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r/chess

r/chess is a safe-for-work community on Reddit, ranked #594 on SubMouse with 1,859,835 subscribers and about 89 new posts a day.

Rank (SFW)#594
Subscribers1.9M
Growth since Nov 2+1.8K
Posts per day89
Posts all time404.4K
CreatedApr 2008
Visit r/chess on Reddit ↗

About r/chess

In its own words:

All about the game of chess, including discussions on professional tournaments, game analysis and theory. If you are new to the game, check out /r/chessbeginners and before posting here please read our rules: https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/wiki/index.

Community guide

r/chess (#594, about 1.9 million subscribers) — All about the game of chess, including discussions on professional tournaments, game analysis and theory. If you are new to the game, check out /r/chessbeginners and before posting here please read our rules:… A recent sample averaged 89 posts a day (~39% image, ~38% text, ~10% link). Its public rules include: Keep the discussion civil and friendly.; Don't engage in discriminatory or bigoted behavior.; Low-Quality submissions are not allowed.; Off-Topic submissions are not allowed.; Do not politicize r/Chess.

What belongs here

Stay inside the room’s stated scope rather than adjacent fandoms or general off-topic dumps.

How it differs from lookalikes

The length of the public rule list is itself a signal: skim all of them once before assuming defaults from similar communities.

Practical pointers

Read the current sidebar/rules on Reddit before posting; rules can change. Common flairs include: Chess Question, Miscellaneous, Puzzle/Tactic, News/Events.

The community was created on Apr 5, 2008, which makes it 18 years old. Since Nov 2, 2026, it has gained 1,758 subscribers (+0.10%). Among the 6 communities on our chess list it is the largest. It sits just behind r/beauty (#593) and ahead of r/AskHR (#595) in our ranking.

What sets r/chess apart

For its size it is unusually busy: about 48.1 new posts a day per million members, more than 84% of the Top 100.

Subscriber growth

1.86M1.85MSep 19Nov 9, 2026

Between Sep 19, 2026 and Nov 9, 2026, r/chess went up from 1,846,541 to 1,859,835 subscribers (+13.3K, +0.72%). That is about 261 new members per day. The chart shows 10 weekly subscriber counts.

Top posts on r/chess this week

This week’s highest-ranked posts, in Reddit’s own order (collected Nov 7, 2026).

  1. “We’re going to have different championships, which are not Classical. And if Magnus wins, we’re going to say: “This proves that the Classical WC is obsolete”. And if Magnus doesn’t win, then the win…u/Krios29 · Nov 3 · link
  2. "I don't know how you can possibly make that argument" - Fabiano Caruana on whether Hikaru Nakamura is Top 5 in Classicalu/FirstEfficiency7386 · Nov 1 · video
  3. Could a modern chess engine on a Pentium have defeated Kasparov in 1996?u/VandalsStoleMyHandle · Nov 3 · link
  4. The guy with whom I played 130+ games, got banned for cheatingu/Masterji_34 · Nov 5 · image
  5. Young fan asks Sindarov what his favorite opening isu/Krios29 · Nov 4 · video
  6. chess youtubers that are actually instructive instead of just content spamu/EnvironmentalDate870 · Nov 5 · text post
  7. Hikaru impression 'Literally I don't care' from Ben Finegoldu/Various-Ad8081 · Nov 4 · video
  8. Please for the love of god just resign instead of leavingu/hammerheadquark · Nov 1 · text post
  9. He spotted Ne7+ and avoided itu/TastyLength6618 · Nov 2 · image
  10. What happened to Grischuk?u/sick_rock · Nov 3 · image

All-time top posts

The highest-ranked posts in the history of r/chess, from 2020 to 2025, ranked by Reddit.

  1. Magnus at my university bar yesterdayu/papa-pop · Apr 15, 2022 · 37,264 points · 844 comments · video
  2. Magnus makes a statementu/UnfairConfusion · Sep 26, 2022 · 22,215 points · 6,022 comments · image
  3. Magnus showing class by not starting the clock when Duda was being lateu/Shajeta · Dec 27, 2021 · 17,781 points · 620 comments · video
  4. This is hilarious when you know who they areu/Guyooooo · Jan 10, 2025 · image
  5. Aman just made the most disgusting checkmate ever on the chessboard against 2800 IM. This is art.u/ImportantStay1355 · Oct 5, 2024 · video
  6. WSJ: Chess Investigation Finds That U.S. Grandmaster ‘Likely Cheated’ More Than 100 Timesu/DrunkLad · Oct 4, 2022 · 12,753 points · 5,329 comments · link
  7. Magnus Carlsen resigns after two moves against Hans Niemann in the Julius Baer Generation Cupu/BKtheInfamous · Sep 19, 2022 · 12,533 points · 3,826 comments · video
  8. Grandmaster Daniel Naroditsky Has Passed Awayu/Frozeria · Oct 20, 2025 · link
  9. [reposted w/ blanked check] I WON MY FIRST CHESS TOURNAMENT!! USCF U1450 with 4.5/5 and $800 prize 🥰u/sms42069 · Jan 10, 2022 · 12,370 points · 332 comments · image
  10. Happy birthday to Hikaru Nakamura!Dec 9, 2020 · image

What r/chess talks about

We read the titles of 593 recent posts (Oct 29–Nov 5), the words that come up most are “move”, “game”, “play”, “white” and “hikaru”. Other frequent themes are black, elo, opening, brilliant, win and games. Recurring phrases include “hikaru nakamura”, “javokhir sindarov”, “brilliant move” and “fabiano caruana”. By format, 39% are images, 38% are text posts and 10% are links.

