In Brief:
- Anichess (official site) will move its OG staking pool from Abstract to Base in early November, and for the first time players who weren’t original members will be able to get in.
- Players qualify by staking a minimum of 10,000 $CHECK in the public pool by 00:00 UTC on Tuesday, Oct. 20, then leaving it there for 14 days.
- The OG pool is the last major part of the game still on Abstract. Igloo Inc. plans to take that chain offline on Dec. 15, 2026.
Anichess is moving its OG staking pool from Abstract to Base, and it’s using the move to let new players join a pool that until now was closed to them.
The team shared the news on X. Anyone who puts 10,000 or more $CHECK into the public pool by 00:00 UTC on Tuesday, Oct. 20, and leaves it staked for 14 days will be added to the OG pool when it migrates. The team said that will happen at the “top of November.”
the OG pool is moving from Abstract to @base, and this time the door opens a crack for everyone
> stake 10,000+ $CHECK in the public pool
> by Tuesday 20 Oct, 00:00 UTC
> keep it there 14 days
> you're in when the OG pool moves, top of November
OG pool = boosted M8, multiplied@AnichessView on X ↗
“the OG pool is moving from Abstract to @base, and this time the door opens a crack for everyone,” the official Anichess account wrote.
What the OG pool offers
The pool is branded Queen of Time. Until now, only players from Seasons 1 through 4 and holders of Ethernal NFTs could join, and they received a permanent 5x multiplier on Checkmate Reign emissions.
The new announcement summed up the pool only as “OG pool = boosted M8, multiplied.” It didn’t say whether the 5x multiplier will survive the move to Base or whether newcomers will get it.
For someone who stakes right at the deadline, the 14-day holding window ends around Nov. 3. Anichess hasn’t given a migration date more specific than early November. It also hasn’t said what happens to players who unstake before the 14 days are over.
The public pool is called the Timewish Fountain. It’s open to every player and is already running on Base.
Why staking matters
Staking $CHECK earns M8, the game’s non-transferable points. Players can also get M8 by playing 15 Standard matches a week, and the amount they receive depends on their rating class.
M8 gets players into the Checkmate Arena, a weekly draw that picks 50 players at random. Every winner gets at least 500 $CHECK, and players who play more matches have better odds of being picked.
Leaving Abstract
The OG pool has to move because Abstract is shutting down. Igloo Inc., the parent company of Pudgy Penguins PENGU $0.007622 ▼ -3.7% (official site), plans to take the chain offline on Dec. 15, 2026. Any funds left on Abstract after that date will be inaccessible.
Igloo backed Abstract for 18 months and lost tens of millions of dollars on it. In that time the network passed 400,000 users and handled more than 325 million transactions.
“We could no longer justify taking from the Pudgy Penguins business,” said Igloo CEO Luca Netz.
Anichess has spent most of 2026 winding down its Abstract setup. Players had until 23:59 UTC on Sept. 7 to opt in to moving their M8 to Base, and until 23:59 UTC on Sept. 13 to claim the M8 they had built up in both staking pools.
The team has told players to move their stakes and bridge all of their $CHECK off Abstract before the shutdown, whether the tokens are staked or not.
Back where it started
Anichess first launched on Base in April 2025. Staking moved to Abstract when the game made $CHECK its native token on Nov. 13, 2025, at the end of a phased rollout that began Nov. 12.
Under that arrangement, staking, claims and M8 accrual ran on Abstract, while liquidity and trading stayed on Base through Aerodrome Finance. Tokens claimed at launch were staked in the OG pool automatically, so holders started earning M8 right away.
$CHECK has a fixed supply of 1 billion tokens, with 59.38% set aside for ecosystem growth and player rewards. Trading for the token opened on Coinbase on April 2, 2026.
Anichess is a joint venture between Animoca Brands and Chess.com.
After the OG pool moves, staking, claims, liquidity and trading will all be on one network again, ending almost a year of being split across two chains. The team’s own notice to players explained it briefly: “Abstract is winding down. Anichess already lives on Base, so your games carry on exactly as they are.”