RCS - World Chess PLC - World Chess and It.com Chess Event Wins W3 Award

World ChessAnnouncement

02/10/2025 07:00

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RNS Number : 7173B  World Chess PLC  02 October 2025

World Chess Plc

("World Chess" or the "Company")

World Chess and It.com Chess Event Wins W3 Award

London, United Kingdom - October 2, 2025 - World Chess Plc (LSE: CHSS) is
pleased to announce that "Hans Niemann vs. You", the record-setting chess
event produced in partnership with it.com Domains and staged at Web Summit
2024, has been awarded a W3 Award for Web Experiences - Games by the Academy
of Interactive and Visual Arts.

The W3 Awards honour creative excellence on the internet, and the recognition
places World Chess's recent project alongside leading names in digital media,
product design, and interactive technology.

●    Award listing: W3 Awards Gallery
(https://www.w3award.com/winners/gallery/?event=1092&search=it.com&type=2016&utm_source=chatgpt.com)

About the Project
"Hans Niemann vs. You" was held on 13 November 2024 at the MEO Arena in Lisbon
as part of Web Summit, one of the world's largest gatherings of technology and
business leaders. The event invited global participants to join
forces-alongside an AI advisor-and vote in real time to collectively challenge
Grandmaster Hans Niemann in a live match.

Over 106,638 people from 132 countries participated, making it the largest
known online simultaneous chess match in history. Players had 30 seconds to
vote on each move, choosing from Grandmaster, Advanced, or Amateur suggestions
provided by an AI system based on Stockfish. Niemann had five minutes per move
to respond. The match, which lasted 71 moves and 42 minutes, was broadcast
globally and commentated live by American FIDE Master James Canty III.

Why This Matters
The W3 Award serves as an independent endorsement of the project's technical
and creative execution-and a signal that the chess world is successfully
extending into adjacent digital sectors.

This was not a novelty match. It was a well-structured digital event, hosted
in a high-stakes, high-visibility environment (Web Summit), that met a growing
interest in collaborative gameplay and intelligent systems. The project
demonstrated that chess, when presented with the right balance of access,
design, and format, has relevance far beyond its traditional audience.

"This recognition affirms something we've believed for a long time: chess is
evolving," said Ilya Merenzon, CEO of World Chess. "The success of this
event-both in participation and in execution-shows that the game has room to
grow in the digital public sphere, not just as sport, but as a structured,
interactive experience."

Andrey Insarov, CEO of it.com Domains, added: "Our goal was to create
something that invited participation at scale without sacrificing depth. This
award reflects the care we took in designing that experience-and what's
possible when tradition and technology meet with intent."

A New Model for Digital Chess Events
Where previous mass chess matches-such as Garry Kasparov's "Kasparov vs. the
World" (1999)-were important proofs of concept, "Hans Niemann vs. You"
operated in a more mature digital environment. It employed live
infrastructure, AI-supported choices, and platform-native design to deliver a
game that was both strategic and spectator-friendly.

The W3 Award, judged by senior figures across digital and creative industries,
recognises this balance of audience engagement and design discipline. It also
places chess-typically treated as a cultural or educational domain-within the
broader landscape of interactive, scalable digital experiences.

For more information, please visit
https://www.company.worldchess.com/investors
(https://mcas-proxyweb.mcas.ms/certificate-checker?login=false&originalUrl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.company.worldchess.com.mcas.ms%2Finvestors%3Futm_source%3Dchatgpt.com%26McasTsid%3D20892&McasCSRF=f18a9ec3cb6135bd66552d5cc5fc1a8b64987f0b852f218fa9f47706308864d1)
 

World Chess PLC

Ilya Merenzon, CEO

merenzon@worldchess.com

AlbR Capital Limited

Financial Adviser

David Coffman / Anastassiya Eley

+44 (0) 20 7399 9400

About World Chess PLC
World Chess (LSE: CHSS) is a London-based chess media and gaming company and
official commercial partner of the International Chess Federation (FIDE). The
company develops digital and in-person formats to modernize chess, including
chessarena.com (the only platform offering FIDE-recognised online ratings),
the Armageddon Championship Series (a televised chess league), and global
activations at the intersection of sport, technology, and design.

About it.com Domains
it.com Domains is a London-headquartered domain registry operating the it.com
domain extension (e.g., yourbrand.it.com). The company is also a candidate
Registry Services Provider for ICANN's upcoming gTLD rounds. Known for its
inventive marketing partnerships, it.com Domains focuses on creating
accessible and creative identity solutions for businesses and individuals
worldwide.

 

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