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Chess is booming among teens

polygon.com

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Re: Chess is booming among teens

#191

Post by bachmeier »

IG_Semmelweiss wrote: post #20

Chess is having its soccer moment now. Here is why: 1- The entry cost has fallen dramatically. Before at a minimum you'd need to afford a chess set and a couple of books. Now, all you need is a parents phone. This is similar to soccer, where the entry cost is any ball you can find. 2- its egalitarian. Your size, sex, height, and even age do not matter. This has always been true but now its more pronounced with apps b…

Have to disagree with your first two points for the US.

On 1, soccer became popular because there were organizations providing soccer for a fee. There may have been pockets of the US where kids would just go outside and play. That's not how it grew to be so big across the country though. These days it's not unusual to pay thousands of dollars a year to get on a club team - and that's where the fun is. I've never seen anything like that for chess.

On 2, player age and physical development matter a ton. One of the things I warn parents about when getting into soccer is to find a coach that focuses on player development rather than winning. Many teams make playing time and position decisions based only on which players are the biggest and fastest. (Those parents are getting ripped off, since the big and fast players don't develop skills, and the others don't learn the game.) This is quite different from chess, since as you note, size, sex, height, and age do not matter.

Re: Chess is booming among teens

#192

Post by ubermonkey »

My favorite recent bit about chess is that, in the wake of the success of QUEEN'S GAMBIT, there was a marketing push to make a new board game based on the show.

A new board game. Based on a show essentially ABOUT a board game. The mind boggles.

Re: Chess is booming among teens

#193

Post by _fizz_buzz_ »

jonkho wrote: post #83

Andrew Tate is a chess player and promoted chess. Andrew Tate was the most internet famous person for a period of time with a huge following in the teen male demographic. Possible cause-effect.

I think it has a lot more to do with popular chess streamers like Hikaru, Botez sister, gothamchess etc. Andrew Tate promoted a lot of stuff and but I never came across his chess content and I follow chess content quite a bit. Also, I just googled what his chess rating was and his dad Emory Tate [1] came up, so it seems like he isn't even the most influential chess player in his family.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emory_Tate

Re: Chess is booming among teens

#194

Post by yamtaddle »

vman81 wrote: post #119
jonkho wrote: post #83

Andrew Tate is a chess player and promoted chess. Andrew Tate was the most internet famous person for a period of time with a huge following in the teen male demographic. Possible cause-effect.

> Andrew Tate was the most internet famous person for a period of time I think this may just be your recommendation bubble - most people only heard about him when he was arrested.

Same—but it's because I'm not a teen boy. Friends who are teachers inform me that he was and is incredibly popular in that demographic. I dunno about "most internet famous person" but he was probably at least in the running.

Re: Chess is booming among teens

#195

Post by Shorel »

GistNoesis wrote: post #109
hannob wrote: post #37

I've recently started playing chess again a bit (after doing it a bit when I was a teen), and there's an interesting aspect of online chess that I began to realize: When I was young you needed a local opponent to play chess, and that wasn't always easy. Why? Because most people around you were either significantly better (you always loose) or worse (you always win). It's not an interesting game if the outcome is almo…

I think matching by level is quite psychologically destructive, and should be avoided. People grind for hours and they see no sense of progress as they keep always being around 50% winrate because the stronger they get, the better the opponent get. And inversely they can play drunk chess and still win 50% and burn time pushing random pieces for a little short-term fun. It probably depends on people but I think the av…

You can set up some AI to let you win 80% of times, and let the game to the real players. That way, you will feel better.

I dabble in the realm of simracing. Man, what would I do for a 50% win rate. Every race is hard fought, and the possibility of a victory is far below 15%.

The times I have won, I trained the whole week, it was hard-earned, and really, nothing has felt better since. It's a high I can still ride with pride.

IMO, if you want to win more, you should train harder, or try something easier.

Re: Chess is booming among teens

#196

Post by BurningFrog »

jrpt wrote: post #32
BurningFrog wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The biggest thing is that now you can find someone of similar strength to play with in 20 seconds!!

You could do that 10-15 years ago too though. Chess.com has been around a long time.

I compare with when I was young, and you had to find and meet a physical person.

Re: Chess is booming among teens

#198

Post by HDThoreaun »

curun1r wrote: post #94
hannob wrote: post #37

I've recently started playing chess again a bit (after doing it a bit when I was a teen), and there's an interesting aspect of online chess that I began to realize: When I was young you needed a local opponent to play chess, and that wasn't always easy. Why? Because most people around you were either significantly better (you always loose) or worse (you always win). It's not an interesting game if the outcome is almo…

The other fundamentally different thing is the learning tools. As a kid, I had one book on one opening and I had to sit by a board reading it to make the moves to try to dial in the learning. It was a slow and laborious process. I tried checking out another chess book from the library, but had to return it before I made significant headway. There was also one chess puzzle in the newspaper per week, which was fun, but…

Chess apps having analysis baked in is a huge win for learning. I go through the analysis of every game I play now and make sure I find the moves I lost, it's improved my game greatly.

Re: Chess is booming among teens

#199

Post by nonstopdev »

I used to love chess as a teenager. Chess club and playing Battle Chess on my early computer.

I started picking it up now and the resources to find games are great with Chess.com and Lichess but have found myself trying to relearn the skills and reading after losing 100 straight games.

Re: Chess is booming among teens

#200

Post by Shorel »

jrpt wrote: post #31
IG_Semmelweiss wrote: post #20

Chess is having its soccer moment now. Here is why: 1- The entry cost has fallen dramatically. Before at a minimum you'd need to afford a chess set and a couple of books. Now, all you need is a parents phone. This is similar to soccer, where the entry cost is any ball you can find. 2- its egalitarian. Your size, sex, height, and even age do not matter. This has always been true but now its more pronounced with apps b…

That was all true ten years ago too so I don’t think that’s it. What changed is the Queen’s Gambit got popular, then covid caused online gaming to become even more popular, and then there were some things that made chess popular recently like chess boxing with streamers on YouTube.

I would say Nakamura, the Botez sisters, and Ben Finegold are bigger factors than chess boxing.

But in general, yes, YouTube streamers are making the sport more popular.

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