5 ms·

Chess' centre of gravity is increasingly online centred now. Carlson himself has a lot to do with it. So do other charismatic super GMs like Nakamura. A light

Chess' centre of gravity is increasingly online centred now. Carlson himself has a lot to do with it. So do other charismatic super GMs like Nakamura. A light hearted, unplanned and unadvertised naka-carlsen bullet match can attract a lot of viewers. They both stream, and lots of other chess streamers will switch to watching and doing commentary when these matches happen. They'll play silly openings like the double bong cloud and have fun. Carlson's into this new egaming vibe. He's good at it, and it's good for chess. Meanwhile, high-level classical is brutal. The level is so high that the game is hard to follow. It takes forever and is draining. Most games end in a draw. I feel like Fide should focus more on rapid, and get more involved in the online scene. Maybe this is the opportunity. I suspect the most anticipated, spectator matches of the future will be rapid matches and alt formats like team tournies (go Norway gnomes). They're just more fun for everyone but your cranky old chess instructor, and even she loves it in secret.

tux1968 4y ago
> They'll play silly openings like the double bong cloud and have fun. It's kinda fun to see this referenced recently in a television quiz show: https://youtu.be/aD2mUHeBIRA https://youtu.be/aD2mUHeBIRA
- dalbasal 4y ago
  Guggling.. gas!
econnors 4y ago
> A light hearted, unplanned and unadvertised naka-carlsen bullet match can attract a lot of viewers. I'd bet a 20 game rapid series over 4 days between naka-carlsen would attract more viewers than the world championship.
- literallyWTF 4y ago
  Oh fuck yes it would. I rather have a classical 960 tbh
  - andrepd 4y ago
    Yeah, classical 960 would be amazing since it de-emphasises preparation.
    - ycombinete 4y ago
      There have been a few 960 world champs. The first FIDE one was in 2019. Wesley So won it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Chess960_Championship https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Chess960_Championship
- whimsicalism 4y ago
  Viewership is not all that matters. I doubt it will happen, but I certainly wouldn't cheerlead the death of very high-level chess.
  - dalbasal 4y ago
    That's a bit strong. The levels attained by the likes of Magnus is true art, and it's cool that the art has had such a following for so long. I agree on fast chess being more fun, but hey now :)
  - ptudan 4y ago
    I don't think it will ever go away if chess is still around. But perhaps it stops being the main viewership draw
  - MikePlacid 4y ago
    Isn’t very high-level chess kind of dead already? I mean - watching Karpov-Kasparov was watching two best players in the world. But nowadays a match between human players just clarifies which of the second-rate devices is better than another. Or is it just me?
    - whimsicalism 4y ago
      Did the invention of artillery cause javelin throwing to be dead?
      - frisco 4y ago
        I mean ... yes?
      - MikePlacid 4y ago
        I do not know the name of a single javelin throwing champion. But I know the names of chess champions… up to Kasparov.
        darepublic 4y ago
jasonwatkinspdx 4y ago
I've thought for a while that someone should go hard on an esports style lightning tournament. Basically, try to recreate the energy that happens when an aggressive game happens between chess hustlers and everyone crowds around, but done as a stadium audience spectacle like esports. Big stage lighting setup, music, live commentary, crowd roar encouraged, etc. Besides a main event focused on rated pros, have side tournaments and exhibition games with big personalities. I think there's definitely a sizable audience for something like this.
- joshuamorton 4y ago
  Did you watch PogChamps? It had some great moments like this: https://youtu.be/YyG6HtsaF0w https://youtu.be/YyG6HtsaF0w
  - jasonwatkinspdx 4y ago
    Yeah, exactly. The concept would be to create that sort of energy in the video stream production setting familiar to lan esports where you've got the hype of a couple thousand people behind it in person. I'm absolutely convinced there's an audience for something like this, and if you were reasonably deft in how you messaged it people like Magnus would be falling all over themselves to participate just for the fun of it.
cowmoo728 4y ago
You aren't kidding about classical games being hard to follow. I'm a pretty strong amateur at about 2200 on lichess, but some of the recent Candidates games are so dense that I can't make sense of them without a computer analysis. With blitz even when the super GMs play I can usually tag along and figure out what's happening once I see an interesting move played.
- dalbasal 4y ago
  Exactly.
V-2 4y ago
> I feel like Fide should focus more on rapid, and get more involved in the online scene. Maybe this is the opportunity. This cheapens the tradition and the prestige of the discipline. Chess has attained a revered status over the years. It's not perceived as a game like any other. That's why it's able to attract luxury sponsors, if nothing else. Shifting the focus onto the "double bong cloud drunk banter blitz" territory destroys this legacy. This casual, fun aspect exists and does very well independently of the official, suited up aspect. They are complementary. But I'd really think twice before trying to remove one of the pillars. Chess is the most known, researched and commented mind game on the globe, it doesn't suffer from niche viewership. There's no need to try and fix a problem that doesn't exist. Tradition and legacy is something no amount of online clicks could ever buy.
- dalbasal 4y ago
  I didn't say anything about removing classical. It obviously has a place. As for prestige and tradition... we shall see, I suppose. Prestige follows the prestigious. We are now entering terrify, with Magnus at least, where the best players don't want to compete in traditional matches and the chess watching public doesn't want to follow it anyway. If you think FIDE involvement in rapid/online cheapens chess... then you'll eventually be in a world that has tradition & prestige on one side and popularity and the best players in the other.
  - V-2 4y ago
    > We are now entering terrify, with Magnus at least, where the best players don't want to compete in traditional matches [Citation needed] :) Says who? What exactly indicates the best players "don't want to compete in traditional matches"? What implies that Magnus forfeiting his title (having collected five) is a result of such general trend? Either it's "best players", or only Magnus, in this specific situation, having already built a remarkable legacy. > and the chess watching public doesn't want to follow it anyway. [Citation needed] again : ) Because I'm not sure if the chess watching public KNOWS that it "doesn't want to follow" traditional matches. Regarding the previous world championship match: "Total viewership for the event exceeded 12.6 million hours watched with a record peak streaming viewership for chess of 613,000 concurrent viewers making the FIDE World Championship in Dubai one of the most watched events in streaming globally." https://kommunikasjon.ntb.no/announcement?publisherId=16823864&announcementId=1062 https://kommunikasjon.ntb.no/announcement?publisherId=168238... > In total, viewers of the World Championship spent more than 12.6M hours on broadcasts, which is twice as much as at the World Championship 2018. The average audience of the World Championship 2021 was 239.7K viewers, which is almost 2.5 times more than at the previous iteration of the tournament https://escharts.com/news/fide-world-chess-championship-2021-recap https://escharts.com/news/fide-world-chess-championship-2021... Guess the chess watching public didn't get that memo. Viewership can grow substantially, despite this era of shortening attention spans. I can't see a problem in need of fixing here, much less a trend going in the opposite direction that these numbers show. > If you think FIDE involvement in rapid/online cheapens chess... Involvement in and of itself, no. It has its place. And they're involved already. There are World Rapid and World Blitz championships. But these titles don't hold the same value as "the" World championship. Ask Abdusattorov ("who"? Exactly :)) if he wouldn't prefer to be the classic world champion. What I'm saying is that this involvement should be kept in proportion, and pushing towards rapid/online, with the goal of attracting more publicity (which is already larger than ever before, the internet takes care of itself without the need for any official blessing), steers towards diminishing returns, while the long-term costs would tend to increase.

