Padel Chess – tactical simulator for padel(padelchess.me)
73 points by AlexGerasim 5 days ago | 50 comments
- MouadNos 1 day agoOk that's actually not bad. I played padel a lot these last few months and I feel like i'm struggling with getting better because of my positioning.
Waiting on the IOS app
[-]- AlexGerasim 1 day agoYou can instal the web app to the home screen on IOS so far, it's similar experience. Let me know if you need a guidance to do that, it takes 1 minute.
- AlexGerasim 1 day agoThanks for the feedback, working on it.
- OJFord 1 day agoQuick feedback: I kept instinctively trying to press the A/B/C on the actual court(?) even after realising it's at the bottom on the first one.
I would suggest either making those clickable, or styled less like buttons somehow, so they don't have such an affordance for being the thing to press.
[-]- AlexGerasim 1 day agoThanks for the feedback! The buttons on the actual court should also be clickable, doesn't it work for you? If so can you please tell me your device / OS you're testing it on?[-]
- OJFord 1 day agoOh, nice then, very intuitive. `:) Android (Pixel 10) in Firefox.[-]
- AlexGerasim 4 hours agoShould be fixed now (changed listeners from onTap to onPointerDown)
- AlexGerasim 1 day agoThanks for reporting, gonna test it on Androids more and will try find / fix the bug.
- rolymath 12 hours agoSame issue
Android pixel 9 on Brave
[-]- AlexGerasim 4 hours agoShould be fixed now (changed listeners from onTap to onPointerDown)
- AlexGerasim 5 hours agoGot it, thanks for reporting, working on the fix.
- zingar 1 day agoCan anyone explain to me why this sport is so popular that it’s taking over prime locations in expensive cities?[-]
- dandaka 1 day agoQuite a few reasons:
1/ Easy to start, hard to master.
2/ Good balance between being still athletic (you have to run), while not punish less-fit players a lot.
3/ Social component. In Portugal you must get a beer after each match. Suddenly you have 100+ friends and a shared interest.
4/ Full gradient between 'funny dumb ass game with friends with no experience' to 'professional competitive sport'. With a lot of options in between like beginners games, clubs events, amateur leagues and semi/pro tournaments.
5/ The game is more tactical, that athletic. After you get initial technical background, you start to play more 'chess' than 'overpower opponent' style.
6/ Good business. More people on less space = more revenue. More social = more spending in a bar. Coaching is more profitable as well (groups of 4).
7/ Open to all social groups. My wife is playing female-only tournaments. We play mixed tournaments together.
I play padel for 3 years, played tennis for year, tried squash and badminton.
[-]- AlexGerasim 1 day agoI can definitely relate to this!
- tambourineman88 1 day agoSimply put: it’s a very fun sport.
It’s doubles so you only need four people to play. The underarm serve gives it a very shallow learning curve so almost anybody can play. However, there is enough nuance to the game that there’s lots of tactics and skill to learn as you get better.
Also the app (Playtomic) for organising games works great.
We have indoor courts here in the UK where’s there’s not much else to do in the winter. It’s a lot easier to get four people together to play padel for 90 minutes than trying to get 10/12 together for a 5/6-a-side football match.
[-]- AlexGerasim 1 day agoYeah, it's addictive. I saw stats that 9 out of 10 people who played for the first time plays twice and more.
- ArekDymalski 1 day agoBesides being beginner friendly (forgiving mistakes), easy to learn and see the progress quickly (instant gratification, quick catch-up with friends who started earlier) the fact that it's not as physically exhausting as squash or tennis makes it attractive for many people.[-]
- AlexGerasim 1 day agoI see a lot of people transition from squash and tennis to padel nowadays and basically any racket sport experience helps it a lot.
- XCSme 1 day agoI tried it, it was fun to get started, but after 3-4 sessions, when you want to start getting good and learning stuff, it's not fun anymore.
I tried playing with Playtomic, with better players, and everyone expects to play the same, go and play at the net as that's the main goal, but I dislike staying close to the net and playing the reflex game, while trying to not get hit by the ball. I have a lot more fun playing back court, and volleying the ball, but apparently that's not the way to play this sport.
Also, the wall part of the game, once you play against better players, is not fun. Most of the balls go in the corner, and you have to wait for the ball/predict and avoid hitting the glass or hit from an uncomfortable position, which is not as fun as the open play game.
[-]- useftmly 1 day ago[dead]
- gus_massa 1 day agoI ussed to play it with friends. The big advantage to tennis is that the ball never gets too far away :)
- 1313ed01 1 day ago5+ years ago, perhaps? Almost all the places have closed down now here in Sweden. The bubble popped and now it's a joke and you see repurposed ex-padel buildings around every city. It's been years since I heard anyone talk about it other than to comment on how weird it was that it was so popular for a short time and then disappeared.[-]
- AlexGerasim 1 day agoWow, it's really surprising to hear that about Sweden. According to the FIP report there are 14,355 courts built in 2025 worldwide (39 courts per day!).
