Year in Review: 2022 Was The Best Year Ever For ChessKid

What a year 2022 was for ChessKid! So many new programs, upgrades, achievements, and improvements to make learning and playing chess more fun for you. Because so much happened this year, we want to take a moment and remember how busy and fun the year has been. Let’s take a review to make certain that you didn’t miss anything:

• More Fun For You
• Support For Young Players
• Service To The Chess Community
• Expanded Programs and Features

More Fun For You

Several programs and initiatives, including these three, were designed to make chess more fun for you:

New Bots With More Interactive Voices

Although everybody loves playing against the FunMasterMike bot, have you ever played a world champion? In 2022, ChessKid released new bots with more interactive voices, and you can now play a world champion or a ChessKid TV personality. Watch FunMasterMike take on FM Tani Adewumi’s awesome bot. When you are ready to challenge a bot, head to this page. Tip: Turn on the coach mode to benefit from wise advice. 

Summer Fun With Clubhouse and Coach Canty’s Camps

ChessKid brought lots of fun to summertime with the ChessKid Summer Clubhouse, and Coach FM James Canty III streamed lessons live and had entertaining chats with VIPs. Did you join to play chess, participate in exclusive challenges, learn tips and tricks, and win awesome prizes and ChessKid merch? 

ChessKid All-Star Finals

We just concluded our second ChessKid All-Star Finals, which featured winners from the ChessKid Monthly Championships. The monthly events take place on the first Tuesday of every month. To join them, make sure you're a part of the ChessKid Official Club.

Support For Young Players

ChessKid continues to strive to support all young chess players. These programs and events are noteworthy:

Grant Program Expanded Internationally

Because ChessKid wants every kid to learn to play chess, we offered grants for every elementary student in every U.S. school system for a third year. In addition, for the first time, we expanded the grant program to schools and chess clubs around the world. If your school did not benefit from a ChessKid grant in 2022, begin applying now for 2023.

Free Chess Kits To School Media Centers

ChessKid began another program to introduce chess to students. With our Library Chess Club initiative, we sent starter chess kit bundles free to start chess clubs at school libraries and media centers. In addition, ChessKid gave gold membership accounts to many media centers so their kids could access our lessons, videos, and games for free.

Schools Helped By GothamChess

IM Levy Rozman (known as GothamChess) set up a $100,000 scholarship fund that provided funding in the 2021-22 academic year to help school chess teams. The funding helped them return to over-the-board chess after the pandemic and conduct lessons, purchase equipment, and travel to tournaments. Many school chess teams traveled to National Elementary, Middle, and High School, and All-Girls Nationals in the spring of 2022.

New Achievements For ChessKids

We continued to encourage ChessKids to reach new heights — and they have. Here are a few significant examples:

• After earning the FIDE master title, Alice Lee continued on her journey and earned her first international master norm as she picked up more than 300 FIDE rating points in less than a year.
• Shreyas Royal gained the IM rating and wrote about his journey for ChessKid. He is well on his way to the grandmaster title and has earned his first GM norm.
• Tani, who fled Nigeria in 2017 and was just officially granted asylum in the United States, earned his first IM norm and continues his progress to attain that title. Not surprisingly, he also has outplayed a grandmaster in just 14 moves.
• Ryo Chen, the winner of the ChessKid Youth Speed Chess Tournament last year, also earned his first IM norm. 
• Because Tani, Alice, and Ryo as well as CM Brewington Hardaway have been such excellent role models for aspiring chess players, we created a GoFundMe page to help them on their way to achieving higher chess titles. Our goal was to raise $3,400; we’re almost there. You can still contribute here. Follow ChessKid on Twitter to keep up with recent news about these ChessKid achievements.

Yagiz Wins ChessKid Youth SCC

Up-and-coming chess star FM Yagiz Erdogmus of Turkey, who is the number-one-rated kid 12 and under in the world, won the 2022 ChessKid Youth Speed Chess Championship. He defeated the talented Argentinian CM Ilan Schnaider by a score of 10 to 4 in the final match. Watch the recap here.

