Chess has never been more popular, despite World Championship bridesmaids

There's an absence of star-power at this year's World Championship, as chess sees unprecedented popularity.

The 2023 World Chess Championship is underway amidst the greatest chess boom in modern history.

The game played across 64 black and white squares has never been more popular or been viewed by more eyes than in 2023. Buoyed by Netflix's highly successful Queen's Gambit series and coming out of the pandemic, which saw an uptick in people playing online, chess has now reached stratospheric levels in early 2023. Mostly thanks to short-form video content which makes for fun and easily digestible chess clips, whether it's admiring brilliant moves from the world's best or laughing at carnage between two low-rated players.

Chess is also tailor-made for online streaming, and some of the best players often go live on Twitch to play games while followers watch on. Content creators like Levy Rozman at Gotham Chess have become bastions for entertaining and accessible chess content, educating a whole generation of new players.

The rise in popularity has been piggy-backed by a plethora of online influencers, streamers and content creators, and despite their limited skillsets it has proven to be a massively lucrative genre. Amateur tournaments have attracted an incredible amount of interest and huge prize pots, while chess newcomers often stream and train with Grandmasters and experts.

The number one chess website, Chess.com, reported that on December 31st, there were seven million active players throughout the day. On January 20th, there were ten million, and over thirty-one million games of chess were played. They have struggled to manage the load on their servers and handle the demand of so many people wanting to play so much chess.

While the game was making front-page headlines towards the end of last year, it was for all the wrong reasons due to the cheating scandal that erupted between American Grandmaster Hans Niemann and world number one, and arguably the greatest ever, Magnus Carlsen. The Norwegian shockingly forfeited a matchup against Niemann, sparking accusations that Niemann had been cheating. Eventually, he admitted to cheating in online games in his younger years, but the whole incident created a huge amount of mainstream buzz around chess, helped in part by the odd suggestion that there may have been sex toys involved.

This has all led into this year’s World Chess Championship, a best-of-14 match run over three weeks in Astana, Kazakhstan. Although chess is seeing unprecedented levels of attention online and amongst lower level players, the event hasn’t had the same spotlight due to the absence of the star-power of Magnus Carlsen.

The five-time winner relinquished his title after his 2021 victory, citing a lack of motivation and interest in continuing to dominate chess’ premier event. Having soundly beaten Russian rival Ian Nepomniachtchi last time out, he announced that he wouldn’t be seeking to defend his title and bowed out at the top, which saw Nepomniachtchi return to the top table this year against world number three, China’s Ding Liren.

As with most spheres nowadays, this match is laced with geo-political relations. Nepomniachtchi is competing under a neutral flag despite condemning the war in Ukraine, while a win for Ding would follow recent international political tensions between China and the United States. This has all been expertly outlined by fellow Substacker Karim Zidan in his Sports Politika newsletter.

With no Magnus, there is a significant slackening in interest at this year’s finale compared to the 2021 renewal. He is the unrivalled superstar that transcends chess and is a hotrod for clickbait content and a magnet for eyes on the huge championship event. Ian and Ding are both highly skilled players who would dominate most chess competitions, but they don't have the same level of recognition and mainstream appeal as Carlsen, which has resulted in less buzz and media attention surrounding this year’s renewal of the World Chess Championship.

Having said that, the two are playing out a very close and enthralling match-up, tied at 3-3 after six games. Both sides have delivered tremendous performances in the early rounds and it is teed up to be the most closely contested world final in over a decade. The last time both competitors lost at least two games was in 2010, when Veselin Topalov struck two blows on Viswanathan Anand, but came out on the losing side.

Chess has become more popular than ever before, yet the world championship final may not receive the level of fanfare that it deserves from those who have only recently taken up the game. A win for Ian or Ding will deservingly put them in the pantheon of chess’ greatest ever players and be a testament for the game’s enduring and timeless appeal.

But in 2023, with chess gaining unprecedented popularity, the party isn’t the same without Magnus Carlsen.