What started with five students in Udaipur has grown into a global online chess academy helping 10,000+ children across 30+ countries learn through live, personalised chess coaching.
Anyone can play a thousand games. Real progress comes from understanding why a move works, why it fails, and what to do differently next time.
An engine can mark a move wrong. A coach can understand why the child made it and help them think differently.
A recording can teach a lesson, but it cannot answer a child's question or notice when something has not clicked.
Smaller classes let coaches closely follow each child's decisions, mistakes, and progress over time.
That is the gap Kingdom of Chess was built to close - turning children who play chess into children who learn to think.
From a small classroom in Udaipur to students across the world, every stage of our journey has been shaped by one goal: better chess education for every child.
Kingdom of Chess began in one room in Udaipur with five students and a simple idea: make quality chess coaching accessible to more children.
We moved our academy online and welcomed our first students from outside India. Our structured Pawn-to-King curriculum was built to give every learner a clear path forward.
Our community crossed 1,000 students, and our first full-time team of FIDE-certified coaches joined the academy.
Kingdom of Chess received DPIIT recognition from the Government of India.
One of our students, Yash Bharadia, earned the International Master title. We also crossed 5,000 students.
10,000+ students across 30+ countries, seed funding from the BeyondSeed Angel Fund, and the second KOC International rated tournament fills a hall.
Live classes run in every time zone we have a student in — which, this month, is thirty-one of them.
Arena Grandmaster · FIDE-certified
Accompanied Team India at the World Youth Chess Championship
Coaching since 2018 · Udaipur, Rajasthan
Chandrajeet Singh Rajawat discovered chess as a teenager and chose to pursue it seriously, even when the path ahead was uncertain. He eventually became Rajasthan's first Arena Grandmaster and a seven-time Rajasthan State Champion.
His journey took him from playing tournaments to coaching children in Delhi and later returning to Udaipur to build something of his own. In 2018, he started Kingdom of Chess with just four or five students in a small room.
As his students began winning state and national medals, Chandrajeet saw an opportunity to make quality chess coaching accessible to far more children. What started as a small academy has since grown into a global online chess academy serving students across 30+ countries.
“Chess has given me more than a game to play. It taught me how to think, stay patient, and keep going when the position looks difficult. I started Kingdom of Chess because I wanted more children to experience those lessons through the right guidance.”
Chandrajeet Rajawat
Founder · Kingdom of Chess
Chandrajeet started it. Everything around the teaching — hiring the coaches, running the schedule, answering your first email, building the software the classes run on — is four people’s full-time work.
Want to work here?
Head of Sales and Marketing
Dhruv Dak is the Head of Sales and Marketing at Kingdom of Chess. With over 12 years of experience in chess, including more than five years as a coach, he combines his background as a player and trainer with his expertise in business strategy.
A five-time State Champion and four-time CBSE Gold Medalist, Dhruv achieved a peak FIDE rating of 1804. In his current role he focuses on building sustainable growth strategies, leading teams, and developing initiatives that connect students and parents with the academy’s vision — the same discipline and foresight he applied throughout his chess career.
Head of HR
Naman is the Head of HR at Kingdom of Chess, where he focuses on building strong teams, supporting employee growth, and fostering a culture of excellence. With more than 15 years of involvement in chess and over six years as a coach and mentor, he brings a unique perspective to his leadership.
A three-time State Champion and winner of over 10 state-level medals, Naman holds a current FIDE rating of 1752. His experience as a competitive player has shaped his ability to think strategically, stay patient under pressure, and guide others toward achieving their potential — and he applies those qualities to an environment where both employees and students can thrive.
Head of Operations
Gautam Kataria is the Head of Operations at Kingdom of Chess, where he is responsible for streamlining processes, coordinating programmes, and driving efficiency across teams. With more than 15 years of experience in chess, he brings both strategic discipline and organisational expertise to the role.
