New Year, New Features, New Superstars
Welcome to 2024. This year's first monthly Chess.com update focuses on handy new features, catches you up on the latest news, and previews some exciting events ahead.
Here's what this update covers:
There are two great new features to help you learn from all of your brilliant (and less-than-brilliant) moves in 2023, as well as challenging bots and thousands of additional puzzles.
- Could you beat GM Magnus Carlsen at chess? Us neither, and there's no shame in that. But what if he was asleep for 99% of the game? The new Magnus bots make things interesting...
- The new Year In Chess feature is here. Check out how many games you played, your longest streaks, your best win, who your best chess friend was, and more!
- On the topic of chess insights... the Insights feature now lets Diamond members check out their Opening Insights to see how well they perform in the first stage of their games.
- Our Puzzles library received 13,817 new Christmas gifts in December, landing at a total of 817,744. Could a million unique puzzles be a good New Year's resolution for 2024?
If you are in tech and would like to join our team, we're hiring!
Events
2023 concluded with fireworks in the Champions Chess Tour Finals, as well as dominant displays in the FIDE World Rapid and FIDE World Blitz tournaments. Stay tuned for major events in 2024.
- The 2023 Champions Chess Tour Finals produced some stunning action to close off the year, as Carlsen overcame GM Wesley So with a stunning 98.1% accuracy.
- Carlsen's success continued at the 2023 FIDE World Blitz Chess Championship and FIDE World Rapid Championship, with the Norwegian master winning both events.
- Beginning in 2024, multiple Chess.com prize events will restrict draw offers until after move 30, and our bullet chess prize events will restrict draw offers for the entire game.
- Looking ahead, Puzzle Week is returning to Chess.com in 2024 between January 8-12, culminating in the Puzzles World Championship on January 11 and 12.
Community
This month's community-based highlights include democracy in action, exciting contests coming up soon, and a fabulous fundraising effort.
- The people have spoken! More than 16,000 of you voted for last year's best games, moves, content creators, and more. Find out who the 2023 Chess.com Awards winners are.
- Chess players from around the world are part of an international community that can achieve amazing things. Last month, Chess In Slums Africa partnered with Chess.com to raise funds and bring the joy of chess to thousands of children.
- Puzzle Week is coming, and there are prizes to be won, even if you're not a titled chess player. Follow the GreenPawns Twitter/X account and join the official Chess.com Community Club for updates on how to win exciting community-based competitions.
- The Variants Community Series is back in 2024, starting with a focus on Crazyhouse chess, which lets you use the pieces you capture as part of your own army. Try it out!
Content
What do chess and international football have in common, how important are instincts in becoming a champion, and does Magnus know Hikaru's birthday? Find out below.
- In last month's update, we found out how much GM Hikaru Nakamura knows about his greatest rival (hint: a lot), and this time Magnus returns the favor. Watch and enjoy!
- A third genius has just entered the conversation. Luckily for grandmasters everywhere, his skills aren't necessarily on the chess board. Legendary football/soccer coach Pep Guardiola sat down with fellow PUMA ambassador Magnus Carlsen for a fascinating conversation.
- Lost track of everything that happened in 2023? You're not the only one. It was an incredibly busy year for the chess world. If only there was an article with every single important fact, statistic, and story all compiled together...
Chessable
December saw several major new courses released on Chessable, including a reinterpretation of one of the all-time greats. All of the courses linked below have free previews full of chess wisdom.
- How to Reassess Your Chess by the legendary late IM Jeremy Silman is considered a classic for good reason. Originally published as a book, it's now been reinterpreted for Chessable and presented by GM Maurice Ashley.
- FM James Canty III's new course, The Meanest Jobava London, covers a hyper-aggressive 1.d4 repertoire that leads to picture-perfect kingside attacks.
- Meanwhile, GM Ben Finegold released his beginner's guide to the Sicilian Defense, perfect for beginner and intermediate players who are curious about this legendary opening for Black.
- In case you missed it: IM Danny Rensch's famous 'Everything You Need To Know' series is now on Chessable.
ChessKid
ChessKids just keeps getting better and better. The future stars of chess are shining brightly already! Get to know these names because you'll be seeing a lot more of them over the coming years.
- IM Levy Rozman may be the internet's favorite chess teacher, but even he can still learn a thing or two. Introducing FM Faustino Oro. He's nine years old, he likes spaghetti, and he pushed his IM counterpart to the limit in their recent match, with Fausti winning in overtime.
- Big news for the ChessKid National Festival, which has now been expanded to include kids up to K8. IM Danny Rensch, Rozman, and FM Mike Klein will be among the attendees, with some very special guests potentially being announced soon.
- ChessKid star Bodhana Sivanandan shocked the chess world at the European Blitz Championship recently, winning the prize for the best woman player in the tournament at only eight years old. Don't miss FM Mike Klein's exclusive interview with Bodhana!
Fair Play
New year, new stats. Going forward, we're including some new information, inluding the number of rating points refunded to users who lost games to opponents who violated our Fair Play rules.
Fair Play stats for December:
- 488K reports created
- 59,112 Fair Play closures (including three titled players; two IMs and one CM)
- 71.4K mute actions
- 63.1K accounts muted
- 99.2K abuse closures
- 24,899,958 rating points refunded
Support
It may have been the holiday season, but Chess.com support never sleeps. (Okay, they do, that's a basic biological need, but they're still very diligent.)
- Average Time to First Response: 1 day 14 hours
- Total Requests Received: 96,413
- Average Quality by Member Rating: 94%
- Total Ratings: 7,044
Fun fact: the team fielded approximately 1.2 million replies in 2023; that's twice as much as in 2022!
Thank you for being part of our amazing community, and we hope that this year brings you plenty of chess success. Let us know your thoughts and ideas in the comments below.
Missed an update? You'll find last month's edition here.
