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Lichess: The free and open source chess server
- triyambakam 4y agoThis is synchronistic. Just a few days ago I started playing on Lichess after I remembered hearing about it here on HN. Actually I haven't played many games there, my favorite thing as someone actively studying to get better is watching live games on Lichess. Its better than Youtube.
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- catnip09 4y agoLichess is amazing given how little they receive in funding. The interface is miles ahead of commercial competitors. They also handle guest plays much better. I've faced less cheating bots and no annoying pop ups on lichess when playing as a guest compared to chess.com Can anyone point me to how they handle cheating detection? I would love a high level overview of how it works especially when you have no data on the player. fun nugget: HN users hosted tournaments on lichess at the start of the pandemic [0] 0] https://lichess.org/team/hacker-news https://lichess.org/team/hacker-news
- sgjohnson 4y ago> The interface is miles ahead of commercial competitors. I much prefer the chess.com UI
- sib301 4y agoSame. I love lichess and I’m so happy it exists, but I prefer the chess.com interface for playing, and analyzing games. Probably because I started there
- sgjohnson 4y agoI play on both sites, but for analysis I almost always import the games into chess.com
- trungdq88 4y agoCan you share what it is that you need to see on chess.com but is not available on lichess? (I use lichess analysis frequently and haven't used chess.com much)
- bionsystem 4y agoI personally think lichess analysis is better : - latest engine, with webassembly or cloud mode - "learn from your mistakes" mode where when there is a drop in valuation of the position, you're given the position and are asked to find a better move ; you can also find bad moves from the opponent which is interesting to help spot mistakes faster Also puzzles are great if you have an account (free), I find the puzzles of great quality, they really match your level and once you get better at solving the common tactics, they look more and more like small studies where you might only get positionnal advantage sometimes (instead of the classic "win material / mate in X moves" type of problem which is a bit redundant after a while). I don't know how they generate puzzles but it seems that a lot of them are from games actually played on the site where only one line seems to give an advantage. I think it's amazing that they do that. High quality puzzles from real games.
- edgyquant 4y ago
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- mNovak 4y agoNot sure about lichess specifically, but I know many game servers are a bit cagey about their cheat detection systems, since they don't want to give the cheaters any hints. But as a broad concept, one technique is to compare moves against bot suggested moves. i.e. if a high % of your moves are those that a strong AI would make, something is fishy.
- randomsearch 4y agoThere’s a much simpler and more effective way. I met someone who had done that work for a chess company, done some ML to detect cheats, and they were surprised how easy it was to detect changes.I’m not going to post the solution but you might be able to guess if you think through the feature space. It’s obvious in retrospect.
- bkishan 4y ago> Can anyone point me to how they handle cheating detection? You can listen to Thibault talk about here [0] 0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZgyVadkgmI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZgyVadkgmI
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- myle 4y agoIt is open source also the neural network that they use for that. It is called Irwin and you can find it on GitHub.
- cjbprime 4y agoI imagine (without research) that it's just "what percentage of your moves are the same as top computer moves", with a threshold.
- edgyquant 4y ago
- EMIRELADERO 4y agoThey seem to use two projects: Irwin: https://github.com/clarkerubber/irwin https://github.com/clarkerubber/irwin Kaladin: https://github.com/lichess-org/kaladin https://github.com/lichess-org/kaladin
- rococode 4y agoEven their expenses are open source! https://lichess.org/costs https://lichess.org/costs
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- lukeschwartz 4y agowow, $409,644.10/year; now I really wonder how much money they make from donations.
- Scarblac 4y agoRoughly the same amount, I think? They seem to spend what they receive.
- matesz 4y ago$53k per year for main developer salary - from what I understand it’s quite complex Scala codebase.
- elliotpage 4y agoI use the android LiChess app to play my dad, works wonderfully.
- jsf01 4y agoYes! The front-end code for Lichess is what got me to learn Mithril years ago. Really clean code for such a complex application. Here’s a great example: https://github.com/lichess-org/lichobile/blob/master/src/ui/clock/clockView.tsx https://github.com/lichess-org/lichobile/blob/master/src/ui/...
- ajkjk 4y agoIt's decent, but can be cleaner! Better classnames, usage of the classnames library, and type-only imports, off the top of my head.
