Chess.com is an

internet chess server An Internet chess server (ICS) is an external server that provides the facility to play, discuss, and view the board game of chess over the Internet. The term specifically refers to facilities for connecting players through a variety of graphical c ...

news website An online newspaper (or electronic news or electronic news publication) is the online version of a newspaper, either as a stand-alone publication or as the online version of a printed periodical. Going online created more opportunities for newspa ...

and

social networking website A social networking service or SNS (sometimes called a social networking site) is an online platform which people use to build social networks or social relationships with other people who share similar personal or career content, interests, act ...

. The site has a freemium model in which some features are available for free, and others are available for accounts with subscriptions. Live

online chess Online chess is chess that is played over the Internet, allowing players to play against each other in real time. This is done through the use of Internet chess servers, which often include a system to pair up individual players based on their rat ...

can be played against other users in

daily Daily or The Daily may refer to: Journalism * Daily newspaper, newspaper issued on five to seven day of most weeks * ''The Daily'' (podcast), a podcast by ''The New York Times'' * ''The Daily'' (News Corporation), a defunct US-based iPad new ...

, rapid,

blitz Blitz, German for "lightning", may refer to: Military uses *Blitzkrieg, blitz campaign, or blitz, a type of military campaign *The Blitz, the German aerial campaign against Britain in the Second World War *, an Imperial German Navy light cruiser b ...

or bullet

time control A time control is a mechanism in the tournament play of almost all two-player board games so that each round of the match can finish in a timely way and the tournament can proceed. Time controls are typically enforced by means of a game cloc ...

s, with a number of chess variants also available. Chess versus a

chess engine In computer chess, a chess engine is a computer program that analyzes chess or chess variant positions, and generates a move or list of moves that it regards as strongest. A chess engine is usually a back end with a command-line interface wit ...

, computer analysis,

chess puzzle A chess puzzle is a puzzle in which knowledge of the pieces and rules of chess is used to solve logically a chess-related problem. The history of chess puzzles reaches back to the Middle Ages and has evolved since then. Usually the goal is to f ...

s and teaching resources are also offered. One of the largest

chess Chess is a board game for two players, called White and Black, each controlling an army of chess pieces in their color, with the objective to checkmate the opponent's king. It is sometimes called international chess or Western chess to dist ...

platforms in the world, Chess.com has hosted online tournaments including Titled Tuesdays, the PRO Chess League, the Speed Chess Championships, PogChamps, and computer vs. computer events.

History

*1995: The domain Chess.com was originally set up by Aficionado, a company based in

Berkeley Berkeley most often refers to: *Berkeley, California, a city in the United States **University of California, Berkeley, a public university in Berkeley, California * George Berkeley (1685–1753), Anglo-Irish philosopher Berkeley may also refer ...

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

, to sell a piece of chess tutoring software called "Chess Mentor". *2005: Internet entrepreneur Erik Allebest and partner Jarom ("Jay") Severson bought the domain name and assembled a team of software developers to redevelop the site as a chess portal. *2007: The site was relaunched. The site was heavily promoted via

social media Social media are interactive media technologies that facilitate the creation and sharing of information, ideas, interests, and other forms of expression through virtual communities and networks. While challenges to the definition of ''social medi ...

. *2009: Chess.com announced a takeover of a similar chess social networking site, chesspark.com. Chesspark founders

Jack Moffitt Jack Moffitt is an American computer scientist, software developer and entrepreneur, living in Eden Prairie, Minnesota. Career He is a co-author of the GNU GPL licensed streaming media server, Icecast, and works on software using XMPP, JavaScrip ...

and Brian Zisk had moved to work on a web search startup. *October 2013: Chess.com acquired the Amsterdam-based chess news site chessvibes.com, which provided coverage for chess tournaments. It was founded and owned by Dutch chess journalist Peter Doggers in February 2006. *2014: The site announced that over a billion live games had been played on the site, including 100 million correspondence games. *January 2016: Chess.com announced "v3", the two-year overhaul of its previous interface. The site introduced new features including computer analysis of games, and the chess variants of

crazyhouse Crazyhouse (also known as drop chess, mad chess, reinforcement chess, turnabout chess and schizo-chess) is a chess variant in which captured enemy pieces can be reintroduced, or ''dropped'', into the game as one's own. The drop rule resembles th ...

