Games / Coming soon
Chess
Two players, one winner, and a rating system the game invented. Chess scores cleanly on a ladder, which is why it is here. Where it is played and on what is still open. Add your name and it gets decided with you in the room.
- Where it is played
- Open. A server, over the board, or by mail
- What you need
- Whatever you already play on
- Time control
- Chosen with the first players in
- Results count toward
- Nothing yet. Head to head, but not wired into the ladder
- Opens at
- 50 players
- Asked so far
- 1 player
1 of 50 players have asked for this
2% of the way there 49 more and it gets built
No date, because we will not promise one we cannot keep. Put your name down. At 50 we settle the format with the people on the list and put the first cup on the calendar. There is nothing to build here but the bracket.
One email when this game opens. No newsletter, no drip, and we never sell your address.
Why it is not live yet
Three honest reasons, none of them about money.
We run one game properly
StarCraft is live because it is finished: the client, the bots, the ladder, the replays, the ranks. A second game gets the same treatment or it does not get opened at all.
Where it gets played is still open
StarCraft has one answer: the launcher starts the game on your own computer and that is the end of it. Chess has three good ones, and choosing wrong is how a chess ladder dies in a month. That decision belongs to the people who will actually turn up for it, so it is waiting for them.
Demand sets the order
Every game waiting on this site is on the same footing. Whichever list fills first is the one that opens first. There is no secret roadmap and no favorite.
The one thing we have to get right
Chess needs no client, no patch and no bot. It needs a place to play and an agreement about time. These are the three shapes it could take here. Add your name, then say which one you would genuinely show up for.
- On a server you already use You play where you already have an account and a rating. The league runs the bracket, takes the game links and scores them here. Nothing to install, and the fastest of the three to start.
- Over the board, on camera Two cameras, a clock and a scoresheet. Slower to organize and far better to watch, and the only version where a fan backing you can see what they paid for.
- Correspondence, days per move Played around a job and a family instead of against them. The least dramatic of the three and the easiest to keep running for years, which is not nothing.
What happens when it opens
- 01 The format Where the games happen, how long each side gets on the clock, and what counts as proof of a result. Settled with the people on this list, in the open, before anything is scheduled.
- 02 The first cup An open bracket, free to enter, every game recorded in notation so it can be checked and replayed. Two weeks of notice so you can clear an evening.
- 03 The ladder Chess brought its own rating math, and it is older and better tested than ours, so we use it rather than reinventing it. Ten placement games, then the same D through A ranks the rest of the league uses.
Want to play something tonight?
StarCraft: Brood War is live right now, with an open bracket most Saturdays and a bot that will beat you if you let it. One account covers every game we add, so nothing you do here is wasted.