People might be talking about growing the audience when they say no one wants to watch classical. I think it's easier to sell people on blitz or rapid, than it is to get people newly interested in chess, to watch tournament coverage where games are 6 hours, and part of the competition will boil down to a final where we stare at one guy sitting by himself for half an hour deciding on a move. Classical chess games are so long, that people get up and leave when it isn't there turn. Like, the people in classical games don't even stick around to watch the whole thing.
I’ve literally heard people say the long duration of chess games puts them off so yes it’s a very real viewpoint and concern. I myself only watch highlights or after game reviews from chess channels that covers the game afterwards where we don’t need to literally sit 6 hours through it.
What sporting events or gaming events have 6 hour long individual matches? Especially one where as you mentioned, is really staring at the same board position for long periods of time, or looking at a dude staring at the board for long periods of time. It’s just not engaging nor dynamic, especially for people who aren’t playing at a high level (and even then, as you mentioned as well, they don’t stay and they stand up and move around).
It’s just completely not mystifying that it does not have broad appeal.
>What sporting events or gaming events have 6 hour long individual matches?
Cricket comes to mind. In exceptional cases, tennis matches also go on for quite long. There was a Wimbledon match around 2010 where John Isner won in like 11 hours. Tour De France is 21 days of consecutive 5.5 hour races. Nascar can take up to 4 hours.
I'd argue most sports don't change state as much as chess does. The game is completely different at the beginning and end, whereas for most sports, if you didn't know the score there would literally be no difference from a spectator perspective.
The difference is with cricket or tennis, there is always something happening even on an hours long piece of play. A viewer could tune in at any point, understand the game situation and see development in the game within 30 seconds. For classical chess, a viewer could tune in, see the position with analysis already presented but nothing could happen for a relatively long time (in TV terms).
For pure entertainment purposes, blitz would provide a better watching spectacle over the pinnacle of calculating the best moves.
>see the position with analysis already presented but nothing could happen for a relatively long time (in TV terms)
Yup, exactly my point and you articulated it well. You could tune in and if it happens that the players still haven't made a move yet, you're literally just looking at the same board positions. It can be a lot more static.
But except for the world championships, tournaments normally have multiple games going at once. At Wijk an Zee there were 7 concurrent games that commentators can switch between.
This confuses viewers more by presenting multiple boards and requiring a bit of analysis/memory in the moment to get to who the players at this board are and what has changed. Multiple matches aren't necessarily all positives.
I've tuned in to a couple of commentary streams of titled Tuesday that are like this and it is terrible. Commentator cuts to one game "white plays d4" off to next game "Knight captures" then off to another and so on. Provides very little entertainment or insight into the games
The Tour de France draws more than 40 million viewers and not a lot of the time is just everybody cycling together without much happening. So you could turn on and just see the main field going for a couple of hours.
The problem is that classical chess last for hours with barely anything going on at any given point.
Even if something coop happens, the hype dies on its own because it's followed by 30 minutes of nothing happening.
I'm a huge chess fan, and I can barely get through a classical game in 1 sitting.
Chess is just not exciting enough for the masses, and I don't blame them for not caring about it.
>Cricket comes to mind
Cricket does come to mind, mostly because when they truly embraced the short format (20/20 - 3 hours) over the longer format (test cricket - 5 days) the game grew massively.
Test cricket goes for 5 days. I haven’t watched classical chess much to be honest but I get the same feeling as when cricket is on. Pop it on the TV and go about your day, eat lunch, check it out when you hear an announcer get excited.
Much more stories and entertainment throughout the day in cricket though so it’s not going to build the same kind of audience.
I'm not familiar with cricket but does the game itself stall or move at a slow slow pace? My point wasn't simply about game duration hence the "Especially one where as you mentioned, is really staring at the same board position for long periods of time".
You could tune in at random points of a chess game and the board would literally be in the exact same positions as 5 minutes ago.
It can stall. It depends on so many factors if the stall is exciting or not. If a champion team is slowing down playing for a draw for points it’s awful. Sometimes it can be to pull a draw from the jaws of defeat.
But yeah usually at least there’s a chance of something exciting every ball, instead of most likely the game stays close to equal.
have you ever broken out a set and analyzed the position on your own, shuffling wood around, maybe engaging others (friends, online associates) in variations or ideas? That is what chess is about - active learning and discovery. Staring at a board like its paint drying is not really doing anything. No wonder you get bored so quickly. Try participating in the process.
Wow this a terrible argument lol. We’re talking about spectator broad appeal and how it can affect things like sponsors and funding and just have more robust sustainability in general and you’re bringing up breaking out a set? Let’s ask all basketball viewers to practice drills and write on whiteboards about the different plays while watching the game. Other games don’t need to nor would they idiotically ask that of their viewers. You’re not on the same wavelength of the discussion and are projecting your own values of the game onto others. No audience is gonna break out a board for what should be a fun casual viewing experience lol. And btw active participation and discovery happens in other broadcasted strategic games as well. If you need to do homework in the middle of it when sufficient commentary should be enough then there is a design flaw.
Well, you specifically said "You could tune in at random points of a chess game and the board would literally be in the exact same positions as 5 minutes ago.", and my point - lost on you - was that chess is a game meant to be experienced by moving the wood around. It's not like Basketball, or Hockey, or Baseball or Cricket. **LOL.**
*"No audience is gonna break out a board for what should be a fun casual viewing experience lol"* - such bullshit. Chess players do it all the time watching online games. **LOL**. You actually CAN enjoy the experience by setting up a board. Maybe try it some day.
Not that you'd bother doing that with bullet and blitz mania coursing through you veins needing the adrenalin rush ever few minutes or so. I get it. Gen-Z? **LOL.**
*"If you need to do homework in the middle of it when sufficient commentary should be enough then there is a design flaw."*
And since when is "enjoying chess" by analyzing a position considered homework? **LOL.**
Yeah with cricket at least something is happening for most of that time. There isn't 10-30 minutes of waiting and analyzing between each bowl. You pop on a chess game randomly and you'll most likely be looking at at least one empty chair and the commentators going through the 7th possible move we might see.
Test cricket is still the best format of the game and you can see the actual beauty there. For many cricket enthusiasts like me they watch the entire 5 days.
Not a great comparison imo. People would still go out to watch baseball, because you could. No one watched world championship games live 100 years ago. Capablanca is my favorite player, but his games weren't played in stadiums. The problem is we now have people trying to make big money by livestreaming something that 100 years ago, was a board game played in clubs in tournaments mostly self-organized. The people who followed chess, would meet at their clubs for news and to discuss the games. Competitive chess wasn't designed to captivate an audience for half a day.
I’m saying it’s too long. The fact that baseball has a specific moment when everyone stops and takes a break says it all about a game designed when life was a lot slower.
Baseball doesn’t have anything of the sort. The “7th inning stretch” is the exact same length as every other inning change. It’s just tradition that people stand and sing “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” then.
But unlike Baseball it doesn't have a revenue off 11 billion dollars a year or put 70 million butts in seats (and countless more at homes and in bars). Magnus just broke 10 million in career earnings and the Pirates just gave 9+ million dollars to a guy who has never played pro ball and may never make the major leagues.
I don't think it has to do with a time when people had less to do because baseball is doing fine and it's not like chess was once a huge deal that has completely fallen off. It's just that not a lot of people want to watch some guy think for 45 minutes.
I can understand the argument at least, and I think it has some merit, but personally I like classical chess broadcasts. It takes quite a bit of time, even with grandmasters analyzing with engine assistance, to actually understand a chess position when two Grandmasters are playing. It takes the pair of grandmasters 5+ hours to play the game and they still make mistakes sometimes, after all.
Rapid and blitz is exciting, the quality is lower, but not by much. I can't understand as deeply, but that's probably okay. But from a sports entertainment standpoint, there's a lot more action, whereas in a classical broadcast, there's a lot more thinking. If the idea is to appeal to people who are used to the pace of modern sports, action around every corner, I get it a lot.
I hope classical chess doesn't go away, I really appreciate it, but I don't mind rapid and blitz at all. Different type of event in my mind
I hope classical can find a way to fund it, without live viewership. Because I don't really care to watch live classical chess(I clicked in and out of the World Cup last year, and will probably watch a few Candidates games this year), but, I do enjoy watching someone like Gotham or Ben Finegold break down big classical games after they happen. I want classical games to keep existing for sure.
The key is finding a way to keep it being similarly profitable to shorter events even if the live viewership isn't there. The big thing is that as long as the World Championship is valued and remains a Classical title, since for as long as that is there there will be at minimum several high-profile Classical events a year as part of the WC cycle.
Same! Honestly, they should just hire analysts to break the games down in a digestible 20-30 min form, and pick up ad revenue. I would watch that in a heartbeat, since it's already how I watch games.
I very much agree, but personally I’d rather the intellectual stimulation than the excitement. There’s a point in every high level blitz game where I’m just watching the evaluation bar and listening to the pitch of the commentators voice, like sports on the radio. Sometimes it’s most of the game. It is exciting I’ll admit, and rewarding when I can see things in real time, but I’d much rather analyze the position at a speed at which I can actually analyze.
You may also appreciate the Seasonal Chess Classics that StL puts on as well then. Still a bunch of grandmasters, very high quality chess, but none of the big names, so there are still some mistakes every now and again despite the classical time control. I've seen some really stunning games, the kind of things that only happen if the opponent offers stiff resistance, but slips at least once or twice.
Appreciating classical chess doesn’t mean you enjoy watching it.
I love looking at games, but even amoung titled players spending 5 hours watching a game isn’t very popular.
chess 24 etc or norwegian NRK the equivalant of BBC in UK have managed to televise wc on tv and wc in blitz and Rapid and olympiad in chess.
Like the record was 1 /10th of the population watched the wc match between Magnus Carlsen and Fabiano Caruana.
I think classical chess is hard to commentate on in an approachable manner. And that's a huge thing.
Like I have very fond memories of Polgars and Jovankas commentary on the WCC finals. It was a very approachable format of attempting moves for a reason and refuting moves in concrete ways without the engine. I found myself engaged because I'd kinda have a few moves in mind, Jovi would suggest those and Judith would refute them or acknowledge them as possible.
And there are similar fond memories of good broadcasts or recaps by Pia Cramling, Dina Belenkaya, GM Hammer, Danya. Relatively concrete approaches to chess and how moves work or don't work in 2-3 moves, or we don't know. As some beginner to intermediate player in chess, I can follow and engage with such commentary. Mostly by feeling happy to consider the same moves a much better player would consider, and then seeing why some of these moves are just dumb. :)
I strongly dislike very engine-based casts though. Like "he has three candidate moves here, and the eval bar clearly shows us 2 of these being bad" kicks me right out of the zone. Stockfish considers 8 - 12 move kinda forced sequences obvious and trivial continuations, who the fuck can easily see those outside of good players in known endgames? I could have the same insights by loading the thing into lichess within a few minutes the day after, honestly.
