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Chess.com Reviews Summary
Chess.com has a rating of 1.3 stars from 216 reviews, indicating that most customers are generally dissatisfied with their purchases. Reviewers dissatisfied with Chess.com most frequently mention customer service, fair play and new account. Chess.com ranks 921st among Games sites.
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I love chess and this app looked perfect. Having opened an account, work summoned and it wasn't until a few days later I was able to play my first game. To my great surprise, I found that my profile had been blocked - with no explanation. I wrote to support who got back to me in a rather condescending email and accused me of cheating.
They told me that they would offer me no evidence (they were very confident in their "investigation team") but that if I apologised for indescration they would give me a second chance. This, I must note, reminded me of being drummed out of a fundamentalist religion for asking questions!
I held my tongue I wrote a polite email back asking if it was possible that someone else used the account (which is surely what must have happened) and asked if they might delete the account.
Rather than a "yes of course" or a "sorry to hear that" email, I got another off colour response pointing out that "It looks like the first game was a daily game played on the same day that you created the account"!
I had to put some thought into how to respond to this - at this point I felt more like a school child being accused of throwing the ball at the window on account of the fact the teacher now had *the ball* in their hands.
I have asked chess.com to delete all my information and I now wish to have nothing to do with them - I have suggested to them that they think about how they respond to allegations (with less assumption and more listening)... nevertheless be careful if you engage with these people... something doesn't feel quiet right.
Same problem time and again some cocky git winds me up on chat I respond then they suspend my chat for violating their guidelines what about the other guy. This app attracts some real pillocks who give lots of abuse find another app
They play bots against you so your ratting goes down. They want you to pay them! Beware. Stay away.
I have been playing chess for over 20 years, I was a member of USCF rated 1800. I was a paid member at chess.com. If your opponent is a sore loser or didn't like you, he/she can flag you as "poor sport". Therefore, the "poor sport" group, only playing each other's. My reporting to chess.com of cheaters, runners, speech hate, Etc. was ignored for several months, and I found myself isolated from "real chess players", I was allowed to play ONLY against cheaters and "poor sport" players. Cheaters are welcome at chess.com. AVOID!
Hi Ben,
Sorry to reiterate my response, I'm not certain if you've seen my message where you posted elsewhere:
I'd like to clarify something very important. "Poor Sports" do NOT include cheaters. If a member is determined to have cheated in their games, they are removed from the site. The option to flag someone as a poor sport gives us feedback on potential problems, such as intentional disconnection and stalling, or inappropriate language. It does not lead to automatic player pool changes. If you're added to a player pool due to unintentional disconnection or a possible mistake in abusive language detection, you can always write to us at [email protected], so we can review your account. Any improper restriction can be immediately removed. We've only implemented these measures to protect our members.
Thanks!
I don't think that many people are cheating because there's no point in points. The site uses the Glicko Rating System. FIDE/USCF uses the Elo Rating System which isn't even remotely the same. My main issue was you're given a starting rating on signup based on how experienced you say you are. In less than a month I had to block almost 100 people for abandoning the game, intentionally letting the clock run out, stalling when their stats show them to be quite skilled.
I'm new and play like it yet I was consistently matched with people rated 400 to 1000. Frustrating and boring for both sides. Customer service is a complete joke. "My name is so and so and chess is my life! We see you've cancelled your membership. I'm here to help..." After I respond, I get a different rep. Ask a technical question? They refer you to outside sources. The CS reps clearly aren't chess players.
Your rating can go up or down simply because of bad net connections or people just walking away from a game. How is that fair or reasonable? I was rated over 300 but can't even beat the computer on the easiest possible setting! Really don't think people were cheating at least not in blitz because there's no reward for winning and you just get paired with more or less experienced players and other cheaters.
They fail to rate or match people according to true skill. I do believe people initially cheat when signing up by saying they're new when they aren't. From there they obliterate people and get a very high score with many wins. It only takes them so far though. Some reviews state their rating went down after not playing for awhile. The site says they do that because they cant evaluate you unless you play all the time. Seriously?
Hello John,
Thank you for your feedback. I'd just like to address a few of your points.
Ratings: We use the Glicko Rating System which is very similar to the Elo system with some small differences. The main difference is the Rating Deviation or RD which is an indicator of how well a rating corresponds to true playing strength. If you're interested, here's a great article about these two rating systems: https://www.chess.com/article/view/chess-ratings---how-they-work
The starting rating when you sign up might not be accurate, since your rating approaches your true playing strength as you play more games. If you think you started out with the rating a little too high or too low, we can help you adjust it so that you get paired with players of similar playing strength.
