While everyone is plugging their favorite streamers allow me to plug GothamChess. Definitely most entertaining for me as well as educational, followed by the Botez sisters, Agadmator and then Hikaru. I like watching him, but he plays lines that I can’t possibly hope to remember ( I’m around 1800 blitz / bullet ), and so it’s more like watching a magician. “So guys, let’s play the sodium…”
The most popular chess streamer on Twitch
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Re: The most popular chess streamer on Twitch
#62Hikaru learning "5-D Chess with Time Travel":
Re: The most popular chess streamer on Twitch
#63While everyone is plugging their favorite streamers allow me to plug GothamChess. Definitely most entertaining for me as well as educational, followed by the Botez sisters, Agadmator and then Hikaru. I like watching him, but he plays lines that I can’t possibly hope to remember ( I’m around 1800 blitz / bullet ), and so it’s more like watching a magician. “So guys, let’s play the sodium…”
I'm 1950 on chess.com. I know zero opening theory outside the fundamentals.
Watching Hikaru and Danya has really helped my board visualization and how I think about the game. My ideas are a lot more abstract now than they were years ago when I was still a "strong" player. I'm stronger now than ever before and I no longer actively train, and I credit this entirely to players like Hikaru helping me view the board in a drastically different way than I was previously. Something just clicked after awhile.
Re: The most popular chess streamer on Twitch
#64He's live right now[1] going through this New Yorker article line-by-line.
Offering some great clarifications, context, etc. The internet is great.
Re: The most popular chess streamer on Twitch
#65Hikaru is to chess what Doug Polk is to Poker
He was relevant at the top level of the game for a short period of time but only in one fairly obscure format?
He reached #2 on the active rating list and #5 on the all-time rating list in classical chess. Do you consider classical chess to be a "fairly obscure" format?
Re: The most popular chess streamer on Twitch
#66One of the best yt channels for opening study is HangingPawns: https://www.youtube.com/c/HangingPawns Just great for starters and advanced players. Stjepan is a great teacher and 2013 ELO so not a GM but on the way towards that goal.
Eh, I find Stjepan a bit too scattered in his discussion. He takes tangents that can confuse beginners (under 1200 or so) when trying to comprehend the openings he is discussing. Learning from online YTubers/Twitch streamers can be a mixed bag. They make the moves seem so easy and logical, without explaining a lot of the why's. Danya is one I love to watch, but he just sees things that players below his level have a…
I don't know much about chess, but in other fields I've come to suspect the youtube video market for detailed education is both a lot smaller, and a lot more time-consuming to serve than the market for topic-themed entertainment
For example, imagine I'm restoring a classic 1980s Mini. There's a lot of detail that's only really interesting to people who are actually doing the same task - which is hardly anyone. That's not going to be a highly-rated youtube series.
Whereas a magazine series that shows restored classic cars and provides some details and advice, but keeps things light enough you can half-watch while eating and you won't miss too much? Much more accessible, much bigger audience.
Re: The most popular chess streamer on Twitch
#67People suggesting other chess channels misunderstand what Hikaru is about. It's about the memes, chat spam and interaction with other non-chess streamers. He's part of a bigger Twitch community of streamers that has become like its own reality show.
It feels like Hikaru is WSB-ing Chess. I don’t mean that in a dismissive way, though. There’s a lot less downside (maybe none?) for Joe Schmoe internet n00b suddenly acquiring a fanatical interest in chess.
Re: The most popular chess streamer on Twitch
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
He was relevant at the top level of the game for a short period of time but only in one fairly obscure format?
He reached #2 on the active rating list and #5 on the all-time rating list in classical chess. Do you consider classical chess to be a "fairly obscure" format?
The things I said are true of the poker player Doug Polk. Doug Polk was one of the best 2-player Texas Hold'em poker players on the internet for a couple of years, but only at a point in time where the format was pretty dead. I know very little about Hikaru Nakamura, but it sounds like Hikaru is a much greater chess player than Doug is a poker player. Which is fine, I guess the similarities lie elsewhere.
Re: The most popular chess streamer on Twitch
#69There's a general life lesson here: ease up and enjoy it.
The other lesson is that often the people that succeed are people who can lean into the intensity and are OK with it. For example, look at someone like Michael Jordan -- extremely competitive. But its almost as if that's their fuel. And when they leave competitive environments then they miss them. Steve Jobs and Bill Gates seem to have some of that in them too.
That said, its not something I have. I'm OK not being the world's best at something -- I'm OK just enjoying riding my bike through the park.
Re: The most popular chess streamer on Twitch
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
He reached #2 on the active rating list and #5 on the all-time rating list in classical chess. Do you consider classical chess to be a "fairly obscure" format?
The things I said are true of the poker player Doug Polk. Doug Polk was one of the best 2-player Texas Hold'em poker players on the internet for a couple of years, but only at a point in time where the format was pretty dead. I know very little about Hikaru Nakamura, but it sounds like Hikaru is a much greater chess player than Doug is a poker player. Which is fine, I guess the similarities lie elsewhere.
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