A grandmaster who got Twitch hooked on chess

https://www.wired.com/story/hikaru-nakamura-twitch-chess

by exanimo_sai • 6 years ago

474 165 6 years ago

pogchamps is pretty entertaining - it's not great chess, but it's some of the most fun I've had watching people play chess.

nafey2• 6 years ago

Which makes you wonder why no one tried to get together a bunch of celebs to play chess earlier? Think Woody Harrelson vs Sting

capableweb2• 6 years ago

Some sentiments I've seen being passed around in some chess communities is that things like this makes chess less attractive to people who regard chess as something you need to spend bunch of years to learn before you get interesting enough games to be broadcast. They see the current movement of "Twitch profiles playing chess against others" as something like a celebrity-disease overtaking the sport that used to be low-profile.

Edit: just to be clear, I don't agree with this stance. Just echoing what I've seen elsewhere to try to answer the "wonder why no one tried to get together a bunch of celebs to play chess earlier?" question

munchbunny2• 6 years ago

The hard part is making chess accessible. One of the things that is making chess work on Twitch is that a lot of the streamers are already playing games, chess is just another one. Having compatible commentators is also hugely important.

While watching famous celebs do mundane things is a real form of entertainment, I think it's a bigger leap for those fans to follow the celebs into a game of chess.

tentboy• 6 years ago

Magnus Carlsen has been streaming for a little while!

sometimes doing silly things then absolutely wiping the floor of his opponent like in this clip

https://m.livestreamfails.com/post/36320

himlion• 6 years ago

That's funny that he can casually do that against a grandmaster. Still far ahead of the field.

haberdasher• 6 years ago

He was also drinking a lot in this stream. He would routinely break out "The Transvestite Opening"* for fun. And still mauled gms.

* https://www.chess.com/forum/view/chess-openings/the-transves...

lgl2• 6 years ago

Well, at 13 years old, Carlsen (#700) was already giving Kasparov (#1) a run for his money while looking kind of bored and casually checking out the other matches around them [0] so I'm fairly sure a GM rank on a website isn't really something he worries about that much now that he's spent 120 months as world's #1 and holds the record for highest rated player in chess history.

Kasparov still holds the title for most time spent at #1 at some impressive 255 months though. [1]

[0] https://youtu.be/WjEmquJhSas

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_FIDE_chess_world_numbe...

netcan4• 6 years ago

This is the point, I think. That's great content.

It's a grandmaster vs world champion match. It's silly and fun. "Feats of chess" like simultaneous or blindfolded matches have always been popular. All that packed into a 2 minute bullet game.

jpxw3• 6 years ago

Magnus Carlsen is obviously insanely good, that goes without saying. But he tends not to explain what he’s doing in the same way other streamers do. I find it more fun to watch when there is commentary on the reasons behind the moves being made.

shmageggy3• 6 years ago

I think it depends on when he's streaming and which platform he's on. I've found that many of his BanterBlitz sessions on YouTube are super interesting and accessible.

tdsamardzhiev• 6 years ago

I remember a match where Magnus seemed to be behind, and then suddenly with 20 seconds on the clock he was like "oh, I'm running out of time" and checkmated the other guy in the next 10 moves.

petey283• 6 years ago

It was crazy watching that. Carlsen's play is out of this world.

andrepd3• 6 years ago

Tbh he won there because the other guy missed a silly threat. He got lucky.

ggreer2• 6 years ago

Watching GMs play bullet can be fun, and Carlsen is crazy good, but in that clip Carlen's opponent simply blundered his queen in one. Based on how quickly the rook move was, it might have been a premove. Either way, the other guy just wasn't thinking.

Exploiting premoves in online chess is a common "dirty" way to win, such as when FM Lefong Hua plays Bh6 after his opponent plays g6.[1][2] Even Carlsen has been tricked by this, such as when GM Andrew Tang got him with it in a Lichess tournament.[3]

1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTPLX8h-KBY&t=8m25s

2. https://clips.twitch.tv/TemperedDeafTortoiseTriHard

3. https://clips.twitch.tv/TacitRelatedBeeHotPokket

matsemann• 6 years ago

It's not dirty, it's part of the metagame in ultrabullet to do stuff that breaks the other player's premove. It's kinda cool, actually.

petercooper5• 6 years ago

I can't deal with chess but a similar thing has been happening with Sudoku and I have become a bit addicted to it :-) It's always interesting to see things that had a bit of an arcane or geeky reputation now having large audiences given we're all in the same online 'place' as it were.

tosers42• 6 years ago

They are just games, nothing geeky about them. It's actually pretty popular here to play checkers/droughts in pubs (specially old, cheap pubs for the working class), occasionally you see someone playing chess, but the older crowed didn't actually learn chess, and the younger crowd is more focused on digital, it seems. Usually here you see Sueca [1] mostly, followed by Dominoes, and then checkers, again, you don't see much chess not because it's for "intellectuals" but because it's simply not popular enough so very few people know how to play, and playing is a very social local thing.