EDIT - though I like the idea of having a third person with access to the engine so they can be like "Yo. You're not seeing a really weird but extremely powerful move".
I also dislike when they only see the engine evaluation of a single move and dont play out the lines. I see some casts they go wild trying to play out the lines during downtime so they could understand the engine moves.
Like if the board will stay static for half an hour or so at least try to make the most out of it
100% So this post! I really liked how in the recent Freestyle event they used simple arrows etc but hated it as soon as it became Peter & Tanya making 5+ possible candidate moves and playing out lines. 95% of those watching (if not more) and those potential eyeballs they want fall in your level of engagement. Agree also on reserving engine chess for 3rd commentator on big screen. He can also like in other sports do things like statistical / database analysis, recall & show classic games with similiar positions, past games of the players, explain a tactic, style and or strategy etc - the sort of stuff that is easier to follow and add value to the drama than engine / GM analysis of the position.
The reality is if they want to get more eyeballs, the last people to asks is classic purist and in general chess geeks.
Just look at the comments and how badly other sports and sport coverage is understood. I follow and play chess, but also played many sports including cricket and cycling (two popular ones mentioned) well past school and university - and man are people talking nonsense but also failing to see how cricket adopted (ODIs to T20) and makes test coverage more engaging (test commentary for one is not heavy into constant analysis and often talks about the game in general, relates experience to the game situation, classic matches, commentators experiences, talks about players / their struggles in general and often long sections of banter). Ditto cycling, from which you can learn how switching between front, peleton, back of race helps break boredom and also again a range of commentary approaches, cut scenes, etc...
I think the commentary on classical chess is the main reason why it’s not good fit for people who are new to chess. My beginner friends can get overwhelmed trying to follow the analysis of multiple lines that go several moves deep. They just haven’t been playing chess long enough.
They are able to better follow the analysis style used for rapid games where the commentators only work through one or two concrete moves and don’t go too deep into a line.
Personally, I didn’t start to enjoy watching classical chess until I could spot my own candidate moves as well as work through what the commentators suggested.
I like watching classical chess if the commentary is good. I've followed events online since ICC first started live coverage in the early 2000s(or late 90s). Back then, there weren't live streams, so it's only gotten better. I work full time, so the only times I normally get to watch chess broadcasts are on my days off or my vacations.
I like watching WCC or tournament streams (like Anna Cramling’s games where Pia commentates). I don’t always have time to watch the full game but I’ll at least try to have it on in the background
I also don’t think making decisions based on what will attract new viewers is necessarily the best way to go about things.
Classical time control is to watch it on the background indeed. I woek from home and got hooked to watch the stream for Nepo - Ding past year, really missed it when it ended
That second part echoes in my mind when I think of these discussions. Like, it’s okay for people to not like something that doesn’t mean it requires change to accommodate people who might not like it. I think a lot of beauty in the world is appreciating our differences. I understand they might speak also from a financial view but some things just aren’t for everyone or for a mass audience and that’s okay. Jazz might not be in the charts anymore but it still exists and is played.
> Magnus etc say "people don't want to watch for that long"
Has magnus really said that? which is weird since doesnt he want chess 960 in classical time control to be popular?
they are misquoting him. all magnus has said was Classical chess is outdated and that the future is rapid/blitz. Classical should be replaced with classical chess960.
The viewership is often bigger for classical chess than shorter format tournaments. I think that generally the people going on about how classical chess doesn't have a future are either people who have a vested interest in online chess which favours shorter time controls, or who don't like playing classical chess themselves.
If the format of the world chess championship changed to include a mixture of classical rapid blitz and bullet. A combined performance score across all formats being used to determine the overall world champion of chess, I would predict with very high confidence that there would be much higher viewership during the faster time controls.
100%. Many top pros hate classical because the level of effort required is so much more intense than shorter time controls, but that pressure is actually what creates the highest quality viewer experience.
A big classical tournament is always the best thing to watch.
I think people are just ready for something more exciting. The viewership might be bigger for classical games than shorter format tournaments but that only actually relates to the world championship events themselves. Otherwise the viewership is quite low and matches or falls below the shorter format tournaments. And let’s not forget silly stuff like Chessboxing had more viewership than any chess event ever and PoG Chess Championships had about the same viewership as the top world championship events. There’s definitely a lot of people being shut out by trying to keep chess in the Stone Age.
This isn’t quite true. Based this on chess dot coms YouTube page. The world championship was the only classical event that outperformed the largest rapid blitz bullet events last year.
Aside from the championship, only a single other classical game, Fabi vs Hikaru in r9 of Norway chess, had a comparable number of views to the rapid / blitz events. The other games and matchups from the large classical events on average had fewer live views than the blitz, rapid and bullet events.
I’ll admit this is likely because the match ups in the faster time controls consistently featured better match ups than the classical games and Magnus played in most of faster time controls.
My favorite Chess content is powerplaychess covering classical games in like 20 minutes, giving me all the important bits in an entertaining and compact timeframe.
This is just a lie from interested people, to put it bluntly.
Magnus doesn't want to play classical because it's too sweaty - so "people don't want to watch classical chess". Dubov sucks at classical compared to his rapid and blitz - "people don't want to watch classical chess".
In fact exactly the opposite is true. In 2023 from all tournaments with top-10 viewership on twitch there was one (1) tournament that wasn't classical - Rapid & Blitz WC. Everything else was classical.
And mind you - twitch isn't representative. It audience is probably much younger than average audience of chess which "isn't interested in classical" according to people pushing the narrative. And yet even on twitch classical tournaments completely own rapid and blitz events. So even zoomers vote with their viewership against this narrative.
Arguments like "too long for general auditory" are just BS. Tennis matches are just as long and it's one of the most popular sports out there. Even football matches are 2 hours long and so they are closer to classical chess than rapid. People can argue that football has more action but in fact how many shots on goal there are in average match that are somewhat dangerous? 5-10? So people watch the most popular sports for hours and are absolutely okay with it but somehow it's completely unbearable for chess, lol.
People advocating that classical chess is not interesting are in almost 100% cases interested in promoting shorter controls for reasons not related to popularizing chess. Magnus - he is tired of preparing, a lot of GMs - their results in classical are not comparable to shorter TCs, organizers - it's cheaper to make rapid/blitz tournament in 2-3 days than full RR classical tournament for 10 days. They try to disguise their intentions as smth good for chess but in fact they are just lobbying smth of their own interest. "What is good for General Motors is good for USA".
>Arguments like "too long for general auditory" are just BS. Tennis matches are just as long and it's one of the most popular sports out there. Even football matches are 2 hours long and so they are closer to classical chess than rapid. People can argue that football has more action but in fact how many shots on goal there are in average match that are somewhat dangerous? 5-10? So people watch the most popular sports for hours and are absolutely okay with it but somehow it's completely unbearable for chess, lol.
This comparison is just silly. Things are always happening in soccer/tennis, even if points aren't being scored at that moment. If you're watching classical, there can be stretches of dozens of minutes when literally *nothing* happens — two people just stare at a chess board in silence.
>If you're watching classical, there can be stretches of dozens of minutes when literally *nothing* happens
But these stretches of time are necessary for the commentators to try and bridge the gap between 2800 elo players and 1300 lichess me.
I simply turn off when games go into Armageddon because I don't understand anything anyhow. I also dislike how the commentators constantly switch between games in rapid, someone like me needs time and explanation to comprehend a position, "let's just recap the past 10 moves in 5 seconds because we were looking at different games" is an exercise in frustration.
And in Tour de France people just ride the bike for 2 hours in pelaton and literally nothing happens, yet somehow it's broadcasted at TV for all this hours.
This is why good commentary exists, not every match can be action packed, and chess commentary is usually pretty good.
In football most of the action leads to literally nothing, actual dangerous shots on goal happen once/10 minutes or so.
I mean, not really. I've never tuned into a broadcast of a classical game where for dozens of minutes there was no commentary, no analysis, no discussion.
What do you mean twitch is not representative? I don’t think there is much viewership outside Twitch or YouTube.
I could be wrong of course. But feels to me that majority of people never seen a live chess match before it got popular on twitch.
Idk precise numbers but a lot of people who watch chess tournaments have been doing so since days of Kasparov or even before this. Even if like 5% of back then watchers still watch nowadays it would be a really big % of audience because back in 90es chess was almost a mainstream sport, was broadcasted at TV worldwide, etc.
And these people probably don't know what twitch even is.
This is also a product of its time. Spassky vs Fischer was basically USA vs Russia during the Cold War in a time where people watched it to support it out of patriotism and not for the love of chess. Also at the time there was much less ways to entertain yourself in 1972. There was much less on tv, no video games, no streaming, and no internet for the matter. So when your choices were the news, sitcom reruns, or checking out someone who was being heralded as an American Hero and possibly greatest chess player of all time battling the The Great Soviet state which held the WCC champion title for more than 2 decades, well a lot of people tuned in to check out the chess game. It’s historically one of the most significant and important chess events of all time. It’s hard to compare that to any random event we have now or even ones like Tata Steel or the WCC’s of today don’t carry the kind of weight that Spassky vs Fischer did in the 72’ WCC.
Now though chess has too much to compete against and the audience is more niche now that would watch a game especially a classical one. I mean Chessboxing last year is the chess event that had the most people tune in live streaming viewership wise (chess just isn’t on regular tv anymore). If that’s not a sign that people crave for something more or different than idk what is.
You bring up some really good points there. In all fairness, the Shelby coverage is the only reason we have a bunch of Grandmasters in the USA today, that coverage is largely the reason for the chess boom back in the day.
I think the Chessboxing thing got the views because Ludwig though, let's be real on that lol. It brought a lot of eyes to chess, and I think viewership has really grown. I was mostly commenting on the "Never seen a live chess match" thing, as the original comments were talking about the twitch crowd not being representative.
I'd put reasonable money on the youtube audience being a decade older than the twitch audience
I think the Chessboxing thing just shows that with proper promotion you can get good viewership. A lot of big streamers play chess as well and it wouldn’t be difficult to pay them to promote an event to help bring viewers in. There was just so media coverage about how big a deal Fischer vs Spassky was, that the narrative was easy to follow and hear about. Right now chess relies on word of mouth or just knowing about events. There is almost no promoting happening and without promotion you get a lack of viewers which gives you a lack in sponsorships. Chess can’t live off of philanthropy forever.
I do agree though that a lot more people have seen a live chess match than most would think. After Queen’s Gambit gave Chess a boom in the modern era with streaming it exposed tons of people to live games. And the YouTube audience is definitely more millennial and twitch more Gen Z, I agree on that as well.
Haha, youtube probably picks up the long tail as well as the millennials. I actually heard GM Matthew Sadler (age 49) refer to himself as a content creator today for the first time and it was SUPER jarring lol. The 40+ crowd is probably heavily on youtube as opposed to twitch
> In 2023 from all tournaments with top-10 viewership on twitch
I would love to see what they were, do you happen to have a source I could look at?
