Year in Review: 2022 ChessKid Highlights
Approaching the new year, we want to look back at all the brightest moments, achievements, and accomplishments of ChessKid.com, further improving how kids learn and play chess.
2022 ChessKid Highlights
- ChessKid Engagement: More Fun For You
- ChessKid Initiatives: Global Impact and Support For Young Chess Players
- ChessKid Community Involvement: Connecting with the World
- ChessKid Improvements: Enhanced Programs and Features
ChessKid Engagement: More Fun For You
New ChessKid Bots
In 2022, we released new ChessKid chess bots that capture a wider variety of chess personalities: World-champion chess players, chess coaches, young ChessKid prodigies, and more!
Play against one of the chess bots on ChessKid.com.
Watch FM Mike Klein (FunMasterMike) test his skills against Indian chess master GM Viswanathan Anand and young talented chess player FM Tani Adewumi's chess bot on youtube.com/chesskidofficial.
ChessKid Summer Clubhouse
During the summer, we organized the ChessKid Summer Clubhouse, filled with online chess games, tournaments, puzzles, and activities for kids to enjoy and keep learning while on summer break.
The clubhouse also featured "Coach Canty's Camp," which streamed live lessons and entertaining chats with ChessKid-certified chess coach FM James Canty III.
12 Days of ChessKid Holiday Tournaments
In celebration of the holidays, we introduced a Christmas-themed tournament series, "12 Days of ChessKid," which includes daily tournaments in which the top players received a prize of five months of FREE ChessKid Gold Membership.
For more information about this event, visit this article.
The last day to play is January 1, 2023.
ChessKid Monthly Championships / ChessKid All-Star Finals
We're thrilled to support our rising chess players and give kids the opportunity to test their chess skills in our ChessKid Monthly Championships, which reminds our young stars that they're part of a large chess community of kids from all over the world.
We recently concluded our second annual "ChessKid All-Star Finals" with Will Moorhouse (NatWill) earning the title of 'ChessKid All-Star Champion of 2022'.
Watch the full video of the finals here on ChessKid.com.
Note: The next ChessKid Monthly Championship Qualifiers will start back up again on January 3, 2023, for those planning on participating in the new year. Check the ChessKid Events Calendar for changes or updates.
ChessKid Initiatives: Support For Young Chess Players
ChessKid Grant Programs (U.S. and International)
For the first time, we successfully expanded the ChessKid Grant Program to international schools and chess clubs! It will also be the third year we have offered grants to all elementary students in the U.S. school system.
If your school did not benefit from a ChessKid grant in 2022, begin applying now for 2023.
To further attain our goal of introducing chess to kids, we started another program to gift free starter chess kits and ChessKid Gold Memberships to school libraries and media centers in support of student chess clubs.
Popular chess streamer IM Levy Rozman (GothamChess) set up a $100,000 scholarship fund in support of chess programs in schools. The fund helped many chess programs pay for the expenses of training, equipment, and travel fees to national tournaments during the 2021-2022 academic school year.
His kind generosity sent numerous K-12 chess teams to nationals in the spring of 2022 and aided one of our dearest partnership programs, Chess in Slums, a chess intervention project that gave 51 children a proper education, home, and opportunity.
ChessKids' Outstanding Achievements
ChessKid encourages kids to challenge themselves to achieve their goals. Here are some amazing accomplishments made this year by our ChessKid superstars:
- Tani Adewumi - Earned all three IM norms
- Shreyas Royal - Secured the IM title and his first GM norm
- Brewington Hardaway - Won numerous K-12 national tournaments in addition to the 8th-grade national title
- Alice Lee - Earned the FM title, her first IM norm, and increased her FIDE rating by over 300 points
- Ryo Chen - Earned his first IM norm
- FM Yagiz Erdogmus - The number-one-rated player aged 12 and under in the world won the 2022 ChessKid Youth Speed Chess Championship
Earlier this year, we created a GoFundMe page to help support some of our young chess prodigies: Tani, Brew, Alice, and Ryo. These four talented young players have helped ChessKids all over the world improve, acting as excellent role models for aspiring chess players. Our goal was to raise $3,400. We're almost there! You can still contribute and donate.
ChessKid Community Involvement: Connecting with the World
Children With Disabilities
ChessKid.com and Chess.com, our parent company, proudly pledged $25,000 to support the 2022 North American Chess Cup For Children With Disabilities, a new annual chess competition headlined by NM Griffin McConnell (pictured below).
