CHENNAI: US-based online chess platform chesskid.com launched its Indian edition under the mentorship of Grandmaster Viswanathan Anand here Thursday.
Under Anand’s guidance, chesskid.com would release curated chess content and hold annual online competitions for India’s aspiring young chess players, the online platform said.
Indian chess has risen consistently in the last three decades. India currently has 63 grandmasters – the highest title Chess players can get – and ranks 8th in the world. In June last year, Tamil Nadu’s R Praggnanandhaa became the world’s second-youngest chess grandmaster at the age of 12 years and 10 months.
The online platform, which is a first of its kind in the country, aims to provide deep, enriching content for kids, teaching children the creativity of art and logical reasoning while also teaching calculated risk taking and sportsmanship.
Speaking about the new initiatives, Carey Fan, CEO, chesskid.com, said: “India is a rapidly rising chess country. There are 195 million elementary school-aged children in India and the education market is expected to grow to $40 billion by end of 2019, up from $20 billion in 2015. There is a lot of scope for a chess platforms like ours to flourish here.”
“Also, we have Viswanathan Anand on board with us who is considered to be one of the greatest sportsmen in history. While there are many other chess platforms in the market, chesskid.com is one of the few platforms that amalgamates the joy of playing a game like chess as well as offers some rich content that keeps users engaged,” he continued.
Describing chesskid as a safe and accessible platform, chief stats officer Mike Klein said it is the world’s largest scholastic website for kids.
“There are one million kids playing. We are the foremost, respected, and fun place online platform. You can play live chess, do puzzles, interact with other players. All the focus is on kids,” he said.