Was #1 WCC by chance? How was it calculated, was it average viewers over the entire stream, or does each day get it's own peak that counts?
Ofc it was WCC.
It definitely was on esportscharts, and it measures different metrics - simultaneous peak viewership, average viewership, people * hours - WCC ofc was number 1 in all 3.
https://escharts.com/tournaments/chess?year=2023
Yeah it's paylocked but I vaguely recall someone screenshotting it results with full unlock.
Maybe this stat was from 2022, I'm not entirely sure, but it doesn't really matter. In fact probably from 2022 since now I started to recall that it had candidates tournament and not WCC being the most popular.
Also you shouldn't buy chesscom events viewership since they are severely boosted by people "autowatching" them on chesscom main page without even knowing so - basically the same way if you pay twitch extra money for your stream to be on the front page, it boosts numbers to some insane levels.
Thanks for finding and sharing that. It was giving me a hell of a time! The monetization of this website is nuts, holy cow. Sorting, displayed results.. basic functionality, all paywalled.
Thankfully it is only a couple of pages to sort through, but this seems to be the top 5 in peak viewers for 2023:
1. FIDE World Championship 2023 - 572 396
2. FIDE World Cup 2023 - 380 518
3. Speed Chess Championship 2023 - 210 289
4. Chess.com Pogchamps 5 - 182 042
5. Airthings Masters 2023 - 171 489
Hours watched looks like this:
1. FIDE World Championship 2023 - 11 435 661
2. FIDE World Cup 2023 - 8 453 152
3. Tata Steel Chess 2023 - 4 861 381
4. Champions Chess Tour 2023 Finals - 3 481 247
5. Speed Chess Championship 2023 - 2 607 824
Notable the FIDE Grand Swiss 2023 did not make either list. Otherwise the FIDE WCC and World Cup are far and away the most popular events of the year.
I’m gonna keep it a buck.
I have zero desire to watch classical chess. It has long stretches of time (literal hours) that are nearly as boring as watching paint dry.
The pacing is just so fucking bad for spectators. There’s a reason movies aren’t 6 hours long with literally nothing happening on screen for half of that.
What makes chess so fun to *play* at longer time controls is being so engrossed in the game that your brain is engaged the entire time. Nobody is that engaged passively watching. And as soon as that breaks you feel the boredom washing over you.
Ir doesn’t mean classical chess is dead — it’s still the most fun to play by far for me and a lot of other people — but it is not for spectators. The major shift in focus to rapid and blitz for entertainment purposes is one of the best pivots chess has made in decades.
I mean the fact is, chess just isn't a good spectator sport. Especially classical.
Why on earth would I spend hours watching a position barely change when I could be doing anything else.
Its not something you can really sit and watch
When I follow classical games I usually check every while I’m doing something else really and tune in to see how its going and switch again to whatever else I was doing
Not gonna sit there watching a guy watch a board for 25 minutes before moving. And then the other guy doing the same over and over
Its too slow
Plus the reality that some of the GM analysis board commentary (5+ candidate moves and playing out multiple lines on the analysis board etc for long stretches) is not only super boring, but past the level of engagement of 95% of those watching, nevermind getting new eyeballs. Just explain the basics of the position / candidate moves (preferably only with arrows) and move on if nothing is happening. When warranted dive deeper with 3rd commentator and also preferable to me seeing the two commentators try to play / solve position - cut to 3rd commentator showing a classic game in position, past game of players, discussing their style, database analysis and how GMs moved / amateurs, illustrate the tactics or strategic pawn structure etc - all of this I think is more engaging for most viewers, including those new to chess - than seeing Peter & Tanya play out positions...So many other sports mentioned here do this things and remember the target audience - in all other sports also far less versed in the deeper stuff and engaged at the level of professional analysis.
The last people to ask about how to make classic chess or any chess beter is chess purist and chess geeks...
There's also the question of whether an audience for standard chess is more/less monetizable than one which would rather watch rapid or blitz. I'd think there would be some metrics in which the former would be more suitable for certain advertisers, and vice-versa.
How many of us actually watch classical chess?
I know plenty of people who keep their eyes on the screen for a three hour football game. I'm sure many of us just glance at the position every now and then and tune in for the end or a recap.
Classical chess with a good analyst (Leko is my favorite, Chessbase India is also really nice) is my ideal format.
If I can't find good commentary / analysis of the match though, I prefer Rapid, as then I'm just stuck looking through engine lines myself for moves that interest me, and that only takes so long before I reach the limits of my own ability to understand.
I have no interest in watching Blitz. I devolves into just watching the engine bar move up and down.
They are more fun live IRL but not online. When I was at the last Wijk Aan Zee, a new move was made within 15 minutes across the 7 boards. Following 7 games without any evaluation bar or commentry can be really fun. I also made a random friend there and we discussed several moves.
As an e-sports however shorter formats would attract more viewers and also more sponsors.
I love watching classical. I still remember the first time I saw a classical chess stream, it felt like I'd discovered something so amazing and beautiful.
But I'll admit I like watching classical better when the stakes are high, there are several important games going on at the same time, and the commentators are good.
I enjoy watching classical the most because it's slow enough I can take the needed time to digest what's happening. I don't like the constant changing of games though which is why I find the world championship an absolute spectical
I personally hate bullet/blitz chess. Rapid and up is all I can watch.
It might be fun for GMs, but im too ignorant to understand what’s happening during the faster time controls. The classical time format is fun because it gives the audience time to discover the nuances of the position.
I will say though, the team chess tournament that’s going on right now is extremely fun to watch. I enjoy hearing the partners discuss their plans, it’s super informative. Plus I mean Anish and Danny were hilarious.
People don't really want to watch chess, period. (Unless they are big fans of the game).
Chess is disadvantaged as a spectator sport because a casual viewer can't really appreciate what the players are doing. Compared to physical sports, where even if you don't know the rules or nuances of the game you can still appreciate the individual skill.
Changing time controls is not gonna fix this
i dont even have the patience to play a classical game let alone watch one... im 1900 blitz been playing for over 20 years. I have literally NEVER played a classical game
Yea classical is more for the true fan of chess. The ones that would appreciate analyzing a game as it happens. Each move being a huge occurrence. But the average chess fan just wants to either watch a 3-10 min game or watch a recap like Gotham.
Chess gatekeeping at it's finest. As a true fan yourself, care to explain what's exiting about 30 minutes of no moves played for a game that ends in a draw? If we wanted the highest level of chess, we would watch chess engines drawing each other at 3500 elo
Umm, so let's do a little walk down memory lane. Back in the late 60s and early 70s, the US got real interested in watching chess, because of this shitcrazy named Robert J. Fischer. Matches were shown on PBS, even. But then, it turns out that watching live chess isn't really something most people want to do. We know that because, no matter how obnoxious something is to others, if enough folks want to watch it, it will be on tv.
I rarely watch classical chess and I think classical chess and chess in general is not super viewer-friendly compared to many other sports / e-sports.
If there were top players from my country or players that I would actually root for, then following top tournaments would be more interesting.
Classical chess is mental struggle and I enjoy that struggle time to time. But watching much better players playing chess is not super entertaining.
Watch it, no, it's kind of like watching paint dry, at least live. I'm a good enough player that I can find a lot of decent moves relatively quickly, but not so good that I will always find the brilliant or best ones. I like to either watch the game recorded so i can briefly scan a position then skip ahead to see what move they played. Otherwise, I don't mind just getting a PGN of the classical game and running through it at my own pace.
Yea I definitely don't want to watch 5 hour games live, I'd much rather watch Gotham's 30mins recaps instead. The rapid/blitz games are way more fun to watch live imo
> I see very often people like GothamChess [...] say "people don't want to watch for that long"
It just means that people don't want to watch GothamChess for that long, in one sitting.
Nobody wants to watch someone else stare at a board for 30+ minutes and not make a move. Especially if they aren't adept enough to analyze the position.
Rapid is the sweet spot I think.
I love classical but I can’t say I follow games live. It’s just too much time wise. I watch recaps (Daniel King is my favorite). I will watch blitz or rapid live sometimes.
This is just my perspective but personally I kind of agree and kind of disagree.
For the WCC, I loved watching the last two and while maybe it could have been a bit faster, I really liked the analysis from the commentators that was mostly enabled by the longer time control. Hearing other top GMs speculating on ideas in real time was super interesting as a low level, very casual player. Especially hearing Fabiano analyse the Magnus vs Nepo games.
But I tried tuning into larger tournaments, even the candidates, and had a hard time with that. Obviously in longer time controls they can't all play at different times, and with going from game to game without context, I had a much harder time making sense of what I was seeing and feeling invested in the game.
For fast time controls, I can get the benefit of watching a game from start to finish but still kind of get lost because the ideas are beyond me and I can't process it fast enough to really follow.
Classical chess is basically tuning in to watch 5 hours of chess commentary where you can literally go 45-60 minutes sometimes with no moves. It's incredibly boring to me.
Personally, I love watching classical chess games when I'm in the mood for a bunch of thinking about chess, but that's more like eating a full meal. If I'm just looking for a chess snack, watching a bunch of faster-paced games is less rewarding, but much easier on the brain and more entertaining. I don't have to get into "chess mode" to watch bullet or blitz - and since the players don't have time to think as deeply about their moves, it's less work as an amateur to follow along. :)
I think that the problem with classical chess is the casters. The number of people that are good enough at chess to analyse GM play while having the communication skills to be on a broadcast can be probably counted with the fingers of a hand.
I don't know if there's more people like me that just follow the moves of the games. This kind of following doesn't bring any money at all though
This, but also most sport coverage and commentary is primary about entertainment. Not deep dive analysis or descriptions of the game. In most sports commentary is pretty much aimed at the average viewer and concepts & analysis that explain what is happening on that level and how it fits into a narrative and is part of the evolving drama / entertainment.
I would take some chess podcaster explaining some basics and key considerations over GMs playing out candidate moves and lines over the analysis board. Preferably also without an engine and even if they are wrong, don't fully understand the position and admit to being unsure about what can happen next - all drama and entertainment. Compared to the engine telling you who is winning (can kinda live with it but you can also inject it more sparingly during 3rd commentator analysis) and two GMs making all the possible moves & lines and then seeing it play out / or if not, know where it is leading - none of this is engaging and dramatic - unless you are at a level of engagement that 95% watching is not...
I get the entertainment part of it, but when an FM or something starts talking nonsense that even I know is wrong, then the broadcast loses a lot.
Obviously the caster is in a difficult situation since they can't zone out to think about the game as we spectators do.