And ofc, there is always people standing around watching someone play. It's a usual sight to enter a pub and a 4 guys in a table playing Sueca in silence, surrounded by some folks watching. It's even more interesting because Sueca "etiquette" makes it a silent game during play, but after, during count, deal, etc, everybody is commenting, add alcohol and people watching, and it's a marvelous thing.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sueca_(card_game)

petercooper5• 6 years ago

It's probably cultural in my case. I was brought up in a working class environment where playing these sort of games and puzzles was not commonplace and my interest in them was seen as a bit geeky :-) Now you mention it, I've seen plenty of videos from other countries where people are playing chess and the likes on the street, so my perspective of the game is probably peculiar to my upbringing.

andrepd3• 6 years ago

Sueca is actually a pretty interesting and complex game. Bridge-lite if you will.

netcan4• 6 years ago

Who's a good sudoku streamer?

petercooper5• 6 years ago

I am more interested in recordings as I like to follow along, pause, and "beat" their logic (in the rare case I can!) so I prefer YouTube and this channel is about as good as it gets: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCC-UOdK8-mIjxBQm_ot1T-Q .. there's just so much great stuff on that one.

Sudoku on Twitch is not well established at all (yet), but if you see someone doing an advanced one (by following the "Sudoku" category – https://www.twitch.tv/directory/game/Sudoku) it can be worth tuning in especially as the live nature lets you "help" in the chat if you so wish. Maybe I should start streaming my own Sudoku solves! :-)

abnry4• 6 years ago

Oh man, are you in for a treat!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKf9aUIxdb4

billfruit2• 6 years ago

I wish something similar would happen with cryptic crosswords, some of the old-world news papers have rea··y fiendish cryptics solving which almost looks like a black art, compared with sudoku, since it seems to require knowledge of many arcane things and conventions.

petercooper5• 6 years ago

The channel has moved on to almost exclusively Sudoku but you can find quite a few cryptic crossword videos on Cracking the Cryptic, such as this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jfVumsDGh0 .. the thought process behind getting the answers really is mind boggling to me :-)

Oh, and the New York Times stream solves of some of their crosswords at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCST13QgqzC5r81Fd6OO7nCQ .. I can get along with NYT levels of cryptic myself, but not British style cryptic which is another level.

philshem4• 6 years ago

https://lichess.org is fantastic for online chess.

But we need a lichess for Backgammon! Backgammon has tons of strategy but also has the element of chance because of the dice roll - anyone can win anygame (in theory, at least).

There is even a lichess forum post about making lichess for backgammon: https://lichess.org/forum/lichess-feedback/backgammon-clone-...

bschne• 6 years ago

Playing chess was only a brief phase for me, I never really got into it, but I love lichess - it's open source, completely free, doesn't run ads, and the UX is amazing, it just works perfectly and there are no unnecessary gimmicks. One of those few exemplary projects to take a big chunk of inspiration from, if you ask me!

shpongled• 6 years ago

Lichess is the best 'web app' I've used, bar none.

noir_lord2• 6 years ago

Guy behind it is lovely to talk to as well and the iPhone and android clients are pretty much best in class in addition to the web interface been best in class as well.

lgl2• 6 years ago

lichess.org's creator, Thibault Duplessis has an hn account [0] and has made some posts around here (although his last post appears to have been in 2015).

The entire thing is also free, open-source and with a very diverse tech stack behind it that includes Scala, Redis, MongoDB, Elasticsearch, Typescript, websockets, nginx and more [1]

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=ornicar

[1] https://github.com/ornicar/lila

grantismo• 6 years ago

Great tech talk from Thibault about lichess: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHP5AdRlRNY

pakitan• 6 years ago

Doesn't backgammon lose a lot of its appeal if you're not playing for money? Kinda like poker.

LargeWu3• 6 years ago

Not really. There are a lot of strategic decisions to make, and those decisions aren't about money. In poker, almost all of the important decisions are directly about wagering. When wagering has no real value, neither do the decisions.

Also, in backgammon, you still need to actually win. Contrast this with poker, where oftentimes when playing for money, you don't actually want to reach the end of the hand (i.e. showdown). Which, again, is pointless if there's no money involved since always calling is your optimal strategy.

philshem4• 6 years ago

Are you thinking about blackjack?

conistonwater• 6 years ago

anyone can win anygame (in theory, at least).

Is this supposed to be a good thing in a game? It's kind of like the opposite of being skill-based. E.g., poker has this "problem", and it's a huge part of the game and its skill, but it's not literally a good thing that "anyone can win once". At worst, it just encourages gambling, at best it makes results more random than necessary to establish skill differences.

