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Chess.com

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Nevada
5 reviews
4 helpful votes
Follow Tam L.
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I've had to play daily on chess.com for almost 4 years and the last year of it, I've been messed over playing the one minute game and it would be a slag where timer will mess me or the opponent up and drastically lower our ratings. For the last few months, I've been at it for hours assuming I"m getting better than when I get on it, my ratings drop so drastically from 100-200 so quickly after playing for hours to get it raised, This site is very SCREWY and no one does anything about it as I"m playing on it FREE.

Date of experience: March 19, 2025

I have played on this site since 2021 and has recently been playing for hours almost everynight and has gone down from 600 to 200 or less now due to the SITE's MESSED UP IT not taking care of their end and blames the players computer and it has been already checked on by a technician. I sent numerous of Reporting players and yet Chess does not even respond back nor check any cheated play on their end but to mess players up so they can be frustrated and not be done fairly to enjoy the game. Chess.com needs to be BANNED from the website if this is how they HATE people to play on it as long as they get THEIR MONEY from people that's all they care about! Look how FAST I keep losing because their system is so SCREWED up. THEY DON"T LIKE YOU if you keep complaining about their site even though you get cheated said I violated them! I heard this system is happening from overseas and Eric A. (Pres) of Chess doesn't do anything about it. This site won't take my shot screen to show how screwed up Chess.com is. Again, I've gone down on 1 min play from 600 to almost less than 200 that quick in time due to Chess.com's site that is lagging on my end to purposely have me lose everytime when I played since 2021.

Date of experience: October 21, 2024
Texas
1 review
0 helpful votes
Follow David G.
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Excellent website they just are not an honest website. Money is first and if you dont pay your last. Watch as a rated player 100 points below you smokes your brisket over and over again lol. They feed you to the players who have played the most games when you first logon if your not a paying member. Columbo said so.

Date of experience: February 27, 2025
Texas
1 review
0 helpful votes
Follow Tony M.
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One of the things that concerns me the most with chess. Com is whether or not I am playing actual people or engines all the time or even some of the time. I have a USCF rating of 2390 (I do not have a norm) and am one of the lowest rated players in my group. We all have two accounts and we find it odd that in one of them, we cannot seem to get past 1500 losing to players that are 1300; however, in the account more reflective of our true rating, we have been able to maintain and even win some games. Why is that? I have reached out before, but chess. Com seems more interested in defending themselves and offering excuses than providing a more acceptable answer: at least "We will take a look at that," or something. I have been accused in the past of belonging to the company that is putting up a new chess platform expected to compete with chess. Com in 2026, but that is far from the truth. I am a casual player and an attorney who is too busy to get involved with a business and from what I understand, that organization is from China. I am from New York City. Can anyone offer an explanation as to why this happens? Oh and in case people are wondering, we created the second accounts for the purpose of ascertaining whether we were playing real people or not, we did not create a second account to sandbag anyone - not that it matters because apparently not me nor my 2400 rated friends can beat 1300's anyway.

Date of experience: March 31, 2025
Texas
1 review
1 helpful vote
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Non stop cheating
November 30, 2024

EVERY opponent is a computer. EVERY SINGLE ONE. Zero effort to try and cover it up. If you aren't a subscriber, you're clock is 3 times faster.

Date of experience: November 30, 2024
Brazil
1 review
0 helpful votes
Follow Jay j.
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My experience with Chess.com has been appalling. My account was terminated after two years without any evidence or explanation, despite my adherence to fair play. This opaque and arbitrary action shows a blatant disregard for transparency and user trust.

Shockingly, Chess.com offered to transfer my subscription to a new account, which I refused. Instead, I requested a refund as I could not remain part of a company that handles business in such a manner. They issued a refund, despite their policy of not refunding accounts closed for fair play violations. Additionally, they miscalculated the refund amount. This glaring inconsistency reveals the grossly incompetent and unjust nature of their operations.

Terminating accounts based on unsubstantiated accusations is disgraceful. I urge others to avoid Chess.com and its affiliates. Use your money on more reputable chess platforms that value fairness and transparency.

Date of experience: May 25, 2024
Colorado
17 reviews
7 helpful votes
Follow heyaa guy. h.
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I absolutely love this site! I can see the problems with it but nothing bad like that has happened for me, in my personal experience everything went right. Don't buy the premium though its wasteful. Just buy an actual chess set or use the free one, the premium can have a lot of things go wrong with it.

Date of experience: October 10, 2023
Colorado
1 review
5 helpful votes
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Garbage Site
September 28, 2023

They ban accounts without reason. Glad I never bought a membership here. Had one account banned accused of fair play violation. Average about 80% accuracy with about a 70% win rate. Nothing that crazy. Just someone whos played chess a long time. I appealed that decision. After weeks I got a link to setup a new account. A couple weeks on that account, and also banned. Their site is completely unusable.

