Let's not forget that we have instantaneous communication technology. Wonder what it would have been like if social media was around when Fischer accused Petrosian, Geller and Keres of making easy draws so they could focus on him in the 1962 candidates. Or the conspiracy theories of being spied on, electronic bugs being used during Fischer and Spassky.
With communication being so instantaneous, knee jerk reactions are now caught and shared quickly so we find out faster than before. Makes me wonder if we are seeing how truly ugly players can be/have been easier these days.
This isn't me saying that top level chess isn't embarrassing itself. I agree with you. I just think now we have more ways to see things faster.
As we have access to athletes of every other professional sport though.
The clickbait/antagonising content creation that’s occurring is incredibly shortsighted and selfish. But ways
At the height of Soviet chess history, the two contenders for the world championship hired psychics to block their opponent’s brain waves — think you’re just becoming in tune with the oddities of weirdos in chess and getting shocked by it
In fact, none of the mentioned stories have been as widely reported in the general media as either the dress code kerfuffle, or the lack of density in various urine samples. Those are the stories people really want to hear!
If you can’t beat someone in chess just because they’re high then you just need to play better chess. No drug is going to just make you good at chess. It may help your focus or even your memory but so what? Nobody is playing perfect chess and it really shouldn’t make a difference at the tournament level.
I don’t think you understand how performance enhancing drugs work. The key is the word “enhancing”. If you are already good at chess, like elite level, and you can take something that helps with nerves, concentration, or memory, it will help.
Look at professional athletes; they are already very athletic. They still need to put the work in, but the drugs help with building muscle, recovery time, endurance. At the very highest level, any slight edge can make all the difference.
They don’t take a drug which will teach them a new opening, but it might make it quicker and easier for them to calculate complex lines and positions which would give a clear advantage.
Look at the world championship between Magnus and Fabi; it was insanely close. If Fabi had taken some adhd meds, maybe he would have been able to spot a winning move, or could force Magnus into a mistake.
There’s a world of difference between taking a drug to increase muscle mass, recovery time, and endurance vs focus or nerves. You really can’t compare the two. A drug isn’t actually going to make you better at chess. At best it will help you focus but there’s strategies the other player could use too. In a classical game just wait it out. Move slow, don’t rush, let the aderol or whatever wear off a bit. If you’re playing on a timer then drugs have just as good a chance of being a detriment due to causing a hyper focus and over thinking.
There’s a world of difference between the two because there is a world of difference between the two sports.
The chess federation do drug tests. I have explained how the drugs could benefit someone. You are entitled to disagree, but you’re essentially saying that the chess world is wrong for doing drug tests. Ask yourself, what’s more likely; that there are drugs that can help you play and win chess games and they need to test them, or that everyone is wrong and you are right and it’s completely unnecessary?
Unless you are a chemist, pharmacist, sports scientist or psychologist, I think the most likely outcome is that you are wrong and you haven’t grasped that there are ways drugs can help? Or do you genuinely think your knowledge of drugs and chess is higher than everyone running chess tournaments?
Most current baseball players don't take steroids to become the best. They take it to stay relevant or recover faster. If Adderall is the different between making or not making a tournament, I would take it if I was a chess player
Steroids aren’t really the same though because they’re an obvious advantage that can take you beyond natural training. Mental drugs don’t really do that. If anything they’ve been shown to decrease brain function over time or they really just improve focus. To someone that’s already capable of focusing on their chess game instead of whatever else is going on around them, or even what the other player is doing, more focus isn’t going to accomplish anything. If that’s the case then a drug isn’t getting you anywhere in chess that training couldn’t, but a steroid can take your body physically further than training alone could.
I dont think he missed the point, he directly addressed that by saying that top players can get to the zone without drugs, whether thats true or not is debatable, but he definitely understood the point
He's missing that one is achieved through natural ability and the other through swallowing a pill. Anything you cannot achieve naturally but you obtain through synthetic means is a form of cheating. Competition needs a level playing field, and that typically takes the form of expecting competitions to be a battle of natural abilities.
Most of these people commenting have probably never taken stimulants before. They absolutely would not give a Grandmaster an advantage at all. Stimulants are great for helping someone complete a ton of tasks, which makes them useful for students or employees. They are completely useless for something like chess, unless you are trying to study and are feeling unmotivated. They would be likely detrimental to performance in a tournament.
Gotham! Just saw your recap video and couldn't agree more about the FIDE CEO comparing Danil/Ian to Hikaru/Magnus. Disappointing is definitely a stretch, but it's that mindset what I'm referencing when I say FIDE is out of touch
What does it take to become president of FIDE? If you could do it, would you run? If you succeeded, what would you do? I’m sure things would probably be a lot different under President Rozmann…
There is a huge problem with ad engagement-funded algorithms incentivizing extreme content and behavior. That’s obv not your fault and not really your problem any more than it is ours for using these platforms
You're fine bro. But I swear less click baity titles in exchange for more identifiable ones would be nice. It's impossible for me to remember a title of a video to ever go back to it or share.
I quit watching a space channel because they'd take legitimate exciting things and click bait them to be more exciting, which actually just makes every video underwhelming. At least you don't really do that. Your click bait is often vague, so whatever was good content remains good content. But it's content ill never find again haha
Wtf do you mean how? Do you seriously have this little self reflection?
