[WIP] Democratic Chess - pays players to play. Critique my tokenomics?

[Kavelj22]

Welcome to bitcointalk Daniel and congratulations for the great initiative. It has been a long time since I read about a useful token far from the trading market to derive value from. I have few notes that you might consider suggestions or questions to interact with:

- Why you didn't yet create your Announcement thread in bitcointalk and altcoinstalk? This discussion here can be done in the official thread channel and can help bump the ANN for better visibility and seo ranking. I didn't get the point why you look ignoring this like you are not really interested about.

- Would you please consider to review your decision of chosing the network Genosis-Chain. It is not widely used like other chains and users are not that familiar with it. I can suggest Solana or Ton but there are many others popular than Genosis.

- Most important is the mobile app. But why it isn't in the phone store Google and Apple. By clicking at the install function, the app will installed automatically without a notification. Users will prefer installing apps from official stores because they are audited and verified.

[passwordnow]

I skipped the part of reading your tokenomics. But to say that you've built something already out of the chess community and there's a lot of players/users in there already says a thing. And that's about what you've built is likeable and usable by the intended users and community you've made it for and that's them. It will be great to show on your website if there are some live games that are being done, that will make it more interesting for the lurkers. What you need are the real users and chess players and not investors who will think of it as another web3 game to earn from. You need genuine ones.

[democratic_chess]

Welcome to bitcointalk Daniel and congratulations for the great initiative. It has been a long time since I read about a useful token far from the trading market to derive value from. I have few notes that you might consider suggestions or questions to interact with:

- Why you didn't yet create your Announcement thread in bitcointalk and altcoinstalk? This discussion here can be done in the official thread channel and can help bump the ANN for better visibility and seo ranking. I didn't get the point why you look ignoring this like you are not really interested about.

- Would you please consider to review your decision of chosing the network Genosis-Chain. It is not widely used like other chains and users are not that familiar with it. I can suggest Solana or Ton but there are many others popular than Genosis.

- Most important is the mobile app. But why it isn't in the phone store Google and Apple. By clicking at the install function, the app will installed automatically without a notification. Users will prefer installing apps from official stores because they are audited and verified.

- Why you didn't yet create your Announcement thread in bitcointalk and altcoinstalk? This discussion here can be done in the official thread channel and can help bump the ANN for better visibility and seo ranking. I didn't get the point why you look ignoring this like you are not really interested about.

Thank you, Kavelj22, and the welcome means a lot - I appreciate it.

On the ANN: you're right, and it's coming. I held off intentionally because I wanted the foundation properly in place first - this WIP thread was meant as a critique stage before going public. The migration to Base (more on that below) is the gating step, and once that's complete, the ANN thread will go up in both bitcointalk and altcoinstalk with the full launch package - tokenomics finalized, contracts deployed, designer-made graphics, the whole standard format. The timeline is a few weeks. The discussion you're seeing here has already been incredibly useful for sharpening the proposal, but I agree the ANN is where it should live in the long term.

- Would you please consider to review your decision of chosing the network Genosis-Chain. It is not widely used like other chains and users are not that familiar with it. I can suggest Solana or Ton but there are many others popular than Genosis.

Already decided and announced earlier in this thread - migrating to Base. The Gnosis decision came from a specific technical preference (sponsored gas for withdrawals), but sergiorus and others made a strong case earlier that the operational reality breaks that benefit anyway - users still need native gas after withdrawal, so the chain choice should follow liquidity and user familiarity instead. Base wins on that ground. Migration is in progress: 1:1 airdrop to Base for existing holders; Gnosis contract stays live as a historical record; new emission goes to Base going forward. Considered Solana, but the rewrite cost is too high for the stage we're at, and the culture there is different from our intended audience.

- Most important is the mobile app. But why it isn't in the phone store Google and Apple. By clicking at the install function, the app will installed automatically without a notification. Users will prefer installing apps from official stores because they are audited and verified.

You're raising the exact right concern, and I'll give you the concrete status rather than a vague "it's coming." Google Play release is essentially ready - we're a week or so out from going live there. The App Store is the slower track, at around 3-4 weeks, given Apple's review cycle and the additional submission work involved. Until then, the install does go outside the stores, which I agree is a friction point for mainstream chess players who reasonably expect store-verified distribution. Not ignoring it, just sequencing - and the gap is closing fast. Thanks for putting it on the public priority list; it's the kind of pressure that's actually useful.

