Happened to watch a recommended feed on my YouTube and it was Champions Chess Tour. I was surprised at the format played by the world's top GMs. They wore headphones, used keyboard, mouse and computer screen instead of a physical chess board! And played in rapd format!
Just like Starcraft - an eSport I follow religiously, they wore headphones to block out external sounds. I don't know about this chess event, but for Starcraft the headphones had white noise to make sure the players don't hear the castings going on live stage.
Of course since its a faster rapid time control we have a more "random" and sometimes unexpected wins like GM Magnus Carlsen losing to GM Liem. But the most striking "improvement" over the typical chess broadcast was that it was more interesting with move by move commentary by experienced chess players. I actually followed one game between Liem vs Eric Hansen. In the past when I would just glance thru a few seconds or if I stayed to watch - would fall asleep for sure. It certainly has the "eSport vibe" for a spectator like me.
As far as I'm concerned, this may be the future of chess as a spectator event. At least the organisers are following the correct path the eSports has taken. Now if only they can get the crazy numbers of people spectating like real eSports gets.
Anyway. even Liem at the end of the interview admits this format was "more fun" compared to the old classical format.
What would that mean for us "hobbyist" and club players who are not on the same level as GM Anish Giri and GM Liem? Can we also have tournaments in these styles? For now I think not. The traditional face to face with plastic chess pieces on a physical board is the way to go. But maybe for higher level tourneys like national level competitions - this looks to be the future.
