Assertion certainty 4/5 debate potential 1/5

Allebest: Chess.com has over 250 million registered members

Erik Allebest · How Chess.com Became the World’s Biggest Chess Community with CEO Erik Allebest · Aug 13, 2026 · at 2:26

Chess.com co-founder and CEO Erik Allebest shares platform registration numbers with Sarah Guo.

0:00 / 0:09exact quote · 9.7s
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“We have more than two hundred fifty million registered members and more revenue than I thought we would end up with as a chess company.”

quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →

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