
How to Get Good at Chess, Fast - gautamnarula
http://www.gautamnarula.com/how-to-get-good-at-chess-fast/
======
rmrfrmrf
> "One big mistake is to rely heavily on computers for chess analysis.
> Computer analysis should be done only after you analyze the game on your
> own."

This isn't correct information anymore, in my opinion. Chess engines have
improved tenfold over the last four years (when the author says he stopped
playing). The increase in the strength of chess engines has subsequently
caused an increase in the "humanity" of chess engines, meaning that, instead
of playing bizarre moves that are strong yet incomprehensible to humans, they
play principled, sound moves that are strong tactically and strategically.

The main thing that you will miss as a sub-2000 player (or ever, really) is
tactics, which is exactly where computers excel. A computer will be able to
tell you tactics you missed and will allow you to experiment to see how
different moves would have improved your game.

I agree that you should analyze games with your opponent after the game (and
also with stronger players), but keep in mind that, if you're both sub-2000,
you'll both miss obvious tactics even as you review the game, which doesn't
really improve your chess thought.

One last thing: the 400 points in 400 days training comes from the book _Rapid
Chess Improvement_ , which I _do not_ recommend for the beginning player (the
knight exercise is good, though). In it, Michael De La Maza wastes time
blasting Jeremy Silman and the strategic approach to chess games. Some people
like the book for the mild drama it started, but the tl;dr is "tactics,
tactics, tactics," which pretty much everyone will tell you.

~~~
charlieflowers
Would you mind naming some good chess engines for Mac, Windows and Linux? (I
know this can be googled, but I value the recommendation from a credible
source).

~~~
pk2200
Stockfish (ranked #2 on the various computer rating lists) runs on Mac,
Windows, Linux, Android. It's also free and open source!

[http://stockfishchess.org/](http://stockfishchess.org/)

[https://github.com/mcostalba/Stockfish](https://github.com/mcostalba/Stockfish)

~~~
kristofferR
What's the best open source GUI for it?

~~~
pk2200
Try 'Scid vs PC' or ChessX. You'll get a good-looking GUI, plus some cool
database features.

[http://scidvspc.sourceforge.net/](http://scidvspc.sourceforge.net/)

[http://chessx.sourceforge.net/](http://chessx.sourceforge.net/)

A cool feature people may not know about - many of these GUIs allow you to
play two engines against each other. It's fun to watch two strong programs
slug it out. :)

------
birken
And for those that are interested in building their interest in chess in a way
that is more entertainment than education, I highly recommend watching "live
commentaries", IE chess players playing against other people online while
commentating it live.

My personal favorite is IM Greg Shahade (aka curtains), who has hundreds of
these videos online [1]. There are also a bunch on youtube from other sources,
but in my opinion curtains is the most entertaining (he is also quite good,
the 49th ranked player in the US).

[1]: [http://www.chessvideos.tv/chess-video-
search.php?q=curtains+...](http://www.chessvideos.tv/chess-video-
search.php?q=curtains+Live+Commentary&s=topic_id)

~~~
ximeng
I like Mato Jelic's videos - short and regularly released with his own style.

~~~
izietto
I strongly recommend Mato:
[http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMxK1FKAbmj2N-faTWLwNig](http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMxK1FKAbmj2N-faTWLwNig)

------
nsxwolf
Will anyone here besides me admit they've never won a game of chess, ever, not
once? Even against some random little kid who only knows how the pieces move,
at Thanksgiving?

I have this suspicion that some part of my brain is damaged and I'll never be
able to play chess. I've made many attempts at learning, but have never
improved over randomly moving pieces around the board.