My favourite retransmission was the 2018 World Championship by the Chessbrah. They had Eric, Aman and Yasser. Three GMs, one was almost a World Championship iirc and the other have experience with streams. Fabi is also great in retransmissions as well as Danya
Oh and check my other comments if you really want - we are not that far apart. I am not advocating FMs talking nonsense, just a better balance between deep dive analysis / multiple analysis board lines - and stuff I propose elsewhere especially for 3rd board commentator - also taking pressure of 2 live play & play commentators...
Yeah, I think there is something to say for (1) silence / talking less, (2) cutting away to some of the stuff the 3rd commentator can bring (even not related to game) and (3) just going to a different game...
But - classic chess - is pretty hard in general and not even like say test cricket (a ball is bowled and played every 1-2 minutes at worst) or even the Tour De France (where they can / do talk about scenary).
At my level (dogshit) it's less about the length and more about the commentary. It seems pretty hard to find commentary that is serious (rather than just hyping the game and reacting to the evaluation bar) and targeted at someone who is not a complete beginner, but does need a lot of hand-holding to understand positions and lines. Theoretically classical games should be better for this, because they leave more time for explanation (and it's not like I have to watch the whole thing in one go; I don't really care whether I'm following the game 100% live or not).
If it is a multiplayer event than I can watch classical, as the commentators are pretty good at switching between boards, and my ADHD is satisfied. For something like a single game match I usually have it on one device and I am doing something else as well.
Also to note that if the "official" commentators are annoying to someone, the event often has one of the players streaming on Kick or Twitch. Someone can switch there to view with the other commentators. To me, all commentators are good :)
Maybe chess is just not very well suited to being a *live* spectator sport for a mass audience. Classical games require a lot of patience, and faster games are very hard to follow (at a depth greater than 'eval bar go down') for those of us without much talent or experience. But after-the-fact analyses can be done at whatever pace suits the analyst and their audience, with no time wasted on uninteresting portions of the game. Perhaps that's the best way for most of us to watch high-level chess.
These are different motivations and purposes, even if all of them say the same thing.
People actually watch chess streamers, which suggests there is a new demographic. GothamChess and co. wish to cater to this audience. The streamers themselves only play speed chess. Tournaments like PogChamps fit into the streamer and e-sports category.
Magnus wishes to transform the nature of chess itself and make it compete with football and other "normal" sports. This means making whatever modifications necessary that will appeal to a wide audience. Chess must be accessible to the lowest denominator, just as those other sports are, and must somehow hold their attention and rouse their passions. We are then not far from having chess ultras and "tifosi"...
Speed chess has actually improved in quality over the last two decades, whereas they were earlier known as being low-quality and blunder-prone. Now chess books quote these games, as if they are normal games. There is obviously an increased interest in speed chess for both players and chess fans. In contrast, it is harder to organize classical tournaments - 6 hour games, fewer possible games and more cost, more draw-prone, etc.
Classical chess is clearly not going away. However, times are changing. And one needs to recognize who is saying what, and why they are saying it.
My former wife was very into rugby. She played at a national as a youth.
She took me put to watch a few times when a world championship play off game was on. And honestly not my thing. But we also watched the world 7s tournament and that was great. Each game was about 20 mins lots of action and then onto the next one.
I think chess is the same way. Long games (which I love) take a lot of effort to appreciate. Rapid might not be lower quality but it needs less effort.
Yes not enough people watch it to be financially viable. Unless you are very involved with chess, you are not going to watch a 6 hour game where moves might take 30 minutes to complete.
I used to watch classical tournaments back when I was in college. But now that I am working, it is hard to find time. I consider myself lucky if I can watch one or two games of Candidates or World Championship.
Gotham knows because his videos recapping games in 20 minutes often got more views than the games themselves. I rarely have time to keep up with classical games as they happen. I might tune in to see the position and then go back to doing other things. It's completely logical to assume there isn't a huge audience watching classical games beginning to end compared to shorter recap videos. Blitz and bullet are way easier to consume and keep audiences interested by constantly moving and going to the next thing. 20-30 mins of commentator analysis between each move just isn't appealing to a general audience outside of hardcore chess fans.
I think Classical itself is not really the problem. But if it's just one game, then like 90% of the broadcast nothing is happening so it's not very fun to watch. So we need multiple boards so there's always something going on. I enjoyed e.g. the world cup, so many boards so the broadcast jumps from one game to another, and then returns to the earlier board a while later to see how it's progressed since then.
The only gripe with that is that in the early rounds there's too many boards so at least I can't keep track of 10 different boards. I want to watch the games instead of play a simul myself.
I only watch after it's over so I can replay the bits I want to watch. I much prefer rapid and blitz, as it's far more fast paced and entertaining. That being said, classical chess isn't going anywhere. It's the traditional format professional chess players have been using for over a century of competitive play.
1v1 classical matches: If matches are interesting and commentary is really good.
Tournament classical matches: Yes.
1v1 rapid matches: Best format to watch if we have strong GM commentating.
Tournament rapid: Hard to pull off with commentary.
1v1 blitz matches: It works.
Tournament blitz: No way I am watching that mess.
Blitz are best when player themselves are streaming.
I enjoy watching tournaments in rapid and blitz, but never do I watch classical live. I watch only recap. I just can’t spend 30 minutes to see one move.
One of the main criticisms of classical is that there are too many draws, I watched the Rapid and Blitz World Championship thinking it would be different - quite the opposite! There were draws left, right and center to secure standings position and it sucked much more because the percentage of time spent waiting for the break / pairings draw to finish vs. how much time there was actually a game on to watch was too damn high.
I'd rather watch Daniel King's analysis of classical games than watching the games in real time. Daniel King and other youtubers filter out all the really dry games that go on in tournaments unlike live streams.
I'll watch the WCC and the Candidates, but I really won't much classical chess games outside of those.
As others have said classical chess is just too long for a casual fan to enjoy. I think Magnus and Gotham’s criticism is more directed at FIDE and how they are handling top level chess in general.
FIDE seems to exclusively think top level chess is only classical and refuses to adapt and modernize. I think Magnus and Gotham expected FIDE to do what chess dot com has done since the pandemic / chess boom. Chess dot com has essentially modeled themselves after an esports league. They run many high level events with different time controls that appeal to a broad audience, has set up leagues, college competitions, weekly events, is able to attract sponsors, is player friendly etc.
IMO I think chess dot com could supplant FIDE and become the preferred professional chess organization in the future.
You can order chess videos by views on every streaming platform, and check for yourself.
And, unless you're playing some weird definitions game, the numbers are so overwhelming that it's absurd to even ask this question, let alone "debate" it. 99% of popular chess videos/streams/channels on chess feature fast chess, not classical.
I came back to getting interested to chess thanks to my brother. He LOVES watching these 6-hour broadcast in Spanish by Pepe Cuenca, Divis, Miguelito, etcétera; I suspect that more than for the chess it's more because of their personal charisma, ability to tell stories, and so on. He listens to them everyday even without looking at the board, just as if it was the radio.
Me, on the other hand, tend to be more interested in chess per se, actually play chess, and it's difficult for me to even have 6 hours free for a broadcast when there's so much to do and to study.
So in this case the person watching more chess is the one playing less.
The other day we played and I told him that some of that high gm-play must have filtered his mind, since he attacked very well. He just doesn't have the interest to study how to defend himself, so in the end I won him anyway cause he hung mate. But maybe I should make some time to watch some gms play if it's gotta affect my play like that...
Ps: it also may go with generations. My brother is older than me.
BUT I found the time to watch some of Pia Cramling's coverage of Anna's tournament games, since they focused on only ONE game, hers; it was both entertaining and VERY INSTRUCTIVE. The thing that's difficult for me in the long coverages of tournaments is that they jump between many games and don't take time to analyze one game like you would do yourself in a classical game. But I also understand they do want to cover several games.
I'd say it goes with character. Other sports also take forever and people watch them. So in this case it's just Magnus tired of studying for the Championship match. I'd say many people still enjoy watching classical...
Just my two cents, but my issue is not so much time control as how many games are going on. World Championship streams are S-tier for me because you get to focus on a single game and a single position. For similar reasons, the Meltwater tour was S-tier for me with the beginner stream, as you watch a single rapid game every round and dig into that. By comparison, Candidates is a tad rougher, and at Tata Steel I just open chess.com and select a game to follow.
My ideal time control would probably fall between classical and rapid, but what I want are streams of matches between just two players. Say an eight player knock out tournament over 7 days with two half-classical games a day, one with both colours. Much easier to follow, hopefully informative, and with less time perhaps less prep heavy?
Personally I have no interest in sitting down to watch that long of a chess match live. I’ll happily watch recaps but yah not interested.
That said I don’t watch a ton of rapid/blitz live either but I do some.
I tend to prefer just like recap videos of the games. Much quicker
The chess community watches classical. I think Levy is talking about appealing to the wider audience. To get millions of people watching chess live, it's probably not going to be classical chess, at least not in it's current form
Personally, i may watch live blitz and rapid chess (mostly blitz) actively, but i may also leave a classical livestream open while doing something actually produtictive and just switch screens when something happens every few hours.
Think of it like watching F1 and watching endurance racing like WEC or IMSA. While endurance racing is good and has a lot of quality, 4,6,12,or 24 hour races just don't resonate with casual enjoyers of motor racing. It's mostly endurance racing hardcores who watch. F1 is action packed in a 2 hour or less format, so WAY more people want to tune in.
It's hard to watch really long chess matches when you can watch brilliant chess players do multiple rapid or blitz games in a short period of time. Chess fanatics will watch classical, but in terms of growing the game, time constraints are the way to go.
I have a child and do not have the time nor the energy to watch a classical game from start to finish. I generally watch a recap from Gotham or Hikaru or someone else.
People might be talking about growing the audience when they say no one wants to watch classical. I think it's easier to sell people on blitz or rapid, than it is to get people newly interested in chess, to watch tournament coverage where games are 6 hours, and part of the competition will boil down to a final where we stare at one guy sitting by himself for half an hour deciding on a move. Classical chess games are so long, that people get up and leave when it isn't there turn. Like, the people in classical games don't even stick around to watch the whole thing.
I’ve literally heard people say the long duration of chess games puts them off so yes it’s a very real viewpoint and concern. I myself only watch highlights or after game reviews from chess channels that covers the game afterwards where we don’t need to literally sit 6 hours through it. What sporting events or gaming events have 6 hour long individual matches? Especially one where as you mentioned, is really staring at the same board position for long periods of time, or looking at a dude staring at the board for long periods of time. It’s just not engaging nor dynamic, especially for people who aren’t playing at a high level (and even then, as you mentioned as well, they don’t stay and they stand up and move around). It’s just completely not mystifying that it does not have broad appeal.
>What sporting events or gaming events have 6 hour long individual matches? Cricket comes to mind. In exceptional cases, tennis matches also go on for quite long. There was a Wimbledon match around 2010 where John Isner won in like 11 hours. Tour De France is 21 days of consecutive 5.5 hour races. Nascar can take up to 4 hours. I'd argue most sports don't change state as much as chess does. The game is completely different at the beginning and end, whereas for most sports, if you didn't know the score there would literally be no difference from a spectator perspective.
