When Ding Liren blundered in Game 14 that ensured D Gukesh became the youngest world chess champion, the capacity crowd of 200 watching the live screening at an intimate stand-up comedy venue in Khar jumped up, and kept on jumping, till the 18-year-old forced a resignation from the Chinese grandmaster.
There were tears when Gukesh himself broke down at the table; party crackers kept popping after the win; along with a lot of hugging and impromptu celebratory dancing.
It was going to be a long night of partying – unheard of to celebrate a win in chess, supposed to be a most serious sport.
Though the match was over at 6.30 pm, the crowd stayed at the venue till after 9 pm. And they were treated to a surreal virtual visit from none other than Gukesh. The newly-crowned champion, who was enjoying dinner with his team, was handed over the phone to say hi and he was awestruck looking at the crowd cheering him on, promising to “talk properly soon”.
Such has been the rise in chess’ popularity in India over the last few years that tickets for the live screening event of this world championship were sold out for all the games. In fact, in anticipation that the match would go into tie-breaks on Friday, tickets went live on Thursday afternoon and were sold out in just seven minutes!
But what makes a screening like this so appealing to chess lovers?
The Indian Express attended the event, arranged by Chessbase India, chess.com and others, and spoke to a number of enthusiasts. The common thread was the realism that it offered.
Firstly, there was no priority seating. Everyone paid the same price – Rs 499 and sat wherever they could. Secondly, it was interactive. The panel comprised mainly Sagar Shah, co-owner of Chessbase India and Indian Olympiad gold medallist Tania Sachdev, while top Indian comedians like Samay Raina, Biswa Kalyan Rath and Tanmay Bhat — who for the record, were instrumental in boosting the popularity of the sport — waltzed in and out.
Not just that, five-time world champion Viswanathan Anand joined the screening remotely almost every match, even on his 55th birthday on Wednesday when he revealed he enjoyed a chocolate and peanut butter cake while also making a bold statement that nothing satisfies him more than “winning against players he doesn’t like”.
On Thursday, Anand jokingly predicted halfway through the match that there’s a 99.73 percent chance of it being a draw and after Gukesh won, came back on the stream to proudly claim that he was “glad he gave Gukesh a 0.27 percent chance of winning”.
A full package
The stream also had GMs Vidit Gujrathi, Arjun Erigaisi and Anish Giri hopping on virtually during one of the games.
Apart from the greats, it also saw popular chess players and commentators joining in now and then remotely. Levy Rozman, the most-followed chess commentator in the world, joined in for a bit during Game 13, when he quipped that he was only there to “increase his popularity in India”.
Most of these live streams for the World Championships have touched over a million views, with Game 7 getting two million. One of the broadcasts had a peak concurrency on YouTube of 2,25,000 viewers during Game 7.
Sagar said he never expected this kind of an event to pick up when he first organised one for the 2023 FIDE World Cup final between five-time world champion Magnus Carlsen and India’s teenage star R Praggnanandhaa.
“I never thought that people would be interested. It was Samay (Raina) who casually suggested it and after seeing the crowd that turned up, we realised it was something we could do more often,” he told The Indian Express.
What’s in it for the fans though, when they could watch the same stream on their screens?
Deepak Das, a fan in his 30s, says he started playing chess in 2013 and it was the first time he had attended such an event live, having always followed the stream on YouTube.
“You get to interact with other chess lovers. They have three chess boards here where you can play if the players are taking too long to make their moves. Moreover, it’s the fact that you get to interact with grandmasters as well as comedians. They make chess so much fun. They are also average players like me but they see the funny side of it and it’s amazing,” he said.
It’s not just a young crowd attending. There were a number of fans over 50 while there were a few children in attendance as well.
R Narayan, 55, who brought along two of his nephews, says it’s just about trying to promote the sport that makes him attend events like these, before revealing he once played against Anand at an inter-school competition ages ago.
“After Anand crushed me badly, I quit my dreams of playing the sport professionally,” he quips.
With Gukesh’s triumph, chess screenings like these, which were previously held only for cricket and football matches, are bound to get a huge boost. And as Gukesh said, “It’s only just getting started”.
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