Chess is Popular Now
Due to the pandemic, online chess platforms have popularized the game. Access to coaching from grandmasters through classes and private lessons are more accessible than ever.
Chess is in. Thanks to the amazing engineering of Chess.com, an online chess platform with players ranging from grandmasters to beginners, more than 100 million users have signed up since the pandemic. Among other factors, the popular Netflix show The Queen’s Gambit and Chess YouTubers have also helped peak interest in young players.
I don’t remember when I signed my son up for Chess.com (probably during the pandemic like everyone else) but he didn’t really get into it until he saw that I was going to delete the app as part of a digital spring cleaning in an attempt to curate what he was doing on the iPad.
But he asked me to keep Chess.com. So I did.
And then, suddenly, I had a kid who became obsessed with chess. He first only played my dad since he could friend him on Chess.com and they could ask each other to play, even on different time zones. But then after hundreds of games, he wanted more. So he asked me, can he play others? So I said, yes with hesitation because there is a chat feature. I told him not to talk to anyone on the chat. So that’s when he discovered digital tournaments, which allowed him to play a lot of people in a row and work towards collecting trophies. It was great to see him gaining confidence in this way, but it wasn’t balanced. There was too much screen time.
I didn’t want him to think of chess as a virtual game that for much of history has been played in-person on a board.
So I signed him up for an in-person FIDE-rated tournament, knowing he would most likely loose. He did loose and it was okay. The best part of the day-long experience was finding a friend who loves chess as much as him who can now challenge him and accompany him to future chess tournaments. On a side note, the funny thing I noticed at the in-person tournament was that during the breaks the kids would play on their chess.com accounts.
So I thought, if he’s going to continue to be competing in tournaments, he needs a good chess coach. Fortunately, he is motivated to study on his own by using Chess.com and by watching Chess tutorial videos. Now that online learning is augmented with a chess coach who can help him analyze his games and think about his weaknesses.
Besides making chess popular during the pandemic, another thing the pandemic did was make coaches (who are grandmasters) more accessible. Many have their own academy or teach an online course. Geography also doesn’t matter because private lessons can be taught on Zoom along with Chess.com and Lichess.com.
The youngest player to be ranked #1 in the world, Magnus Carlsen has his own online chess academy and an app called Play Magnus. Magnus’ popular app is part of the Play Magnus Group, which was eventually acquired by Chess.com in 2022 for $82 million.
If your kid has an interest in Chess, sign up for Chess.com and have fun! You’ll likely have to learn Chess too, so they can play you.
If your kid enjoys the game, then consider finding a local chess academy so they can play kids their age or skill level.
Chess champions are getting younger and younger these days. And the geographical regions producing champions is ever expanding. For instance, India is becoming quite the hotspot, which has already produced 82 grandmasters. Chennai has become the Mecca of chess in India as the government made chess compulsory in gov schools in 2012.
What’s the perfect age to start? It seems most chess champions start at the age of 6-8. But now with services like Chess at Three, eager kids can start appreciating the game of chess at three years old.