In Brief:
- Anichess (official site) opened Round 1 of its Gambit Series, and players have six days to compete in it.
- Each match costs 100 $CHECK to enter and scores 100 points. A three-win streak adds 100 more, and this round’s leaderboard shares 10,000 $CHECK.
- The series runs four rounds, and the two best players across all of them skip the queue.
Anichess opened Round 1 of its Gambit Series, a timed competition built on the game’s Gambit mode. Players have six days to play the round, the team said in a post on X.
Every match costs 100 $CHECK to enter. A match is worth 100 points on the round leaderboard, and a streak of three wins adds another 100. The leaderboard for this round shares 10,000 $CHECK.
Round 1 of the Gambit Series opens today, and you have six days to play it.
Every match costs 100 $CHECK to enter and scores 100 points, a 3-win streak adds 100 more, and 10,000 $CHECK goes to this round's leaderboard.
The two best players across all 4 rounds skip the queue
Four rounds, one shortcut
Round 1 is the first of four. Anichess said the two best players across all four rounds “skip the queue.” The post didn’t say what the queue leads to or how the combined standings will be worked out.
The team also hasn’t given dates for the later rounds or said whether the 10,000 $CHECK pool stays the same in each one. The announcement described only this round’s rewards.
How Gambit works
Gambit mode arrived in Season 7 in March 2026. It’s a winner-takes-all format where $CHECK serves as the buy-in. Both players get randomly assigned spells in every match, and three spells are turned off in the mode: Shot in the Dark, Juke and Shift.
Animoca Brands, which builds Anichess with Chess.com, pitched the mode as a leveller when it launched. “Gambit Mode is chess meets poker in @AnichessGame. Both players get random spells. Same conditions. No paid edge. Just skill, chaos, and one player taking it all,” Animoca Brands said in a post on X.
The Season 7 buy-in was also 100 $CHECK. On top of that, each player paid a 15 $CHECK platform fee per match. The Gambit Series post didn’t say whether that fee applies to series matches.
A smaller pool than past seasons
The series pays out on a far smaller scale than the season-long ladders before it. Season 7 promised more than 1,000,000 $CHECK in total rewards. Its Gambit leaderboard gave 250,000 $CHECK a week to the top 50 players, ranked by total buy-ins, and a player needed at least 15 matches to qualify.
Season 7 also doubled leaderboard points for Gambit matches played during a daily three-hour Peak Hours window. Referrers got 10% of the platform fees paid by players they brought in, from each new player’s third match onward.
Season 8 reset the Gambit ladder to zero and kept the 100 $CHECK buy-in, with the winner taking the pot. “Season 8 is live. Every spell just got overpowered. 700,000 $CHECK on offer. 600,000 in the Gambit prize pool. One new spell that clears multiple pieces in a single cast,” Anichess said in an April post on X.
The Gambit Series scores differently. Season 7 ranked players by how much they had bought in. This round gives the same 100 points for every match and adds a bonus for consecutive wins, so a player’s points grow with the number of matches they enter and the streaks they put together.
Background
Anichess runs on Base, so moves don’t cost gas. $CHECK, the game’s token, recently listed on Coinbase and can be traded in the Coinbase app.
The studio has one more $CHECK product planned. King’s Gambit, a casual survival game, is scheduled for Q4 2026 and is meant to add more ways to use the token. It’s a separate title and has no connection to the Gambit Series.
For now the series lasts six days per round. It costs 100 $CHECK a match, and 10,000 $CHECK sits at the top of the Round 1 board.