Any advice on a resource that will help me at least not embarrass myself, even
if I still can't win? "Play more chess" doesn't seem to be the answer. I don't
think practice helps if you are practicing poor chess.

~~~
dwc
If you are really interested in chess then there are certainly ways to
improve. All of them take work, but you don't have to give over your whole
life. A little every day is enough.

I can't recommend [http://www.chesstactics.org](http://www.chesstactics.org)
enough. Tactics are crucial, both for offense and defense. Read this for
understanding, not to skim, and do the exercises. Again, _do the exercises_.

While going through the above, or after you've finished, do tactics on
chesstempo.com or another site. You will miss a lot of them in the beginning,
but practice makes perfect. It's crucial to your game to be able to just see
certain positions jump out at you, and timed exercises will help immensely.

For playing practice, find an online site and be willing to suffer through
some losses as your ranking settles in. Maybe you have never won a game, but
believe it or not you are not the worst player ever. As your rating is found,
you can match up against others on your level. There are several big sites,
and a ton of others. I use chess.com.

Another thing to try is "correspondence" chess, where you can play out a game
over days, weeks or even months. Why? Because you can play many such games at
once, you can play a bit when you have time, you can play people all over the
world (no time zone issues), etc. But perhaps the biggest thing is that when
you have 6 or 12 games going, you have to be able to look at a board and find
the best move essentially from scratch. This ability to look at a board for
what it actually is right now (instead of in the context of your plans from 5
moves ago), is a very good skill to have.

~~~
nsxwolf
I will definitely take a look at chesstactics.

~~~
rfnslyr
On any of my commutes I'd just be doing chess tactics on my phone. After like
a year I played some 100~ games. Won like 75 of them because I got really good
at predicting moves and recognizing patterns. Seriously just nail out tactics
day in and day out.

They are micro puzzles that increase in difficulty and isolate specific parts
of the chess game, be it beginning, mid, or end game. Once you do a couple
thousand of these, move on to a real board where every piece is in play.

Trust me, you'll get good _fast_ , it just depends how much time you're
willing to put in. Also, go to chess clubs. I go every Monday in my city and
it's a huge help to get insight from veterans and pros.

Once you start even remotely understanding strategy and moves, you will get so
addicted. Just need get over that beginners hump. I'm still shit by the way.

------
tzs
Speaking of getting better at chess, someone on Reddit pointed out that
Shredder for iPhone/iPod and iPad went on sale at half price ($3.99 [1]) for
the world chess championship.

There are stronger chess engines for iOS available for free (Stockfish and
Smallfish), and Shredder has some interface annoyances (the move list only
shows the last couple of moves, making it annoying if you want to jump around
while analyzing a game), but its saving grace is that it seems (both from what
I've read and what I've experienced after a few games with it) to be better at
playing at a lower level.

Many engines, when asked to dumb it down to give the human a chance, play like
a grandmaster and then suddenly make a dumb sacrifice or ignore an attack on a
piece--and then they go back to playing like a grandmaster.

That doesn't give the human a good game. It gives the human an ass kicking,
then a brief moment of hope, and then teaches the human that even if the
engine gives him rook odds or more it will still destroy him.

Shredder's lower levels seem to me to actually play pretty much like humans of
that level. It keeps track of how you do against it at various levels, and by
default automatically adjusts its level based on your performance.

[1] the sale is still on. I have no idea how long until the price goes back to
$7.99. Also note that unfortunately Shredder for iPhone and Shredder for iPad
are separate apps.

~~~
chendry
I wrote a website ([http://nextchessmove.com/](http://nextchessmove.com/),
GNUChess-backed) and corresponding iPhone app (Stockfish-backed, $0.99, mostly
covers website hosting). Both let you drag pieces around "freestyle" and ask
the engine for a move.

I've gotten absolutely clobbered with traffic lately, presumably tournament-
related. I'd love to hear what you all think about the site's applicability to
learning the game.

~~~
xerophtye
That's a pretty cool idea. will check it in my free time. Btw Does it just
give ONE next move? or a series of moves until a significant accomplishment?
because sometimes a move is only epic because of the subsequent moves it
allows you to make. A sacrifice on its own doesn't seem like a good move. Its
only when you see what opening that gave you, that you truly appreciate it.

~~~
chendry
Thanks! It does indeed only give one move. I'm really just standing on the
shoulders of the chess engines (GNUChess, Stockfish) and they simply tell me
what the computer would do given a position. I'd like to get more insight into
why the engine prefers one move to another, but my understanding isn't quite
there yet.

~~~
xerophtye
Umm, i suppose u are using an API for this, well why not use a series of API
calls? Is there someway to detect some sort of accomplishment? (like piece
captured, or check?)

------
karpathy
I'm part of this "renewed interested in chess", as I've played competitively
when I was in high school but then stopped for several years until I came
across this year's championship a few weeks ago.

I've tried several things to get back into chess but so far I've gotten the
most "bang for the buck" on [http://chesstempo.com/](http://chesstempo.com/) ,
go to Training > Chess Tactics. It's fabulous, it feels very useful and it's
even highly addictive. And for chess videos I warmly recommend ChessNetwork on
YouTube. Lastly, I found a really nice app on iPad just called "Chess", which
lets me squeeze in quick games in-between events and it's optionally computer
assisted, which can help find interesting moves.