Thanks again for the feedback - this kind of structured critique is exactly what the thread needed before going to ANN. Appreciated.

Daniel

[democratic_chess]

I skipped the part of reading your tokenomics. But to say that you've built something already out of the chess community and there's a lot of players/users in there already says a thing. And that's about what you've built is likeable and usable by the intended users and community you've made it for and that's them. It will be great to show on your website if there are some live games that are being done, that will make it more interesting for the lurkers. What you need are the real users and chess players and not investors who will think of it as another web3 game to earn from. You need genuine ones.

This nails something I think most projects in this space get wrong, and it's the core thesis of the whole design - genuine users over speculative investors. The economy only works if the people playing actually want to play chess. Farmers running scripts against the platform extract value without adding signal, and the anti-gaming layers in the tokenomics are there specifically to make that uneconomical for them. Real players are the substrate; everything else follows from that.

On the live games suggestion - that's a sharp observation. We do show a live games feed on the platform itself (active boards, ongoing tournaments), but you're right that surfacing some of that on the landing page would help lurkers see the activity rather than just read about it. Adding that to the list - it's a small change with real impact for what you're describing. Thanks for the angle.

Daniel

[democratic_chess]

-cut-
Real question back to you: do you think the LEO comparison applies to fixed-cap earn tokens, or do you see this recycling constraint the same way I do? Genuinely curious whether you've seen another play-to-earn project handle this tension well. Most of the case studies I've looked at either had no real internal economy or burned themselves into a corner within 18 months.

I will have to come back to this when i get some time slots to my schedule to review any of this. But i definitely will come back, as this sounds interesting. BTW it's clear from how you address problems, that you enjoy logic puzzles like chess. Sadly i can't give you an answer yet, other then "this all sounds good".

And it's refreshing to see you have put way thought into game theory of tokenomics, which should be obvious as you are the creator of it, but frankly it's not at all common in this space.

Thank you - that's a genuinely kind thing to say, and it lands. No rush at all on the LEO question - I'd much rather you take the time and come back with something considered than feel pressed for a quick answer. The comparison interests me precisely because LEO's recycling constraint is the cleanest analog I've found for what fixed-cap earn tokens have to manage, and most projects in this space haven't thought through what happens when the issuance tap closes. Whenever you have a window, I'll be glad to dig into it.

And yes - chess players tend to overthink. It's an occupational hazard, but in tokenomics design, it's probably a feature rather than a bug.

Daniel

[democratic_chess]

First of all, WHO THE HELL creates tokens on GNOSIS??
Bro, projects migrate even from semi-liveable chains, the industry is pretty much dead at the moment, unless you're on a fat grant from Gnosis Foundation, why don't you launch it on Base or Solana? Hell, even on Ethereum Mainnet the fees are so low now you could do it on there.

Ah, now I know on why you got triggered earlier. But he will surely thank you for the heads up right there and he may consider migrating too on other more lively and more better chains, if he also proved that what you said there is true after doing his own research.

But among the 3 chain recommendations you got there, I can surely vote for Ethereum as this was the OG and most secure among all. In terms of other performances, ETH doesn't get left behind too, with its regular updates.

Migration to Base is complete: the contract is deployed and live, a holder snapshot from Gnosis is taken, and the 1:1 airdrop on Base goes out shortly. The Gnosis contract stays online as a historical record, so nothing gets erased.

Ethereum mainnet was on the table, and I take the point about security inheritance and the regular updates - those matter. But the fees still aren't quite where they need to be for a play-to-earn flow with frequent small transactions; Base gives us the EVM-compatibility and Ethereum security inheritance you're describing, while keeping per-transaction costs in a workable range for the use case. Appreciate the input.

Daniel

[passwordnow]

I skipped the part of reading your tokenomics. But to say that you've built something already out of the chess community and there's a lot of players/users in there already says a thing. And that's about what you've built is likeable and usable by the intended users and community you've made it for and that's them. It will be great to show on your website if there are some live games that are being done, that will make it more interesting for the lurkers. What you need are the real users and chess players and not investors who will think of it as another web3 game to earn from. You need genuine ones.

This nails something I think most projects in this space get wrong, and it's the core thesis of the whole design - genuine users over speculative investors. The economy only works if the people playing actually want to play chess. Farmers running scripts against the platform extract value without adding signal, and the anti-gaming layers in the tokenomics are there specifically to make that uneconomical for them. Real players are the substrate; everything else follows from that.

