There are about 45 million people who play chess in the United States and about 700 million worldwide. That makes it one of the biggest sports in the world. So what would it take to bring the game to the next level of popularity?
What are your suggestions? 
Chess Daily News from Susan Polgar
A couple of suggestions –
1. Push chess a lot more at schools. Perhaps, even make it a class to take. Promote educational benefits of playing chess.
2. More corporate sponsership.
3. start more local chess clubs.
4. Promote spectator chess (blitz, bughouse, blindfold, etc) in addition to traditional chess.
5. Request newspapers to start a chess column – maybe a saturday chess puzzle to solve.
6. Convince parents that chess is a healthy alternative to video games.
Great ideas microcosm! Thanks!
Best wishes,
Susan Polgar
http://www.PolgarChess.com
http://www.SusanPolgar.com
Just a wild thought –
Young girls in Rural India are not exposed to the outside world at all. In fact, they rarely go out of their houses. Rural India comprises over 70% of India’s population and half of these are women.
Since there is a lot of interaction amongst women in rural India – why not promote chess amongst these girls – we may find a new champion!
My impression is that most people who do not play chess are intimidated by it because it seems “hard” to them, that it’s for brainiacs only and that it’s boring and dry. If we can somehow change this image of chess and convince them of the following facts, I believe more people would play.
1) Chess is easy to learn to play, i.e., one can learn the game in about an hour or two,
2) It is possible to play others of the same level, thereby making it more inviting and less intimidating,
3) Yes, many very smart people play chess, but that fact doesn’t preclude the participation of the average person,
4) Chess is extremely challenging and interesting once you get involved in it,
5) Chess offers the chance to make new friends,
6) Playing a game of chess is often exciting, heartpounding, suspenseful, intense and rewarding!!!
I would only add one more suggestion: if major chess tournaments – such as the recent FIDE championships in San Luis – were televised with expert, entertaining commentary, this would recruit many more players!
The initiative Chess for Peace is the best move to upgrade Chess level of popularity, I think.
1. You know about the “draw too early” issue as well as anyone else. The US championships a few years back when the sponsors and fans were robbed when in the last round all but one of top board games decided on quick draws rather than fight. Or how about when Kasparov offered and draw against Deep Junior in their final game on ESPN when the game was actually clearly up in the air. When the sportsmen find it beneficial to disappoint the spectators, you know something is wrong with the sport/game. The Maurice Ashley “Generations Tournament” was a try at fixing this, but a try that fell short — because its still premised on the idea that the players are willing to fight.
I had an idea that I would like to see tried. How about modifying the rules ever so slightly — if you offer a draw, the opponent can play for *5 moves* before accepting the offer. I.e., the offer is not rescinded after you make a move, but rather 5 moves later. Being a strong player, I assume you can see the logic in this idea. If you offer a draw, you better make sure its a real draw, because if not, your opponent basically has 5 risk free moves to make the craziest possible try to prove that the game is not a draw. In addition draw offers at the highest level should always be part of the recorded game score. So this way, we could test if a player truly was making draw offers in position where s/he shouldn’t with post-mortem analysis, rather than letting the players hide behind the ambiguity of which side actually made the offer.
2. If you saw the chessbase article from a few months back about sports marketing, I would just say that I have to agree. Chessbase recently hosted videos of player conferences after their games in St. Louis. I must say its very fascinating seeing just the demeaner of these top players. Topalov just looks so incredibly intense, I could practically *feel* it. And both Anand and Topalov could actually speak both English and Spanish! And of course seeing your sister discussing a tournament she would obviously like to move on from was also quite compelling.
But also just listening to them analyze, even if briefly, the game they just played, just feels like so much of a value add. As an amateur player myself, I always wonder “just how deeply do these guys look into the games?” and with their discussions we can see exactly. Post game analysis, just like they have in Tennis, hockey or other sports makes the whole thing all the more compelling.
Remember after Linares when Kasparov retired? Chessbase hosted a short video interview with Topalov who said “Who will be on top? Maybe Anand, maybe Kramnik, Leko, maybe me … but we are not the same (as Kasparov)”. The statement itself was one of those things that gives you deep insight, but also a desire to for follow-up or other discussion. And now that he’s *WON* the world championships? The obvious question we want to ask him is “Do you still feel that you are not at Kasparov’s Level”?
I downloaded a bizarre little european program on Fischer a while back, and was truly fascinated to see Korchnoi, Benko, Seirawan and your sister Sophie all talking about Fischer stories. I think I watched the thing about 10 times. Its just a story and didn’t even include any real chess substance! But I watched it over and over anyways!
I’m telling you, this is great stuff, and I and so many people want to see media of this sort from our favorite chess players. The stories and other marginally related stuff actually add a lot.
Oh yeah, if you think hosting media like this is expensive, look into a technology called “bittorrent”. The reality is that hosting large files is basically free.