Bridge also has this property that every beginner can win, and the main consequence I've seen when teaching people is that it trips people up when their understanding of probability theory isn't up to snuff already before they start learning, they end up having way too much trouble distinguishing success and failure.

There's a theory that one of the reasons chess is so highly-developed with so many children playing at such a high level is precisely that not anyone can win, so people just get so much more feedback on their decision making.

yoDibly• 6 years ago

Is this supposed to be a good thing in a game?

Absolutely. Maybe not for a sport, but unless you're talking about the pure competitive aspect of it, most games benefit from having that level of accessibility. Bad players need to feel like they can win games. Even if they don't know how, they'll feel like they can win again.

One of the big draws to any game is the idea that you aren't just measuring your skill/experience at the game against everyone else playing, it's like when everyone comes over to play Super Smash Bros but you can tell the host has been playing on his own to practice, it takes a lot of the fun out of it. You can also use the example in SSB of playing with items on. Sure, really competitive players will hate the randomness that comes from items but the whole point of that randomness is to give everyone else a fighting chance.

I guess it depends on what you want out of a "game". If you're only looking at it through the lens of Chess where luck is virtually nonexistent and skill is the ultimate deciding factor, you're going to take a lot of issue with anything that upsets that balance. But, in practice, most people play games for enjoyment, not for sport.

LargeWu3• 6 years ago

You seem to view "it promotes gambling" as a negative. I happen to think backgammon is a great game precisely for this reason.

The fundamental skill in backgammon is managing variance. Since there are many possible outcomes of the dice that you can't control, your job as a player is to put your checkers into position such that you're maximizing good outcomes and minimizing bad outcomes.

Yes, in any giving game, a poor player might roll very well and win that game, but over a large sample, the better player will absolutely dominate.

Backgammon also has the advantage over poker in the sense that it's still fun to play in the absence of gambling. Poker is dreadfully boring if no money is on the line.

m12k• 6 years ago

Elements of chance can both make a game more accessible to beginners and raise the skill ceiling fro pros at the same time. It's more accessible, because a beginner player might still get lucky and win through pure chance. But it also raises the skill ceiling, because you need to work with probability on top of strategy. You might sometimes make the right move and still lose. And you might sometimes make the wrong move and still win. But that also makes it more challenging to improve above a certain level, since you need a deeper analysis than 'did I win?' to understand what you did right and wrong. It does mean that unlike chess, where the superior player will likely win 100/100 matches, a superior backgammon player might only win 60-70 games out of 100. Learning to combine strategy and probability is valuable, and arguably maybe even more applicable to the real world than the pure strategy of chess.

billfruit2• 6 years ago

But it also give a player a fighting chance even if they are behind in material. In top flight chess there is no spectacular against the odds, coming from behind victories as is seen in many other games and sports.

andrepd3• 6 years ago

Not quite. Take bridge for example. The fact that it is not a perfect information game is what makes it one of the most interesting and deep games in the world. Suddenly there's a whole layer of deduction, imperfect information gathering, information exchange, etc.

zem• 6 years ago

as a competitive scrabble player yes, that's one of the great things about the game. it makes it possible to have exciting games against both stronger and weaker players, because there is still that element of luck that makes it possible for either side to win regardless of rating difference. i've won individual games against world champions, which is something that could never happen in chess.

searchableguy• 6 years ago

There is a hn chess group on lichess too. Although it's dead. Wonder if someone could revive it.

https://lichess.org/team/hacker-news

octygen• 6 years ago

I'd more than happily contribute to such a project! Backgammon is to chess what boxing is to fencing and I love boxing.

philshem4• 6 years ago

there are lots of existing code that one could build on (e.g. https://github.com/quasoft/backgammonjs) but it probably makes sense to start from scratch, and use the gnubg smart game format ".sgf"

https://www.gnu.org/software/gnubg/manual/gnubg.html

philshem4• 6 years ago

self-reply with this great NYer profile (2013) about backgammon and all its weirdness

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/05/13/the-chaos-of-t...

Sadly, Falafel (Matvey Natanzon) passed away in March: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/03/nyregion/matvey-natanzon-...

labelbias• 6 years ago

I got hooked on chess because of Lichess. The interface is well done and it's so easy to play. Something about it feels much better than chess.com. Unfortunately, I got heavily addicted and had to stop.

Although, I had so much fun. I was playing mostly openings with 2nd move being the one with queen. Got to about 1700 rating on that site in bullet (3-5 min game). This was the result of about 1 year of heavy addiction (2-10 hours of chess per day).

vmchale• 6 years ago

damn we are bored as shit

tuxiano• 6 years ago

My hypothesis is that learning chess is such a long path that people tend to forget how they were when they started and think their current level games are not interesting to share or stream. Pogchamps success demonstrates that a lot of people like chess as entertainment in addition to a mind challenge.

tholman• 6 years ago

I've been loving this boom for a ton of reasons.

