Dean of Chess

03/11/2025

Registration is now open for our online spring classes at deanofchess.com. This will be the last online session of the school year, and will be followed by our summer camps.

01/03/2025

Happy New Year! I hope that many of you have gotten some time to play chess over the break. I'm looking forward to showing some of my most instructive moments from my tournament in Sweden when classes resume next week.

Our winter II schedule is posted and open for registration:
https://www.deanofchess.com/

If you are in Monday's 6pm online class or Thursday's in person class, please be sure to register soon as those fill quickly.

Also, I will be finalizing our teams in the next week and a half for the WORLD AMATEUR TEAM & U.S. TEAM EAST over President's Day weekend. If you have not committed to playing, but do want to, please let me know as soon as possible.

12/12/2024

Congratulations to 18-year-old Gukesh Dommaraju for becoming the 18th world champion after winning the final round of the match today. This smashed the record of youngest ever world champion by four years, which was set by Garry Kasparov four decades ago.

11/07/2024

We have posted our summer online camp information early this year so parents can schedule their summer plans:

Dean of chess offers Summer camps to students of all chess playng abilities from absolute beginners through to advanced.

10/19/2024

Our winter online and in-person classes are now open for registration: https://www.deanofchess.com/

We are also beginning to organize our teams for the 2025 World Amateur Team and U.S. Team Championship. We hope that many of you can once again participate over President's Day weekend!

07/03/2024

Due to a lot of emails about fall class scheduling, we've posted the online and in-person class schedule at https://www.deanofchess.com/ and registration is now open. We also have our online camps the week of July 29 and in-person camp in Princeton the week of August 12.

The Dean of Chess Academy offers chess classes to all abilities in Grade K-12. International Master Dean Ippolito is regarded as one of the top chess coaches in the USA. Classes run through Spring, Fall and Winter with Summer Camp over July - August.

04/22/2024

After six hours and 109 moves of play, Fabiano Caruana and Ian Nepomniachtchi drew the last and longest game of the candidates tournament. The game was particularly heartbreaking for both former world championship contenders who left nothing on the table as the game vacillated between equal and winning for Caruana.

Hikaru Nakamura played until only kings were left on the board to acquiesce to a draw with the tournament winner and youngest player in history to play for the World Chess Championship, 17-year-old Indian Grandmaster Gukesh Dommaraju.

I am looking forward to showing some key parts of the games from these warriors in the coming weeks in our classes.

04/21/2024

The challenger for the world championship crown may be decided today. 17-year-old Indian GM Gukesh Dommaraju could become the youngest player in history by far to earn a shot at the World Championship. He leads two-time challenger Ian Nepomniachtchi and Americans Fabiano Caruana and Hikaru Nakamura by half a point after 13 of the 14 rounds. Amazingly, these four players are not only still able to become the challenger but paired with each other today. Nakamura has the white pieces against Gukesh in what will surely be an exciting game! Today's games can be watched at 2:30pm EST at

Watch every game of the FIDE Candidates Chess Tournament 2024 updated live, move-by-move.

04/19/2024

Congratulations to our team of Ayaan, Rishi, Ethan, and Viktor for taking top team under 1000 at the World Amateur Team!

02/22/2024

Special congratulations to our Dean of Chess Kings team which won the top under 1000 prize at the US Amateur Team. The team members were Ethan Rajan, Rishi Punathil, Viktor Sachdev, and Aayan Jain.

02/20/2024

Congratulations to our teams at the US Amateur Team East this past weekend. Our students scored many upsets, and Maya Sriram scored the top upset in the fourth round, defeating an opponent nearly 1000 points higher rated!

01/19/2024

Our online summer camps are now open for registration:

Dean of chess offers Summer camps to students of all chess playng abilities from absolute beginners through to advanced.