Leon is an award-winning former national newspaper journalist now working for Chess.com, having previously been chess24 and Chessable. His main mission is to spread the word about chess, but he is also a keen league player and secretary of Battersea Chess Club in London. In his previous career as a reporter/editor, Leon worked for The Telegraph, The Daily Mail, and The Sun, breaking many chess stories as well as writing general news and features. As an ex-hack, Leon is still always on the hunt for a good chess tale.
Contact him at leon.watson@chess.com.
A decades-long unbeaten run, believed to be one of the longest in sporting history, has ended after a team of amateur chess players toppled a club dubbed the "Manchester City of chess." Hammersmith Chess Club in west London beat the invincible k...
Chess.com is excited to announce the 2024 BetterHelp Masters—the second leg of this year’s prestigious $1.7 million Champions Chess Tour and an event focused on mental health. Starting on May 8, the BetterHelp Masters follows the Che...
It is the prestigious annual event that brings together the global sports industry's big players—and yet again Chess.com was there to discuss the hot topics facing the game. Cheating, format changes, branding, issues of governance, and eve...
Chess.com, the world’s leading chess platform, has been named as one of Fast Company's World's Most Innovative Companies for 2024. This year’s list shines a spotlight on businesses that are shaping industry and culture through their ...
The historic Biel Chess Festival, one of the biggest events in the European chess calendar, has announced its super-strong lineup for 2024 featuring a sharp focus on youth. The event, which has been running in the Swiss lakeside city since 1968,...
What is the future of chess? Which formats will be popular? How much of a punch does chessboxing pack? These are some of the burning questions Chess.com's panel of experts will examine at this year's MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference. Starti...
The Saint Louis Chess Club has announced its lineup for this year’s American Cup boasting "16 of the strongest chess players in America." Eight GMs are on the roster for the $250,000 Open section headed by U.S. number-one GM Fabiano Caruan...
India’s greatest ever chess player, the legendary GM Viswanathan Anand, has signed as a brand ambassador for Chess.com. The five-time world champion will bring his incredible knowledge and experience to the world’s biggest chess plat...
It may not be a record, but it is still a major achievement: the world has a new youngest grandmaster—14-year-old Ukrainian prodigy GM Ihor Samunenkov. The teenager’s title has been confirmed by the world chess federation FIDE this m...
There is no drama, and all the players have been consulted—that was the message from the world chess federation FIDE to dampen down any suggestion of controversy after the new regulations were released for its flagship Candidates tournament....
Titled Tuesdays have already been ramped up massively with the launch of the new Titled Cup, the $100,000 grand prix-style umbrella event to make our weekly tournaments in 2024 even more fierce. But if that isn't enough to get you tuning in on T...
The World Chess Federation (FIDE) has approved a controversial motion to scrap presidential term limits leaving Arkady Dvorkovich, a former deputy prime minister of Russia, free to run for a third term in 2026. Delegates from 108 national federa...
FIDE could be on the verge of scrapping its presidential term limit and allowing Russian incumbent Arkady Dvorkovich to run for four more years in office. The world chess federation's current rules—brought in as an election promise by Dvor...
It’s the one-on-one showdown between “the internet’s chess teacher” and one of the rising stars of the game known in his homeland as the “Lionel Messi of chess”. Can Brooklyn-born IM Levy Rozman, aka GothamChe...
Wise men speak because they have something to say, the philosopher Plato famously said, and when it comes to chess, few are wiser than GM Viswanathan Anand. The Indian legend reminded the world of that yet again on Monday, his 54th birthday, whe...
One is the greatest chess player of his generation, perhaps of all time, and the other is the greatest football strategist of his generation—perhaps also of all time. This was the moment Norway's chess superstar GM Magnus Carlsen met face-...
Mongolia is the nation ranking highest for promoting gender equality in chess but—perhaps surprisingly—the Nordic countries occupy three of the four worst spots, a new study has revealed. Research commissioned by the World Chess Fede...
Finally, it comes down to this. GM Magnus Carlsen and GM Hikaru Nakamura, the two biggest names in chess, go head-to-head with the top players of 2023 as Chess.com’s $2 million Champions Chess Tour reaches its grand finale next month. For ...
It is one of the top places to study in the world, a seat of learning renowned for educating some of the brightest minds in history. But Harvard University's reputation has never been tested against FM Tani Adewumi and IM Alice Lee! ChessKid's t...
FIDE has announced the venue for the 2023 FIDE World Rapid and Blitz Championships. The world governing body of chess confirmed the traditional Christmas event will take place in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, from December 26 to 30, with a $1 million p...
It is the beautiful new chess documentary that every fan of the game should see—whether you can make it to a film festival or stream it live on TV—and now it's an award-winner. The City Of Human Chess, Chess.com's first venture into ...
Chess.com’s top event for women, the $70,000 Julius Baer Women’s Speed Chess Championship, is back next month and this time with a big-name sponsor and six of the strongest players on the planet. Defending champion GM Kateryna Lagno ...
It is the dark shadow that stalks chess—the failure of senior figures in the game to tackle its shameful gender gap and a recent stream of shocking sexual misconduct allegations. Chess, it is said, has to do better. Now, a new group has fo...
GM Judit Polgar's Global Chess Festival, now in its ninth edition since starting in 2007, is one of the true highlights of the chess calendar. Held in Budapest, Hungary, and also online, it attracts thousands of chess fans from around the world fo...
Ever since the historic moment the great GM Garry Kasparov lost to Deep Blue in 1997, artificial intelligence has transformed chess. Now Chess.com, the world’s leading chess platform, is launching an elite tournament to celebrate AI’s ...