~~~
V-2
Chessmaster - not that great of an app by itself - shipped with video
tutorials by Joshua Waitzkin, now these were truly great

------
tmallen
Read Nimzowitsch's "My System":
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_System](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_System)

Everything you need is in that book. It's not too long, and very readable. It
has a very common-sense approach. Look for the 21st century edition at used
book stores or your chess club: [http://www.amazon.com/My-System-21st-Century-
Edition/dp/1880...](http://www.amazon.com/My-System-21st-Century-
Edition/dp/1880673851)

chesstempo.com is good for practicing tactics between games.

~~~
adamconroy
Umm. 'My system' is worth reading but only so you have an understanding of
what you are unlearning as you get stronger. In this day and age it is a long
way from all you need to know, chess is much less dogmatic and more objective.
The demands of the position trumps nimzowitsch's rules.

------
peterwwillis
> Error establishing a database connection

For the love of god people. Please stop requiring a database connection to
serve static content.

~~~
nathancahill
It's running on Wordpress. Do you know of static site generator that is
similarly easy to use for non-technical people?

I use Jekyll, but when I tried teaching it to someone I realized that the
learning curve was too steep and switched them to Wordpress.

~~~
rmrfrmrf
wp-super-cache

~~~
singlow
yes - this or w3tc - either of them have an enhanced disk cache that keeps the
generated html for each page on disk and apache/nginx will bypass php if you
have the rewrite rules in place.

------
Tloewald
Anyone care to provide similarly practical tips for Go?

~~~
joe_the_user
I'm not good to give quick Go learning tips but I think it's interesting that
the general consensus is that Go and Chess quire significantly different
"mindsets". Both are games of perfect information but it seems that the
greater complexity of Go yields quantitatively different requirements for good
play - in Go, people teaching generally talk about having the right attitude,
avoid "greed" and similar "fuzzy" criteria.

~~~
e12e
I wonder if it is still the case that Japanese Chess (shogi) is also
considered "too hard" for AI. I'm by no means a proficient shogi player -- but
found it a refreshing "variant" of chess. The main difference from chess, is
that the board is 9x9, and crucially, that you get to play captured pieces.

I like the idea of Go, but I'm afraid it's a little _too_ simple for my
tastes...

~~~
joe_the_user
If you begin playing Go, you will find that strategic complexity go well
beyond most people's ability to calculate so simple mostly applies only to the
rules.

Anyway, I think games wind-up being hard to program when one is allowed many
moves each turn. Go allows hundreds of potential moves and it is not easy to
prune the tree or estimate the relative situations. I remember Shogi being
described as similarly hard - I think the re-played captured pieces might be
what makes the tree explode.

~~~
e12e
Oh, I absolutely know go is a complex game, I was talking about the "surface
simplicity". It does appeal to me, but at the same time it strikes me as being
too bare bones to really be enjoyable -- for me.

Maybe it's just that I think board games should be played on a proper board,
with tactile feel of the pieces -- and I don't know anyone that play go (or
shogi, for that matter) where I live. Also the main reason I don't play chess
-- I can't really say I enjoy any of these games as computer games/internet
games.

When a computer is involved, I fell I might as well play something with
complex rules that leverages the computer, like Planetside ;-)

------
dfan
This is a good set of suggestions for improving in chess that obviously worked
well for the author. When I saw how great his results were, though, I
suspected that he must have been pretty young during his improvement phase,
and sure enough, he was a teenager. Rapid chess improvement, like language
acquisition, is a _lot_ easier when you're young. So if you're an adult, don't
be too disappointed if this regimen doesn't shoot you up to 1800 in a year. I
know many adults who have been playing the game seriously for decades who
never got there.

(Context: I have been an 1800-rated adult myself who recently got up to 2000
with a lot of hard work.)