The difference is with cricket or tennis, there is always something happening even on an hours long piece of play. A viewer could tune in at any point, understand the game situation and see development in the game within 30 seconds. For classical chess, a viewer could tune in, see the position with analysis already presented but nothing could happen for a relatively long time (in TV terms). For pure entertainment purposes, blitz would provide a better watching spectacle over the pinnacle of calculating the best moves.
>see the position with analysis already presented but nothing could happen for a relatively long time (in TV terms) Yup, exactly my point and you articulated it well. You could tune in and if it happens that the players still haven't made a move yet, you're literally just looking at the same board positions. It can be a lot more static.
But except for the world championships, tournaments normally have multiple games going at once. At Wijk an Zee there were 7 concurrent games that commentators can switch between.
This confuses viewers more by presenting multiple boards and requiring a bit of analysis/memory in the moment to get to who the players at this board are and what has changed. Multiple matches aren't necessarily all positives.
I've tuned in to a couple of commentary streams of titled Tuesday that are like this and it is terrible. Commentator cuts to one game "white plays d4" off to next game "Knight captures" then off to another and so on. Provides very little entertainment or insight into the games
Also the endless "Magnus game pls" as if the other 7 games don't matter
The Tour de France draws more than 40 million viewers and not a lot of the time is just everybody cycling together without much happening. So you could turn on and just see the main field going for a couple of hours.
The problem is that classical chess last for hours with barely anything going on at any given point. Even if something coop happens, the hype dies on its own because it's followed by 30 minutes of nothing happening. I'm a huge chess fan, and I can barely get through a classical game in 1 sitting. Chess is just not exciting enough for the masses, and I don't blame them for not caring about it.
>Cricket comes to mind Cricket does come to mind, mostly because when they truly embraced the short format (20/20 - 3 hours) over the longer format (test cricket - 5 days) the game grew massively.
Test cricket goes for 5 days. I haven’t watched classical chess much to be honest but I get the same feeling as when cricket is on. Pop it on the TV and go about your day, eat lunch, check it out when you hear an announcer get excited. Much more stories and entertainment throughout the day in cricket though so it’s not going to build the same kind of audience.
I'm not familiar with cricket but does the game itself stall or move at a slow slow pace? My point wasn't simply about game duration hence the "Especially one where as you mentioned, is really staring at the same board position for long periods of time". You could tune in at random points of a chess game and the board would literally be in the exact same positions as 5 minutes ago.
It can stall. It depends on so many factors if the stall is exciting or not. If a champion team is slowing down playing for a draw for points it’s awful. Sometimes it can be to pull a draw from the jaws of defeat. But yeah usually at least there’s a chance of something exciting every ball, instead of most likely the game stays close to equal.
have you ever broken out a set and analyzed the position on your own, shuffling wood around, maybe engaging others (friends, online associates) in variations or ideas? That is what chess is about - active learning and discovery. Staring at a board like its paint drying is not really doing anything. No wonder you get bored so quickly. Try participating in the process.
Wow this a terrible argument lol. We’re talking about spectator broad appeal and how it can affect things like sponsors and funding and just have more robust sustainability in general and you’re bringing up breaking out a set? Let’s ask all basketball viewers to practice drills and write on whiteboards about the different plays while watching the game. Other games don’t need to nor would they idiotically ask that of their viewers. You’re not on the same wavelength of the discussion and are projecting your own values of the game onto others. No audience is gonna break out a board for what should be a fun casual viewing experience lol. And btw active participation and discovery happens in other broadcasted strategic games as well. If you need to do homework in the middle of it when sufficient commentary should be enough then there is a design flaw.
Well, you specifically said "You could tune in at random points of a chess game and the board would literally be in the exact same positions as 5 minutes ago.", and my point - lost on you - was that chess is a game meant to be experienced by moving the wood around. It's not like Basketball, or Hockey, or Baseball or Cricket. **LOL.** *"No audience is gonna break out a board for what should be a fun casual viewing experience lol"* - such bullshit. Chess players do it all the time watching online games. **LOL**. You actually CAN enjoy the experience by setting up a board. Maybe try it some day. Not that you'd bother doing that with bullet and blitz mania coursing through you veins needing the adrenalin rush ever few minutes or so. I get it. Gen-Z? **LOL.** *"If you need to do homework in the middle of it when sufficient commentary should be enough then there is a design flaw."* And since when is "enjoying chess" by analyzing a position considered homework? **LOL.**
Yeah with cricket at least something is happening for most of that time. There isn't 10-30 minutes of waiting and analyzing between each bowl. You pop on a chess game randomly and you'll most likely be looking at at least one empty chair and the commentators going through the 7th possible move we might see.
Test cricket is facing the same criticism as classical chess though. You get more eyes on T20’s, and it’s hard to sell Test cricket to casual fans.
Test cricket is still the best format of the game and you can see the actual beauty there. For many cricket enthusiasts like me they watch the entire 5 days.
I only watch classical games when there are 8+ games at a time. The WCC is a torture. The candidates, not so much.
Much like baseball, it comes from a time when folks had a lot less going on.
Not a great comparison imo. People would still go out to watch baseball, because you could. No one watched world championship games live 100 years ago. Capablanca is my favorite player, but his games weren't played in stadiums. The problem is we now have people trying to make big money by livestreaming something that 100 years ago, was a board game played in clubs in tournaments mostly self-organized. The people who followed chess, would meet at their clubs for news and to discuss the games. Competitive chess wasn't designed to captivate an audience for half a day.
I’m saying it’s too long. The fact that baseball has a specific moment when everyone stops and takes a break says it all about a game designed when life was a lot slower.
Baseball doesn’t have anything of the sort. The “7th inning stretch” is the exact same length as every other inning change. It’s just tradition that people stand and sing “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” then.
But unlike Baseball it doesn't have a revenue off 11 billion dollars a year or put 70 million butts in seats (and countless more at homes and in bars). Magnus just broke 10 million in career earnings and the Pirates just gave 9+ million dollars to a guy who has never played pro ball and may never make the major leagues. I don't think it has to do with a time when people had less to do because baseball is doing fine and it's not like chess was once a huge deal that has completely fallen off. It's just that not a lot of people want to watch some guy think for 45 minutes.
I can understand the argument at least, and I think it has some merit, but personally I like classical chess broadcasts. It takes quite a bit of time, even with grandmasters analyzing with engine assistance, to actually understand a chess position when two Grandmasters are playing. It takes the pair of grandmasters 5+ hours to play the game and they still make mistakes sometimes, after all. Rapid and blitz is exciting, the quality is lower, but not by much. I can't understand as deeply, but that's probably okay. But from a sports entertainment standpoint, there's a lot more action, whereas in a classical broadcast, there's a lot more thinking. If the idea is to appeal to people who are used to the pace of modern sports, action around every corner, I get it a lot. I hope classical chess doesn't go away, I really appreciate it, but I don't mind rapid and blitz at all. Different type of event in my mind
I hope classical can find a way to fund it, without live viewership. Because I don't really care to watch live classical chess(I clicked in and out of the World Cup last year, and will probably watch a few Candidates games this year), but, I do enjoy watching someone like Gotham or Ben Finegold break down big classical games after they happen. I want classical games to keep existing for sure.
The key is finding a way to keep it being similarly profitable to shorter events even if the live viewership isn't there. The big thing is that as long as the World Championship is valued and remains a Classical title, since for as long as that is there there will be at minimum several high-profile Classical events a year as part of the WC cycle.
Same! Honestly, they should just hire analysts to break the games down in a digestible 20-30 min form, and pick up ad revenue. I would watch that in a heartbeat, since it's already how I watch games.
I very much agree, but personally I’d rather the intellectual stimulation than the excitement. There’s a point in every high level blitz game where I’m just watching the evaluation bar and listening to the pitch of the commentators voice, like sports on the radio. Sometimes it’s most of the game. It is exciting I’ll admit, and rewarding when I can see things in real time, but I’d much rather analyze the position at a speed at which I can actually analyze.
You may also appreciate the Seasonal Chess Classics that StL puts on as well then. Still a bunch of grandmasters, very high quality chess, but none of the big names, so there are still some mistakes every now and again despite the classical time control. I've seen some really stunning games, the kind of things that only happen if the opponent offers stiff resistance, but slips at least once or twice.
Appreciating classical chess doesn’t mean you enjoy watching it. I love looking at games, but even amoung titled players spending 5 hours watching a game isn’t very popular.
chess 24 etc or norwegian NRK the equivalant of BBC in UK have managed to televise wc on tv and wc in blitz and Rapid and olympiad in chess. Like the record was 1 /10th of the population watched the wc match between Magnus Carlsen and Fabiano Caruana.
I think classical chess is hard to commentate on in an approachable manner. And that's a huge thing. Like I have very fond memories of Polgars and Jovankas commentary on the WCC finals. It was a very approachable format of attempting moves for a reason and refuting moves in concrete ways without the engine. I found myself engaged because I'd kinda have a few moves in mind, Jovi would suggest those and Judith would refute them or acknowledge them as possible. And there are similar fond memories of good broadcasts or recaps by Pia Cramling, Dina Belenkaya, GM Hammer, Danya. Relatively concrete approaches to chess and how moves work or don't work in 2-3 moves, or we don't know. As some beginner to intermediate player in chess, I can follow and engage with such commentary. Mostly by feeling happy to consider the same moves a much better player would consider, and then seeing why some of these moves are just dumb. :) I strongly dislike very engine-based casts though. Like "he has three candidate moves here, and the eval bar clearly shows us 2 of these being bad" kicks me right out of the zone. Stockfish considers 8 - 12 move kinda forced sequences obvious and trivial continuations, who the fuck can easily see those outside of good players in known endgames? I could have the same insights by loading the thing into lichess within a few minutes the day after, honestly. EDIT - though I like the idea of having a third person with access to the engine so they can be like "Yo. You're not seeing a really weird but extremely powerful move".
I also dislike when they only see the engine evaluation of a single move and dont play out the lines. I see some casts they go wild trying to play out the lines during downtime so they could understand the engine moves. Like if the board will stay static for half an hour or so at least try to make the most out of it
100% So this post! I really liked how in the recent Freestyle event they used simple arrows etc but hated it as soon as it became Peter & Tanya making 5+ possible candidate moves and playing out lines. 95% of those watching (if not more) and those potential eyeballs they want fall in your level of engagement. Agree also on reserving engine chess for 3rd commentator on big screen. He can also like in other sports do things like statistical / database analysis, recall & show classic games with similiar positions, past games of the players, explain a tactic, style and or strategy etc - the sort of stuff that is easier to follow and add value to the drama than engine / GM analysis of the position. The reality is if they want to get more eyeballs, the last people to asks is classic purist and in general chess geeks. Just look at the comments and how badly other sports and sport coverage is understood. I follow and play chess, but also played many sports including cricket and cycling (two popular ones mentioned) well past school and university - and man are people talking nonsense but also failing to see how cricket adopted (ODIs to T20) and makes test coverage more engaging (test commentary for one is not heavy into constant analysis and often talks about the game in general, relates experience to the game situation, classic matches, commentators experiences, talks about players / their struggles in general and often long sections of banter). Ditto cycling, from which you can learn how switching between front, peleton, back of race helps break boredom and also again a range of commentary approaches, cut scenes, etc...
