Back Under Old Ownership

MCA back under original owners: Adam and Daniel Weissbarth buy company back from chess.com

The headline basically says it all: we’re buying Magnus Chess Academy back from chess.com, and will be changing the name back to Silver Knights Chess in 2025.  Otherwise there are no changes planned to management, staff, coaches, curriculum, clubs, Academy classes, camps, or tournaments.  In short: day to day, everything continues as it did before.

We want to thank Magnus Carlsen, Judit Polgar, and Chess.com for their partnership over the past three years.  

So what’s next?

We’re looking forward to continuing to run the best in person school chess clubs, camps, and tournaments in Virginia, Maryland, and Washington, DC.  We’re teaching chess in more local schools than ever.  Summer camps and chess tournaments have also hit all-time highs in popularity over the past couple of years.

We’re really excited about continuing to grow our Academy program, which has hit a few cool milestones in the last month.

First, the program is the biggest it’s ever been.  There are more students than we had in 2020 and 2021 when many schools were closed!  Academy students are working with a team of coaches that includes ten chess masters.

Second, we’ve really grown the breadth of where students are coming from.  In October we got our first student from Alaska, which means we’re officially serving students from all 50 states, plus 36 countries and 6 continents around the world!  When I (half jokingly) suggested at the beginning of October that we really wanted a student from Alaska it seems to have worked, so…does anyone know a kid in Antarctica who might want chess lessons?

Third, we’ve really grown the skill level of the most advanced students in the Academy program.  Although we’ve had many former students that became masters, in October, an active student officially became a master.  This was a first for us… but we might add a second master very soon!  The format of the Academy program has allowed students to continue learning and progressing even once they become among the very top players in the country for their age.