On Netflix, Twitch, and app blinds, chess reigns supreme. One company is particularly successful: Chess.com, which dominates the market with 70% of online players.

At the origin of the success of Chess.com, an algorithm that matches opponents super well, an artificial intelligence whose personality adapts to Internet users, and a fine detection of bot profiles. Add to that a partnership with Twitch and a collaboration with Netflix, and you get the market leader – which has 427,580 followers worldwide, according to Protocol.

Thanks to online platforms and a Netflix series, the blast of elderly people growing wood in a park has been shattered. Today, playing chess is cool. “Analysis” with champions who train in the Var, an online chess forum.

On the Internet, chess fans know them by their nickname: MVL, for Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, 30, 4th player in the world, and Etienne Bacrot, 37, aka Baki, one of the youngest “grandmaster” in history (1), eight times champion of France, and coach of Maxime. They regularly intervene on the Twitch or YouTube channels of Kevin Bordi, a 33-year-old Cannes streamer, who has managed to unite on the various social networks a community of nearly 100,000 subscribers.

Comments like football

Like a duo of football commentators, the young Azurean brings live games of champions while an expert like Etienne deciphers the most complex variants.

“With the confinement, the tournaments stopped overnight, the professional players switched to the line and as people had more time, they got back into the game,” enthuses Etienne Bacrot who lives in Carqueiranne. “My channel’s viewing time has increased by 120% with 16 million minutes viewed over the last 28 days,” says Kevin, better known as BlitzStream.

Today we follow @Vachier_Lagrave at the Skilling Open, the first stage of the #championstour. It starts at 6 pm and faces Magnus Carlsen at 7 pm and Hikaru Nakamura at 10 pm!! I’m live with coach Etienne Bacrot to comment on  — Kevin Bordi (@Blitz_Stream) on November 22, 2020

THE CODES OF “GAMING”

Kevin applied the codes of “gaming” to popularize the practice to a younger and very novice audience. “What works well is the matches between subs. We play our most loyal subscribers with each other and comment on their live games,” Blitzstream explains.

Tonight is the most important subs-battle for our community. We face @GothamChess from 9:00 p.m.  If you want to participate, show up in the chat around 8:15 p.m. on ➡  — Kevin Bordi (@Blitz_Stream) on October 23, 2020

And if the rules are rather simple to understand, the strategy is complex, so Kevin is working to democratize the game with educational videos.

“Chess is one of the oldest games in the world and one of the most difficult to master. Almost 30 years after Kasparov’s defeat to Deep Blue, computers still haven’t killed the game. The game is not solved, that’s what always makes it fun,” says Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, who is preparing in the Var for the candidates’ tournament, the antechamber of the world title (see below).

A Netflix series about chess that hits!

A trend boosted by the worldwide success of the series “The Queen’s Gambit” on Netflix. The story of the young American prodigy has put an unexpected spotlight on a discipline that is respected but has always conveyed stereotypes. “It changes the image of the game,” Etienne admits.

A record-setting 62 million households watched The Queen’s Gambit in its first 28 days, making it Netflix’s biggest scripted limited series to date.  — Netflix (@netflix) November 23, 2020

Google’s “How to plate chess” query breaks records

In a sign of this craze, the gaming platform Chess.com recorded a record attendance last Sunday with 3 million players. And on Google, the “How To Play Chess” query hit a nine-year high.

This trend is also confirmed in the sale of chess games and boards. Some store chains have doubled their board sales since the containment, professionals told Le Figaro.

So a tip to get started? “You have to find an opponent at your level to have fun, follow Blitzstream, and… buy a chessboard,” jokes Etienne, who took advantage of the inactivity of the containment to develop Alpha Chess, a shop… Online.

Etienne Bacrot was awarded the title of Grand Master International, the highest honor of chess, at the age of 14 years and 2 months.

That’s in a million players connected on a day to the online gaming platform Chess.com, a record broken Sunday.

MVL in the race for the world title

While the coronavirus pandemic has stopped the professional circuit and forced hundreds of players to rest from tournaments around the world, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave is not unemployed.

The Frenchman, who is one of the top five players on the planet, is preparing, between online tournaments and exhibitions, for the candidates’ tournament which is to take place if all goes well in March 2021 in Russia. The winner of this tournament will become the official challenger to four-time world champion Magnus Carlsen of Norway, 29. And every detail counts.

“The games are going to be played on a thread. If you can get two shots ahead of your opponent, it makes a big difference,” explains Etienne, who is leading Maxime’s preparation. At this level, it is almost scientific research, Maxime decides the openings they want to play, sets the objectives according to each opponent, and then the computers are used to go as far as possible in the analysis of each variant.

“Today the best players are so well prepared that the idea is to be able to destabilize them by taking them to positions they like less,” MVL explains.

“Stay” than to get in shape … and make as few mistakes as possible during a game.

Do you play chess too? If not, start learning how to play. There is no better thing you can do while staying at home during this pandemic crisis. If you don’t have a chessboard, you can just play online.