At Friends House in London earlier this month, Hikaru Nakamura was requested to play a game of chess by someone who admitted he wasn’t very good. The World No. 2 from the United States graciously sat down, braving the cold on the balcony, played in all seriousness, and won the game within a matter of a few moves.
Nakamura has this connection with people. In the virtual world too, he connects with them easily. He is a hugely popular streamer, with more than 2.5 million subscribers on YouTube.
“You have all these people coming to the game and it is really important that instead of trying to push them away from chess, you really try to encourage them to keep playing,” Nakamura told The Hindu in London. “So, you know, when I play some of these games, like the one I have just played, it is more about hopefully being able to provide something that the person can learn.”
He adds chess is about connecting the dots, in a way. “You think ahead, you strategise all these things,” he said. “Well, I do think those are very beneficial talents or abilities that you can learn from chess. I think a lot of top chess players spend so long memorising variations, and they kind of forget these things.”
Nakamura recalls taking tennis lessons as a kid. “When I was probably seven, I actually took tennis lessons and, you know, obviously I was a complete beginner,” he said. “I was kind of decent by the end of all these lessons, but the thing is even the person I was, the coach could still beat me with his eyes closed basically. So I don’t really mind these random games of chess with people.”
Nakamura was in London for the Global Chess League, the franchise-based league that is a joint venture between Tech Mahindra and world chess governing body FIDE. It was Season 2, but it was his time in the league that uses some innovative ideas to make chess more appealing to the casual player and a global television audience.
His team, American Gambits, may not have had a great tournament, but he enjoyed the experience. He believes chess needs to be more entertaining to attract new audiences and that the Global Chess League is a right move in that direction.
“I think in the league, we got a little bit unlucky, if we look at our matches against Magnus Carlsen’s team (Alpine SG Pipers) and we definitely should have won one of those matches, but from the competitive side, it was a lot of fun,” he said. “And the concept of a tournament like this is to take chess to a global audience, to the casual follower.”
He believes that it is important for the future of chess. “I know some people are unhappy with the time control (with no increment) in this tournament, but I don’t really have a problem with that,” he said. “I grew up playing with it and I think you know ultimately you have to understand what the purpose of an event like this is. If you have this time control in events like the World rapid or blitz championships, it would be a huge problem.”
He feels the profile of the Global Chess League is a bit different. “I don’t look at this as an event that is supposed to fit the mould of a super serious top-level tournament,” he said. “I mean the goal to me, it is very clear, that they want to try and promote chess to a global audience that does not just follow chess day and night all the time or 24/7. You have to keep that in perspective.”
Best of both worlds
Nakamura pointed out that he had a different perspective from other top players as he was also someone who was creating content for streaming constantly. “I have this view from both sides, from the inside and from the outside,” he said. “You know if all I did was to speak of Garry Kasparov games or Carlsen games non-stop; it is not something that would appeal to a lot of the fans. If you don’t take the chance to try and push chess to the global audience then you’ve missed an opportunity. I think the players have to either talk about things like the time control before the event begins or get used to it. I would love to compete in the Global Chess League again; it has been a lot of fun for me.”
Nakamura believes the practice of wealthy private individuals conducting round-robin tournaments for top 10 players would not generate enough public interest. “If you go back to pre-2010, I would say in terms of top-level tournaments, there were a couple events, like the one in the Netherlands, the one in Spain, and maybe a couple others as well, but there wasn’t really a big interest,” he said. “And if you go back to 2014, you have things like the Grand Chess Tour, which brought in some interest. I still would argue that ultimately the general public was not super aware of these events. I think if you have corporate sponsors and you have a model that is based around the fans or the eyeballs, it is possible to grow the game in a sustainable way.”
Nakamura belongs to a generation that is dominated by one player, Carlsen, the World No 1. He doesn’t think the next generation will be anything like that.
An 18-year-old D. Gukesh is taking on Ding Liren for the World championship in Singapore next month. Nakamura believes the Chennai lad is the overwhelming favourite (“80-20 chances for Gukesh”).
“I think the one thing that is definitely going to be helpful for chess going forward is that there will be nobody who is going to be super dominant the way Magnus has been,” he said. “With Magnus there hasn’t been great competition.”
He is convinced that there are several top players emerging at the same time. “When I look at Gukesh or when I look at Arjun Erigaisi, Nodirbek Abdusattorov, or Alireza Firouzja, all of them are very strong players,” he said.
“And I think that there is no one player who is going to dominate. It is going to be something where all these players are competitive with each other. And I think for the fans when you have these competitive match-ups it definitely should be a good thing in terms of keeping the interest.”
(The author was in London at the invitation of Tech Mahindra).
Published – October 29, 2024 11:57 pm IST
