Chess.com And World Champions, A Winning Combination
There's a lot going on at Chess.com right now, and world champions are at the forefront: GM Magnus Carlsen keeps winning Chess.com events; GM Garry Kasparov brings a video course to Chessable; a game of chess between GM Viswanathan Anand and the world commences. All that and more in this October's community update!
Here's what this update covers:
Product & Engineering
The top product news this month is the next round of our ever-popular bots. And since it's October...
- This month our bots are once again celebrating Halloween, this year complete with an all-new, limited-time Halloween board theme. Play Martin Krueger, Beetlejuicer, and the other three eerily familiar bots today!
- Be on the look out for new features in Puzzles this coming month!
If you are in tech and would like to join our team, we're hiring!
Events
All sorts of events wrapped up in September, but there is plenty more action to come in October!
- Magnus Carlsen won the Speed Chess Championship in the live final against GM Alireza Firouzja on September 8 by a 23.5-7.5 score. It was Carlsen's second straight year winning the SCC. As mentioned in the previous update, GM Ju Wenjun won the Women's SCC on September 5.
- Carlsen also won Division I of the Julius Baer Generation Cup on October 1, again defeating Firouzja in the final match. GM Wesley So won Division II and GM Fabiano Caruana took Division III.
- GM Hikaru Nakamura continues to lead the Titled Cup standings, with 198.5 points. Carlsen is second with 192.5 and could still theoretically catch Nakamura, but time is short. GM Aleksandra Goryachkina leads an even closer race to the top in the women's standings. Keep watching Titled Tuesday to see who wins all five categories!
- India swept the 45th Chess Olympiad in Budapest, Hungary, becoming the only team other than China in 2018 to win both the Open and Women's Olympiads since the break-up of the Soviet Union. The open team won with a huge 21/22 match score while the women's team finished with an also-impressive 19/22.
- Team Chess Battle returns for a second edition on October 7-18! Watch as IM Levy Rozman and FM James Canty, WFM Anna Cramling and GM Pia Cramling, and six other teams try to work together for first place.
Community
A legend takes on the world in chess, as Chess Played Quick returns and the Chess.com Community Championships continue.
- Vishy vs. the World is underway! This is your chance to play an epic game against the Indian legend, and it's not too late to join the fray—click the button below and sign on up!
- Both Chess.com and ChessKid showed up to GM Judit Polgar's 10th Global Chess Festival in Budapest during the Olympiad. As part of Polgar's eight-board simul, both communities got to participate in the proceedings!
- IM Nhat Minh To won the Duck Chess Community Championship on September 20—next up is the Fog of War Community Championship, October 17-18!
- YouTube support for the Chess.com Streamer Program launched in September.
- Stay tuned in October as three legends in their respective fields will be partnering with Chess.com for some exciting new bots!
Content
Our video and writing teams continue to produce the best chess content on the web, with the SCC providing much of the fodder.
- We went to the streets of Paris during the Speed Chess Championship Finals and found out what the everyday Parisian knows about our favorite game.
- GMs Anish Giri and Vidit Gujrathi continued their series of lighthearted bantering videos, including them trying to demonstrate that they know something (anything) about the other!
- On the written side, with Vishy vs. the World coming up, we looked back 25 years at the Kasparov vs. the World match that helped inspire the Vishy match. Also, NM Jeremy Kane took a look at the Olympiad both before and after the event, taking deep dives into the numbers and into India's dominance.
Chessable
Yes, Kasparov is coming to Chessable in October! We also had some exciting new courses come out in September.
- Kasparov has turned his My Great Predecessors Vol. 4 (on GM Bobby Fischer and others) into a Chessable video course that you won't want to miss when it comes out! Stay tuned to Chessable.com and socials for details!
SOON 🤩 pic.twitter.com/l6XRsMvcGB
— Chessable (@chessable) October 2, 2024
- FM Anna-Maja Kazarian has also arrived at Chessable with her first course, Starting Out: 1.e4 e5!
- Legendary GM Maurice Ashley brought us the third volume of his Dark Forest courses, Dark Forest Vol. 3: The Courageous Queen!
ChessKid
September was a big month for ChessKid at all levels. See how below!
- The Olympiad was a resounding success for young players: IM Carissa Yip won an individual gold medal on the second board of the Women's Olympiad while IM Alice Lee won individual silver on fourth board for the bronze-winning United States. In the open, GM Yagiz Erdogmus became the youngest 2600-rated player ever. Congrats to all three young stars!
- In the Polgar simul at the Global Chess Festival (see the Community section above for more), FM Faustino Oro made the first move for the ChessKid board!
- More video content with Polgar and WFM Bodhana Sivanandan!
- Fast Chess Bots came to ChessKid, improving the entire ChessKid playing experience—click the link to read more!
- FM Mike Klein presented at the 4th Educational Chess Summit on September 18 in Budapest. The subject was using online tools to solve the labor problem in chess education.
Fair Play
The Fair Play team is always hard at work to keep Chess.com a safe and fair place to play for everyone in the community.
Fair Play Stats for September:
- 419,135 reports created
- 63,547 Fair Play closures (including 14 titled players: 1 GM, 2 IM, 3 FM, 2 WFM, 1 CM, 2 WCM, and 3 NM)
- 31,400+ mute actions
- 27,600+ accounts muted
- 198,100+ abuse closures
- 24,954,266 rating points refunded
Support
The team has integrated AI into their work, making the first-response time immediate, while still following up with human action as soon as possible.
- Average Time to First Human Response: 1 day 19 hours
- Total Number of Conversations: 31,828
- Average Quality by Member Rating: 91.6%
- Total Ratings: 4,694
Thank you for being part of the world's largest chess community. Let us know your thoughts and ideas in the comments below!
Missed an update? You'll find last month's edition here.
