At most chess events around the world, one sight that you cannot miss inside the playing hall is that of volunteers holding up placards saying, ‘please maintain silence’. It is the sight that tells you of the sport’s most basic tenet — the playing hall shall not be tampered with in any way, physically or by other factors. Chess has never been a sport for too many outward displays of emotion, not least from the fans when games are in progress. A sport where the fans can’t cheer for their favourites during games? For years, there has been a universal acceptance that this is how chess works. Not anymore.
At the ongoing FIDE World Cup, as it was at the Chennai Grand Masters in August, the tickets to the event gave fans access to both the playing hall and the fanzone. However, to enter the playing hall, fans aren’t allowed access to their personal electronic devices. They get access to a screen that lists out the moves played on the board, but without an evaluation bar.
Now, for games that even an International Master like Chessbase India’s Sagar Shah says are getting increasingly more difficult to understand, imagine the plight of a casual chess fan. The fan is paying to watch the best players in the world, but they cannot show their partisanship nor do they have the privilege of getting to understand the game better — getting the game broken down by those that have the ability do so.
However, chess recognises and is acting on the need for this to change. For a sport that has entered the global consciousness as much as chess has since the pandemic, it finds itself in a unique spot. It needs more and more fans to come and watch games at venues, and not just on streaming sites.
Nihal Sarin, one of the many elite players who played at eSports World Cup in Riyadh in July called for the sport to recognise its need for an Indian audience. “For chess to grow, that is exactly what it needs, a huge audience,” Sarin said on the sidelines of the Chennai Grand Masters. “A sport needs money to grow and for that you need an audience. For now, chess is not a spectator sport.”
It’s not a spectator sport because chess, in its traditional form, is very restrictive. Silence at the venue is the very antithesis of what sports fandom is about. However, this has been the year of change on that front. The Las Vegas freestyle chess tournament and the eSports World Cup saw fans inside the arena with access to live commentary and the evaluation bar on the screens while the players had to wear noise-cancellation headphones. They weren’t unanimous in their acceptance of it. Fabiano Caruana hated it, Arjun Erigaisi said he didn’t like being made to wear headphones, Anish Giri called the headphones a nuisance and termed the format of the eSports World Cup ridiculous.
The exhibition India vs USA match, which happened at the Arlington eSports Centre in Texas last month, saw players on stage at the arena, without earphones, with a full crowd that was encouraged to be raucous. Players themselves were encouraged to engage with the fans. For example, Hikaru Nakamura celebrated his win against world champion D Gukesh by tossing his opponent’s King into the crowd. Sagar Shah said that organisers of that tournament even suggested players break their opponent’s King if they won a game — anything that would make the crowd go more wild.
However, how far away can you go from the sport’s basic ethos that have brought it this far? Shah said that both him and Gukesh refused even the idea of breaking a King, because Indians are brought up in a way where they treat the pieces sacred.
Giri, who participated in the eSports World Cup, said the games looked ridiculous, because of time control — with no increments — that was designed for entertainment. Something that looks that ridiculous cannot be the main thing. “If every tournament is like this, then the chess world will have gone in a direction which I don’t think I will like,” the Dutchman said.
Vincent Keymer, the German Grandmaster, said that at the end of the day, even though he’s open to such experiments, the paramount factor for organisers must be player comfort. Without that, there’s no high-level chess, Keymer argued, and without high-level chess, you dilute the product that you’re trying to market to the masses.
“You have to find the fine line where both are possible. But it’s on a good way and I think once we start having many tournaments, then you get feedback from both tournaments and players,” Keymer said.
It is this dialogue with the players that has brought the Global Chess League to the cusp of an innovation in fan experience. The third season of the league, which will happen at the Royal Opera House in Mumbai next month, will be akin to a festival, says GCL CEO Gourav Rakshit, in an exclusive chat with ESPN.
Rakshit has traveled to events around the world this year to explore what innovations they can bring to the GCL. You learn from fan engagement strategies at every event you go to, Rakshit says.
The league is exploring having fans in the playing hall wear headphones themselves, through which they get access to commentary, while screens in the hall will also be equipped with the evaluation engine. The casual chess fan needs to understand what they’re seeing, only then will they come back, he argues.
Ticket sales for both the Chennai Grand Masters and the World Cup indicate that even in its traditional state, chess is attracting big crowds, at least in India. The game’s organisers know they can’t remain stagnant though. So, while events like Texas, Las Vegas and Riyadh will continue to happen, and even multiply in future, they’ve got a long way to go before universal acceptance.
In chess, the balance between fans understanding the sport, engaging with it live on location, and player comfort is a tricky one. At this stage, while these experiments continue to happen, an eerily silent playing hall will continue to remain the norm. However, if the GCL can go through with the experiment of fans wearing headphones and gaining insight into the games that way, it might be a base for a faster charge towards chess becoming a spectator sport.