------
sethbannon
For tactics training, I highly recommend "1001 Winning Chess Sacrifices and
Combinations" ([http://www.amazon.com/1001-Winning-Chess-Sacrifices-
Combinat...](http://www.amazon.com/1001-Winning-Chess-Sacrifices-
Combinations/dp/0879801115/)) and "1001 Brilliant Ways to Checkmate
([http://www.amazon.com/Brilliant-Checkmate-Chess-lovers-
libra...](http://www.amazon.com/Brilliant-Checkmate-Chess-lovers-
library/dp/0879801107/)). Both books are things you can toss in your bag and
pick up when you have a spare minute.

~~~
tomsthumb
chesstempo.com is also quite good for tactics training.

Tons of problems (20000+), comments for explanations, thematic tagging,
ratings graphs. This is all free.

The paid tier lets you construct problem sets from criteria. The list goes on.

------
ibagrak
Good chess player - sign of a great mind. Great chess player - sign of a
wasted mind.

~~~
V-2
Wasted in what sense? What do you consider a better use that could have been
made of a great chess player's mind?

~~~
ibagrak
It's just a saying I heard a long time ago from one of my professors. He
probably meant it in the academic sense, i.e. the person could otherwise use
that mental energy to do great research.

~~~
V-2
This point of view is understandable coming from a scientist, but essentially
he could've said the same about van Beethoven or Dostoyevsky :)

Their works please us - not unlike the greatest chess games - but do they
broaden our knowledge?

And where lies the value of great research anyway? In its practical appliance?

Grigori Perelman's research on the Poincaré conjecture is beyond brilliant,
but has it improved our life more than the Immortal Game (Anderssen -
Kieseritzky)?

Or is there innate value in scientific research, which comes solely from the
virtue of being scientific? This approach strikes me as para-religious.

Refutation of the Evans gambit is some sort of knowledge as well. It's even
peer reviewed :)

Of course it's not useful, but, for instance, is knowing what god was
worshipped by the Khori-Tumed tribe 1200 years ago (fruit of hard and deep
historical research work as it might be) more useful?

------
wyclif
Those are good book recommendations, but I'd add "Pawn Power in Chess" by Hans
Kmoch. Reading this book will improve your pawn manipulation and overall game.
Excellent illustrations from real games, too. [http://www.amazon.com/Pawn-
Power-Chess-Dover/dp/0486264866/](http://www.amazon.com/Pawn-Power-Chess-
Dover/dp/0486264866/)

------
Matetricks
If anyone's interested in how I studied chess, I wrote a few posts on my blog
on chess.com about it:
[http://www.chess.com/blog/Matetricks](http://www.chess.com/blog/Matetricks)

I became a National Master when I was 13 and I played a lot as a kid.

------
halfcat
Beyond getting good at chess, fast, if you want to get great at chess, slowly,
then GM Rashid Ziatdinov has the instructions you seek.

GM Ziatdinov is unique in that he gives the blueprint that he claims will get
anyone to master level (2200+) [1], and it's dead simple. It's much of the
same:

1\. Study tactics a ton [2] 2\. Memorize 300 key positions and games 3\. Now
you are a master

His definition of "memorize" is that you understand the key position/game
instantly and without thinking, the same way you walk or read your native
language. 300 doesn't sound like a lot, but to understand each key position to
the depth he advises, we're looking at the 10,000 hour rule for all 300
positions.

For comparison, either he or another GM claimed that super-GMs know 1000+ key
positions/games, and Magnus Carlsen has said he has memorized 10,000+ games.

[1] [http://www.amazon.com/GM-RAM-Essential-Grandmaster-Chess-
Kno...](http://www.amazon.com/GM-RAM-Essential-Grandmaster-Chess-
Knowledge/dp/0938650726)

[2] He used to have a few thousand tactics problems on his website. He said to
do 1-10 quickly until you could get through them without a mistake. He
emphasizes quickly, it's about getting new patterns in your brain, not
figuring it out on your own. After 1-10 are perfect, do 11-20 until perfect,
then 1-20 until perfect, and repeat until you can do all 1-4000 (or however
many). At that point he said you will have the tactical ability of a GM.

------
navan
I agree with almost everything in that article. I have been playing chess for
20+ years. During that time I have spent several months at a time seriously
spending all the free time to improve my chess. I have read numerous chess
books, many of them multiple times. I have an expert level rating (USCF) now.
I wish someone has told me to concentrate on tactics before going after
openings or strategies. Nowadays for any new beginner once they learn the
rules I tell them to practice tactics.

