Chess is not exactly known for being entertaining and fun for spectators. However, some chess grandmasters have discovered the streaming platform Twitch. It’s fast and crazy there, and the viewers enjoy it.
What’s special about chess and Twitch? Chess is a game where concentration plays an important role. Many classic games take a long time, are quiet, and often end in ties.
On Twitch, however, things often move quickly, loudly, and are entertaining. Streamers like Tyler1 scream or throw things around. This doesn’t really fit with chess.
However, some successful chess players have discovered the platform in recent years. This often leads to bizarre situations, also due to the fact that the streamers want to entertain their viewers alongside the games.
Fast games, fails, and crazy actions
Who streams chess? One of the most well-known streamers is 24-year-old Alexandra Botez. She is one of the 7 most successful female chess players from Canada (FIDE) and regularly captivates hundreds of viewers on Twitch.
She does this with a mix of good gameplay and a lot of entertainment. What this can look like is shown in a clip from January 2019. There, her time suddenly ran out and she had to think as many moves ahead as possible.
In a race against time, she achieves a spectacular victory:
However, she doesn’t always manage to finish the matches successfully. Due to the conversations with her chat, she often gets distracted or loses focus.
Additionally, she regularly does funny and bizarre things during her streams, as can be seen in a compilation on YouTube, from which the title image also comes:
Who else is there? Botez is not the only one playing chess on Twitch. Alongside her is chess grandmaster Eric Hansen. He streams with other players under the pseudonym Chessbrah and now has over 100,000 followers on Twitch.
He also encounters bizarre incidents frequently, as seen in this clip where he throws a chair off-screen:
One of the most viewed clips in the chess category, however, comes from Benjamin Finegold, also a grandmaster and significantly older than the two other streamers.
In this clip, he finished an entire game in just a few seconds:
Twitch has a positive influence on chess and chess players
Why is Twitch interesting for chess players? In an interview with NBC News Alexandra Botez revealed that she finds chess tournaments less interesting for viewers:
The [chess] broadcasts were super technical and boring. I hated them.
Instead, she was more excited about the things that happened between the tournaments. Away from the rated games, the chess professionals did a lot of silly things, played blitz chess, or started trash talking.
A similar direction is represented in streaming chess, which opens up new possibilities for her. Alexandra also talked about this with NBC News:
Living from streaming? Currently, it is difficult to live solely from playing chess. This usually works only if you teach it. Twitch, on the other hand, offers a new opportunity.
Botez now streams six times a week and can live from her hobby thanks to subscribers and donations, as she also told NBC News. The same applies to Eric Hansen.
Chess championships on Twitch? However, the chess sport itself also benefits from streaming on Twitch. The platform has been working with Chess.com, the largest website related to chess, for 4 years.
This led to the Chess World Championship 2018 being broadcast on Twitch. There, over 4.4 million unique viewers were reached, and at peak, according to Sullygnome, more than 136,000 people watched simultaneously.
This is quite remarkable for the chess sport, where large events have often been canceled due to lack of sponsorship, as Nick Barton, the operator of Chess.com, revealed to NBC News.
Overall, chess is in the middle range among Twitch viewers. According to Sullygnome, the category ranks 61st among all categories in the last 365 days, with 20,131,000 hours watched. Thus, chess is ahead of games like Battlefield V, Anthem, or Guild Wars 2.
Twitch is not only attractive for chess players but also for young Fortnite players:
