A 2004 academy with a club room
The Uruguayan Chess Federation lists NAU64 among the places to learn and play in Montevideo, while the organization’s own pages use the name Academia de Ajedrez Nau64. The project has been linked from its origin to José Riverol, whose competitive and arbitral credentials are independently recorded by FIDE: he received the FIDE Master title in 2009 and the FIDE Arbiter title in 2008.
NAU64 can therefore be understood as three things at once, a teaching academy, a room for regular play, and an organizer able to run rated competition.
The Cultural Centre of Spain in Montevideo dates Riverol’s founding of Nau64 to 2004. That date agrees with the academy’s published chronology and with its twenty-first anniversary event in 2025.
The 2025 celebration connects that beginning with a twenty-one-year public history. NAU64’s later role as a venue and co-organizer of a national final shows how far an initiative that began as a personal academy had developed.
The physical board and its digital layer
NAU64’s stated model brings together three functions that are often separated: learning and training, information and broader education, and recreation. Its official presentation addresses children, young people, and adults, and its documented teaching formats include in-person, online, and hybrid classes.
The academy also describes its own platform for play, exercises, lessons, simultaneous exhibitions, and tournaments. The digital element is consequently not just publicity for a physical venue; it is part of how the organization teaches, stages activity, and keeps different kinds of participants connected.
That combination was visible in September 2021, when the academy announced a thirteen-player in-person classical event rated by both the Uruguayan federation and FIDE, while also running a classical event on its online platform. Both could be followed on Twitch.
The broadcasting layer later reached a much larger audience: FIDE reported more than sixty thousand unique visitors for Riverol’s commentary on the Nau64ajedrez channel during the 2024 Marcel Duchamp Cup. That figure concerns coverage of an outside event, not attendance at a NAU64 tournament, but it documents the reach of the academy’s media work.
From rating-limited events to national finals
The room’s recorded tournament program spans more than one competitive tier. FIDE registered the 2026 II Sub-1600 de Nau64 as a twenty-player rapid event, with Riverol serving as organizer and chief arbiter.
Its rating ceiling created a defined competitive space for players below the upper rating bands, while international registration gave the games a formal setting. This is a useful example of how an academy can turn learning into structured competition without making every event an elite contest.
At the opposite end of that range, the 2024 Uruguayan Absolute Championship Final was jointly organized by the Uruguayan Chess Federation and Academia Nau64 and played in the academy’s own hall. The regulations named Riverol as tournament director and assigned technical transmission to a separate role, showing that the event was arranged for remote spectators as well as the people in the room.
Hosting that national final placed NAU64’s everyday infrastructure inside the contest that decided Uruguay’s absolute champion.
Cerro and Nau64: cooperation without a merger
NAU64 and Club Atlético Cerro cooperated in tournament organization, with the academy also serving as a venue. One academy announcement records the two organizations jointly running qualifiers for the Uruguayan semifinals, open to players registered through Cerro and to free agents, with NAU64 providing the venue.
Regulations for the 2025 women’s semifinal again separated the functions: Cerro and the federation were the organizers, while Academia Nau64 was the playing hall. Cerro retained the federated representation, while NAU64 contributed the playing space and part of the organization.
The partnership also appeared in team competition. NAU64’s report on the 2026 rapid and blitz interclub events lists squads named CERRO-nau64 A, B, and C; the B team won the rapid Under-1800 category and placed eleventh among fifty-six teams overall.
The three squads combined NAU64’s teaching base and venue with Cerro’s federated representation. The shared name was used for those competitions, while the two organizations continued to present themselves separately.
Sources
- 1.Qué es nau64?, Academia de Ajedrez Nau64
- 2.Clases de Ajedrez para todos los niveles, Academia de Ajedrez Nau64
- 3.Aniversario de nau64!, Academia de Ajedrez Nau64
- 4.Primer Torneo abierto de ajedrez en el CCE, Centro Cultural de España en Montevideo
- 5.En Vivo! Torneos en la Academia nau64, Academia de Ajedrez Nau64
Show 8 more sources
- 6.Aprender y Jugar Ajedrez en Uruguay, Federación Uruguaya de Ajedrez
- 7.Riverol, Jose: FIDE Profile, International Chess Federation
- 8.Final Absoluta del Campeonato Uruguayo 2024: bases generales, Federación Uruguaya de Ajedrez
- 9.Comunicado 16/2025: semifinales del Campeonato Uruguayo Femenino, Federación Uruguaya de Ajedrez
- 10.Clasificatorio de Cerro-nau64 para semis 2024, Academia de Ajedrez Nau64
- 11.NAU 64 en el Interclubes de Rápidas y Blitz, Academia de Ajedrez Nau64
- 12.II Sub-1600 de nau64, International Chess Federation
- 13.Georg Meier wins VII Marcel Duchamp Cup in Montevideo, International Chess Federation
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