Year-End Story Report by GM Priyadharshan Kannappan
When I look back at 2025, it feels like the year Chess Gaja quietly but confidently grew into something bigger. We did not chase flashy milestones. Instead, we focused on improving our students’ experience, strengthening our systems, and building a community that genuinely cares about learning.
Here is the story of what we built together this year.
Our Students: The Real Champions
The moments that always stay with me are our students’ achievements.
Kanav Raman became the Singapore U-11 National Champion in December, which was a very sweet way to end the year for us at Chess Gaja! He scored 7.5/9 and became the National Champion. It was extra special for us at Chess Gaja as the bronze medalist in the U-11 category was also Chess Gaja student Aurik Joshi who also went undefeated and scored 7/9 in the Singapore National Age Group Chess Championships. One of the biggest highlights this year was when our student Aurik Joshi beat GM Kevin Goh in Singapore. It was a proud moment for all of us and a reminder of what consistent learning can lead to.
👉 https://www.instagram.com/p/DP810EdgfVu/
When our students in Singapore were making waves, we also had our student Yugan Muthiah from the US who finished in the top-10 of the 2025 National K-12 Grade Championship. He played in the K-6 category in Blitz and finished 10th. He also played in the 5th Grade Championship and also finished 10th place with a solid score of 5.5 points.
Here are some high impact student transofrmations for you to show our chess teaching system
Highest USCF Rating increase was +597 by our US Student Ishaanth
Over 90% of active students either improved or maintained their rating in 2025.
Average rating gain for students who started the year with a rating: ~+182
Median rating gain: +83 points
Highest FIDE rating increase was +341 FIDE Standard points by Kanav Raman
Highest Chesscom Rapid rating increase was +788 by Rehan
Growing Across the World
In 2025, Chess Gaja welcomed students from 20 countries. We are now working proudly with new learners from:
Netherlands, Belgium, Palestine, Finland, Costa Rica, France, Iraq, Thailand, Ireland, Spain, Kuwait, Zimbabwe, Norway, Germany, Brazil, Peru, Saudi Arabia, Kenya, Cambodia and Mauritius.
Every new country brought new stories, new families and new dreams into our academy.
How We Improved Your Learning Experience in 2025
We spent a large part of this year improving the actual learning experience for students. We focused on making things simpler, more supportive and more engaging.
Lichess Improvements
- We created a new Lichess team specifically for adult learners, so working professionals can connect with each other and enjoy chess as a community.
- We started the Chess Gaja Lichess Forum, where any student can ask me questions directly and get guidance.
- We increased our monthly tournaments to 10 or more, giving students more chances to compete and practice.
Content and Streaming Efforts
We tried many new formats this year to reach more learners.
- We launched Invisible Chess Board Podcast, our regular blindfold chess visualization
- podcast where you get to solve puzzles by visualizing them. .Listen here – https://open.spotify.com/show/1O0xbAOTSvJSEHoFuMSkhT?si=3b787c59c7b44d2a
- We launched a 3 minute just before the game tips podcast for players of different rating levels – It was called the Before the Clock: Chess Gaja Tournament Tips. It was well received by ambitious chess parents, and here is a proof of how chess parents found it useful.
- We opened our YouTube channel to new young creators like Adhrit and Navneet who recorded videos for beginners.
- We launched a new series where any of our newsletter subscribers could ask their chess queries and those would be clarified by GrandMaster Priyadharshan as a Youtube video! We have done 2 episodes of this series so far and the feedback we have received has been overwhelmingly positive https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1f8GNOdvH4w. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtfamTO2ltc
- We now send two newsletters every month to our general audience and one newsletter specifically for current Chess Gaja students.
- We posted over 500 YouTube shorts this year.
- We launched the Chess for Kids: Piece by Piece Series on Amazon Kindle—7 beautifully illustrated books teaching young learners how each chess piece moves. Perfect for gifting. Complete series: USD 20.93.
