All posts tagged: chess.com

‘Hey Hans, chess mafia here!’

‘Hey Hans, chess mafia here!’

Published by Webster

3 min readMay 1, 2026 12:18 PM IST American grandmaster Hans Niemann taking a dig at the online chess platform Chess.com is nothing new. He has repeatedly referred to Chess.com, along with Magnus Carlsen and Hikaru Nakamura, as the “chess mafia,” a collusive power structure that he claims prioritises profits above all else and exerts control over the chess world. In the latest episode of Niemann taking on the so-called “chess mafia,” the American vented his frustrations after suffering technical issues during an online match played on Chess.com. But this time, Chess.com fired right back, trolling Niemann with a cheeky reply to his social media post on X: “Hey Hans, chess mafia here!” The drama began when Niemann posted on X, writing: “Chess mafia proctor is such a joke 0 point bye first round. Absolutely intolerable, will try to comeback with 0/1????!!” At the time, Niemann was playing Titled Tuesday, a weekly prize event hosted by Chess.com. He claimed he had been unfairly given zero points through no fault of his own. The “proctor” he …

Why Magnus Carlsen cannot promote his own app Take Take Take as it enters ‘play and learn’ sectors | Chess News

Why Magnus Carlsen cannot promote his own app Take Take Take as it enters ‘play and learn’ sectors | Chess News

Published by Webster

3 min readApr 8, 2026 08:10 AM IST Magnus Carlsen’s Take Take Take app has joined forces with Lichess (a free, open-source platform run by volunteers) to expand its chess offerings to give app users “play and learn” functionality besides the previous option to follow games live. However, on the day that Take Take Take announced its expansion, the one person who was conspicuous by his absence was the world no 1 from Norway, who is the face of the app besides being the co-founder. Why? Because—as Take Take Take CEO Mats Andre Kristiansen explained in a video on the platform’s YouTube channel—Carlsen is an ambassador for Chess.com, which is now a direct rival to Take Take Take, thanks to their entry into the play and learn sectors of chess. “Magnus cannot be here. And there’s a very good reason for that. We are now stepping into the play zone area. We are launching a full chess platform with a play zone and the full learning experience. And if I go back a little bit …

What is the ‘Grand Prix’ attack that helped R Praggnanandhaa defeat Anish Giri? ‘Playable line and took my opponent out of theory’ | Cricket News

What is the ‘Grand Prix’ attack that helped R Praggnanandhaa defeat Anish Giri? ‘Playable line and took my opponent out of theory’ | Cricket News

Published by Webster

3 min readMar 30, 2026 04:15 PM IST It was a rare pawn attack, and a rather unexpected line that surprised Anish Giri in his opener against R Praggnanandhaa as the Indian took a whole 1 point on Day 1 at the Candidates at Cyprus. Chess.com dubbed the win induced by the Grand Prix Attack – an aggressive variant of the Sicilian Defence – as the cleanest win of the day, with Pragg playing with white. The idea of the Grand Prix Attack was to keep attacking the Black’s King with an early f-pawn push, and an eventual long castle by Giri saw him walk right into the trap, after positions had looked fairly equal. Said to have originated in 1800 in London, chessdoctrine.com, cites two instances of the Grand Prix leading to a sharp situation: one involving Pragg in 2021 against Aryan Tari. Another dates back to Anand vs Kasparov in 1994. It is said to throw up 38 % wins for Black as against 26 % for white, though in amateurs its 49 …

What is the ‘Grand Prix’ attack that helped R Praggnanandhaa defeat Anish Giri? ‘Playable line and took my opponent out of theory’ | Cricket News

What is the ‘Grand Prix’ attack that helped R Praggnanandhaa defeat Anish Giri? ‘Playable line and took my opponent out of theory’ | Chess News

