The popularity of chess is nothing new: this is one of mankind’s most enduring games, with our ancestors playing a version of it since (at least) the sixth century. In that time it has seen lulls and highs, usually fueled in the 20th century by World Cup matches between players like Fischer and Spassky, or Kasparov against Karpov.
In the 21st century, the big players remain, arguably bigger than ever, but the game’s huge popularity over the past few years is likely due to the super hit Netflix show The Queen’s Gambit, the domino effects of Covid lockdowns and the simple fact that a quick game against another human is just seconds away on your phone or PC.
This sustained spike in popularity has now reached a level that Chess.com, the de facto home of the game online, is seriously struggling to cope with. I regularly play on the platform and for the last few months it has been less reliable than usual. I’ve dropped some running games without warning, and sometimes the service seems to drop completely.
The platform now has posted a statement (opens in new tab)acknowledge that it has problems, explain why, and what it is doing now and in the future to try to reduce them. As of January 20, 2023, there were ten million users on the site, and traffic is reported to have nearly doubled overall since early December. Our servers are struggling […] we know it’s super frustrating”. It says it works to make things better “but unfortunately there isn’t (yet) a simple button we can press to fix these issues”.
Chess.com elaborates on why it thinks the game’s popularity has risen so dramatically, to the extent that all records for active players have been set five days into this month and the Chess.com app is now #2 in the Top is Free games section of iOS in US (and #1 in some countries). “On January 20th alone, 31,700,000 games were played, a site record, and we now regularly see over a million games per hour.”
As for the reasons behind this growth, the site points out that there is much more than one factor. It acknowledges that things like The Queen’s Gambit and lockdown had a major impact, but also notes other things such as: one of the most popular social media posts of 2022 featuring footballers Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo playing chess; last year’s absolutely explosive story true world champion Magnus Carlsen accused his opponent of cheating (opens in new tab) (Chess.com dryly notes that this drama was fueled by subsequent lawsuits and “ridiculous ‘apparatus’ allegations,” i.e., that the accused used vibrating anal beads); the general growth of entertaining chess streamers; and mittens.
Mittens is fast becoming Chess.com’s own homegrown meme. It’s a chess AI with a cute cat avatar that beats you up and then says stupid things with a “meow” somewhere, and people love it the way they do all the cute cat things.
So many reasons for the general chess glorification. What’s it going to do about it? Chess.com says it invested in hardware and scaling during the Queen’s Gambit boom, but now “we have scaling issues on whole new levels.” It’s basically saying that the database just can’t handle the current volume of data, with over 250,000 new accounts using the site’s features every day (it has to be said, Chess.com offers a lot more functionality than just playing chess against others).
It’s spending money on more hardware and cloud infrastructure, saying it’s “receiving shipments this week with the most powerful live chess and database servers possible.” But it’s not as simple as just more servers, bottlenecks keep appearing, and the site “continues to find the unscalable parts of Chess.com (both proactive and reactive) and work to make them scale more.”
It walks through some of the database improvements it’s making (“there’s SO MUCH DATA to move”) and says it’s also aiming for any future failures to be “more graceful” – allowing the site to recover faster.
“Honestly, this sucks,” the statement from Chess.com reads. “We know you’re here to play chess and enjoy it, and it’s very frustrating to look for a game and instead get a 502 error, or time out. We’ll take this not light up [and] expect to have a much better and more stable experience later this week. In 2-3 weeks there will be some big changes that we hope will enable us to handle the next wave of chess enthusiasm.”
There’s never been a better time to be a chess fan, even if it’s going to be a bit of a bumpy ride over the next few weeks on Chess.com. The internet has absolutely transformed the way the game is enjoyed, learned, played and viewed in a few decades, with various developments in AI creating a new landscape: one in which the machines have won in a sense, but now our companions and teachers for the computer age of chess. Your turn.