
Lichess - Don't register. Play Chess. - Uncle_Sam
http://lichess.org/
======
jambo
Please don't tell me Safari 5 is deprecated and ask me to "upgrade" to
Firefox.

~~~
j_baker
Look on the bright side. At least the page doesn't say something like "Works
best on Internet Explorer 4" (or some other outdated version of IE).

~~~
chc
I don't see how that would be much worse. You're requiring one specific
version of one specific browser either way.

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dxq
How to troll online chess:

1\. Open up Chess.app

2\. Turn CPU difficulty all the way up

3\. Start lichess game as black

4\. Mirror lichess opponent's moves into Chess.app

5\. Mirror Chess.app opponent's moves into lichess

6\. Talk incredible amounts of smack

~~~
ben0x539
You are watching a stranger play chess against a computer. There has to be a
more fulfilling method of trolling people.

~~~
vinutheraj
Or both of them are watching two computers playing against each other.

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RoboTeddy
Awesome! I love that Chess 960 (aka Fischer Random) is a prominent choice.

It's a variant of chess where the back rank with all the pieces on it are in a
random order (although the board is mirrored, so each side has their pieces in
the same order).

My brother is a strong chess player, but eventually gave up the game because
to improve he was having to spend more and more time memorizing opening lines.
With chess 960 there are 960 different starting positions, so memorization
doesn't help at all. I hope it gets more popular, it's a more purely strategic
and tactical than standard chess.

~~~
mcrittenden
That's really interesting. Do you know of any tournaments or communities that
purely play that way? If so, did your brother consider moving to them rather
than giving it up altogether? How old was your brother when he quit and how
strong is "strong"?

~~~
RoboTeddy
He'd been scholastic state chess champion a couple times in a row and stuff. I
think he was rated ~2000 USCF when he lost interest; I'm not sure how old he
was -- probably late teens.

I don't know of any tournaments or communities with a major focus on chess
960, but that doesn't mean there aren't any out there. If you're looking to
play, you can probably find matches on ICC
(<http://www.chessclub.com/help/Fischer-random>). It's not free,
unfortunately.

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TeMPOraL
I was positively surprised by the fact that the site presented itself in my
native language (polish) and _it didn't suck_. It's probably the first time
ever I saw a site that autodetected a language and it actually felt nice. Not
everything is translated though, and I hope you'll fix it one day :).

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lionhearted
Disappointed. I got paired with a newbie who was screwing around.

<http://awesomescreenshot.com/0fa3r9l09>

The site, though, is beautiful and a joy to play on. My last online chess was
at Yahoo Chess, and this feels like walking on air compared to Y! Chess's
clunky interface. Beautiful site, very pleasing to use.

A nice feature to keep semi-serious players around would be some way to get
scored or sorted, so you somewhat consistently can get decent matches. Overall
I really like it though, cheers.

Edit: Got a full game in - <http://lichess.org/bsba_b> \- I was black. Made
some mistakes, I'm rusty. But the interface is really a joy, I like it a lot.

~~~
rlpb
Could this be the reason that registration would be a better idea, and thus
explain the success of all the chess servers that require it? I'd much prefer
to play against an evenly matched opponent, or with a stronger player who I
can learn from by analysing the game with afterwards - and definitely against
someone who will finish the game. Both of these things requires reputation,
and reputation requires registration. I found fics to be great for this.

I apologise to whoever I annoyed by not even playing the first move. I wanted
to see if there were _any_ options to discriminate my opponent (for example by
supplying my own rating on an honour system); there were none.

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jensv
Here's a replay of me playing someone who outclasses and outplays me in every
way but becomes overconfident and makes a careless mistake that costs him/her
the game. I find it amusing because I don't imagine it being common for a weak
player to beat a stronger opponent.

<http://lichess.org/analyse/pvpxyq>

Once again I make no claim on my ability to play the game of chess. (I suck)
This was more luck than anything but it's a good example of how you shouldn't
give up/become too cocky before crossing the finish line.

~~~
iends
fyi, Black is also not a very strong player.

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colombian
I've been thinking about doing this for a while. There's so many times when I
want to play a game of chess with a friend online, but don't want to take the
time to register an account at any of the big chess sites.

My idea would have been a service where you click "New Game", it generates a
unique link which you then give to your friend.

Anyways, incredibly well done.

~~~
cicada
FTR: Lichess does this, visit <http://lichess.org/friend>

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greyman
I still prefer to download a standalone client and connect to FICS and choose
time controls, opponents, etc...