three-check chess This is a list of chess variants. Many thousands of variants exist. The 2007 catalogue ''The Encyclopedia of Chess Variants'' estimates that there are well over 2,000, and many more were considered too trivial for inclusion in the catalogue. ...

king of the hill ''King of the Hill'' is an American animated sitcom created by Mike Judge and Greg Daniels for the Fox Broadcasting Company. It aired its original non-syndicated run from January 12, 1997, to September 13, 2009, and centers on the Hills, an Am ...

chess960 Fischer random chess, also known as Chess960 (often read in this context as 'chess nine-sixty' instead of 'chess nine hundred sixty'), is a variation of the game of chess invented by the former world chess champion Bobby Fischer. Fischer annou ...

and bughouse. *June 2017: The 2,147,483,647th (= 2³¹-1) game was played, which caused the

iOS iOS (formerly iPhone OS) is a mobile operating system created and developed by Apple Inc. exclusively for its hardware. It is the operating system that powers many of the company's mobile devices, including the iPhone; the term also include ...

app to stop working for those with 32-bit Apple devices. This occurred because of an

integer overflow In computer programming, an integer overflow occurs when an arithmetic operation attempts to create a numeric value that is outside of the range that can be represented with a given number of digits – either higher than the maximum or lower ...

problem whereby the number was too large to be represented in the number of storage

bit The bit is the most basic unit of information in computing and digital communications. The name is a portmanteau of binary digit. The bit represents a logical state with one of two possible values. These values are most commonly represente ...

s that were used. *May 2018: Chess.com announced that it had acquired the 3300+ Elo-rated commercial chess engine

Komodo Komodo may refer to: Computers * Komodo Edit, a free text editor for dynamic programming languages * Komodo IDE an integrated development environment (IDE) for dynamic programming languages * Komodo (chess), a chess engine People * Komodo ...

, then ranked 3rd behind Stockfish and

Houdini Harry Houdini (, born Erik Weisz; March 24, 1874 – October 31, 1926) was a Hungarian-American escape artist, magic man, and stunt performer, noted for his escape acts. His pseudonym is a reference to his spiritual master, French magician R ...

. In conjunction, the Komodo team announced the addition of the probabilistic method of

Monte Carlo tree search In computer science, Monte Carlo tree search (MCTS) is a heuristic search algorithm for some kinds of decision processes, most notably those employed in software that plays board games. In that context MCTS is used to solve the game tree. MCT ...

machine learning, the same methods used by the recent chess projects

AlphaZero AlphaZero is a computer program developed by artificial intelligence research company DeepMind to master the games of chess, shogi and go. This algorithm uses an approach similar to AlphaGo Zero. On December 5, 2017, the DeepMind team re ...

and

Leela Chess Zero Leela Chess Zero (abbreviated as LCZero, lc0) is a Free and open-source software, free, open-source, and deep neural network–based chess engine and volunteer computing project. Development has been spearheaded by programmer Gary Linscott, who ...

. *November 2020: Chess.com acquired the rights to broadcast the

World Chess Championship 2021 The World Chess Championship 2021 was a chess match between the reigning world champion Magnus Carlsen and the challenger Ian Nepomniachtchi to determine the World Chess Champion. It was held under the auspices of FIDE and played during Expo 202 ...

, which is broadcast on live streaming platform

Twitch Twitch may refer to: Biology * Muscle contraction ** Convulsion, rapid and repeated muscle contraction and relaxation ** Fasciculation, a small, local, involuntary muscle contraction ** Myoclonic twitch, a jerk usually caused by sudden muscle co ...

