Terms of Service

These terms are the agreement between you and ChessGrand, which operates Chess Grand. They apply whenever you use the site, whether or not you are signed in.

When you create an account you accept the version named at the top of this page, and we record that version against your account. When we publish a new version we ask you to accept it again before you next play for a stake or move money.

If you do not accept these terms, do not open an account and do not deposit.

You must be at least 18 years old. We ask for your date of birth when you register and check your age on the server. We do not open accounts without one.

The platform is not offered to people in [Restricted countries and territories]. Whether playing chess for money is lawful where you are is your responsibility to know. We do not give legal advice, and the product does not detect your jurisdiction for you.

If we find that an account does not meet these conditions we may suspend it, void games played on it, and return or withhold balances according to the sections below.

• 18 or over, checked against the date of birth on your account
• One account per person; second accounts and accounts opened for someone else are not allowed
• Not resident in, and not connecting from, a restricted territory

Register with details that are accurate and keep them current. Account, money and security notices go to the email address on your account, so an address you cannot read is where you will miss a withdrawal notice.

Everything done from your account is your responsibility. Keep your password to yourself, and tell us straight away if you think someone else has access. We may end your other sessions, require a password change, or lock an account while we look into a report.

You are signed in on one device at a time. Signing in somewhere else ends the earlier session.

You can also use Chess Grand inside Telegram, as a Mini App opened from our Telegram bot. You sign in there with your Telegram account. These terms apply there exactly as they do on this site, and it is the same account wherever you open it.

Some features are not offered in the Mini App: games played for a stake, tournaments with an entry fee or a prize, and the wallet (deposits, balances, conversions and withdrawals) are available only on chessgrand.com.

We may require an email address on your account before you play against other people or enter a tournament; you add one by connecting a Google account. A Google account, and a Telegram account, can each belong to only one Chess Grand account.

Telegram is a separate service, run by a separate company under its own terms and privacy policy. It does not operate Chess Grand and is not responsible for it; anything about Chess Grand is for our support.

You can deposit in six cryptocurrencies: USDT, DAI, Litecoin, Dogecoin, Solana and Monero. Each is held as its own balance in its own units; we do not merge your coins into a single pooled figure.

A deposit is credited once it has the confirmations we require for that coin, and is not spendable before then. Send only the coin the deposit address was issued for: addresses are derived per coin, and a transfer made on the wrong network cannot be recovered.

USDT is the unit of account. Stakes and tournament entries are priced in USDT, and whichever coin you stake is valued into that price at the moment the stake is taken. That valuation is frozen for the life of the game, so a rate move while you are playing changes neither what you risked nor what you win.

We hold your balance so that you can play with it. We are not a bank or a regulated custodian. Balances pay no interest, are not deposits, and are not covered by any deposit-protection or investor-compensation scheme. Keep on the platform only what you intend to play with.

When you accept a game with a stake, the stake leaves your spendable balance and is held in escrow until the game ends. Both players' stakes together are the pot.

When the game ends the pot is settled: the winner receives the pot less the platform fee, a draw returns each player's own stake, and a resignation or a loss on time settles like any other loss.

A disconnection does not pause your clock. If your clock runs out you lose, whatever caused it. If a game cannot be finished because of a fault on our side, we void it and return both stakes in full.

When you post a random challenge with a stake and no other member accepts it for a while, the opponent who accepts it may be operated by us rather than by another member. This happens only with staked random challenges, and only for accounts that have accepted a version of these terms containing this section. These opponents are not labelled as such during a game.

An opponent we operate plays under the same rules, for the same stake and on the same clock as any other player. Its stake is held in escrow like yours, it can win, lose or draw, and the game is settled exactly like any other game.

It sees nothing about you beyond what any opponent sees: the board, the moves, the clocks and your public profile. Its moves are chosen by software, which may include an AI model run by a third-party provider; that provider receives the position and the moves of the game, and nothing that identifies you.

We charge a platform fee of 10% of the pot on a settled game that had a stake. It comes out of the pot at settlement, so the winner receives the rest of the pot. There is no fee on a draw, on a voided game, or on a game played for nothing.

Tournament prize pools are settled the same way. The entry fee, the fee we take and the prize split are shown on the tournament before you enter.

A withdrawal carries the network fee for the coin being sent. We show it before you confirm.

We can change the platform fee. A change applies to games started after it takes effect, never to a game already under way, and publishing a change is a new version of these terms.

