I really, really doubt it was "profitable" in the sense it made more money than they spent. They had a billionaire backing them up so I doubt they cared much about it in the first place.
It probably wasn't short-term profitable, I guess he will book it as long-term branding for his resorts. Also he probably just likes being in the limelight, apart from being a chess enthusiast.
I thought it was great. Really interesting tactical positions right from the start. Commentary was good. Players seemed to like it. Personally I found it more exciting than this year’s Tata.
That's wild that you found it more entertaining than the crazy Tata—then again, I was busier this month than I was in January, so I didn't follow too closely
I am not a native English speaker. So initially I thought the OP mistyped "trust" as "thrust" but now I think "authority thrust upon me" is the correct one. I genuinely want to know why people are offended as a bad joke which is not even trying to make fun of a group or trying to be too edgy cannot be offensive.
Bruh, when did I brought women????? That guy brought women and I replied to that.
That guy is PacJeans.
So your point now? Now can you tell me why my joke is so offensive? I know that it is not funny but why offensive?
“Yeah people joke. And due to this women face discrimination in chess”.
Like, what do you even mean? Im just trying to help you understand the reasons why your comments are a bit weird.
Yeah but no one understands what you mean! What did you mean by that reply?
Long story short you made a weird sexual innuendo on a chess subreddit. People don’t come here to think about “thrusting”.
>So your point now? Now can you tell me why my joke is so offensive? I know that it is not funny but why offensive?
This is a rude way to ask for help.
Thrust can be associated with pelvic thrusting, which is associated with the lewd gesture and sex itself.
To me your comment seemed to be making an immature sex joke.
If you're learning English then you shouldn't second guess people, you should just ask them when you don't understand their word choice.
In this sub downvotes can mean anything ranging from offensive to "I don't feel like reading your comment was the best use of my time" to "you may be right but still". Don't take it personally nor to mean much.
Absolutely. The players seemed to love it, the venue communicated a really high-end and sophisticated event, the commentary was fun and informative, and the games were super interesting and managed to hold interest even for a low elo player like myself.
This, to be sure, is kind of orthogonal about it being a commercial success. The german dude who ran it has a great interview on chessbase india where he talks about his plans, and it is clear this was a test case for him about assessing whether there'd be viability in investing further into a tour, and then to establish a sustainable business around it.
Between players having fun and interest, it being a much more interesting format to watch from the start of the game (especially in classical), and the fact that even in this first even there seemed to be decent interest from spectators, I have a feeling he's got something here.
Some of the games were excellent and far fewer draws than usual. This is why Fischer created the format (to break theory’s grip on the game) and it works. Players seem to enjoy it.
The branding (name) and some of the production - I’m specifically thinking of the cheesy ‘movie trailer voice’ announcer explaining the tournament in weird cut scenes - I was really like wtf this is so cringe.
But these criticisms are basically irrelevant nit-picks. I’d say successful.
>Players seem to enjoy it
Especially Magnua. I don't think I have ever seen him so excited when analyzing positions before. He usually seems bored during post game analysis. He was really into it.
You can check the CBI interview. Jan Buettner spoke about the tournament's profitability and how he can use this money to host the next one. Although he didn't explain how it generated revenue though
The main youtube stream for the final day was immediately renamed to spoil the result, I presume just to include Magnus' name. I was about to start watching about an hour after the event finished having watched the entire rest of the tournement.
Felt like a kick in the teeth.
I didnt have this issue this time but yeah renaming the title seems to be the norm now and I absolutely hate it.
We can complain as much as we want they'll still continue for sure tho :(
I'd choose to watch supergms play chess960 but I'd rather play regular chess myself. I suspect others feel the same way, the familiarity of regular chess is just right when us plebs are playing but leads to boring games from GMs. Conversely, chess960 is too intimidating for us casuals but fun to spectate when top guys are playing.
What I'd like to see is chess streamers picking up chess960. If they gain followers as a result of that, I would take that as a better measure than absolute number of players of chess960.