Published by Webster

3 min readUpdated: Mar 30, 2026 05:18 PM IST It was a rare pawn attack, and a rather unexpected line that surprised Anish Giri in his opener against R Praggnanandhaa as the Indian took a whole 1 point on Day 1 at the Candidates at Cyprus. Chess.com dubbed the win induced by the Grand Prix Attack – an aggressive variant of the Sicilian Defence – as the cleanest win of the day, with Pragg playing with white. The idea of the Grand Prix Attack was to keep attacking the Black’s King with an early f-pawn push, and an eventual long castle by Giri saw him walk right into the trap, after positions had looked fairly equal. Said to have originated in 1800 in London, chessdoctrine.com, cites two instances of the Grand Prix leading to a sharp situation: one involving Pragg in 2021 against Aryan Tari. Another dates back to Anand vs Kasparov in 1994. It is said to throw up 38 % wins for Black as against 26 % for white, though in amateurs its …

What is the ‘Grand Prix’ attack that helped R Praggnanandhaa defeat Anish Giri? ‘Playable line and took my opponent out of theory’ | Cricket News

What is the ‘Grand Prix’ attack that helped R Praggnanandhaa defeat Anish Giri? ‘Playable line and took my opponent out of theory’ | Chess News

Published by Webster

3 min readUpdated: Mar 30, 2026 05:18 PM IST It was a rare pawn attack, and a rather unexpected line that surprised Anish Giri in his opener against R Praggnanandhaa as the Indian took a whole 1 point on Day 1 at the Candidates at Cyprus. Chess.com dubbed the win induced by the Grand Prix Attack – an aggressive variant of the Sicilian Defence – as the cleanest win of the day, with Pragg playing with white. The idea of the Grand Prix Attack was to keep attacking the Black’s King with an early f-pawn push, and an eventual long castle by Giri saw him walk right into the trap, after positions had looked fairly equal. Said to have originated in 1800 in London, chessdoctrine.com, cites two instances of the Grand Prix leading to a sharp situation: one involving Pragg in 2021 against Aryan Tari. Another dates back to Anand vs Kasparov in 1994. It is said to throw up 38 % wins for Black as against 26 % for white, though in amateurs its …

Hans Niemann, Fabiano Caruana & Vladimir Kramnik launch scathing attack on Chess.com

Hans Niemann, Fabiano Caruana & Vladimir Kramnik launch scathing attack on Chess.com

Published by Webster

Chess.com, the world’s largest online chess-playing platform, is facing a fresh wave of criticism, this time from some of the biggest names in the circuit over issues with points and online server disconnections during recent online high-stakes games. Former World Champion Vladimir Kramnik and US Grandmasters Fabiano Caruana and Hans Niemann criticised the platform Chess.com for technical glitches. During the Chess.com Open event (previously called the Chess.com Global Championship), Caruana complained of being unfairly treated and punished through no fault of his own. In the eighth round of the Swiss format 90-player qualifier, Caruana was disconnected even though he claimed his internet connection was fine. As a result of the disconnection, he was given a 0-point bye in round 8, which ultimately cost him his qualification spot. The Chess.com Open, as claimed by the organisers themselves, is one of the world’s largest open tournaments with a prize pool of $250,000 and offers three direct spots to the next Esports World Cup. Expressing his dissent against Chess.com, Caruana took to X and wrote, “The chesscom thing …

Magnus Carlsen checkmated by 2200-rated player; can you find move that made world no 1 applaud | Chess News

Magnus Carlsen checkmated by 2200-rated player; can you find move that made world no 1 applaud | Chess News

Published by Webster

It’s not everyday that Magnus Carlsen loses an online game by getting checkmated. And it’s definitely not everyday that the game ends in such dazzling fashion that even Carlsen applauds his opponent. But that’s precisely what happened in a recent Titled Tuesday game when the world no 1 was beaten by an untitled American player, Jacorey Bynum, who holds a classical rating of 2175 as per FIDE’s published ratings. Carlsen was playing a five-minute blitz game against Bynum on Tuesday in round 1 of Titled Tuesday, which is an online event organised by Chess.com. Before we get to the move that made Carlsen applaud, here’s a test to see if you can find the move. The ill-advised move from Magnus Carlsen just before his opponent, Jacorey Bynum, moved in for the kill with a piece sacrifice. (screengrab via Chess.com) This is what the board looked like after the Norwegian, playing with black pieces, played bishop to d4 (34…Bd4). What do you think Bynum played here? Here’s a little hint: Bynum offered a sacrifice that the …

