Chess.com's poker platform introduces a skill-based rating system to shift focus from financial stakes to player ability, aiming to measure and value true skill rather than just bankroll size.
Allebest explains that Chess.com's new poker site, Gambit, applies a chess-like rating system to measure true player skill, aiming to make the rating as valuable and meaningful to players as the money itself. ✦ AI generated
Erik Allebest · No Priors · 2026-08-13 · original ↗
starts at this moment · 34:06
“How do you think about like how to design a rating system for poker when so much of it is interpersonal and uh also if you play poker for money?”
We're bringing the chess playbook, which is like poker for ratings. How good are you really? Not just can you buy the most chips or can you use a bot or, you know, can you steal the most money, whatever it is, but like how good are you really? ... I think people are going to care about it as much as money because it's a reflection of like the value and their skill as a player.
verbatim transcript · starts at 34:06
33:57Not that we're like, oh, we're now a games company, but a lot of us do love a lot of different games. Um, so even though chess is like, you know, 99.99% of what we do, uh, we recently launched Gambit at gambit.com, which is our poker um site, and you can play Gambit on your phone as well. But we're doing poker in a different way, too. We're bringing the
34:16chess playbook, which is like poker for ratings. How good are you really? Not just can you buy the most chips or can you use a bot or, you know, can you steal the most money, whatever it is, but like how good are you really? >> And we're going to roll out other games as well. U because we like the playbook of what we've done. So, we're cooking up
34:35a bunch of other classic games. Um, and we're going to be launching those out there. We have our take on how we feel like gaming should be done and can be done in like a pure and wholesome and great learning and educational way. So you'll see us rolling out more games in the future, but it doesn't it's a small team that's doing it. It doesn't really take away from our mission of chess. Um
34:54but we are we are branching out. >> Okay. I have two more questions for you about the future. >> Yeah. one for founders who are trying to figure out if they're like in the right market, in a niche market, too early or just, you know, wrong, right? Like how do you what what what wisdom do you have for folks thinking about those questions? Because you were um you know,
35:20when you did this, a lot of people told you it was uh it was too small. I think one of the curses of being a founder today is just how much like founder advice there is out there. >> Okay. >> You know, at the time when I was, you know, getting into doing this 20 20 years ago, the the playbook was like, you know, hire a technical founder from