. *April 2022: After publishing two articles that were critical of the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, and replacing Russian flags with a link to one of these articles, Chess.com was blocked in Russia. The site had blocked

Sergey Karjakin Sergey Alexandrovich Karjakin, . (born 12 January 1990) is a Russian chess grandmaster (formerly representing Ukraine). A chess prodigy, he previously held the record for the world's youngest ever grandmaster, (until it was eventually taken ...

over his support for the invasion, and Karjakin in turn supported Russia's block of the website. *September 2022: A controversy erupted around cheating in professional chess games, including accusations by grandmaster

Magnus Carlsen Sven Magnus Øen Carlsen (born 30 November 1990) is a Norwegian chess grandmaster who is the reigning five-time World Chess Champion. He is also a three-time World Rapid Chess Champion and five-time World Blitz Chess Champion. Carlsen has h ...

against

Hans Niemann Hans Moke Niemann (born June 20, 2003) is an American chess grandmaster and Twitch streamer. He was awarded the Grandmaster title by FIDE on January 22, 2021. In July 2021, he won the World Open chess tournament in Philadelphia. Niemann first ...

. Leaked emails revealed that some people cheated on the Chess.com platform in games involving prize money and that Chess.com removed some players' accounts, including grandmaster

Maxim Dlugy Maxim Alexandrovich Dlugy (born January 29, 1966) is an American chess player with the FIDE title of Grandmaster. He was born in Moscow, USSR, and arrived with his family in the United States in 1977. He was awarded the International Master t ...

, who had been found to be cheating. *November 2022: The Chess.com Global Championship was inaugurated with a $1,000,000 prize pool. 8 players that advanced from the CGC Knockout competed for a $500,000 total prize fund and Global Champion title in the finals taking place in

Toronto, Canada Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the ancho ...

Wesley So Wesley Barbossa So (born October 9, 1993) is a Filipino and American chess grandmaster and 3-time U.S. Chess Champion (in 2017, 2020, and 2021). He is also a three-time Philippine Chess Champion. On the March 2017 FIDE rating list, he was ran ...

became the first Chess.com Global Champion, defeating

Nihal Sarin Nihal Sarin (born 13 July 2004) is an Indian chess player and chess prodigy. He achieved the title of Grandmaster at age 14. In 2018, he passed the Elo rating of 2600 at 14 years old, which at the time made him the third youngest player in hi ...

in the finals with a match score of 4.5-1.5. *December 2022: Chess.com is announced to have over 100,000,000 members.

Features

Chess.com operates a freemium business model: main site features are free but others are limited or unavailable in some respects until a subscription is paid. Visitors to the site can play on a live

chess server An Internet chess server (ICS) is an external server that provides the facility to play, discuss, and view the board game of chess over the Internet. The term specifically refers to facilities for connecting players through a variety of graphical ...

and correspondence style games, called "daily chess" on the site. Players may also play against

chess engines In computer chess, a chess engine is a computer program that analyzes chess or chess variant positions, and generates a move or list of moves that it regards as strongest. A chess engine is usually a back end with a command-line interface wit ...

( computer chess), and participate in what the site calls "vote chess", in which players form teams and vote on the best move. Additional features include

tactics Tactic(s) or Tactical may refer to: * Tactic (method), a conceptual action implemented as one or more specific tasks ** Military tactics, the disposition and maneuver of units on a particular sea or battlefield ** Chess tactics ** Political tact ...

training, puzzle rush, chess forums, articles, videos, lessons, chess news, downloads, opening databases, groups, live broadcasts, daily

puzzles A puzzle is a game, problem, or toy that tests a person's ingenuity or knowledge. In a puzzle, the solver is expected to put pieces together ( or take them apart) in a logical way, in order to arrive at the correct or fun solution of the puzzle ...

, team matches, online coaching and a game database of over 2 million games. The company publishes a large number of articles on a variety of chess-related topics, including

chess strategy Chess strategy is the aspect of chess play concerned with evaluation of chess positions and setting of goals and long-term plans for future play. While evaluating a position strategically, a player must take into account such factors as the rela ...

