttons840 6y ago
> as I'd never be sure my opponent wasn't just putting the moves into a computer and playing whatever it told him to play. As mentioned, cheaters are detected and banned. But from another perspective, cheater or not doesn't matter. You know you are playing against someone you have a statistical chance to beat. Same thing in Starcraft where people use map hacks. Who cares? The ranking system matches you with people you have a chance to beat. The challenge lies before you, and unfair advantages or not, there is good reason to believe you can succeed if you play your best game. Play to improve, play to have fun. Sometimes you will lose, no matter how strong you become this fact remains. And if you ever reach a point you believe you can only lose due to cheating, seek mental help.
- watwut 6y ago
  Cheating in chess typically means using engine. There is big enough difference in how engine plays and how human plays for it to make game less fun. Pls, it is quite natural for humans to care about notion of fairness. How and why we loose matters.
  - 46756e 6y ago
    Yeah, although this is speculation, I imagine its less of an issue because cheaters would get board somewhat easily. I mean whats the fun in copying what a machine says to win chess games against strangers? Its not like its people they know who might be impressed and if they cheat then their ranking will rise far above their skill, so if they wanted to play a real game, they would then be crushed.
    - dragontamer 6y ago
      > I mean whats the fun in copying what a machine says to win chess games against strangers? I mean, what's the fun in beating everyone in Overwatch / PUBG / Fortnite / Quake / Doom / etc. etc. with an aimbot? To win. Because cheaters find winning fun, even if they're not doing it on their own skill. I obviously disagree with the mindset, but cheaters disagree with me (and clearly continue to use aimbots / chessbots / whatever to rack up "their wins"). Generally speaking, their excuses are along the lines of "I don't have the reaction speed of others", or "I don't find games of reaction fun" (etc. etc.). Similarly, a chessbot user would almost certainly say "I don't like having obvious blunders in my games, and a chessbot prevents me from missing obvious blunders". --------- I mean, Centaur Chess is a thing. Human + Computer, if you really wanted to fight fair. But these cheaters don't go towards Centaur Chess servers, they stay on human-only servers and just wanna have an advantage on the opponent. Soooooo... yeah. That's their decision. There's chess tournaments of 24-hours a move, no holds barred. (IE: Chess AIs are allowed to assist you). If you really wanted "blunder free chess", people can play in those communities. Those who continue to use computer-assistance on human-only servers are simply cheaters in my book.
sleepysysadmin 6y ago
Chess has been popular on HN for more than a year. It was popular before covid lockdowns. Covid lockdowns have done a ton for chess popularity. Then queen's gambit is very approachable without chess knowledge. It's a perfect storm.
grml 6y ago
There is at least a correlation. [1] https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%205-y&geo=US&q=chess,queens%20gambit https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%205-y&ge...
racl101 6y ago
I think like just like mathematics, cryptography, computer science and movies like The Imitation Game for example, those who are initiated and curious would gravitate towards the subject as they probably would have eventually, and those who are not, will just be happy to watch the movies, shows or other pop culture about it. I do not believe it would draw more people than usual because with any endeavour, eventually the wonderment disappears for some people when they realize they gotta put in some work to continue going down the rabbit hole. Many drop off and become observers but not active participants.
Normille 6y ago
Wow! --that got a lot of replies, for one of my comments! Thanks for all the interesting info. I'll probably have a go at online chess again, after reading all the assurances about how cheating is discouraged. After all these years and never having been that good to start with, I'd probably be on an ELO rating so low I'd be paired against a hitherto undiscovered tribesman from the depths of the Amazonian rainforest, who'd never seen a chess board before... ...and still lose.
jacobsenscott 6y ago
I play a lot of online chess, and for the most part I don't believe I've played cheaters simply because I win often enough, and I'm not very good. I can't rule out that maybe some people check a move or two with an engine in the endgame, but at the same time that just doesn't matter. I don't play chess to win. I play to get better at chess. And that will happen either way. The learning resources provide by a good online chess site are fantastic today. Puzzles, interactive lessons, instant analysis of your games as soon as they are over. I don't think there's ever been a better time to learn chess.
jczhang 6y ago
unlikely at any low ratings imo, also you can look at post-game analysis. not a reason for not playing!
aaroninsf 6y ago
Hottake: regardless of chance of detection, the incentive to bother cheating for most online play, e.g. at chess.com, is close enough to zero to not worry about it. Probable that there are sociopaths who will do it, but, the 99% case is good faith players interested in a match for compatible reasons. TQG reminded me I used to play every day, recreationally; I'm finding chess.com quite nice.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
mlyle 6y ago
> It's a shame that the advent of the internet has simultaneously increased your chances of finding someone to play with remotely but, at the same time, [for me anyway] pretty much removed all inclination to do so, as I'd never be sure my opponent wasn't just putting the moves into a computer and playing whatever it told him to play. Cheaters are ranked way too high to play with us ordinary mortals :D This is mostly a problem with those who are really strong. On the other hand, people who insist on running out their entire clock when they clearly lost everything moves ago.. those salty people are common at the low ranks :P
bradly 6y ago
> I wondered if the popularity of 'The queen's Gambit' would lead to a brief infatuation with chess in the popular imagination According to Google interest in learning Chess has tripled because of The Queen's Gambit: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?q=how%20to%20play%20chess&geo=US https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?q=how%20to%20play%2... > I'd never be sure my opponent wasn't just putting the moves into a computer and playing whatever it told him to play I play regularly on online and it really isn't an issue. I'm sure an opponent or two has cheated, but to me it doesn't matter. Either way I just play the board. If it happens I'm just playing a harder game and maybe learning something new. My rating isn't important enough to me that a game or two lost to cheating is not a big deal. I've also had Chess.com reverse games a month later that they have detected the player as cheating.
8note 6y ago
In shorter time controls the cheater is giving you an advantage. Even if they can get a good position, they'll spend too much time looking back and forth and inputting moves
ouid 6y ago
not playing chess because someone might be cheating is like not living in a house because someone might rob it. You can't make this argument in the absence of the numbers.
sabujp 6y ago
i think as people start getting vaccinated and are able to start traveling again, chess will again take a back seat to other leisure options
herval 6y ago
You don't have to wonder: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?geo=US&q=chess,queen%27s%20gambit https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?geo=US&q=chess,quee... - data seems to point it that way

