My 12 year old son loves playing chess and was having the best time learning the game on chess.com. We bought him a diamond membership to get the analysis and help him improve his game further. He absolutely loved this feature and he was quickly improving his game. A few months in, he was upset to receive a ban for fair play breaches. Fair play bots had decided that he was not meeting fair play guidelines. We appealed the ban and they set up a new account for him. We asked for an explanation as to why his account was flagged and no explanation was forthcoming. Maybe his game was improving too quickly? Maybe his game play was sometimes more erratic than you might see in an adult player? A couple of months later and the same thing happened again. His account was closed this time with no email or warning from chess.com. He loves his chess so this was upsetting and frustrating. I’ve emailed chess.comtwice now to understand the reason for the bans, but no response has been forthcoming. And no refund has been offered either. It’s such a shame that a site that has the potential to be brilliant is plagued by faulty ‘fair play’ bots. When they’re rooting out genuine players, the rogue bots need banning rather than the players! The chess.com premium membership business model will soon burn out as genuine top class players get tired with the constant bans. Chess.com takes the fun out of the game.