Hikaru does an amazing job of sharing his knowledge and skill without spilling over the top with information about why certain moves are theoretically better than others 30 moves down the line than only a small percentage of people would understand. The skill gap is insane, but he makes it feel approachable.

Its been fun watching the pogchamps series for the most part because himself and Botez (and a few others) can share their knowledge without being affronting or elitist, but instead exploring and explaining why certain good moves are sometimes hard to find or don't feel natural. Simplifying the language and using arrows on the board to show moves, rather than just blasting chess notation at the screen. You can see them holding back when a player makes a certain move, and then openly assess the goods and bads.

They've shown behind the scene training sessions on pogchamps too, showing a little into the world (again at a much lower level) how you would begin to prep and build your chess opening repertoire that is approachable for someone who is learning.

And then at the end of the day, its also just fun to watch someone who has an insane amount of talent be a complete boss in their field. Honestly feels like the top players are scanning a QR code and know what to do without a second thought [1]

...

To pin onto this for those who enjoy chess but perhaps don't like the stress of online play, I've found the puzzles on lichess [2] to be a great way to learn and be challenged by the game.

- [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-pePy_1_Ts&t=50

- [2] https://lichess.org/training/

jpxw3• 6 years ago

Hikaru not Hiraku :P

faizshah• 6 years ago

I agree. This tournament is the first time I can understand both the commentary and the moves the players are making.

As a player who only understands the rules it’s easy to understand why a player would blunder their queen after forgetting that their knight was protecting it and the commentary helps you understand what they should have done. It’s sorta like why the show “High Stakes Poker” was so entertaining vs tournament Game Theory Optimal poker play.

narag• 6 years ago

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-pePy_1_Ts&t=50

WTF?

OK, I understand they're on another level, but that's ridiculous. Seems like muscle memory. I had no idea they can do that.

krick5• 6 years ago

This isn't even especially fast. I remember Hikaru getting past 50 before.

mattbillenstein4• 6 years ago

Also re stress, play correspondence - 1 or 2 days per move, you can of course play faster, but playing a lot slower I've found to be fun. I try to keep 3-4 games going at a time, but I've had up to 10 at a time. And I've played guys who have almost 50 games at a time going.

underdeserver2• 6 years ago

This boom, including Pogchamps, has been great.

First of all, chess has been unapproachable for a long time. You see grandmasters making this move instead of that and for a beginner there's absolutely zero chance you're going to understand why. Or you see something that looks good, a fork that you think wins material but the GM doesn't play it; you don't understand why it was bad.

Sure, you could go into analysis in Lichess but are you going to do that for every single game? Is that fun?

Nakamura, Hess and Botez have been doing a great job making it more approachable - at a level anyone can follow.

The coaching videos are great to watch, even if you're a slight bit stronger (I'm ~2000 blitz on Lichess). And some of the players - Voyboy in particular - have been getting significantly better over the course of the tournament. You can follow along, get better yourself, and discover the deeper and deeper levels of the game at a tractable pace, and that I think is the key to getting into a new hobby.

There's also always been a sense of elitism in chess. The opinion against Pogchamps here[1] shows that:

"If Chess.com wanted to do a show with gamers and streamers, instead of presenting them as fools they should have been respected as the learners they are at chess."

Bull. A beginner is NOT a fool, and the only prerequisite to playing chess is knowing the rules.

[1] https://www.chesstech.org/2020/is-pogchamps-a-good-way-to-pr...

jpxw3• 6 years ago

Don’t forget John Bartholomew. Not a GM yet, but he will be someday IMO. Oh, and Ben Finegold (who is a GM). I found them more informative than Hikaru and Botez by far.

lubesGordi• 6 years ago

John Bartholomew is the best. Tons of great stuff on his youtube. Also he founded chessable.com which is pretty great for drilling chess openings, endings, etc.

bluedino• 6 years ago

I enjoy the chess game commentary/coverage on Agadmator's YouTube channel - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCL5YbN5WLFD8dLIegT5QAbA

He goes into a couple different lines during the game and explains moves/blunders.

underdeserver2• 6 years ago

I also like Agadmator's channel, especially the "why did he resign?" bits that show how to seal the deal, which is missing from most top play analyses.

He misses a lot of subtleties, but he does a really good job of being consistent in the format of his videos, which I like.

rwmurrayVT• 6 years ago

Voyboy is an excellent LoL streamer with a great attitude. I knew he was very gifted and I'm excited that he's streaming chess.

0x3d3d3d• 6 years ago

One of my favorite aspects of this is the chat satirically treating Chess like any other game on Twitch:

- When's the next patch coming out?

