Chess in Rasht
A city that has produced three grandmasters - and a free way to run an evening of chess in it
Vibe Chess is an evening over a board in a cafe or a bar: several short games, a new opponent after each one, and a standings table at the end. It runs on a free app that does the hard part - who plays whom, with which colour, and who is actually leading.
There is no Vibe Chess meetup in Rasht yet. The app is open here, the city is in the system, and the first evening belongs to whoever creates it.
A chess evening out, not a class on a schedule
A serious chess city with a gap in the middle of the week
Iran produces grandmasters at a rate that surprises people who have not followed it, and Rasht is one of the places that does the producing: three of them were born in this city. That is not a coincidence of geography - it is clubs, coaches and a competitive junior scene that has been running for decades.
What that scene is built for is competition. Clubs teach children, run leagues and send players to provincial and national events. What it is not built for is the adult who played at fourteen, remembers roughly how the pieces move, and would like a game on a Thursday evening without joining anything.
That gap is what this format fills. Not instead of the clubs - alongside them, in the cafes that Rasht already fills every evening anyway.
Five kinds of people who end up at the same table
You played as a child and stopped
Almost everybody in Iran learned the moves early and then let them go. They come back faster than you expect - two games in and your hands remember the openings.
You only play on your phone
Online blitz is convenient and forgettable. A person sitting across the table, thinking, reaching for a piece, is a different game entirely.
You want an evening out that has a shape
Rasht evenings run long over tea and food. Chess gives them a structure: rounds, a table of standings, and something to argue about afterwards.
You are new in town
A board is the easiest introduction there is. You sit down, you play, and by the third round you know four people by name.
You already run chess sessions
Coaches and club organizers use the app to pair a room quickly - Swiss pairings, standings and tie-breaks are handled for you.
Five steps from an idea to a finished crosstable
Organizing a Swiss tournament used to mean knowing the pairing rules. It does not any more: the part that needed an arbiter is the part the app does.
- 1
Pick the venue
A cafe, a tea house, a co-working space - anywhere with tables that can seat eight to thirty people for a couple of hours.
- 2
Create the tournament in the app
Name, date, time control, number of rounds. It takes about a minute and needs no club, licence or arbiter status.
- 3
Send the link out
Players sign themselves up. You watch the entry list fill in and see how many boards you actually need.
- 4
Play the rounds
The app pairs each round, you enter results as games finish, and it recalculates points and Buchholz on the spot.
- 5
Finish and share the table
The final crosstable is ready the moment the last game ends - and it exports as a report if the event needs one.
What usually stops people, and what actually happens
I am a weak player
Swiss pairings solve this on their own: after the first round you meet people on your own score, so a beginner plays beginners rather than the strongest player in the room.
I have never organized anything
Nor had most organizers before their first evening. The app does the part that actually takes skill - pairings, colours, standings, tie-breaks.
The venue's wi-fi is bad
The clock and the puzzle sprint run on the device itself and do not need a connection. Results go up when the network comes back.
Nobody will come
Start with the people you already play with. Eight players make a real four-round Swiss, and a four-round Swiss produces a genuine winner.
I do not know the rules of tournaments
You do not need to. Rounds, colours and who meets whom are the program's job; yours is to say when the round starts.
It costs money somewhere, surely
It does not. There is no paid tier, no player limit and no advertising in the app.
What you get for nothing
Swiss pairings
Pairings follow the Dutch system through bbpPairings, the open-source engine used at rated events. Colours, floats and rematches are its problem, not yours. How many rounds to play.
Standings and tie-breaks
Points and Buchholz recalculate after every round, so nobody argues about who is second.
A chess clock
A clock in the browser for every pair of phones on the table. Works offline, so venue wi-fi cannot ruin the round.
Frequently asked
Where can I play chess in Rasht?
Rasht has private chess clubs and academies that run classes and weekly tournaments, and the provincial chess board of Gilan is based in the city. Vibe Chess is a different format: an informal evening in a cafe or a bar with several short games, and it starts in a city when somebody creates the first tournament in the app.
