Community Policy For Hosting Events On Chess.com
As the world's leading chess platform, we're happy and excited to see that many people are choosing Chess.com to run their events. We want to be the best platform for you to organize and play great events.
As more events take place on Chess.com, we're also getting many questions from players about these events. Members often inquire if these events are sanctioned by us, if we're organizing them, or if we're providing fair play protections.
Because of this, we've updated our events policy to clarify for organizers what you need to do to organize an event on Chess.com, and for players, how involved we are in each event that runs on our site. This article summarizes these policy updates and explains how every event on Chess.com falls into one of two categories.
Unaffiliated Events
Most events that you see on Chess.com are unaffiliated events. These are events that do not require our permission to run and for which Chess.com does not provide operational support. Per our updated policy, organizers must include the following This event is not affiliated with or sponsored by Chess.com.
If you're organizing unaffiliated events, we would also like to clarify the fair play support options we can provide:
- By default, we check all games on Chess.com with our standard, automated detection systems. This means that every event that runs on our site is also protected by our automated systems.
- As an organizer, you can also request an accelerated automated review. Upon your request and pending fair play resources, we can prioritize your event's games for an expedited automated review. We offer this service free of charge to support the community.
- Finally, you can also hire our manual analyst review. This is a service we provide that involves human review by our Fair Play staff, in addition to the automated review. This service is subject to availability and includes a service fee based on the number of players and games to cover the cost of the review team.
Check out our events policy to learn more about the requirements and fair play support options for unaffiliated events.
Sanctioned Events
Events that require direct involvement from Chess.com are sanctioned events. Sanctioning is a premium status reserved for significant events and is granted only through a formal application and discussion process. Sanctioned events are subject to stricter fair play and operational requirements—and as such, incur operational fees.
Members can see that an event is sanctioned by looking for the following disclaimer: "This event is formally sanctioned by, but not affiliated with or sponsored by, Chess.com."
If you're an event organizer and would like Chess.com to sanction your event, you need to apply. We reserve the right to either approve or deny applications. To apply, please fill out the official form.
Check out our events policy to learn more about the requirements and fair play support options for sanctioned events.
Learn More About Our Events Policy
This article is only a summary of our events policy. We hope that it helps players and organizers to understand the recent changes to our policy and their benefits. If you want to read our full policy, check out our Community Policy.
We look forward to continuing to serve the chess community and providing the best platform for competitive play. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to our team at events@chess.com.