- Nerf the queen, too strong

- Blundered a piece, intentionally feeding

- Queen h6 was mate, missed lethal

srge• 6 years ago

The queen is definitely OP :)

shmageggy3• 6 years ago

r/anarchychess if you like this sort of thing :)

yen223• 6 years ago

En passant was a balance patch against the overpowered pawn 2-square move

Yanu-34522• 6 years ago

Unironically chess is an e-sport and this recent explosion is because Hikaru, Botez, Hess et al. have woken up to that idea and embraced it.

The best computers can easily beat the top humans just as an aimbot could beat Navi easily at CS:GO.

So the focus in chess has moved away from manually exploring to find optimal plays and new opening styles as was the trend in the 19th century chess rennaisance to a focus on preparation so that a player can quickly find best moves, under significant pressure, in any given match.

That makes it much more like a strategy game.

Embracing memes makes it more accessible to viewers who are used to watching hearthstone, csgo, league, dota or other esports and it's been really fun to watch.

I started watching chess on twitch a while ago during the Tata steel tournament and I thought back then it would quickly grow if they focused their commentary on casual level viewers and it's been fantastic to have been proved correct.

LanceH• 6 years ago

chessnetwork (a Canadian National Master's name on twitch) is a warm and welcoming streamer as well.

kohtatsu• 6 years ago

Seconded. Jerry makes thorough yet cosy and approachable content.

Edit: he also covers engines which I find pretty interesting, a lot of Leela but my favourite so far is this game with AlphaZero and Stockfish: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2m5oXlZ_e_A

ehsankia• 6 years ago

To me it seems like the current explosion is the genius idea of pitching the most famous Twitch personalities against each other in a tournament. This is similar to how Dr. K blew up by giving live therapy session to Twitch personalities with huge followings. If you add up the followers of all the participants [0], you already have a huge pool of probably over a million viewers to start with, all rooting for their favorite streamer.

[0] https://www.chess.com/article/view/chesscom-pogchamps

jmcgough• 6 years ago

It also makes chess way more approachable to see novice players play and see GMs discuss why a move is good or bad. I picked up chess about two weeks ago from watching the tourney, and the streams where GMs give lessons to tournament participants (or even random popular streamers) have been pretty helpful for someone who never really understood the strategy of the early game as a kid.

cryptonector• 6 years ago

There are also lots of commentators on youtube commenting on past games, recent games, and games between AIs.

bradly2• 6 years ago

I got into Chess a couple years ago and Twitch and YouTube were a huge part of it. I had gotten started watching Ben Finegold's kids classes. Getting to see grandmasters play and hear their thoughts and ask them questions is an unbelievable resource. I was surprised how good Chess was as a spectator sport.

SubiculumCode5• 6 years ago

Ever hear why Ben Finegold got banned from twitch several weeks ago?

hawkesnest2• 6 years ago

I kept waiting for him to post a video for the U800 kids. That's about my level right now.

SubiculumCode5• 6 years ago

Chess has definitely become an esport. Interestingly, blitz and bullet game formats are forcing themselves into upper classes of the chess world, defying long standing denigration as not being "real chess," because the watching public enjoys that format..and it can be legitimately exciting. The recent IM not a GM championship hosted by chess.com, GM Hess, and GM Narodotsky was fantastic entertainment...especially as I am a dedicated viewer of IM John Bartholomew, who blew his competition away.

cauthon• 6 years ago

What channels do you recommend watching? And how do you find out about tournaments?

myle• 6 years ago

Channels: Daniel King Chess24 agadmator

Tournaments and news on reddit.com/r/chess

zakk2• 6 years ago

I love Mato Jelic's channel.

SkyBelow3• 6 years ago

So the focus in chess has moved away from manually exploring to find optimal plays and new opening styles as was the trend in the 19th century chess rennaisance to a focus on preparation so that a player can quickly find best moves, under significant pressure, in any given match.

There is a certain skill level, which I want to say is somewhere around 1400 to 1500 but it has been over a decade so don't quote me on that, where most the players at that level seem to focus on memorizing openings. It ended up being what separates them from the players a one to two hundred points lower. This leaves them vulnerable to a bit of a hack, as using a non-standard opening can completely remove any usefulness of their memorized openings. It almost disorients them and makes it much more likely for them to make a mistake that can then overcome the disadvantage of such a non-standard opening. I loved playing in this area as I hated memorizing openings so I just used non-standard openings to not to avoid having to. Eventually I hit the ranking where players were good enough to take advantage of my non-standard opening more than any advantage from disorienting them and I quit playing because the only option to advance would've been to go back and memorize openings.

thirtythree• 6 years ago

I have similar feelings about memorising in chess. It gets to the point where it's boring for me

kingaillas• 6 years ago

I also hated memorizing openings. I did it, years ago when I was a middling level chess player and played in tourneys, like everyone else, because of the time pressure from the chess clock. Nobody could afford being stumped 4-6 moves in, pondering what to do, when you had a better chance arriving to the mid-game with a non-terrible position. Burning too much time here meant you'd lose on time.