Those who will be driven by profit and only there to play chess for the money will destroy the game itself. This has been seen in the NFT/web 3 games. All of them are motivated before due to the profit that they're going to get and not about the enjoyment that they'll have in the game.

On the live games suggestion - that's a sharp observation. We do show a live games feed on the platform itself (active boards, ongoing tournaments), but you're right that surfacing some of that on the landing page would help lurkers see the activity rather than just read about it. Adding that to the list - it's a small change with real impact for what you're describing. Thanks for the angle.

Daniel

No problem, that's just adding some flavor for the visitors if ever they land on the page.

[democratic_chess]

I skipped the part of reading your tokenomics. But to say that you've built something already out of the chess community and there's a lot of players/users in there already says a thing. And that's about what you've built is likeable and usable by the intended users and community you've made it for and that's them. It will be great to show on your website if there are some live games that are being done, that will make it more interesting for the lurkers. What you need are the real users and chess players and not investors who will think of it as another web3 game to earn from. You need genuine ones.

This nails something I think most projects in this space get wrong, and it's the core thesis of the whole design - genuine users over speculative investors. The economy only works if the people playing actually want to play chess. Farmers running scripts against the platform extract value without adding signal, and the anti-gaming layers in the tokenomics are there specifically to make that uneconomical for them. Real players are the substrate; everything else follows from that.

Those who will be driven by profit and only there to play chess for the money will destroy the game itself. This has been seen in the NFT/web 3 games. All of them are motivated before due to the profit that they're going to get and not about the enjoyment that they'll have in the game.

On the live games suggestion - that's a sharp observation. We do show a live games feed on the platform itself (active boards, ongoing tournaments), but you're right that surfacing some of that on the landing page would help lurkers see the activity rather than just read about it. Adding that to the list - it's a small change with real impact for what you're describing. Thanks for the angle.

Daniel

No problem, that's just adding some flavor for the visitors if ever they land on the page.

You're describing the exact failure mode that killed most of the GameFi cycle - Axie, StepN, half a dozen others. When the median participant's motivation is extraction rather than play, the game becomes a yield-farming UI with a thin gameplay wrapper, and once token emissions slow or token price drops, the whole thing collapses because nothing real was being created on the way up.

The structural defense we're trying to build is making the game itself uneconomical to farm, not just adding restrictions on top of a normal earn flow. A few of the mechanisms:

- Reward weights are tied to opponent strength and game quality, not just session count - so playing a thousand games against weak or scripted opponents pays close to nothing
- Engine-correlation detection at the move level - a player whose moves consistently match top engines beyond a threshold gets flagged regardless of stated rating
- Behavioral timing analysis - human chess players have characteristic time distributions per move that bots and assisted play don't replicate well
- Diminishing returns on volume per account, so the same wallet grinding 16 hours/day earns dramatically less per hour than the first 2-3

None of this is bulletproof - sophisticated farming will always exist at the margin - but the goal is making the farming economically worse than just playing chess elsewhere for fun. If the median farmer can't beat the median genuine player on $/hour, the incentive collapses on its own.

The deeper bet is that there's a real audience of chess players who would value a small reward on top of games they were going to play anyway, and that audience is much larger than the pure-farmer audience. If we get the gravity right, the genuine cohort outweighs the extractive one, and the economy stabilizes. If we get it wrong, you're correct - the game dies. So the design choices around emission curves, buyback weighting, and integrity layers are all aimed at protecting that ratio.

Daniel

[passwordnow]

~snip~

I like it that you have admitted that it can't be stopped but you as the control of this game understands those players that might do the abuse. That's really the reason why many of these gamefi's or nft games have fallen, the devs themselves were also driven by profit. But with yours, continue doing and building this as a community that has the same interest and revenue will eventually follow. Because just like the old games in the past before crypto was made, many of them stayed for years and a genuine community was there. How much more of chess as a sport and a competitive scene for which make someone a national hero to bring glory to their country if ever competing abroad.

[democratic_chess]

~snip~

I like it that you have admitted that it can't be stopped but you as the control of this game understands those players that might do the abuse. That's really the reason why many of these gamefi's or nft games have fallen, the devs themselves were also driven by profit. But with yours, continue doing and building this as a community that has the same interest and revenue will eventually follow. Because just like the old games in the past before crypto was made, many of them stayed for years and a genuine community was there. How much more of chess as a sport and a competitive scene for which make someone a national hero to bring glory to their country if ever competing abroad.

