I personally think this is an extremely exciting time in chess, especially when you take into account the surprising amount of doom and gloom that occurred arou

I personally think this is an extremely exciting time in chess, especially when you take into account the surprising amount of doom and gloom that occurred around the World Championship. We've recently moved from long, boring theoretical battles in the Berlin or Petrov to revive various lines in the Sicilian, and Magnus Carlsen's classical revival since retaining his title seems to be based on very interesting positional sacrifices, instead of just grinding out wins from mostly-equal positions as he may have done in the past. It's hard not to want to acknowledge the invisible hand of AlphaZero (and indeed Leela) in these changes. I'd like to think that opening theory is going to go through something of a renaissance as more top players get access to these new engines with a better long term strategic sense of the game. It's hard to believe we're going to run out of new, interesting positions in our lifetimes. Between those changes at the board, and the wider changes of people pushing chess as an esport, and growing prize pools from St Louis and the Grand Prix circuit, there's never been a better time to be a player or fan at any level of the game.