What’s Hot!
Fall Class, Workshop, and Tournament Schedule Coming Soon
Chess education - not chess enrichment
Caveman Chess Festival July 20 — 27 Wrap-up
All ordered plaques have been sent.
US Chess Memberships
Caveman Chess, in partnership with US Chess, offers discounted memberships for players aged five to eighteen through a special voucher. This voucher allows young players to join the US Chess electronic magazine membership for about half the regular price. To obtain a free membership, purchase a voucher from Caveman Chess and then redeem it on the US Chess website. For more details, click here.
Instructional Pricing
Caveman Chess announces it’s new class and lesson subscription pricing.
Event “Ticket” Flash Sales
Tournaments, Camps & Instruction
The chess industry has seen relatively few “flash” sales for chess services such as tournaments, camps, or instruction. This is understandable because organizers want to be fair and want to be perceived as fair by their clientele.
But chess is also like many other “ticketing” industries, where empty seats represent lost revenue and, over time, increased costs for everyone. Airlines, hotels, ticketing agencies, and businesses with fixed fees and empty seats are inefficient. So many other companies acceptably run flash sales at various times to encourage clients to use the available services, maximizing clients and revenue at any time. Businesses like Trivago make a living repurposing empty seats.
Caveman Chess wants to be financially efficient and continue to bring you the best experiences possible. Generally, the more players, campers, or students, the better the experience.
Consequently, Caveman Chess will sometimes have flash sales.
A flash sale does not represent a refund opportunity to an already registered player.
By registering early, you guarantee your price and your place in the event. We don’t know up front if we will have flash sales, and refunding existing “seats” undermines the purpose of a flash sale. Feel free to sit out until the last moment to see if we have a sale—but if we don’t, understand that you may end up paying a higher price rather than a lower one.
2026 Caveman Chess Festival
We are currently working on plans for 2026 and hope to announce them before Labor Day.
Our target camp week is 7/26-31 with tournaments 7/31-8/2.
It’s not every day of the week you can chat with Grandmasters about chess over lunch…. Yury Shulman and Boris Avrukh at the Caveman Chess Camp 2025.
Caveman Chess Instruction, Events, Tournaments
Instruction & Competition
Caveman Chess provides instruction and competition. Unlike many providers, we provide education, not enrichment, using classical instruction, training methods, and modern computer techniques. Students will have assignments.
We teach players to do it right and do it well. They will know how to use a clock and keep notation so that they can share their tournament games and improve afterwards.
We offer classes, seminars, workshops, day and overnight camps and individual lessons. Each type of instruction meets different needs at different price points. Please see “Our Philosophy”, Camps & Workshops and Instructions and Credentials for more information.
Classes are weekly. Eventually, multiple sections of each course will be available weekly when students have conflicts. Our memberships program, provides discounted classes and tournaments for cost-effectiveness. Refer to the memberships page for pricing.
2025-26 Camps, Tournaments & Events
During the next week we anticipate list tournaments, camps, workshops, and events for the remainder of the year.
Our Playing Sites
Tournaments under 100 players
Caveman Chess Center, Signature Building, 222 S. Prospect Avenue, Floor R, Park Ridge, IL 60068
Tournaments of more than 100 players
Hilton-Chicago-Northbrook, 2855 Milwaukee Avenue, Northbrook, Illinois, 60062. Near Willow & I-294. Corner of Milwaukee & Winkleman.