, opening theory and history. Regular contributors include

Gregory Serper Gregory Serper (russian: Григорий Юрьевич Серпер, translit=Grigory Yurievich Serper; born September 14, 1969) is a chess grandmaster. He was born in Tashkent, in the former Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic of the Soviet Union ...

, Bruce Pandolfini,

Sam Shankland Samuel L. Shankland (born October 1, 1991) is an American chess grandmaster. He won the U.S. Chess Championship in 2018. Shankland was California State Champion in 2008, 2009, 2011 and 2012, and Champion of State Champions in 2009. He won bron ...

Dan Heisman Dan Heisman (born July 8, 1950) is a United States Chess Federation National Master, author and instructor. Education Heisman graduated from Hatboro-Horsham High School in Pennsylvania as the co-valedictorian in 1968, and was elected to the scho ...

, Jeremy Silman, Simon Williams,

Daniel Naroditsky Daniel Naroditsky (born ), also known as Danya, is an American chess grandmaster, author, and commentator. He published his first chess book at age 14. Chess career Born in San Mateo, California, Naroditsky learned chess at age six from ...

Natalia Pogonina Natalia Andreevna Pogonina (russian: Ната́лья Андре́евна Пого́нина; born 9 March 1985) is a Russian chess player who holds the FIDE title of Woman Grandmaster (WGM). She is the runner-up of the Women's World Chess Ch ...

and

Daniel Rensch Daniel Rensch (born October 10, 1985) is an American chess player, International Master, event organizer, lecturer and commentator. He holds the Arizona state record for youngest national master, at the age of 14. He is the president of American ...

. Users can play a number of variants on the live server, including

, three-check, four-player,

, atomic, racing kings and bughouse. Chess.com has a policy against the use of chess engines in all forms of the game, except where "specifically permitted (such as a computer tournament)". It utilizes algorithms and statistical data to catch players using engines in games and bans many on a daily basis, and employs six moderators to prevent cheating.

Subsidiary companies

ChessKid.com

Chess.com also runs the subsidiary site chesskid.com for chess players of all ages. ChessKid focuses on a child-friendly environment aimed towards chess improvement for beginners to club players. It also has a guardianship program in which parents and authorized coaches can overlook the child's progress over time, to see statistics about their progress in tactics or how many videos they watched so that they can give encouragement and tips on how to improve. ChessKid features no advertising. ChessKid.com has run a yearly online championship called CONIC (the ChessKid Online National Invitational Championship), since 2012 which is recognized by the

United States Chess Federation The United States Chess Federation (also known as US Chess or USCF) is the governing body for chess competition in the United States and represents the U.S. in FIDE, the World Chess Federation. US Chess administers the official national rating ...

. According to David Petty, the event organizer in 2013, ChessKid has made agreements and partnerships with chess associations to bring the educational benefit of chess to children in schools. In 2014, for a trial period, all signups to the ICA (Illinois Chess Association) included a free gold member subscription to ChessKid. They also have a long-term partnership with the NTCA (North Texas Chess Academy) which gives children access to online instructors.

Play Magnus Group

In August 2022, the

Play Magnus Group Play Magnus Group is a Norwegian chess company co-founded by chess grandmaster Magnus Carlsen in 2013. The company released the mobile app ''Play Magnus (mobile app), Play Magnus'' in 2014, before merging with chess24 in 2019 and being acquired by ...

accepted an offer to be acquired by Chess.com at a value of 800 million kr (US$80 million). The Play Magnus Group owns brands and businesses including the chess server chess24, the mobile app '' Play Magnus'', the

Champions Chess Tour A champion (from the late Latin ''campio'') is the Victory, victor in a challenge, Competition, contest or competition. There can be a territorial pyramid of championships, e.g. local, regional / provincial, state, national, continental and w ...

, and the chess improvement website Chessable. On December 16, 2022, the acquisition was officially closed. According to ''

Dot Esports The GAMURS Group, simply known as Gamurs, is an esports media and entertainment publisher. Established in December 2014, the group operates multiple brands focusing on the esports and entertainment news markets, including the websites: ''Dot Espo ...