noir_lord 6y ago

> as I'd never be sure my opponent wasn't just putting the moves into a computer and playing whatever it told him to play. 100% sure, probably not however all the major online chess sites operate anti-cheat systems and heuristics plus dedicated teams. I play a lot online and nearly always look at the game with a computer afterwards and you can see that it was a human game (or someone been very clever with how they used the engine). I mean if you where a GM playing in a ranked tournament with a prize fund I could see the concern but at our level computer cheats are much easier to spot.

bttrfl 6y ago

google trends can help answer your question: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?geo=US&q=chess,fortnite https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?geo=US&q=chess,fort...

Lio 6y ago

> as I'd never be sure my opponent wasn't just putting the moves into a computer and playing whatever it told him to play. That's less of a problem than you might think. The reason being that most online chess systems will give you an Elo rating and use that to match you up to similarly rated potential opponents. Anyone that was using a computer to play for them would quickly gain a high rating and so either be matched against really strong players who stand a chance of beating the computer or others doing the same thing. Give online chess a go, it's great.

flr03 6y ago

Never been good either but I was occasionally playing when I was younger and The Queen's Gambit did get me back into Chess. On Chess.com the post game report gives you the move accuracy which is, I guess, some kind of standard deviation compared to what a chess engine would play. Never seen someone having a very high suspicious score, at least at my level.

have_faith 6y ago
I think the incentive to cheat online at chess wears off quite quickly, there's not a lot of glory. When someone cheats and wins a round of Counter Strike or other only game their win is immediately seen by many people. It's also relatively easy through analysis to spot a not so subtle cheater so auto-bans weed out the few cheaters left.

notagoodidea 6y ago

> I used to enjoy a game of chess back in the day, although I was never very good. And I always imagined myself playing chess with a remote opponent by post when I was a dusty old man [as featured in a few period dramas]. > It's a shame that the advent of the internet has simultaneously increased your chances of finding someone to play with remotely but, at the same time, [for me anyway] pretty much removed all inclination to do so, as I'd never be sure my opponent wasn't just putting the moves into a computer and playing whatever it told him to play. I play on ICCF servers that are the past postal federation. Centaur games (Human + Computer help) are allowed with large time clock (50 days for the first 10 moves, and so on). I play for my fun and taking my time to dig into the problems of the position without hurry. You have to be registered at your national federation to play there but it is fun and very different of the general online chess experience which tends to be centred around blitz games.

k__ 6y ago

[Spoiler Warning] As a person who can barely play chess The Queen's Gambit was a good show not because of the chess, but because it was a show about a women where everything went well. There was foreshadowing and all, but all went well in the end. It was very wholesome. Sure, it was about chess, but it could have been any sport, really.

