How many tournament chess players are in Canada?
Chess has been gaining popularity worldwide, but few people know the exact scale of organized chess in Canada.
Chess Player Rating Distribution
From the 85,340 chess players in the Canadian Chess Federation database their rating distribution reveals the pyramid structure of competitive chess.
Rating Ranges
Rating Ranges
The Chess Pyramid
The journey from beginner to master in chess is one of the most challenging progressions in competitive games.
Less than 5% of online chess players ever play in a chess tournament.
Only 1.78% of tournament players reach the 2200+ rating threshold where FIDE titles like International Master and Grandmaster begin.
Each step up the rating ladder represents exponentially increasing difficulty, with small improvements requiring significant study and practice.
Two Elite Canadian Chess Players
View the biographies and rating progression of our featured players - click on a player's portrait to see their story
Player Performance Analysis
View statistics and game examples from our featured players - click on a player's portrait to see their featured games
The Chess Win Rates
The journey from beginner to master in chess is one of the most challenging progressions in competitive games.
Less than 5% of online chess players ever play in a chess tournament.
Only 1.78% of tournament players reach the 2200+ rating threshold where FIDE titles like International Master and Grandmaster begin.
Each step up the rating ladder represents exponentially increasing difficulty, with small improvements requiring significant study and practice.
From Individual Brilliance to a National Legacy
Aaron and Nikolay represent just two of the remarkable stories within Canadian chess. Each player contributes to a rich tapestry of talent spanning across provinces and generations.
What happens when we zoom out from individual careers to examine the full landscape of Canadian chess mastery? Let's explore how the elite chess community in Canada has evolved, revealing patterns of growth and achievement across different regions and time periods.
Canadian National Masters
About National Masters in Canada
A National Master title is awarded to chess players who achieve and maintain a rating of 2200+ in the Canadian Federation.
This visualization tracks the growth of elite chess players in Canada over the past two decades. The blue bars show new masters each year, while the red line shows the cumulative total.
The years 2012-2017 saw particularly strong growth, with an average of 12 new national masters per year.
Currently there are approximately 300 National Masters of Canada.
Click on any year's bar to see detailed information about the players who achieved their master title that year.
Game Visualizations
Analyzing the top chess moves and openings played by Canadians.
Percentage of games with this variation:
About Chess Opening Variations
CanBase is a database containing 66,229 games as of January 1st 2025 played by top Canadian players, primarily International and Grandmaster players. It is a valuable resource for analyzing chess openings and move paths.
The games consist of players at the National Championships, and any Canadian International Master or Grandmaster.
The visualization on the left can be used to analyze the different openings top players play and the common lines starting with e4, d4, and c4.
Hover over the visualization to see detailed information about the percentage of players who play the lines.
Visualizing Geographic Distribution of Elite Players and Tournaments
Explore the geographical distribution of elite chess players across Canada.
How You Can Get Involved
Hundreds of chess tournaments are held across Canada every year. The latest tournaments are available at the Chess Federation of Canada website.
A few upcoming tournaments include: Apr 17-22, 2025 Canadian Closed, July 12-18, and 2025 Canadian Open.
There are also opportunities to contribute as an organizer or arbiter, and to volunteer at tournaments.
Learn to Play Chess
To learn chess, you can use online platforms like
Lichess and Chess.com where millions worldwide play everyday.
Additionally, many communities in Canada have local chess clubs. You can find a list of them through the Chess Federation of Canada:
Clubs List.
Canadian Chess has a lot to look up towards as we see exciting progress in player development, arbiters, and organizers!
About
Created by Victor Zheng, Andy Feng, and Harsh Bajwa at the University of Toronto's CSC316 Data Visualization course in Winter 2025.
Credits
This project was made possible by the following resources and libraries:
- John Upper / CFC Newsletter for image for how to get involved
- chess-dataviz library
- pgn-extract for extracting PGN games
- CanBase for Canadian master games
- Chess Federation of Canada for chess membership and player history
- GeoNames.org for geographic coordinate data in reference to postal codes
- opendatasoft for geojson data of Canadian provinces and territories
- world-atlas for topojson file of world countries