Are there Vibe Chess evenings in Rasht already?
Not yet. The app is open in Rasht and the city is in the system, but no meetup has been run here so far. Whoever creates the first tournament becomes the organizer of it, and we help with the format.
Do I need to be a strong player?
No. The Swiss system pairs you with players on the same score, so after the first round you are playing people at roughly your level. Most people at an evening like this have no rating at all.
How many people do I need for a tournament?
Eight is enough for a proper four-round Swiss. Sixteen makes a five-round event. There is no upper limit in the app.
How long does an evening take?
A blitz or rapid event of four or five rounds takes two to three hours including the breaks - which fits an evening out rather than swallowing a whole day.
Is the app free?
Yes. No subscriptions, no paid tiers, no limit on tournaments or players, and no advertising.
Does the app work in Persian?
Not yet. The interface currently speaks eleven languages, and Persian is not among them - English and Arabic are the closest options for a room in Rasht. The board, the pairings and the standings are language-independent, and it is a common way people run events in countries we have not translated for.
What equipment do I need?
Boards and pieces, and phones for the clock - the chess clock runs in a browser and needs no installation. Nothing else.
Can I run a tournament for children?
Yes, and the format works well for schools and clubs: the pairing rules are the same, and the standings are easy for parents to follow. In that case the account belongs to a coach or a parent.
Are the pairings official?
Pairings follow the Dutch system through bbpPairings, the open-source engine used for FIDE-rated events, and the tie-break is Buchholz. The program itself has no FIDE approval, so check what your federation requires before running a rated event.
Where people play and learn chess in Rasht
Rasht is the capital of Gilan and one of the strongest chess cities in Iran by a measure that is hard to argue with: three grandmasters were born here. Homayoon Toufighi (GM 2010) now coaches the Iranian women's national team; Amirreza Pourramezanali (GM 2016) won the Moscow Grandmaster tournament in 2015 and the Asian Zonal in 2017; Bardiya Daneshvar, born in Rasht in 2006, became a grandmaster at 17, beat Alexander Grischuk at the 2023 World Cup, won the Sharjah Masters in 2024 as the 50th seed and took the Asian individual title in 2025.
- Gilan Province Chess BoardRasht · the provincial arm of the Iran Chess Federation - rated events, provincial teams and the qualifying route to national championships
- Pishgam Chess ClubRasht, Bisotoun, Safari St. · founded by Sareh Khavari, the first chess club in Gilan founded by a woman; weekly club tournaments and coaching for all ages
- Private clubs and academiesGolsar, Dilaman and other districts · several commercial chess clubs run classes and small tournaments; schedules are worth checking with the club directly
- Three grandmasters were born in Rasht: Homayoon Toufighi (1990), Amirreza Pourramezanali (1992) and Bardiya Daneshvar (2006).
- Bardiya Daneshvar reached a peak rating of 2640 in June 2025 and world number 87 - the highest a Rasht-born player has climbed.
- Rasht hosted the Iranian Youth Chess Championship, with players from across the provinces travelling to Gilan for it.
- Chess was banned in Iran after the 1979 revolution and permitted again in 1988; the national school built since then produces grandmasters at a rate few countries match.
- Rasht joined the UNESCO Creative Cities Network in 2015 as a City of Gastronomy - the cafe and tea-house culture that makes an evening over a board feel native here is the same culture that earned the title.
Solve a chess puzzle
Mate in one - a real position from a chess database. Solve it and see if you're a fit for us.
Create your own tournament for free
The Vibe Chess app opens from a link and needs no installation. Setting up a tournament takes a minute: pick the system, set the date, the venue and the time control - the app handles the rest.
- 1Create the event and share the link - sign-up opens right away
- 2Press start and the app announces the first pairing
- 3Enter results, the table with points and Buchholz updates itself
- 4At the end - final standings and a TRF report in the FIDE data exchange format
- Swiss system. for a large field: opponents are matched by score, you choose the number of rounds
- Round robin. for a small circle: everyone plays everyone, the round count follows from the field
- Free meetup. no rounds, no pairings: players sign up and pick opponents at the table