Chess.com Players League Review

Disclaimer: The Players League launch date has been pushed to December 21st

What Is The Players League?

Chess.com has recently announced a new feature: The Players League. Similar to a ranking system in games like League of Legends, Apex Legends and Valorant, this adds a competitive twist to internet chess. At the beginning of the week, each player is added to a division of 50 players. If you are at the top of your division at the end of the week, you move on to the next league. All players will start in the Wood League and if you end in the top 20 of your division, you will move on to the Stone League. If you fail to gain enough points, you will remain in your League the following week.

Leagues: Wood, Stone, Bronze, Silver, Crystal, Elite, Champion, Legend

How do you gain points you ask? By playing chess. Wins or draws in Rapid, Blitz and Bullet time formats will award points. Losses will award 0 points but won't count against you. If you play in an Arena, you can gain additional points. This incentivizes players to play games without the fear of losing. Advancing through the ranks will get harder and harder as less people per division are allowed to rank up. Cash prizes are planned to be awarded to the top players once they hit the Champions League. 

Why I think It Works

I am a huge fan of the Players League. In the past, I have been so worried about losing rating points that somedays I don't even feel like playing chess. Now I feel much more motivated to play games and join arenas to gain League points. My Rapid rating has already jumped up over 100 points during the beta. I was able to win the Wood League and had a blast playing a bunch of matches.

My Strategy

The strategy with the Players League is very straight forward: play chess. Playing In arenas will net you more points so I'm going to join them when I can but the main thing is just playing chess and having fun. I personally enjoy playing Rapid 10 | 0 games the most but I think there are benefits to each time format. With Blitz and Bullet games, you can play a lot more compared to Rapid games but you gain less points per game. So I think go with whatever you enjoy the most. I don't plan on being one of the first 50 into the Champion League just based off of the amount of time that I have, but I hope to climb the ranks and make it to Legend eventually.