Topic: Overwritten Chess Club

[Quemaqua]

Not sure how many chess players we have around here. Ghandi used to play when he was still around, and I know Pug plays because he's beaten me into the dirt every time I've played him, but not sure if anyone else is into it.

Stumbled on Lichess.org the other day. I used to play using FICS back in the day, with Babaschess, and then went off onto chess.com to play with a couple friends, but FICS kind of sucks, Babaschess hasn't been updated since 2007, and chess.com is an ad-ridden mess that's kind of buggy and not great. Lichess.org, on the other hand, is clean, slickly produced, feature-rich, trustworthy, open-source, entirely free (without collecting data or any other shady shit—largely supported by a few users donating servers and the creator paying for some of it, plus donations), and has mobile apps. It's also got a sort of streaming component to it for people who stream, and you can watch live games being played on the site itself. Oh, and it's got a ton of weird chess variants if that's your thing too.

My girlfriend's been wanting to learn, so I've been kinda in the mood again. Friend me and let's play!

https://lichess.org/@/Quemaqua

[nickclone]

I used to love to play Chess, but in my old age I have become way too impatient. I wasn't great, but I did ok. I guess I could use the intellectual stimulation, its better than coming home, reading the news and drinking myself to death.

[Cobra951]

I fancied myself a good developing player in my youth.  My grandfather was a great player, and he gave me this hardbound book on chess openings.  After moving to the States, I gave the book to a friend of mine whom I used to play with all the time.  Well, he took to it like a fish to water, and left me in the dust.  It wasn't even a year later that I could no longer compete with him at all.  Humility comes in many forms!

After that, I just lost interest.  I've played against chess programs, but never again against a person.  Rusty would not even begin to describe the state of my current skills.

[Quemaqua]

Ya'll should come back and play some. It's fun times, even though I'm garbage. I don't think I even live up so grand a term as woodpusher.

Also, Chess.com is running the "Pro Chess League" that Greg Shahade is running, which is kind of a cool thing. Really fun-to-watch chess, shorter matches, I think 25 minutes? Team stuff, which is fun (city-based teams in the US, and some international ones from other countries). Live games shown and commentated on Twitch. Some big names involved too ... Hikaru Nakamura, Magnus Carlsen, Yu Yangyi, etc. Kinda fun stuff, even though I generally don't like Chess.com. But they run some events and stuff that are fun to watch even if I'd rather play elsewhere.

https://www.prochessleague.com/

[nickclone]

I think I'm too drunk to play chess.