Type of events you will be able to compete in:

Our esports programme consists of four major events a year, three grand slams and a world cup outside the standard daily, weekly and monthly tournaments. The Checkmate team is currently finalising tour dates and event hosts for the international series. Interested economic development agencies or venues can submit expressions of interest by completing our contact form.

What is XR?

It's Chess like you have never seen before.  XR (Extended Reality) is the engine of the metaverse and synthetic broadcasts. We have been working closely with our R&D partners, who are at the forefront of this new media revolution. We will be leveraging the same tech that is used to produce major blockbuster movies to bridge chess, esports and mixed reality to deliver a new immersive player and viewer experience. We’re excited to unveil in time what we have been working towards.

A key focus for Checkmate has been to improve the integrity of online Chess matches. This is to improve the player experience and to be able to offer major online cash prize pools. We have a zero-tolerance for cheating and cheaters will not be welcome.

Unfortunately, to date competitive online chess has been hampered by players who choose to cheat, up to 40% on some chess websites. Early on we identified this as a key problem and its impact on fair play and have successfully addressed it through a mix of proprietary AI and existing technology, partnerships and the development of a strong integrity programme.

Our in-house Anti-cheat software will be required for all competitive matches and a comprehensive integrity programme will be in place for major tournaments. Players that are identified as cheating will risk their accounts being closed and in-game assets seized and liquidated. The proceeds of items sold will be allocated to the player prize pool and creator's pool.

Checkmate is committed to recognising and enforcing the sanctions imposed on any person where the Asian Chess Federation, ESIC or another member of ESIC has imposed a sanction. In short if you cheat with us you will be banned in most international esports and chess tournaments.
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Play by the rules and we all win. 

We value good sportsmanship, respect and integrity.  This doesn’t mean you can’t crack a few jokes but it does mean that abusive behaviour will fall under the Checkmate integrity policy. All player accounts will have a behavioural score which will be based on community reporting.

We have classified Checkmate as an esport due to the electronic nature of its execution rather than over-the-board which happens in-person. Chess is similar to esports; as it is recognised as a sport in some countries and not others. Unlike esports Chess is recognized as a sport by the International Olympic committee.

As ESPN reported, chess players can burn up to 6,000 calories a day whist playing in a tournament, which is three times what an average person consumes in a day. According to Robert Sapolsky, who studies stress in primates at Stanford University, the stress elite chess players encounter during a tournament is on par with what elite athletes experience. Chess is competitive, has rules and top players must be match fit - yip, it's a sport.

Chess is a pure skill-based game. Cash-based tournaments in games of skill are not considered to be gambling in most territories. Checkmate will not offer wagering but we will be syndicating gaming results with oversight from ESIC to data partners who wish to cover the matches.

Checkmate is scheduled to launch in Q1 2023 on web and mobile.