There was an almost familial vibe in all six GCL teams which the highly-individualistic sport rarely evokes in players. (Global Chess League)
The Light Auditorium in London’s Friend’s House is bathed in pink light as players from the Ganges Grandmasters and the American Gambits, led by their ‘icon’ players Viswanathan Anand and Hikaru Nakamura, emerge from a door, sporting bright and colourful jerseys, track pants and sneakers, a break from their usual business suits.
A few hundred spectators, many of them Indian-origin residents of the UK, burst into loud cheers as the two teams line up under a giant, four-sided jumbotron that belongs more to a boxing arena than a chess hall, another break from tradition in a sport where the playing halls can be quieter than libraries.
For a sport that generally takes itself very seriously, almost to the point of being a stickler about players’ attire during matches, this dressed-down version at the Global Chess League is an attempt to take chess into uncharted territory: packaging the sport to make it look cooler for television and streaming.
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“I actually enjoy playing with sneakers very much. Normally I’m slightly conservative. Many of the other players dress down much more than me. I, on the other hand, like to come to games in proper shoes and so on. But here where it is insisted upon (to wear sneakers), it’s fantastic!” says five-time world champion Anand, who has spent a lot of his professional career wearing sharp suits. “It’s nice to do something different. To play in the kinds of tournaments I used to play before, I would need to get ready a lot more. This is more spontaneous. It has an attraction to it as a player because you don’t have to work so much.”
This dressed-down version at the Global Chess League is an attempt to take chess into uncharted territory. (Global Chess League)
Anand is not the only convert to this ‘chilled out’ version of chess, which has taken plenty of inspiration from the way eSports events are presented.
“This is an attempt to create more of a spectacle and add more of a theatre vibe to what was a very strict kind of environment. You watch an event like the Candidates (an event to decide the challenger to the world champion) and notice that everybody is in a suit. Everybody is very serious. People playing at these events don’t smile very often. People just talk about the game (after a game ends) and then disappear. There’s definitely a place for that: If there’s a fight for the title of the world champion, it has to be presented how it should be presented. But there’s also the more fun and joyous side to chess which I think GCL is trying to showcase. It’s a very good idea because chess players are not un-fun people. Bringing that out is going to be good for the game,” reasons Russian grandmaster Peter Svidler, who is representing the upGrad Mumba Masters this season.
The ‘joyous side’ Svidler is talking about is evident everyday at the Friends House. Everyday since the start of the tournament, fans have been queuing up in the hallway connecting the players’ lounge to the playing arena. Rather than players playing out their matches and disappearing into their private worlds, they have been regularly obliging fans for plenty of photos and autographs in the corridor.
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Familial vibe
In the confines of the players’ lounges at chess tournaments, it is often each player for himself with very limited interaction with others. But GCL teams have managed to pull down those walls players tend to put up around themselves during competitions. There’s an almost familial vibe in all six teams which the highly-individualistic sport rarely evokes in players. Players from the Alpine SG Pipers have been spotted taking long walks around the playing hall as a team while the American Gambits players recently spent over two hours playing 20 Questions with even World No.2 Hikaru Nakamura playing.
The American chess star has not played in any team events since the Batumi Olympiad six years ago. He was one of the most notable absentees in Team USA at the recent Olympiad. But after observing the first season of GCL closely, he happily made an exception to his rule about not playing in team events.
“I played in seven Chess Olympiads from 2006 and 2018 for the USA. In the early years there was a lot of team spirit and chemistry. But in the later Olympiads, from 2014 onwards, the Olympiads started to feel very much like an individualised event for us on the US team. Many of us were top 10 players. So everybody was very serious. Everybody did their own thing. There wasn’t any camaraderie. It’s one of the reasons why I stopped playing in the Olympiad. But at the GCL, you don’t have any of this built-in competition. It just feels like it’s going to be a lot of fun,” Nakamura tells The Indian Express.
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One of the owners of Nakamura’s team, P Prachura, reveals that the American player has taken his status as an “icon” player very seriously.
“Hikaru has been a great leader for this team. When we lost a game, he messaged me saying that we should have a team dinner. And then when we lost one more game the next day, he again messaged that we should have a team meeting,” says Prachura.
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The packaging of the league, players hope, will also bring in newer audiences.
“This event is very entertaining so a lot of new followers will come to the sport. It’s a very different feeling even if you compare it to other team events like the Olympiad. It’s really chill. It’s about having a good time. There are so many cameras recording everything… it is trying to bring new excitement and new insights to the sport. It’s a new experience for every player. I wish there were more tournaments like this,” says Uzbek prodigy Nodirbek Abdusattarov.
(The writer is in London at the invitation of Tech Mahindra)