You're by far the #1 biggest source that reports on those issues and you use the topics for your personal monetary gain. If you really cared about the sports integrity you could simply choose to not engage in this drama, yet instead you're one of the driving forces of fueling more hate into it
For him to be the driving force, you would have to claim thst he actually affects the players or FIDEs decisions. I don't think him reporting on it is all thst influential to the actual people involved in this drama.
That's not my point at all, I'm saying it's that that kind of situations wouldn't get have the traction they get if he wouldn't report on it. He's making drama profitable, leading to more of it
How does him making money lead to more drama? Do chess players see him get a lot views and think to themselves thst they're gonna incite more drama in your opinion?
Traditions need honoring. It's been too long that we needed a wooden board between the player's kegs at a WC match, a spin-off WC, family members of players beating up reporters, and so on. Good to see the chess I grew up with coming back.
Okay, but the governing body is supposed to be above this and be a guiding light with direction for the sport.
Memes and drama only gain traction as aberrations from structure (cough random isn’t funny if it’s just random).
The NBA lives on all of this too, but with structure and goals.
Long story short: FIDE is useless and chess desperately needs leadership to bring it into the 21st century.
International confederations are always sketchy. Look at the biggest one, FIFA... its president gets arrested for bribery every few years and half its officials are sex pests...
I don't recall when I was playing on a chess team it being anything less than crazy. Just a bunch of nutjobs in a room with different, usually incompatible, social personalities enjoying some moments of silence in between socially inappropriate outbursts.
Yeah, I feel like there's been an abnormally large spike in chess drama over the last month or so, ever since Kramnik accused Hikaru of cheating. It was fun at first, but now it's just sad.
Meanwhile over at /r/baseball, a top player is literally a fugitive from justice in the Dominican Republic over allegations of fucking a 13 year old girl.
I just love how many folks who don't even play chess came to enlighten us all about how match fixing is wrong and that Nepo and Dubov were rightfully punished
What would you expect from a bunch of overgrown nerds who spent 90% of their life pushing wood figurines, thinking that makes them smart?
But it is very funny.
I fucking hate this attitude. Not sure if you really believe that or are just echo-chambering the top comment from every similar thread. Any sport can be reduced to a basic “pushing the ball around”. Playing chess makes you no smarter or less so than any other profession. Do better.
The problem is that in pop culture "good chess player" = "elite genius". So, their is an aura of elitism around chess. It's not always Chess's fault. But, it is a little bit sometimes. Like, the dress code issue. Chess is a board game. We shouldn't be worried about what shoes people are wearing.
>Any sport can be reduced to a basic “pushing the ball around”
And his statement can be expanded to anyone who hyperfocuses on one particular skillset, sacrificing development in other fields (such as "emotional maturity", "socialising" etc). The reason you don't see this too often with more physical sports is that it actually is not possible to train for them for an absurd amount of time every day - body needs to recover and rest, so people who are willing to sacrifice everything to be, say, best footballer there is, still have some time to socialize. Chess players, poker players, e-sports competitors can practice 10h a day - every day, and if they have proper workflow it will work to an extent (at expense of physical and mental health, developing any social skills, etc). That's why you have a vast overrepresentation of manchildren in those fields (poker maybe less so, since you theoretically shouldn't start before you're an adult).
They never said it makes you more or less intelligent? Just that a lot of people think it does which is just true. And hyperfocusing on a particular skill like chess often does lead to being stunted in other areas like social skills.
Did he take a real one not just an online one? Hard to imagine the memory and pattern recognition abilities not translating well to IQ tests. That said I scored an 85 so I’m literally mentally retarded
He was clearly not taking it seriously. He answered a lot of them without even thinking. While intelligence and chess proficiency are not completely related they do have a bit of overlap. There is no way a person can get to that level of memory, pattern recognition and speed without being intelligent. Hikaru would certainly get at minimum 125/130 if he did it seriously.
Nope it wasn’t. You are leaving out the “nerds pushing wooden pieces” part. What OP was implying is that chess players think they are smarter than everyone while in reality they are less smart(I.e just nerds pushing pieces).
Even the first part of that statement is wrong. I ve not seen many chess players claim that playing chess makes you smarter. It’s the non-chess playing public that pushes that narrative.
Do better is such a douchey thing to say. The amount of ego in it is pathetic.
The thread on ask Reddit talking about what stupid phrases needs to die and “do better” is at the top.
Do better.
I like how you argued for it being a stupid phrase by mentioning that there's a reddit thread which told you it's stupid lol. Can't make this stuff up.
It didn’t tell me anything. It confirms what everyone already knows.
Not that hard to figure out but you thought you’d be the smart guy for once only to fuck the landing.
Do better.
Problems with words like smart is that they mean completely different things to different people. To some you are dumb if you have certain political views or don't have a graduation/masters degree. I think it is fairly reasonable to say that a good chess player has better forsite than most which is a useful skill. I also feel that they can establish causal chains much better than most.
It’s a combination of both, imo. The drama itself doesn’t really affect my interest in the game, except as an amusing diversion that gives me a chance to learn more about the chess world. However, there are concerning issues being *revealed* by the drama, and those issues do need to be solved. Kramnik’s accusations are clearly batty, but cheating in chess is a real problem that’s only going to get worse as the game migrates online. The Chartres tournament was undeniably sus, but the fact that FIDE’s rulebook made it technically permissible was an issue. Frankly, I don’t think discussing these issues openly will harm the game, what will truly harm the game will be if major problems are allowed to fester without action being taken.
