Celebrating New Champions And Exciting Opportunities
It's been a month filled with thrilling championship action. Check out the latest news and updates from Chess.com and learn all about exciting new features, events, and Twitter memes that we're particularly proud of.
There are also some great opportunities coming up for over-the-board organizers and college/university students to grow their chess club with Chess.com's help, so if that sounds good to you, make sure to read on!
Here's what this monthly update covers:
Product & Engineering
The Product Team and Engineering Team have been focusing on making sure that Chess.com/play is smoother and better than ever.
- There's been a sitewide update to the look and feel of /Play. Now that /Live is being phased out, we want to make sure that your playing experience is consistent and enjoyable.
- The /Play overhaul includes consolidated options for choosing custom game types, time controls, and challenging friends.
- Friend requests are now displayed in a nicer and more intuitive way.
- On the Puzzles front, we added 21,700 new puzzles in October, bringing us to a current total of 537,000.
- We've updated the list of club categories and added a new list of activities which admins can select for their clubs. The feature is in beta at the moment, but if there are no issues we plan to roll-out the updated lists to everyone soon!
If you are an engineer and want to help grow the game of chess, come work with us! Visit Chess.com/jobs to find out more.
Events
The Chess.com Global Championship is officially over, with GM Wesley So becoming the first ever CGC Champion after a strong performance throughout the tournament.
- In this FIDE-rated event, we saw some of the world's top players compete for the final prize: the title of Global Champion as well as a $200,000 first prize.
- As well as all-star players, there was some all-star commentary live on-site: GM Robert Hess, IM Levy Rozman, GM Fabiano Caruana, GM Daniel Naroditsky, WGM Nemo Zhou, GM Aman Hambleton, FM James Canty III, and IM Danny Rensch were all in Toronto to cover the action—and they were every bit as glued to the screen as those of us who were watching from home.
- There’s another new champion in town: Fischer Random World Champion GM Hikaru Nakamura. The 2022 FRWC was an action-packed tournament, with two players (GMs Matthias Bluebaum and Vladimir Fedoseev) making their way to the finals by qualifying on Chess.com.
- Sad that two big tournaments just ended? Good news: the 2022 Speed Chess Championship has just been announced; qualifiers are taking place this week! Stay tuned for the upcoming bracket contest announcement...
Community
Here are some of the Community Team’s highlights from the last month.
- While no one scored a perfect bracket in the $100,000 CGC Bracket Contest, some people came impressively close! Here were our top five finishers/prize winners (full results here):
- Global Champion with 90 points, winning on Picks tiebreak, where he picked 47/63 correctly.
- Abhinav7998 with 90 points, losing the Picks tiebreak with 46/63 correct picks.
- IS IT SO with 89 points.
- Bryant F with 87 points.
- Untitled with 86 points, winning the Picks tiebreak with 48/63 correct picks.
- The CGC wasn't just about super grandmasters: thousands of our community members took part, and GM Daniel Naroditsky provided his usual high-level analysis on some of the best games. Check out one of them below!
- We also loved seeing all of your contributions through the Featured Chat function on Twitch. Seeing your comments and observations (and jokes) come up on the screen has been a real highlight of the broadcasts. Shout out to featured chat developer Slevinth Heaven for giving us the option to praise gigachads live on screen.
- Chess.com is working with over-the-board chess clubs and organizers to offer support and exciting opportunities for collaboration. Join the many clubs around the US and the world and sign up for our free Affiliate Program to enjoy customized support, special offers, and much more! Are you running a chess club? Do you know someone who organizes OTB tournaments or meetups? Schedule a meeting today and become a Chess.com Affiliate!
- We're also looking for chess-loving college/university students to join our exciting College Ambassador Program. Grow your chess club and the game of chess on your campus with our help: benefits include merch and membership giveaways, event hosting, and even all-expenses-paid chess trips. Join our community of over 350 ambassadors today and let’s make chess cool on your campus! Apply here, and we’ll set up a call with you for more information.
Content
We’ve got lots of content to highlight this month, from the seriously useful (a huge new course devoted to chess openings) to the magnificently coiffured (see the video below).
- The team decided to have some fun on Twitter. Things escalated quickly.
- A huge 50-lesson course has just been released: "Learn Every Chess Opening"! This new series of lessons allows you to master any opening, and make you a more confident and well-rounded chess player.
- Ever wanted to play chess against a billionaire? Now’s your chance. Show off your skills against titans of industry like Barron Wuffet, Biff Jezos, Zark Muckerberg, Melon Husk, and Gill Bates!
- Speaking of bots, the terrifyingly challenging zombie bots played over 35 million games in October! That’s a lot of brainpower.
- If you started playing chess in the last year or two, you may already know about The Queen's Gambit or some of the most popular chess streamers. But the chess culture rabbit hole runs deep—check out this comprehensive guide to chess culture. Even if you're a lifetime chess fan, you're likely to discover something new!
Fair Play
Fair Play stats for October:
- 30,985 Fair Play closures (including 10 titled players)
- 58,026 mute actions
- 51,438 accounts muted
- 68,513 abuse closures
In addition to their regular work keeping Chess.com a safe and fun place to play for everyone, the Fair Play Team has also been active at the Chess.com Global Championship to make sure the inaugural competition is one of the most secure tournaments held yet.
Support
Lastly, a busy month for the Chess.com Support Team. Here are the stats for October:
- Average Time to First Response: 52 hours
- Total Support Responses: 44,800
- Average Quality by Member Rating: 93%
- Total Ratings: 4,449
As always, thank you for making Chess.com such an amazing place, and thank you for the comments you leave on these updates. Stay tuned—your thoughts might be featured in one of these updates soon...
