Ratings, Prizes, And More This Month At Chess.com

There are at least two ways chess players can measure their performance: by rating and by prize money won. And now, it is easier than it was a month ago to track rating, or for players to win some prizes. Read on to see how you can better track your favorite players' ratings, which events became a bit more lucrative, new playable bots, much more—including a new mindfulness app from a top chess creator.

Here's everything this update covers: 

• Events
• Product & Engineering
• Community
• Content
• Chessable
• ChessKid
• Fair Play
• Support

Events

• Titled Tuesday introduced a brand-new prize fund of $10,000, nearly three times the previous total amount. GM Denis Lazavik won the first Titled Tuesday with the new prizes.
• Congratulations to all the Esports World Cup qualified players: last year's champion GM Magnus Carlsen; Speed Chess Championship and Chess.com Open top-three finishers Lazavik, GM Alireza Firouzja, and GM Jan-Krzysztof Duda; Champions Chess Tour leaders GMs Hikaru Nakamura, Nihal Sarin, Ian Nepomniachtchi, Sina Movahed, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Hans Niemann, Nodirbek Abdusattorov, Fabiano Caruana, and Wesley So.
• Congrats also to DreamHack Atlanta top four finishers GMs Aravindh Chithambaram, Andrey Esipenko, Liem Le, and Alexey Sarana, who will make the EWC Play-Ins. There are still five EWC spots remaining: one in the main field from the live final of India Rising on July 5, and four more in the Play-Ins from the Last Chance Qualifiers in August.
• If you still can't get enough of chess as a spectator sport, look out for the Esports Nations Cup in November. The ENC qualifying process was just announced, and regional qualifiers take place this coming month.
• GM Dmitry Andreikin won the latest Chess.com Community Championship in King of the Hill on May 9.
• Some major independent tournaments happened last month, with Niemann winning the Grand Chess Tour Super Rapid and Blitz Poland on May 12, and GM Vincent Keymer taking the GCT Super Chess Classic Romania on May 23. Carlsen won TePe Sigeman on May 7 but wasn't so lucky at Norway Chess, which concluded June 5 with victories for GM Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu in the main and GM Bibisara Assaubayeva in the Women's.

Product & Engineering

• We recently introduced a robust live rating system. You can see not only the most up-to-date rankings in all sorts of categories, but cilck on a player and see every individual game they have played this month! Check them out on the ratings page.
• Our monthly bots haven't gone anywhere. Make contact with extraterrestrial life this June and play our alien bots!
• Android new board "Dynamic" animation

If you are in tech and would like to join our team, we're hiring!

Community

• IM Anna Rudolf has a new mindfulness app out, and she spoke about it as the Chess.com Creator of the Month of May.
• Our team of sports star bots continues to grow. The latest is Dejan Joveljic, who is really good at chess and even better at football. You can play the bot here.
• Another successful rendition of everyone's favorite NFL chess tournament, BlitzChamps V, was held on May 26 and won by Mack Hollins.

Content

• Check out the compelling YouTube documentary about the 61-hour chess marathon completed by Askild Bryn and CM Odin Blikra Vea in 2024.

• GM Ivan Sokolov shared his insights into the world of competitive chess training, which you can read about here as well.

• And hopefully you didn't miss grandmasters explaining little-known opening traps, traps NM Anthony Levin explains further in this article.

• Finally, NM Jeremy Kane reviewed Carlsen's advice to beginners to play the Wayward Queen Attack.

Chessable & Courses

• The latest course from star Chessable author and May Chess.com Coach of the Month NM Bryan Tillis is out: 1.e4 Fury offers students an aggressive repertoire with White's most popular opening move.
• If endgames are more your speed, try out GM Jesus de la Villa's 100 Basic Endgames You Must Know, presented by GM Peter Heine Nielsen!

ChessKid

• Customizable avatars have arrived at ChessKid—check out the graphic below or read the article for more info!

Fair Play

Fair Play Stats for May 2026

• 1,137,272 reports created
• 163,856 Fair Play closures (including 20 titled players: 3 NM, 1 IM, 1 WFM, 1 WCM, 8 FM, 6 CM)
• 1,700+ mute actions
• 1,600+ accounts muted
• 247,900+ abuse closures
• 51,320,792 rating points refunded

Support

Support Stats for May 2026

• Median Time to First Human Response: 42 hours
• Users Helped: 1,163,611
• Messages Sent: 175,896
• Average Quality by Member Rating: 93.9%
• Total Ratings: 4,414

Thank you for being part of the world's largest chess community. Let us know your thoughts and ideas in the comments below!

Missed any updates? Open the menu below for all past editions of the Community Update, or find last month's here.