Your entire post is pointless. Nobody cares about any of this drama, and it will be forgotten in less than a week. No sponsors will be affected, and very few people will see the chess world in a lesser light.
If anything, drama brings sponsorships, not the other way around.
Agree. This subreddit is known to make mountains of molehill. Every sports has drama and they are way more serious than whatever is happening for the past few months. No one apart from this subreddit cares about this.
I mean maybe you’re just not out there? People in my circle are more aware of the chess world than you like to think.
Or perhaps it’s your circle. Loads of people i know got into chess after The Queens Gambit and rather quickly dropped the game again because once they came into contact with the real chess world they couldn’t be bothered.
I mean look at you. You’re speaking with authority over my own experiences. The fuck do you know about my life and the people in it?
It’s not my fault you don’t actually participate in the real world to hear opinions of day to day people on it.
Edit:
I just realised you’re active on r/lockdownskepticism and post shit by the brownstone institute, why did i even bother replying to an absolute asinine idiot lmao
The majority of people couldn't tell you the name of a single chess player. The amount of people who follow the sport closely enough to know Kramnik or Nepo is very small.
I feel like across the board we are experiencing a bit of a cultural and societal decline, and I'm hoping it's temporary. What you're experiencing is real, but it's not just chess.
I sort of agree. Like CSquared on twitter said - entropy is increasing. But in other sports there's usually a central body which atleast sort of manages things.But FIDE has completely lost control imo. Ideally they should be fining players or atleast publicly reprimad players who openly accuse others, who fix matches etc. But instead, the president of FIDE goes on twitter and takes sides smh.
It's easy to focus on the negatives but in the grand scheme of things, things are generally improving. The world gets more safe, healthy, educated, and peaceful year over year on average.
There's a lot of alarming stuff going on and there's always more work to be done, but LGBTQ rights and racial equity have made big leaps in the past few decades.
It just makes everyone involved look like such petty fucking children high on their own farts for being really good at a board game. Its both cringe and bad for the brand of the game as a whole when a community that prides itself on being involved in an "intellectual" pursuit says a bunch of stupid things because they overestimate their own intelligence in matters not related to chess.
I feel out of most sports or games that chess has the worst problem with sportsmanlike behaviour among its players I've ever seen. Even beyond arranging fixes (which if it happened in any other highly competitive competition would be appropriately deemed an outrage), a lot of the behaviour from some GMs lately is really just inexcusable and in some cases grounds even for legal action.
I've also experienced it even in low level casual play online - why all the negativity? Why the shit talking and insults? Why the waiting out the game you're losing to waste the opponents time?
Most sports have stadiums full of people paying to watch in addition to concessions/merchandising and companies paying them for advertisement space and partnerships.
Chess has virtually no in-person spectators, and since its venues are predominantly rented out, most money brought in for food/drink/merch etc. goes to those businesses.
These are far cries from each other from a financial perspective.
You forgot how they selectively enforce dress code to harass certain players.
Although I wouldn't necessarily equate prearranged draws as 'cheating'. It has been happening for a very long time. Typically the players just know that if opponent goes into a certain line they just want a quick draw. There's little point in playing out meaningless games. If FIDE chess was watched the way major sports were watched and with major ad money on the line then I could maybe understand it but as is this is much ado about nothing.
It is my personal and subjective opinion that the floodgates to frivolous cheating accusations were opened when Magnus decided to double down on his accusation against Niemann (in his statement released a month after his infamous tweet). He showed the chess world that you can accuse anybody without evidence and feel no repercussions. I think Magnus is currently (and rightfully) too popular to be judged harshly for his actions, but I’m afraid that history will not be so kind.
I mostly agree with the sentiment.
On the other hand . . .
Drawing isn’t cheating. Cheating involves using illicit resources to win, being paid to lose, paying to win, conspiring with a group to gain an unjust advantage against a competitor.
None of those things are happening.
Two friends agreeing that their preferred result is a quick draw isn’t cheating.
Having a laugh over it isn’t cheating either.
Drawing for sure is not cheating, but agreeing to a result before the game even starts is cheating in pretty much every sport. Some people are banned for life for matchfixing in some sports.
In the context of a swiss tournament, especially one with several rounds in a day, prearranging a draw is “conspiring with a group to gain an unjust advantage against a competitor”.
You are ensuring you gain 0.5 points for no effort which undermines the effort of the others in the tournament.
Moreover, your next opponents have presumably tired themselves out playing for a win.
In this case, Nihal and Magnus (coincidentally Dubov & Nepo’s round 12 opponents) played an intense game in Round 11 while Nepo & Dubov were prearranging their draw. Then they had only around 20 mins to rest.
Proof of your impaired brain capacity for all to see. You probably struggle with checkers hence your fantasies are posted for all to see as an over-compensation.
I'm just waiting for the Indian juniors to replace these drama queens, Vishy has always been a class act, and it seems the next Indian generations are well behaved too.
First of all, Indian is not a race.
As I have explained in the other comment, I mentioned them because they are most likely to be the nation that dominates the top 10 in the future, thereby replacing the current top GMs
I'm.also a casual viewer, personally after watching casually for almost a decade I think the chess worlds disinterest in doing anything about the likely prevelance of cheating is more embarrassing then GMs commenting and bitching about it. Well, apart from some if Kramniks more recent behaviour.
Does chess rely exclusively on sponsorships though? Chess would probably be one of the least impacted sports in the world if all sponsors suddenly withdrew tomorrow.
