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As Nakamura, gamers and the chess world collide, each piece is changing the others. Just as in the board game, no single piece in this evolving landscape of chess is alone driving the popularity. There are a few pieces involved in this world of online chess: the streaming technology of Twitch, Nakamura, the online gaming community and the game of chess itself. The second tournament is running through September 6 and features streamers like xQc and even Hafthor Julius Bjornsson – the actor who played The Mountain in “Game of Thrones.” The event was so popular with both the streamers and fans – at one point more than 150,000 people were watching – that a second Pogchamps was immediately scheduled. In June, 16 of Twitch’s top streamers played in a round robin chess tournament after being coached by a number of world-class chess players, including Nakamura. This popularity culminated in a chess tournament called Pogchamps. “Hikaru is literally the discipline in action,” comments Devin Nash, a popular Twitch analyst. These games illustrate for the new fans and top streamers the skills, cunning and joy that are rapidly coming to be associated with chess.
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These collaborations with celebrities of the gaming world have been a huge boost to chess’s popularity as Nakamura plays games against these streamers while blindfolded or foregoing the use of the queen. Nakamura has attracted the interest of other massively popular streamers with millions of followers – xQc, forsen, Nymm and the late Reckful, to name a few. Viewers on Twitch have discovered a profound interest in learning the fundamental mechanics of a board game from the sixth century. Nakamura is a great player and a jovial person, but there are many thousands of modern, high-production video games being played by charismatic and skilled streamers on Twitch. Hikaru Nakamura in a suit at a chess tournament.
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6, Twitch and are hosting a tournament, called Pogchamps, where some of the most popular gaming streamers in the world compete in a chess tournament with US$50,000 on the line. First a reference to a well-known Japanese animation, next a famous upside-down kiss with Spiderman and finally, Nakamura’s characteristic grin is edited onto the Mona Lisa herself.įrom Aug.
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While viewers eagerly await Nakamura’s streams to begin, they are treated to a slideshow of memes involving Nakamura’s face superimposed into scenes from pop culture. An American chess grandmaster, Hikaru Nakamura, along with a number of celebrities of the video game world, is leading a renaissance in the ancient game. Sætrenes/Moment Mobile via Getty ImagesĪs a global pandemic continues to determine a new normal, tens of thousands of viewers have been tuning in to watch people play chess on a livestreaming website called. Chess is exploding in popularity on the video game streaming site B.
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