2026 / Q1

The Board Report

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chess board part with signs
The Topline

Chess keeps growing!

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BY THE NUMBERS

In Q1 alone, 14.9 million new accounts, 9.7 million daily active users, and an extraordinary 2.6 billion games played!
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QUEENS OF CHESS

With Queen of Chess on Netflix, a social push towards reaching women, and Judit Polgar vs. the World, the women ran this quarter!
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SOCIAL SHOUTOUT!

The main account prioritized IRL chess content and UGC-style formats to broaden our audience, with a particular emphasis on reaching women, collectively driving 488M impressions.

Mission & Values

Mission
First

Member impact and long-term trust guide every decision.

Kindness &
Authenticity

Lead with empathy, clarity and courage.

Growth &
Mastery

Stay curious. Learn fast. Grow yourself and others.

Integrity &
Ownership

No shortcuts. Own the outcome. Close the loop.

Impact

Build inclusive, meaningful experiences for our global community.

Chess.com's vision is to bring joy to people's lives through chess.

We are proud of how much happiness we have brought to the world by creating products, content, and a community that supports chess.

Our mission is to grow the game.

We have worked hard to share the game with the world and chess has been very fortunate to have received so much wind in our sails over the last several years. It's amazing to see the game's popularity growing as we continue our efforts.

We will achieve this by being the best possible place to work.

We believe that we can better achieve our mission and vision when our team is happy, close, enabled, respected and invigorated. We have a strong, integrated culture across all that we do, and we are eager to share this with every one of our team members.

Chess Is For Everyone

We've been doing the work for years. Now we're finally showing it. Our Chess is for Everyone webpage is live, sharing how we support communities, expand access, and make sure more people feel they belong in the game.

Check it Out
Feb 2026
London
SCC × She Plays to Win
Jan 2026
Boston
7uice Educational Fair

Team Members

668
Team Members
Why Work at Chess.com?
11
Open Positions
We are hiring! Check the latest open positions here.
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252M+ Chess.com Members

chess.com members graphics
Membership data as of March 31, 2026. Published in the article Countries That Love Chess The Most.
Fuel the mission

Q1 Key Metrics

board

14.9M

Registrations
+23.8% YoY
+10.3% QoQ
two people

9.7M

AVERAGE DAILY ACTIVE USERS
+17.7% YoY
+10.8% QoQ
white pawn and hand

2.6B

Total Games
+14.5% YoY
+4.5% QoQ
App store optimization

ASO

apple logo

8.6M

Installs
+14% YoY
+9% QoQ
4.8 /5
2.1M reviews
google play logo

8.7M

Installs
+15% YoY
+13% QoQ
4.7 /5
2.9M reviews

IN-APP EVENTS

Temporary in-app events promoted in app stores

38M

Impressions

199K

Downloads

Chess.com Widgets

New Chess.com Widgets on the App Store (iOS)

2M

Impressions

11K

Downloads
Search Engine Optimization

SEO

hand with finger pointing down to the left

81.9M

Clicks
+4.5% YoY
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489M

Impressions
+53% YoY
Top Performing Initiatives

Chess Calculator

New landing page

Chess Candidates 2026

Event pages with almost 1M clicks in the first few days

U.S. States That Love Chess the Most

Upcoming content project

Product

Widgets
Puzzles
New Coaches
All the chess. Right on your home screen.
Easily create a game, get notified when it's your move, and stay motivated with our daily streak tracker.
~90% next day return rate for users who start a session via widgets.
Eight new puzzle worlds, each with their own identity
Unlock each new world as you earn points to progress into the unknown
Conquer them all to enter prestige mode and promote your pawn to a new design
One million users are already using these new coaches
New users in India will soon automatically have chess pioneer and world champion Viswanathan Anand as their Coach
James Canty Viswanathan Anand Tania Ben Finegold

Engineering

pawn up
99.93% CORE FEATURES UPTIME
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515B+ REQUESTS PROCESSED
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90+ Deployments Per Day
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900M+ THREATS MITIGATED
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700B+ Monthly Average Queries
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360+ Games Per second

No Ads Plan

Remove ads for just $1 per month
(or the equivalent in your local currency)
Play chess without distractions!
Sign Up Here

ChessKid

Key Metrics
two people

+13%

YoY
Registrations
14% increase in the US
black bishop

+36%

YoY
QUARTERLY ACTIVE USERS
38% increase in the US

14.8M

TOTAL REGISTERED USERS
as of March 2026

838K

MONTHLY ACTIVE USERS
as of March 2026

160K+

YOUTUBE SUBSCRIBERS
English + Spanish
Major Mobile Updates
Customizable Boards & Pieces: Kids can now pick from different board and piece styles to make their experience totally their own. Match them to your avatar outfit, mix and match, go wild - from robots to pirates to under-the-sea, there's something for everyone!!
New Fast Chess (Live Chess) Experience: With all the cool customization now available, our Fast Chess experience makes it super easy to jump into a live game. Players can see their opponent's avatar, outfit, hairstyle, board and pieces, making playing feel way more personal and fun!!