Magnus Carlsen vs The World: World No 1 held to draw by 1.4 lakh people in online vote-chess event | Chess News

Magnus Carlsen vs The World: World No 1 held to draw by 1.4 lakh people in online vote-chess event | Chess News

Published by Webster

World No 1 Magnus Carlsen was held to a draw in an online “vote-chess” match by 1.4 lakh people who took him on in a freestyle chess game played on Chess.com. The game had started on April 4, and ended on Monday after a perpetual check on Magnus Carlsen’s king. By the time the end came, both sides had five pawns and the queen and king left standing with other pieces having been eliminated. In case you’re wondering how Magnus Carlsen took on 1.4 lakh people — 1,43,496 players to be precise — at the same time, here’s how: Carlsen’s opponents played by voting on the app. The move which got the most votes was then played. Each side had 24 hours to make a move. Magnus Carlsen was playing with white pieces. How Magnus Carlsen vs held to draw by The World window.addEventListener(“message”,e=>{e[‘data’]&&”13297594″===e[‘data’][‘id’]&&document.getElementById(${e[‘data’][‘id’]})&&(document.getElementById(${e[‘data’][‘id’]}).style.height=${e[‘data’][‘frameHeight’]+37}px)}); Story continues below this ad Chess.com had predicted that Magnus Carlsen would win by a wide margin. In a post publicizing the game, Chess.com had the following answer to the question, …

World No.2 Hikaru Nakamura left pondering his chess future after a few bad losses | Chess News

World No.2 Hikaru Nakamura left pondering his chess future after a few bad losses | Chess News

Published by Webster

The sting of loss rarely cuts deeper than this. When Javokhir Sindarov — the 19-year-old Uzbek prodigy who replaced Viswanathan Anand as a late entrant — drew Hikaru Nakamura as his quarter-final opponent at the Weissenhaus Freestyle Grand Slam, few anticipated the humiliation that would follow for the veteran American. Nakamura suffered one of the worst losses of his career, and as the tour moved from Germany to Paris for the second leg, he was feeling the weight of creeping self-doubt. The manner of his collapse against Sindarov, squandering winning positions through uncharacteristic mental lapses, left the five-time US champion contemplating retirement. “Sometimes, things happen for a reason and if I’m going to start losing games where I get into great positions but my brain stops working, it starts to lead to certain thoughts creeping into my mind about the future,” said Nakamura, referring to his potential retirement. “If I get into similar situations where I start messing up games like I messed up a couple of games in this freestyle event against Sindarov and …

How Chess.com became more than just a chess app and Titled Tuesday spiced up a routine weekday | Chess News

How Chess.com became more than just a chess app and Titled Tuesday spiced up a routine weekday | Chess News

Published by Parlour News

Around the time Gukesh Dommaraju became the youngest world champion in history of chess in December, Indian chess also made its mark elsewhere. On the popular Chess.com app, India overtook the USA as the “most active country” on the platform, another indicator that not just the protagonists in the thick of action, but spectators following it were also overwhelmingly from India. Right after the three-week battle between Gukesh and Ding Liren in Singapore culminated with the teenager from Chennai become the second Indian to be crowned the world champion after Viswanathan Anand, Chess.com saw what it called a “Gukesh wave”: for three straight days, the app hosted 17 million games daily — the highest daily number in 2024 — at a rate of 15 more games starting per second during peak hours. In the eye of this online chess storm was India. The world’s most populous country currently has 19.5 million registrations, says Avadh Shah, who is the India Director for Chess.com. He points out that an average of 500k new users download the app …