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In early 2020, as coronavirus lockdowns spread across the planet, Magnus Carlsen had an ingenious idea. The global chess elite, like everyone else, was stuck at home and unable to play in regular in-person tournaments. Instead, the world chess champion invited seven of his biggest rivals to a glitzy online competition called (low-key) the Magnus Carlsen Invitational. The event attracted hundreds of thousands of viewers and sparked a new boom in online chess that continues through the pandemic to this day.
As journalist Peter Doggers details in Chess Revolution, similar online innovations continue to proliferate, while streaming platforms such as YouTube and Twitch allow chatty grandmasters to build large audiences. are gathering. “It’s a big part of the chess revolution that chess has become not just something you play, but something you can watch, even if you’re not very good at it,” he writes.
There are other aspects of the changes going on in the game, most notably its geography. While traditionally dominated by European players, especially those from the former Soviet bloc, energy is increasingly shifting towards Asia overall.
The Indian team achieved a huge victory at the bi-annual Chess Olympics held in September. Grandmasters from India and China will take part in the battle to determine the next world chess champion, to be held in Singapore in November.
Decades ago, computers overtook human players, but now machines equipped with neural networks are beginning to overturn even the basic concepts of how games are played.
The effort to rebrand the sport also has a decidedly Indian feel. Throughout October, a variety of elite players, including Carlsen, gathered in London for the Tech Mahindra Global Chess League. The league is a vibrant new competition funded by Mumbai-based billionaire businessman Anand Mahindra.
Designed to launch a more made-for-TV format, the contest featured pregame fireworks, faster games, and grandmasters wearing colorful team uniforms. It was all part of a strategy to borrow some of the excitement from the hugely popular Indian Premier League cricket tournament.
The changes that are changing chess are also partly technical. Decades ago, computers overtook human players, but now machines equipped with neural networks are beginning to overturn even the basic concepts of how games are played. “It feels like chess, which we have played as humans for centuries, is being reinvented almost from scratch,” the authors suggest.
As a chess journalist, Doggers is an excellent guide to these changes. In fact, he played a role in several of them. An early fan of online chess, he pioneered an initiative in 2007 to upload behind-the-scenes clips of chess tournaments. “In a way, I started a new era of chess, the video era,” he says.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, then, his book is most powerful because of the people who helped fuel the revolution he describes, and the huge success of the Netflix drama The Queen’s Gambit, which also launched. , the last part explaining other factors that contributed to the revolution. During the 2020 pandemic.
Particularly good are Hikaru Nakamura, the brash, fast-talking American grandmaster who has become the game’s most famous streaming star, and Levy, known online as Gotham Chess and who now boasts a YouTube channel of 5.5 million people. This is a section about Rozman.
However, the early chapters are less compelling and feel filled with more familiar material, from the game’s history to its appearances in literature. Indeed, the result is a bit like a patchy chess match, where a weak opening is eventually compensated for by a stronger ending.
There are also grooves. Particularly the fact that the Doggers are largely silent about the Byzantine but fascinating world of chess politics, as embodied in its governing body, Feide. Feide remains an obscure organization largely controlled by bureaucrats in the post-Soviet world.
Nevertheless, The Chess Revolution provides an entertaining and informative overview of a game in the midst of reinvention. Ten years ago, it would have been entirely possible to see chess as a sport in decline, as computers solved its mysteries and spectators were seduced by video games and other less demanding pastimes. . Instead, by embracing the dizzying combination of technology and globalization, it has been reinvigorated and offers lessons for other human intellectual pursuits far beyond the 64 squares.
The Chess Revolution: Understanding the Power of Ancient Games in the Digital Age by Peter Doggarth-Robinson £20/Puzzle Lite $29.99, 416 pages
James Crabtree is the author of ‘The Billionaire Raj’
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