Chess.com said it reached 100 million users on December 16, 2022,[5] and has about 11 million daily active users as of April 2023.[6] Chess.com has hosted online tournaments including Titled Tuesdays, the PRO Chess League, the Speed Chess Championships, PogChamps, Online Chess Olympiads and computer vs. computer events.
History
Founding
The domain Chess.com was set up in 1995 by Aficionado, a company based in Berkeley, California, to sell Chess Mentor, a chess-tutoring app.[7] In 2005, Internet entrepreneur Erik Allebest and partner Jarom "Jay" Severson, who met as undergraduate students at Brigham Young University, bought the domain name and assembled a team of software developers to redevelop the site as a chess portal.[8] The site was relaunched in 2007 with heavy campaigning and promotion on social media.[3]
Two years later, Chess.com acquired a similar chess social networking site, chesspark.com.[9] In October 2013, it acquired the Amsterdam-based chessvibes.com,[10] a chess news site founded and operated by Dutch chess journalist Peter Doggers. Chessvibes continued to cover chess tournaments in a digital setting.[11][12]
Growth in the 2010s
In 2014, the site announced that over a billion live games had been played on the site, including 100 million correspondence games.[13] In January 2016, Chess.com announced a two-year overhaul of its "v3" interface.[14] The site introduced features including computer analysis of games, and the chess variants of crazyhouse, three-check chess, king of the hill, chess960, atomic and bughouse.[14] In June 2017, the 2,147,483,647th (231-1) game was played. This caused the app to stop working on 32-bit Apple iOS devices because the number was too large to be represented in device storage.[15][16]
In response to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Chess.com published two articles that were critical of the invasion and replaced Russian and Belarusian flags with grey flags that linked to these articles. In retaliation, Chess.com was blocked in Russia. The site blocked Sergey Karjakin, Russian (formerly Ukrainian) grandmaster, over his support for the invasion, and Karjakin in turn supported Russia's block of the website.[20][21][22][23]
In September 2022, Chess.com was caught in a controversy regarding cheating in professional chess games. A controversy erupted with accusations by grandmaster Magnus Carlsen against Hans Niemann.[24][25] 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, who had been found to be cheating.[26] In August 2023, a US District Court judge dismissed the lawsuit filed by Niemann.[27]
Chess.com Global Championship
In November 2022, The Chess.com Global Championship was inaugurated with a $1,000,000 prize pool.[28] 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. Wesley So became the first Chess.com Global Champion, defeating Nihal Sarin in the finals with a match score of 4.5–1.5.[29]
Chess.com runs the subsidiary site ChessKid.com for chess players that are under the minimum age requirement for Chess.com.[30]
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.[31][32] According to David Petty, the event organizer in 2013, ChessKid has made agreements and partnerships with chess associations in schools. In 2014, for a trial period.[30] They have a long-term partnership with the NTCA (North Texas Chess Academy) which gives children access to online instructors.[33]
Play Magnus Group
In August 2022, the Play Magnus Group 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, and the chess improvement website Chessable. On December 16, 2022, the acquisition was officially closed.[34][35] According to Dot Esports, 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.[36]
Tournaments and events
Speed Chess Championship
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 four.[37]
Tournament formula
The most important elements of the tournament formula:[38]
16-player single-elimination bracket
Matches consist of three segments: 90 minutes of 5+1, 60 minutes of 3+1, and 30 minutes of 1+1.
The player with the most cumulative points at the end of the match wins.
Games that start before the time for a segment runs out count toward the final score.
Players can resign from the match within the last 10 minutes of the 1+1 segment, with the player's win percentage being capped at 35%.
In case of equal number of points - tiebreaks:
A four-game 1+1 match.
A single bidding armageddon game with a base time of 5 minutes.
The tournament starts on January 1 and, depending on the number of participants, consists of 4 or 5 rounds.[a] All players are divided into groups (up to 12 people [b]), and only the winners advance to the next round. [c] Players play in each round a maximum of 22 games simultaneously (with each opponent as White and Black), with a maximum of one day allocated for each move. So it can be considered a form of correspondence chess. The winner of the Championship is the player who accumulates the most points in the final round.
Titled Tuesday is an 11-round Swiss-system 3+1 blitz chess tournament held twice every Tuesday where all entrants must have a chess title and their full legal name displayed on their Chess.com account.[61] The event started as a monthly 9 round tournament. The first edition was held on October 28, 2014 with a total prize fund of $1000, including $500 for first place, and was won by Baadur Jobava.[62] It became a weekly event on April 7, 2020, permanently became 11 rounds on October 20, 2020, and on February 1, 2022, the prize fund went from $1600 to $2500, with $1000 for first place, and two events began to be held every week instead of one.[63] As of August 28, 2024, GM Hikaru Nakamura has the most tournament wins since October 2020 with 77, followed by GM Magnus Carlsen with 20, and GM Dmitry Andreikin with 17. Other super grandmaster winners include Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Alexander Grischuk, Alireza Firouzja, Wesley So, Ian Nepomniachtchi, and Fabiano Caruana.[61]
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.[64] Iranian GM Pouria Darini won the event.[65]
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 "Superfinal" tournament between the two finalists – Stockfish and Houdini. 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.[68][69]
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.[70][71]
^Since 2020, due to the steadily growing number of players, a 5-round format is necessary.
^If the number of all players in a given round is not divisible by 12, smaller groups are created. In case all groups cannot be of the same size, players with the highest rankings go to smaller groups.
^In case of equal points, all winners in the group advance.
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