Abandoning games: We've implemented new technology as well as hired additional staff to combat the issues of abusive players and sportsmanship concerns, such as stalling and abandoning games. We take our members' reports of this very seriously and act accordingly so that everyone has a better experience on the site.
Your final point about people mis-representing their playing strength is referring to as "sandbagging" and we frequently remove these types of players from the site.
Please write to us at [email protected] and we'd be happy to work with you more on these concerns so that you have the best experience possible on Chess.com
Thanks!
I play many many games on chess.com and have had an excellent user experience. I have upgraded to diamond membership and love the videos, lessons, tactics and training. I have recommended it to all my chess friends.
My son and I also love the TV content, including the excellent coverage of the Isle of Man tournament in October 2019.
Hi James!
I'm so glad you and your son have been enjoying Chess.com and the content we're working on. The Isle of Man tournament was an awesome event all around! Keep an eye out for more great events to come, and thank you for supporting Chess.com!
1. Too many cheaters. I estimate 40% of the people below 1400 rating are cheating using databases for opening moves, computer programs to help with continuation in the middle game, and engines in the endgame.
2. Because there are so many cheaters. People like me who are between 1400 and 1500 are stuck in the 1100-1200 range wondering why we can't beat someone who is 1100 consistently.
3. The only app on the market that lets you move and premove illegal moves just so you can hear a buzzer indicating you can't move there. Why? It's a waste of time. We're playing on mobile devices. It's easy to fat finger moves.
4. The move confirmation button is over top of the back and forward buttons. So sometimes you can't use the button without hitting the back and forward buttons. And even if you mastered that skill, the move list is micrometers from the button so you can accidentally hit those and go back even further.
5. The GUI is glitchy and Over crowded with information that should be present only in review. You can tell it was made by people who don't play chess seriously.
6. Latency issues. I make a move it takes 6 seconds off my clock and my opponent makes 5 moves within 3 seconds. This is a huge problem.
I even caught someone that I suspected was cheating that got his account disabled in the photos. Even if they don't cheat the whole game. They will use an engine to get them out of a tough situation at any point in the game
This site has become yahoo games to me. I can see a future where there is no one there for the fun of playing chess but just to troll the people who are real players.
Hello Chris,
While cheating does occur, we have invested a great deal of time and resources into stopping it, more than any other entity in the world in fact! Here's a snippet from our October site updates ("Month in Review: October 2019"), where we also report Fair Play statistics:
Fair Play and Sportsmanship
72,429,634 games reviewed for Fair Play.
3,045,323 accounts reviewed for Fair Play.
5,263 accounts closed for Fair Play (three titled).
That was just October! We're committed to giving everyone the chance at playing a fair game, and while we're confident in our detection methods, we always invite members to report suspicious play to us.
Thank you for your feedback on the functionality issues. We are always incorporating members' feedback into how we improve and evolve the site. I just wanted to mention as well that if you are experiencing latency issues, please write to us at [email protected] and we can work with you to optimize your connection from our end.
Thanks!
This app is a cheat. Often, I'm about to check mate or the other guy is about to run out of time, no matter where I am, or what server do I use, it will disconnect me from server and lose me on automatic resignation. I have lost count how many I've lost this way; This is crap!
Hello Brian,
I'm sorry to hear about this issue with disconnection in games. It sounds like this might be related to latency or "lag". This is the last thing we want you to experience while you're playing chess, especially in the tense moments as the game is ending. Please write to us at [email protected]. We'd be happy to work with you, as there are steps we can take on our end to optimize your connection with the server.
I hope to hear from you soon.
Thanks!
Stay away from chess.com. It is loaded with cheaters. I have played chess in 40 years. I am 1600-1700 fide rated. And I can tell you. I have experience enough to claim that about 30 % av the users cheats. Most common is to make standard openings move, then the moves comes from like a chess God. When they have huge advantage, they start playing for themselves again, so that they can feel like it is themselves that won.
I cant log in on either of my accounts with chess.com and i want to play chess i don't want to find other means
This site is full of cheaters. Recently i played a game and was sute that my opponent was cheating. I comfirmed using lichess site. I imported the game. The average centipawn loss of my opponent was just 13 which is most of grandmasters. Any centipawn loss below 25 indicates the possibilty of cheating but this guy has 13 and he made no blunder and no mistakes. At his level players usually make atleast one blunder or mistake but he made none. Which confirms cheating
Advice - please dont play at this site as it is full of cheaters
Hello Kuldeep,
Cheating ruins what chess should be. Everyone deserves the chance at a fair game. We always invite our members to report suspected cheating, so that we can investigate as soon possible. Please write into us at [email protected] and we'd be happy to review games that seemed suspicious. It's possible we already took action in some cases! For just the month of October, we reviewed more than seven million games and closed more than five thousand accounts for cheating. We're dedicated to fair play, and we want our members to know that. Furthermore, if another player uses abusive language, we ask that you report them to us. We want to foster a community of safety and respect on Chess.com.