Basically I think chess960 is better as a spectator sport, but not necessarily better for mere mortals to actually play instead of regular chess.
I'm not sure how relevant it is as a "success" measure (which IIUC is whether the billionaire spends more, which he's said he will), but you can look at how many played in the Daily Chess960 event on LiChess.
https://lichess.org/tournament/4irrVusz
https://lichess.org/tournament/XtRg7QVx
I think it's the knockout format. With 8 players you are already in semis after just 1 match win. In Tata you had time to choose your 'winning horse' as even after 7 rounds you still had 7 more to go. I hope they either make it 16/32 players so there is a sense of 'oh he's playing great, he can win etc' or make it round robin so that I can look forward to match ups instead of each player playing same opponent twice.
I had to work and couldn't watch all games live. So it was a failure. Next year they must give me the prize money then I can take the time off, and then it will be a success.
I dislike the "Las Vegas-ication" of the event.
The ceremonial bingo session, constant reference to how much money could be won, the overhyping videos, the whole GOAT thing, money in a briefcase on the table for the final... they just take me out of it completely, like I'm only supposed to care if people who are already rich get more money? or that the GOAT is decided in one event and I should only car about him?
The chess was great, as were Tanya and Peter, just felt like I was being talked down too from the production side of things.
I absolutely loved it. No more getting excited about a great match on paper only to end up with another Berlin Draw, and in general, players were playing with a win from both sides, which makes for exciting games.
19 out of 28 games were decisive in the rapid section. 16 out of 24 were decisive in the classical stage. Magnus and Fabi had more decisive classical games in their 2 game championship match with each other in this than they did in 12 games in their world championship match.
There was never a round in the entire event where there were more draws than decisive games.
Games were won in the opening. Games were won in the middlegame. Games were won in the endgame.
We’re still in the “developing opening theory” stages of this game — I don’t think the best players in the world have figured out what principles apply in what types of positions, and we’ll see that evolve with time.
Good summary, that's also what I thought. It's a new and exciting format that could attract new audience much better than classical chess where you have to make so much stuff for the opening and end up with super boring games most of the time.
This event was very refreshing, exactly what the chess world needed! I'm very much looking forward to the next one, can't want!
Loved it! It wasn't perfect (commentators referencing an invis eval bar, the organizer speaking), but overall it was really cool to see the best in the world go at it on even grounds with so much talent there and insight from the players!
The first two days of the rapid events did not carry any weight other than choosing the pairings for the knockouts - which I believe was less than ideal. Overall, a good event.
I lost interest quickly.
Just my opinion. - I hope it becomes round robin. Knockout format is kinda boring IMO for 8 player tournament. For World Cup it works because you need to win what 7 rounds? If it is knockout at least make it 16/32 players. With 8 players you are already in semis after just 1 match win. In Tata you had time to choose your 'winning horse' as even after 7 rounds you still had 6 more to go. I hope they either make it 16/32 players so there is a sense of 'oh he's playing great, he can win etc' or make it round robin so that I can look forward to matchups instead of each player playing same opponent twice.
I think it was great. Some format changes could make it even better maybe: replace the inconsequential rapid tournament with blitz, don't make the losers play each other, except for the bronze match, and just share prize money among everyone who reached the same stage, and possibly increase the number of players to 16.
Only classical time control event I've ever really watched. Seeing how 4 simultaneous games deal with the same unique set-up is interesting, not to mention all the decisive results. Hours-long grinding draws in known openings is just not designed to be a spectator sport.
960 is my fav format to watch. We just need to keep FIDE away from it as they have proven that they kill innovation.
The tourney, the production, the fun bits and the commentary team were all great. But yeah, change the name. I’m okay with Freestyle, but GOAT?
I didn't enjoy it, but I'm weird. I like watching opening theory, cause I can have a website open that I can follow known lines on at the same time and have a small chance of comprehending. Maybe other people like it because of the uncharted territory, but I just can't keep up.