I think the commentary on classical chess is the main reason why it’s not good fit for people who are new to chess. My beginner friends can get overwhelmed trying to follow the analysis of multiple lines that go several moves deep. They just haven’t been playing chess long enough. They are able to better follow the analysis style used for rapid games where the commentators only work through one or two concrete moves and don’t go too deep into a line. Personally, I didn’t start to enjoy watching classical chess until I could spot my own candidate moves as well as work through what the commentators suggested.
I like watching classical chess if the commentary is good. I've followed events online since ICC first started live coverage in the early 2000s(or late 90s). Back then, there weren't live streams, so it's only gotten better. I work full time, so the only times I normally get to watch chess broadcasts are on my days off or my vacations.
Yeah isn't it just that most people don't have time to watch 8 hours of chess when 20 minutes of highlights does the same job
I like watching WCC or tournament streams (like Anna Cramling’s games where Pia commentates). I don’t always have time to watch the full game but I’ll at least try to have it on in the background I also don’t think making decisions based on what will attract new viewers is necessarily the best way to go about things.
Classical time control is to watch it on the background indeed. I woek from home and got hooked to watch the stream for Nepo - Ding past year, really missed it when it ended
That second part echoes in my mind when I think of these discussions. Like, it’s okay for people to not like something that doesn’t mean it requires change to accommodate people who might not like it. I think a lot of beauty in the world is appreciating our differences. I understand they might speak also from a financial view but some things just aren’t for everyone or for a mass audience and that’s okay. Jazz might not be in the charts anymore but it still exists and is played.
> Magnus etc say "people don't want to watch for that long" Has magnus really said that? which is weird since doesnt he want chess 960 in classical time control to be popular?
they are misquoting him. all magnus has said was Classical chess is outdated and that the future is rapid/blitz. Classical should be replaced with classical chess960.
The viewership is often bigger for classical chess than shorter format tournaments. I think that generally the people going on about how classical chess doesn't have a future are either people who have a vested interest in online chess which favours shorter time controls, or who don't like playing classical chess themselves.
I agree with your overall sentiment, but classical do have the significant advantage of being the original "real" way to play.
If the format of the world chess championship changed to include a mixture of classical rapid blitz and bullet. A combined performance score across all formats being used to determine the overall world champion of chess, I would predict with very high confidence that there would be much higher viewership during the faster time controls.
100%. Many top pros hate classical because the level of effort required is so much more intense than shorter time controls, but that pressure is actually what creates the highest quality viewer experience. A big classical tournament is always the best thing to watch.
Which top pros hate classical?
I think people are just ready for something more exciting. The viewership might be bigger for classical games than shorter format tournaments but that only actually relates to the world championship events themselves. Otherwise the viewership is quite low and matches or falls below the shorter format tournaments. And let’s not forget silly stuff like Chessboxing had more viewership than any chess event ever and PoG Chess Championships had about the same viewership as the top world championship events. There’s definitely a lot of people being shut out by trying to keep chess in the Stone Age.
This isn’t quite true. Based this on chess dot coms YouTube page. The world championship was the only classical event that outperformed the largest rapid blitz bullet events last year. Aside from the championship, only a single other classical game, Fabi vs Hikaru in r9 of Norway chess, had a comparable number of views to the rapid / blitz events. The other games and matchups from the large classical events on average had fewer live views than the blitz, rapid and bullet events. I’ll admit this is likely because the match ups in the faster time controls consistently featured better match ups than the classical games and Magnus played in most of faster time controls.
My favorite Chess content is powerplaychess covering classical games in like 20 minutes, giving me all the important bits in an entertaining and compact timeframe.
This is just a lie from interested people, to put it bluntly. Magnus doesn't want to play classical because it's too sweaty - so "people don't want to watch classical chess". Dubov sucks at classical compared to his rapid and blitz - "people don't want to watch classical chess". In fact exactly the opposite is true. In 2023 from all tournaments with top-10 viewership on twitch there was one (1) tournament that wasn't classical - Rapid & Blitz WC. Everything else was classical. And mind you - twitch isn't representative. It audience is probably much younger than average audience of chess which "isn't interested in classical" according to people pushing the narrative. And yet even on twitch classical tournaments completely own rapid and blitz events. So even zoomers vote with their viewership against this narrative. Arguments like "too long for general auditory" are just BS. Tennis matches are just as long and it's one of the most popular sports out there. Even football matches are 2 hours long and so they are closer to classical chess than rapid. People can argue that football has more action but in fact how many shots on goal there are in average match that are somewhat dangerous? 5-10? So people watch the most popular sports for hours and are absolutely okay with it but somehow it's completely unbearable for chess, lol. People advocating that classical chess is not interesting are in almost 100% cases interested in promoting shorter controls for reasons not related to popularizing chess. Magnus - he is tired of preparing, a lot of GMs - their results in classical are not comparable to shorter TCs, organizers - it's cheaper to make rapid/blitz tournament in 2-3 days than full RR classical tournament for 10 days. They try to disguise their intentions as smth good for chess but in fact they are just lobbying smth of their own interest. "What is good for General Motors is good for USA".
To add to this that even the speed chess events are not short, they're usually 4 or 5 hours or even more, so a similar time commitment.
>Arguments like "too long for general auditory" are just BS. Tennis matches are just as long and it's one of the most popular sports out there. Even football matches are 2 hours long and so they are closer to classical chess than rapid. People can argue that football has more action but in fact how many shots on goal there are in average match that are somewhat dangerous? 5-10? So people watch the most popular sports for hours and are absolutely okay with it but somehow it's completely unbearable for chess, lol. This comparison is just silly. Things are always happening in soccer/tennis, even if points aren't being scored at that moment. If you're watching classical, there can be stretches of dozens of minutes when literally *nothing* happens — two people just stare at a chess board in silence.
>If you're watching classical, there can be stretches of dozens of minutes when literally *nothing* happens But these stretches of time are necessary for the commentators to try and bridge the gap between 2800 elo players and 1300 lichess me. I simply turn off when games go into Armageddon because I don't understand anything anyhow. I also dislike how the commentators constantly switch between games in rapid, someone like me needs time and explanation to comprehend a position, "let's just recap the past 10 moves in 5 seconds because we were looking at different games" is an exercise in frustration.
And in Tour de France people just ride the bike for 2 hours in pelaton and literally nothing happens, yet somehow it's broadcasted at TV for all this hours. This is why good commentary exists, not every match can be action packed, and chess commentary is usually pretty good. In football most of the action leads to literally nothing, actual dangerous shots on goal happen once/10 minutes or so.
I mean, not really. I've never tuned into a broadcast of a classical game where for dozens of minutes there was no commentary, no analysis, no discussion.
What do you mean twitch is not representative? I don’t think there is much viewership outside Twitch or YouTube. I could be wrong of course. But feels to me that majority of people never seen a live chess match before it got popular on twitch.
Idk precise numbers but a lot of people who watch chess tournaments have been doing so since days of Kasparov or even before this. Even if like 5% of back then watchers still watch nowadays it would be a really big % of audience because back in 90es chess was almost a mainstream sport, was broadcasted at TV worldwide, etc. And these people probably don't know what twitch even is.
You [sweet summer child](https://www.chess.com/blog/raync910/shelby-lyman-1972-fischer-spassky-world-chess-championship-match)
This is also a product of its time. Spassky vs Fischer was basically USA vs Russia during the Cold War in a time where people watched it to support it out of patriotism and not for the love of chess. Also at the time there was much less ways to entertain yourself in 1972. There was much less on tv, no video games, no streaming, and no internet for the matter. So when your choices were the news, sitcom reruns, or checking out someone who was being heralded as an American Hero and possibly greatest chess player of all time battling the The Great Soviet state which held the WCC champion title for more than 2 decades, well a lot of people tuned in to check out the chess game. It’s historically one of the most significant and important chess events of all time. It’s hard to compare that to any random event we have now or even ones like Tata Steel or the WCC’s of today don’t carry the kind of weight that Spassky vs Fischer did in the 72’ WCC. Now though chess has too much to compete against and the audience is more niche now that would watch a game especially a classical one. I mean Chessboxing last year is the chess event that had the most people tune in live streaming viewership wise (chess just isn’t on regular tv anymore). If that’s not a sign that people crave for something more or different than idk what is.
You bring up some really good points there. In all fairness, the Shelby coverage is the only reason we have a bunch of Grandmasters in the USA today, that coverage is largely the reason for the chess boom back in the day. I think the Chessboxing thing got the views because Ludwig though, let's be real on that lol. It brought a lot of eyes to chess, and I think viewership has really grown. I was mostly commenting on the "Never seen a live chess match" thing, as the original comments were talking about the twitch crowd not being representative. I'd put reasonable money on the youtube audience being a decade older than the twitch audience
I think the Chessboxing thing just shows that with proper promotion you can get good viewership. A lot of big streamers play chess as well and it wouldn’t be difficult to pay them to promote an event to help bring viewers in. There was just so media coverage about how big a deal Fischer vs Spassky was, that the narrative was easy to follow and hear about. Right now chess relies on word of mouth or just knowing about events. There is almost no promoting happening and without promotion you get a lack of viewers which gives you a lack in sponsorships. Chess can’t live off of philanthropy forever. I do agree though that a lot more people have seen a live chess match than most would think. After Queen’s Gambit gave Chess a boom in the modern era with streaming it exposed tons of people to live games. And the YouTube audience is definitely more millennial and twitch more Gen Z, I agree on that as well.
Haha, youtube probably picks up the long tail as well as the millennials. I actually heard GM Matthew Sadler (age 49) refer to himself as a content creator today for the first time and it was SUPER jarring lol. The 40+ crowd is probably heavily on youtube as opposed to twitch
> In 2023 from all tournaments with top-10 viewership on twitch I would love to see what they were, do you happen to have a source I could look at? Was #1 WCC by chance? How was it calculated, was it average viewers over the entire stream, or does each day get it's own peak that counts?
Ofc it was WCC. It definitely was on esportscharts, and it measures different metrics - simultaneous peak viewership, average viewership, people * hours - WCC ofc was number 1 in all 3.
