Chess is the Most Watched Game on Twitch

PogChamps 3 is a chess tournament featuring popular streamers and content creators

Chess and especially online chess has experienced a massive boom in 2020. When the whole world was stuck and bored at home, a lot of people started to learn and play chess. Among the people who took up chess during that period was xQcOW, a very popular Twitch streamer. His collaboration with chess grandmaster Hikaru Nakamura brought online chess to a wider audience.

Shortly after, the first PogChamps event was announced — a chess tournament where popular streamers with average chess skills play against each other. The event was very successful and broke viewership records for chess. The second installment of the tournament followed a few months later with even higher viewer numbers.

After the Netflix hit series The Queen’s Gambit brought even more players to the game, Chess.com announced PogChamps 3. It is happening now from February 14th to 28th. The first two days already reached a record number of viewers making chess the most-watched game on Twitch for a short time.

PogChamps 3

Just like the rest of the world, professional chess has moved online during the pandemic. Tournaments like the Champions Chess Tour feature the best chess players in the world including the world champion Magnus Carlsen, Wesley So, and Hikaru Nakamura. The broadcasts of the events regularly reach 50k viewers or more.

However, for mere mortal chess players like you and me, it often isn’t clear why a position is good or why a particular move is played. While the broadcasts are well produced and the commentators explain the position, it still seems like voodoo some of the time.

PogChamps, on the other hand, features average players like you and me. At least when it comes to chess skill, bank accounts and fame are another story. All of the participants are well-known streamers, YouTubers, actors, or rappers, many of them are among the biggest on the platform, like MrBeast on YouTube, or Rubius, xQcOW, Pokimane, and Myth on Twitch.

Most of the participants only started to play chess recently, some only began practicing after their invitation to the event. xQcOW, who started the chess hype last year with his collaboration with Hikaru Nakamura, is the only player who participated in every PogChamps tournament.

The chess ratings of the participants range from around 500 to 1300, which is an average to below-average skill (the initial rating on chess.com is 800 or 1200 depending on experience). Because of this, most viewers have a similar rating and can easily understand what is happening on the board and you will often find good moves before the participants do. Slightly less skilled players means also it’s very likely to see mistakes like blundering a queen or hanging checkmate, which leads to memorable highlight clips.

In addition to chess games that are easier to follow, the broadcast is well-produced and features the biggest chess content creators like Hikaru Nakamura, Alexandra Botez, or Levy Rozman, who are not only very strong chess players but also experienced in explaining the game in an entertaining matter.

The prize pool for the event is $100.000 and Chess.com will match another $100.000 in community donations for charity. In fact, many of the participants have already pledged to donate their winnings to charity, so the event is not only very entertaining but also does some good in the world.

#1 Ranked Game on Twitch

On Monday evening, during the match between xQcOW and Rubius, the chess category on Twitch hit 370.000 peak viewers between their two channels and the official Chess.com broadcast. This made chess the most-watched game on Twitch during that time, which is pretty impressive for a 1500-year-old game. And this doesn’t even include the chess.com YouTube stream, which is at 410k views at the moment (not all of them were live views).

Chess will remain one of the biggest games on Twitch until the end of the event and possibly even break more viewership records in the championship bracket and the final of the tournament. However, even when no special events are happening, chess is regularly among the top 10 most-watched games on Twitch, which is great for the game and the sport.

When some of the biggest content creators on Twitch and YouTube come together to play chess, it’s no surprise that chess became the most-watched game on Twitch during the event.

Unlike professional chess players, the participants of PogChamps are only average at chess. This makes it a lot easier for the viewers to follow the games and creates memorable highlights when somebody blunders their queen in a hilarious fashion or hangs checkmate in one move.

Besides an entertaining event for the viewers, the event also collects money for charity and brings the game of chess to an ever broader audience.