Where Founders
Think in Positions,
Not Reactions.
A private society for founders, investors, and executives who use chess as a cognitive operating system. 100 Founding Members. No exceptions.
Founding membership closes permanently at 100. The tier will never reopen.
Not a club.
A standard.
The Sovereign Chess Society is an invitation-only private network for founders, investors, and executives who have learned something most people never will: that chess is not a game. It is a cognitive architecture. A system of thought that, once internalised, rewires how you process decisions, read adversaries, and navigate the moments that matter most.
We call it sovereign chess — the deliberate use of the board as an operating system for high-stakes thinking. Not a metaphor. Not a personal development exercise. A real, practiced discipline that produces real, measurable clarity.
Members of this Society are not here to network. They are not here to be seen. They are here because they have outgrown every other room — and they need peers who think at the same depth, with the same precision, and the same tolerance for honest, adversarial feedback that the board demands and most professional environments do not.
We meet in private venues across Dubai. No press. No cameras. No performance. What is played in the room, and what is said in the room, stays in the room.
"The board is where you learn to see fifteen moves ahead while your opponent is still reacting to three."
Five pillars.
One standard.
Membership is not a subscription. It is an ongoing commitment to a level of thinking that most environments cannot support.
Private dining at Dubai's finest venues — Burj Al Arab, Atlantis, Four Seasons and their peers. Black tie. Structured. One strategic topic at the table. One game on the board. No agenda beyond clarity and consequence.
The Society's flagship event. Competitive chess between members, played privately. Your performance at the board says more about how you think than any boardroom conversation. Results are tracked. Standards are held.
Small groups of three to four members, led by Ashan Veymont — FIDE Chess Master. Your positions are read. Your patterns are mapped to your decision-making. Chess here is not practice. It is diagnosis.
A private, members-only channel for the conversations that do not belong in public. Deal flow. Introductions. The kind of thinking that only happens when the room is genuinely closed. Access is earned with admission. It is not a default.
Once per year, each member may bring one guest under private consideration for membership. To be the person who nominates someone is a privilege. The guest earns their place in the room before they earn their place in the Society.
Founding Member Pricing
Founding membership carries a permanent distinction. The first 100 members will always be the first 100. That does not change — regardless of what the Society becomes.
One-time · USD · Never repeatable at this tier
Per year · Paid in full · No monthly option
Total Year 1 commitment: $22,000 USD · Payment in full · No exceptions · No payment plans
Request Founding MembershipThe filter is not your title.
It is your thinking.
We do not select by net worth, industry, or role. We select for the quality of mind that serious chess produces — and the professional record that proves it was never theoretical.
$500K–$50M businesses. Has outgrown the conventional mastermind. Plays chess seriously. Thinks in positions before they materialise.
GCC-based principals, family office operators, private equity. Reads situations twelve moves deep. Treats uncertainty as structure, not chaos.
Finance, technology, real estate. Has walked into a negotiation already running the position forward. Understands that endgames begin in the opening.
They have already read the books, attended the masterminds, and built the network. What they lack is a room where the standard matches their own — where they are not the most strategic person present.
What This Is Not
This is not a chess club. It is not a mastermind group. It is not a networking event with a chess theme. It is not for people who want to learn chess. It is not for people who treat their professional identity as a performance for others. If you are building your personal brand, this is not for you. If you need an audience, this is not for you. If you are not already thinking in positions, sacrifices, and endgames — this is not for you. The Society does not apologise for its standards. It was built by them.
"Patience is not waiting.
Patience is knowing exactly when to strike — because you saw the opening three moves before it appeared."
This is what sovereign chess teaches. Not patience as resignation. Patience as preparation. The board does not reward emotion. It rewards the person who has already built the position they are currently executing from — three, five, ten moves ago.
The Sovereign Chess Society exists for the people who live this way — in business, in capital, and at the board.
Ashan
Veymont
Ashan Veymont does not play chess. He lives it. The distinction matters.
A FIDE Chess Master, two-time State Chess Champion, and FIDE Certified Trainer — his relationship with the board is not recreational. It is the cognitive infrastructure through which he processes every high-stakes decision he makes. The openings he has studied are not theory. They are the structure of how he thinks before a situation fully materialises.
That clarity produced results. As founder of Blackcrest Scaling Inc., he has engineered over $2.5M in revenue for high-ticket coaching, consulting, and creator businesses — not through luck, and not through trial and error. Through the ability to see the position correctly before others have finished processing the surface.
The Sovereign Chess Society is not a side project. It is the room he needed and could not find — a private convening of people who think the way the board demands: with precision, patience, and the willingness to play moves that only make sense twelve moves later. He built it because it did not exist. And because the world needs more rooms where the standard is set by the quality of thinking, not the size of the title.
"If you understand what sovereign chess means, you already know whether you belong here."
Request
Consideration.
Applications are reviewed personally by Ashan Veymont. There is no committee, no automated filter, and no guaranteed acceptance. If your profile aligns with the Society's standards, you will be invited to a private conversation.
We do not follow up. We do not chase. If we believe you belong in the room, we will tell you directly.
Complete the form with honesty and precision. Generic applications are not considered. Specificity signals the quality of thinking we are selecting for.
Every application is read personally. Response within five business days. Silence is an answer.
If your profile aligns, you are invited to a direct conversation with Ashan. This is not a pitch. It is a calibration — for both parties.
Upon acceptance, you secure your Founding Member position. The designation is permanent. It will never be replicated after 100 members are admitted.
The Journal
Dispatches on chess,
capital, and clarity.
Sovereign chess is not a variant. It is a worldview. Here is what it means and why it matters for anyone who makes high-stakes decisions.
The best investors and the best chess players share one cognitive trait above all others. Most founders never develop it.
In a city built on speed and momentum, the founders who are thinking furthest ahead have rediscovered the oldest strategic game.