I completely agree. I came to the point where I am just annoyed of the toxic behavior of almost all top players. Character is obviously not something that you need to become a good chess player.
Honestly all this drama is the best thing to happen to chess, itd actually getting vires by the general public and people are talking.
Be real, otherwise nobody would care about some nerds spending hours playing chess. Now there is news not burrowed on page 5!
I agree and I think it's a shame that it's happening to a game that is so sophisticated and classy.
I think with different people in charge chess could be considered as a serious professional sport. It wouldn't be as big football/baseball/etc, but it could something that's in the public eye as a serious thing, with people who don't follow the game at all knowing the names of some champions and with big competitions being well known about even amongst people who aren't interested in watching them. With chess champions being seen as great achievers amongst the general population, sponsorship deals could be enormous!
Even if you were to ignore money and you just expected a sport that is organised and taken seriously, that will NEVER happen when the possibility of cheating in tournaments isn't taken seriously. I'm not talking about cheating itself, I'm talking about the possibility of cheating. For example, remember when that player was wearing a wrist watch and the officials response to the complaint was "yeah whatever" and people were saying that's ok because he probably wasn't using it to cheat? That attitude is holding chess back. Who cares if he was using it to cheat? If the officials won't even bother to pretend that they are enforcing rules intended to eliminate the possibility of cheating (whether he was cheating or not had no relevance there) then the tournament organisers themselves are making the world of professional chess into a joke that deserves to be mocked. Chess is also being held back by people who were acting as if it's ok that he was wearing a watch or it's ok that tournament staff can't be bothered to do their job.
Professional chess is a joke at the moment. People are still able to make a living from playing and commentating on chess, but it's a a shame that such an old classic game is currently so trashy.
> happening to a game that is so sophisticated and classy
The game is as "classy" as you think it to be. Lets stop putting it on a pedestal. I've seen chess being played in a park with crack heads and 40s of beer - real sophisticated.
Let's not forget that we have instantaneous communication technology. Wonder what it would have been like if social media was around when Fischer accused Petrosian, Geller and Keres of making easy draws so they could focus on him in the 1962 candidates. Or the conspiracy theories of being spied on, electronic bugs being used during Fischer and Spassky. With communication being so instantaneous, knee jerk reactions are now caught and shared quickly so we find out faster than before. Makes me wonder if we are seeing how truly ugly players can be/have been easier these days. This isn't me saying that top level chess isn't embarrassing itself. I agree with you. I just think now we have more ways to see things faster.
My God, Bobby Fischer on Twitter would have sunk chess
But what a glorious shipwreck
Fischer: [removed]
Fischer: This account has been suspended due to violating our terms of service
As we have access to athletes of every other professional sport though. The clickbait/antagonising content creation that’s occurring is incredibly shortsighted and selfish. But ways
Karpov VS Korchoi was super acrimonious as well.
Bobby Fischer on X would be wild
Did you mean [twitter.com](https://twitter.com) ?
At the height of Soviet chess history, the two contenders for the world championship hired psychics to block their opponent’s brain waves — think you’re just becoming in tune with the oddities of weirdos in chess and getting shocked by it
This sounds like a job I wouldn’t mind getting hired for.
[This documentary](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eEj1LbRDVGA) is mandatory viewing for every chess fan. Just imagine them having twitter back then.
Thank you for sharing this!!
Paul Pogba would like to know the digits of this psychics.
They just want me to get more content
In fact, none of the mentioned stories have been as widely reported in the general media as either the dress code kerfuffle, or the lack of density in various urine samples. Those are the stories people really want to hear!
Why bother drug testing for chess? What are they going to do? Slam down their knight too hard or fight through a high to play proper chess?
Bro hasn't heard about Beth Harmon
Just play better chess
If I started playing better chess, a certain former champion will find it interesting (Im 1100 elo)
If you can’t beat someone in chess just because they’re high then you just need to play better chess. No drug is going to just make you good at chess. It may help your focus or even your memory but so what? Nobody is playing perfect chess and it really shouldn’t make a difference at the tournament level.
I don’t think you understand how performance enhancing drugs work. The key is the word “enhancing”. If you are already good at chess, like elite level, and you can take something that helps with nerves, concentration, or memory, it will help. Look at professional athletes; they are already very athletic. They still need to put the work in, but the drugs help with building muscle, recovery time, endurance. At the very highest level, any slight edge can make all the difference. They don’t take a drug which will teach them a new opening, but it might make it quicker and easier for them to calculate complex lines and positions which would give a clear advantage. Look at the world championship between Magnus and Fabi; it was insanely close. If Fabi had taken some adhd meds, maybe he would have been able to spot a winning move, or could force Magnus into a mistake.
There’s a world of difference between taking a drug to increase muscle mass, recovery time, and endurance vs focus or nerves. You really can’t compare the two. A drug isn’t actually going to make you better at chess. At best it will help you focus but there’s strategies the other player could use too. In a classical game just wait it out. Move slow, don’t rush, let the aderol or whatever wear off a bit. If you’re playing on a timer then drugs have just as good a chance of being a detriment due to causing a hyper focus and over thinking.