Learning positional strategies and all the fancy openings from the books was
great. But was useless to improve my results when I was beginning. When I
analyzed my games with the help of computer, I found 90% of the games were
decided because me or the opponent missed a simple tactic which is just 1 or 2
moves deep. If this is the case in your games you should study tactics until
you can find all 1-2 move tactics. It sounds easy. But I have seen a number of
class A players miss these simple tactics numerous times.

Finally you will understand opening and positional strategies only if you can
spot tactics in them. Once you do not find any tactical mistakes in your game
you start to play positional chess. You will appreciate making good positional
moves when you do not make silly mistakes.

------
spot
why study chess when you can play go?

The rules of go are so elegant, organic and rigorously logical that if
intelligent life forms exist elsewhere in the universe they almost certainly
play go. -Lasker

~~~
grimgrin
Today I decided to learn about Go. I knew nothing prior. I read a few chapters
of Chikun's "Go: A Complete Guide to the Game." I really like how he goes back
and forth between introducing a game mechanic, and then some historical
element.

The chapters look like:
[http://i.imgur.com/qcnWUng.png](http://i.imgur.com/qcnWUng.png)

I even went so far as to watch the first couple episodes of Hikaru no Go,
which is honestly really awesome.

------
scott_s
His rules for chess psychology actually apply to any one-on-one competition,
including sports:

 _1\. Don’t ever be afraid of your opponent

2\. Fight as hard as you can until the game is over_

------
V-2
[http://youtu.be/46CwTDLkHA8](http://youtu.be/46CwTDLkHA8) \- very interesting
insights into the aesthetics of chess, by a Scottish grandmaster Jonathan
Rowson.

I think it's inspiring for every chess player, or even those who don't play
(yet).

Part II: [http://youtu.be/f8ErcUCQoUs](http://youtu.be/f8ErcUCQoUs)

------
netvarun
If you are looking for a systematic learning program, I would like to suggest
Artur Yusupov's training program (9 books that gradually increase in
difficulty).
[http://www.qualitychess.co.uk/docs/14/artur_yusupovs_awardwi...](http://www.qualitychess.co.uk/docs/14/artur_yusupovs_awardwinning_training_course/)

~~~
Scarblac
Truly great books, but not for beginners. If you're ambitious rated 1700 or
so, these are the best.

Beginners should look at the workbooks from "Chess Steps". Cheap and very good
too. After Step 5 you can switch to Yusupov.

------
thewarrior
Is there something like this for programming ?

~~~
xerophtye
Here, use this:
[http://norvig.com/21-days.html](http://norvig.com/21-days.html)

~~~
thewarrior
Well I have read that article. I do understand that true mastery can take a
lifetime.

The posted article gives specific chess exercises which when practiced for 3 -
5 months can produce a marked improvement. I was asking whether there any such
exercises for programming.

~~~
vinceguidry
You could try code kata
([http://codekata.pragprog.com/](http://codekata.pragprog.com/)) or koans,
(just search Google for your language + 'koans') but those are really only a
fun way to work on a specific, easily-tested skill, that also happens to be
the very first a novice learns, that's implementation. By all means, if they
help, knock yourself out.

The thing about programming is that to get better at it, you need to expand
the way you think about abstraction. You have to think not just in terms of
how you will maintain what you wrote, but how the end user will use it and how
the domain might change.

Any novice can hack together something that will work for one specific
purpose, it takes someone skilled to pull useful abstractions out from that
single-use code and turn it into something flexible enough that even years
from now another novice will be able to pick it back up and understand it
enough to be able to reuse it.

All that is to say is, any purported exercise isn't going to get your brain
thinking the way it needs to. They're only going to take you to the end of the
very first step of mastery, that's in "getting the computer to do what you
want it to".

~~~
xerophtye
Exactly. IMO its not just the exercises that help you write great code (though
they MIGHT help in competitive coding like for ACM). Truly beautiful code
comes from experience and working with those who have spent years getting that
experience. In my current company there is a huge focus on the re-usability
and extensibility of the code. We are forced to think of future changes and
make sure the code allows changing things in the most easy way possible.

