[Please Note: Don't send me Tech Support, Abuse Reports, or other "Site" issues. Please contact Chess.com Support for those things. But I do love thank you notes and personal messages! Thank you!]
Yes, I am the guy who started Chess.com (along with Jay, Igor, Piotr, and many others). I have 3 amazing daughters, one wild son, and a wonderful, patient wife! I learned chess when I was 8 years old. Since then I have been playing, studying, and enjoying it regularly. I prefer semi-open and closed positions that blow up tactically (like the Closed Sicilian, King's Indian, Glek etc).
Want to know more about how Chess.com got started? Read about it here!
Eight months ago I wrote this post about the massive spike in chess interest due to COVID-19. At the time I imagined we were seeing "peak chess", and we would return to normal. I was so wrong. Chess is currently experiencing a surge that h...
Chess.com stands firmly against racism and police brutality. Black Lives Matter. We support this campaign as a reminder to those who forget or neglect it. At this time we want to share the following perspectives: Barack Obama - https://m...
Chess.com launched in May of 2007. Since then, we have had a pretty steady growth pattern each year where traffic increases, then flattens out during summer for USA/Europe, before growing again. We've grown from 20-50% every year since starting ou...
We are facing an unprecedented global situation with unknown effects that will ripple into the future. I want to express my sorrow to all those who have lost someone they love. To those who are scared, concerned, and uncertain about the future, I ...
Today I was made aware of this article posted by Julie Nordby Egeland, a Norwegian journalist. The title (translated) is: I was sexually harassed on Chess.com. Julie explains how she recently started playing chess again on Chess.com (she's...
I often get asked "Why did you start Chess.com?" And the followup, "How did you do it?" Let me start by saying that "I" didn't do it alone. I did it alongside the most amazing team of passionate chess fans and developers and I learned chess when...
Last month, Daniel Freeman, co-founder and passionate webmaster of ChessGames.com, passed away at 51. Daniel and Alberto Artideello started ChessGames.com together in 2001. Alberto passed away in 2015 at 56. Personally, I interacted several...
Some games are pleasant. Some are fun. Some are stressful and make you want to cry and die. Today I'm sharing a tense game with a long time friend, rival, and new Chess.com Chief Operating Officer - Lee. (Here is a blog post about one of our past ...
Nearly one year ago exactly I met with the Square Off team to see a demo of their automated chessboard. Honestly, I was skeptical then. And, one year ago when I first tried it, I was pleasantly surprised... but less optimistic than I let on. The b...
[NOTE 2: In 2022, we're at 400+ awesome people working at Chess.com!] [NOTE: We hit 100 team members in 2017. At the start of 2021 we have 250+ team members, and it still feels like a close family!] This month we finally hit 100 team members. ...
NO, WE ARE NOT ON SHARK TANK... yet. Danny and I are here in Palm Springs, CA (staying at a Holiday Inn Express, of course) preparing for our 60 seconds of glory as we audition live and in person for the chance to be on Shark Tank. We ha...
I have a saying that my kids are sick of: You are never losing when you are learning! (From Dirty Rotten Scoundrels... one of my favorite classics. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4-GpfBnoYk ) ...which I usually believe. Sometimes I d...
This week I asked our team to write a brief sentence about one thing they worked on to make life better for our members (you!). They didn't all respond, but here you go. Maybe it's interesting. I don't know?! Sam Assistant Content Edit...
If you haven't seen the SquareOff chessboard before, you need to. Right now. Go learn about it here on their INDIEGOGO page. It's an automated chessboard that moves the opponent pieces for you. When I first heard about the idea I was ...
We have a funny family tradition of performing something ridiculous each year. This was ours from this year. And this was last year (yes, original lyrics).
There is something fun about knights. Quirky. Playful. So to get a swarming knight checkmate in the middle of the board against an egregiously stubborn opponent who should have resigned long ago was just too much fun.
People sometimes ask me: How did you get the Chess.com domain name? (And they WANT to ask: How much did it cost?) Here’s the story. Well, actually two stories, and how they converge. (Wait! Before I tell the story, stop and tak...
In addition to Chess.com’s other big announcements today (new site launched and bughouse), we are also launching our first beta version of the open source browser extension! The goal is to allow any developer to add new features and customiz...
5:15am - Alarm goes off. I pop out of bed. I never snooze. I'm almost always excited for the day! 5:16-5:40am - Emails, emails, emails. Slack, slack, slack. Many of our team members from around the world have already been at work for hours and I...
When I first started working on Chess.com (TEN YEARS AGO!!) I began with the logo. Some would say that is the least important decision to be made, but Chess.com was a totally blank page - an empty domain name that had landed in my lap (story ...
We had a fun Chess.com meetup (www.meetup.com/ChessCom) this last Saturday, April 16th, 2011. We were at Santana Row. It was gorgeous (as always). It started off a little slow but picked up steam! Players in attendance that I know: Pau...
I just finished playing in the 2009 National Open yesterday. I went to the event to promote Chess.com and enjoy time with Jay (friend and Chess.com partner) and IM David Pruess (friend and Chess.com superstar) and I didn't expect to play. I ...
The National Championship Game/10 event of the National Open in Las Vegas just ended. It was an open - so everyone rated from 700 to 2700 were all playing in the same swiss pairing! It was crazy and fun - about 100 players in total. Read below for...
One of my friends and a Chess.com member, Hardy Jones, has been working on a life-size chess set for the last two years! He's getting close to completing it and I wanted to share some awesome pictures of the set. Hardy is a local (and quite famo...
I'll be honest - I'm a pretty generic-dressing guy. I hate shopping, and I don't like spending crazy amounts on something that I am likely going to spill hot sauce on within a week. So my wardrobe mostly consists of white t-shirts from costco and ...
