In the United States, chess has seemingly been held at arm’s length, generally thought of as a game for rainy days and old men in parks. A few times in the past 170 years, interest has swelled to a more appropriate representation of the populace. Understandably, these surges usually coincide with the ascension of a prominent player to the world stage. Most notably, this happened when Bobby Fischer won the World Chess Championship in 1972.
The first interest spike potentially occurred in the 1850s as Paul Morphy rocketed to success by beating the best players from the U.S. and Europe (except for Howard Staunton who found any excuse to avoid a match with the younger, and arguably more talented, Morphy). 2018 saw American Grandmaster Fabiano Caruana win the Candidates tournament (the tournament held to determine the challenger in the following World Championship Match), becoming only the third American to play a match for the Official FIDE World Championship.
What I am to tell you next may come as a surprise. The COVID pandemic shutdowns have spurred another chess boom, with millions of players learning to play (or have resumed playing) in the past year. Popular online chess sites like chess.com, lichess.org and chess24 repeatedly broke records for games played and players online at one time on each of their respective sites. Much of this interest is due to the popularity of the Netflix series The Queen’s Gambit and supported by the ability to watch live chess games and commentary on sites like Twitch and YouTube. Online tournaments organized by chess.com and the current World Champion, the Norwegian Magnus Carlsen have also proven quite popular. American Grandmaster Hikaru Nakamura has routinely had more than 10,000 people watching and commenting as he livestreams playing bullet games or solving chess tactics puzzles. The archived videos from St. Louis Chess Club have always been popular and have had a resurgence with new players looking for instruction.
The final piece in this puzzle of increasing interest, the 2020/2021 Candidates Tournament has finished after more than a year’s “pause”. Fabiano Caruana was in the hunt to again battle Carlsen for the crown, though he could not keep pace with the winner, Ian Nepomniachtchi. The Caruana v. Carlsen World Championship Match of 2018 was tightly contested, fought to the chess equivalent of overtime. Magnus Carlsen prevailed by the slimmest of margins.
My interest in chess began in the mid-1980s, for what reason, I can’t remember. What I do remember is visiting my local library in Wrightstown, WI to find a book to teach me how to play. Sadly, there was a distinct lack of opponents. It wasn’t until my high school years did I find friends to play against, though they didn’t have the same level of interest. A need for competition brought me to enter tournaments run by the United States Chess Federation (which is the governing body of chess in the United States).
If you have been swept up in the chess fever also and have been wanting to learn or even return to play, now is a great time. The FIDE World Chess Championship Match will be held November 24-December 16, 2021. The USCF has been running rated online tournaments on multiple sites. Daniel Boone Regional Library has been fortunate to host members of the Mizzou Collegiate Chess Team for simultaneous exhibitions. Coincidentally, the Coach of the Mizzou Chess Team, GM Cristian Chirila was a trainer of Fabiano Caruana in his preparation for his match against Magnus Carlsen. DBRL staff have recorded chess programs for beginners, with more in the works. Finally, the DBRL collection has added numerous high-quality chess titles recently, many of those targeting beginners.