'', the Play Magnus Group was unable to make a "sustainable profit" on anything but Chessable, and the merge left "no other realistic chess competitor" except the free, open-source

Lichess Lichess (; ) is a free and open-source Internet chess server run by a non-profit organization of the same name. Users of the site can play online chess anonymously and optionally register an account to play rated games. Lichess is ad-free and al ...

Tournaments and events

Speed Chess Championships

Chess.com has held the Speed Chess Championship annually since 2016, involving a single-elimination tournament featuring some of the world's best players. Nakamura has won five championships, while Carlsen has won two.

US Chess League

The USCL was a nationwide national chess league in the United States between 2005 and 2016. Chess.com hosted the event in 2013.

PRO Chess League

The PRO Chess League was the result of the US Chess League changing its name and format, with faster time controls and a focus on the flexibility of forming and managing teams. Chess.com has hosted the PCL twice starting in 2017, having a regular and a summer series.

Titled Tuesdays

Titled Tuesday is a 11-round

Swiss-system A Swiss-system tournament is a non-eliminating tournament format that features a fixed number of rounds of competition, but considerably fewer than for a round-robin tournament; thus each competitor (team or individual) does not play all the other ...

3+1

blitz chess Fast chess, also known as Speed chess, is a type of chess in which each player is given less time to consider their moves than normal tournament time controls allow. Fast chess is subdivided, by decreasing time controls, into rapid chess, blit ...

tournament held on every Tuesday. Grandmaster participants include

Hikaru Nakamura Christopher Hikaru NakamuraMaxime Vachier-Lagrave Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (; born 21 October 1990), often referred to by his initials, MVL, is a French chess grandmaster who is the reigning World Blitz Chess Champion. With a peak rating of 2819, Vachier-Lagrave is the seventh-highest ...

Alexander Grischuk Alexander Igorevich Grischuk (born October 31, 1983) is a Russian chess grandmaster. Grischuk was the Russian champion in 2009. He is also a three-time world blitz chess champion (in 2006, 2012 and 2015). He has competed in five Candidates ...

Dmitry Andreikin Dmitry Vladimirovich Andreikin (russian: Дмитрий Владимирович Андрейкин, born 5 February 1990) is a Russian chess grandmaster, World Junior Chess Champion in 2010 and two-time Russian Chess Champion (2012 and 2018 ...

, and

Fabiano Caruana Fabiano Luigi Caruana (born July 30, 1992) is an American chess grandmaster. A chess prodigy, Caruana became a grandmaster at the age of 14 years, 11 months, and 20 days—the youngest grandmaster in the history of both Italy and the United Sta ...

. The first event was held on October 28, 2014, with a prize fund of $500 and was won by

Baadur Jobava Baadur Jobava ( ka, ბაადურ ჯობავა; born 26 November 1983) is a Georgian chess grandmaster and three-time Georgian champion (2003, 2007, 2012). He competed in the FIDE World Chess Championship in 2004 and in the FIDE Wor ...

. The prize fund was gradually upgraded to $5000 per week. GM

Hikaru Nakamura Christopher Hikaru NakamuraDmitry Andreikin Dmitry Vladimirovich Andreikin (russian: Дмитрий Владимирович Андрейкин, born 5 February 1990) is a Russian chess grandmaster, World Junior Chess Champion in 2010 and two-time Russian Chess Champion (2012 and 2018 ...

and

Jeffery Xiong Jeffery Xiong (born October 30, 2000) is an American chess prodigy. He earned the Grandmaster title in September 2015 at the age of fourteen, the fourth youngest player to qualify in the US. Chess career Xiong was aged seven when he played in ...

with 9, Magnus Carlsen has won three of the events in which he has partaken as of 2017. In June 2018, Chess.com held a special version of the tournament for which the winner would go on to participate in the Isle of Man International which had a prize fund of £144,000. Iranian GM Pouria Darini won the event.