tux1968 4y ago

> They'll play silly openings like the double bong cloud and have fun. It's kinda fun to see this referenced recently in a television quiz show: https://youtu.be/aD2mUHeBIRA https://youtu.be/aD2mUHeBIRA

dalbasal 4y ago
Guggling.. gas!

econnors 4y ago

> A light hearted, unplanned and unadvertised naka-carlsen bullet match can attract a lot of viewers. I'd bet a 20 game rapid series over 4 days between naka-carlsen would attract more viewers than the world championship.

literallyWTF 4y ago
Oh fuck yes it would. I rather have a classical 960 tbh
- andrepd 4y ago
  Yeah, classical 960 would be amazing since it de-emphasises preparation.
  - ycombinete 4y ago
    There have been a few 960 world champs. The first FIDE one was in 2019. Wesley So won it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Chess960_Championship https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Chess960_Championship
whimsicalism 4y ago
Viewership is not all that matters. I doubt it will happen, but I certainly wouldn't cheerlead the death of very high-level chess.
- dalbasal 4y ago
  That's a bit strong. The levels attained by the likes of Magnus is true art, and it's cool that the art has had such a following for so long. I agree on fast chess being more fun, but hey now :)
- ptudan 4y ago
  I don't think it will ever go away if chess is still around. But perhaps it stops being the main viewership draw
- MikePlacid 4y ago
  Isn’t very high-level chess kind of dead already? I mean - watching Karpov-Kasparov was watching two best players in the world. But nowadays a match between human players just clarifies which of the second-rate devices is better than another. Or is it just me?
  - whimsicalism 4y ago
    Did the invention of artillery cause javelin throwing to be dead?
    - frisco 4y ago
      I mean ... yes?
    - MikePlacid 4y ago
      I do not know the name of a single javelin throwing champion. But I know the names of chess champions… up to Kasparov.
      - darepublic 4y ago

jasonwatkinspdx 4y ago

I've thought for a while that someone should go hard on an esports style lightning tournament. Basically, try to recreate the energy that happens when an aggressive game happens between chess hustlers and everyone crowds around, but done as a stadium audience spectacle like esports. Big stage lighting setup, music, live commentary, crowd roar encouraged, etc. Besides a main event focused on rated pros, have side tournaments and exhibition games with big personalities. I think there's definitely a sizable audience for something like this.