Date of experience: September 28, 2023
Florida
1 review
3 helpful votes
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Toxic / Awful
February 16, 2024

Ultimately the problem with this site isn't the game, but the people playing it. I turned my chat off almost immediately due to s*x harassment issues, and there is ZERO sportsmanship with this app. People will play at a lower level than they are actually ranked, just to boost their scores. People resign if they make a bad move or lose their Queen. They take FOREVER to make a move sometimes. (Like it's an app on your phone, not rocket science, it's not that deep.) They abandon games if they make a bad move, or intentionally try to stalemate you out if they know they're going to lose. The abandonment thing is a big problem, because even though the app has an "auto-resign" feature, it takes at least 5 minutes to kick in, and then when it does kick in it's another 3 minutes on top of that. The game is great, and the app is okay... But they need to regulate this stuff more because people get on this site and act like a**h*les. 🙄

Date of experience: February 16, 2024
Nich B. Chess.com Rep
over a year old

Hello, we're so sorry to hear about this, and we want you to know that player abuse is not tolerated on Chess.com:
https://www.chess.com/legal/community
We are constantly expanding our efforts including automated chat moderation systems, as well as dedicated moderators. We're also expanding our system to detect and prevent stalling. We ask that players please reports instances of abuse or stalling as shown here:
https://support.chess.com/article/209-how-do-i-report-someone
You can also write to us at support@chess.com for assistance. We are here to help!

California
1 review
2 helpful votes
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Dissapointing
April 8, 2024

I had just recently gotten the app, about two weeks ago. I played throughout my childhood and early teen years. After over ten years I wanted to brush off my chess skills and just have fun. Took some wins and loses first few days. Spent some time playing outside the app with some friends who are really good. Helped me with getting better. Unfortunately, coming back into the app after the first couple of winning games I was banned without any explanation other than suspicions. I don't pay for the app, and reviewing others who had the same issues I can thoroughly say I am dissapointed. The owners should be ashamed of the fact that they are willing to throw people out without explanation or reason. Other than what I assume is they were improving outside our app and not paying to show their improvements. Way to take the joy and human connection out of a classic age old game.

Date of experience: April 8, 2024
Nich B. Chess.com Rep
over a year old

Hello! For assistance with your account status, please contact our dedicated Support team:
https://support.chess.com/en/articles/8737050-contact-us
We'll help get the issue resolved for you as soon as possible! Accounts are only disabled in the case of breach of our policies listed here: https://www.chess.com/legal/user-agreement
We never close accounts without reason, and we only do so when we detect a policy infraction. However we're here to help get that resolved for you, so that you can get back to playing chess in no time!

Florida
1 review
1 helpful vote
Follow Leon R.
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Chess.com is sheisty
September 29, 2023

Chess.com tries to say the reason why there's cheating going on cuz they're using engine chess.com is the one that moves your pieces when you don't even touch them because they want you to pay to have the benefits of the other players where their time can keep getting extended or once again you didn't touch your pieces but they got moved. They try to say they get rid of people for cheating that's bull I've been cursing them out for the past month now cuz I know it's them

Date of experience: September 29, 2023
Michigan
2 reviews
3 helpful votes
Follow Timmy T.
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Scam site
January 26, 2024

I average 1800 to 2100 but on this scam site there are 1500 players/bots that play you all the time and have min ratings of 1900 but show low values to keep your score low when you lose to them. If you play on this crap site keep in mind they try to keep your score low until you register and pay for classes. Then all of a sudden you become a much better player not because you learned anything but because they block the bots and low rated scams.

Date of experience: January 26, 2024
Nich B. Chess.com Rep
over a year old

Hello, we have tens of millions of monthly active players, so that means when you play on Chess.com, you're playing real people! Game pairings are not manipulated in any way, and we actually want to help all chess players improve and keep increasing their rating. That's why it's possible to access training features in a limited capacity even on a free account! If you suspect another player of cheating, please report it by clicking their username. We are devoting more resources and staff to anti-cheating than any entity in the world, and we understand how important it is to keep the game fair!

Wisconsin
1 review
2 helpful votes
Follow jason s.
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Sure chess.com is free, but only if you are stupid will you try to use the site. The ads that it uses to extort its members freezes games. You can't even do tactics cause it freezes the screen. In todays world its hard to be ad free in anything, but for chess.com the ads are poorly run or maybe they do it on purpose so that you can't get a decent playing experience without paying to remove the ads. Its crazy that a company pays chess.com to run there ads then they turn around and charge its members money to remove them. Ethically Chess.com should be shut down and sued.