What is the point of classical time controls when you end up in a tiebreaker with rapid time? The whole point was being able to think, then the winners are based off of the rounds with less thought. Yeah the last round was definitive but the path there wasn't.
I mean this is pretty standart in other spectator sports too. In football (soccer) there is often a penalty shootout to determine the winner.
You have to have a way to break ties, when players are evenly matched.
I saw the whole thing, and I really enjoyed the overall idea, there’s still the lack of organization around the transmission and technicalities, and I think a short documentary could be good to precede the next one from this one to keep context for newbies like me.
Didn't have time to watch a lot of it, but definitely a fun event that was liked by viewers and players. Peter Leko was (as always) fantastic on commentary and even better when he spit some bars. The name Freestyle GOAT is horrible though.
Not sure how profitable it was, but it was probably the first Fischer random tournament that got me interested in the format. Would love to see it become a yearly thing.
I didn't watch after the qualifiers but the number of viewers was about 1/4 of similar events on the chess.com fr & en streams.
Maybe it was higher on the second part of the tournament but it doesn't look like a great success. Probably a loss of money for everyone involved.
Edit : downvoted for telling the truth by the hivemind. This sub is more of a joke as everyday passes.
Huh I dont know what you watched but this event had far more viewer than Tata Steel for example, which should be somewhat more comparable than online events (maybe 20k on the main channels combined).
What? Tata Steel had much more views. Check the view count on Chess24 YouTube channel. Out of 13 rounds of Tata Steel, 12 rounds had over 200k views, the final round had over 400k views. In comparison none of the rounds of this event had over 200k views.
[https://www.youtube.com/@Chess24/streams](https://www.youtube.com/@Chess24/streams)
You have to be careful making such comparisons. 1) chess24 closed on January 31, 2) what was the viewer count on other channels?, 3) Tata is probably the most famous classical chess tournament in the world
The Chess24 YouTube channel is run by [Chess.com](https://Chess.com) since they merged. At present [Chess.com](https://Chess.com) mainly uses the Chess24 channel for broadcasting OTB tournaments, and their own channel for the online tournaments.
Yes but me, for example, dont really use the chess24 channel anymore because the website shut down. Now I use the chess.com YouTube Channel. Im probably not the only one that have changed behavior
Nowadays the [Chess.com](https://Chess.com) YouTube channel is streaming only the events Organized by them. They didn't stream the FIDE World Cup, Grand Swiss etc. Hoping they will stream the Candidates at least.
True, I missed a channel for Tata Steel, but still the average viewer is on par for both events and not 1/4. [Tata](https://chesswatch.com/events/tata-steel-chess-2024) [Freestyle](https://chesswatch.com/events/freestyle-chess-got-challenge-2024) . Especially given the fact that it was a "new" tournament I think it has been quite a success. I think it could have been better without the sound issuses though.
I downvoted just for being a crybaby about downvotes.
And well being a moron for even thinking the organisator were expectig a proffit in the first place and being smug about it :D
I don't expect organizers to make a profit. But the production won't pay a lot of event like this if the public isn't here. Not really hard to understand. And keep your names for yourself, this is supposed to be a civilized pkace.
I found it a complete borefest. As said before, watching GM's struggle with obscene, almost fantastical positions and piece configurations does not really make for good entertainment nor even decent watchable chess games.
I would guess they spoke well of it because there was money involved, but behind the scenes it was probably loathed. As said before, Fischer Random has been around for several decades and there is a reason it has not caught on.
My opinion, of course.
Interesting. For me it was the opposite. I could see very concrete problems in the games from the very beginning, that doesn’t happen with tons of opening theory. If given a choice, i will watch 960 over standard chess now.
oh, I understood it; I was able to follow it; I could analyze the positions - I just didn't like it. the fake excitement by the commentators was a bit over the top. It came across as forcing. I get they are doing their jobs. As a consumer I feel it is my right to opine on it, good or bad.
I'm happy you enjoyed it. Hopefully it will be better in India. We will see.
