Hey, chess lovers! Last month was a big month for new products and lots of updates and improvements. So let's review! Here's what happened around the site in March 2021...

Web

• After applying the final touches, based on beta feedback, the Library feature was finally released to all members! Create Collections to save your favorite games from anywhere - and peruse public Collections to find even more interesting and instructive games! Check out the full announcement here.
• We improved text wrapping in the Live Chess side panel.
• You can now choose White or Black when viewing Explorer data from your own games, in the Openings tab of a Daily game.

• The "Bongcloud Attack" (1. e4 e5 2. Ke2?!) made its debut at the elite level in this game between GMs Magnus Carlsen and Hikaru Nakamura - and in Openings / Explorer too.
• Improved visual effects when using the "Natural" board animation option.
• We made a number of UI improvements to the new Events feature.
• Added sub-titles to the Game of the Day (see the Today page).
• Added a setting to Clubs to allow admins to always display the Club's description (even to current members).
• Also added several events to the Club audit log—including edits to the club profile and description, the sending of invites, and new joiners.
• Fixed a nasty bug that broke Challenge Links for a time.
• Improvements to the chessboard technology in our diagram viewer.
• Much work went into a new Endgames training feature that will be coming out in April!
• Moved the video player higher on Streamers' profile pages, for better visibility when they are live.
• We removed the display of all avatars for members using Safe Mode.
• Non-members may now use the Gift membership page.
• We integrated engine lines into post-game analysis in Live Chess.
• Small UI improvements to Lessons.

iOS

The iOS team has been super busy creating a brand new Chess app, exclusively for Apple Arcade, which just launched at the beginning of April! Arcade is Apple's game subscription service for iOS, iPadOS, and AppleTV. (The new app works on iOS 13+, not AppleTV.)

Arcade subscribers can now enjoy an edition of the Chess app that is greatly simplified from the traditional app, and has just a small sub-set of features: Bots, Live Chess, and Themes! And we'll be adding more features in the future—including Lessons.

Please note that this app cannot be used with a normal Chess.com membership. Signing in (which is required only for Live Chess) is exclusively through Apple's Game Center. But if you have chess-curious friends who are Arcade subscribers, they might want to give it a try! (And it's extremely safe for younger users too, with zero support for Chat, and no visible usernames or avatars.) 

Fair Play & Sportsmanship

• 315,415,174 games reviewed for fair play.
• 13,085,324 accounts reviewed for fair play.
• 40,163 accounts closed for fair play (including 9 titled players).
• 1,627,715 abuse reports received.
• 137,620 mute actions taken.
• 118,833 individual accounts muted.
• 19,261 accounts closed for abuse.

Member Support

• Average time to first response:  3 days, 20 hours.
• Total support responses: 69,127.
• Average quality by member rating: 90% "Great" or better.
• Total ratings: 5,540.

Ok, that's all for March! Thank you for checking in - and we'll be back next month to find out all the developments for April. Happy chessing, everyone!

⏮ February 2021・ 🗓・April 2021 ⏭