Once a pawn a time

45% of MVHS students play chess

*According to a survey of 139 people

61% of MVHS students

have used chess.com or another online chess platform

*According to a survey of 131 people

I noticed the [chess] boom starting around winter break. I think that’s because there was really bad weather in California at the time, so many people couldn’t go outside or play sports, so they started playing lots of chess. And it just spread from there.

“ SENIOR

Chess is a really great activity to incorporate into people’s lives. And starting with chess. com is great, but I think we should definitely take it back in-person and not just online, because I feel like everything loses its touch when it’s online.

“

When playing online I find that a lot of people will feel as if they can express their emotions in any which way they want which may not always be positive, while in a real life scenario [that] would be unacceptable [and] inappropriate. BRYAN

Tracking the growing popularity of chess.com at MVHS

BY MIKAYLAH DU AND RIYA MURTHY

chess.com has:

100+ million players

10 million peak active users

272.5 million monthly views

1+ billion games played in February 2023

*According to chess.com

Most Popular Chess Sites:

I’ve only recently started noticing [people playing chess at school] so it seemed a little out of the blue, but it’s nice to hear people enjoying the game that used to be somewhat stigmatized as a nerd game.

“ SENIOR

AGNES WANG

I recently met a group of people who love to play chess and it’s become extremely fun because they opened me to a whole new world that I didn’t know before. It’s a fun way to relax and de-stress [while at] MVHS.

SOPHOMORE

Ganesh Batchu

1. chess.com

272.5M monthly views

2. lichess.com

96.8M monthly views

3. chessable.com

4.4M monthly views

*According to similarweb.com