You've put your finger on something I think many crypto-native founders never quite see: the failure mode is bilateral. Players who farm and devs who optimize for token price both hollow out the product in the same way - both treat the game as a financial instrument first. Once that culture sets in on either side, the actual thing being built decays even if the charts look fine for a while. The Axie team spent the bull market shipping more financialization rather than more game; that's why it couldn't survive contact with bear-market reality.

The "community first, revenue follows" framing is right, and it's older than crypto, as you noted. Chess.com is a useful example - they built for fifteen years before they were worth anything to the financial press, and the value is real now precisely because the substrate is real. The chess audience doesn't disappear when the macro turns. People played chess through the 2008 crash, through COVID, through every market cycle. That's the kind of foundation crypto rewards don't create on their own, but can amplify if they're attached to something that already exists.

Your point about chess as a competitive sport opens up a larger discussion than we've had so far. Chess is the national pastime in India, in Armenia, across much of Eastern Europe and the post-Soviet world, and increasingly in the global south, where the cost of entry is essentially zero. The competitive scene has its own infrastructure - federations, tournaments, titles like CM/FM/IM/GM that mean something serious to anyone in the world who plays. If a platform can become a meaningful step in that ecosystem - somewhere a Filipino kid or a Nigerian teenager can play rated games against the world, build a tournament record, get recognized - then the reward token isn't pretending to be a financial product. It's a tangible recognition that they're part of something bigger than their living room. National pride is a strong motivator. Stronger than yield, when it comes to retention.

That's not the v1 narrative - v1 is just making the play-to-earn loop honest and the chess product genuinely good. But it's the direction the architecture is being built to support, and your post made me want to say it out loud.

Daniel

[aioc]

I don't know if you are fully aware of it, but there was a chess token back in 2016, just a month after I registered here in Bitcointalk, back when ICO and airdrops were at their high and so many coins were created, and they were trying to duplicate the success of Bitcoin.

But this one doesn't have the features of what a Chess platform should have; it was all about mining. I remember mining this Chess token and have mined over 100k. I made a lot of money on this chess token.
These were the days when every developer just wanted their own cash cow, abusing Satoshi's open-source creation.

CHESSCOIN 🔴🔴 CHESSTOKEN 🔴🔴 CHESSCOINTALK 🔴🔴 AIRDROP LIVE 🔴🔴

So, Daniel Bro, push your project; you have a better chance of success.

BTW, I have 2/12 Transactions or withdrawals. Does this mean after the 12th, I cannot withdraw anymore?

[democratic_chess]

I don't know if you are fully aware of it, but there was a chess token back in 2016, just a month after I registered here in Bitcointalk, back when ICO and airdrops were at their high and so many coins were created, and they were trying to duplicate the success of Bitcoin.

But this one doesn't have the features of what a Chess platform should have; it was all about mining. I remember mining this Chess token and have mined over 100k. I made a lot of money on this chess token. These were the days when every developer just wanted their own cash cow, abusing Satoshi's open-source creation.

CHESSCOIN · CHESSTOKEN · CHESSCOINTALK · AIRDROP LIVE

So, Daniel Bro, push your project; you have a better chance of success.

Thank you for this - genuinely. The Chesscoin chapter is exactly the historical context this conversation needs. 2016-2017 was when every project tried to bolt a token onto the surface of an idea without building the substrate underneath, and the chess vertical got the same treatment as everything else. Mining-driven tokens with no game behind them. The carcasses of that era are still on this forum, and your roster (Chesscoin, Chesstoken, Chesscointalk) is the right one - all dead, all for the same reason.

The reason we approached it in the opposite order matters here. Build the chess platform first, with real users playing real games and tournaments. Then deploy the token as the platform's working currency, with existing utility flows. Then formalize, audit, and list. The token isn't the product - the platform is, and the token is what makes the platform belong to the people who use it. That sequence is the lesson of 2016/2017 applied honestly.

Coming from someone who lived through that cycle and saw what didn't work, "push your project; you have a better chance of success" carries real weight. Thank you.

BTW, I have 2/12 Transactions or withdrawals. Does this mean after the 12th, I cannot withdraw anymore?

To be clear: there are no withdrawal limits on the platform - no 12, no 112, no cap of any kind. Any GAMBIT in your account balance is yours to withdraw on-chain whenever you want, as many times as you want, with the only friction being the standard network gas on Base (sub-cent per transaction).