One simplest example: All queries to a single DB table have to be done through
a single "Data Class". The class will have functions that will allow other
classes to use that table. this ensures that if tmrw, we make changes to that
table, there is only one place in the code we have to make the changes.
Instead of running around in the massive code base, looking for the queries to
that table.

~~~
vinceguidry
That's an application of the Dependency Inversion Principle, part of the SOLID
methodology. You always want your code to depend on abstract forms rather than
concrete ones. By abstracting database calls into a class, you avoid having to
constantly write brittle methods digging deep into concrete implementations.

One way your company's method might evolve is into the Active Record pattern.
You define a class around a particular table, implementing domain logic inside
that class. You see this pattern used in Rails. If you're using one class per
table, I think that's the way it will eventually go.

I like Active Record ORMs for many applications, but only as a persistence
layer. Implementing domain logic in a data class is asking for pain, it
violates the Single Responsibility Principle. Each class should do only one
thing. The thing handling your data persistence should _only_ read/write to
the database, it should not also perform calculations or perform actions on
anything other than the database.

I refactor domain logic out of models when I see it into Plain Objects with no
dependencies, and let the domain have its own abstract world of classes minus
ugly database wrappers to play in. I can then write an adapter to the data
classes. If it's an existing application in production, then at this point I
would start to re-design the database, inevitably it will need work.

I do this by creating another database schema, generating the data classes,
simple as pie now without domain logic getting in the way, then create the
adapter from examining the existing one. I can then import all the data from
the database, represent it as abstract plain objects, then shoot those objects
through the other adapter into the new database.

But it only really works if everything does one thing. Your domain objects
talk to each other. Your adapter classes go between the domain and the data.
The data talks to the database. Achieving this requires hard-won experience
with programs that break the principles. You have to feel the pain and
recognize where it's coming from. No kata will give you this experience.

~~~
xerophtye
Well yes, that's what we do too. The logic implementation is in the Business
classes. The data classes just read/write from the tables, and return that
data to the business class that performs more meaningful functions on it. This
way the data can be used in multiple ways by multiple classes without them
depending on each other. A change in domain logic would mean a change in the
business class, leaving the data class unaffected

------
mathattack
My impression is that Chess is making a comeback in schools. At least in NYC,
many schools have competitive programs.

Here are two programs:
[http://www.nychesskids.com](http://www.nychesskids.com) and
[http://www.chessintheschools.org](http://www.chessintheschools.org).

------
GraffitiTim
This is similar to how I learned and how I teach beginning chess players. Good
set of recommendations.

------
mrcactu5

      I’m going to define “good” as the 90th percentile 
      among the player pool you’re competing against. 
    

This is a very interesting definition of "good". Appropriate for Chess, but
has interesting ramifications elsewhere.

~~~
ams6110
How so? It's the general standard for an "A" grade in any other subject.

~~~
mrcactu5
When we hire someone for a job, we want someone who is "good" at what they do.
By this logic, we pick someone in the top 10% - a notion which will vary from
person to person.

Now consider a job market, where employers are looking for candidates.
Employers what "good" workers, candidates want "good" jobs. _All_ the activity
will be concentrated around the top 10% of each side.

The situation will be better or worse depending on correlations among
everyone's definition of "good". This has nothing to do with chess, sorry!

------
vijayr
Are there similar ways to improve in other games, like Scrabble for instance?
I don't enjoy Chess much, but I enjoy Scrabble - plus it's a good way to learn
a new language

------
k_os
Is there any evidence that becoming good at chess improves any mental aspects
or is it just a hard game that you can brag about being able to play?

~~~
halfcat
In the short term it has the same benefits as learning to do anything else
that's non-trivial (grappling with a new topic, concentrating for longer
periods of time, improved self confidence maybe, etc). In other words, the
reasons that an elementary school would teach students to play chess.

In the longer term, there is evidence of many strong players in history who
obsessed over chess and went insane. You can train your brain to do many
things, whether it's memorizing 100,000 digits of pi, or becoming one of the
best players in the world at a FPS video game by playing 12 hours a day, but
it can't be good for your mental health.

------
jacobkg
Any recommendations for a good place to play chess online?