Thanks!
DO NOT PAY ANY MONEY TO THIS GROUP OF A-HOLES!
I told them, you need to raise the bar and become more professional. Did those little boys do it? No, they kicked me off the site instead. So now they owe me $100 dollars because they couldn't handle being called out for their stupidity. A bunch of cry babies.
Hello,
I know it's been a little while since you posted, but I wanted to check in with you and make sure that you received a refund for your membership credit after your account was closed, since you mentioned in your review that you were still owed $100. If you have not received the appropriate refund, please send us an email at [email protected] and include your account details. I will see to it personally that you receive what you are owed. No matter the reason for the account closure, we would never want to charge someone for a service they aren't able to access. That's just not the way we do business.
I hope to hear from you soon!
Neither Lichess nor Chess – Play and Learn, aka Chess.com, provide anything close to the service their public relations spin claims they provide. I have screenshots of vicious verbal abuse threatening violence from members of both chess app developers, sent well over 10 screenshots documenting all manner of cheating, game abandoning, delay tactics, and verbal abuse to Google (the attached screenshots are from Lichess, but similar experience comes through Chess.com). I also quoted Google's own policies for software app developers back to Google, documenting point by point the daily violations both companies were engaged in. Google did absolutely nothing but give me the run around for nearly a year. Conclusion? Big tech does exactly what it wants if it means profit, and ignores abuses of many kinds outright, then lies directly to the public with public relations statements that have no relation to their actual practices. Update: I now have solid evidence of Lichess deliberately hacking their own software to force blunders in your game immediately following your flagging an opponent for cheating. Predictable, over and over like clockwork, your move following detection of and accusation of cheating will be "misplaced" by you where plainly the worst consequences calculable will result, time after time. THEY HACK THEIR OWN SOFTWARE to punish you, an explicit direct violation of Google Play policy for developers. Report this to Google with video evidence. Google does absolutely nothing.
Lichess lies like a dog about " detecting" sandbagging cheaters. Their PUBLISHED DATA a priori identifies sandbaggers as such, yet near half of my opponents' profile show a long history of playing way way over their elo, 800,900 points above their published elo, thus openly cheating and confessing explicitly to cheating in chat. Lichess could purge them all with couple of commands. In 3 years they never have. Several reasons - more eyeballs to watch their ads means more $, their sole goal, public relations notwithstanding.
Both Lichess and Chess.com maintain segragated groups they don't admit to. They cook the books in their reports of policy enforcement. You can be silently segregated into groups that receive no policy enforcement, no customer service, where they ignore your every email, where open cheating and gross misbehavior approach 33% or more of all opponents, none of which is included in their published claims to the contrary. They serve a SELECT group well, and move you around silently and unannounced into hellish abusive groups that they deny even exist. Your opponents play soft then supposedly see mate in 6? Nope. Open, unchecked, shameless nonstop cheating and both Lichess & Chess.com won't even reply to emails for support, which is another explicit line item violation of Google Play policy for developers. Developers don't care because Google Play does absolutely nothing about it. Why? $$$$$$
Hello Brian,
I'm very sorry for this poor experience. When members artificially lower their rating, this is referred to as "Sandbagging" and is not tolerated on Chess.com. We frequently remove players who misrepresent their playing strength in this way. On the subject of cheating, we at Chess.com have gone to great lengths to detect cheating and to remove cheaters from the site. In fact, we're confident that there are fewer people cheating on Chess.com than any other chess site available. In the month of October, we reviewed more than three millions members' accounts and closed more than 5000 for Fair Play violations. Cheating simply has no place on Chess.com and we do our utmost to prevent it.
If you'd like to review games or discuss a situation where cheating may have occurred, please write to us at [email protected].
Thanks!
I am a subscribed user of www.chess.com and through this site I met TeeSpring, and I acquired some products, all good, only that I had a problem with my size of the products, and I felt obfuscated, but I communicated my problem and if I could help in some way. The truth that they solved everything to me without some additional cost for me. I recommend them for their seriousness and integrity and be coached in the client.
The problem of consistently inappropriate advertising for children appears to have been fixed. Thank you.
Hi!
I am happy to hear that the issue with inappropriate advertisements for children has been fixed. Chess.com makes sure to respond to all reports of inappropriate advertising as quickly as possible and definitely does NOT wand children exposed to mature content.
