Fri Jun 24, 2011 9:04 pm by tchitcherine
robinowitsch: @ tchitcherine
agreed, that playchess.com is a fine server. But you are wrong when saying that you buy a chessbase product and have a membership free for lifetime.
Tchitcherine:
It is free to play for life. I said that you can also buy premium features, but this is not necessary, if all you want to do is play.
Plus all of the interfaces for playchess.com (even, say, the old Fritz7 interface) are superior to ChessCube. We were talking about playing online (which is what ChessCube is now selling, rather than offering for free, which it did until this latest downgrade.) Now you're switching, and saying that it's necessary to buy a membership each year. Yes, it is if you want premium features, as I said, but not if you just want to play....
robinoowitsch:
Whatever you buy there, does not matter, if FRITZ, HIARCS, SHREDDER etc., includes definitely only one year free membership and the second year and all the following years, you have to pay.
Tchitcherine:
You have to pay for the premium features, Not to play. LIke I said.
robinowitsch:
The last time, a chessbase product granted you a free membership for lifetime, was FRITZ 7, but this is at least 6 years ago or so.
Tchicherine:
Wrong. Fritz8 did it too. My friend has Fritz11 and uses that to connect to playchess.com--not only that, but once you've created an account (having bought whichever engine) you can download the playchess client from the homepage and login and play on any PC. I know, because (with his permission) I downloaded said client onto my Dad's PC, and use it when I'm staying at the parents' house.
robinowitsch:
Even if you buy FRITZ7 now through EBAY, you do not get anymore a free membership for lifetime, they have long time ago closed that loophole.
Tchitcherine:
I'm sure that it's not a loophole, and it's certainly not closed. FYI it worked with Fritz8 too (which I have) and, I'm sure, with Fritz11 (which my friend has). Fritz12 is current, clearly.
robinowitsch:
Believe me, I know all chess sites out there very well.
Tchitcherine:
I'm afraid that I still don't believe you. Evidently you know a good deal less about playchess.com than you'd need to know to speak authoritatively about it. At least, you would if you wanted to avoid looking foolish, as here. To repeat: there is no way that anyone could possibly know all about all the servers on the web, even if they tried to spend 24/7 researching them.
rrobinowitsch:
So the one way or the other, you gonna pay for playing on playchess.
Tchitcherine:
I'm sorry, but that is utter nonsense. Please try to do even the most basic research before making such proclamations in the future. The fact that you haven't figured out that playing on playchess.com is free does not mean that it cannot be done. It means only that--clearly--you haven't applied your obvious intelligence to finding a way to do it. That's all.
robinowitsch:
Assuming that chess videos attract many players, is likely a misjudge.
Tchitcherine:
Certainly bryan said what amounts to the same thing. So (it appears to me that) each of you might possibly be suggesting that ChessCube's target market may consist largely of near-imbeciles who find, say, a PacMan sound pack a more enticing potential purchase than they might find a chess video or (heaven forfend) a chess book to be....
I do hope not. You see, if that is true, then it is a universal law that--in general--the less intelligent the person, the less money they have.
robinowitsch:
Giving them a VIP logo beside their name attracts for sure by far more players than offering chess videos. After a long hard working day people want to relax, playing some games, perhaps having some chat, only a very small minority will be interested in opening videos. The only educational tool I know that really attracted people, was the tactical trainer on chess.com.
Tchitcherine:
Again, if you're correct then that automatically reduces dramatically the amount of potential revenue available to ChessCube.
Let me ask you something: do you deny that ChessCube's VIP membership has been downgraded?
You see, it's blatantly obvious to me that as time passes, VIP membership offers less and less.
To use your burger illustration, it's as if I look at an illustration of a burger: it has a substantial amount of meat, a gherkin, onions, ketchup and the bread has sesame seeds on the top. I pay my $5, expecting to get that, but ChessCube says: "You get half as much meat. You don't get a gherkin. You don't get ketchup. Also, no sesame seeds. Oh, and we'll scoop out some of the bread, too. There you go, sir...your burger. That's $5 of value.
robinowitsch:
And comparing Chesscube with playchess and ICC is like comparing apples and oranges.
Tchitcherine:
I'd say it's more like comparing raisins with apples and oranges.
robinowitsch:
Playchess.com is part of Chessbase in Hamburg/Germany, they are market leaders in chess products since 20 years or so, that’s chess industry, they have completely different market conditions, synergies and financial possibilites then a new business who just runs a chess playing site and was built up using venture capital.
Tchitcherine:
Agreed. To remind you: it was you who started writing about playchess.com. You wrote that ChessCube was better than playchess.com or ICC or any other site on the web. Do you remember doing that?
robinowitsch:
Same for ICC. ICC is since 7 years on the market.
Tchicherine:
With all due respect, this is more badly-researched nonsense, I'm afraid. I have been a member of ICC for over twelve years, and it was already long-established at the time that I joined.
I get the impression that perhaps you might be a little bit too ready to believe that what you have discoered about a piece of software or a website or whatever is both absolutely correct and exhaustive. What you have written in this thread to date presents compelling evidence that in fact sometimes neither of those criteria can be safely applied to your level of knowledge. In no sense is the foregoing intended to denigrate your obvious intelligence.
robinowitsch:
Good management, rich features, impressing players base (at least if you like to meet GMs),
Tchitcherine:
I do. Talking (well, typing personal messages and/or typing in chat "channels" as ICC calls them) to them directly is very educational. FWIW I also met my girlfriend on ICC. Of course, I can't guarantee that by joining ICC anyone and everyone will be as incredibly fortunate as I was in that respect....
robinowitsch:
but their interface is a pure laugh.
