If classical chess's future is dubious how can we make classical chess more interesting?

Classical chess will always be the gold standard for the highest playing ability of humans. There is really nothing "To Do" about it. The horrible attention span and the relentless addiction for instant gratification by most people of our generation will make them gravitate more toward online quick blitz and bullet chess. That's fine by me. We can all enjoy chess in all its forms. It's not supposed to be a serious endeavor for you to be able to enjoy it. It is not a new thing for anyone to find out that most people will gravitate toward the lesser effort, less time consuming versions of chess. The online gaming generation will forget all about chess as soon as the pandemic is over, and those who have loved the game for years will keep it alive as they always have. I personally believe that mastery on the classical time controls will remain the highest peak to climb and aspire to.  

Horrible attention spans?!?!?! Good lord. Two dudes staring at a board game for six hours is a ridiculous thing to expect ANY sane person to bear. Honestly, who would watch such a thing? You know what? In the past they didn't! They just read about a selection of games in the New York Times or in a monthly chess magazine.

Nothing will kill the new found popularity of chess than a bunch of wide-eyed newbies tuning into the WCC and watching nothing happen for six hours. This must change. Hour-long games  are still good, and more exciting as players actually play for the win and can't calculate out every variation to a draw. I'm all for halving the number of draws and players taking risks.

I agree so much I believe that if there are 6 hours of a chess  game then it should at least be interesting.

Chess becoming a popular spectator sport will never happen. As noted, few people will wish to watch an hours-long game. Tournaments and matches that do attract live or television audiences depend on "analysis rooms" where grandmasters explain what's going on and argue about who stands better and what will happen next to keep spectators interested. 

Speed chess or bullet played by grandmasters go by far too quickly for anyone watching to understand just what is happening. Who would be interested n seeing pieces fly around the board so quickly that the audience can't follow what's happening? Not something that will command a vast audience.

Those people who don't have the patience to play classical chess but seek excitement and instant gratification will probably lose interest in speed chess after a while and find some other video experience to titillate them.

You are attacking a straw man. Nobody said that the wcc should be speed chess, just that it shouldn’t last six hours. Two hours is borderline too much and the marginal improvement in play isn’t worth destroying the game’s popularity.

Did you listen to the analysis during the last wcc? It was stupid. After the umpteenth sveshnikov, they had nothing to talk about. They were just babbling incoherently about random stuff. It was like a bad comedy skit about how terrible chess was. That crap needs to go!

This. One million times THIS. That's my whole point. Chess is NOT going to become a spectator sport. Sorry to break it to the younger crowd, but the majority of the recently added viewers tuning in to twitch to watch bullet games are just there for the trash talk and possibly the pretty girls every once in a while. As soon as these kids understand that chess is not easy to play well and requires significantly more effort than call of duty, they'll move on to their next videogame. 

You are incorrect. Tens of thousands tune into twitch streams to watch chess. Botez makes a six figure income from people watching her play chess and Naka makes a lot more.

There were also thousands watching important tournaments online. Prize funds have increased because more sponsors are willing to pay for those viewers.

Rapid games are awesome to watch. You can play along and try to find what you would play, and the analysis isn’t boring and repetitive. It’s perfect.

Long format games are stupid dull online. Nothing happens and the analysis drags. Players play conservatively and most games are drawn. Frankly, it stinks, and everyone knows it. Even the recaps of the games on YouTube couldn’t make the drawfests fun. It was yuck.

The moment you shorten the format, you subtract the player's ability to use their full playing strength. There's a reason Kasparov can still jump in at the Saint Louis chess club and still play blitz with the top 10 of our current generation. But he knows it would be bad for him to do that in classical games. I am NOT willing to sacrifice chess at the altar of popularity. If you find the world championship too boring, maybe you should analyze it without an engine. It's loads more fun that way. I personally find a 5 hour long football game to be WAY more boring than chess, and yet plenty of people go nuts over football. Chess is chess. Play the version you like best, and let's leave the world class players battle it out at their full capacity. No need to water down the essence to appease the masses, when there's already versions of the game they can enjoy just fine as they stand. 

True about what you said my whole point was just I know that classical may not become spectator sport but how can we make classical chess into something that isn't just a drawfest?

same as with poker. Record the games, but only play back interesting parts or show the simulations.

 

You know, I don’t know what’s up with the fascination of players being able to calculate forever so as not to make any mistakes. It’s a bad goal.

The greatest, most memorable games in chess history are those where one player makes a tiny mistake and something beautiful arises.

Perfect play as a goal is dumb and boring and awful and drawn. Rapid games tend to produce much more interesting and beautiful games. Let’s encourage this.

I believe we are both talking about different things here. I'm in agreement that the casual crowd should enjoy twitch and play bullet, blitz and rapid. But that simply CANNOT become the model for top world class tournaments. Everything has its place and time. Why would we want to water down chess into a casual videogame for twitch streamers? Do you care about chess, or about social media popularity? Yes, sponsors pay big money to twitch streamers. That's why the Botez's are now streaming play-throughs of "Among us" and other videogames and posting stupid compilations of bloopers almost as much as chess. Because they are trying to keep their sponsors happy. Their marketing advisors are pushing for it. Same reason why Naka is uploading dozens of non-chess related "reaction" and conversation videos with streamers that do nothing for chess. That's what happens when you become beholden to social media sponsors. Soon it will be: "viewers are getting bored and moving on to the next videogame stream, let's add squares to the board and maybe a second queen at the start of each game. That'll keep the viewers interested!". I'm not joking. Things get stretched to ridiculous degrees once money is the main objective through social media marketing. I would hate to see the day when traditional chess institutions depend on the whims of the twitch audience. That's the direction I see some people very eager to take. 

Chess is a game. If people do not like it, they do not play it. 

That make sense I agree that we shouldn't water down chess to much to appeal to people But my point is that even people who these matches more appeal to is starting to get bored with so many draws and theoretical opening lines that end the game before it starts.

I'm talking more about popularity for chess tournaments that are in longer time formats.

Viewers = sponsors. Sponsors = money. Money = players. Players = prestige.

Classic chess is on a collision course with itself. Something is important because people think it’s important. Unless they shorten the time formats and appeal to viewers, classic chess will fade into irrelevance. I understand that Indy car racing was once very popular, but now nobody cares. Why? It’s boring. Remember baseball? Yeah, people used to care. Now a bad game between teams with losing records in football draws better numbers than the world serie.

As I said before, hour-long games don’t produce bad chess, just slightly less perfect chess that’s infinitely more interesting. It’s always the purists who kill a sport.

As someone else already said it: Why does classical need to be more popular? To make an analogy with music, there's plenty of popular music made for the masses. And then, there are music genres that really only appeals to other musicians and those dedicated people that truly appreciate genius and complexity. You know, the type of music that some people complain about almost putting them to sleep! That's what classical represents. Most people don't appreciate the beauty of the work that goes into it, but those who do find it mesmerizing. It does not have to be popular or understood by most. But it is the top level in chess. Just enjoy the game in all its forms, and let all of its forms exist in peace. 

Will fade?

Professional Bughouse Chess960

But what is the number one advice if you play bullet and are still rated 800?

Play slower games and think out the moves. The only reason why people like So and Duda can attract people like hillbilly rednecks at a tractor pull is that they already went through the hours of classical chess training.

 

50 years from now, speed chess events will be forgotten. The important games will still be the ones where people took time and thought out the right moves, not the time Naroditsky lost because he was flying and his connection went.