- wjossey 4y agoAlways excited when chess pops up on HN once a month or so. As someone who picked it up as a hobby in December, I can attest that lichess is a great app and site for folks looking to get back into the game or get started (I’m also a premium chess.com member as I use both products). For those of you thinking about picking up chess, I’d highly recommend watching the Chess Brah “Building Habits” series on YouTube. Watch the first five or so videos, and just start practicing those habits in rapid games (recommend 15 minute with 10 second increment on lichess, which shows up as 15+10). Embrace the losses, and just keep working on not hanging your pieces for free. If you’re intimidated by playing other humans, you can try the “Maia 1” bot on Lichess. It’ll likely beat you up for a while if you’re a beginner, but it’s a bot designed to play more like a human, and it’ll help you get the reps to feel more comfortable playing other humans. From there, just enjoy yourself. Chess can be frustrating because by design you always lose about 50% or your takes, but once you learn to accept the losses, it can be a great mental exercise to keep your brain sharp.
- rearend-dev 4y agoI agree. I would also recommend Daniel Naroditsky's speed run video series. He starts with new account and explains his ideas and thoughts as he progress to higher and higher elo.
- heartbreak 4y agoNaroditsky has the most accessible teaching videos on YouTube as far as I’m concerned. He’s also writing a regular chess column for NYT.
- randomNumber7 4y agoI really like Yasser Seirawan's lectures on youtube. Its amazing how he can talk about a chess game and make it appear exciting.
- QuantumGood 4y agoHe is a fantastic coach and trainer, Bobby Fisher's second in his follow-up match with Spassky, and top ten in the world (1) mid-1990, and with another great coach and writer, Jeremy Silman, author of several great chess books. Three of all the time greats—Kasparov, Karpov, Ivanchuk—were in the top 4 when Seirawan cracked the top ten. (1) olimpbase.org/Elo/Elo199007e.html
- aspanu 4y agoLichess as an application is very impressive, and I use it frequently. The one thing that is somewhat more annoying is the way in which there is a (daily?) restart of the servers, causing strange behaviour in-game. For example, around the restart time, sometimes the restart warning falls away and it seems like you are waiting for the other player to make a move, when in fact you are disconnected. Is there a reason why restarts happen this way and there isn't traffic draining between servers as they restart one at a time?
- benediktwerner 4y agoThere is only one server. Or well, there are lots of servers that make up Lichess but they mostly do different stuff. There is only one main server which handles all the core stuff including games. Also, restarts usually aren't daily. They generally are around once a week. Though sometimes when a new feature is seeing rapid iterations or an important enough bug is found, restarts can happen a few days in a row.
- dpratt 4y agoI’ve always thought that this was an amazing project and I’ve enjoyed many many games on it, but I worry that she may not have put the proper precautions in place to protect her phylactery.
- nikivi 4y agoI want to buy an electronic chess board to play over the board but have each move sync to Lichess for later analysis. Wonder how feasible that is to do.
- gurchik 4y agoAny board that allows you to download the games in PGN format can simply be copy-paste into Lichess. Additionally if you have a DGT board and it is plugged into a computer you can sync it directly to Lichess: https://lichess.org/blog/X6l9bBUAACQAXE8M/play-on-lichess-using-a-dgt-board https://lichess.org/blog/X6l9bBUAACQAXE8M/play-on-lichess-us...
- Scarblac 4y agoThere is the Chessify app, which allows you to point a phone camera at a normal chess board and it will recognize the position and sync with Lichess. I haven't used it myself and don't know if it handles playing, but it's an interesting idea.
- nikivi 4y agoYea I want to avoid taking a photo of board after every move. Essentially I want one of those boards they use in tournaments like the recent candidates.
- skeletonjelly 4y agoI've been using a local engine for analysis. Firstly it saves Lichess CPU time, and secondly it's more powerful (running on GPU). I prefer the Lichess interface so do use it occasionally but otherwise the Nibbler front end over lc0 has been handy. You can paste in FEN or PGN format which as others have mentioned should be available from some physical boards.
- mNovak 4y agoRelated (-ish) is the free and open source Go server [1,2], OGS. A great community, and ad free. I've been playing there since the pandemic started; lately even some professional/tournament games were being hosted there. [1] https://github.com/online-go https://github.com/online-go [2] https://online-go.com https://online-go.com
- spot 4y agoagree, this is where i play now.
- asah 4y agowant to sharpen tactical skills and replace wordle at the same time? https://lichess.org/training/mix https://lichess.org/training/mix I watch my score float up into the 2000s, get distracted/tired, then float back down...