RHSman2 6y ago
the character work is sublime.
- jfengel 6y ago
  As an actor myself, I was very impressed. They played chess like chess players. Each move had a meaning to them. They told a story just with the way they touched the pieces. The emotions were both powerful and tightly contained, which I find more exciting than the kind of big, showy acting that usually attracts the most attention. It was an exercise in intention and specificity, things that get drilled into you in acting classes but rarely so clear.
nullsense 6y ago
I don't know if neglect, abuse and addiction is "going well". but she did overcome all the adversity to win in the end. I really enjoyed it, but she had a pretty rough time of it.
the_af 6y ago
I find this is the case with most sports (soccer, dancing, iceskating, etc) movies. They are mostly about character building and overcoming challenges -- the actual sport is barebones and could be mostly swapped for any other. I still enjoyed Queen's Gambit a lot. It did foreshadow but then subvert some common tropes.
hackerNoose 6y ago
I thought that was the biggest weaknes. The challenges all feel small and made up. The depiction of substance abuse is just strange. It's like a teenagers dream of how it is to become a chess pro with some small speed bumps to not make it too blatant. As for the sport, her career was more similar to that of boxer than a chess player.

telesilla 6y ago

This absolutely rekindled my interest. I used to play as a young girl (pre-teen) and enjoyed it but as I got older didn't feel welcome in the chess club. It's nice how they show on TV that girls who wanted it just got in there and be involved but the reality was not as easy.. (hopefully it's easier now, the 80s was not kind to girls with a nerdish bent). I've started reading chess openings and tactics as a way to send me to sleep, on one of those chess sites that sets up a play for you. I don't think I'll ever play chess again - time is limited and I don't think anyone would suffer playing with me given what I've forgotten - but I'm enjoying learning strategies again. It's great stuff for the brain. I've put the Chess Tactics site on my weekend-lazy-reading list. Who knows, maybe I find my way back to playing games again.

saeranv 6y ago
Try chess.com or lichess.org! You're automatically matched with someone of your skill level, and can play games from 1 to 10 minutes (each).
- SubiculumCode 6y ago
  I highly recommend Chess Tempo for tactics training. A large database of problems drawn from grandmaster games, insightful user commentary per problem, and a full classification of each problem by the type of tactic e.g. attraction.
  - philsnow 6y ago
    chesstempo is neat because they have ELO-like ratings for tactics puzzles. It's the first place I saw such a thing.
    - SubiculumCode 6y ago
      Alot of those puzzles are damn hard, ELO ratings there are legitimate. I feel that chess Tempo has really given me tools to recognize recurring tactical motifs in actual play.

sudhirj 6y ago

It absolutely re-kindled my interest in chess. I played as a child, but never took it seriously. Got a chess board for my 4-yo, but unfortunately she isn't a prodigy. Who'd have thought. Still has fun arranging the pieces and make up stories with them, though. And I'm playing on the Chess.com app. The puzzles especially are a neat way to get your brain running, and they're a better attention sink than Twitter / HN.

srtjstjsj 6y ago
The vast majority of grandmasters didn't play chess at age 4.
- thiago_fm 6y ago
  That's incorrect. I did a lot of ending puzzles and knew a lot about openings and variations at age 5, learned mostly because a father of a friend was very enthusiastic about it. I quit playing around age 7 because some kids there were really out of my league and there wasn't enough government or support for me to continue playing given that I wasn't the best. I still play to this day, but mostly amateurish and very sporadically. Of course if you just want to do it for fun, it's fine. But if you can to become a GM and make a living playing chess, the bar is pretty high and it's very likely that you suck. You can start to play a bit later and become a GM, but it's a big gamble with your future. Most people I know who continued with chess nowadays are in the low 2K range, one made it to IM... all share extremely good memory and logical thinking and could just have been instead a lazy CS student and get top grades, eventually become a software engineer and enjoy a good life. But instead have a shitty life playing the same game all over again and have a hard time leaving it now to do something else, as it's the thing they dedicated their whole life to.
  - YinglingLight 6y ago
    Chess is like Boxing. Pays nothing. The workload is insane, the natural talent is insane, your competition is global. Only the very top 0.5% get name recognition (money). And like Boxing, these athletes could get paid more had they devoted their life literally ANY other pursuit with their work ethic and talent. With far less punishment involved. Concept of Talent Stacking: https://personalexcellence.co/blog/talent-stack/ https://personalexcellence.co/blog/talent-stack/

