Chess education nonprofit · 501(c)(3)

CheckMates

Improving minds, move by move.

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The problem

A generation is running out of time.

In 2024, just 35% of American twelfth graders scored proficient in reading on the national assessment. In math, 22% did. Average scores in both subjects are the lowest ever recorded. Students did not just lose content during the pandemic. They lost the habit of thinking several moves ahead.

Source: NAEP 2024, The Nation’s Report Card

Why chess

The name was never a pun.

CheckMates was started by two neighbors who became friends in a swimming pool and ended up across a chessboard.

I couldn't really talk until late. Not English, not Marathi, not either language everyone kept trying with me. What finally worked wasn't a language at all. As a kid I'd spend months in India with my grandfather, and he taught me chess. Neither of us could say much the other understood, so we let the board do it. A move was a sentence. A game was a whole afternoon of talking without a single word. I think that's where my head got unstuck. Once chess made sense, everything after it came faster, school, reading, all of it. I didn't learn the game and then get lucky. The game is the reason I could learn anything else.

— Pratham MukewarCo-Founder

Pratham and I met before either of us could spell 'checkmate.' We were the two kids next door, and we became friends in a swimming pool years before we became anything over a chessboard. So when people ask why the name has 'mates' in it, the honest answer is that we were mates first and the chess came second. Here's what I've watched chess do, though: it teaches a kid to sit with a hard problem instead of running from it. That's not a chess skill. That's a life skill that happens to be wearing a chess costume. We want to hand that to as many kids as we can reach.

— Ayaan ParmarCo-Founder

The response

A training ground for the mind.

Ten to fifteen high schoolers sit down one on one with elementary and middle schoolers and teach them to think ahead, adapt under pressure, and keep working when the obvious answer turns out to be wrong.

Critical Thinking

Analytical skill built at the board, transferred to the desk. Pattern recognition, calculation, and the discipline to check your work before you commit.