Across the time Gukesh Dommaraju grew to become the youngest world champion in historical past of chess in December, Indian chess additionally made its mark elsewhere. On the favored Chess.com app, India overtook the USA because the “most energetic nation” on the platform, one other indicator that not simply the protagonists within the thick of motion, however spectators following it had been additionally overwhelmingly from India.
Proper after the three-week battle between Gukesh and Ding Liren in Singapore culminated with {the teenager} from Chennai turn out to be the second Indian to be topped the world champion after Viswanathan Anand, Chess.com noticed what it known as a “Gukesh wave”: for 3 straight days, the app hosted 17 million video games every day — the very best every day quantity in 2024 — at a fee of 15 extra video games beginning per second throughout peak hours.
Within the eye of this on-line chess storm was India. The world’s most populous nation presently has 19.5 million registrations, says Avadh Shah, who’s the India Director for Chess.com. He factors out that a median of 500k new customers obtain the app each month with 9 million month-to-month energetic customers and a million every day energetic customers on common.
The app — conceived within the USA in 2005 by two faculty associates Erik Allebest (who’s presently the CEO) and Jay Severson — was named by TIME Journal on its 2023 record of the 100 Most Influential Firms.
Simply how a lot affect the app wields within the sport grew to become obvious in December 2024, when the world of chess was virtually torn aside into two neat halves with among the world’s prime gamers like Magnus Carlsen and Hikaru Nakamura taking up the worldwide governing physique of chess, FIDE, over their participation within the Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour. Carlsen accused FIDE of threatening gamers who wished to play on the tour (an allegation strongly refuted by FIDE) whereas Nakamura admitted if he had to decide on between enjoying in FIDE occasions or enjoying on the Freestyle tour, he would secede from FIDE. When the eventual rapprochement between the feuding events was introduced on December 21, the Freestyle Chess Gamers Membership’s assertion talked about that Carlsen, Nakamura and Chess.com’s Chief Chess Officer Danny Rensch had performed a task in facilitating the settlement between the Freestyle Chess Gamers Membership and FIDE.
In contrast to different widespread one-sport information portals that exist in soccer or cricket, Chess.com has lengthy transcended being only a information portal or an app for chess fanatics to play the sport.
“Chess.com’s function is to serve the chess neighborhood at each stage. Whether or not it’s one of many world’s greatest gamers or somebody simply discovering the sport, we need to create a welcoming area for everybody,” Rensch informed The Indian Specific. “Rising chess isn’t nearly operating the largest chess website — it’s about supporting the unbelievable creators, streamers, and coaches who encourage hundreds of thousands of individuals to play every month.”
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Chess.com has virtually turn out to be an ecosystem in itself within the sport, essential app on the telephones of everybody, from the informal chess fanatics to the super-elite grandmasters. Simply take into account the next situations over the previous couple of months: on the latest World Chess Championship, the 18-year-old challenger Gukesh was “warming up” his thoughts for the battle towards world champion Ding Liren by fixing puzzles utilizing Chess.com’s Puzzle Rush characteristic. And after Ding Liren was defeated by Gukesh, the Chinese language grandmaster tried to recover from the heartbreak… by enjoying a variant known as bughouse chess on Chess.com simply 4 hours after dropping the crown.
Ding and Gukesh weren’t the one world champions spending their huge day on the app. On the day he acquired married in Oslo, former world champion Magnus Carlsen was famously up at 4 am enjoying on-line blitz video games on the app towards Daniel Naroditsky.
“The app has made chess accessible to everybody, all over the place. There’s puzzles, recreation evaluation, classes, tournaments… it’s a chess universe!” Tania Sachdev, who’s an energetic participant and a well-liked analyst, informed The Indian Specific. “A fast spherical of puzzle rush earlier than over-the-board video games helps me get into the zone. With common occasions like Titled Tuesday to high-stakes tournaments such because the Champions Chess Tour, gamers can compete globally from their properties. It’s revolutionized event alternatives for gamers in any respect ranges. It’s a 24/7 coaching floor to follow, be taught, enhance and play.”
The app creates monetary alternatives for prime gamers. It organises widespread occasions just like the Champions Chess Tour and Titled Tuesday (which occur twice on Tuesday every week). In 2024, the Champions Chess Tour had a complete prize fund of $1.7 million throughout 4 occasions and the season-ending finale. The Titled Tuesday occasion — performed on-line twice each Tuesday of the yr and sees a prize fund of $1,000 for the winner — has additionally seen virtually all the highest gamers compete in 2024.
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“We love how Titled Tuesday has turn out to be a mainstay of the chess ecosystem. Every week, we see a whole bunch of titled gamers take part from world wide. Along with Titled Tuesday we’ve the Pace Chess Championship, the Girls’s Pace Chess Championship, the Bullet Chess Championship, Freestyle Chess Play-Ins, and many various neighborhood championships,” Michael Brancato, the top of occasions for Chess.com, informed The Indian Specific.
The app just isn’t with out criticism. It was one of many defendants within the $100 million lawsuit by American GM Hans Niemann the place he disputed claims that he had cheated in video games. Chess.com had investigated and launched a 72-page report in October 2022 the place it concluded that the American had “seemingly cheated” in on-line matches between July 2015 and August 2020. Niemann flatly denied these allegations earlier than dragging the app and gamers like Carlsen and Nakamura to courtroom. The case was settled later with Niemann’s ban from the app additionally being rescinded.
Former world champion Vladimir Kramnik additionally routinely and regularly trains his weapons on the app and its anti-cheating mechanism.
Regardless of the criticism, the app has earned loads of goodwill within the sport. At present, Chess.com runs an Affiliate Program that helps 3,000 associates, together with over 300 titled gamers and 71 Grandmasters.
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“The associates program is without doubt one of the some ways we help the skilled chess neighborhood. It’s a income share program that permits creators to profit from any premium memberships they generate. The objective is to reward our most loyal gamers and neighborhood members once they introduce chess to new individuals,” stated Brancato. “We would like the app to be a spot the place everybody can play, be taught, and develop.”
