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[flagged] ChessDream, a place for chess players to improve (chessdream.vercel.app)
28 points by pukarkhanal on Sept 17, 2024 | hide | past | favorite | 19 comments


Marketing section isn't helping. Some over the top claims mixed with some lies. You are not winning any favors with it.

It's clear domain knowledge is lacking in this project. Things like not numbering moves in engine lines, not naming the engine you are using, showing an eval from a point of view of a side to play (usual convetion is to show it from white's point of view so positive eval means better for white, negative eval means better for black) are giveaways. There are also bugs in the puzzle section. I encountered one that says black to move but only accepts white's move. Some end too quickly as well.

If you are looking for advice then I would recommend some humility and working on domain knowledge. It's a tough space to make a business in as there are very strong free services (like Lichess) and great commercial ones (like Chesstempo). Even making one thing better than Lichess might win you some users and potential customers but it won't happen by claiming it's already "quickly happening".


Thanks for the advice I will surely work on it!


claims to use "the strongest [chess] engine out there" - then doesn't name it?

presumably this is equivalent to stockfish or leela, or AlphaZero. not saying what's "behind the curtain" => fail.

fwiw, lichess.org is free, stable, open source and uses strongest engines: stockfish, leela, and is free.


Its using stockfish, I will make sure to mention it. Thanks for your opinion!


You're making some strong claims re the chess engine:

> Play, evaluate and analyze games with the strongest engine out there.

> Challenge our state-of-the-art chess AI, designed to match and enhance your skill level.

Are you using an opensource engine without specifying it?


Stockfish according to this linkedin post: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/pukar-khanal-54a09a287_chess-...

I struggle to see what this has over lichess and I doubt the claim that it became a go to place for chess players. Just guff.


I mostly say its useful for beginners but it, for now, doesn't stand a chance against the big giants. Do you have anything to suggest that could be useful for me?


I am just an 18 years old newbie and your feedback offers me with a lot of things to learn from. Can you provide some more suggestion that you think would be important for me?


Found multiple bugs in the puzzle area. If you can give mate in more than one way (multiple correct moves for the last move) it sometimes says your move was incorrect which is not.


Another bug in that area is when you need to do your move for white but you also need to move the black piece next, otherwise the puzzle won't proceed


Yup, that bug, I've been trying to figure out what's wrong with it since a week now. Thanks for the feedback!


yep, the lichess algorithm for finding puzzles from real games is way more sophisticated than this, and they find some really weird bugs


I used the puzzles provided by lichess themselves. So, could be problem in my code. I will work towards making it more difficult and letting users choose the level of difficulty. Thanks for the feedback!


Ok, if you're just using the lichess puzzles and stockfish, why wouldn't I just go to lichess?


Okay its not just about the puzzles, I built it primarily for the game review that chess.com charges money for. And with the use of stockfish I've tried to make the UI more user friendly especially for beginners who want to study openings and just spend time looking at a chessboard making moves and seeing what is the best move for each position plus its easily accessible for a newcomer. By contrast, in lichess you have to go through the learn page and "find" the study page while in ChessDream you just go to the page and start making moves. I'm not saying my site is better than Lichess; I'm just proposing my opinions about how ChessDream might be helpful for people that are willing to learn chess.


feedback - I tried the puzzles. 1) they all seem trivial and don't escalate in difficulty fast enough 2) I got stuck on the 14th - I'm making the correct move, but nothing happens. I'm not wrong, but even if I were wrong, the website ought to have some feedback to show me my move is wrong, or an option to give up.


Working on it!


Am I correct that there is no way to play any actual matches yet? When is that on the feature timeline?


Yup, I'm trying to minimize the latency but Next JS you know I have to use severless functions which, if the site goes viral while I'm asleep, will make my life living hell because I'm using vercel's hobby plan.




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