A grandmaster who got Twitch hooked on chess
Unironically chess is an e-sport and this recent explosion is because Hikaru, Botez, Hess et al. have woken up to that idea and embraced it.<p>The best computers can easily beat the top humans just as an aimbot could beat Navi easily at CS:GO.<p>So the focus in chess has moved away from manually exploring to find optimal plays and new opening styles as was the trend in the 19th century chess rennaisance to a focus on preparation so that a player can quickly find best moves, under significant pressure, in any given match.<p>That makes it much more like a strategy game.<p>Embracing memes makes it more accessible to viewers who are used to watching hearthstone, csgo, league, dota or other esports and it's been really fun to watch.<p>I started watching chess on twitch a while ago during the Tata steel tournament and I thought back then it would quickly grow if they focused their commentary on casual level viewers and it's been fantastic to have been proved correct.