February 27, 2023 by AJ Martin
There is a new craze ravaging the attention of bored students in class. Well, new is relative, as it is the centuries old game of chess–just on the mobile phone. Chess has become massively popular throughout the school serving as a glorious distraction during class time, joining the likes of Clash Royale and Snapchat as a mid-lecture amusement. What can be attributed to the meteoric rise in this once solely nerdy hobby? It might not be what you expect.
For the uninitiated, chess is a strategic board game played on an 8×8 board with 32 pieces. The modern version of chess we know today started out in the 7th century AD, which evolved from Chaturanga, and while there were some tweaks, by-in-large, chess has stayed the same ever since.
Controversy over the 64 squares was 1st in many minds during the latter portion of 2022 over the alleged cheating scandal between 19-year-old chess prodigy Hans Niemann and 20th World Chess Champion Magnus Carlsen. Speculation over if and how Niemann cheated caught the attention of the internet at large, some even posting convoluted and grotesque theories. As time has gone on, uncertainty over Niemann’s alleged cheating has grown, and it has faded into the background as other events in the world of chess have come to the forefront of attention.
Popular streamer Ludwig hosted a Chess boxing Tournament in December, combining the analytical world of the 32 pieces with the physicality of boxing. Streamed on YouTube, at its peak, it garnered 317k views, an earth-shattering number for a livestream to get. Again, the internet was set ablaze with chess mania, and combined with the Chess.com Championship happening around the same time, the sport of chess had gripped the internet, and thus the world at large.
As if scandals and boxing weren’t enough, Chess.com, the world’s largest chess-playing website, in January released a chess bot that once again, shook the internet. The bot, Mittens, was part of a collection of cat themed bots, and had a reported ELO of 1. ELO is a way of ranking players against other players based on approximate skill level, and 1 ELO is impossible as the minimum ELO is 100. Mittens was an extremely strong bot, estimated to be truly ranked at about 3200 ELO, much higher than Magnus Carlsen’s 2864 ELO. This discrepancy in reported ELO versus real ELO, combined with the cute cat icon, the very aggressive playstyle of the bot, and YouTube coverage from channels such as GothamChess, Eric Rosen, and GMHikaru kept the blazing flame of chess burning on into the new year.
The average person is getting into chess now also thanks to the aforementioned content creators, as well as several others, including Magnus Carlsen himself. To put into perspective how quickly this rise in chess has come, GothamChess, YouTube’s most popular player and purveyor of chess news and education, gained 1,000,000 subscribers from the end of November to the end of January and is poised to hit 3 million total subscribers by the end of February.
Of course, there have been other events that have spurred on the growth of chess. Stephen Zimmerman, member of the high school chess club and volunteer chess tutor, said what inspired him to get back into chess was TV. “I had really gotten into it just before the release of The Queen’s Gambit on Netflix,” said Zimmerman. That show, The Queen’s Gambit, is about Beth Harmon, a woman making her way through the world of competitive chess, largely inspired by the real-life career of Bobby Fischer, the 11th World Chess Champion. The show was majorly successful and with Netflix, it grasped the eyes of a broad population. Despite its release in 2020, Stephen sees it as the biggest event to happen to chess. Well, the biggest second to the internet. “Chess.com and the internet was really the biggest event to happen to chess before you had to find an opponent, sit down, and play in real-time. And now? None of that applies,” said Zimmerman.
The golden age of chess is now, with Chess.com’s mobile app being the most downloaded free game on the App Store and is currently 15 on the Play Store. In fact, Chess.com had serious server issues in the middle of January because of the influx of new players. If you want to join the fad–now that chess is officially cool–Chess Club is held every week on Tuesday in B112 by Mrs. Yi, who provides snacks. Although the theory of chess is hundreds of years old, the best time to be a chess player is now.