The "2/12" you're seeing must be from somewhere else in the UI - possibly progress through an onboarding step, a quest, an engagement campaign, or an achievement track. Could you share where exactly it appears? Either a screenshot or the page name. I'd like to make sure the labeling isn't ambiguous, because if you read it as a withdrawal cap, others might too, and that's something worth fixing on our side.

Either way, you can withdraw the other if your account balance supports it. Nothing in the system stops you.

Daniel

[coupable]

I have been using the democratic chess app after reading this topic. Indeed, I didn't enjoy it that much because I am in advanced level and each time I try to play online I find myself with a guest having zero knowledge about chess basic tactics. It is far from to compare it with other applications or if it can compete with Lichess or Chess.com at anytime soon.

[robelneo]

It is far from to compare it with other applications or if it can compete with Lichess or Chess.com at anytime soon.

We'll never know whether they do it right and are committed to their roadmap, but they can compete with Lichess or Chess.com; they should have something that these two popular chess platforms don't.
They will have a big impact if they can list their token, Gambit, on a popular exchange like Binance and maintain their trading volume. It's a long shot, but it's possible.

[taddus33333]

I appreciate the thoughtful analysis in your Democratic Chess proposal. Your points about tokenomics and cross-chain integrity are well-structured. The integration with Ethereum mainnet as canonical layer while using Base for operations shows practical consideration for user experience. I'd be interested to see how the governance model evolves as the platform scales.

[democratic_chess]

We'll never know whether they do it right and are committed to their roadmap, but they can compete with Lichess or Chess.com; they should have something that these two popular chess platforms don't.

They will have a big impact if they can list their token, Gambit, on a popular exchange like Binance and maintain their trading volume. It's a long shot, but it's possible.

Your framing is the correct one. "Compete head-on with Lichess" is a losing pitch, and I don't make it. "Have something they don't" is the actual strategic position, and it has to be true at the product level before any of the token economics matters.

The thing Lichess and Chess.com structurally cannot have is an economy where the platform's success belongs to the players who built it. Their business model is ads, subscriptions, and tournament sponsorships - all flowing one way, from user attention to platform revenue. The chess gets better; the player gets a number. That's not a criticism, it's a description of how the incumbents are designed. We're trying to build the same chess product on a different ownership structure: every meaningful action mints to the player, the platform takes its share through transparent fee splits, and the people who built the audience hold the surface they built it on. That's the "something they don't have." Whether it's enough to move advanced players off Lichess is the open question - it probably won't move all of them, but it doesn't need to. It needs to move enough that a working economy can sustain itself, with sufficient density across meaningful rating bands to make the chess product good for the players who do choose to play here.

On the Binance listing point - you're right that it's a long shot, and you're also right that it's the kind of milestone that would change the project's reach significantly. Realistically, the path looks more like tier-2 CEX listings first (MEXC, Gate, BitMart range), then tier-1 over time if volume and on-chain activity justify it. Going for Binance as an opening move would be naive at this stage; building toward it through proof points (volume, holders, real platform usage) is the version that has a chance.

The piece I think most outside observers underestimate is that the chess audience is enormous, sticky, and not particularly served by crypto today. Hundreds of millions of players worldwide, intense national engagement in India, Armenia, post-Soviet Europe, and increasingly the global south. Even capturing a fractional slice of that audience as token holders is a much larger user base than most utility tokens ever reach. The challenge isn't the size of the opportunity; it's execution against the gap between the current product and where the product needs to be to deserve that audience. Coupable's post in this thread is the honest version of where that gap currently sits.

Thank you for thinking about it strategically rather than just up/down voting the proposal. That's the kind of post that's actually useful in shaping how the project gets pitched.

Daniel

[democratic_chess]

I have been using the democratic chess app after reading this topic. Indeed, I didn't enjoy it that much because I am in advanced level and each time I try to play online I find myself with a guest having zero knowledge about chess basic tactics. It is far from to compare it with other applications or if it can compete with Lichess or Chess.com at anytime soon.

Following up on this, your feedback turned into a build, and I want to show you what shipped this week.

The matchmaking gap you ran into came from a specific failure mode: new accounts default to a low starting rating and have to climb out of it through calibration games. For an advanced player, those first few games were exactly the bad experience you described - "guest with zero knowledge" because the system genuinely didn't know yet that it was matching against an advanced opponent.

