Chess.com Celebrates One Year US Chess Milestone With Special Prizes

The US Chess group on Chess.com passed the one-year milestone with online US Chess rated play over the weekend. The first week after the announcement of official online rated play, the group saw more than 150 members authenticated and ready to play in the first scheduled event on March 20, 2015. The inaugural event, an online quick tourney with a 15|10 time control, drew 34 of those initial members. NM eugeniusjr swept the field with four wins, followed by IM DanielRensch and NM redchessman 3.5 each. Due to the promising start, the quick event was expanded to five rounds, and within five weeks two new blitz events were added on Mondays, giving players five weekly scheduled events to play. Growth of the group has remained steady, passing 1,000 members in February 2016. We have held 202 total events, including a couple of manually paired quick tourneys, with more than 400 members playing in at least two of those events. Nine of those members have played in 50 or more events. Two have played in over 100: divncom and tcudoug.   To honor the anniversary of the official US Chess Group's launching of USCF Online Rated events on Chess.com, we are pleased to announce that we will be giving special prizes to the top finishers of each of next week's regular tournaments March 28 through April 1. For all four regular weekly events, the top give prizes will receive:

• 1st place: t-shirt and 1 year Diamond Membership ($130 value)
• 2nd place: t-shirt and 1 year Platinum Membership or 6 month Diamond extension ($75 value)
• 3rd place: t-shirt and 1 year Gold Membership or 4 month Diamond extension ($50 value)
• 4th place: t-shirt
• 5th place: t-shirt

"We so excited to have this partnership with the US Chess Federation and to see the group grow this past year!" said International Master Danny Rensch, Vice President for Chess.com. "The regular, rated events on our site have even converted more than a few online chess enthusiasts into US Chess members, now playing regularly in over-the-board tournaments." We are looking forward to another year of events and membership growth. Thanks to all those US Chess members already a part of the group and for playing in the events. To join the group, visit https://www.chess.com/groups/view/uschess. Already have a US Chess membership but new to Chess.com? Sign up here!