New Delhi: When Koneru Humpy—the first Indian woman chess player—became the Grandmaster in 2002, little did she know that a premier league of the sport could exist in a cricket-crazy nation like India.
After kabaddi, kho-kho, hockey, badminton, tennis, and football, the game of boards and clocks is going to have its brand-new sporting league. The first edition of Global Chess League (GCL), a joint initiative by Tech Mahindra and International Chess Federation (FIDE), will take place in Dubai from 21 June to 2 July.
Metaverse of players’ virtual avatars including five-time world champions Magnus Carlsen and Viswanathan Anand, fantasy gaming and smart contracts for players — the GCL hopes to attract a new and younger audience, taking a cue from the massive popularity of board games during the pandemic.
“Playing football or cricket on a digital device is vastly different from being on the field. A good football player may not be a great PlayStation/FIFA player. That is not the case with chess,” said Jagdish Mitra, the chairperson of the league.
The chess league has acquired both television and streaming rights, and there will be active commentary in different languages. Indian stand-up comic Samay Raina will be one of the commentators for the league.
“The league will be streamed on Jio[Cinema] in India, broadcast on EuroSport in Europe, Fox Sports in Australia, MBC in the Middle East, and across different NBC channels. Overall, GCL would be carried on 200 broadcast channels around the world,” Mitra told ThePrint in a virtual interaction.
Also read: “It is exciting for me to do something new,” says Magnus Carlsen on joining Global Chess League
Why a chess league
After Indian Premier League (IPL)’s gigantic success in T20 cricket over the years, over half a dozen games have been repackaged and presented in a league format. Soon after chess, Indian Supercross Racing League (ISRL) would also begin in October at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium in New Delhi, followed by events in Mumbai, Pune, and Ahmedabad.
Are leagues the only way for a sport to flourish? Mostly, yes, and for several reasons.
“What a league does is that it brings certain structure and format. It also makes the sport attractive for the audience. It is a cycle. You have to invest in the beginning and if the spectators are hooked, there are no better means of entertainment than sport as you cannot predict what will happen next,” explained Mitra.
Humpy, who recently played a mini-match with Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the first torch relay for the Chess Olympiad, says “publicising” the sport is crucial. She admits that there are fewer women chess players and hopes that the league would encourage young women to take up chess.
As a player, the choice of venue makes no difference to her performance but as an Indian, she says that the sight of spectators would boost the sport’s popularity in the country and wishes for the league to be held in India in the future.
Harika Dronavalli, one of the two women Grandmasters of India, understands that chess can be complex to understand for kids, even adults, but she hopes that the league would nudge younger players to learn the fundamentals.
“Once you learn the basics, it is not that hard,” she said.
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Franchises going global
The league will feature six teams with six players each, comprising a world champion icon, two top-ranked female players, and an under-21 prodigy.
With six prodigies in the league, the game of chess is getting younger. Most of the them started off playing while their age was in single digits and attained the title of Grandmaster in their early teens.
As for the experts, the teams will comprise Grandmasters from all over the world—French Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Polish Jan Krzysztof Duda, Russian Ian Nepomniachtchi, Norwegian Magnus Carlsen, and Indian Vishwanathan Anand.
When a one-on-one match turns into a team event, nothing changes for the players. In fact, the youngest are raring to play with the best of the best.
“I am not intimidated at all. I have already played with most of them [icon players],” said 17-year-old Raunak Sidhwani, who would be teammates with the Russian Grandmaster, Nepomniachtchi.
The GCL will feature a mixed-team format. Each of the six franchises will participate in a double round-robin style, playing a total of 10 matches.
The six franchises will represent brands and regions across the world — U SPORTS (upGrad Mumba Masters), Insurekot Sports (Ganges Grandmasters), Punit Balan Group (Balan Alaskan Knights), Triveni Engineering & Industries Ltd (Triveni Continental Kings), Chingari App (Chingari Gulf Titans), and APL Apollo-led SG Sports (SG Alpine Warriors).
Mitra, who describes chess as the “original e-sport”, believes that the marriage between technology and chess could truly be the game-changer for the future of this sport.
(Edited by Ratan Priya)