Chess.com

Chess.com
Type of site
 Internet chess server, Social media website
Slogan(s) Play. Learn. Share.
Website www.chess.com
Alexa rank Increase 1,512 (August 2016)[1]
Registration Yes
Launched June 2007
Current status Active

Chess.com is an Internet chess server, Internet forum and social networking website.[2] According to Alexa Internet rankings, it is the most frequently visited chess website on the Internet.[3]

History

The domain chess.com was originally set up in about 1995 by Aficionado, a company based in Berkeley, California, in order to sell a piece of chess tutoring software called "Chess Mentor".[4] In 2005, internet entrepreneur Erik Allebest and partner Jarom ("Jay") Severson purchased the domain name and assembled a team of software developers to redevelop the site as a chess portal. The site was relaunched in 2007.[2] Allebest plays chess at an amateur level.[5] The site was heavily promoted via social media and grew quickly, attracting mainly casual players. In 2009, chess.com announced a takeover of a similar chess social networking site, chesspark.com.[6][7]

In October 2013, chess.com acquired the Dutch-based chess news site chessvibes.com.[8] According to the website mainpage there are over 11 million members and over a billion live games have been played on the site, along with 100 million correspondence games.[9]

Chess.com has held regular "deathmatches", whereby two titled players are paid to play a series of blitz games over a non-stop 3 hour period (5-minute, 3-minute and 1-minute, all with one second increment).[10] To date there have been 30 deathmatches, some of them held between some of the top grandmasters, such as Hikaru Nakamura, Dmitry Andreikin, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Simen Agdestein, Lê Quang Liêm, Wesley So, Georg Meier, Arkadij Naiditsch, Loek van Wely, Fabiano Caruana, Judit Polgár and Nigel Short.[11]

Features

Mini-Logo

Chess.com operates a freemium business model: main site features are free,[12] but players have to pay to get additional features.[13]

Visitors to the site can play on a live chess server and correspondence style games, referred to on the site as "turn-based". Players may also play against chess engines, and participate in voting games, in which players form teams and vote on the best move. Additional features include tactics training, chess forums, articles, chess news, downloads, openings databases, groups, live broadcasts, daily puzzles, online coaching and a game database of over 2 million games.

On the site, players are able to learn to play at any level, take part in discussion forums and watch chess events.[14]

The company publishes a large number of articles on a variety of chess-related topics, including chess strategy, opening theory and history. Regular contributors include Gregory Serper, Bruce Pandolfini, Rafael Leitão, Dan Heisman, Jeremy Silman, Petar Genov, Daniel Naroditsky and Natalia Pogonina.

Chess.com has a policy against the use of chess engines in all forms of the game, except unrated games where both players agree. It utilizes certain techniques to catch players using engines in games, and bans many on a daily basis.

Chesskid.com

Chess.com also runs the site chesskid.com for chess players aged 13 and under. Chesskid.com runs an online championship which is recognized by the United States Chess Federation.[15][16]

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Chess.com Site Info". Alexa Internet. Retrieved 2014-02-28.
  2. 1 2 "Chess.com: A Social Networking Site For...Well You Can Probably Guess". TechCrunch. 2007-07-08. Retrieved 2013-11-30.
  3. ↑ "Top Sites in:All Categories > Games > Board Games > Abstract > Battle Games > Chess". Alexa.com. Retrieved 2014-02-28.
  4. ↑ "Chess Mentor by Aficionado". Web.archive.org. 1997-07-10. Archived from the original on July 10, 1997. Retrieved 2013-11-30.
  5. ↑ "USCF MSA - Member Details (General)". Uschess.org. Retrieved 2013-11-30.
  6. ↑ "Chesspark And Chess.com Put Their Pawns Together". TechCrunch. 2009-12-22. Retrieved 2013-11-30.
  7. ↑ "Chess.com Makes Its Move, Acquires Name Chesspark.com". Private Equity and Venture Capital. Dow Jones. 23 December 2009. Retrieved 10 December 2013. (subscription required (help)).
  8. ↑ "BREAKING: Chess.com to acquire". ChessVibes. 2006-02-06. Retrieved 2013-11-30.
  9. ↑ Pete Cilento. "Chess.com: 1 Billion Games Served". Chess.com. Retrieved 6 January 2015.
  10. ↑ "Deathmatch historical archive". Chess.com. May 17, 2012. Retrieved 1 January 2014.
  11. ↑ Klein, Mike (30 May 2013). "Death Match 15: Caruana vs. Aveskulov". USchess.org. Retrieved 1 January 2014.
  12. ↑ McClain, Dylan Loeb (13 March 2010). "Wherever You Are, a Game Is Just a Point and Click Away". The New York Times. Retrieved 15 December 2013.
  13. ↑ Premium Membership & Subscriptions - Chess.com
  14. ↑ "Chess.com, red social para los jugadores de ajedrez". GenBeta.com. 8 July 2007. Retrieved 11 November 2012.
  15. ↑ "The United States Chess Federation - Nation's Top Chess Kids to Battle in Online Invitational". Uschess.org. 2012-05-31. Retrieved 2013-11-30.
  16. ↑ "Bay Area kids look to checkmate opponents from a computer screen". ContraCostaTimes.com. 2013-06-15. Retrieved 2013-11-30.

External links

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