[greedo]

I (like many) started playing chess online during COVID and despite being too damn old, I wanted to see how high I could climb in ratings. Soon I found Danya, then Gotham, then IMRosen. All who loved this damn game so much. Even found I liked Hikaru though as an oldster, so many of his memes went over my head.

I soon realized that no matter how hard I tried, I would never be ranked, and I was fine with that because lichess had become an outlet. An outlet from the horrors of COVID. An outlet from the shock of a brutal war in Europe. An outlet from my failing marriage. An outlet from the world turned upside down in the US. I could always find solace in a rapid game on lichess.

Danya... I plateaued around 1400 and often found it hard to follow his gameplay on his speed runs. He was thinking 4-5 moves ahead while I was trying to avoid simple blunders. But Danya was easy to listen to, humble, and he helped instill a love in me of being very honest in my game evaluation. He also seemed like an incredibly charitable player; when it was obvious someone was cheating, he always gave them the benefit of the doubt, even when stockfish made it clear what was happening. His charity and kindness was endearing.

The world is a much lesser place today.

[colechristensen]

You might not ever get titled, but a 1400 online is very much good enough to join your national chess federation and be middle of the pack competitive in local rated chess tournaments and the like.

[retsibsi]

I feel weird doing a 'well actually' in a post about something so serious and sad, but it might be worth pointing this out to prevent someone from getting the wrong idea about their chess strength: the meaning of '1400 online' varies greatly depending on the site and the time control. According to https://chessgoals.com/rating-comparison/, Chesscom blitz 500 = Lichess classical 1400, and chesscom blitz 1400 = lichess rapid 1880. (I don't know how accurate that site is, but the general point is definitely true; AFAIK Lichess and Chesscom use different rating systems with different means, and within each site the strength of the player pool varies across the time controls.)

[matltc]

Lichess defaults starting rating to 1400 I think so it's about -200 less than chess.com, which defaults to 1200.

Also the player pool for the latter is much larger. Not sure if that has an impact on elo which is basically normalized across playerbase

[permo-w]

1500

[greedo]

Well, it is lichess and online (as I'm sure you're aware) is a very different kettle of fish than OTB.

But thank you for your kindness.

[YZF]

Similar story. One of my new hobbies from Covid. Also maybe too damn old ;) Ben Finegold was my YouTube teacher for the most part. I'm still improving (a bit higher than you) and sometimes questioning my sanity of having spent so many hours playing chess online. It's an addiction ;)

Danya seemed like a great person. Someone you'd want to hang out with. A great chess player for sure. I heard the news earlier and was filled with sadness. Such a loss.