When I finally relented and bought my first smartphone a few months ago, it nudged me to try playing on chess.com.
I’m really enjoying the puzzles on there.
Does anyone else play chess?
I have played the game for 50 years, but have suddenly got so much better at it, thanks to the excellent Training programs on chess.com.
There is a huge boom in the number of players on chess.com recently.
The reasons for this include that there is a new breed of chess engines with stratospheric levels of skill; plus two controversies involving World Champion Magnus Carlsen; plus some world class players on YouTube analysing games, such as Hikaru Nakamura, and the engine Stockfish.
My account is dormant as I found I tend to tosh online whereas the pleasures of a face to face game are many. Taught by my father who used to play chess for Wales back in the day. I didn’t know such a thing existed. He used to play phone chess and postal chess. He also built a beautiful board. It needs fresh foam underneath but I hope to inherit it one day.
I must admit I find the games vs other humans quite daunting online because I’m not keen on losing, so it can be a bit stressful, especially when I’m losing.
But I’m really enjoying getting better at the game by doing Puzzles and Lessons on the site.
I think it had hung on the wall of a pub for many years before that judging by the somewhat scratched glass surface of the board, the hook and the wooden frame.
After a hearing crash I started playing a few years ago after not having played for 25+ years. It gave me something to concentrate on and I became a member of chess.com, playing firstly against lower rated Chess engines and then Stockfish and Fritz - lower levels only but pushing myself as hard as possible until I was brave enough to play other humans on the daily games.
I’ve never been a fast player and so I’m not into against the clock games but enjoyed the dailies immensely, usually playing three games or so at a time.
Sadly I’ve not played for two years due to various circumstances, one being nowhere comfortable to play so I’m converting my former work from home office to a study with a large enough desk for my tournament size electronic board. The other reason being some hearing improvement so got distracted by listening to more music while I still could!
My study will be ready soon and I intend to do a bit of catching up
I play it a lot on Chess.com, I even have a paid subscription - something I rarely do. I play about three or four games at a time and have made good friends on there, mostly from Germany for some reason. I’m not brilliant, my score is about 940. I love chess but neither of my daughters are much into it. Last time I tried to play with my youngest (7 y/o) she decided the horses, as they are much like unicorns, were omnipotent and crushed all my pieces in one consecutive move.
I would highly recommend getting into it on Chess.com. A brilliant community and good escapism’s every now and again.
In the stockfish videos I’ve seen on YouTube, he claims to crush Magnus and other top players while making sacrifices to give his opponents a better chance.
But I suppose if you are under no time pressure (and perhaps are allowed to look up openings) then you could get right into the middle game and do a lot of calculating and have a chance of putting up a decent fight.
It’s about choosing the right level that pushes you hard enough for you to have the odds stacked against you. Unlike Chess computers in the past the end-games are really tough with little or no room for error.
It’s a better game with the more powerful engines even if you lose!
Been playing since a young age. My school headmaster taught us and set up inter school matches from about age 8/9.
Used to read chess books when those were a thing, the volumes of annotated Kasparov matches (at his peak) are fascinating. Still in a cupboard somewhere.
Play on chess.com occasionally and also have a computerised board.
Playing engines makes you extra careful as computers don’t do blunders! You can have ‘blunders’ on some beginner engines - can’t remember which one it was - to have a more human feel.
until I was brave enough to play other humans on the daily games.
due to various circumstances, one being nowhere comfortable to play so I’m converting my former work from home office to a study with a large enough desk for my tournament size electronic board. The other reason being some hearing improvement so got distracted by listening to more music while I still could! 
