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Chess.com Banned By Russia (chess.com) 53

Posted by msmash from the stranger-things dept.
Chess.com, writes in a blog post: Yesterday, Chess.com was banned by the Russian government agency Roscomnadzor, the "Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media." Roscomnadzor is responsible for censorship within Russia, a busy occupation these days. Since the start of Russia's war against Ukraine on February 24th, Roscomnadzor has banned hundreds of sites including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google News, BBC News, NPR, and Amnesty International. According to Roscomnadzor, their goal is to block two webpages: "On The Invasion of Ukraine" which outlines our policy and actions regarding the war on Ukraine and addresses FAQ and "Ukrainian Chess Players In Times Of War" which is a piece interviewing Ukrainian chess players on their circumstances and views during the early days of the war. Since Chess.com uses secure https webpages, Roscomnadzor is unable to ban these single pages and has banned the entire Chess.com site. Our members report that Chess.com's apps are unaffected. We happily encourage our Russian members to continue accessing our site using our apps or any of the many outstanding VPN services that are so essential in Russia.
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Chess.com Banned By Russia

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  • in soviet russia we ban you!

  • Is way ahead of chess.com anyway. I doubt it was used much in Russia at all. More PR.

    • Vladimir Fedoseev uses it. So does Ian Nepomniachtchi. Garry Kasparov does, although he doesn't live in Russia anymore.

    • All the professionals are on chess.com because of commercial sponsorship.

      I play on lichess and the anti-cheating is also superior. I usually block Russian players anyway; they're often playing in cyber-cafes and if their opponent is American, their rating suddenly goes up a few hundred points!

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by ffkom ( 3519199 )

        the anti-cheating is also superior.

        Just a curios question: How can a web-service possibly give you a minute to think about a turn and still be sure you do not use some arbitrary small computer chess help during that time?

        • There are a bunch of difficulties with cheating.

          First of all, most cheaters are not smart people, but stupid people who want to troll the smart people, or who have a personality disorder that lets them feel like they're winning when their account is winning. And so they often are switching to a different window. Lichess records all this. Also, if you're using some sort of technology to make the move for you, then it can detect that your pointer wasn't actually over the piece when you sent the instruction to

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Sin2x ( 1189089 )
            Their rating system is also superior: https://lichess.org/page/ratin... [lichess.org]

            • Some people believe that, but ELO is mostly-stable over time, and lichess ratings are around 300 points higher than on other servers. If instead of, "they're different, don't try to compare" they'd accept that FIDE ratings are the gold standard, and they tried to get it close to that on average, then maybe they could argue that theirs are better.

              But they're just worse. Even if the math they use makes statisticians happier.

              With ELO the full time-drift can be accounted for by chess being more or less popular

    • Re:Lichess (Score:5, Funny)

      by AlvySinger ( 900304 ) on Tuesday April 26, 2022 @03:32PM (#62481792)

      Jeez, chess nerds drawing lines and seeing everything as black and white...

    • This is the first time I heard about this site ;p

  • when slashdot.org is banned in Russia.

  • What is Putin afraid of? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by smooth wombat ( 796938 ) on Tuesday April 26, 2022 @02:58PM (#62481688) Journal
    Why is Putin so afraid of people in Russia learning about his invasion of Ukraine? Why does he fear the people learning of the 22,000+ Russian soldiers killed, wounded, captured, or missing? Why does Putin prevent the Russian people from talking about the "special military operation" where the Black Sea flagship Moskva was sunk by Ukraine? Or was it because someone was smoking and the ship sank in a "storm"?

    Or perhaps the real question is why was Putin holding onto the edge of a table for dear life while wearing gloves [washingtonexaminer.com]?

    • Why is Putin so afraid of people in Russia learning about his invasion of Ukraine? Why does he fear the people learning of the 22,000+ Russian soldiers killed, wounded, captured, or missing? Why does Putin prevent the Russian people from talking about the "special military operation" where the Black Sea flagship Moskva was sunk by Ukraine? Or was it because someone was smoking and the ship sank in a "storm"? I've heard that Putin is rapidly physically deteriorating, and has been on Steroids, and prone to fits of rage.

