Rebuilding memchess.com from its archive | Hacker News Reader

Rebuilding memchess.com from its archive

grondilu.github.io

187 pointsgrondilu39 comments

memchess.com was a neat website to learn chess openings with the spaced repetition method.

It was closed around 2020 for some reason.

I used code gathered from archive.org[1] and built a version that seems to work. It does not require a subscription/login, instead it stores progress through the HTML5 web storage API[2].

1. https://web.archive.org/web/20240000000000*/memchess.com

2. https://www.w3schools.com/html/html5_webstorage.asp

Have you tried https://listudy.org ?

https://listudy.org is a brilliant open source opening spaced repetition trainer. Another one is https://chessdriller.org, though you need to provide the moves yourself for that one. There's also https://chessmadra.com, but I believe their backend is closed-source.

I haven't really used any of this stuff. I don't even know why. So I wouldn't really know how people actually use it to make most of it, but I tried just now listudy (a couple of studies) and that memchess clone. Seems pretty much the same thing, but listudy is a bit more structured, with notes and stuff.

So I guess my question (to the OP, probably) would be, why memchess (clone)? Is there a reason why I would want to use it instead of/in addition to listudy, or is it just "because why not"?

The short answer is I tried listudy and I didn't like it.

I liked memchess because of how simple it was, and I liked not having to enter my own lines (though I understand this is important for serious study).

Memchess is what helped me defeat the strongest player in my local club, so I was quite frustrated when it shut down.

I can add https://openingtrainer.com/ to the list. Also a great tool to practice openings

It seems like the variation displayed at the bottom left of the board is trailing the move played, rather than being displayed beforehand as a challenge. This means that when the board is first displayed, there is no indication at all as to which opening you're expected to be recalling.

Or am I misunderstanding the expected interaction?

It allows you to flow through lines and play best book moves naturally. You can tell it that you want to focus on particular lines or line and it will let you know when you've made an incorrect move.

>It does not require a subscription/login, instead it stores progress through the HTML5 web storage API

I wish more websites did this.

It is awesome for short-term usage, but has a 5 MB limit, doesn't transfer across browsers or devices, and can simply go away if you clear it, reinstall browsers, etc.

So it is not reliable in the long run.

It's not always going to remain limited to 5MB, which is probably much enough for an opening repertoire anyway.

Also it shouldn't be too hard to create an export/import button.

I'd argue it's more reliable than having your progress stored on a server that can close anytime, as memchess did.

On Safari, it’s also cleared after 7 consecutive days of not visiting a website, I believe.

I always am fond of projects to rebuild things from the past, as I can already see that systems that I had used for a long time, are already gone. We're losing much more information nowadays, as in 1900-2000 main vessel of knowledge were books and those are available more or less in libraries, but since 2000 knowledge was been published more often in forums and web apps/blogs and those are not storable due to copyright law and privacy issues. This knowledge is or will be lost in a few years.

Not speaking of old movies/series etc. Thankfully music is still available on CDs

I've tried quickly on my phone, but it's too hard to use:

- I normally prefer to click on the piece and then on the target square. It doesn't work here, I think only drag & drop is supported.

- But drag & drop is broken, as it's scrolling the page at the same time as the piece.

I like the concept, I'll try again later on laptop.

I second that on desktops/laptops as well: being able to click on a piece and then on the target.

It works for me on Firefox android (but maybe that's because there's nothing to scroll)

It means you can't expand the board. I want to zoom in, but if I do that I can't move the pieces without panning the viewport.

I think it's due to the library used : chessboard.js[1] I used the version used in the archive, 0.3.0. It might be old.

1. https://chessboardjs.com/

Great to see this on HN and great work grondilu! Many users of memchess yearned for it to return and it really did disappear suddenly. It fills a great gap between a strategy book/guide and pure tactic trainers. Next step is for it to be refined as it was always a little clunky.