fileeditview 6y ago

Chess has always been an occasional topic on HN: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=chess&sort=byDate&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... You should not be afraid of cheaters online. In the lower rating levels the chances to meet one are pretty slim. You can probably have hundreds or thousands of wonderful games before you meet one and probably you would not even recognize it. What you meet more often are people that let their time run out to annoy you. Just realize it's only about internet points, resign and have a new good game. Have fun playing (maybe).

rgoulter 6y ago
chess.com's messaging is the opposite of "chances are slim". but they emphasise that they take the issue seriously, albeit with a low false-positive rate. https://www.chess.com/article/view/online-chess-cheating https://www.chess.com/article/view/online-chess-cheating From the comments, it seems there's also the risk that you'll think cheating occurred, when instead you just missed stuff.
- fileeditview 6y ago
  Interesting article. They do however say nothing about the rating of said cheaters (or I missed it). What I stated before was that it is unlikely in the lower rating levels and I stand by that. If someone cheats he will gain rating fast and leave the lower rating groups. And yes people also tend to accuse other of cheating if they lose. :) As long as you are not a competitive player the best you can do is to just play and try to improve your own play and have fun.
  - colechristensen 6y ago
    In other words, you would have to be rather bad at cheating to maintain a low rating. Chess competition is driven by various rating systems which match people fairly well. Computers are very much better than beginner to intermediate players.
    - 6y ago

Arnavion 6y ago

>as I'd never be sure my opponent wasn't just putting the moves into a computer and playing whatever it told him to play. Their ELO would likely be higher than yours if they did, so you wouldn't be matched with them.

tlamponi 6y ago

> I wondered if the popularity of 'The queen's Gambit' would lead to a brief infatuation with chess in the popular imagination. There are some indicators that yes, that show has increased interest in learning chess. For example, check the Google search trend for "learn chess" over the last 12 months, or even 5 years to ensure it is no periodic increase of interest: https://trends.google.de/trends/explore?q=learn%20chess https://trends.google.de/trends/explore?q=learn%20chess

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
Fiahil 6y ago
Wow ! That's amazing !

fcatalan 6y ago

COVID lockdowns had already started the chess surge, for example look at the numbers for chess streams on Twitch: https://twitchtracker.com/games/743 https://twitchtracker.com/games/743 I started playing in June after reading this: https://www.wired.com/story/hikaru-nakamura-twitch-chess/ https://www.wired.com/story/hikaru-nakamura-twitch-chess/

jyriand 6y ago

There was some sorts of renaissance of chess in twitch community. All the big streamers were playing chess for some reason. Not sure what happened there, might be related somehow to Hikaru Nakamura starting to stream and growing pretty big. But that was before "Queen's Gambit".

Newky 6y ago
It was tied to the beginning of Covid lockdowns as well. Chess has had a very strong year in terms of numbers coming to the game. Queen's Gambit seems to have exploded that again.
slx26 6y ago
Here's what happened. Excerpt from the wikipedia page [0]: > PogChamps is an online amateur chess tournament hosted by Chess.com. Players in the tournament are internet personalities, primarily Twitch streamers. PogChamps takes place over the course of two weeks and has a prize pool of $50,000. Basically, very strong chess players trained twitch personalities for a few days, and then had them play against each other. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PogChamps https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PogChamps

ricardo81 6y ago

I'm perhaps in the same boat. Played a lot as a child but very rarely nowadays. I am a member of chess.com but haven't played in a while. I think the better players tend to play a quicker timed game to better avoid bot activity. Personally I prefer a more slower game, particularly because I'm out of practice.