Chessable & Courses

Key Metrics
two people

527K

New users
+268%YoY
black bishop

630K

Active users
+132%YoY
two crossing arrows

33M

Variations studied
=0%YoY
What’s NEW
Launched 55 new courses, including Aman Hambleton’s London System, our best selling course in 3 years
Released Opening Repertoire on Chessable
Revamped the training experience on Chess.com Courses

Social Media & Video

488M

Impressions
-34%YoY

11M

Interactions
-57%YoY

261K

New Followers
-46%YoY
*Transitioning event-driven short-form coverage to Chess24 (Instagram & YouTube showing strong early results, TikTok still ramping up), while Chess.com focused on experimental IRL chess content, UGC-style and aesthetic formats aimed at broadening our audience — with a stronger focus on reaching women.
Key campaigns & moments:
Judit Polgar vs. The World (plus Netflix “Queen of Chess” promotion), Chess Madness 2026, Streaks feature launch, BlitzChamps Live at Super Bowl LX, 250M Members milestone.
Event coverage:
SCC Live Finals, Women’s Speed Chess Championship, Chess.com Open qualifiers, Collegiate Chess League - Spring, Prague Masters, American Cup and start of the FIDE Candidates.

Writing

Giri Beats Leader Abdusattorov, Bounces Back Judit Polgar Reflects On Queen Of Chess Success Chess.com Reaches 250 Million Members Queen of Chess Judit Polgar Recalls Some Of Her Finest Moments From Memory

-61.8%YoY

OVERALL NEWS READERSHIP
-36.2%Jan
+1.1% Feb
-18.1%Mar
Tata Steel Chess was the most viewed event with 231K+ views
The Chess.com event page for Tata Steel Chess 2026 was the most trafficked event of the quarter with 1.2M+ visits
In addition to our tournament coverage, we also covered Queen of Chess extensively with six articles in total

Partnerships

The stars came out for the SCC Live Finals in London! Did you know they play chess?
Sports and chess continue to intersect, with multiple crossover events already completed in 2026.
We supported creator initiatives such as Gotham vs Song, the War Is Over chess variant by Yoko Ono, and the celebration of Judit Polgar: The Queen of Chess!
We collaborated with brands including Zenni, ChessUp, SXSW, and Esports Nations Cup!

Community

Judit Polgar vs. The World Finished
Launched alongside her Netflix documentary Queen of Chess, GM Judit Polgar checkmated the World in just 27 moves. Over 77,000 players participated in the vote chess match.

Key numbers:

77K+ players, checkmate in 27 moves

Staff AMA Series Launched
A new monthly AMA series launched on r/chesscom, bringing Chess.com staff directly to the community. Brenan Klain kicked things off in January discussing Streaks, followed by Myriam Ben Farhat in March covering company culture, Chess Is For Everyone initiatives, and the meetup.

Key info:

2 AMAs in Q1 (goal: 6+ staff AMAs in 2026), cross-posted to r/chess

SCC Side Events Bring Chess Across London
The community team ran activations across London during SCC Finals week. Four Corner Chess Night sold out with 200+ attendees, Hammersmith Chess Club hosted 100 players for a blitz tournament, and an All-Star team played MPs at the Houses of Parliament. Side activities in the Silver Lounge kept fans engaged throughout the weekend.

Key numbers:

200+ (Four Corner, sold out) 100 players (Hammersmith) Parliament match with stars like Bodhana, Anna Rudolf, Antonee Robinson, Paul Forman

Events

Key metrics

26M

2026 / EVENTS TOTAL
IMPRESSIONS

3.9M

2026 BROADCAST
HOURS WATCHED
Top Events
Chess.com Open

We announced the rebrand of the Chess.com Global Championship to the Chess.com Open! This better reflects the event’s unique nature as the world’s largest open, with Chess.com’s most-played time control, open to anyone who wants to compete.

Speed Chess Championship

This was our biggest live event to date, continuing on our journey to redefine the notion of “chess as a spectator sport”. We completely sold out nearly 1500 tickets and received very positive feedback all around from attendees and players.

43.1k Avg viewers
107k Peak viewers
Titled Tuesday Grand Prix

Titled Tuesday has continued to be the backbone of our titled player events, supporting qualification stakes to the Chess.com Open and the Esports World Cup.

17.3k Average viewership
412 Average participation
CK Youth Championships
We secured the most noteworthy players across both age categories including Yagiz Erdogmus, Andy Woodward, Faustino Oro, and Bodhana Sivanandan. This event is really helpful for us to grow relationships with promising young chess talent and their parents.

Fair Play

2.9M Reports Created -3.6% QoQ
91.2% AUTOMATED CLOSURE RATE -0.4% QoQ
412.2K Accounts Closed +12% QoQ
127.6M RATING POINTS REFUNDED +12.8% QoQ
40 Titled Closures
2 GM
2 WGM
8 IM
1 WIM
10 FM
2 WFM
11 CM
1 WCM
3 NM
Q1 Fair Play Report

Support

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511K Tickets Handled
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93.9% CUSTOMER SATISFACTION
+2.2%YoY
91.2%for human + AI
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28 hrs MEDIAN FIRST RESPONSE TIME
-50 hrsYoY
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85% SELF-SERVICE SUCCESS
-5%YoY
In your Words
“My son and I are addicts. He is a free member and envies my ability to do chess problems until I tire of them. Thanks again to all of you for a great site. I learned chess at age 14 and on Jan. 30 will be 85, still passionate after all these years about the game. Hugs to all of you who make this site great and care about us users.”
“I love this girl, I don’t know her but man!! she takes care of my complaints and doesn’t judge.. even though I might deserve it.”
“Learning and training Chess games has benefited me in several ways improving cognitive, organization, and decision skills that were diminished after a past medical event.”
Word of the Quarter

Cheesse

Ch-EEE-ss Noun
A game of chess played on a chessboard entirely made of cheese.
Example: “I would have won that game of cheesse but I was too full after eating the rooks.”