New Champions On Their Way Ahead Of 2025
The end of the year is always a busy time, and Chess.com along with the rest of the chess world are not exempt. Right now there is an ongoing world championship, and everyone from content to Chessable is getting in on the fun. Soon, there will be a new Champions Chess Tour victor, and at the end of the month are the FIDE rapid and blitz world championships (being held this year in New York City).
As we get ready to bring in 2025, Chess.com continues to do our best to bring you all the goods. Here's what this update covers:
Events
It's another action-packed end of the year with several events on the calendar. Here are just the highlights.
- The Champions Chess Tour Finals are coming up on December 17-21. GMs Magnus Carlsen and Alireza Firouzja are the favorites, but all eight players are dangerous!
- The ongoing FIDE World Chess Championship in Singapore remains close, with both the champion GM Ding Liren and the challenger GM Gukesh Dommaraju still in the hunt. Continue to tune into our coverage on YouTube or Twitch for all the latest developments!
- With just four Tuesdays left in the year, GM Hikaru Nakamura is the clear favorite in the overall Titled Cup standings, leading Carlsen by five points. The women's standings remain in flux, with GM Aleksandra Goryachkina, GM Alexandra Kosteniuk, and IM Polina Shuvalova currently holding the top three spots with two points of separation.
- Carlsen won the Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Match against GM Fabiano Caruana as the Carlsen continues to promote and crush freestyle chess (Chess960). Meanwhile, Caruana won the U.S. Masters as he jockeys for another Candidates appearance.
- The Fall 2024 season of the Collegiate Chess League wrapped up with a victory for the University of Missouri. Stay tuned for announcements of the Spring 2025 season!
Product & Engineering
It's December, and you know what that means: holiday bots!
- From the Gingerbread Man to Sinta Claus (wait, Sinta?), don't miss this year's holiday bots!
If you are in tech and would like to join our team, we're hiring!
Community
Our community continues to run strong with partnerships, bots, and tournaments. Read all about them below.
- GM Awonder Liang won the Seirawan Chess Championship on November 8, the penultimate tournament of this year's Chess.com Community Championships, which wrap up with the Crazyhouse Championship—and its $7,500 prize fund—on December 6.
- NBA star Jamie Jaquez Jr. became the latest athlete to join our bot team!
- Following his bot release in October, Logic is hosting an arena tournament in his club, Bobby Boy's Chess Club, on December 14 at 2 p.m. ET. The grand prize is playing a game against Logic himself! Three Merch Packs from his new album, Ultra 85, are also available.
Content
Things are always tense when chess players meet over a polygraph machine, and this month was no different. Plus, we had previews of the world championship from some of our best stats people.
- The dynamic content duo of GMs Vidit Gujrathi and Anish Giri continued to entertain us as they joined the lie detector series.
- Our articles this month previewed the world championship with contributions from NM Jeremy Kane and IM Rakesh Kulkarni on the stats and numbers, and NM Matt Jensen's SmarterChess predictions. Stay tuned this month for recaps!
Chessable
Chessable continues to provide excellent and engaging new courses and has also supported some impressive chess research.
- In a brand-new, completely free course, IM Andras Toth is following the FIDE World Championship and sharing his insights after every game!
- WIM Natasha Regan and FIDE instructor Matt Ball explored world championship challenger and Olympiad champion Gukesh's best games to instruct you on the tactical secrets revealed by his play.
- Chessable also supported four speakers at the recent Saint Louis Chess Conference, which you can read about on the Chessable Blog.
ChessKid
This month, ChessKid held perhaps the most exciting Kids vs. Stars yet, and this weekend is live in National Harbor, MD, for the K-12 Nationals.
- ChessKid is at the National K-12 Grade Championships, December 6-8, with a booth as well as hosting a girls' club puzzle-solving contest on December 7. Read more about it over at ChessKid.
- GM Anish Giri won Kids vs. Stars on November 15, taking on the prodigious quartet of IM Alice Lee, GM Shreyas Royal, GM Andy Woodward, and IM Ryo Chen and scoring 2.5/4. Alice won her game against Anish while Shreyas held a draw. Congrats to all the kids for an excellent show!
Fair Play
The Fair Play team is always working to keep Chess.com a fair and safe place for everyone in the community to play.
Fair Play Stats for November:
- 605,644 reports created
- 74,366 Fair Play closures (including six titled players: 2 FM, 2 NM, 2 CM)
- 30,900+ mute actions
- 27,300+ accounts muted
- 175,000+ abuse closures
- 31,673,154 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, 7 hours
- Total Number of Conversations: 23,211
- Average Quality by Member Rating: 91.9% (new record!)
- Total Ratings: 3,350
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.
