The FIDE 2024 World Chess Championship has been the most accessible worlds ever. There are live streams popping off across the internet with chess streamers running analysis, live commentary and engine calculations. It’s a phenomenon that has seen chess spread online like few other sports. Hastened by the worldwide pandemic-enforced lockdowns and hit show The Queen’s Gambit, chess is online all the time now. Before all of that happened, though, Eric Rosen was there, back in 2017.
One of the first to stream chess online with regularity, Rosen is an International Master who took the plunge into streaming chess just because he wasn’t sure what to do after graduating. At first, it was just a passion project. He was only doing it for his own enjoyment and to make some money to support himself. A few weeks from now, he’ll take it to the next level: playing at the FIDE World Rapid and Blitz Championships.
Usually players of his rating (in the 2300s) aren’t eligible to sign up, but he has received a wildcard and will be among the lowest seeds in the competition, that will also include Magnus Carlsen, Fabiano Caruana, Hikaru Nakamura, and the who’s who of the chess world.
Rosen intends to take it very seriously. He’s not going there just to make up the numbers, and some content on the side. However, he’s got a not-so-little pitstop along the way. He arrived in Singapore in time for Game 5 of the world championship and intends to be here until the last day of Ding Liren vs Gukesh Dommaraju. He has been delivering masterclasses, being on FIDE’s official channels, and meeting with scores of fans who lined up by the dozen just to get some memorabilia signed by Rosen. He has been a massive crowd-puller in the fanzones.
So in between all this, how does he prepare for potentially the biggest tournament he will play in? It helps that he lives in chess central in the US, with his home in St. Louis surrounded by a number of Grandmasters in a close radius.
“There isn’t much time for such serious study. I live in St Louis, Fabiano is a neighbor of mine so probably order pizza and invite some players and play blitz,” Rosen told ESPN.
He does play Titled Tuesdays, which is Chess.com’s weekly 11-round Swiss tournament for titled players, happening twice each Tuesday. Rosen describes that as a mini world rapid and blitz. In person and in a world championship event though, he acknowledges that it’s much different. However, he will miss two Titled Tuesdays through his time in Singapore, just because the time difference is not conducive to playing either at midnight or at 6 AM in the city-state, particularly with all the other assignments on his hands in Singapore.
Of course, he will be creating content through the world rapid and blitz championship too. That isn’t new to the chess world, though. Hikaru Nakamura is one of the best players in the world, and he streamed after every single game he played even at the Candidates Tournament.
Did Rosen think when he started, the streaming world would become so big that even the top players in the world would take to it? Remember, when he started in 2017, it was a pretty small community. He says there would be only one or two channels on Twitch streaming chess, but it was good timing for him to build an audience before the online boom happened during the pandemic. Rosen calls a golden era for new people flowing into the game.
That golden era gradually began to justify his choice of streaming chess content when he was still coaching. “Over time, I was coaching less and doing more content. So content was more worth my time in not only reaching more people but more lucrative too. It was just gradual and I’m super grateful,” he said.
It is a rise that has seen even Carlsen ditch his contempt for classical chess and get on YouTube to analyse every game, it’s a world that no one wants to miss, not even arguably the greatest chess player of all time.
“I have played him only once over the board. It was a simul at the Sinquefield Cup. He crushed me while also crashing five other people. I want revenge,” he chuckled.
Carlsen is of course one of those that Rosen could face in New York later this month. He has already thought about the possibility of that match happening. He would have to win his first round and hope that Carlsen draws, and then there would be a high probability of him facing Carlsen.
Rosen, though, just wants to tick off a bucketlist item of playing any player rated over 2750. Whether that’s Carlsen or his neighbour Caruana, he would be living a dream in a city known to make dreams come true.