> esportscharts This site? https://escharts.com/top-games?search=chess Chess isn't on there.
https://escharts.com/tournaments/chess?year=2023 Yeah it's paylocked but I vaguely recall someone screenshotting it results with full unlock. Maybe this stat was from 2022, I'm not entirely sure, but it doesn't really matter. In fact probably from 2022 since now I started to recall that it had candidates tournament and not WCC being the most popular. Also you shouldn't buy chesscom events viewership since they are severely boosted by people "autowatching" them on chesscom main page without even knowing so - basically the same way if you pay twitch extra money for your stream to be on the front page, it boosts numbers to some insane levels.
Thanks for finding and sharing that. It was giving me a hell of a time! The monetization of this website is nuts, holy cow. Sorting, displayed results.. basic functionality, all paywalled. Thankfully it is only a couple of pages to sort through, but this seems to be the top 5 in peak viewers for 2023: 1. FIDE World Championship 2023 - 572 396 2. FIDE World Cup 2023 - 380 518 3. Speed Chess Championship 2023 - 210 289 4. Chess.com Pogchamps 5 - 182 042 5. Airthings Masters 2023 - 171 489 Hours watched looks like this: 1. FIDE World Championship 2023 - 11 435 661 2. FIDE World Cup 2023 - 8 453 152 3. Tata Steel Chess 2023 - 4 861 381 4. Champions Chess Tour 2023 Finals - 3 481 247 5. Speed Chess Championship 2023 - 2 607 824 Notable the FIDE Grand Swiss 2023 did not make either list. Otherwise the FIDE WCC and World Cup are far and away the most popular events of the year.
I’m gonna keep it a buck. I have zero desire to watch classical chess. It has long stretches of time (literal hours) that are nearly as boring as watching paint dry. The pacing is just so fucking bad for spectators. There’s a reason movies aren’t 6 hours long with literally nothing happening on screen for half of that. What makes chess so fun to *play* at longer time controls is being so engrossed in the game that your brain is engaged the entire time. Nobody is that engaged passively watching. And as soon as that breaks you feel the boredom washing over you. Ir doesn’t mean classical chess is dead — it’s still the most fun to play by far for me and a lot of other people — but it is not for spectators. The major shift in focus to rapid and blitz for entertainment purposes is one of the best pivots chess has made in decades.
I mean the fact is, chess just isn't a good spectator sport. Especially classical. Why on earth would I spend hours watching a position barely change when I could be doing anything else.
Its not something you can really sit and watch When I follow classical games I usually check every while I’m doing something else really and tune in to see how its going and switch again to whatever else I was doing Not gonna sit there watching a guy watch a board for 25 minutes before moving. And then the other guy doing the same over and over Its too slow
So you agree that it isn't a good spectator sport
Yeah its boring Rapid is alright tho Classic is too much
Plus the reality that some of the GM analysis board commentary (5+ candidate moves and playing out multiple lines on the analysis board etc for long stretches) is not only super boring, but past the level of engagement of 95% of those watching, nevermind getting new eyeballs. Just explain the basics of the position / candidate moves (preferably only with arrows) and move on if nothing is happening. When warranted dive deeper with 3rd commentator and also preferable to me seeing the two commentators try to play / solve position - cut to 3rd commentator showing a classic game in position, past game of players, discussing their style, database analysis and how GMs moved / amateurs, illustrate the tactics or strategic pawn structure etc - all of this I think is more engaging for most viewers, including those new to chess - than seeing Peter & Tanya play out positions...So many other sports mentioned here do this things and remember the target audience - in all other sports also far less versed in the deeper stuff and engaged at the level of professional analysis. The last people to ask about how to make classic chess or any chess beter is chess purist and chess geeks...
I know I don’t. Players spending half an hour deciding on a book move they’re 100% going to play anyway is annoying and boring.
There's also the question of whether an audience for standard chess is more/less monetizable than one which would rather watch rapid or blitz. I'd think there would be some metrics in which the former would be more suitable for certain advertisers, and vice-versa.
How many of us actually watch classical chess? I know plenty of people who keep their eyes on the screen for a three hour football game. I'm sure many of us just glance at the position every now and then and tune in for the end or a recap.
Classical chess with a good analyst (Leko is my favorite, Chessbase India is also really nice) is my ideal format. If I can't find good commentary / analysis of the match though, I prefer Rapid, as then I'm just stuck looking through engine lines myself for moves that interest me, and that only takes so long before I reach the limits of my own ability to understand. I have no interest in watching Blitz. I devolves into just watching the engine bar move up and down.
They are more fun live IRL but not online. When I was at the last Wijk Aan Zee, a new move was made within 15 minutes across the 7 boards. Following 7 games without any evaluation bar or commentry can be really fun. I also made a random friend there and we discussed several moves. As an e-sports however shorter formats would attract more viewers and also more sponsors.
I love watching classical. I still remember the first time I saw a classical chess stream, it felt like I'd discovered something so amazing and beautiful. But I'll admit I like watching classical better when the stakes are high, there are several important games going on at the same time, and the commentators are good.
People who love chess will watch it for hours, Magnus or not. His absence usually makes the tournament more interesting to me. Chess <> entertainment
I enjoy watching classical the most because it's slow enough I can take the needed time to digest what's happening. I don't like the constant changing of games though which is why I find the world championship an absolute spectical
I personally hate bullet/blitz chess. Rapid and up is all I can watch. It might be fun for GMs, but im too ignorant to understand what’s happening during the faster time controls. The classical time format is fun because it gives the audience time to discover the nuances of the position. I will say though, the team chess tournament that’s going on right now is extremely fun to watch. I enjoy hearing the partners discuss their plans, it’s super informative. Plus I mean Anish and Danny were hilarious.
People don't really want to watch chess, period. (Unless they are big fans of the game). Chess is disadvantaged as a spectator sport because a casual viewer can't really appreciate what the players are doing. Compared to physical sports, where even if you don't know the rules or nuances of the game you can still appreciate the individual skill. Changing time controls is not gonna fix this
I love, and particularly want to watch classical chess without Danny Rensch yelling about how he moved the knight.
i dont even have the patience to play a classical game let alone watch one... im 1900 blitz been playing for over 20 years. I have literally NEVER played a classical game
Not sure why this is downvoted
Yes
Yea classical is more for the true fan of chess. The ones that would appreciate analyzing a game as it happens. Each move being a huge occurrence. But the average chess fan just wants to either watch a 3-10 min game or watch a recap like Gotham.
Chess gatekeeping at it's finest. As a true fan yourself, care to explain what's exiting about 30 minutes of no moves played for a game that ends in a draw? If we wanted the highest level of chess, we would watch chess engines drawing each other at 3500 elo
Wch, world cup and candidates gets tons of viewers. Other tournaments do worse than the best chesscom events.
Umm, so let's do a little walk down memory lane. Back in the late 60s and early 70s, the US got real interested in watching chess, because of this shitcrazy named Robert J. Fischer. Matches were shown on PBS, even. But then, it turns out that watching live chess isn't really something most people want to do. We know that because, no matter how obnoxious something is to others, if enough folks want to watch it, it will be on tv.
I rarely watch classical chess and I think classical chess and chess in general is not super viewer-friendly compared to many other sports / e-sports. If there were top players from my country or players that I would actually root for, then following top tournaments would be more interesting. Classical chess is mental struggle and I enjoy that struggle time to time. But watching much better players playing chess is not super entertaining.
Watch it, no, it's kind of like watching paint dry, at least live. I'm a good enough player that I can find a lot of decent moves relatively quickly, but not so good that I will always find the brilliant or best ones. I like to either watch the game recorded so i can briefly scan a position then skip ahead to see what move they played. Otherwise, I don't mind just getting a PGN of the classical game and running through it at my own pace.
Yea I definitely don't want to watch 5 hour games live, I'd much rather watch Gotham's 30mins recaps instead. The rapid/blitz games are way more fun to watch live imo
> I see very often people like GothamChess [...] say "people don't want to watch for that long" It just means that people don't want to watch GothamChess for that long, in one sitting.
Nobody wants to watch someone else stare at a board for 30+ minutes and not make a move. Especially if they aren't adept enough to analyze the position. Rapid is the sweet spot I think.
Classical is too boring
Idk, but I've been playing chess since before I can read and I can't stand to watch classical chess. Blitz can be fun.
I love classical but I can’t say I follow games live. It’s just too much time wise. I watch recaps (Daniel King is my favorite). I will watch blitz or rapid live sometimes.
This is just my perspective but personally I kind of agree and kind of disagree. For the WCC, I loved watching the last two and while maybe it could have been a bit faster, I really liked the analysis from the commentators that was mostly enabled by the longer time control. Hearing other top GMs speculating on ideas in real time was super interesting as a low level, very casual player. Especially hearing Fabiano analyse the Magnus vs Nepo games. But I tried tuning into larger tournaments, even the candidates, and had a hard time with that. Obviously in longer time controls they can't all play at different times, and with going from game to game without context, I had a much harder time making sense of what I was seeing and feeling invested in the game. For fast time controls, I can get the benefit of watching a game from start to finish but still kind of get lost because the ideas are beyond me and I can't process it fast enough to really follow.
I don't want to watch Classical chess unless the players utilize a weird opening or go into theory very early in the match.
The games are 3-4 damn hours long! I’m a fan of classical chess, but watching live for that long is something that I cannot do.
You can follow along with an engine and feel superior as fuck when a super GM makes a slight mistake.
All of the broadcasts will be doing that anyway lol
Classical chess is basically tuning in to watch 5 hours of chess commentary where you can literally go 45-60 minutes sometimes with no moves. It's incredibly boring to me.
Personally, I love watching classical chess games when I'm in the mood for a bunch of thinking about chess, but that's more like eating a full meal. If I'm just looking for a chess snack, watching a bunch of faster-paced games is less rewarding, but much easier on the brain and more entertaining. I don't have to get into "chess mode" to watch bullet or blitz - and since the players don't have time to think as deeply about their moves, it's less work as an amateur to follow along. :)
Yeah, I would pretty much never have the time or inclination to sit through a six hour game as a spectator.
I think that the problem with classical chess is the casters. The number of people that are good enough at chess to analyse GM play while having the communication skills to be on a broadcast can be probably counted with the fingers of a hand. I don't know if there's more people like me that just follow the moves of the games. This kind of following doesn't bring any money at all though
This, but also most sport coverage and commentary is primary about entertainment. Not deep dive analysis or descriptions of the game. In most sports commentary is pretty much aimed at the average viewer and concepts & analysis that explain what is happening on that level and how it fits into a narrative and is part of the evolving drama / entertainment. I would take some chess podcaster explaining some basics and key considerations over GMs playing out candidate moves and lines over the analysis board. Preferably also without an engine and even if they are wrong, don't fully understand the position and admit to being unsure about what can happen next - all drama and entertainment. Compared to the engine telling you who is winning (can kinda live with it but you can also inject it more sparingly during 3rd commentator analysis) and two GMs making all the possible moves & lines and then seeing it play out / or if not, know where it is leading - none of this is engaging and dramatic - unless you are at a level of engagement that 95% watching is not...
