ChessCube

ChessCube.com is an online chess community with over 1,400,000 registered members as of early March 2011.^[1] ChessCube.com was founded in 2007 by Mark Levitt, and offers live play, chat, and ChessCube Cinema. In 2009, ChessCube hosted the world's first FIDE-rated online matches played in the SA Open 2009.^[2]

History

Mark Levitt, founder of ChessCube, was involved in chess publishing in the early 1990s. From 1997 to 1998, Mark built the online Chess World for British Telecom's GamePlay.com, but GamePlay.com naturally dropped its board and card games in 1999 after it listed. Mark launched ChessCube as a market test in 2007 in South Africa, and ChessCube was offered internationally in January 2008. As of August 2009, ChessCube had over 650,000 registered users from over 200 countries.^[3] On 10 August 2009, ChessCube announced a US$1.25m VC funding from InVenFin.^[4]

Development

The ChessCube live chess is developed in Adobe Flex.

Community

ChessCube has over 1,000,000 registered users. ChessCube's users are from around the globe,^[5] including India, Philippines and the USA.

ChessCube's community is managed by moderators who are ChessCube players themselves. Moderators may ban players who are abusive.

Various chat rooms are set up for various groups, mainly by country. Popular youtube commentator ChessNetwork/Jerry also has a chat room of his own in the site.

A dedicated ChessCube forum also exists independently of the main site to discuss the site and other topics.

Investors

ChessCube has secured $1.8m to date in venture capital.^[6] Investors include InVenFin, a subsidiary of Venfin Limited, Michael Leeman and Vinny Lingham.

Features

ChessCube Play is ChessCube's signature live chess platform. Games can be rated or unrated, and timed or untimed. Fast games are timed games less than 10 minutes. Slow games are games longer than 15 minutes. Games can be standard or Chess960, a variant where starting positions are shuffled. There are 960 possible starting variations, hence the name. Registered users who are logged in can spectate live games.

ChessCube Chat allows all registered players who are logged in to chat to one another, either in chat rooms, while playing chess games against one another or while spectating chess games.

ChessCube Cinema is an Adobe AIR application that can be downloaded to a user's desktop. It allows chess videos and lectures to be downloaded and viewed by the user. These videos allow a chessboard demonstrating the lecture to viewed alongside the lecturer. The Foxy Openings series can be purchased to be viewed on ChessCube Cinema.

Memberships

In mid 2011, ChessCube switched exclusively to VIP memberships while still allowing people without memberships to play a limited amounts of games for free.

SA Open 2009

In July 2009, ChessCube sponsored the SA Open held at Wynberg Boys' High School. After negotiating with FIDE, the World Chess Federation, several matches were played online using ChessCube. These matches were FIDE-rated — a world first for chess.^[7] Participants in Melbourne, Australia, played against participants in Cape Town. Amon Simutowe won the SA Open 2009.^[8]

Awards

ChessCube was a semifinalist in the Adobe MAX 2008 Awards.^[9] ChessCube won the 2008 WP Sports Award: Media Award - Electronic.^[10]

External links

• ChessCube homepage
• ChessCube Cinema

References

1. ^ "What a July for ChessCube". ChessCube. http://blog.chesscube.com/what-a-july-for-chesscube/. Retrieved 2009-08-17. 
2. ^ "SA Chess Open Includes Internet Play". Susan Polgar. http://susanpolgar.blogspot.com/2009/07/sa-chess-open-includes-internet-play.html. Retrieved 2009-08-17. 
3. ^ "Cape’s ChessCube gets $1,25m capital injection from InVenFin". Business Day. http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/Content.aspx?id=78261. Retrieved 2009-08-17. 
4. ^ "Cape’s ChessCube gets $1,25m capital injection from InVenFin". Business Day. http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/Content.aspx?id=78261. Retrieved 2009-08-17. 
5. ^ "ChessCube on Alexa". Alexa. http://alexa.com/siteinfo/chesscube.com. Retrieved 2009-08-17. 
6. ^ "Online Chess Business ChessCube Receives VC Funding". ChessCube. http://blog.chesscube.com/online-chess-business-chesscube-receives-vc-funding/. Retrieved 2009-08-17. 
7. ^ "SA Chess Open Includes Internet Play". Susan Polgar. http://susanpolgar.blogspot.com/2009/07/sa-chess-open-includes-internet-play.html. Retrieved 2009-08-17. 
8. ^ "SA Open 2009 Results". SA Open. http://www.saopen2009.com/results.html. Retrieved 2009-08-17. 
9. ^ "Adobe MAX 2008 Semifinalists - part 2". Yikulju. http://yikulju.com/blog/?p=78. Retrieved 2009-08-17. 
10. ^ "Western Province Chess Awards Evening". CHESSA. http://www.chessa.co.za/WesternProvince/CHESS%20WP%20Awards%20evening%202008_1%20(2009).doc. Retrieved 2009-08-17. ^{[dead link]}