Death Matches

Death Matches were introduced in January 2012. They feature titled players taking part in a series of blitz games over a non-stop 3-hour period (5-minute, 3-minute and 1-minute, all with a one-second increment). There have been 38 deathmatches, participants including the grandmasters

Maxime Vachier-Lagrave Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (; born 21 October 1990), often referred to by his initials, MVL, is a French chess grandmaster who is the reigning World Blitz Chess Champion. With a peak rating of 2819, Vachier-Lagrave is the seventh-highest ...

Lê Quang Liêm Lê Quang Liêm (born 13 March 1991) is a Vietnamese chess grandmaster, the top-ranked of his country. He was awarded the title of Grandmaster by FIDE in 2006. Liêm is the current Asian champion and was the World Blitz Chess Champion in 2013. ...

Judit Polgár Judit Polgár (born 23 July 1976) is a Hungarian chess grandmaster, generally considered the strongest female chess player of all time. In 1991, Polgár achieved the title of Grandmaster at the age of 15 years and 4 months, at the time the yo ...

and

Nigel Short Nigel David Short (born 1 June 1965) is an English chess grandmaster, columnist, coach, and commentator, who is the vice-president of FIDE since October 2018. Short earned the Grandmaster title at the age of 19, and was ranked third in the ...

Chess.com Computer Chess Championship

In November 2017, Chess.com held an open tournament, called the Chess.com Computer Chess Championship (CCCC, later CCC), with the ten strongest chess engines, with $2,500 in prize money. The top-two engines competed in a "Superfinale" tournament between the two finalists - Stockfish and

. In the 20-game Superfinal, Stockfish won over Houdini with a score 10.5-9.5. Five games were decisive, with 15 ending in a draw. Of the decisive games, three games were won by Stockfish, and two by Houdini. In August 2018, the site announced that the Chess.com Computer Chess Championship has returned, this time as a non-stop tournament for chess engines.

PogChamps

Chess.com has hosted PogChamps, an amateur online tournament featuring

streamers, since 2020. The first PogChamps featured notable streamers including xQcOW, MoistCr1TiKaL,

Ludwig Ahgren Ludwig Anders Ahgren (born July 6, 1995), known :wikt:mononym, mononymously as Ludwig, is an American Online streamer, live streamer, YouTuber, podcaster, Sports commentator#Esports, esports commentator and Super Smash Bros. in esports, compet ...

, and forsen. Notable new participants from PogChamps 2 included itsHafu and

Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson (; transliterated as Hafthor in English, born 26 November 1988), is an Icelandic professional strongman, who is widely regarded as one of the greatest strength athletes of all time. He is the first and only person ...

. PogChamps 3, beginning in February 2021, debuted with a wider range of Internet personalities and celebrities, with new competitors including

MrBeast Jimmy Donaldson (born May 7, 1998), better known as MrBeast, is an American YouTube personality, credited with pioneering a genre of YouTube videos that centers on expensive stunts. His MrBeast YouTube channel had 112.2 million subscribers a ...

, Neekolul, Myth,

Pokimane Imane Anys (; Arabic: إِيمَان أَنِيس, born 14 May 1996), better known as Pokimane ( or ), is a Moroccan-Canadian Twitch streamer and YouTuber. She is best known for her live streams on Twitch, broadcasting video game content, mos ...

, actor

Rainn Wilson Rainn Percival Dietrich Wilson (born January 20, 1966) is an American actor, comedian, podcaster, producer, and writer. He is best known for his role as Dwight Schrute on the NBC sitcom ''The Office'', for which he earned three consecutive Em ...

, and rapper

Logic Logic is the study of correct reasoning. It includes both formal and informal logic. Formal logic is the science of deductively valid inferences or of logical truths. It is a formal science investigating how conclusions follow from premises ...

References

External links

*
ChessKid.com
{{Chess, state=collapsed 2007 establishments in the United States American social networking websites Android (operating system) software Chess databases Chess in the United States Companies based in Orange County, California Internet chess servers Internet properties established in 2007 Multilingual websites Online video game services