This is the age of handheld cameras and the internet. The chessbase folks are clearly figuring this out.
Not to be overly critical, but an example of this *NOT* working is chess.fm. Have you listened to that? OMG its horrible. The problem is that the host, Tony Rook, is just too weak (he’s like 1400 or 1500 or so?) and so is unable to even ask any credible questions of his IM and GM guests. I think he’s worried about looking stupid — but I really wish he would stick his neck out, or for some more expert host perhaps (who is maybe 1800-2000 or so) to ask the “stupid” questions us amateurs need answering. So then the expert guest often doesn’t explain enough for more average players to understand what is going on.
But following chess live by just give lots of analysis is just a little tough to get excitied about. I would *far* prefer post-game analysis by the participants themselves. That is far more compelling.
But amongst the valuable comments, IMHO, made by expert commentaries are discussions about the opening. Is this opening topical? When was it last played? How much of this is home preparation? See, these are one of these deep secrets that a lot of us average players want to know about top players. We know they prepare a lot, but how deep does it go? These sorts of comments let us see into the mind of the players prior to the occurrence of the game itself.
Anyhow …
3. Ok, if you want the audience to grow you need some kind of serious media following it. And that mostly means american media (since they have more dollar and commercial leverage.) Unfortunately, that means we need american heros, otherwise the american media will not be interested. So our hopes, believe it or not, rest on Nakamura, and possibly a true comeback by Kamsky.
We have reason to be optimistic for the future since Nakamura is so young, and FIDE has reinstituted a world championship that has some semblance of credibility. But we might be in for a long wait if we are hoping to see Hikaru truly going after the top prize.
There is, of course, the outside weirdo possibility of getting Fischer back into the frey. I know he’s kind of a black stain on chess, but I think the media might at least cover him. I know that Spassky and others tried to get him to come out of seclusion recently. It seems they were not successful. Oh well. Maybe its for the best.
No offense to the strong women players in america, but the Chinese women are currently in ascendance. When I think of great women chess players, I think of Judit, Humpy, Layhno, and Kosintseva sisters. The first for obvious reasons, and the later ones being so strong given their age. None are americans unfortunately.
It actually makes a good story “west versus east” for the Chinese and Americans to be battling it out for female chess supremecy, but not if the Chinese are going to kick our ass without much difficulty.
We are missing heros. On the other hand ESPN2 seemed to be willing to cover Kasparov (a russian) versus a computer program written by Isrealis.
So perhaps we need to know if its possible for americans to root for a foreign sports hero? We did cheer on Stefi Graf when she was on the top of the Tennis. So I think its possible. Certainly its not going to happen if we don’t *KNOW* much about these players.
4. Perhaps we need to do more analytical surverys to get the proper feedback needed to truly understand the nature of the problem. For example, a questionaire that asked what people thought about chess.fm, chessbase, the ESPN2 thing, opening lots of chess schools, etc. If you have real statistics on what people like and do not like about chess coverage, rather than just simply guessing and trying stuff in hopes it will work, I suspect it will be more successful.
Well that’s my thoughts on the issue.
Oh yeah, and one other thing. Chess is a very hard game to cover live. In the worst case it just takes too much time, or an unpredictable amount of time (from a few minutes of an agreed draw non-game, to maybe 6 hours of very a complicated endgame.)
Poker is kind of the same way. Notice how poker has become very popular of late? The tournaments/games are prerecorded, and then edited. This would probably just as effective for live chess.
—
Paul Hsieh
http://www.pobox.com/~qed/
For Popularity of any game to increase in a country requires on basic element One Achiever. One Example is Vishy Anand’s rise has taken Game to another level in India. Having said that microcosm has Summarized the rest of points in a Succinctly
But that hero element is one prime factor. One good example is Tennis in Germany and USA post Becker & Sampras era . and tennis in Great Britain. Suddenly the developing players are not having any real-time role model and we have situation where these countries have Good Players but not “The Next Level” Leap.
Talking of Tennis Kournikova didn’t win a single title but she is single factor of having a “Ova” Train on WTP
Hope the rationale makes sense
Chess needs one player who dominates the game for years. That person is telegenic and gets mainstream commerical endorsements which keeps his/her name in the media so that it becomes a household name even to non chess players. This media exposure, by association, will benefit all of chess. Finally, since computers are an integral part of society, this champion has to beat Hydra or its equivalent in a very profile match.
There are many activities in which millions participate but do not get media coverage. For some examples how many running races, bridge card games,or sudoku puzzle events do we see or read about? Chess falls into this category.
Dear Susan,
The best way to bring chess to the next level is to make it part of the school curriculum. I am leading a team of 10 teachers at my school in a pilot study of chess integrated into the elementary mathematics curriculum. Chess has a tremendous educational value – it engages students at every level of Bloom’s Critical Thinking Skills Taxonomy and accomodates all learning modalities.
Thanks,
John