~~~
dmn001
I prefer FICS too, compared to web alternatives like lichess, you also get a
glicko rating, history, win-loss count, lag stats, and you can find a game in
an instant, as well as chat functionality and more.

The FICS database of games is also available on: <http://www.ficsgames.com/>
\- currently hosts about 120 million games in its archive.

Best client for FICS is Babaschess - <http://www.babaschess.net/default.asp>

~~~
leek
Have you tried Chess.com?

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cicada
This is nice. I was a little saddened that the replay and analyse option after
games did not actually analyse games, but with the export I can download the
games into my favourite chess engine and have it analyse the games for me.

[edit: noticed that there is a forum, don't go there. While someone
occasionally posts an interesting game like
<http://lichess.org/analyse/0mbole> the level of conversation is roughly what
you'd expect from a 4chan /chess/ board.]

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PostOnce
A Lichess is a female Lich.

How many D&D scenarios have you play a game of chess against a Lich?

Sometimes, I feel it worthwhile to waste karma on these musings. Daydream more
often.

~~~
flipper
I came in here to make the same point, though I too was pondering the karma
hit. Have an upvote.

To drag another tangential fantasy/sci-fi reference into the discussion, in an
episode of Blake's 7 Avon and Vila smuggled their supercomputer Orac into a
space casino so Vila could play against The Klute, a wizened Davros-like house
chess genius with a terrifying laugh. The prize for winning or drawing was 10
million space credits, lose and The Klute could choose your destruction.

Sayonara karma.

~~~
CallMeV
Didn't that episode end ironically, with the Federation taking over the planet
and rendering the currency they'd just won worthless?

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discipline
Did the server go down? I want to play against the machine, all I get is a
page not found/404 page. I'm on Firefox.

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martincmartin
Anything similar for Go?

~~~
mcantor
<http://go.davepeck.org/>

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kurumo
Not bad at all as far as interface goes, but their timer is buggy. In 5 0 it
ate 15 seconds of my time, apparently due to lag. A thought I had for a while:
do analysis on games as they occur and try to estimate opponents' strength, as
a way to detect cheating of the type where one of the players mimics a
computer. Computationally expensive, but would be fun to try.

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arjn
Nice. I like not having to register. Thanks!!

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Natsu
Nice, but I hit a bug where the other guy couldn't see my move. We both
thought it was the other person's turn :(

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zalew
I like it very much, it's fun to use, but do sth with the performance. At the
moment "149 connected players" and it's hanging. It's 3rd game in a row for me
when it's hanging once a few moves, now it's dead completely. Game over :(

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Kilimanjaro
Love it! visuals are nice but can be improved. wooden board, 3D pieces etc.

Before matching players in a random game, ask for a level like novice,
intermediate and pro.

I like the chess roulette idea...

~~~
ugh
_“Visuals are nice but can be improved. wooden board, 3D pieces etc.”_

You would call that improved and I would call that tacky.

~~~
Kilimanjaro
one man's tackyness is another's beauty

<http://www.tchessgame.com/ss/ipad_main.png>

<http://www.tchessgame.com/ss/ipad_editposition.png>

<http://www.tchessgame.com/ss/ipad_analysis.png>

But what do I know about design? A mere coder...

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Natsu
Castling on the queen's side is very clunky. If you move the king two spaces,
it should castle for you. It works just fine on the king's side, though.

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chrisbroadfoot
I await chessroulette: lichess + video of your opponent.

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lazyant
While I was playing I couldn't find the clock

~~~
lazyant
OK, I see the clock now but it doesn't work like the traditional one, I played
a 5 min "blitz" game and I would have like 5:05, is it using perhaps the
Fisher's clock?

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earcar
GitHub repository: <https://github.com/ornicar/lichess>

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cjbprime
Hmph:

> "Anonymous - The other player has left the game. You can force resignation,
> or wait for him."

Got sexism much?

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QuantumGood
Freechess.org lets you choose your interface, and has a ton of quality
opponents.

~~~
iwr
Still, it's unfriendly to newbies. You need to learn console commands. Also,
the registration process does not allow webmail addresses. On places like
chess.com or chesscube, you can pretty much start right away.

That said, I still prefer FICS for the greater flexibility in timings and the
ability to review all past games.

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KC8ZKF
How can you offer a draw?

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ronnoch
This is one of those ideas I feel like I should have thought of.

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melvinram
not bad but i prefer chess.com

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phillco
Very nice!

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InclinedPlane
Seems to be down now. :\