maaaaattttt 6y ago

'The queen's Gambit' has definitely lead to a rise in chess popularity [0] and I as well assumed this submission was a side effect of that. In mid-November, more than 100,000 new members registered for Chess.com each day. This is roughly five times higher than average. [0] https://www.businessinsider.com/the-queens-gambit-netflix-online-chess-app-interest-2020-11 https://www.businessinsider.com/the-queens-gambit-netflix-on...

l33tman 6y ago

You might end up playing a cheater at some point (though it's uncommon). But you're much more probable to end up playing someone better and you'll think they're a cheater.. Look at this livestream where Magnus Carlsen, the world champion, is logged in under another account and crushes Jan Gustafsson (another grandmaster) and he can't believe it's a human playing him :) (or at least suggests he is skeptical) https://youtu.be/Ka5sh6hBvSI?t=219 https://youtu.be/Ka5sh6hBvSI?t=219

yodsanklai 6y ago

> I wondered if the popularity of 'The queen's Gambit' would lead to a brief infatuation with chess in the popular imagination It did for me. Hadn't played chess for decades. After watching this show, my gf wanted to learn and it renewed my interest in the game. Not sure I want to go down this rabbit hole though... > It's a shame that the advent of the internet has simultaneously increased your chances of finding someone to play with remotely It works very well. I played a few games on lichess (recommended in the comments of another HN thread). I could find opponents who played at my level in a matter of a seconds. There are also tons of youtubers who do a good job explaining strategies and such. It seems Chess never goes out of fashion, still a cool game! It's amazing the amount of resource you can find nowadays. Back in the day, it was extremely limited. I remember I had a couple of books from my grandfather, plus a few friends I was playing with, and "chess master" on Amiga and that was it.

bluGill 6y ago
There are also youtubers who do a good job of convincing people they are good teachers, but real chess experts look at their explanations and think "sure if I make the right stupid moves that complex tactic gets you some material, but why would I make those moves when you created a forced mate in 2 with a different move"
geebee 6y ago
I'm definitely down that rabbit hole now. Online chess has cut into the time I used to spend reading and playing music, but I'm an amateur at all those things. Plus, I've started playing more with my kids in the evening. I'm sure I'll get back over to music and the "long novels I need to read" project eventually, and no real harm. Brief infatuations can have a lasting tail, and I hope that's what happens here, for chess, which really is a phenomenal game. Kind of like archery and "the hunger games", the initial bump isn't sustainable, but there may very well be a lasting increase in interest.

fabian2k 6y ago

I don't think the chance of cheating is a serious issue if you're playing at a low level online. You're generally matched against playes with a similar rating, and someone using a computer heavily would drastically inflate their rating. Which also increases the chance at detection significantly. Computers are scary good at chess, it's not exactly invisible if you use them to cheat. If you're a beginner it's also quite hard to understand why the computer makes certain moves, so if you just sprinkle in some computer moves in your game it's likely you might just fail to capitalize on those moves because you don't understand their purpose. The computer also plays some quite non-human moves at times, which is also likely to draw attention if someone is cheating a lot. I'm not saying people don't cheat online in chess, but I don't think it's anywhere near prevalent enough to ruin the game.

jjeaff 6y ago
I suppose if you are really cheating, you wouldn't sprinkle in some computer moves. You would just move your pieces in the computer game exactly as your human opponent does. Then you move your own pieces in the human game exactly as the computer does in the computer game.
- fabian2k 6y ago
  Then you're playing at something like 3000-3500 ELO. That's very, very far from subtle. And that is something you can detect by analyzing the games, a human won't pick the engine moves all the time.
  - faceplanted 6y ago
    I've never looked into it myself but when I was graduating someone in my graduating classes final project was a cheating detection system for chess that essentially ran your moves through a variety of different chess AI's like stockfish such and over the game built up a tally of matching moves for each system, and if you matched one too closely flagged you as cheating. I asked the guy how he would cheat against it and his suggestion was basically finding chess engines with variable "skill" levels and varying it over the game, essentially pulling out miraculous recoveries or having a good start but then forcing your AI to try to select a win state a few turns later than optimal but using the same heuristics, so it's still practically unbeatable but drags people along a bit longer to disguise itself. Also I don't know if this exists, but is it possible to tune an AI to a specific ELO to begin with? If so you could set it to gradually ramp up over a long time so it looks like you're steadily improving over months or years and get to the top, but I imagine that wouldn't appeal to the people already willing to cheat anyway.

