Popular comedian and YouTube streaming sensation Samay Raina announced the highly anticipated return of his flagship chess tournament, Comedians on Board, during a live broadcast on YouTube.
The offline revival event is scheduled to take place from June 1 to June 4 at the Habitat venue in Mumbai, shifting the traditionally digital competition into an over the board format.
International Master Sagar Shah hosted the livestream, which featured special appearances from Grandmaster Vidit Gujrathi and tournament co-organizer Balraj Singh Ghai to outline the official mechanics, cash prizes, and participating player lineup.
The upcoming seven-round tournament features a round-robin stage during the first two days where participants play four rounds on day one and three rounds on day two.
The top four players will advance to the knockout stage, which consists of best-of-two matches for the semifinals and a best-of-four series for the grand finals.
Raina announced that the first-place winner will secure a cash prize of 6 lakh rupees, the runner-up will receive 4 lakh rupees, and the third-place finisher will take home a humorous prize of just 500 rupees.
Global learning platform AirLearn has signed on as the primary sponsor for the event, integrating dedicated chess training courses into their mobile application to coincide with the broadcast.
The player lineup includes notable content creators and regular chess streamers such as Joel, Vivek Desai, Prakhar, Anirban, Vaibhav, Tracy, Balraj Singh Ghai, and Raina himself.
Desai enters the tournament as the top seed with an estimated rating of 1900, followed closely by Joel at an 1850 rating, while Raina occupies the fifth seed spot.
To demonstrate his current form, Raina played a live ten-minute practice game during the stream against Shah, securing a victory with an 86.5 percent accuracy rating equivalent to a 2150 performance level.
Raina explained that the decision to edit and shoot his ongoing comedy reality show, Latent, has severely restricted his formal chess preparation leading up to the event.
The creator noted that his competitive drive will carry him through the high-pressure offline environment, drawing on structural experience from his previous victories in similar online events.
Aspiring creators were urged by Raina to use regular streaming as a primary career building block to sharpen their improvisational timing and build feedback loops before achieving massive public popularity.
Ghai also used the broadcast to reveal that he is launching a new physical chess club in Pune later this June, scheduling formal meetups across two specific Saturdays to organize community tournaments.
The live broadcast of the four-day Mumbai event will run daily from 4:00 PM to 8:30 PM Indian Standard Time, streaming across major chess channels.
Fans can follow the games through live electronic DGT boards (digital game technology boards used to broadcast physical chess moves instantly to an online audience) accompanied by live commentary from Shah and various guest grandmasters.
