The Birth of www.ChessTube.org or My Dad's Obsession

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 03/04/2009 12:27:57

The Birth of www.ChessTube.org or My Dad's Obsession
By: Aviv M. Caspi, Bellevue, WA 4/2009

“Can you believe I can’t find one?” my father asked as he stepped into my room. It was 11:00 and, as I struggled to catch up on all my homework before salvaging a few hours of sleep, my dad had been busy searching for a way to share my chess games online with my friends and coach. My dad suffered under the delusion that I think we all feel: that the Internet has everything possibly needed and can solve every problem.

We had just returned from the 2008 High School National Chess Championship in Dallas and my dad, ever the time-saver, wanted a way to put my games online so that my coach could look at them before my next lesson. He sought a little applet where he could play out the games that I had played at Nationals and have the site convert the file into common chess notation, or PGN. When he couldn’t find such a site Lior Caspi was astounded.

After two weeks of searching, the unbelievable conclusion that such a site did not exist sank in. Millions of domains, thousands of websites, hundreds of sites related to chess and no way of sharing games? So, instead of saying “That’s too bad” and emailing my coach the moves I made, he began exploring ways of creating his own site that would fit his needs. I was adamantly against the idea since it wasn’t absolutely necessary and he already controlled two other sites: a homepage for my family and www.myretirementday.com (a sort of retirement calculator where future retirees can input information about their age, salary, assets, and wanted amount to live on when retired in order to receive information about how to “bridge the financial gap” between where they are and where they want to end up).

However, my dad did not even consider the option of not trying, so he looked around for a way to create the interactive applet. My dad utilized a little-known site called www.rentacoder.com, a sort of eBay for programming jobs. The way I understand it, any prospective user makes an account and creates an explanation for the job they want performed, as well as a price they are willing to pay. Then, coders from around the world bid on the project with the minimum price that they would complete the requirements for. Within a couple of days, a coder from Buenos Aires, Argentina bid on the project and got started. After two months of one-line, pessimistic, weekly reports from the coder, my dad asked for a model. The coder refused. Emails went back and forth until finally, four months after the project was created, the coder sent him a screenshot of a chess board. Obviously, my dad was extremely disappointed and angry, so he pulled the money out of escrow, where it had been untouched, and looked for a new coder.

Despite the setback, Lior worked with his friend and frequent squash partner, Bob Lockwood, to set up the website, forum, and logo. Every night, oblivious to the mountains of homework that I was trying to complete, my dad would rush into my room, sit on my bed behind me, and excitedly explain his new idea of the day. Although I was stressed and tired, I had to admit the creative ideas my dad concocted were useful, needed, and surprisingly easy to integrate.

A HVACs technician who goes by the name of Nomadfeetproduction finally responded to the offer and insisted on creating the system from scratch, as opposed to using an open-source, existing applet. During this time I got countless lectures about JavaScript, programming, and the different ideas that my dad was considering incorporating into his site every time we were outside taking the dog out, driving, or eating. One of the improvements that my dad is very proud of is his modeling of www.YouTube.com both in the site’s name, and in the unique URLs of each game, allowing users to send links of their games to non-members. Within two weeks of making the agreement with Nomadfeet, my dad received a working prototype fitted with all the rules and limitations of competitive chess. That night my dad was literally prancing around the kitchen screaming his excitement, not a toddler with a new toy, but a toddler with an unlimited gift card to Toys-R-Us.
One month of hundreds of emails and limitless upgrades later, a near-perfect applet launched on a new website, www.chesstube.org, along with a diverse forum, comprehensive set of links, sophisticated and free registration process, and daily chess puzzle.

So, one year after the idea hatched, as I wait for my flight to the 2009 Supernationals Chess Championship in Nashville, Tennessee, my dad is carrying not only a deep pride at having his design become a reality, but a heavy stack of ChessTube business cards, pamphlets, and t-shirts!

A site was born.