Steko 6y ago

You can avoid 99% of cheaters by not logging in on lichess but you're at the mercy of much less appropriate matchmaking. You can also play at faster or less unusual time controls.

dalbasal 6y ago

I think the show is part of a zeitgeist that was already there. Streaming & such is popular. Famous GMs like Magnus & Naka are charismatic and extremely online. There are some great sites to play on these days, especially lichess. Lockdown makes for more game time. Chess is on an upswing. It's an old game, I bet there have been a lot of peaks and troughs.

gameswithgo 6y ago

chess.com is pretty good about catching people who cheat with computers, as well, there is an ELO system, so people cheating without getting caught would be rated much higher than you. I think if you thought of reasons to play chess, instead of reasons not to, you could just enjoy yourself rather than complain about nothing!

darepublic 6y ago

Lichess.org is a good site for playing other humans, and they have bot detecting measures built in. Not to say it's impossible you're facing a computer but most of the time very unlikely

koonsolo 6y ago

> I wondered if the popularity of 'The queen's Gambit' would lead to a brief infatuation with chess in the popular imagination There is no question about that: https://www.insider.com/netflix-queens-gambit-spike-interest-chess-2020-11 https://www.insider.com/netflix-queens-gambit-spike-interest...

nemo44x 6y ago

COVID + that show have only helped I’d say. It’s a fun game at all skill levels. Learning fundamentals (don’t hang pieces, sone tactics, a few openings) is an investment but not a huge one and can get you pretty far very fast. So you see rapid progress in the first couple months of playing. Of course it’s at around that point you need to decide if you want to continue to invest for exceedingly fewer gains or just sort of be happy being a mediocre player that will go 50-50. And by all means a mediocre player is very good (like someone who can golf at near scratch level) but there’s a lot of really good players globally.

nickmancol 6y ago

About postal chess, Woody Allen wrote a quite enjoyable short story. The Gossage—Vardebedian Papers. http://maxxwolf.tripod.com/woody.html http://maxxwolf.tripod.com/woody.html

jgwil2 6y ago

Honestly, why even worry if your opponent is cheating? You can learn equally well regardless. Just worry about what you do; as long as you're not cheating it's not a waste of time.

Buttons840 6y ago

> as I'd never be sure my opponent wasn't just putting the moves into a computer and playing whatever it told him to play. As mentioned, cheaters are detected and banned. But from another perspective, cheater or not doesn't matter. You know you are playing against someone you have a statistical chance to beat. Same thing in Starcraft where people use map hacks. Who cares? The ranking system matches you with people you have a chance to beat. The challenge lies before you, and unfair advantages or not, there is good reason to believe you can succeed if you play your best game. Play to improve, play to have fun. Sometimes you will lose, no matter how strong you become this fact remains. And if you ever reach a point you believe you can only lose due to cheating, seek mental help.

watwut 6y ago
Cheating in chess typically means using engine. There is big enough difference in how engine plays and how human plays for it to make game less fun. Pls, it is quite natural for humans to care about notion of fairness. How and why we loose matters.
- 46756e 6y ago
  Yeah, although this is speculation, I imagine its less of an issue because cheaters would get board somewhat easily. I mean whats the fun in copying what a machine says to win chess games against strangers? Its not like its people they know who might be impressed and if they cheat then their ranking will rise far above their skill, so if they wanted to play a real game, they would then be crushed.
  - dragontamer 6y ago
    > I mean whats the fun in copying what a machine says to win chess games against strangers? I mean, what's the fun in beating everyone in Overwatch / PUBG / Fortnite / Quake / Doom / etc. etc. with an aimbot? To win. Because cheaters find winning fun, even if they're not doing it on their own skill. I obviously disagree with the mindset, but cheaters disagree with me (and clearly continue to use aimbots / chessbots / whatever to rack up "their wins"). Generally speaking, their excuses are along the lines of "I don't have the reaction speed of others", or "I don't find games of reaction fun" (etc. etc.). Similarly, a chessbot user would almost certainly say "I don't like having obvious blunders in my games, and a chessbot prevents me from missing obvious blunders". --------- I mean, Centaur Chess is a thing. Human + Computer, if you really wanted to fight fair. But these cheaters don't go towards Centaur Chess servers, they stay on human-only servers and just wanna have an advantage on the opponent. Soooooo... yeah. That's their decision. There's chess tournaments of 24-hours a move, no holds barred. (IE: Chess AIs are allowed to assist you). If you really wanted "blunder free chess", people can play in those communities. Those who continue to use computer-assistance on human-only servers are simply cheaters in my book.