For this event, we helped fund travel expenses, trophies, and scholarships for children with disabilities.
ChessKid4Peace
ChessKid4Peace is a special tournament created to raise money for children affected by the war in Ukraine. During our special live-streamed charity event, viewers donated money to the Tvoya Opora Foundation, which supports children and families wounded or displaced by the war. The organization was personally chosen by Ukrainian GM Anna Muzychuk, one of the many chess players who had to leave Ukraine due to the invasion.
In addition to the event, we also granted Ukrainian and Ukrainian-speaking kids access to a series of fun and educational online chess lessons and videos narrated by GM Muzychuk.
Supporters could also purchase a Chess NFT to donate to Ohmatdyt, a children's hospital in Kyiv, Ukraine.
Girls Only Tournament
We held the first-ever FIDE and ChessKid Unrated Girls Only Tournament, with sections for ages nine and under and 10 to 16. All participants were invited to participate in a free weekly minicamp with leading women grandmasters.
Intercontinental ChessKid Candidates
We hosted our very own Intercontinental Candidates tournament amidst the 2022 FIDE Candidates in Madrid, Spain, with a ChessKid simultaneous exhibition joined by FM Mike Klein (FunMasterMike), GM Eduardo Iturrizaga, and WFM María Rodrigo.
Check out this article for highlights on the players and the event.
44th World Chess Olympiad
We had the wonderful opportunity to host several exciting events during the 44th FIDE Chess Olympiad in Chennai, India.
ChessKid European Team Festival
At the beginning of this year, we introduced one of the largest ChessKid events, the "ChessKid European Team Festival," in which over 30 countries participated in regional tournaments throughout the year.
The Grand Final will be held during the Rilton Cup in Stockholm, with commentary by FM Mike Klein (FunMasterMike) and GM Anna Muzychuk on Chess.com/TV or twitch.tv/chesskid, January 4, 2023, at 6AM Pacific / 9AM Eastern / 3PM CET.
ChessKid Improvements: Enhanced Programs and Features
We brought back our monthly webinars to provide one-on-one interaction and support to address any and all questions and concerns that parents, teachers, coaches, schools, and users have for us.
Don’t miss the upcoming webinar session with ChessKid-certified coach Dakim Vanterpool (CoachDakim) on February 1, 2023, at 12PM Pacific / 3PM Eastern / 8PM UK.
Check the ChessKid Webinar article for changes or updates.
ChessKid Coaching
We expanded our ChessKid Coaching services, making it easier to find, schedule, and learn from the best coaches in the world. All of our coaches are certified to ensure teachers provide benefits to young chess players and help them advance their chess skills.
Free Chess Resources
Throughout the year, we created quite a few new chess resources for you. They include infographics, case studies, tournament checklists, and scorecards.
We also published two free interactive ebooks which you can download for free:
- ChessKid’s Parent Survival Handbook - Shares tips and resources to guide parents each step of the way in helping their kids learn and play chess.
- ChessKid’s Guide for Teaching Chess - Includes tips for engaging a beginning chess student and an online collection of chess terms to help you grow in understanding the language of chess.
ChessKidShop.com
We officially launched an online shop, ChessKidShop.com! It's designed to be a one-stop shop for all of your chess equipment needs, including exclusive ChessKid merch.
If you are learning chess, you really never need to go anywhere else! ChessKid’s goal is to keep kids motivated to learn and improve chess skills, and adding a store will help expand their love and play of the game even more. — Carey Fan, ChessKid CEO
ChessKid on YouTube Kids
ChessKid is now on YouTube Kids! We've expanded our channel to reach our younger audience and viewers in a safe, kid-friendly environment. YouTube Kids will be the best place for kids to watch and enjoy quick chess lessons, tips, chess terms, and more!
Subscribe to ChessKid on YouTube!
We also feature some incredible chess players, including Tani, GM Vishy Anand, and WFM Alexandra Botez.
Overall, 2022 has been a big year full of achievements and hard work at ChessKid. We're looking forward to many more exciting initiatives and events coming up in 2023, and wish you all a happy new year!
ChessKid.com is the scholastic extension of Chess.com, and is #1 chess website for kids! Safe, fun and educational - ChessKid has a curriculum (both written and interactive on the site) to help take kids from beginner to "serious tournament player" level. This account is used to publish updates and articles about ChessKid.com and the special events held on this site.