A problem with complete data, no brute force and an honest metric at the end
Analysts, data scientists, ML engineers, mathematicians and everyone else who earns a living by calculating. An evening where the data is complete, there is nothing to re-query, and the result is measured by a rating a physicist invented.
There are two ways in. Come along on your own - to an ordinary club night, where games are already going. Book your own tournament - a private one: for your department, your community, a conference, or as a match against a team from another company.
No open tournament yet · private ones on request
We have not scheduled an open tournament for analysts yet, and we are not going to make up a date: the schedule lives in the app, and when one is announced it will appear there. What we can put together at any time is a private tournament for your team or community - no need to wait for the general schedule. And if you just want to play, you can already: the club runs regular chess evenings in Moscow.
People who calculate all day are usually offered an evening of not calculating. We offer the opposite - a problem built the way work problems almost never are.
Shannon put the game tree at 10^120 variations - too many to compute for you or for a machine. You end up doing what is usually called intuition, which is really a heuristic grown out of experience.
No follow-up query, no fresh export, no clarifying call with the stakeholder. Everything you have is on the board, and the decision is made from that.
No interpreting the result: points, tie-breaks and rating follow a rule known in advance and applied the same way to everyone.
We are not going to promise that chess will improve your models or level up your “analytical thinking” - there is nothing to back that up. We promise exactly what happens: a few games, real people and an evening you will not want to leave after half an hour.
Claude Shannon's estimate of the game tree, from his 1950 paper - the reason chess cannot be solved by brute force
The year FIDE adopted Arpad Elo's rating - a statistical model designed by a physicist, not a chess player
The maximum number of legal moves in a single position: that is the count in a specially constructed setup
Every game hands out exactly one point: a draw is 0.5 + 0.5, a win 1 + 0. A zero-sum game in the literal sense
If you want to understand the arithmetic of a tournament before you come: how the Elo rating is calculated, the Buchholz score, average rating of opponents, performance rating.
Product and systems analysts · BI · data researchers
ML engineers · data scientists · people who build models and run experiments
Mathematicians · physicists · statisticians · researchers and PhD students
Actuaries · quantitative researchers · lecturers · olympiad alumni
Nobody asks about your field at the door. At the board, knowing statistics will not help you anyway.
Three kinds of people end up side by side at an evening: those who play every day, those who last played at a school olympiad, and those who open a chess app over lunch. All three go home happy, and here is why.
Pairings follow the Swiss system: after the first round you are matched with people of your own level and from then on you only play them. Beginners do not get crushed, and strong players do not get bored.
The only requirement is knowing how the pieces move. If you are rusty: how the pieces move, the rules of chess, tactics for beginners.
Pick your city, see what is on and sign up in two taps. No questionnaire, no rating required.
On your own or with colleagues. Boards and clocks are ours, and you do not need to know anyone in advance.
Several rounds of blitz on the Swiss system. The app picks your opponent by strength, not alphabetically.
Points, Buchholz, average rating of opponents - all calculated automatically and in the open, so you can check any row.
Pairings, rounds and standings are handled by the Vibe Chess app, using the bbpPairings engine under FIDE rules. How the system works - the Swiss system.
A rare case where the input is guaranteed complete and there is nobody to argue with about data quality.
Not next quarter and not after the experiment rolls out: your hypothesis is tested by the end of the game.
Your rating goes up or down by a rule, not by someone's opinion. It is nice to be on the receiving end of a good model for once.
Your opponent makes mistakes, rushes and bluffs - exactly what an engine lacks and what work is short of.
A reason to pull the analytics team out of their calls that does not feel like mandatory team building.
A first place and a club rating that carries on between evenings.
No need to wait for the general schedule. We put together a private tournament for a specific department, community or conference: we arrive with boards and clocks, host the evening and handle the pairings and standings. You provide the people, the room and the date.
A private evening for the analytics team, the data office or the whole product group. From eight people to a hundred.
Your team against a team from another company or the department next door. The score is the sum of the games on every board.
A tournament for a professional community, a meetup or a university department: a ready-made evening programme you do not have to run yourselves.
A chess area at an industry conference or an open day - instead of a stand handing out merch.
We reply the same day and tell you what we need from you and what it costs for your headcount.
A separate format: two teams sit down opposite each other. Two data offices, analytics vs engineering, or one university department against another - a match with a team score and a winner.
We balance the line-ups by strength so the match is not over by move three. As a bonus you get the only sample that finally settles the “which of us is smarter” argument - even if it is not a representative one.
We can also help you find the other team - just tell us you are ready.
Set up a match between teamsA tournament as part of a corporate event - corporate tournaments. Tournaments between companies in one sector - industry tournaments. The same format for other professions - for programmers, for doctors, for finance professionals, for entrepreneurs, for lawyers, for engineers, for economists, for dentists, for architects and designers, for academics and teachers, for marketers.
Yes, and most people are in the same boat. Knowing how the pieces move is enough. The Swiss system pairs you with players of your own level from the second round on, so lopsided games are rare.
No. No rating, no title and no tournament experience is required. Your club rating appears by itself after your first game.
With the Elo model: the expected score comes from the rating difference, and the change comes from the difference between your actual and expected result. There is a detailed breakdown with the formula on a separate page, linked below.
By tie-breaks - first of all Buchholz, which is the sum of your opponents' scores. The app does the calculation, and any row of the standings can be checked by hand.
Yes, that is how most people come. Over the evening you will play several people and talk to them just along the way.
Yes. The team plays inside the general tournament, and the results can be counted separately. If you want a private tournament just for your own people, that is a different format: message us.
Usually two to two and a half hours of play. A blitz game takes about ten minutes, and there are five to seven rounds.
The same point as running when cars exist. You are playing a person who also gets tired, rushes and makes mistakes, and that is exactly what makes it interesting.
No date has been set yet. The schedule lives in the app: open it, pick your city and you will see the club's upcoming evenings, and when an industry tournament is announced it will appear there too. You can come to an ordinary club night right now.
Nothing. We bring the boards, clocks and scoresheets. The app for pairings and standings is free, and you do not have to install it in advance.
Complete data, an honest metric, two hours
There is no date yet for an open tournament for analysts, and we are not inventing one. Open the app: it has the schedule of upcoming evenings, and the industry tournament will appear there too. A private one for your team we can put together at any time.
♟ playvibechess.com/app