I was not good enough to play an unknown variant and come out better, as you were!

So over time I drifted to variants like bughouse or speed chess variants, to play for fun and not feel like it was studying or being constrained by the standard moves.

And then boardgames took over; for me personally I need to have a mix of luck and skill in a game to enjoy it.

zxcmx• 6 years ago

This is a really silly question, but if you don't memorize openings how do you make sure you're avoiding the standard ones? Not a chess player.

stephsmithio• 6 years ago

As someone that used to travel the world and play chess competitively as a kid (fun fact: against Botez), it's been great to see chess embraced as an esport and the definition of a "sport" be rethought entirely.

I remember growing up in the chess community being asked whether chess was a "sport". Most people within the community would say yes, while most people outside the community would unequivocally say no, since it wasn't physical.

zakk2• 6 years ago

Unironically chess is an e-sport and this recent explosion is because Hikaru, Botez, Hess et al. have woken up to that idea and embraced it.

Let me also mention Mato Jelic. His videos got me hooked!

luisehk• 6 years ago

As a casual player, I've been enjoying it. High-level games are sometimes hard to follow but it has motivated me to get out of my comfort zone and get better at chess.

EGreg• 6 years ago

Because of David Pakman lol

blastro• 6 years ago

Truly the golden age of chess.

Shoutout to lichess.org - one of the best sites on the internet IMHO.

karimf• 6 years ago

This is a real example of how things can go from 1 to 1.000.000 by a combination of luck and execution.

GM Hikaru have been streaming chess since ~2 years ago [0] but there was little traction. Then one day he got into stream with xQc, one of the biggest streamer on Twitch. Because of Hikaru's skill and meme, many xQc followers started to follow Hikaru.

Soon, Hikaru joined Lindores Abbey Challenge, an online chess tournament where 12 world's best chess players compete, including Magnus Carlsen. I think that tournament was what made this whole trends possible. The recent surge of Hikaru's followers are chanting on the Twitch chat to give support to Hikaru. And Hikaru was playing against Magnus Carlsen, the final boss in the chess world. It felt like you're watching the latest episode of an anime/tv series.

The momentum didn't stop there. Hikaru knew the fads usually won't last long, so they made the pogchamps tournaments, featuring big streamers, to capitalize on the momentum and to make sure it was just not a fad.

[0] https://twitter.com/gmhikaru/status/1058781473271148544

abnry4• 6 years ago

Also, don't forget the whole COVID-19 isolation thing, which encouraged people to find ways to pass the time online. I've seen graphs showing the number of users on lichess significantly increased right when the lockdowns started.

madballster• 6 years ago

Chess has been declared dead so many times to online chess it seems to stage a big upturn with the younger crowd. I am happy to see it.

awb• 6 years ago

Chess.com has excellent live coverage of many top chess tournaments. Their paid commentators are almost always engaging and make watching chess informative and exciting. They also provide links to top Twitch streamers who are playing on their platform like Hikaru Nakamura. I'm not affiliated with the site, just impressed with their content.

mellosouls3• 6 years ago

The current presence on Twitch of young, funny chess masters like the Chess Brahs and the Botez sisters with top level talents like Nakamura crossing over with famous xQc-types is maybe the best thing to happen to chess in recent years to showcase it as something fun loving young people can enjoy, not just the dusty old men and social incompetents of caricature. It would be great if it encourages new people to come in from esports and elsewhere, and bust through the gatekeepers and play this brilliant game.

https://www.twitch.tv/botezlive

Botez Compilation

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9VVcrwQGqU

-----

https://www.twitch.tv/chessbrah

ChessBrahs Nightcore Bullet Run

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=byCYEUQvjq4

(comment reposted with video links from a submission I posted on the subject the other day https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23397314)

bradly2• 6 years ago

Twitch of young, funny chess masters

Don't forget about the old, funny chess masters :)

https://www.twitch.tv/gmbenjaminfinegold

SubiculumCode5• 6 years ago

Wait, Botez has a sister?

mellosouls3• 6 years ago

Yep, she's featured in the compilation above. They are great as a duo as well.

krick5• 6 years ago

Yeah, everyone repeats this "the best thing to happen to chess" passage, but, seriously, I don't see how it makes any sense.

I mean, good for who? "Chess"? Chess is a game, it doesn't give a fuck who plays or watches it. It may be argued that chess is rather a field for studies, which, like any science, benefits from more resources spent on studying it, but let's be honest: future GMs are not bored 20 y.o. kids, introduced to chess by watching xQc. So, no, it is not good, nor especially bad for chess.