If you’re interested in spaced repetition for chess openings I’d strongly recommend chessbook. Not open source but extremely helpful in discovering interesting variations and remembering them in the long term.

https://chessbook.com/

Spaced repetitions for openings make a lot of sense, but in my experience they work better for tactics. I improved a lot with a hacked up solution combining puzzles and spaced repetitions, and then created a website to make it easier for anybody to adopt that approach: https://chess.braimax.com

Lately I've been very busy with my day job, but I'm almost ready to get back to developing that website. Suggestions are welcome.

I'm curious how spaced repetition is applicable to tactics? I don't dispute it, it's been popular since The Woodpecker Method [1], but I never quite got the point. Intuitively, spaced repetition helps memorization, but tactics is about learning patterns and maybe generalizing ideas. What's your take on what it brings to tactics?

[1] https://qualitychess.co.uk/products/2/327/the_woodpecker_met...

It's a common phenomenon - you look at a puzzle, fail to solve it, then look at the solution and move on. Then come back to that same puzzle some days later and still can't solve it/remember the solution.

So it's questionable whether you really learned anything the first time. If the exact same position showed up in your game, you'd probably have missed the correct move.

That's ultimately the purpose of repetitive training systems like spaced repetition and the woodpecker method (which is somewhat different from spaced repetition, actually).

Our brains are great at generalizing. Seeing (and recognizing )the same pattern several times makes it much easier to spot it later. And I found out that this works even better if you focus on a specific pattern for some time, working your way from easier to more difficult examples. I definitely improved a lot with this.

This is awesome. If you want help from other contributors, you'll probably find it easier to collaborate if you move memchess into its own repo (vs storing it in the grondilu.github.io repo). Each repo can have a dedicated GH Pages.

Really cool!

How do you add a GH page to a repo?

There's a guide at https://docs.github.com/en/pages/getting-started-with-github..., but the critical bit is "In the "Code and automation" section of the sidebar, click Pages."

@grondilu - this is awesome!

I have been working on something similar for the past few months. Would be cool to connect if you're interested.

My email is emorywitt@gmail.com

For Go: https://www.josekipedia.com/

It doesn't seem to actually tell me which opening I'm supposed to be doing?

I just played "1. d4" and it said it was the wrong. Then after playing "1. e4" it said I'm playing the spanish mainline.

Oh god, I'm so thankful for this, I was extremely sad when this disappeared, it was by far the best!

I find chess goes from tedious and overwhelming in the opening game, to interesting in the midgame, and fascinating towards the endgame. Sad you have to memorize thousands of opening lines to get good at it.

If you don't enjoy studying openings, you can get far by just being aware of opening ideas and common traps, and spending the rest of your time on midgame and endgame. Memorizing thousands of opening lines is really only for 2200+ Elo players (global top 20,000), even though Chessable and other marketing teams are doing their best to convince amateurs otherwise.

very true

> ...Chessable and other marketing teams are doing their best to convince amateurs otherwise

The study of openings is a very easy thing to 'productise' in comparison to other elements of chess. One's progress with learning openings is particularly tangible and easy to measure, but the law of diminishing returns sets in pretty quickly. There is also the more practical element that openings have names; it's quite difficult as a beginner to talk about more philosophical or abstract parts of the game, such as identifying and referring to the situations when a certain bishop is strong or not.

In many ways, the focus on openings is not a new phenomenon - chess opening books always seem to have dominated the genre of chess books. They're also excellent ways for publishers to sell updated editions... New openings are discovered like clockwork; the genre exists alongside sport almanacs and travel timetables as a perfect way to keep the printing presses going!

You could try Chess 960 (a.k.a. Fischer random) which was designed to avoid opening theory. It's very fun.

It doesn't avoid it fully though; some basic knowledge about opening theory is still essential. It is quite possible for certain permutations to open up wide gaping holes in each side's defences, which the more experienced player can use to checkmate almost immediately. It's like the Scholar's Mate but manifold.

Not true, in fact, this is backwards. Memorizing openings is the last thing you do to squeeze every bit of advantage out of the game. Opening theory and practicing tactics will get you to almost ~2000.

Endgames with few pieces remaining require memorization as well. You don't want to draw when you had a sure win.

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