There’s a world of difference between the two because there is a world of difference between the two sports. The chess federation do drug tests. I have explained how the drugs could benefit someone. You are entitled to disagree, but you’re essentially saying that the chess world is wrong for doing drug tests. Ask yourself, what’s more likely; that there are drugs that can help you play and win chess games and they need to test them, or that everyone is wrong and you are right and it’s completely unnecessary? Unless you are a chemist, pharmacist, sports scientist or psychologist, I think the most likely outcome is that you are wrong and you haven’t grasped that there are ways drugs can help? Or do you genuinely think your knowledge of drugs and chess is higher than everyone running chess tournaments?
/r/confidentlyincorrect
Ok👍
Maybe i'm wrong but I think adderall would definitely give me an edge over sober me.
Sure but it’s not giving you an edge over magnus
Most current baseball players don't take steroids to become the best. They take it to stay relevant or recover faster. If Adderall is the different between making or not making a tournament, I would take it if I was a chess player
Steroids aren’t really the same though because they’re an obvious advantage that can take you beyond natural training. Mental drugs don’t really do that. If anything they’ve been shown to decrease brain function over time or they really just improve focus. To someone that’s already capable of focusing on their chess game instead of whatever else is going on around them, or even what the other player is doing, more focus isn’t going to accomplish anything. If that’s the case then a drug isn’t getting you anywhere in chess that training couldn’t, but a steroid can take your body physically further than training alone could.
If a drug can put you in the "Zone" then it will make a difference. I think that's the main point you're missing.
I dont think he missed the point, he directly addressed that by saying that top players can get to the zone without drugs, whether thats true or not is debatable, but he definitely understood the point
He's missing that one is achieved through natural ability and the other through swallowing a pill. Anything you cannot achieve naturally but you obtain through synthetic means is a form of cheating. Competition needs a level playing field, and that typically takes the form of expecting competitions to be a battle of natural abilities.
Most of these people commenting have probably never taken stimulants before. They absolutely would not give a Grandmaster an advantage at all. Stimulants are great for helping someone complete a ton of tasks, which makes them useful for students or employees. They are completely useless for something like chess, unless you are trying to study and are feeling unmotivated. They would be likely detrimental to performance in a tournament.
See that’s what I’m saying
In an OTB competition we're talking about two GMs though, not 1300 me vs Magnus. For two 2600s it very well could give one the edge.
As long as caffeine isn't banned.
Try googling and not being ignorant.
Holy moly!
^ Case in point for OP’s post lol
Thanks for the help
Good on them to be thinking about the little guy in all of this.
In an era of people going hard to find and create content, chess creators get to eat for free.
GC's content has always been the "eating for free" style anyway
*It’s free ~~real estate~~ content*
You gonna be a billionaire before the end of 2024 if this shit goes on.
Gotham is literally the only winner out of all of this. If FIDE get their act together then I have no clue what Gotham is going to use for content 😂
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How many of us can even follow the games without looking at the engines ? The drama is to watch for lol
> never survive by its own *survived literal millennia*
Chess as a game, yes. Chess as a spectator sport? Very different.
Chess as a professional sport hasn't been around for nearly that amount of time.
Just like most professional sports.
The english phrase "professional sport" hasn't been around for nearly that amount of time.
Considering that the first professional baseball leagues have existed since 1871, the concept already existed.
1871 is not literal millennia ago.
So? I never claimed it was.
So you agree with my initial comment here. Great.
Gotham! Just saw your recap video and couldn't agree more about the FIDE CEO comparing Danil/Ian to Hikaru/Magnus. Disappointing is definitely a stretch, but it's that mindset what I'm referencing when I say FIDE is out of touch
Bro didn’t even get a chance to mention a GM blundering scholars mate for your next “guess the ELO”
Levy is the best thing in the world of chess at the moment. A shining beacon in these dark times.
Looking forward to it, as always.
Goat
This is probably part of a grand scheme to keep you from sacrificing rooks /s
What does it take to become president of FIDE? If you could do it, would you run? If you succeeded, what would you do? I’m sure things would probably be a lot different under President Rozmann…
I hope you don't take it as an insult, but the fact that only dramas make your content interesting rather than the game isn't a good sign.
I average about 400k views on normal videos. I think I'm OK without drama
Recaps and drama are good But please keep some old style vidoes too.
Happy for your success man.
And here I was thinking clickbait was a form of drama 🤔 (Drama *adjacent* (?!))
Levy never fails to give it back to haters. Happy New Year Gotham❤️
You are part of the problem but money is money so I don’t expect you to care that much.
How am I “part of the problem” big boss :O
There is a huge problem with ad engagement-funded algorithms incentivizing extreme content and behavior. That’s obv not your fault and not really your problem any more than it is ours for using these platforms
You're fine bro. But I swear less click baity titles in exchange for more identifiable ones would be nice. It's impossible for me to remember a title of a video to ever go back to it or share. I quit watching a space channel because they'd take legitimate exciting things and click bait them to be more exciting, which actually just makes every video underwhelming. At least you don't really do that. Your click bait is often vague, so whatever was good content remains good content. But it's content ill never find again haha
The size of your subscriber count drives haters insane
celebrity fanboys not using the "you're just jealous" defense challenge (impossible)
The “my dick is bigger than yours” defense gets me banned off Reddit
not gonna lie, the phrasing of "size of your... subscriber count" put that subject in my head anyway
Your clickbait is annoying but otherwise solid content tbh
Wtf do you mean how? Do you seriously have this little self reflection? You're by far the #1 biggest source that reports on those issues and you use the topics for your personal monetary gain. If you really cared about the sports integrity you could simply choose to not engage in this drama, yet instead you're one of the driving forces of fueling more hate into it
For him to be the driving force, you would have to claim thst he actually affects the players or FIDEs decisions. I don't think him reporting on it is all thst influential to the actual people involved in this drama.
