Quinten Post won the 2025 edition of Derrick Rose’s ‘Chesstival.” Yes, Derrick Rose runs a chess tournament.
An ankle injury kept Golden State Warriors center Quinten Post off the court during Las Vegas Summer League. That didn’t stop him from winning a title.
Checkmate, QP ♟️
Last weekend, Quinten Post won the Chesstival Tournament in Las Vegas, donating all prize money to @ReadingPartners. pic.twitter.com/fECkcQ3uez
— Golden State Warriors (@warriors) July 21, 2025
“Chesstival” is a summer competition that involves former and current NBA players and executives and elite chess players. It’s taken a while for the tournament to get off the ground — it was supposed to start at Las Vegas Summer League in 2023 — but the game of chess has been a long time passion of former MVP Derrick Rose, who started playing regularly while recovering from an injury that cost him his third season in the NBA.
Near the end of his career, Rose used a chess metaphor to explain how he succeeded as a veteran without the explosiveness and athleticism that used to define his game, before all of his injuries.
Derrick Rose, in an IG post last year, explained the evolution of his game:
“I don’t dunk or jump high anymore… I love chess so I would put it this way: I lost my Queen early in the game but I fought my fuckin way back to get one of my pawns down the board to get her back.” https://t.co/hpw5F8QJcJ pic.twitter.com/3rFBeDxvMn
— Tommy Beer (@TommyBeer) September 28, 2022
This year’s Chesstival was the first one, produced by Rose and Norwegian grandmaster Magnus Carlsen, the world’s number one chess player. The tournament had two distinct competitions: A “Head & Hand” tournament where NBA figures were paired with chess experts, and a freestyle “blitz” tournament where only NBA figures went head-to-head, with five minutes only to move.
The first round had an interesting concept. The chessmaster would choose what piece to move for a given play, and the hooper had to decide where to move it. Post and his partner, Tania Sachdev, nearly checkmated Tony Snell and his partner early, but ended up losing in the semifinals.
The team of Grant Williams and Judit Polgar went on to win, which should delight his rival Draymond Green, who last year encouraged Williams to be his normal, nice-guy self because “Being a tough guy is going absolutely wrong for him.” Being a chess player is going great, however!
Post won the second half of the competition by going 4-0-1, with his only draw coming against Williams. He got revenge against Snell, beat fellow 2024 second-rounder Harrison Ingram of the San Antonio Spurs, and Philadelphia 76ers team president Daryl Morey, whose biggest mistake was giving one of his injury-prone bishops a four-year maximum contract. Post also beat former-and-possibly future teammate, De’Anthony Melton.
By al accounts, Post knows what he’s doing on the chessboard. He set up his checkmate of Snell by sacrificing a rook, which is also what Steve Kerr does any time a first-year player makes a mistake. He also wore a checkered shirt, proving that he knows what chessboard looks like.
Some NBA centers are playing checkers, but Post is playing chess out there. Perhaps blitz chess would be a good litmus test for the Warriors to see how players could fit in Kerr’s complicated system. Melton is a chess player, after all. There aren’t many search results for “Kelly Oubre + chess.”
The Warriors had a great deal of success when chess aficionado Klay Thompson was on the team and even invited Carlsen to a Western Conference Finals game in 2018. Thompson didn’t have to start dating Megan Thee Stallion for the world to start getting impressed by his mates.
Golden State came away with one title this summer. Now it’s time for them, like Post, to start figuring out what to do with their pieces.