Tchitcherine:
I'm sorry...which interface? There are several (and not all of them sound like the names of Santa's reindeer): Dasher, BlitzIn, Jin, CoffeeHouse, EasyChess, ICC for Mac, ICC for android, Mike Adams' ICCforAndroid and Lantern, Arena, XBoard,
etc. etc.
Once again: too little knowledge to enable you to avoid seeming less-informed than perhaps you ought to be before making such statements....
robinowitsch:
I still keep my first mobile telephone to show it once to the children of my children. This Motorola mobile phone was a sensation in the year 1987, weight over 1 kilo, and cost 4.000 EUR. Everybody is laughing when a show this phone monster nowadays. Same for ICC. Their interface is like from the museum of internet. HORRIBLE!! I left ICC 5 years ago and have heard several times that there has not changed much concerning interface.
Tchitcherine:
You heard wrong. Several times.
robinowitsch:
Do you guys still type in there manually: seek 3 0.., lol?
Tchitcherine:
ROFL heck, no. Did you read my earlier post? Please extend me the courtesy of doing at least that much....
robinowitsch:
Apart from the interface thing, ICC was on the market long, long time before CC, you really cannot compare that.
Tchitcherine:
Exactly my point. Once again: you introduced the topic of ICC into this exchange. Once again: you wrote that ChessCube is superior to ICC.
We appear to have discovered since that now you both:
a) base your--at best--horribly out-of-date opinion of ICC on a very small amount of mostly-inaccurate information, and
b) as with playchess.com, you now perfom a perfect one-hundred-and-eighty degree volte-face, admitting that ChessCube is not in the same league as these two servers, and adding that comparisons are worthless.
I agree that ChessCube is nowhere near as good. That was one of the points I made in my earlier post. Which you appear not to have read yet.
robinowitsch:
If comparing, you can do perhaps with chess.com as they started approximately at the same time.
Tchitcherine:
Agreed. I also agreed (in my earlier post, which you appear not to have read yet) that ChessCube is better for bullet tournaments than chess.com is. I did point out that it is possible to play unlimited free ad hoc rated games on chess.com--that remains true....
robinowitsch:
But chess.com has been never financed with venture capital, it was built up with the savings of Erik, the owner of chess.com and is today since one year already in the profit zone.
Tchitcherine:
If that is true (and, with respect, the quality of your research into ICC and ChessBase tends to fill me with doubt) then evidently chess.com's business model is markedly better than ChessCube's....
robinowitsch:
The reason why they are already profitable: after attracting a high mass of players they forced the power users into a paying membership, otherwise you are playing on a board that is really uncomfortably small....
Tchitcherine:
...in your opinion. I think it's just fine.
robinowitsch:
in live chess or can join only one tourney in corr. chess. As the site is class (at least if you do not mind meeting many, many cheaters), there are enough players who pull the trigger. That’s why I say: Chesscube must do the same to have a future.
Tchitcherine:
Certainly it may be a possibility worth considering, but doubtless there are other avenues worth exploring....
robinowitsch:
Power users want to have high comfort when playing 2 or 3 hours each days and are willing to pay. Who wants to have comfort when playing, becomes a premium member. Who cannot afford, stays free, is limited in several things but still there to build the critical mass of players a chess site needs to attract the paying members.
Tchitcherine:
I feel sure that the powers-that-be at ChessCube will read the above with considerable interest....
robinowitsch:
At the end of the day: a chess playing site is a business, from my point of view a very difficult business
Tchitcherine:
Again, I made this point in my earlier post (which you appear not to have read yet...)
robinowitsch:
(I suppose that all chess site owners, if having the choice, would not open again a chess site -
Tchitcherine:
Why on earth do you suppose that? With careful research, a sound business model, a realistic business plan and adequate start-up finance, it's very likely that a new site could succeed even in the present market. Unfortunately, it appears as if possibly ChessCube's progenitors omitted some or all of the above criteria...
robinowitsch:
Erik, the owner of chess.com, said some months ago, that he never thought the market would be so difficult). And without charging, nobody can offer service.
Tchitcherine:
Why on earth do you suppose that? There are plenty of ways of financing any number of ventures, why should a chess server be an exception to this? Have you ever run a business?
robinowitsch:
There is no free lunch.
Tchitcherine:
Once again: you clearly have not read my earlier post.
robinowitsch:
Or saying it with other words: if you pay peanuts, you get monkeys.
Tchitcherine:
Please be careful, you may upset bryan, whose avatar is a chimpanzee....
robinwitsch:
And chesscube is really not responsible for the unpleasant fact, that 5 Dollars mean much money in India or somewhere else.
Tchitcherine:
Of course not. To my knowledge, nobody has made any such absurd assertion....
robinowitsch:
Or would you enter a Mercedes show room and ask the salesman: hey, my friend beside me is from India, he will be never able to afford a Mercedes SLK for 100.000 bucks. Can you sell it for 10.000 in this case?
Tchitcherine (genuinely quite baffled):
No.
robinowitsch:
I did never understand why people expect things on the internet to be free while outside the virtual world they pay for it without complaining.
Tchitcherine:
Perhaps you're confusing tomatoes with suspension bridges?
robinowitsch:
It’s a lot of work to offer a site like Chesscube. And nobody will do that until the end of days for a penny.
Tchitcheirne:
You're not a fan of Gillian Welch, are you?
Well; i dont have a cc. spent most my money on mb's to be able to play, now u go and do that, it will most likely lead to me, to stop playing chesscube, and others that dont have credit cards or paypal acc.nts. 
so ja what else can i say... it was fun while it lasted... 