Service To The Chess Community

ChessKid seeks to serve the chess community internationally, and these major events and programs helped us to achieve some of our goals:

44th World Chess Olympiad

ChessKid hosted several exciting events in Chennai, India, during the 44th Chess Olympiad. An exclusive masterclass with GM Vishy Anand, a five-time world chess champion, was attended by 50 lucky ChessKids. In addition, kids had the chance to participate in a photograph and autograph session with grandmasters.

ChessKid European Team Festival

The ChessKid Baltic Festival took place early in 2022 with teams from four countries. It was the first in a series of events called the ChessKid European Team Festival. Then eight more regional events were held. In all regionals, 30 countries participated. Winners from the nine stages will advance to the Grand Final that will be held on January 4, 2023. Watch this event at 6 a.m. PT / 3 p.m. CET with special commentary on Chess.com/tv or twitch.tv/chesskid.

Children With Disabilities

ChessKid and its parent company, Chess.com, pledged $25,000 to support the 2022 North American Chess Cup For Children With Disabilities, a new yearly chess competition. For this event, we helped to pay for travel expenses, trophies, and scholarships for children with disabilities. The event was headlined by chess master Griffin McConnell.

ChessKid4Peace

ChessKid organized Chess4Peace, a special tournament to raise money for children affected by the war in Ukraine. During the broadcast, viewers donated money to an organization that supports children and families wounded or displaced by the war. We also granted Ukrainian and Ukrainian-speaking kids access to a series of fun and educational online chess lessons. These videos are narrated by three-time world champion GM Anna Muzychuk, one of Ukraine’s most respected and prominent chess grandmasters.

Girls Only Tournament

ChessKid joined forces with FIDE to hold the first-ever FIDE and ChessKid Unrated Girls Only Tournament. It was conducted in two sections: one for ages nine and under and the other for 10 to 16. All participants were invited to participate in a free weekly minicamp with leading women grandmasters.

Enhanced Programs and Features

We have revamped several programs and added new ones, including these:

Coaching Services Expanded

ChessKid expanded its coaching services and has made it easier to find, schedule, and learn from the best coaches in the world. (Editor's Note: as of 2024, We have teamed up with Magnus Chess Academy to offer live small-group lessons with experienced chess coaches. Find out more at ChessKid Coaching, or  Join Magnus Chess Academy today.)

Helpful Free Chess Resources

ChessKid created quite a few new chess resources for you. They include infographics, case studies, tournament checklists, and scorecards. We also published two free interactive ebooks that you can download for free: ChessKid’s Parent Survival Handbook has expert tips and resources that will guide parents each step of the way in helping their kids learn and play chess, and ChessKid’s Guide for Teaching Chess has tips for engaging a beginning chess student. In addition, we significantly expanded our online collection of chess terms to help you grow in understanding the language of chess.

ChessKid Shop Opened

The ChessKid Shop opened with the best features and prices that you have been looking for. It offers awesome chess equipment and supplies, including chess sets, chess books, chess software, and even stylish ChessKid merch. 

ChessKid YouTube Kids Channel Blasts Off

We expanded and improved our YouTube programming — the best place for quick chess lessons, tips, and challenges — by adding a new Kids channel. We also feature incredible people on YouTube, including Tani, Anand, and WFM Alexandra Botez. Make sure that you have subscribed to ChessKid on YouTube.

Webinars Address Questions And Concerns

We held several ChessKid webinars to address questions and concerns that parents, teachers, coaches, schools, and users have for us. On Zoom, we answer all of your questions during a webinar. Don’t miss the next one on Feb. 15, 2023, that will be hosted by Dakim Vanterpool (CoachDakim).

More To Come

Even more benefits are coming your way in 2023. See our new feature announcement here. 

Will the knight keep jumping in 2023? Stay tuned and have fun with ChessKid.