~~~
cven714
chess.com is OK, ICC (chessclub.com) is where its at, but has a subscription
fee.

~~~
hobbes
It depends what you're after. (I have memberships on both)

Bear in mind that chess.com regularly has 10 times the number of players
online at any one time, so it's much easier to find a game of your desired
time controls and ability level.

Also, chess.com has much better material and functions to improve your rating
for lower and intermediate rated players. For this reason alone I would
recommend chess.com to lower ability players (although these features require
a premium membership).

chessclub.com (ICC) has a greater number of GM's, etc. There are GM's and IM's
on chess.com, but not as many as far as I can tell.

Finally, chess.com has outstanding "social" features, like teams and forums,
etc, trolls notwithstanding.

So, I would without hesitation recommend chess.com for learners and
intermediate players, and ICC for those who want to play against higher-rated
players. I spend most of my time on chess.com and don't intend to extend my
ICC membership.

UPDATE:

chessclub.com: 897 players currently online.

chess.com: 22,235 players currently online.

There was a time when chess.com didn't exist, and chessclub.com was the place
to go. ICC's website now is a dog's breakfast and has been lacking in
development for a long time. IMO, ICC had relied too much on the number of GM
members at attract players. Chess.com, although more expensive, is a much more
vibrant and educational place to be.

~~~
adamconroy
ICC pissed me off when I let my subscription lapse for 9 months and wouldn't
reactivate my account that I had for 15 years. I had ~ 15000 blitz games under
my handle and dozens of contacts. All gone and they couldn't care less.

------
imahboob
never take shortcuts... I especially don't like the computer analysis part for
beginners...

------
kimonos
Wow! Cool! Thanks for sharing!

------
EdwigePelagia
who is this guy and why should i take him seriously? he doesn't explain why
his advice is worth a damn

~~~
phaus
Since when did we start demanding background checks on people that publish
free tutorials on the internet?

But since you asked, he explains in this article that he was rated around
1800. He also clearly explains what that means. He then described a system he
used to boost his rating by 600 points in 15 months. I'm impressed, but you
aren't obligated to feel the same way. You also aren't obligated to take his
advice. He gave it to us for free, and you returned his kindness with
unnecessary hostility.

~~~
EdwigePelagia
Does HN operate on a kindness and friendliness economy? If some blogspam hack
writes in a very kind tone but peddles complete unauthoritative bullshit
should we coddle him so as to not hurt his feelings? All he because he wrote
with "kindness".

This isn't a nice lady smiling at you on the street and telling you about her
knitting technique. This is fucking blogspam by a complete amateur who has
self-proclaimed himself an expert on a topic that is already very well
populated by ACTUAL authoritative experts.

~~~
phaus
Blog spam is for generating ad revenue or gaining attention for a product.
This guy isn't selling anything, and there aren't any ads on his site(at least
none that I see on my iPad).

If you don't like what he has to say, that's your perogative, but that doesn't
make his article blog spam. The guy's been on HN for a year and a half and
that's the first time he ever posted anything from his site. He likely just
found out that a lot of HN members are interested in chess, and so he did what
normal people have done with their hobbies for centuries, try to grow the
community.

Instead of complaining, wouldn't it be more productive to take your own advice
and post some of the resources that you found useful?

~~~
EdwigePelagia
>Instead of complaining, wouldn't it be more productive to take your own
advice and post some of the resources that you found useful?

No. Pointing out the low quality of this article is pretty easy and helpful.
It's not like the opportunity cost of my very simple (but powerful) criticism
is precluding me from making my contributions to the world.

I think we should all spend a lot more time shooting down people who don't
deserve attention.

I'm sure he's a nice guy. Maybe he's a great friend and sincerely loves his
mom. If these things make you uncriticizable on HN, no wonder the place is
full of trash.

P.S. It's blogspam because he's selling his book.

~~~
phaus
So on one hand you are criticising a 19-year old for attempting to add value
to peoples' lives without asking for anything in return, because you feel his
efforts are insufficient, yet you yourself are actively refusing to bring
anything worthwhile to the table.

>I think we should all spend a lot more time shooting down people who don't
deserve attention.

I agree. I hope its not lost on you that this is exactly what I've been doing.

No one is above intelligent criticism, but we have yet to see any of that from
you.

This is a place for people that like to build things. Having a needlessly
negative attitude isn't conducive to making that happen.