sleepysysadmin 6y ago

Chess has been popular on HN for more than a year. It was popular before covid lockdowns. Covid lockdowns have done a ton for chess popularity. Then queen's gambit is very approachable without chess knowledge. It's a perfect storm.

grml 6y ago

There is at least a correlation. [1] https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%205-y&geo=US&q=chess,queens%20gambit https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%205-y&ge...

racl101 6y ago

I think like just like mathematics, cryptography, computer science and movies like The Imitation Game for example, those who are initiated and curious would gravitate towards the subject as they probably would have eventually, and those who are not, will just be happy to watch the movies, shows or other pop culture about it. I do not believe it would draw more people than usual because with any endeavour, eventually the wonderment disappears for some people when they realize they gotta put in some work to continue going down the rabbit hole. Many drop off and become observers but not active participants.

Normille 6y ago

Wow! --that got a lot of replies, for one of my comments! Thanks for all the interesting info. I'll probably have a go at online chess again, after reading all the assurances about how cheating is discouraged. After all these years and never having been that good to start with, I'd probably be on an ELO rating so low I'd be paired against a hitherto undiscovered tribesman from the depths of the Amazonian rainforest, who'd never seen a chess board before... ...and still lose.

jacobsenscott 6y ago

I play a lot of online chess, and for the most part I don't believe I've played cheaters simply because I win often enough, and I'm not very good. I can't rule out that maybe some people check a move or two with an engine in the endgame, but at the same time that just doesn't matter. I don't play chess to win. I play to get better at chess. And that will happen either way. The learning resources provide by a good online chess site are fantastic today. Puzzles, interactive lessons, instant analysis of your games as soon as they are over. I don't think there's ever been a better time to learn chess.

jczhang 6y ago

unlikely at any low ratings imo, also you can look at post-game analysis. not a reason for not playing!

aaroninsf 6y ago

Hottake: regardless of chance of detection, the incentive to bother cheating for most online play, e.g. at chess.com, is close enough to zero to not worry about it. Probable that there are sociopaths who will do it, but, the 99% case is good faith players interested in a match for compatible reasons. TQG reminded me I used to play every day, recreationally; I'm finding chess.com quite nice.

deleted 6y ago

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mlyle 6y ago

> It's a shame that the advent of the internet has simultaneously increased your chances of finding someone to play with remotely but, at the same time, [for me anyway] pretty much removed all inclination to do so, as I'd never be sure my opponent wasn't just putting the moves into a computer and playing whatever it told him to play. Cheaters are ranked way too high to play with us ordinary mortals :D This is mostly a problem with those who are really strong. On the other hand, people who insist on running out their entire clock when they clearly lost everything moves ago.. those salty people are common at the low ranks :P

bradly 6y ago

> I wondered if the popularity of 'The queen's Gambit' would lead to a brief infatuation with chess in the popular imagination According to Google interest in learning Chess has tripled because of The Queen's Gambit: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?q=how%20to%20play%20chess&geo=US https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?q=how%20to%20play%2... > I'd never be sure my opponent wasn't just putting the moves into a computer and playing whatever it told him to play I play regularly on online and it really isn't an issue. I'm sure an opponent or two has cheated, but to me it doesn't matter. Either way I just play the board. If it happens I'm just playing a harder game and maybe learning something new. My rating isn't important enough to me that a game or two lost to cheating is not a big deal. I've also had Chess.com reverse games a month later that they have detected the player as cheating.

8note 6y ago

In shorter time controls the cheater is giving you an advantage. Even if they can get a good position, they'll spend too much time looking back and forth and inputting moves

ouid 6y ago

not playing chess because someone might be cheating is like not living in a house because someone might rob it. You can't make this argument in the absence of the numbers.

sabujp 6y ago

i think as people start getting vaccinated and are able to start traveling again, chess will again take a back seat to other leisure options

herval 6y ago

You don't have to wonder: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?geo=US&q=chess,queen%27s%20gambit https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?geo=US&q=chess,quee... - data seems to point it that way