A three-time State Champion with over 10 state-level medals and a current FIDE rating of 1752, Gautam has also mentored students who went on to achieve state and national titles. His ability to merge chess experience with operational leadership makes him a key force in scaling Kingdom of Chess and in keeping the learning environment the same size as it grows.
Chief Technology Officer
Manask Sharma is the Chief Technology Officer at Kingdom of Chess, where he leads engineering, architecture and product. His remit is the machinery the academy actually runs on: a real-time classroom built for low-latency instruction, a scheduling layer that resolves coaches, students and time zones across more than thirty countries, and the data pipeline that turns a month of lessons into a report a parent can read.
It is the half of an academy nobody is meant to notice, and the half that decides whether the rest of it works — sessions that start on the second, capacity that holds when a cohort doubles overnight, and an auditable record of every lesson taught, still there the next morning.
Chess teaches more than how to play. It helps children build habits of thinking, learning and growing that stay with them far beyond the board.
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A great coach watches how your child thinks, corrects mistakes in real time and helps build better habits with every class.
02
Keeping groups small gives coaches the time to listen, guide and give meaningful feedback to every child in the class.
03
You should know what your child learned, where they improved and what they are working towards next, not just when the month ends.
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Focus, patience, pattern recognition and decision-making are skills we build through chess that your child can carry into everyday life.
Our coaching team includes FIDE-rated players, titled players, tournament competitors, state and national champions, and experienced chess educators. Every coach is trained to teach children, not simply play against them.
National Champion · Commonwealth silver medallist
Has trained 20+ Grandmasters, including Arjun Erigaisi
Opening preparation and tactical sharpness
FIDE-rated coaches, national champions and arbiters.
Almost none of our students will play chess professionally. All of them can carry these habits forward.
Children learn that improvement comes from practice, feedback and the willingness to keep working when something does not come easily.
Instead of rushing for an answer, children learn to look deeper, explore possibilities and understand why a move makes sense.
Chess teaches children to assess risk, trust their thinking and make a decision even when there is no obviously safe choice.
With the clock running and the position changing, children learn to stay calm, think clearly and make better decisions under pressure.
We believe parents should have more than promises before choosing a chess academy. That is why we put our work, our standards and our progress where they can be independently seen and recognised.
Awarded by India's Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade to startups meeting formal quality and legitimacy standards. Kingdom of Chess is the only chess-education company in India that holds it.
Named Best Startup at TiECON Udaipur 2025: the regional startup ecosystem's own verdict on the company that showed the strongest growth, innovation and impact that year.
Backed by the BeyondSeed Angel Fund, with investors Arjun Vaidya and Rakesh Amerneni — who reviewed the business, the model and the student outcomes before committing capital.
Eight years, one room in Udaipur to thirty-one time zones. Here is the short version of how, and what it means for your child.
In 2018, by Chandrajeet Rajawat — an Arena Grandmaster and FIDE-certified coach who accompanied Team India at the World Youth Chess Championship. It started in one room in Udaipur, Rajasthan, with five students.
More than 10,000, across 30+ countries. Live classes run in every time zone we have a student in — thirty-one of them this month.
Every class is live. Not one student learns from a recording, because a recording never asks a question back — a child who has misunderstood something will finish a recorded course still misunderstanding it.
Small enough that the coach can actually watch each one. Attention does not divide: a coach can genuinely track six students, and past that coaching quietly becomes supervision.
Udaipur, Rajasthan, India — where it started in 2018. The coaching is online, so the students are not: they are in more than thirty countries.
No. An app sees the move; it cannot see the thinking. Engines mark a move wrong but never ask why the child chose it, which is the only question whose answer changes the next game. That gap is a coaching problem, and closing it is why this exists.
it started in one room
One free live class with a FIDE-certified coach. Forty-five minutes, a real board, and an honest assessment of where your child is. Nothing else attached.
Takes two minutes to book · no card, no commitment
Let your child experience live coaching before you commit.