      I am hoping that he doesn't in a last fit of insanity, decides to use nucs. I would hope his generals would decide to inject a little sanity at that time if it happens, and shut him off.

    • Re:What is Putin afraid of? (Score:5, Informative)

      by tlhIngan ( 30335 ) <slashdot@worf.ERDOSnet minus math_god> on Tuesday April 26, 2022 @03:44PM (#62481818)

      Why is Putin so afraid of people in Russia learning about his invasion of Ukraine? Why does he fear the people learning of the 22,000+ Russian soldiers killed, wounded, captured, or missing? Why does Putin prevent the Russian people from talking about the "special military operation" where the Black Sea flagship Moskva was sunk by Ukraine? Or was it because someone was smoking and the ship sank in a "storm"?

      Because dictatorships/authoritarian governments fear an informed public. Putin requires everyone to believe that "Russia is freeing Ukraine from the Nazis" narrative because that's the line that works, because historically, Russia did chase out the Nazis in WWII. Nazis are bad. Ukraine is full of them and must be cleansed of them.

      If the Russian public knew, they'd rebel. We know this because Russia has run out of space to house all the dissenters they've arrested over it (over 3000+ and counting).

      Putin relies on the ignorance of the public in order to stay in power and to perpetuate the war by having support of the people. He isn't lying when he says most Russians support him on the war - because as far as the average Russian is concerned, he's freeing Ukraine from Nazis.

      Anyone who knows the truth has either escaped Russia or is locked up.

      See: China and democracy. Or see Shanghai and lockdown and COVID Zero.

      Here's a video showing an interview with some "average" villagers near Belarus on what they think is happening during the war. https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

      • Not quite. You overestimate how much Putin (and typical modern political leaders of all sorts) demand actual belief.

        It's loyalty they demand, not belief. Thus it's not such a big deal if some news leak through, or if some official statements contradict each other. What is important is to show who's boss.

        So you don't actually have to believe the official story that Ukraine Nazis were such a threat to Russia that they had to be dealt with even at the cost of an aggressive war. What you DO have to believe is t

      • > Russia has run out of space to house all the dissenters they've arrested

        I thought Siberia, with 13 million square km (5 million square miles), would have enough space for all of them, with room to spare.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by ffkom ( 3519199 )

      Why is Putin so afraid of people in Russia learning about his invasion of Ukraine?

      Probably for the same reasons that the government where I live is so afraid of people watching "RT" that they forbid its distribution. Both want to filter and manipulate all information about the war, to make it look like they are the flawless good guys while the others are a pure incarnation of evil. And everyone saying there may be even the slightest shades of grey in between black and white is a traitor who needs to be silenced.

    • It's a information war (the occident does the same and worse trough sanctions)

    • Or was it because someone was smoking and the ship sank in a "storm"?

      "... and Ukraine will pay dearly for it!"

      They're so bad at their propaganda, you have to wonder how many of them are just drunk.

      Same with their military performance; it would seem crazy to predict in advance how poorly they've performed. Or how many empty vodka bottles they'd be leaving behind in their garbage piles!

      Normally, people would claim this is all part of Putin's 999th-dimensional "chess," but war is where the rubber hits the road, and if they suck at this then they're just losing in 2d. They're no

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by quenda ( 644621 )

      Why is Putin so afraid of people in Russia learning about his invasion of Ukraine?

      That is one of the easier questions about the war.
      Russia and Ukraine share a common culture and history. Russians have vacationed in Ukraine and have friends from there.
      So Russia invading Ukraine is like the US invading Canada, or Australia invading New Zealand . [youtube.com]
      It cannot be seen as a war of conquest, but must be welcome liberators saving the Ukrainians from a minority threat.

