TalkChess.com

Regretfully I am taking my chess.my2dollars.ca website down after the Super X4 tournament is finished. While this is not cut in stone I do feel that my efforts have not paid off to keep it running 24/7/365. Of course if by some miracle the fan base of 50+ average users returns by the time the Super X4 is finished I'll continue hosting the YLCET.

I hosted the YLCET (Yorkman's Live Chess Engine Tournament) website for the purpose of entertaining a wide audience of chess players however the user base is usually only about 30 on average and without even a small increase after each tournament. Needless to say this didn't bring any tingling sensations. I was hoping to sustain at least 50-60 on most days. This is the main reason why I've lost motivation to keep running the site 24/7. I feel myself and arun have given it the old college try to attract more users with constant improvements to the user interface. Sure, these things take time. But I don't always have the time to keep spreading the word. After all I'm just one guy. I'm a little surprised that someone hasn't volunteered to help keep the hype up but I suppose nobody else has the time either. And I was prepared to eat my monthly operating costs to keep the tournament running 24/7/365 in exchange for a decent audience. I guess I'm not a very patient man.

Arun has added many features, some of which are not on any other sites. Khagrin2 has also assisted with the design and layout of the website. It seems this wasn't enough. I would like to thank both sincerely for all the hard work they've put into it. Without their countless hours of work YLCET wouldn't function or look as good as it does today. I'd also like to thank the Komodo team for providing updated development versions.

Also, perhaps I should mention, we've come very close to partnering with chess.com but for whatever reason it hasn't worked out. I'm "speculating" that they have decided to try to partner with another more reputable site and if I'm right there will be an announcement made in the near future. Of course I may be wrong. This however was not factored into my decision to shut the site down. The idea from the beginning was that I would only put YLCET online from time to time unless there was a larger fan base. Unfortunately this has not happened.

I will probably still bring it back up once in a while but for the time being I think it's better I put my time, hardware and resources to use on other things.

Lastly, I would like to thank all those that have followed my live chess engine broadcasts.

You have a nice site. Believe it or not, I was not even aware that it existed until now.

When you say "the user base is usually only about 30 on average", does that include those who watch without login into chat ?

I really appreciate york spending his time and money running the tournament and bearing all the expense just to make it fun for the viewers. But if there are not much viewers i agree with york that running it after spending so much does not make much sense.

I hope it will be kept alive in the future.

It has been fun working with him.

Hi David,

sorry to hear that you've lost motivation, but after spending so much on powerful hardware and feeling let down by the perceived lack of interest, I guess I understand.

I get less than 10 viewers in my broadcasts, but they're only 1CPU, 4CPU or 8CPU, not 35CPU.

Hope you'll persevere,

Graham.

Hi David,

I did watch without login and I think your website and the tournament is superb. Thank you.

Best regards,
Koh, Kah Huat

That was a great site. I was active and chatting there during X1 and X2 season. But haven't visited your site http://chess.my2dollars.ca lately as
spare time was consumed by non-chess related stuff in the previous weeks, mostly relationship/bicycle/car/home maintenance.

Haven't watched your live games, but I will definitely download/analyze and watch the game archives offline.
Thanks for those strong interesting games.

Matthias Gemuh wrote:When you say "the user base is usually only about 30 on average", does that include those who watch without login into chat ?

Does it matter? If I was running something like YLCET, I'd do it for myself, and would share it with all people interested. I'd be happy if only 20 attended, and would keep going if a single fan tagged along, because what matters is that there's enjoyment, it doesn't matter if it's the enjoyment of 15 people or 1000.

Many, many things have been done by other people in my life, exclusively for my enjoyment, so I find really weird that the YLCET is being cancelled/postponed even though it's for the enjoyment of 30 people! 20 people more or 20 people less shouldn't make a difference, and thus, I conclude YLCET was being run for the wrong reasons and I hope it's replaced by something that respects its audience, even if it's just 5 people. YLCET had 6 times as much and didn't respect them!

York was footing all the bills, if there is not many to watch, he could use it for other purposes (the server). I don't think we have the right to comment on his decision.