• Settled game with a stake: 10% of the pot, taken at settlement
• Draw or voided game: no fee, stakes returned
• Withdrawal: the network fee for that coin, shown before you confirm
• Deposit: no platform fee (the sending network charges its own)

A tournament with an entry fee takes that fee from your balance when you join, and holds it the same way a stake is held. The prize pool is the entries collected, plus anything we add, less the platform fee.

The format, the number of paid places and the split between them are published on the tournament before you enter. Leaving a tournament before it starts returns your entry fee; leaving after it starts does not.

If you are not present when your game begins, the tournament may advance your opponent by walkover. If we cancel a tournament before it finishes, every entry fee is returned in full.

If you think a placement or a prize is wrong, tell support within 30 days of the tournament ending.

You can withdraw any coin balance that is not in escrow. Withdrawals are reviewed before they are sent. Most go through automatically; some are checked by a person, and we may ask you to confirm your identity or the source of your funds before we send.

Check the address and the network before you confirm. A blockchain transfer is final: once it is broadcast we cannot recall it, and an address entered wrongly is money nobody can get back.

We may hold a withdrawal while we investigate suspected fraud, collusion, engine assistance or a legal obligation, and we will tell you when we are holding one.

We may set a minimum withdrawal per coin, because a withdrawal smaller than the network fee costs more to send than it is worth.

Credited deposits and settled games are not reversed on request. A deposit that has been credited is yours to withdraw, not to un-send.

If you believe a game result, a tournament placement, a fee or a balance is wrong, raise it with support within 30 days of the event, naming the game or the transaction and saying what you expected. The server's record of the game is the authoritative one.

We will tell you what we found and what we are doing about it. Where we were wrong we correct your balance. Where the record shows the result stands, it stands.

None of this removes a right you have under the law that applies to you.

Chess for money only works if every player plays their own moves, without outside help. We run automated detection alongside human review, and we will tell you the category of a finding rather than how it was detected.

Where we find a breach we may void the affected games, return the other player's stakes, take back anything gained through the breach, suspend or close the account, and hold a withdrawal while we look into it.

• Using an engine, an opening book or an analysis tool during a live game
• Letting anyone else play on your account, or playing on someone else's
• Agreeing a result with an opponent in order to move money between accounts
• Opening another account after a restriction, ban or self-exclusion
• Exploiting a defect in the product instead of reporting it

Some things end an account on their own, without a warning and regardless of the balance on it.

• Funding an account with the proceeds of crime, or using it to launder money
• Harassing, threatening, abusing or targeting another person in chat or anywhere else on the platform
• Automated access, scraping, load-testing or any attempt to attack or degrade the service
• Impersonating another player, a member of staff or the platform itself
• Reselling, renting or sharing access to an account
• Disguising where you are in order to get around a restriction

You can close your account yourself. Withdraw your balance and finish any live game first: a closed account cannot sign in, and its email address and username stay taken, so a balance left behind cannot be reached afterwards.

If you want us to stop you playing, ask support for self-exclusion, for a fixed period or permanently. Withdraw your balance before it starts. We do not reverse a permanent self-exclusion.

We may suspend or close an account for a breach of these terms, for a legal requirement, or where there is a real risk to other players. Where we close an account we return any balance that is not the subject of a breach or an open investigation.

Staking money on games is a risk, not an investment, and no amount of skill makes a result certain. Stake only what you can afford to lose.

If playing stops feeling like a game, stop and talk to someone. Ask support for self-exclusion, and contact a gambling-support organisation in your country. We will help you close the account and get your money out.

We do not promise the service will be uninterrupted. We take it down for maintenance, and parts of it depend on blockchain networks and rate providers we do not control.

We may add, change or withdraw features, coins and tournament formats. If we retire a coin we will give notice and time to withdraw the balance held in it.

The service is provided as it is. To the extent the law allows, we are not liable for indirect or consequential loss, for lost profit or lost opportunity, for a loss caused by a blockchain network, or for a loss caused by an address, a device, a password or a connection under your control.

Nothing here excludes a liability that cannot be excluded, including for fraud, or for death or personal injury caused by negligence.

Where we are liable, our total liability is limited to the value of the balance you held with us at the time, plus the platform fees you paid in the twelve months before the event.

Each version of these terms has a version string and an effective date, both shown at the top of this page, and every version is kept.

For a material change we ask you to accept the new version before you next play for a stake or move money. For a smaller change, continuing to use the platform after the effective date is acceptance.

These terms are governed by the law of [Governing jurisdiction], and disputes are heard by the courts there.

If the law where you live gives you rights you cannot contract out of, those rights are unaffected.

The fastest route is the support form on this site: it opens a ticket with a record attached to it. For legal notices, write to [email protected], or for anything else [email protected].

ChessGrand.