World Chess Championship: As interest in the India-China match has skyrocketed, legends like Magnus Carlsen, Viswanathan Anand, and Hikaru Nakamura share their thoughts on the ongoing battle royale.
In Game 12 of the World Chess Championship, Hikaru Nakamura is live streaming his post-mortem of a body that hasn’t yet been chilled, just minutes after D Gukesh has given up. Nakamura, ranked third in the world, came in second place at the Candidates event, narrowly missing out on Gukesh’s seat as the opponent of world champion Ding Liren. The American grandmaster, who loves to claim that streaming is his primary job rather than playing chess, is now available to provide commentary on the match in Singapore as the 18-year-old Indian battles the Chinese grandmaster for the opportunity to become the youngest-ever world champion.
Carlsen, the player who voluntarily gave up his world champion title last year without playing a single game, has been offering his insights on the app after each match. While his busy schedule sometimes prevents him from watching the entire game, he records recaps where he shares his candid and critical views on the game. Some of his memorable remarks include: “This looks like a world championship game, but not one from this century,” and “I used to say that chess players should be somewhere between optimistic and delusional. This clearly leans towards the delusional side for Gukesh.”
Carlsen isn’t the only former world champion commenting on the games. Vladimir Kramnik, the often-grumpy Russian, also contributes by providing video analyses and tweeting about the quality of the matches.
Every few moves, chess icon Susan Polgar shares her live thoughts on X, offering real-time evaluations of the game and the overall match situation. After Game 12, she famously tweeted: “Someone please report brutality on the board! Where has this Ding been for the last two years? This is Ding’s best game in the past 2 years.”
Meanwhile, on Chess24’s livestream, Susan’s sister Judit joins the commentary panel alongside other grandmasters like Peter Leko and Daniel Naroditsky, who offer detailed move-by-move commentary.
Chess is unique in that much of the live coverage is available on YouTube streams, rather than on traditional OTT platforms or television, due to the unpredictable length of the games, which complicates scheduling broadcast slots for TV.
The 2024 World Chess Championship is possibly the most analyzed chess match in history, and for good reason. With two of the most populous nations in the world represented by Gukesh and Ding, interest in their showdown has reached unprecedented levels.
Following in the footsteps of Carlsen and Nakamura’s Game 12 recap, ChessBase India and Chess.com India have teamed up to live-stream the games, featuring stand-up comedians like Samay Raina and Biswa Kalyan Rath, alongside regular commentators Sagar Shah and Tania Sachdev. The broadcast has also included appearances from chess legends such as five-time world champion Viswanathan Anand, Arjun Erigaisi, and Anish Giri.
During one of the slower phases of a Ding vs. Gukesh game, Vidit Gujrathi made a special appearance with his fiancée Nidhi, shortly after their engagement announcement.
Every joint live-stream by ChessBase India and Chess.com on YouTube has surpassed one million views, with Game 7 reaching two million. During Game 7, the peak viewership reached 225,000 concurrent viewers on YouTube.
Avadh Shah, India Director for Chess.com, shared with The Indian Express that “Game 7 marked the highest peak concurrency for any Indian chess broadcast,” adding that their joint broadcast for the 12 games of the 2024 World Chess Championship has amassed over 17 million views. He also mentioned that viewership for this year’s event surpassed previous major events like the FIDE Candidates and Chess Olympiad.
In addition to the joint broadcasts, chess.com has produced content in 11 languages, including English, Arabic, Turkish, Polish, Korean, Portuguese, German, French, Indonesian, Italian, and Spanish.
FIDE itself also provides a live broadcast on its YouTube page, featuring commentary from GM David Howell and IM Jovanka Houska, with special guests like Anand, Hou Yifan, and Boris Gelfand.
For those seeking even more coverage, there are popular streamers like GM Anish Giri, IM Levy Rozman (GothamChess), GM Ben Finegold, GM Aman Hambleton (Chessbrah), GM Arturs Neiksans, FIDE Master Nemo Zhou, Epic Chess, and Chess Dojo.
The numbers could surge even higher if Gukesh were to become the youngest-ever world champion this week, marking a pivotal moment for the new generation of Indian chess players.