CONTEMPORARY PROFESSIONAL CHESS IS LIT AS FUCK
i started delving back into chess a bit (as recreation / intellectual curiosity)
this was mostly the result of internet wormholing related to recent AI developments around the ancient Chinese precursor board game Go — which has proven substantially more intractable to the brute-force computational methods that established machines’ dominion over the world’s top human chess players decades ago — but also cuz i’ve been craving mental calisthenics etc (even tho ‘brain training’ is largely bullshit neuro-bunk).
anyway i discovered that CHESS IS LIT AF RN
the evidence is as follows
ERIC HANSEN
This 23 y/o canadian Grandmaster is a club music head / gym stud with probable substance issues who parties all night then slams pre-workout before tournament matches & blares (actually good) house & techno while SERIAL SLAUGHTERING OPPONENTS IN UNDER 10 SECONDS EACH in online speed chess.
(note: this article kept mentioning him blaring ‘trance’, which i figured was just sports writer bra speak for any sort of dance music, until i saw this travel vlog featuring some sort of nightcoreish anime trance and…i couldn’t be less mad)
Predictably, he has a bit of a penchant for indiscipline & self-sabotage , but its impossible not to root for the homie. If nothing else , he brings some badly needed commotion to a typically staid nerd niche. He streams on twitch & archives on youtube under ‘Chessbrah’, which is apparently some sort of movement/community which is pretty self-explanatory (brahs doing chess stuff).
did i mention stud?
MINI MENSA 1%ers
the best players in the world are / were all young freakish savants w absurb cognitive abilities. (this isnt entirely true but it sounds good and is mostly true from what i can tell)
every few years in the 90s the record for youngest Grandmaster ever was broken by a new child prodigy.
heres hoping they don’t all go Fischer on us.
M.A.G.N.U.S. CARLSEN
the reigning , youngest ever world champion & highest rated player ever is a norwegian stud savant named MAGNUS who looks like a Twilight co-star , models on the side , beat former World Champion Anatoly Karpov & drew Garry Kasparov (widely regarded as the greatest chess player ever) for the first time each WHEN MAGNUS WAS 13 YEARS OLD.
Magnus (M A G N U S) is known to play 10 opponents simultaneously WITHOUT EVER LOOKING AT ANY OF THE BOARDS and DOES NOT LOSE
i mean.
BOT TOURNAMENTS
computer AI’s (called ‘chess engines’) have gotten so good since first beating the reigning World Champ (Garry Kasparov) in 1997 that humans dont even bother playing them anymore. Even the freakish genius top players can’t compete. Instead, chess engines are used for training and analysis, and COMPETE AGAINST EACH OTHER IN ROBOT TOURNAMENTS.
i mean its not quite REAL STEEL or whatever but still lit
ONLINE CHESS / LIVE STREAMING / BLITZ-BULLET-ETC
most of the current generation of top players (outside of the russian gulag chess schools) came up playing on computers / online — including current #2 ranked player in the world & top blitz player, US grandmaster Hikaru Nakamura — and as such play like internet troll maniacs (see Hansen, Naka)
Various forms of ‘speed chess’ (where players typically each have between 1–5 minutes total to make their moves, losing if they run out of time before the game has otherwise ended) have long existed , but seem to have exploded in popularity along with our generally accelerating culture & dwindling attention spans.
This , combined with various high quality online chess platforms (which many world class pros frequent) & streaming platforms like twitch make watching competitive chess …actually watchable
did i say theres studs?
BONUS: BEN FINEGOLD IS A HILARIOUS MANIAC
theres a wealth of online resources & tutorials, game analyses , lectures, youtube channels etc for anyone wanting to learn more chess theory, strategy, tactics , history etc. But probably none are as enjoyable or entertaining as any of Grandmaster Ben Finegold’s lectures at the world reknown Chess Club & Scholastic Center of St Louis (probably why they made a playlist with 76 of them).
Somewhere between Bobcat Goldthwait (relation?), Steven Wright , & comic book guy from the Simpson’s (relation?), he’s easily the funniest chess Grandmaster probably ever (tho Fischer got in some zingers in his day before he went all Fischer). Fair warning: it’s hard at first to even know when Finegold is joking, let alone get some of the insider chess jokes, so he may take a while to sink in.
u basically cant go wrong starting anywhere in the playlist, but here’s one of my favorites i’ve watched so far: Ben lecturing on his favorite player, 19th century American great Paul Morphy.
so in summation ITS LIT