Advertisements that are inappropriate can be reported here so that they can be removed: http://goo.gl/forms/VSaMa0UkSS. Information about these advertisements can also be provided to [email protected] where one of the support team members can submit the report.
Thank you for letting us know that we have resolved this issue, and if you have any other questions or concerns, please let us know here or at [email protected].
Thank you!
-The Chess.com Team
Good chess program, but be aware that you are constantly exposed to penis enlargment advertising and Japanese soft porn cartoons.
What a con. Whenever you make a legal move it doesn't like (especially at high level) it flips out stopping the move, pretending it is due to Google Chrome or whatever. Just persist, persist and eventually you will break it. Man is mightier than machine!
Hi!
Did you find that you could not make a legal move in a game against the computer? Or was it in a game against a human opponent in live or daily chess?
When you say that it stops the move, is that to say that you will see the piece animation showing it moving towards the square you selected, but then it will jump back to its initial position?
It could be that your "Move Method" settings within "Board and Pieces" are set to "Drag Pieces." If you check your settings on Chess.com (https://www.chess.com/settings/board), and you find this to be the case, you may want to try changing it to "Click Squares." Then there is less of a possibility that your moves will be misinterpreted by the website.
If you are willing to provide additional details about this problem, or if you have any other questions or concerns, please let me know here or at [email protected].
Thank you!
-The Chess.com Team
I lost but my king didn't die. The game is hard to win, easy to lose and doesn't offer moves that would be allowed if you had the game chess. This game is trash, and not the good kind.
Hi!
If possible please contact [email protected] with your username and we will examine this game to determine why you were told you were lost when you were not checkmated. Chess.com should have all of the agreed upon rules of movement for chess. Which moves have you found are not working correctly?
We would really like to hear more about these issues you have encountered on Chess.com so that we can improve the application. Please let us know your thoughts here or at [email protected]. We truly hope you will tell us more about your experience!
Thank you!
-The Chess.com Team
Team, I am a big fan of chess.com. I am not sure whats happening but the last three games I played were bugged.
The player on my right looses a turn, and my clock starts counting. Now am I able to make a move - No. This happened for the last two games and I lost points for no fault of mine.
I got snapshots if it helps.
Hi!
So glad to hear that you are a such a fan of Chess.com! We really appreciate it.
I examined this picture and your 4 player chess archive. Because I believe you may have ended this game prior to 4 moves, I cannot review it in your archive, however, from this picture it appears yellow moved to h11 and this was not depicted on your board. Your browser may be experiencing a glitch when updating the board to show moves from your opponents for Chess.com 4 player chess.
I would recommend you clear the cache to check if Chess.com performs better after all of the stored data has been reset. This article provides instructions on how to clear the cache in Chrome: https://tinyurl.com/ycg59c54.
If the problem occurs again even after you have cleared the cache, please let us know at [email protected], and we will investigate this issue further.
Thank you!
-The Chess.com Team
I took the 1 month trial.
As part of this deal I need to "pay" 50$ for a yearly membership, and they promise that they pay it back if you decide you're not interested within the first month. "trial".
I'm trying to cancel this membership and getting my money back, tjough they have no costumer service online, neither a phone number and noone is answering the messages I send.
This is an absolute lie, nerve wrecking. They put so much effort in looking like a legit business, though what they do with the monthly trial is nothing but - STEALING PEOPLE'S MONEY.
Dear Livluv. I am David Kaufmann from Chess.com team. Please, write me at [email protected] and I will be more than happy to help.
Thanks a lot!
D. K
I have used the free version and have paid for the full version also. I can only say that I have come back to it almost two years later and the site has improved once again. So many features. Most bad reviews are ridiculous. "I kept losing". "My rating went down". "Time was rigged". Ridiculous defaming of a wonderful company doing so much to further chess. Keep up the good work.
Hi!
I am glad that you enjoy using Chess.com and believe that the site has improved after your return. It is great that you enjoy all of the features on the site and that you have decided to upgrade for full access.
Please let us know at [email protected] if you have ideas about how we can make Chess.com more to your liking. We will continue to work on improving Chess.com.
Thank you!
-The Chess.com Team
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Play chess on Chess.com - the #1 chess community with +20 million members around the world. Play online with friends, challenge the computer, join a club, solve puzzles, analyze your games, and learn from hundreds of video lessons. You can also watch t...
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Hi Mark,
I'm very sorry if you've encountered abusive opponents. Please write to us at [email protected] about your chat suspension and about the other insulting member. We'd like to resolve this! I totally get where you're coming from about being provoked by another player. All the same, we ask that you report offensive players instead of responding to them. We want to encourage a respectful and safe community on Chess.com.
Good luck with your chess
Hope to hear from you soon :)