Vishy Anand, a legendary chess player and five-time world champion, will join forces with ChessKid to promote scholastic chess in India, Anand and ChessKid announced today. Anand, India's first chess grandmaster, held the press conference in his home city of Chennai at the Taj Coromandel.

ChessKid is the world's number one site for kids to learn and play chess. ChessKid CEO Carey Fan, Chief Chess Officer Mike Klein and India Marketing Director Rakesh Kulkarni represented ChessKid at the press conference.

ChessKid homepage.

Anand will become ChessKid's Chief Mentor of India, working to grow youth chess in the world's second-most-populous country while providing content and product insight to ChessKid.

The collaboration between Anand and ChessKid will begin with the ChessKid Championship of India, a country-wide tournament this summer to be held online at ChessKid.com. Schools from six states will send individual state-wide tournament winners to the national tournament to join four wildcards selected by ChessKid, for a total field of 10 children.

The 10 participants will get an opportunity to travel and meet with Anand live.

ChessKid announced that to celebrate Anand's upcoming 50th birthday, every 50th child to purchase a gold membership on ChessKid will win a DGT digital chess clock. The first 1,000 children to purchase a gold membership will all be invited to a private and live online MasterClass with Anand. ChessKid will also sponsor an initiative to help make gold memberships available to rural schools in need.

Anand mentioned that his son, Akhil, learns and plays on ChessKid. Anand said he believes ChessKid is the best platform to reach a large Indian audience regardless of chess culture in the area.

"India has been a rising star in the chess world," said ChessKid CEO Carey Fan. "We are thrilled to partner with Vishy in our drive to make chess accessible to millions of households across India. His combination of sportsmanship, wisdom and unparalleled chess accomplishments make him perfectly suited to help drive scholastic chess awareness.

ChessKid CEO Carey Fan (seated, left) with Anand (center), ChessKid chief chess officer Mike Klein (right) and ChessKid marketing director Rakesh Kulkarni (standing). Photo: ChessKid.

ChessKid is the world's largest website for children to learn and play. ChessKid.com is specifically designed to be a safe and fun place for kids, while providing resources for parents and coaches.



Contact:

Mike Klein

Chief Chess Officer, ChessKid.com

mike@chesskid.com



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