OpenChess

PlayChess Engine Room soon closed?

The decline of online computer chess. About a year ago, Infinity Chess was closed. Due to a lack of sponsors. Because the sponsor had pulled out, no more tournaments were held. As a result, hardly anyone played in the official engine room anymore. It's different on PlayChess. After all, accounts have to be paid for (35 euros/year). However, some users abroad made use of an option to create free fake accounts (ProteusSF). That alone was not enough for them. They also cheated constantly and insulted paying users. There were discussions about this in the chat. It was only after a long time that there were consequences (I had also written to ChessBase). Only very few people had much fun playing under such conditions. I have shifted my activities to Lichess. A few weeks ago, I was on PlayChess and was just kibitzing. As soon as I got there, someone in the chat was babbling "The Solista has now become a cherry picker too". What nonsense. I always play in automatic mode, and anyone who doesn't play like that (the cherry pickers) will be blocked by me. On Lichess, anyone can read the following line on my Solista account: "Only automatic mode. Anyone who doesn't play so, will be ignored by me later." Anyone who doesn't play like that will destroy the server. Anyone who only wants to play against players who are better rated (according to Elo) (in order to artificially boost their Elo with draws) will destroy the server. If everyone did that, there would be no more games played, because everyone would have to wait for players with a better Elo rating. That is the death of server chess! When I logged into PlayChess this morning, I read the following message in the chat: "...Hi a news from Chessbase Gmbh the engine room will be closed by 20-08-2024". Whether that is really true remains to be seen. I wouldn't be surprised.

I'm paid up in there to August 2025 if that's the case I better get a refund

I'm not sure you can argue that. Access to PlayChess remains. How should ChessBase do it if they only want to get rid of the engine room and not everything else? Does it say anywhere in the terms and conditions that the engine room will always be accessible? Using the engine is still possible for kibitzing. The server does not only consist of the engine room. It is the smallest of all, with fewer than 50 people playing. There are many other rooms where tournaments are also held. Also rooms with training with grandmasters. There is a broadcast room (where engines can also be used for analysis) where all tournaments in the world are broadcast. Even with grandmaster analyses and videos. If CB only wants to get rid of the engine room and not everything else, how should they do it?

Why waste a single thought on unlaid eggs?