// THE VERGE — INTELLIGENZA ARTIFICIALE
Chess.com launched a poker site and is planning even more classic games
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Chess.com’s Albert Cheng says AI helped get Gambit off the ground with just a two-person team.
Chess.com’s Albert Cheng says AI helped get Gambit off the ground with just a two-person team.
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Chess.com has done one thing, and one thing very well, for almost 20 years, but now it’s going beyond its domain name. The biggest name in online chess quietly launched its first companion site in beta back in May: Gambit, a free online poker website where players can learn the game without risking any real money. Now Gambit’s ready to really get the ball rolling with its first livestreamed event and collaborations with content creators, and Chess.com is planning to branch out into even more games from here.
Chess.com’s chief growth officer, Albert Cheng, told The Verge the company chose poker for its first companion site because, like chess, it has learning and social elements on top of just playing the game. He also promised there will never be real-money gambling on Gambit, saying, “Real money is the problem we built Gambit to get away from, the whole industry makes money when beginners lose. We’d rather build a place where people can actually learn.”
Gambit will look familiar to anyone who’s used Chess.com. It borrows the same design style and includes similar play modes, like bot matches, games with friends, tournaments, a review mode for studying your past games, and a learning mode. Gambit even includes Chess.com’s bot characters, with matching skill levels — I immediately recognized “Martin,” the lowest skill level bot from Chess.com, who is also the lowest skill level bot on Gambit.