Is it good for Hikaru? Definitely. It is good for Hikaru, Botez, maybe Naroditsky or whoever else will manage to catch a ride on the hype train. Because they get more money. Alexandra's channel is now worth like 50 times more than 2 months ago, and market for coaching will be probably bigger now. Likewise, it is good for chess.com, which has all these guys on a payroll under contracts that forbid them streaming while playing on any other platform than chess.com

Community... Well, it's hard to define who exactly constitutes a community, but if we are talking about people who were playing chess and watching GMHikaru or BotezLive 2 months ago, it doesn't seem to me they got anything out of it. It was a community of somewhat similarly-minded people, there was at least some space for meaningful conversations in twitch-chat. Absolute majority was actually somewhat into chess (probably like 1100-1800 ELO) and there was a nice homely environment. Now all the trash previously contained within xQc's channel is spilled all over the place, it's just mindless spamming emotes and such. 50% of Hikaru's content is now "reacting to xQc doing stupid shit". 700-ELO player who at least attempts to think before making a move is now "naturally talented player and definitely not a newbie". I mean, honestly, it just isn't enjoyable anymore. It isn't the place these people used to come for.

And people who got introduced to chess because they were Forsen's of xQc's viewers didn't actually get much either, because they don't really care about the subject. If xQc was suddenly an avid crossword-puzzle sover, they would obsess over crossword-puzzles all the same. It doesn't matter.

nafey2• 6 years ago

It is good for chess economy as a whole. By that I mean people who make income by playing tournaments, authoring chess books, making lessons etc. More eyeballs means more money.

mellosouls3• 6 years ago

I'm working on the basis that greater initial engagement leads to greater long term engagement. And what we are seeing now is a much higher influx than I can remember.

So what if a large proportion aren't in it for the chess and will move on to the next craze? Some of them will be converted and grow the game.

As for the "trash previously contained within xQc's channel", I'm not sure how that's different (except in quantity) to the level of chat there has been for a long time in chess on twitch/discord etc.

It's quite sobering to think of chess as an intellectual game and find out that your average young "community" member is not really demonstrating intelligence above the norm in other subjects. The influx of non-chess newbies has not lowered the bar in that regard that I've noticed, tho there has been an inevitable swamping effect.

I think while it's good to caution against rose-tinted views of this recent phenomenon, we also need to be careful not to fall into the gatekeeping I mention in my initial post - it's really important to remember we all have to start somewhere.

Nobody comes in to this game as a master.

zitterbewegung• 6 years ago

Man I should just start coding on a twitch account for my side projects. I can't go to meetups anymore for obvious reasons and I have been putting it off.

jbj• 6 years ago

I wonder if chess is actually the first ever online game.

My granddad used to play chess over his rotary land line.

Some enthusiasts must have tried a game over telegram/morse or other technology.

redog• 6 years ago

What's considered online? Was it pong that became the first video game? Chess over landline kind of sounds more online than pong.

fenwick67• 6 years ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correspondence_chess

swilliamsio• 6 years ago

Chess has been played by mail for centuries. It wouldn't be surprising to me at all if it was also the first ever online game.

Tiltowait--• 6 years ago

Diplomacy was played by mail since shortly after the game was invented in the 1950s. It formed an important part of what today we call geek culture. It overlapped with wargaming and miniatures gaming and directly led to the creation of Dungeons and Dragons, and from thence computer gaming.

All but forgotten today, though.

pritambarhate• 6 years ago

There is a parallel explosion of Chess Streaming in India on YouTube. During the lockdown, a stand-up comedian Samay Raina [1] started streaming Chess with some other famous comedians. None of them are strong players. But the content was so funny that quite a few people started watching.

Later Samay became friends with India No. 2 Chess Super GM Vidit Gujrathi [2] and together they have created quite a bit of following on YouTube. In one of his videos, Agadmator [3] said that Indians sign-ups on Chess.com have gone through the roof.

However, most of the content is in Hindi. Here are some videos which are in (mostly) English, Vidit's trash talk with anther Indian GM Baskaran Adhiban[4], Vidit Playing Serious Chess Blitz tournament on Chess.com [5]

[1] https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAov2BBv1ZJav0c_yHEciAw

[2] https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpjTx5WsF4yqyvGIYY8nuVg

[3] https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCL5YbN5WLFD8dLIegT5QAbA

[4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LjaDxN5xLHs

[5] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJeM-TBPqI0

yewenjie• 6 years ago

Personal opinion : I absolutely hate Samay Raina's utter nonsense commentary, which is cringe at worst, and irrelevant at best.

tobyhinloopen• 6 years ago

Grandmain.