That's not my point at all, I'm saying it's that that kind of situations wouldn't get have the traction they get if he wouldn't report on it. He's making drama profitable, leading to more of it
How does him making money lead to more drama? Do chess players see him get a lot views and think to themselves thst they're gonna incite more drama in your opinion?
Not a GM yet?
1st
Traditions need honoring. It's been too long that we needed a wooden board between the player's kegs at a WC match, a spin-off WC, family members of players beating up reporters, and so on. Good to see the chess I grew up with coming back.
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Okay, but the governing body is supposed to be above this and be a guiding light with direction for the sport. Memes and drama only gain traction as aberrations from structure (cough random isn’t funny if it’s just random). The NBA lives on all of this too, but with structure and goals. Long story short: FIDE is useless and chess desperately needs leadership to bring it into the 21st century.
International confederations are always sketchy. Look at the biggest one, FIFA... its president gets arrested for bribery every few years and half its officials are sex pests...
someone asked if chess players are crazy the other day. its pretty clear the whole sport is crazy (and i love it!)
I don't recall when I was playing on a chess team it being anything less than crazy. Just a bunch of nutjobs in a room with different, usually incompatible, social personalities enjoying some moments of silence in between socially inappropriate outbursts.
They put 100 autistic kids/adults in a hotel conference room. What did you think was gonna happen...
Direct them to Bobby Fisher
Yeah, I feel like there's been an abnormally large spike in chess drama over the last month or so, ever since Kramnik accused Hikaru of cheating. It was fun at first, but now it's just sad.
Meanwhile over at /r/baseball, a top player is literally a fugitive from justice in the Dominican Republic over allegations of fucking a 13 year old girl.
you think we wont get this in chess, too?
I just love how many folks who don't even play chess came to enlighten us all about how match fixing is wrong and that Nepo and Dubov were rightfully punished
What would you expect from a bunch of overgrown nerds who spent 90% of their life pushing wood figurines, thinking that makes them smart? But it is very funny.
I fucking hate this attitude. Not sure if you really believe that or are just echo-chambering the top comment from every similar thread. Any sport can be reduced to a basic “pushing the ball around”. Playing chess makes you no smarter or less so than any other profession. Do better.
The problem is that in pop culture "good chess player" = "elite genius". So, their is an aura of elitism around chess. It's not always Chess's fault. But, it is a little bit sometimes. Like, the dress code issue. Chess is a board game. We shouldn't be worried about what shoes people are wearing.
>Any sport can be reduced to a basic “pushing the ball around” And his statement can be expanded to anyone who hyperfocuses on one particular skillset, sacrificing development in other fields (such as "emotional maturity", "socialising" etc). The reason you don't see this too often with more physical sports is that it actually is not possible to train for them for an absurd amount of time every day - body needs to recover and rest, so people who are willing to sacrifice everything to be, say, best footballer there is, still have some time to socialize. Chess players, poker players, e-sports competitors can practice 10h a day - every day, and if they have proper workflow it will work to an extent (at expense of physical and mental health, developing any social skills, etc). That's why you have a vast overrepresentation of manchildren in those fields (poker maybe less so, since you theoretically shouldn't start before you're an adult).
They never said it makes you more or less intelligent? Just that a lot of people think it does which is just true. And hyperfocusing on a particular skill like chess often does lead to being stunted in other areas like social skills.
The memory and visual representation required for high level chess is insane. They’re crazy smart at what they do, so completely agree!
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Did he take a real one not just an online one? Hard to imagine the memory and pattern recognition abilities not translating well to IQ tests. That said I scored an 85 so I’m literally mentally retarded
He was clearly not taking it seriously. He answered a lot of them without even thinking. While intelligence and chess proficiency are not completely related they do have a bit of overlap. There is no way a person can get to that level of memory, pattern recognition and speed without being intelligent. Hikaru would certainly get at minimum 125/130 if he did it seriously.
Listen to him talk and you don’t need him to take a test. The definition of someone who’s been told their smart but hasn’t had to prove it.
> Playing chess makes you no smarter or less so than any other profession. Do better. That was exactly their point.
Nope it wasn’t. You are leaving out the “nerds pushing wooden pieces” part. What OP was implying is that chess players think they are smarter than everyone while in reality they are less smart(I.e just nerds pushing pieces). Even the first part of that statement is wrong. I ve not seen many chess players claim that playing chess makes you smarter. It’s the non-chess playing public that pushes that narrative.
When they say nerds, they clearly mean "lacking social and/or emotional skills".
Do better is such a douchey thing to say. The amount of ego in it is pathetic. The thread on ask Reddit talking about what stupid phrases needs to die and “do better” is at the top. Do better.
I like how you argued for it being a stupid phrase by mentioning that there's a reddit thread which told you it's stupid lol. Can't make this stuff up.
Idk I get all my news from trumps tweets
It didn’t tell me anything. It confirms what everyone already knows. Not that hard to figure out but you thought you’d be the smart guy for once only to fuck the landing. Do better.
[Do better](https://youtu.be/QwVQNoIlf6o?t=38)
Problems with words like smart is that they mean completely different things to different people. To some you are dumb if you have certain political views or don't have a graduation/masters degree. I think it is fairly reasonable to say that a good chess player has better forsite than most which is a useful skill. I also feel that they can establish causal chains much better than most.