joshuamorton 4y ago
Did you watch PogChamps? It had some great moments like this: https://youtu.be/YyG6HtsaF0w https://youtu.be/YyG6HtsaF0w
- jasonwatkinspdx 4y ago
  Yeah, exactly. The concept would be to create that sort of energy in the video stream production setting familiar to lan esports where you've got the hype of a couple thousand people behind it in person. I'm absolutely convinced there's an audience for something like this, and if you were reasonably deft in how you messaged it people like Magnus would be falling all over themselves to participate just for the fun of it.

cowmoo728 4y ago

You aren't kidding about classical games being hard to follow. I'm a pretty strong amateur at about 2200 on lichess, but some of the recent Candidates games are so dense that I can't make sense of them without a computer analysis. With blitz even when the super GMs play I can usually tag along and figure out what's happening once I see an interesting move played.

dalbasal 4y ago
Exactly.

V-2 4y ago

> I feel like Fide should focus more on rapid, and get more involved in the online scene. Maybe this is the opportunity. This cheapens the tradition and the prestige of the discipline. Chess has attained a revered status over the years. It's not perceived as a game like any other. That's why it's able to attract luxury sponsors, if nothing else. Shifting the focus onto the "double bong cloud drunk banter blitz" territory destroys this legacy. This casual, fun aspect exists and does very well independently of the official, suited up aspect. They are complementary. But I'd really think twice before trying to remove one of the pillars. Chess is the most known, researched and commented mind game on the globe, it doesn't suffer from niche viewership. There's no need to try and fix a problem that doesn't exist. Tradition and legacy is something no amount of online clicks could ever buy.

dalbasal 4y ago
I didn't say anything about removing classical. It obviously has a place. As for prestige and tradition... we shall see, I suppose. Prestige follows the prestigious. We are now entering terrify, with Magnus at least, where the best players don't want to compete in traditional matches and the chess watching public doesn't want to follow it anyway. If you think FIDE involvement in rapid/online cheapens chess... then you'll eventually be in a world that has tradition & prestige on one side and popularity and the best players in the other.
- V-2 4y ago
  > We are now entering terrify, with Magnus at least, where the best players don't want to compete in traditional matches [Citation needed] :) Says who? What exactly indicates the best players "don't want to compete in traditional matches"? What implies that Magnus forfeiting his title (having collected five) is a result of such general trend? Either it's "best players", or only Magnus, in this specific situation, having already built a remarkable legacy. > and the chess watching public doesn't want to follow it anyway. [Citation needed] again : ) Because I'm not sure if the chess watching public KNOWS that it "doesn't want to follow" traditional matches. Regarding the previous world championship match: "Total viewership for the event exceeded 12.6 million hours watched with a record peak streaming viewership for chess of 613,000 concurrent viewers making the FIDE World Championship in Dubai one of the most watched events in streaming globally." https://kommunikasjon.ntb.no/announcement?publisherId=16823864&announcementId=1062 https://kommunikasjon.ntb.no/announcement?publisherId=168238... > In total, viewers of the World Championship spent more than 12.6M hours on broadcasts, which is twice as much as at the World Championship 2018. The average audience of the World Championship 2021 was 239.7K viewers, which is almost 2.5 times more than at the previous iteration of the tournament https://escharts.com/news/fide-world-chess-championship-2021-recap https://escharts.com/news/fide-world-chess-championship-2021... Guess the chess watching public didn't get that memo. Viewership can grow substantially, despite this era of shortening attention spans. I can't see a problem in need of fixing here, much less a trend going in the opposite direction that these numbers show. > If you think FIDE involvement in rapid/online cheapens chess... Involvement in and of itself, no. It has its place. And they're involved already. There are World Rapid and World Blitz championships. But these titles don't hold the same value as "the" World championship. Ask Abdusattorov ("who"? Exactly :)) if he wouldn't prefer to be the classic world champion. What I'm saying is that this involvement should be kept in proportion, and pushing towards rapid/online, with the goal of attracting more publicity (which is already larger than ever before, the internet takes care of itself without the need for any official blessing), steers towards diminishing returns, while the long-term costs would tend to increase.