DeonPenny• 6 years ago

I've been watching the POG chess tournament. It's honestly so fascinating how quickly it spread through the twitch gaming community. I guess gaming is gaming and there a clear reason why chess has always been popular.

bluecalm• 6 years ago

I think what made Hikaru a controversial and not always the most liked classical player makes a perfect combination for a popular streamer. Quick mind, sometimes moody, easily tilted, very competitive and sometimes opinionated. I wasn't his biggest fan when he was top 5 classical player but today I am a happy subscriber to his stream and always cheer for him in rapid/blitz tournaments.

mattbillenstein4• 6 years ago

I think he's growing into it - seems like his streams have become much looser and fun over time - I wouldn't have thought a super-gm could do chess content and not be super serious about it all the time.

lawn• 6 years ago

Is there something similar for Go? I do like chess but Go just appeals to me more.

munchbunny2• 6 years ago

Not in the sense of trending on Twitch, but there's plenty of places where you can play Go online.

jasonwatkinspdx• 6 years ago

There are some good twitch go streamers, but it hasn't blown up in popularity like chess did recently. Check out https://www.twitch.tv/battsgo for a go streamer that's pretty approachable, including doing a "basics" stream weekly. The Go world could learn a bit from how this chess boom is streamlining the presentation and terminology. The english go world tends to use mangled versions of the japanese strategic terms, and tbh, they aren't particularly helpful for learning.

jack_pp• 6 years ago

I got into chess a couple of months ago and it has been fun but I don't understand how people watch Hikaru play 3min chess. It's very hard for a beginner to wrap their head around what his moves mean. I'd have to pause and think every move through for a couple of minutes if I really wanted to understand. I think people watch more for what he says while playing than the actual game

twox22• 6 years ago

Check out Eric Rosen on youtube, he has great videos where he plays blitz chess and talks through his thought process. It's very helpful.

abnry4• 6 years ago

Eric Rosen is the Bob Ross of chess.

mattbillenstein4• 6 years ago

Also some of ChessNetwork's content on youtube - the slower games in particular - 10m +

I'll say also if you want to improve at chess, you need to play slower time controls to build that pattern recognition and "muscle memory" up. Blitz is fun, but it's hard to really think deep and learn a lot.

29athrowaway• 6 years ago

For chess, lichess.org is excellent.

For shogi there's 81dojo.com and for Go there's online-go.com and shin.gokgs.com

imgabe• 6 years ago

I recently got back into chess after discovering there's a huge wealth of chess videos on YouTube. (Probably news to no one I know) It's great to be able to learn about a new opening or trap or whatnot then jump into an online game and hopefully try it out.

mkchoi212• 6 years ago

This is awesome. Chess becoming main stream again as people bored in quarantine are looking for new brain engaging activities.

pranit10• 6 years ago

I am so happy to see Hackernews users overlap with twitch.

sitkack• 6 years ago

What a wonderful hack! Praxis.

Now if we can get Nascar on to e-sports (large mosfet kind).

hiop• 6 years ago

"grandmain"

SubiculumCode5• 6 years ago

Hey Guys. It's John. Gonna play some 3 0 on Lichess. I'm drinking herbal tea, and I've got a pot of MJB brewing, cuz its good when it should. Okay, let's play a scandi, #TeamScandi. (•‿•)

dilandau• 6 years ago

What chess engine do you all recommend for gnome-chess? I see glaurung, fairy-max, hoi-chess, gnuchess?

Buttons8402• 6 years ago

Aside: I saw new beauty in chess recently in a game with a queen vs a rook, knight, and pawn in the end game. The game lasted for over 40 moves in this state before ending in a draw. Chess engine analysis had the game as dead even.

Chess may be a bit more complicated and arbitrary than Go, but seeing how the pieces very exactly fit their 1, 3, 5, and 9 point values allowed me to see the mathematical beauty of the game for the first time.

krick5• 6 years ago

They don't "exactly fit their 1, 3, 5, and 9 point values" at all. Piece value is depending on the stage of the game and even the exact position, and even averaged value estimation fluctuates wildly. For example, for Stockfish it's 4.16, 4.41, 6.625, 12.92 (N, B, R, Q).

And for endgames too, a queen vs 2 rooks may be winning for either side or a draw depending on a position.

Buttons8402• 6 years ago

You mean stockfish is programmed to consider a queen as being worth almost 13 points?

Granted, the pieces naive value matters little compared to the tree search stockfish does.

zacharycohn• 6 years ago

In middle school I started playing chess at a local club that met at a Barnes and Noble. I was 1/3 of the age of the next youngest person and I doubt I ever won a single game, but I learned so much.

My favorite person at the club, and I tried to play with him as often as I could, was this boisterous old man who would drop movie one-liners constantly. He'd take a pawn with his knight and bellow "I HAVE YOU NOW." I'd occasionally grab one of his rooks, "Great kid, but don't get cocky!"

nazgulnarsil• 6 years ago

play crazyhouse, make chess fun again.

A grandmaster who got Twitch hooked on chess

Related Stories