      Putin must hide the fact that cities are being attacked, and the Ukrainian people are fighting back. Most Russians do not want to b

  • Chess banned because (Score:5, Funny)

    by fahrbot-bot ( 874524 ) on Tuesday April 26, 2022 @03:02PM (#62481710)

    The Russian military is too busy playing, and losing at, Checkers.

    • While it's been compared to war, chess is really a bad metaphor for modern warfare. In chess, you know all of the capabilities of a piece. In war, there's always the hidden handicaps, from bad weather and terrain to bad troop morale. To make chess more war-like and immune to computer simulation, maybe someone can design a version that uses some hardware random number generator (i.e. dice). If you get, say, a pair of sixes, you lose a turn or your rook suddenly deserts you. Snake eyes, and your king can esca

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by yo303 ( 558777 )

        Here you go:

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

        • I knew I should have consulted Wikipedia before posting ;) So now it seems the problem is getting some world body to "bless" a standard set of rules from among the different varieties. I of course favor a version that sticks as close to plain chess in terms of board and number of pieces. Also, I favor a version where the dice throw isn't fixed but discretionary, a special move like castling or en passant but with a more random result.

      • Try checking out Steve Jackson Games' "Knightmare Chess", which adds cards to the mix. It's pretty fun.
        http://www.sjgames.com/knightm... [sjgames.com]

        • There's a sport for intelligent tough guys called "chess boxing". Five minutes on the board, followed by one round in the ring. You lose when you either are checkmate or you get knocked out. A draw in the game will be rare, because whoever is the better boxer will make the chess game last as long as possible.

      • While it's been compared to war, chess is really a bad metaphor for modern warfare. In chess, you know all of the capabilities of a piece. In war, there's always the hidden handicaps, from bad weather and terrain to bad troop morale. To make chess more war-like and immune to computer simulation, maybe someone can design a version that uses some hardware random number generator (i.e. dice). If you get, say, a pair of sixes, you lose a turn or your rook suddenly deserts you. Snake eyes, and your king can escape a potential checkmate by jumping like a knight (on horseback). To avoid abuse and total chaos, players should be given a limited number of dice throws, which they can use at critical junctures.

        Chess was an even worse metaphor for medieval warfare. Trying to relay messages through flags, trumpets, and messengers. Having a lost army randomly show up in the middle of a battle, etc.

        Chess isn't supposed to be a simulation of war, it's supposed to be an idealized form of war without all that randomness and missing information (not to mention blood) removed.

        • At least they still had knights and kings and queens doing battles then. I'm not sure though why a queen should be more powerful than a king. Maybe it's the heir to the throne factor, and what chess simulates isn't war in the battlefield but the war of political succession, which may or may not involve actual bloodshed. This interpretation may well account for the power of a bishop.

          • I'm not sure though why a queen should be more powerful than a king.

            Originally it wasn't. It gained extra power at the time when there were powerful queens in the world (Isabella I of Spain, Queen Elizabeth).

          • At least they still had knights and kings and queens doing battles then. I'm not sure though why a queen should be more powerful than a king. Maybe it's the heir to the throne factor, and what chess simulates isn't war in the battlefield but the war of political succession, which may or may not involve actual bloodshed. This interpretation may well account for the power of a bishop.

            The other factor is that it would have been played by people in court so they'll naturally personalize it with the characters most important to them. So it's not meant to be a war of political succession as much as a war fought by political figures.

            • Possibly related to this is phantomfive's supposition [slashdot.org] about "powerful" real world queens being the inspiration for the queen being the most powerful piece in chess.
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Especially, since I got Russians in 3 out of 4 games I played last night, and I won all of them. It felt good.

  • After seeing the stragegic skills of the Russian military, I'm puzzled by the idea that Russians can play chess.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Mal-2 ( 675116 )

      It's a lot easier to move pieces that can't resist than to get conscripts to do your bidding, especially when the enemy shoots back.

    • The logical conclusion is that the generals aren't trying to win.

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