  • move 50
  • game 49
  • play 40
  • white 37
  • hikaru 24
  • black 23
  • elo 22
  • opening 21
  • brilliant 21
  • win 21
  • games 19
  • sindarov 19
  • mate 17
  • players 17
  • rating 15
  • looking 15
  • magnus 15
  • nakamura 15

Popular post flairs: Chess Question (167), Miscellaneous (125), Puzzle/Tactic (59), News/Events (57), Game Analysis/Study (53), Video Content (33).

Activity and best time to post

r/chess gets about 89 new posts a day. The public archive holds 404,389 posts and 6,367,316 comments in total, about 15.7 comments per post. Last week the busiest day was Monday (125 posts) and the quietest was Saturday (52). Posting peaks around 14:00 UTC and is lowest around 07:00 UTC.

00: 190001: 2202: 2703: 180304: 2405: 2206: 180607: 1608: 2609: 260910: 1911: 2412: 331213: 2614: 4715: 261516: 3517: 3118: 271819: 3420: 3821: 252122: 3623: 18
Posts per hour of the day, UTC, Oct 29, 2026 – Nov 4, 2026
Images 39%Text posts 38%Links 10%Galleries 7%Videos 6%

Rules of r/chess

The moderators of r/chess list 10 rules. In short:

  1. Keep the discussion civil and friendly.
  2. Don't engage in discriminatory or bigoted behavior.
  3. Low-Quality submissions are not allowed.
  4. Off-Topic submissions are not allowed.
  5. Do not politicize r/Chess.
  6. Do not use /r/chess primarily to promote your own content.
  7. Unfounded or non-newsworthy cheating accusations are not allowed.
  8. Cheating, and facilitating others to cheat, is unacceptable.
  9. Social media submissions must be accurate and verifiable.
  10. Match / tournament result submissions require a certain level of quality.

How to join

Open reddit.com/r/chess and press “Join”. Read the community rules in the sidebar before you post: every subreddit is run by its own volunteer moderators.

Frequently asked questions

How many members does r/chess have?

r/chess has 1,859,835 subscribers (Nov 9, 2026), which makes it the #594 safe-for-work subreddit in the SubMouse ranking. It added 13,294 members between Sep 19, 2026 and Nov 9, 2026.

When was r/chess created?

r/chess was created on Apr 5, 2008, so it has been around for 18 years. The oldest post in the public archive is from May 26, 2008.

Is r/chess still active?

Yes. r/chess gets about 89 new posts a day (average of the last four weeks). Over its lifetime the archive counts 404,389 posts and 6,367,316 comments. In a sample of 593 recent posts we counted 463 different authors.

What is the best time to post in r/chess?

Based on post counts from Oct 29, 2026 to Nov 4, 2026, the busiest day was Monday and the quietest Saturday, and most posts arrive around 14:00 UTC, with the fewest around 07:00 UTC. More posts also means more competition, so a quieter hour can help a post get noticed.

What kind of posts are on r/chess?

The community describes itself as: “All about the game of chess, including discussions on professional tournaments, game analysis and theory. If you are new to the game, check out /r/chessbeginners and before posting here please read our rules: https://ww…” Recent post titles often mention move, game, play, white and hikaru. Most posts are images (39%).

Is r/chess SFW?

Yes. Reddit does not mark r/chess as an 18+ (NSFW) community. SubMouse lists safe-for-work subreddits only.

What are the rules of r/chess?

Join the community on Reddit first, then use “Create post”. r/chess accepts both text and link posts, with images, videos, galleries and polls enabled. It has 10 posted rules, starting with: “Keep the discussion civil and friendly.”; “Don't engage in discriminatory or bigoted behavior.”; “Low-Quality submissions are not allowed.”. Moderators remove posts that break the rules, so read them in the sidebar before posting.

What subreddits are similar to r/chess?

Communities with similar topics include r/PiratedGames (1.2M), r/DestinyTheGame (3.4M), r/compsci (4M), r/gamedev (2.1M) and r/Boxing (3.2M).

Stats from public data (data updated Nov 9, 2026; activity, rules and archive totals via the Arctic Shift archive, Nov 6, 2026; top posts from Reddit’s public feeds). Point and comment counts are archive snapshots and can be lower than on Reddit today. SubMouse is an independent directory and is not affiliated with Reddit or the moderators of r/chess.

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