Fix that's now live: an explicit level-selection step at signup before the first game.
The user picks where they sit on a 10-point scale, with descriptions calibrated against actual chess strength rather than abstract ELO numbers. A grandmaster picks "10", a club player picks "9", an intermediate picks "5-7", a beginner picks "0-2". The matchmaker then starts pairing the account to its corresponding rating band immediately, rather than forcing calibration games first. The level can be changed from the lobby at any time if it was set wrong, so the first impression isn't permanent.

This doesn't solve the population problem - we still have fewer 2000-rated players online at any moment than Lichess does - but it does fix the specific symptom you hit. A new advanced player now lands in the right rating band on game one rather than fighting through six bad games to get there. If you're willing to give it another try with the level set correctly, the matchmaking experience should be much closer to what you'd expect from a serious chess platform with a rating system.

I appreciate the critique. The honest version - "this isn't competitive with Lichess yet" - is the version of feedback that actually moves the product. Generic praise doesn't ship code; pointed criticism does. So thank you for taking the time to actually try it and say what you found.

Daniel

[aioc]

The matchmaking gap you ran into came from a specific failure mode: new accounts default to a low starting rating and have to climb out of it through calibration games. For an advanced player, those first few games were exactly the bad experience you described - "guest with zero knowledge" because the system genuinely didn't know yet that it was matching against an advanced opponent.

I was about to ask that, I'm not really an advanced player, but I've been playing against AI with a very low level skill or someone who just learned yesterday, but since you explained it now, I have to work on a level where I can match my skill to someone who is of equal with mine.
I don't want to match against others who have better skills as I'm protecting my rating, and of course, I want to continue accumulating Gambit.
 

[taddus33333]

Thanks for sharing this interesting project! The tokenomics model you've outlined shows good consideration for player incentives. I particularly like how you're thinking about the balance between rewarding active participation and preventing speculative behavior. The technical aspects of the token distribution mechanism will be key to long-term success - have you considered how inflation might affect the token's value over time?

[democratic_chess]

I was about to ask that, I'm not really an advanced player, but I've been playing against AI with a very low level skill or someone who just learned yesterday, but since you explained it now, I have to work on a level where I can match my skill to someone who is of equal with mine.

I don't want to match against others who have better skills as I'm protecting my rating, and of course, I want to continue accumulating Gambit.

Your honesty here actually shipped another change to the platform. The pattern you described - "I'll play at a low level to protect my rating and keep accumulating GAMBIT" - is exactly the failure mode the reward function has to design against. So I rebuilt the reward calibration this week to make that strategy uneconomical, and I want to walk you through what changed.

The reward per win now scales sharply with the level you're playing at:

• Level 1 (Just learned the rules) - 5 GAMBIT per win
• Level 3 (A little experience) - 10 GAMBIT per win
• Level 5 (Intermediate) - 14 GAMBIT per win
• Level 8 (Good player)  - 25 GAMBIT per win
• Level 9 (Strong player) - 30 GAMBIT per win
• Level 10 (Grandmaster level) - 50 GAMBIT per win

Sitting at Level 1 to "stay safe" now pays 5 GAMBIT per win. Climbing to Level 10 pays 50 - ten times as much. Staying low to accumulate isn't profitable anymore; growing is. The progression itself is automatic too: a streak of wins at any level promotes you to the next, a streak of losses moves you back down. So the natural movement is upward as long as you're genuinely competitive at your current band, and the system quickly finds your real level without you having to manage it manually.

The underlying logic: per-game economics favor the player who's actually competitive at their level. Someone winning consistently at their rating band earns proportionally to that band. Someone trying to grind below their real level earns the small payouts that lower-level players get. The reward function is based on the difficulty of the chess, not the volume of clicks.

For where you sit specifically: if you're not an advanced player, that's completely fine - the platform isn't trying to push everyone toward grandmaster ratings. The honest move is to find the level where the chess is challenging but winnable for you, settle there, and grow at your own pace if you want to. The rewards scale with the level you legitimately belong at, whatever that level is. That should remove the temptation to "protect rating" by playing down - the rating that pays best is the one that matches your real strength.

Thank you for surfacing this. Two consecutive product fixes this week came directly from posts in this thread (the onboarding level-selector after coupable, and this reward calibration after you). The build cadence is much faster when the feedback is this specific.

Daniel