- hiptobecubic 4y agoI do the same, although haven't broken 1800 yet...
- asah 4y agoTry this: look for pieces that are defended by a single piece, and see if you can force that other piece away. Look for undefended pieces and ways to attack and capture them by attacking/threatening something else - a classic are two undefended projects that one piece can attack (fork). Also check for "mating nets" where you can get a checkmate or threaten a mate. Often that can force a sacrifice. Lastly, look for pawn promotions - they can be tricky puzzles but also occur in real matches. Good luck!
- actfrench 4y agoI run an education company that has some clubs for kids. One of our families told us about Lichess and used it to start a chess club. We LOVE Lichess and our kids use it all the time at Modulo to play together or with a chess instructor. We'd love to expand our little group. If you have a kid (Grades K-12th grade) who wants to play chess with us, please get in touch with me, tell me a little bit about your kid and how you found us on Hacker News and we'll add you to our club! It would be so great to have more fun families playing with us. https://lichess.org/team/modulo-learning https://lichess.org/team/modulo-learning
- benreesman 4y agoThis is kind of a side-note, but any time chess comes up on here I smile at the resurgence in interest via Twitch/Blitz. I’m a miserable chess player but I fucking love watching it. Carlson playing the Botez sisters in Blitz may be a publicity stunt, but the best chess player in the world is also model-photogenic and surrounded by serious fucking players who also photograph well? Good for the game.
- CSMastermind 4y agoToday there's a really interesting tournament going on between NFL players on the chess.com twitch channel: https://www.twitch.tv/chess https://www.twitch.tv/chess People like Larry Fitzgerald, Will Davis, and Amari Cooper.
- triyambakam 4y agoSorry but I don't see how Carlsen is model level at all. He's nearly actively ugly how his jaw sticks out like he missed his orthognathic surgery as a child.
- thefringthing 4y agoA lot of professional models are kind of odd-looking; it makes their appearance striking.
- benreesman 4y agoI mean sure! I wasn’t referring to Magnus as model-photogenic because of my subjective opinion: I was referring to his mucho lucrative, multi-year deal as the male face of G-Star. His female counterpart is Liv Tyler, better known as Arwen Udomiel Evenstar around these parts.
- baxuz 4y agoEverytime I see "lichess" I think of the D&D term – like a female lich.
- cdelsolar 4y agoThis site is one of the best things I've seen on the internet. It inspired me to make a similar site for crossword board games (think Scrabble, Words With Friends, etc). See https://woogles.io https://woogles.io - also AGPL. The backend is Go-based, and the site has around 6500 MAU (we're about to hit 2M total games). We just released a puzzle mode that is pretty popular and is already making people improve - some of us anecdotally report better word-finding in live tournaments :)
- mlinksva 4y agoIt wasn't obvious to me (though I may have blundered to see/search) from the site where the code is, so to save others the search it seems to be at https://github.com/domino14/liwords https://github.com/domino14/liwords ... the repo name underlines the source of inspiration I guess!
- platz 4y agoIf chess interests you but are looking for a change, try learning to play go/baduk online at https://online-go.com/ https://online-go.com/ - how to play go (beginners) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTWujSwL2bQ&list=PLW5_cMTm0wvamCNX7qNoUqbXxeHt9n67i https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTWujSwL2bQ&list=PLW5_cMTm0w... - basic openings/joseki https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLW5_cMTm0wvZOTchMWZagFDHuUX0cEk4I https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLW5_cMTm0wvZOTchMWZag... - joseki made popular by AlphaGo/AIs (intermediate) https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLW5_cMTm0wvZU5pQhmQFwXh-ojU1mQIg3 https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLW5_cMTm0wvZU5pQhmQFw... [Michael Redmond's Go TV]
- Andrew_nenakhov 4y agoI have said it before and I'll repeat it again: Lichess is the best thing that happened to chess since castling.
- dubeye 4y agoAh the monthly 'open source is superior to commerical enterprise' hymn. I use both sites equally and lichess is inferior in pretty much every respect. Assuming you pay of course .
- bananamerica 4y agoYou seem to be the only one making that comparison.
- StanislavPetrov 4y agoJust like to point out that FICS has been going strong for over 20 years! https://www.freechess.org/ https://www.freechess.org/
- dang 4y agoCurrent ongoing thread: Irwin – the protector of Lichess from all chess players villainous - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32047230 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32047230 - July 2022 (62 comments)