And Sweden seem to be way ahead than any other country in this padel mania and who knows, many same future is prepared for other countries soon.
But now in Portugal we see a different situation, a lot of clubs are 90% to 100% booked and new padel clubs still appear.
- dandaka 1 day agoDo you play padel in Sweden? There was a big oversupply of courts, powered by bad expectations and venture capital. Things have scaled down, but I heard it is still very popular. Am I wrong?
- zingar 1 day agoMy question was based on seeing courts springing up all over London recently.
- solids 1 day agoIt takes much less time to learn it at a playable level than tennis. In my opinion, learning tennis and being able to hit a powerful drive is much more rewarding, but nowadays people don’t want to “waste” time in improving technique.[-]
- mtlmtlmtlmtl 1 day agoTbf I haven't actually played much tennis, but I've watched plenty of it, and been playing padel for a couple years now. I would agree that tennis has a steeper learning curve, and is definitely more physically demanding. Besides the learning curve though, I'm not sure padel can be said to be any less technical than tennis, at higher levels. Padel seems to me to have a much bigger variety of shot types all requiring specific technique. And positioning is also much more fluid and complex than in tennis. Same thing for leg work.
To be clear I realise you were mostly talking about learning curve specifically; this is not an attempt at refuting what you said, just adding to the discussion.
- AlexGerasim 1 day agoAfter reaching a playable level people start to compete in tournaments and in competitive games on Playtomic and then the technique starts to matter, maybe a bit less than in tennis. There are still plenty of basic padel shots you have to spend 10-100s of hours to master with a coach to be able to compete on a higher ranking.
- moron4hire 1 day agoWait, is this like European pickleball or something?[-]
- ageitgey 1 day agoYes, or pickleball is American padel.
They are similar games and have similar advantages making them popular. But in general, padel is slightly more athletic/intense than pickleball.
[-]- zemvpferreira 1 day agoI don't mean to nitpick but really the only thing they have in common is a)rackets b)being played in pairs and c) being very popular at the moment. Padel is orders of magnitude richer and more complex than pickleball. Pickle is a lot of fun though.[-]
- bibabaloo 21 hours agoHaving played both there's a lot of overlap in the social side. You can find games with randoms or join social match plays with little friction. From what I've heard, it's not that easy with other racket sports like tennis.
I agree the skill gap is wider in padel, which can be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on who you want to play with.
- moron4hire 1 day agoSounds like a religious argument brewing
- jgalt212 1 day agoEvery time I'm playing pickleball on vacation with my younger children, I look over at Padel courts (if available) with envy. It seems both more fun and athletic, but still less challenging to pick up than tennis.[-]
- AlexGerasim 1 day agoAgreed, I think padel found a great balance between being accessible and athletic at the same time.
- victorbjorklund 1 day agoBubble. We had it a couple of years ago. Everything got converted to a paddle place. Then it popped and most closed down.[-]
- dandaka 1 day agoStill growing YoY even in the most saturated markets (Spain).
- m00dy 1 day agoyeah, it is getting popular everywhere.
- andrepd 1 day agoYuppies/expats love it, that's pretty much the reason.
- lightbulbish 1 day agoOnly played paddle twice but played a lot of badminton and would like to play more paddle.
Love the concept. Feedback: more explanations for beginners. I didnt know what ”mine’s up/ your’s up” means.
When you guess wrong, also show what the right answer would mean (lines, animation and explanation) Also more than 5 puzzles per day for free tier please. For me to even begin the habit i want to spend more than 2 minues a day here. After i feel i could convert. But i’m not paying for a habit i dont yet have and might not establish. Good luck with the product!
[-]- AlexGerasim 1 day agoThanks a lot for the feedback! I raised the limit from 5 to 10 free puzzles per day so far and I will consider alternative monetization models.
- lightbulbish 1 day agoThinking about it 2 second more. Maybe unlimited puzzles but you pay to see the animations of the solutions. That would be a nice and valuable upsell if i notice i come back a lot. The Paywall feels limiting to my habit enforcement, is the overall take.
- dandaka 1 day agoLove the design and implementation. Even small details like cage on side![-]
- AlexGerasim 1 day agoThanks a lot! Yeah, having some landmarks on the canvas helps to transfer the app's experience and concepts to a real padel court.
- bilsbie 1 day agoDid you make the graphics yourself or find them?[-]
- AlexGerasim 1 day agoYep, I made the sprite sheets etc by myself in Figma.
- bilsbie 1 day agoSomeone should make this for pickleball.[-]
- AlexGerasim 1 day agoI’d love to do it if I knew anything about pickleball tactics, but I don’t.[-]
- bilsbie 4 hours agoI’m mulling over a similar idea for pickleball. Not a puzzle though. Feel free to get in touch (email in profile).