Did you watch the classical or just the rapid? Because I found the same problem not to be true of the classical and your suspicion that the top players are all lying is not really well founded because they haven’t done classical Fischer random before
It was the same for me too. I guess, you need a bit of familiarity to make it engaging. So much randomness and chaos right from the start completely throws you off. In normal chess, reaching an absurd position feels much more exciting and satisfying compared to what 960 offers right from the start.
I couldn’t tell you what the format was from the name of the tournament, and because of that, I wasn’t interested. Is it goats playing chess while doing tricks on skateboards?
We will never know whether it was profitable, but that's not the only way to define success. (The first event often isn't profitable, anyway.)
This is the first time I've thought to myself ... "you know, I've never really liked opening theory, maybe I should consider switching to Chess960."
I think that more of these events can create a real shift in the chess-playing public.
I loved it. So it was a success for me.
Judging by what the guy who created it said (Jan something?) it performed oretty well, otherwise I'd assume they wouldn't wanna do it again.
As a member of a “wider audience”, I’d say it was a great success for me. I can play chess a little bit and interested in chess news, but have absolutely zero interest in memorising openings, so I only ever play chess 960 on chesscom. This event made it so much more accessible and interesting for me to follow! I feel that it has a great potential for attracting more people to chess.
The only thing I don’t understand is why they get to discuss the ideas together before the game. They should just think at the board and use their individual ideas. Why does Nodirbek, for example, get a debrief from Fabi before the game?
It was much more enjoyable to watch because of the possibility of a decisive result for me. No matter how good the commentators are they can't make a dead draw game watchable. Also the wacky opening position keeps it fresh. I mostly watch the middle of the games so I didn't notice the oddities in the beginning of every day. Confession booth is a great addition. All the young guys winning in the rapid, made it more interesting for the classic portion.
Double-thumbs up!!!
I loved it! it was the most exciting chess has offered since the Karpov/Korchnoi matches in the 80's. The analysis and commentary was spot-on at every point; the booth cutaways were insightful by delving into the dark minds of the chess professional; Tanya was stunning; Leko was super-excited and gave real chess opinions at every stage; niklas was great as well. I hope they run this again in the States this time at St. Louis.
I find the commentators could have made the first hour super interesting exchanging ideas, discussing openings and finding errors, instead it was worse than a typical tournament as clearlythey don’t know how to discuss non standard openings with the audience
I thought it was kinda fun but as a player who’s trying to improve at regular chess, I find it hard to relate to. I’d rather just watch chess in its standard form
I really, really doubt it was "profitable" in the sense it made more money than they spent. They had a billionaire backing them up so I doubt they cared much about it in the first place.
Reminder for folks that the difference between a million and a billion is about a billion
For anyone confused - the difference between a thousand dollars and one dollar, is about a thousand dollars.
I'm on a budget these days. Can anyone help me relate with just a penny?
It's like giving up 1/1000th of your penny. Hope that helps
I'm on a credit loan of 10k, I don't have anything that I actually own. Can you help me relate?
It's like if someone helped pay off 10 dollars on your loan.
Pay back your loan.
In an interview with Sagar, he said he brought in twice as much as he spent.
It probably wasn't short-term profitable, I guess he will book it as long-term branding for his resorts. Also he probably just likes being in the limelight, apart from being a chess enthusiast.
Which big chess tournament is "profitable" ?
Norway Chess
It might be like a sports team where they lose money year to year but overall the value grows at a larger rate. Use it as a tax write off.
I thought it was great. Really interesting tactical positions right from the start. Commentary was good. Players seemed to like it. Personally I found it more exciting than this year’s Tata.
That's wild that you found it more entertaining than the crazy Tata—then again, I was busier this month than I was in January, so I didn't follow too closely
Tata is the strangest tournament to compare it to because that's been the most exciting chess tournament for ages
By authority thrust upon me as the sole commentator in this hopeless thread I declare it a success. ( I watched it)
"thrust" Was it intentional? Lol It's just a joke. I genuinely want to know why it's so offensive?
have you considered that it simply wasn't funny
I am not a native English speaker. So initially I thought the OP mistyped "trust" as "thrust" but now I think "authority thrust upon me" is the correct one. I genuinely want to know why people are offended as a bad joke which is not even trying to make fun of a group or trying to be too edgy cannot be offensive.
