The Chess Boom
How the Age-Old Game is Taking the World by Storm
B. N. Dent
As of December 2022, Chess.com reached the milestone of 100 million members on the site. Chess.com has experienced more new users in the past 18 months than in its previous 15 years of existence, and whilst the site’s servers may not be having a great time, the players are having a blast. For those unaware, Chess.com is by far and away the world’s most popular chess website where people can verse their friends or random people from all over the globe in a friendly or competitive manner across a variety of modes that will differ based on the length (time) of the game. When playing competitively, you will be queued with people based on your skill level determined via prior games, and depending on the outcome of the game, this rating will either rise or fall.
Now that the details are out of the way, let’s try to understand why this age-old game is currently receiving more new monthly players than ever before in the entirety of its existence. One would think that if a game, or any activity, has a certain intrinsic value that is not affected by constantly changing societal values, then as population increases, popularity of said activity will also increase. However, in today’s environment where the attention spans of younger generations are becoming increasingly shorter and the desire for instant gratification is growing, it is hard to make sense of the astronomical growth in popularity that the zero-sum game has experienced. It is purely counter-intuitive to think that the greyscale game of chess is not only able to survive, but thrive among the highly advanced, vibrant, and addicting video games available to us. So, is it an inevitability that chess’s popularity will continue to rise until the end of time, or was this surge simply temporary and caused by an accumulation of events leading to a perfect storm?
As we cannot look into the future, it is obviously difficult to foresee whether chess will continue to rise in popularity. If we merely base our assumption on the steady growth of the game since its inception in 6th century India, then we can argue that the idea of this rising popularity being inevitability holds a degree of validity. But that’s not satisfying, so let’s consider this perfect storm idea. There are currently a variety of factors that are delivering chess with an excessive amount of attention in comparison to what it would normally receive. Namely, the fact that we are currently amidst the era of the chess GOAT – GM (Grand Master) Magnus Carlsen. Aside from the fact that he is a genius (IQ of 190) and has been the reigning world champion since 2013, he was also recently involved in a cheating scandal with American GM Hans Niemann. Following a game that the two played, Magnus posted a cryptic tweet that insinuated Niemann had been cheating during their game. Following this, Niemann filed a $100 million dollar lawsuit against Magnus for defamation, in turn causing large amounts of controversy within the chess community and the rest of the world due to the absurdity of the situation. Aside from this, in late 2020, Netflix released the extremely popular fictional TV series, “The Queen’s Gambit”, which follows the story of a female chess prodigy and her untraditional rise to glory. This series was viewed by 63 million households in just its first four weeks of release.
Finally, and arguably the most prominent reason behind the chess boom, comes from a man who is currently incarcerated in Romania due to human trafficking allegations – Andrew Tate. In addition to being the most googled person in the world in 2022, Andrew Tate has amassed an extremely large following. One of the backbones of Tate’s persona is his connection to chess. His father was a very respected and prominent player, and he promoted the game, frequently making analogies between life and chess, sometimes whilst versing Piers Morgan during an interview. From this, we can easily deduce that his interest and connection to the game, combined with his unmatched following, has made an extremely large contribution to the chess boom.
In conclusion, whilst the recent growth in chess may only be temporary due to the accumulation of a number of factors, it is safe to say that the game will be known forever. The cultural significance, strategic depth, and the universal nature of the game is what has allowed, and will continue to allow, its longevity. As 20th century artist Marcel Duchamp once said, “I have come to the personal conclusion that while all artists are not chess players, all chess players are artists.”