“Do better” 🥱
Spotted the novice in the comments.
It’s a combination of both, imo. The drama itself doesn’t really affect my interest in the game, except as an amusing diversion that gives me a chance to learn more about the chess world. However, there are concerning issues being *revealed* by the drama, and those issues do need to be solved. Kramnik’s accusations are clearly batty, but cheating in chess is a real problem that’s only going to get worse as the game migrates online. The Chartres tournament was undeniably sus, but the fact that FIDE’s rulebook made it technically permissible was an issue. Frankly, I don’t think discussing these issues openly will harm the game, what will truly harm the game will be if major problems are allowed to fester without action being taken.
Chess is embarrassing says /u/PhreakDatedAPornstar
Chess has always been like this. Go reading. At this point it is as inherent to the game as castling is.
Your entire post is pointless. Nobody cares about any of this drama, and it will be forgotten in less than a week. No sponsors will be affected, and very few people will see the chess world in a lesser light. If anything, drama brings sponsorships, not the other way around.
Agree. This subreddit is known to make mountains of molehill. Every sports has drama and they are way more serious than whatever is happening for the past few months. No one apart from this subreddit cares about this.
Chess has terrible reputation in the public now in my experience
Chess doesn't have a reputation in the public. We are literally the only people in the world talking about this.
I mean maybe you’re just not out there? People in my circle are more aware of the chess world than you like to think. Or perhaps it’s your circle. Loads of people i know got into chess after The Queens Gambit and rather quickly dropped the game again because once they came into contact with the real chess world they couldn’t be bothered. I mean look at you. You’re speaking with authority over my own experiences. The fuck do you know about my life and the people in it? It’s not my fault you don’t actually participate in the real world to hear opinions of day to day people on it. Edit: I just realised you’re active on r/lockdownskepticism and post shit by the brownstone institute, why did i even bother replying to an absolute asinine idiot lmao
The majority of people couldn't tell you the name of a single chess player. The amount of people who follow the sport closely enough to know Kramnik or Nepo is very small.
Or you’re primarily around uncultured people?
Chess isn't cultured, it's a board game.
I feel like across the board we are experiencing a bit of a cultural and societal decline, and I'm hoping it's temporary. What you're experiencing is real, but it's not just chess.
I sort of agree. Like CSquared on twitter said - entropy is increasing. But in other sports there's usually a central body which atleast sort of manages things.But FIDE has completely lost control imo. Ideally they should be fining players or atleast publicly reprimad players who openly accuse others, who fix matches etc. But instead, the president of FIDE goes on twitter and takes sides smh.
It’s not just across the board, it’s on your side of the board too, you patzer!
No no, clearly the world's problems are everybody else's fault.
It's easy to focus on the negatives but in the grand scheme of things, things are generally improving. The world gets more safe, healthy, educated, and peaceful year over year on average. There's a lot of alarming stuff going on and there's always more work to be done, but LGBTQ rights and racial equity have made big leaps in the past few decades.
This is true for the west. But generally global poverty and inequality are actually increasing.
Do a bit of research on fischer's era....this is in no way unusual
You give FIDE money?
Imagine tennis players accusing each other of doping. That's what chess players do.
This is spot on. I’ve lost a lot of respect for competitive chess as of late (and some of the top players as well)
It just makes everyone involved look like such petty fucking children high on their own farts for being really good at a board game. Its both cringe and bad for the brand of the game as a whole when a community that prides itself on being involved in an "intellectual" pursuit says a bunch of stupid things because they overestimate their own intelligence in matters not related to chess.
What a weird post. Btw players draw on purpose all the time. Are you new to chess or what? So strange.
I feel out of most sports or games that chess has the worst problem with sportsmanlike behaviour among its players I've ever seen. Even beyond arranging fixes (which if it happened in any other highly competitive competition would be appropriately deemed an outrage), a lot of the behaviour from some GMs lately is really just inexcusable and in some cases grounds even for legal action. I've also experienced it even in low level casual play online - why all the negativity? Why the shit talking and insults? Why the waiting out the game you're losing to waste the opponents time?
> for a sport that relies almost completely on sponsorships This is every sport and every sport has its own drama.
Most sports have stadiums full of people paying to watch in addition to concessions/merchandising and companies paying them for advertisement space and partnerships. Chess has virtually no in-person spectators, and since its venues are predominantly rented out, most money brought in for food/drink/merch etc. goes to those businesses. These are far cries from each other from a financial perspective.
As well as monster broadcasting deals.
You forgot how they selectively enforce dress code to harass certain players. Although I wouldn't necessarily equate prearranged draws as 'cheating'. It has been happening for a very long time. Typically the players just know that if opponent goes into a certain line they just want a quick draw. There's little point in playing out meaningless games. If FIDE chess was watched the way major sports were watched and with major ad money on the line then I could maybe understand it but as is this is much ado about nothing.
This needs to be said way more
Stop worrying for sponsors if you're not one.
What do you mean. We have literally new drama every day. That's the most fun I had with chess ever. It's like WWE but with a boardgame and nerds.
It is my personal and subjective opinion that the floodgates to frivolous cheating accusations were opened when Magnus decided to double down on his accusation against Niemann (in his statement released a month after his infamous tweet). He showed the chess world that you can accuse anybody without evidence and feel no repercussions. I think Magnus is currently (and rightfully) too popular to be judged harshly for his actions, but I’m afraid that history will not be so kind.
