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The most popular chess streamer on Twitch

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Re: The most popular chess streamer on Twitch

#121

Post by javier2 »

elliekelly wrote: post #67
Kiro wrote: post #35

People 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.

Yup, half WSB, half reality show. And what makes it really funny is that Carlsen is also a legendary troll.

Re: The most popular chess streamer on Twitch

#122

Post by joshuamorton »

tibbar wrote: post #111
joshuamorton wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who is he higher than? He's tied for last as of current ratings on the fide website, or does that not yet include results from grand prix round 3? (Which would put him ahead of Teimor and Duda, presumably) > seems his strategy is just to survive the openings and then try to outplay or flag people later on, which is a surprisingly viable strategy. This doesn't work when people are both stronger middlegame players than…

As sibling comment says, he's higher than Duda + Radjabov in live ratings now. It's just not obvious to me that any of your statements about the other players being so much stronger than Hikaru are true. It's really hard to objectively estimate his classical playing strength because he just didn't play for two years and the rating has been volatile since he started playing again, but (for example) he played 4 classic…

My argument would be something like: Aronian was the strongest player Hikaru played (and was the highest rated player in both Grand Prix events Hikaru participated in). Depending on how you determine things, either 3 or 5 of the participants are rated higher than Aronian is/was in classical, and Naka won't be able to rely on winning the rapid against any of Ian, Duda, Alireza, Ding, Rapport or even Caruana, because they're not 150 points worse than him in Rapid (well except Alireza but that's probably inaccurate).

If the best Hikaru can do is draw against So and Aronian, that's not going to cut it in the candidates. Maybe he can o better than that, but there's nothing we've seen that suggests that.

Re: The most popular chess streamer on Twitch

#123

Post by mkaic »

zeteo wrote: post #84
cellis wrote: post #61

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…”

GothamChess's friend Eric Rosen is also very good. (Actually I think he may have won their latest match.) I really like his unshakable calm attitude - even when scrambling with 5s left on the clock he still finds time to make informative little comments.

+1 for Eric Rosen, he's the only chess streamer I always enjoy watching -- the others all tend to get on my nerves after a bit.

Re: The most popular chess streamer on Twitch

#124

Post by mkaic »

Hikaru is fun but my personal favorite chess streamer is Eric Rosen, an incredibly chill, laid-back, witty IM who loves gambits and stalemate traps and radiates good vibes on stream. Super funny, super wholesome, and super instructive too!

Re: The most popular chess streamer on Twitch

#125

Post by pg_bot »

alar44 wrote: post #53
fourseventy wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hikaru used to be ranked #2 in the world in classical with an elo over 2800.... "not a classical player" lol

And is currently 16 and has been dropping over the last 8 years. Kasparov also used to be number 1. That's just how it goes. He's a much stronger bullet/blitz player and this isn't news to anyone. There's a reason people are surprised he qualified.

He's 11th in classical currently and there isn't much separation from 4th to 20th. He has a pretty good record against all of his opponents in classical. He's never lost to Rapport, Liren, Duda, or Radjabov. He is 3-2-5 against Nepo, 6-7-33 against Caruana, and he's never played Firouzja.

Re: The most popular chess streamer on Twitch

#126

Post by mkaic »

birriel wrote: post #62

Hikaru learning "5-D Chess with Time Travel": https://youtu.be/v2zg-66eTY8

I thought it was interesting how difficult he found this! Seems like his brain is super hard-wired to play chess a specific way and he was unable to generalize the rules to the extra dimensions? Super fascinating.

Re: The most popular chess streamer on Twitch

#127

Post by mkaic »

Overtonwindow wrote: post #3

Actually, I vastly prefer Agadmator’s chess channel. Less drama and more thoughtful analysis for us non-pros. https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCL5YbN5WLFD8dLIegT5QAbA

Antonio is fantastic! If you like him I would also strongly recommend Eric Rosen's YT and Twitch channels -- he's a very laid-back, wholesome IM who's very funny and very instructive.

Re: The most popular chess streamer on Twitch

#130

Post by russian_bots »

birken wrote: post #36

For all of those getting excited about Hikaru in the candidates, keep in mind the 3 strongest players in the world who aren't Magnus didn't play in the FIDE Grand Prix for various reasons: Alireza Firouzja (already qualified), Ding Liren (weird travel restrictions) and Fabi (already qualified). At least two of them and likely all 3 are going to be in the candidates, so this is just going to be an entirely different l…

He also won 3 times on demand, including against Levon Aronian.

> but escaped some very bad positions with draws, which against higher level competition he might not be so lucky.

Hikaru is well-known for being able to defend insanely well, and highly capable of escaping with draws against any level of player. This is such a strangely critically toned comment.

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