Date of experience: March 6, 2024
Oklahoma
1 review
0 helpful votes
Follow Jay G.
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Good luck if you like speed chess! Pieces drag...hard to move and sometimes end up on the wrong square. System overloads due to too many new players also occur. Time cheaters everywhere. But you can watch Magnus Carlsen! Owned by people who are very political too. ( chess chat is for a "free Palestine!")

Date of experience: December 25, 2023
Nich B. Chess.com Rep
over a year old

Hello, in Settings you can choose your preferred method to move the chess pieces. If you prefer to click twice instead of dragging pieces, that option is available!
https://www.chess.com/settings/board
We're doing our utmost to prevent any server interruptions as our player base continues to grow--now more than 150 million total registrations! For help with frequent disconnection or latency, we can also share some tips for optimizing one's own device and connection for chess:
https://support.chess.com/article/4720-online-chess-performance-optimizations
Lastly we ask that players please refrain from having political discussions in public chat or forums, as outlined in our community policies:
https://www.chess.com/legal/community
Please write to us at support@chess.com for assistance on Chess.com if needed. We're here to help!

Norway
1 review
2 helpful votes
Follow Zia D.
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Stay away
October 6, 2023

Getting randomly banned, support will not answer and it feels like a scammer site. I got banned for no reason after paying for diamond membership. Contacted support and have not heard a single word for weeks now.I filled a form for refund and no answer there either. Stay away from this site!

Date of experience: October 6, 2023
Nich B. Chess.com Rep
over a year old

Please write to us at support@chess.com for assistance with your Chess.com account. We can also help with a refund if you're no longer able to make use of your membership.

California
1 review
0 helpful votes
Follow Tom F.
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Just.com struggles with its IT. It always forgets my profile. Even when I turn off the app and open it back up, it still has forgotten my profile. I have gone so far as to delete the app, then reinstall the app only for to ask me to create a new profile not remembering my old one only after months go by or weeks go by will it reconfigure and remember who I am total waste of time

Date of experience: November 2, 2023
Nich B. Chess.com Rep
over a year old

Please write to us at support@chess.com for assistance with retrieving your profile. We're here to help! :)

Netherlands
1 review
0 helpful votes
Follow Lao T.
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It is a irritative site, after all. All those in-between popups are annoying. The interface looks good but not as good as lichess. Lichess is always free, and doesn't bother if you abort the game, no hazzles, no ads, just Super

Date of experience: July 17, 2024
Australia
2 reviews
8 helpful votes
Follow The A.
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Don't waste your time
February 4, 2022

App is full of problems and far inferior to Lichess.

Some issues below:

Huge lag which impacts on your ability to win shorter games (3 minutes and under)

You can't select a rating range on 30 second games. As a result, you can win 14 games and lose 1 game yet still lose points. Dumb and stupid and kills the game

Customer service parrots on the Android app repeating the same things all over again

You can be matched with people you have previously blocked. I'm surprised this has not been addressed as it could lead to prolonged abuse or harrassment

Constant up sells

Chess.com has ruined many a day for me but I continued because it's where my stats are. I say go with Lichess and avoid the bother.

Date of experience: February 4, 2022
Missouri
1 review
3 helpful votes
Follow Charles R.
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I loved using this app, learning how to play chess, and playing against people online. It was quite literally all fun and games until I took a long break from it. I got somewhat better at the game offline, came back quite literally today, played two rounds before eating dinner, came back to check my email and my mf account was closed for "suspicious activity." Is getting good without your stupid app a violation of their terms, well then I'll do it $#*!ing again $#*!s!

Date of experience: November 19, 2022
Missouri
1 review
15 helpful votes
Follow G C.
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I should have read the reviews
February 8, 2022

They took $99 and closed my account 10 days later. No response from support. They claim violation of fair play, I don't play for money or tournaments or ratings. I went there to learn, so I could teach my son. Ridiculous tactics. Fine if you want to close an account; it's your site. But give me a refund for an entire year I've paid, if you won't let me use what I paid for.

Date of experience: February 8, 2022
GB
1 review
26 helpful votes
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Not happy!
January 23, 2021

I'm a novice player and signed up to diamond membership a couple of weeks ago.
Tried to log on only to find that although my membership is still active, my account was deleted! No reason given. All I've really been doing are puzzles and lessons so have no idea why this has happened.
Then I deleted and re-installed, creating a new account with new diamond membership but I still can't access unlimited puzzles. What's going on!?!?!

Date of experience: January 23, 2021

Overview

Chess.com has a rating of 1.3 stars from 212 reviews, indicating that most customers are generally dissatisfied with their purchases. Reviewers dissatisfied with Chess.com most frequently mention customer service, fair play and new account. Chess.com ranks 933rd among Games sites.

service
69
value
68
shipping
34
returns
41
quality
67
This company does not typically respond to reviews
+18