Rise of Chess in Pandemic

The spread of corona virus has upended all areas of life and sport is no exception. Various sports event had been cancelled or postponed which had resulted into disappointment for not only to the players but also to the fans and other people who are associated with it. Where all other sports struggled and hit hard due to pandemic Chess is a sport which seems to keep ticking and growing, thanks to advancement in technology.

Image source - Google

After the Candidates tournament was postponed , many tournaments were hosted on online platforms like Chess.com, Lichess and chess24.com. Many prominent players  took part in these tournaments which has helped them to become successful in terms of viewership. Chess has attracted many first timers from all age groups and many people have discovered the game of Chess, as perhaps  earlier they didn't get time or maybe they never got around it but this has been a very good chance  for Chess to spread all over the world. According to Forbes, Chess.com had 1.5 million new subscribers in April, compared with 670,000 in January, the site also estimates five years of growth over three months. Daily registration numbers at Chess24.com have tripled in many countries since the beginning of the pandemic while the number of games played daily on average has doubled compared with this time last year.

Magnus Carlsen Invitational

The streaming community has a huge share in the credit of popularization of the sport. Chess is one of the fastest growing game on Twitch. According to a data, the hours watched on Twitch for Chess have nearly doubled in every month of this year and viewers have consumed closed to 38 million hours of Chess video in 2020 alone on this particular platform. One of the key reasons why chess popularity has grown on Twitch is the contribution by GM Hikaru Nakamura. The five-time US chess champion has been an integral part of Chess.com’s Pogchamps tournament series and has been successfully training popular streamers like Felix 'xQc' Lengyel, Faze Clan’s Nate Hill, and League of Legends streamer Albert 'boxbox' Zheng.

Chess.com Pogchamps  - Hosts GM Nakamura and WFM Alexandra Botez

In the saga of rise of Chess ,the game was not only helped by the people who belonged to Chess community but also by other people who does not have any Chess background and Samay Raina is a great example for the same. He is 22 year old comedian from India and winner of the show Comicstaan-2 .Though he have very less knowledge about Chess but his love for the sport can not be doubted. The journey which was started by just playing with his fellow comedians went far enough to attract the eminent personalities of Chess world. He with the help of IM Sagar Shah who is also the founder of chessbase India which is the largest Indian Chess YouTube channel and community has able to deliver some insightful as well as joyful Chess content to the audience. He also attracts a large audience by inviting outstanding personalities such as GMs like Vishy Anand ,Magnus Carlsen, Vladimir Kramnik, Anish Giri, Teimour Radjabov ,Vidit Gujrathi , Adiban ,Nihal Sarin etc. to his live stream.

GM Vishy Anand, GM Vidit Gujrathi and GM Magnus Carlsen on Samay's stream 

Many people who already follow chess might be thinking "what about Agadmator"??Well, that guy does not need any mentions and many of you who do not know him yet should once visit his YouTube channel .Maybe sometime in future we will acknowledge his contribution towards Chess.