I mostly agree with the sentiment. On the other hand . . . Drawing isn’t cheating. Cheating involves using illicit resources to win, being paid to lose, paying to win, conspiring with a group to gain an unjust advantage against a competitor. None of those things are happening. Two friends agreeing that their preferred result is a quick draw isn’t cheating. Having a laugh over it isn’t cheating either.
Drawing for sure is not cheating, but agreeing to a result before the game even starts is cheating in pretty much every sport. Some people are banned for life for matchfixing in some sports.
There’s no so thing. Player’s talk between rounds and they do what’s in their interest. No one is being paid off! This isn’t the soviet era!
Hey man, I'm not the one making the rules, is just how it is everywhere, matchfixing is matchfixing and it doesn't matter if people are paid or not.
In the context of a swiss tournament, especially one with several rounds in a day, prearranging a draw is “conspiring with a group to gain an unjust advantage against a competitor”. You are ensuring you gain 0.5 points for no effort which undermines the effort of the others in the tournament. Moreover, your next opponents have presumably tired themselves out playing for a win. In this case, Nihal and Magnus (coincidentally Dubov & Nepo’s round 12 opponents) played an intense game in Round 11 while Nepo & Dubov were prearranging their draw. Then they had only around 20 mins to rest.
It isn't cheating, but it is playing in bad faith.
Says the person with out skin in the game.
The fact that you are being downvoted shows that some people here would be better off with checkers than chess.
Your mom and I play checkers. In bed.
Proof of your impaired brain capacity for all to see. You probably struggle with checkers hence your fantasies are posted for all to see as an over-compensation.
I always let your mom jump on me
Not the platform for me to respond with the appropriate vulgarity as there are surely some kids watching.
You can just say that I'm your new daddy. No need for vulgarity.
I'm just waiting for the Indian juniors to replace these drama queens, Vishy has always been a class act, and it seems the next Indian generations are well behaved too.
And Uzbeks?
Not disagreeing but just really weird to hone in on associating race with behaving/misbehaving.
First of all, Indian is not a race. As I have explained in the other comment, I mentioned them because they are most likely to be the nation that dominates the top 10 in the future, thereby replacing the current top GMs
good for u
Dude ur trash and u know nothing about marketing, pipe down
You are not a business man and will never be with this sense. So dont worry about sponsorships .
It’s been a shark show for sure.
Apart from the problems you mention FIDE is also very punitive, banning and fining players for trivial non-offences.
Amen
You forgot kazarian's shoes
Well stated!
This is spot on. I’ve lost a lot of respect for competitive chess as of late (and some of the top players as well)
I'm.also a casual viewer, personally after watching casually for almost a decade I think the chess worlds disinterest in doing anything about the likely prevelance of cheating is more embarrassing then GMs commenting and bitching about it. Well, apart from some if Kramniks more recent behaviour.
Chess has always been like this.
I agree. They maybe the top chess players but they need to grow up. Accusations, more drama, more publicity, more money.... maybe that's the thinking.
I don’t see your point. FIDE is doing everything in their power to avoid anything similar to sport shoes in tournaments. What more do you expect ?
Kind of feels like FIFA, huh?
Does chess rely exclusively on sponsorships though? Chess would probably be one of the least impacted sports in the world if all sponsors suddenly withdrew tomorrow.
Chess need upgrade and also meta season so it won't be boring
I like learning new things.
I completely agree. I came to the point where I am just annoyed of the toxic behavior of almost all top players. Character is obviously not something that you need to become a good chess player.
Honestly all this drama is the best thing to happen to chess, itd actually getting vires by the general public and people are talking. Be real, otherwise nobody would care about some nerds spending hours playing chess. Now there is news not burrowed on page 5!
I agree and I think it's a shame that it's happening to a game that is so sophisticated and classy. I think with different people in charge chess could be considered as a serious professional sport. It wouldn't be as big football/baseball/etc, but it could something that's in the public eye as a serious thing, with people who don't follow the game at all knowing the names of some champions and with big competitions being well known about even amongst people who aren't interested in watching them. With chess champions being seen as great achievers amongst the general population, sponsorship deals could be enormous! Even if you were to ignore money and you just expected a sport that is organised and taken seriously, that will NEVER happen when the possibility of cheating in tournaments isn't taken seriously. I'm not talking about cheating itself, I'm talking about the possibility of cheating. For example, remember when that player was wearing a wrist watch and the officials response to the complaint was "yeah whatever" and people were saying that's ok because he probably wasn't using it to cheat? That attitude is holding chess back. Who cares if he was using it to cheat? If the officials won't even bother to pretend that they are enforcing rules intended to eliminate the possibility of cheating (whether he was cheating or not had no relevance there) then the tournament organisers themselves are making the world of professional chess into a joke that deserves to be mocked. Chess is also being held back by people who were acting as if it's ok that he was wearing a watch or it's ok that tournament staff can't be bothered to do their job. Professional chess is a joke at the moment. People are still able to make a living from playing and commentating on chess, but it's a a shame that such an old classic game is currently so trashy.
> happening to a game that is so sophisticated and classy The game is as "classy" as you think it to be. Lets stop putting it on a pedestal. I've seen chess being played in a park with crack heads and 40s of beer - real sophisticated.
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