- We recorded a special video with Super GM Le Quang Liem discussing how strong chess players can get scholarships in the US. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2dL9lo_43Ww
- GM Harsha Bharathakoti also appeared on our channel to talk about his chess journey and his US college experience. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jgd8GzR2Z1k&t=2s
Learning Impact: Making Lessons More Effective
Here are the updates that directly improved how our students learn:
- After every class, students now receive AI-powered session summaries. This helps them remember key points, missing nothing important. We are one of the 1st chess academies in the world to offer this feature for every class that is conducted at Chess Gaja.
- Students now get both email and app notifications when:
- A class is scheduled
- The class is about to begin
- The class is completed
- This ensures that students don’t miss out on their scheduled classes and has increased our class attendance rate by a significant%
- Our instructors have now started syncing heir Google Calendar to the classrooms, allowing parents to easily identify available slots of their coach and schedule classes with their assigned coach ensuring that class scheduling is hassle free.
- We made our cancellation policy even more student-friendly. Students can now cancel up to 1 hour before with no extra charge. We have also empowered the students and parents to control their scheduled classes directly, like cancelling classes with 2 clicks inside the Wise Live LMS platform.
- We introduced the 1400-1550 FIDE rated coach level, for absolute beginners to get initiated into the game, and then progress further.
- We sent 200 puzzle challenges every month to help students practice and grow independently. The puzzles were sent out to all our active students via our special student newsletter.
- Our backend team grew from 6 to 9 members this year, so we can support families faster.
Technology Improvements
2025 brought some useful upgrades to our tech systems.
- We added Class Chat inside Wise Live platform so students, parents, coaches and our admin team can streamline their chess class communication in a single place.
- We added Apple Pay to our Razorpay payment gateway in mid-November, which has already made payments faster and smoother for many families across the globe.
Corporate Chess Activities
We also conducted an online corporate chess event for GXO Logistics. It was a fun way to help their employees bond, relax and compete together.
Recognition and Partnerships
This year brought a lot of meaningful recognition.
- We reached 180+ Google reviews with a rating of 4.9 out of 5.
- Feedspot ranked us #6 in the category 20 Best Indian Chess Blogs and Websites in 2025
- We made a new entry at #16 for our Chess Times Podcast in Feedspot rankings in the list of 40 Best Chess Podcasts
- Zoho Campaigns featured us in a testimonial video and case study. https://www.zoho.com/campaigns/customer/chess-gaja.html
- The historic Mechanics Chess Institute in San Francisco interviewed me for the Institute Newsletter in a two-part series for October and November 2025.
- The Smart Moves Summit 2025, a top chess and education conference globally, invited me to be a panel speaker.
What We Are Building in 2026
2026 is going to be an important year as we focus heavily on systems, technology and scale. Here is what is coming:
- We are strengthening our internal tools using AI-powered technology to make operations smoother. We have made significant investments in ERP softwares to further streamline the operations.
- Parents and students will soon have a proper Help Desk tool where they can raise tickets and get structured support.
- Our backend team will grow to over 15 members.
- We are working on 75+ student improvement eBooks, designed by me to help students across a wide range of topics.
- Students will soon be able to record and submit their best games to be featured on our YouTube channel.
- We plan to open a dedicated Youtube Channel for Tamil Chess Content which will feature lot of new exciting Tamil Chess Content creators and chess experts who will be sharing their knowledge to the world!
- We plan to add many more updates in terms of class accessibility, technology and AI driven approach to make learning better for all Chess Gaja students in 2026.
A Heartfelt Thank You
To every student, parent, coach and partner, thank you for being part of Chess Gaja this year. Your trust, effort and belief fuel everything we do.We are not just teaching chess. We are creating a system which is helping kids and adults think better, build discipline, make smarter decisions and feel proud of their progress. Chess Gaja has always been about a premium and performance driven chess learning experience where the students get lessons using the best technology, with the best instructors and the best mentoring on their path in chess improvement.
We believe in Quality more than Quantity and that has been one of our key ideas in 2025, and we have strongly stuck to it. I am excited about everything we will build together in 2026.
Warm Regards,
GrandMaster and FIDE Trainer Priyadharshan Kannappan
Founder, Chess Gaja Academy