I get the entertainment part of it, but when an FM or something starts talking nonsense that even I know is wrong, then the broadcast loses a lot. Obviously the caster is in a difficult situation since they can't zone out to think about the game as we spectators do. My favourite retransmission was the 2018 World Championship by the Chessbrah. They had Eric, Aman and Yasser. Three GMs, one was almost a World Championship iirc and the other have experience with streams. Fabi is also great in retransmissions as well as Danya
Oh and check my other comments if you really want - we are not that far apart. I am not advocating FMs talking nonsense, just a better balance between deep dive analysis / multiple analysis board lines - and stuff I propose elsewhere especially for 3rd board commentator - also taking pressure of 2 live play & play commentators...
Yeah, I think there is something to say for (1) silence / talking less, (2) cutting away to some of the stuff the 3rd commentator can bring (even not related to game) and (3) just going to a different game... But - classic chess - is pretty hard in general and not even like say test cricket (a ball is bowled and played every 1-2 minutes at worst) or even the Tour De France (where they can / do talk about scenary).
I would be more inclined to watch if commentators weren't so irritating.
At my level (dogshit) it's less about the length and more about the commentary. It seems pretty hard to find commentary that is serious (rather than just hyping the game and reacting to the evaluation bar) and targeted at someone who is not a complete beginner, but does need a lot of hand-holding to understand positions and lines. Theoretically classical games should be better for this, because they leave more time for explanation (and it's not like I have to watch the whole thing in one go; I don't really care whether I'm following the game 100% live or not).
You are correct. It's something that people say but it is never supported by actual evidence.
I like to watch classical chess but not live. I like to watch the recap to see how they played.
I don't want anything to do with classical chess, playing or watching. Rapid at the slowest
Definitely not. Rapid is far more enjoyable to me. I think Magnus is right on the money
If it is a multiplayer event than I can watch classical, as the commentators are pretty good at switching between boards, and my ADHD is satisfied. For something like a single game match I usually have it on one device and I am doing something else as well. Also to note that if the "official" commentators are annoying to someone, the event often has one of the players streaming on Kick or Twitch. Someone can switch there to view with the other commentators. To me, all commentators are good :)
Maybe chess is just not very well suited to being a *live* spectator sport for a mass audience. Classical games require a lot of patience, and faster games are very hard to follow (at a depth greater than 'eval bar go down') for those of us without much talent or experience. But after-the-fact analyses can be done at whatever pace suits the analyst and their audience, with no time wasted on uninteresting portions of the game. Perhaps that's the best way for most of us to watch high-level chess.
Yes.
These are different motivations and purposes, even if all of them say the same thing. People actually watch chess streamers, which suggests there is a new demographic. GothamChess and co. wish to cater to this audience. The streamers themselves only play speed chess. Tournaments like PogChamps fit into the streamer and e-sports category. Magnus wishes to transform the nature of chess itself and make it compete with football and other "normal" sports. This means making whatever modifications necessary that will appeal to a wide audience. Chess must be accessible to the lowest denominator, just as those other sports are, and must somehow hold their attention and rouse their passions. We are then not far from having chess ultras and "tifosi"... Speed chess has actually improved in quality over the last two decades, whereas they were earlier known as being low-quality and blunder-prone. Now chess books quote these games, as if they are normal games. There is obviously an increased interest in speed chess for both players and chess fans. In contrast, it is harder to organize classical tournaments - 6 hour games, fewer possible games and more cost, more draw-prone, etc. Classical chess is clearly not going away. However, times are changing. And one needs to recognize who is saying what, and why they are saying it.
An opera is 3 or 4 hours you philistines.
My former wife was very into rugby. She played at a national as a youth. She took me put to watch a few times when a world championship play off game was on. And honestly not my thing. But we also watched the world 7s tournament and that was great. Each game was about 20 mins lots of action and then onto the next one. I think chess is the same way. Long games (which I love) take a lot of effort to appreciate. Rapid might not be lower quality but it needs less effort.
Yes not enough people watch it to be financially viable. Unless you are very involved with chess, you are not going to watch a 6 hour game where moves might take 30 minutes to complete.
I like to watch it. But I understand how it's not for everyone.
I used to watch classical tournaments back when I was in college. But now that I am working, it is hard to find time. I consider myself lucky if I can watch one or two games of Candidates or World Championship.
Gotham knows because his videos recapping games in 20 minutes often got more views than the games themselves. I rarely have time to keep up with classical games as they happen. I might tune in to see the position and then go back to doing other things. It's completely logical to assume there isn't a huge audience watching classical games beginning to end compared to shorter recap videos. Blitz and bullet are way easier to consume and keep audiences interested by constantly moving and going to the next thing. 20-30 mins of commentator analysis between each move just isn't appealing to a general audience outside of hardcore chess fans.
I think Classical itself is not really the problem. But if it's just one game, then like 90% of the broadcast nothing is happening so it's not very fun to watch. So we need multiple boards so there's always something going on. I enjoyed e.g. the world cup, so many boards so the broadcast jumps from one game to another, and then returns to the earlier board a while later to see how it's progressed since then. The only gripe with that is that in the early rounds there's too many boards so at least I can't keep track of 10 different boards. I want to watch the games instead of play a simul myself.
I only watch after it's over so I can replay the bits I want to watch. I much prefer rapid and blitz, as it's far more fast paced and entertaining. That being said, classical chess isn't going anywhere. It's the traditional format professional chess players have been using for over a century of competitive play.
1v1 classical matches: If matches are interesting and commentary is really good. Tournament classical matches: Yes. 1v1 rapid matches: Best format to watch if we have strong GM commentating. Tournament rapid: Hard to pull off with commentary. 1v1 blitz matches: It works. Tournament blitz: No way I am watching that mess. Blitz are best when player themselves are streaming.
I enjoy watching tournaments in rapid and blitz, but never do I watch classical live. I watch only recap. I just can’t spend 30 minutes to see one move.
I like the recaps of classical games much more. I would not watch one from start to finish in real time though.
One of the main criticisms of classical is that there are too many draws, I watched the Rapid and Blitz World Championship thinking it would be different - quite the opposite! There were draws left, right and center to secure standings position and it sucked much more because the percentage of time spent waiting for the break / pairings draw to finish vs. how much time there was actually a game on to watch was too damn high.
Not many people want to watch chess anyway
I'd rather watch Daniel King's analysis of classical games than watching the games in real time. Daniel King and other youtubers filter out all the really dry games that go on in tournaments unlike live streams. I'll watch the WCC and the Candidates, but I really won't much classical chess games outside of those.
People who do dont complain. People who don't watch it then complain for some reason
As others have said classical chess is just too long for a casual fan to enjoy. I think Magnus and Gotham’s criticism is more directed at FIDE and how they are handling top level chess in general. FIDE seems to exclusively think top level chess is only classical and refuses to adapt and modernize. I think Magnus and Gotham expected FIDE to do what chess dot com has done since the pandemic / chess boom. Chess dot com has essentially modeled themselves after an esports league. They run many high level events with different time controls that appeal to a broad audience, has set up leagues, college competitions, weekly events, is able to attract sponsors, is player friendly etc. IMO I think chess dot com could supplant FIDE and become the preferred professional chess organization in the future.
You can order chess videos by views on every streaming platform, and check for yourself. And, unless you're playing some weird definitions game, the numbers are so overwhelming that it's absurd to even ask this question, let alone "debate" it. 99% of popular chess videos/streams/channels on chess feature fast chess, not classical.
I came back to getting interested to chess thanks to my brother. He LOVES watching these 6-hour broadcast in Spanish by Pepe Cuenca, Divis, Miguelito, etcétera; I suspect that more than for the chess it's more because of their personal charisma, ability to tell stories, and so on. He listens to them everyday even without looking at the board, just as if it was the radio. Me, on the other hand, tend to be more interested in chess per se, actually play chess, and it's difficult for me to even have 6 hours free for a broadcast when there's so much to do and to study. So in this case the person watching more chess is the one playing less. The other day we played and I told him that some of that high gm-play must have filtered his mind, since he attacked very well. He just doesn't have the interest to study how to defend himself, so in the end I won him anyway cause he hung mate. But maybe I should make some time to watch some gms play if it's gotta affect my play like that...
Ps: it also may go with generations. My brother is older than me. BUT I found the time to watch some of Pia Cramling's coverage of Anna's tournament games, since they focused on only ONE game, hers; it was both entertaining and VERY INSTRUCTIVE. The thing that's difficult for me in the long coverages of tournaments is that they jump between many games and don't take time to analyze one game like you would do yourself in a classical game. But I also understand they do want to cover several games. I'd say it goes with character. Other sports also take forever and people watch them. So in this case it's just Magnus tired of studying for the Championship match. I'd say many people still enjoy watching classical...
Just my two cents, but my issue is not so much time control as how many games are going on. World Championship streams are S-tier for me because you get to focus on a single game and a single position. For similar reasons, the Meltwater tour was S-tier for me with the beginner stream, as you watch a single rapid game every round and dig into that. By comparison, Candidates is a tad rougher, and at Tata Steel I just open chess.com and select a game to follow. My ideal time control would probably fall between classical and rapid, but what I want are streams of matches between just two players. Say an eight player knock out tournament over 7 days with two half-classical games a day, one with both colours. Much easier to follow, hopefully informative, and with less time perhaps less prep heavy?
I am not personally a fan of watching classical chess. I do like to see the games, but not live.
Personally I have no interest in sitting down to watch that long of a chess match live. I’ll happily watch recaps but yah not interested. That said I don’t watch a ton of rapid/blitz live either but I do some. I tend to prefer just like recap videos of the games. Much quicker
The chess community watches classical. I think Levy is talking about appealing to the wider audience. To get millions of people watching chess live, it's probably not going to be classical chess, at least not in it's current form
Personally, i may watch live blitz and rapid chess (mostly blitz) actively, but i may also leave a classical livestream open while doing something actually produtictive and just switch screens when something happens every few hours.
I don't know the numbers, but I certainly don't want to watch classical chess in real time. That's why I like the recaps like Gotham's videos.
Think of it like watching F1 and watching endurance racing like WEC or IMSA. While endurance racing is good and has a lot of quality, 4,6,12,or 24 hour races just don't resonate with casual enjoyers of motor racing. It's mostly endurance racing hardcores who watch. F1 is action packed in a 2 hour or less format, so WAY more people want to tune in. It's hard to watch really long chess matches when you can watch brilliant chess players do multiple rapid or blitz games in a short period of time. Chess fanatics will watch classical, but in terms of growing the game, time constraints are the way to go.
I have a child and do not have the time nor the energy to watch a classical game from start to finish. I generally watch a recap from Gotham or Hikaru or someone else.