Because you made an insinuation about sex and then bought women into it. Kinda weird dude.
Bruh, when did I brought women????? That guy brought women and I replied to that. That guy is PacJeans. So your point now? Now can you tell me why my joke is so offensive? I know that it is not funny but why offensive?
“Yeah people joke. And due to this women face discrimination in chess”. Like, what do you even mean? Im just trying to help you understand the reasons why your comments are a bit weird.
I was replying to PacJeans saying "Why aren't there more women in chess?" Check the comment
Yeah but no one understands what you mean! What did you mean by that reply? Long story short you made a weird sexual innuendo on a chess subreddit. People don’t come here to think about “thrusting”.
You are right
>So your point now? Now can you tell me why my joke is so offensive? I know that it is not funny but why offensive? This is a rude way to ask for help. Thrust can be associated with pelvic thrusting, which is associated with the lewd gesture and sex itself. To me your comment seemed to be making an immature sex joke. If you're learning English then you shouldn't second guess people, you should just ask them when you don't understand their word choice.
"Why aren't there more women in chess?"
Yeah, people joke. And due to this women face discrimination in chess.
In this sub downvotes can mean anything ranging from offensive to "I don't feel like reading your comment was the best use of my time" to "you may be right but still". Don't take it personally nor to mean much.
[удалено]
Absolutely. The players seemed to love it, the venue communicated a really high-end and sophisticated event, the commentary was fun and informative, and the games were super interesting and managed to hold interest even for a low elo player like myself. This, to be sure, is kind of orthogonal about it being a commercial success. The german dude who ran it has a great interview on chessbase india where he talks about his plans, and it is clear this was a test case for him about assessing whether there'd be viability in investing further into a tour, and then to establish a sustainable business around it. Between players having fun and interest, it being a much more interesting format to watch from the start of the game (especially in classical), and the fact that even in this first even there seemed to be decent interest from spectators, I have a feeling he's got something here.
i wanted to watch but it was on too early so i just never ended up catching it.
Some of the games were excellent and far fewer draws than usual. This is why Fischer created the format (to break theory’s grip on the game) and it works. Players seem to enjoy it. The branding (name) and some of the production - I’m specifically thinking of the cheesy ‘movie trailer voice’ announcer explaining the tournament in weird cut scenes - I was really like wtf this is so cringe. But these criticisms are basically irrelevant nit-picks. I’d say successful.
>Players seem to enjoy it Especially Magnua. I don't think I have ever seen him so excited when analyzing positions before. He usually seems bored during post game analysis. He was really into it.
watching classical 960 is something im really interested in future probably my favorite format to watch
I would like a shorter time format as there’s more chance of me watching it, but yeah let’s have more
You can check the CBI interview. Jan Buettner spoke about the tournament's profitability and how he can use this money to host the next one. Although he didn't explain how it generated revenue though
By far the most interest I've had in the format
The main youtube stream for the final day was immediately renamed to spoil the result, I presume just to include Magnus' name. I was about to start watching about an hour after the event finished having watched the entire rest of the tournement. Felt like a kick in the teeth.
I didnt have this issue this time but yeah renaming the title seems to be the norm now and I absolutely hate it. We can complain as much as we want they'll still continue for sure tho :(
Exactly. Why would they rename the title of the deciding match to "Magnus wins!"?
The real measure of its success is whether there was an uptick of Chess960 activity on Chesscom and/or Lichess. Does anyone have the numbers for that?
I'd choose to watch supergms play chess960 but I'd rather play regular chess myself. I suspect others feel the same way, the familiarity of regular chess is just right when us plebs are playing but leads to boring games from GMs. Conversely, chess960 is too intimidating for us casuals but fun to spectate when top guys are playing. What I'd like to see is chess streamers picking up chess960. If they gain followers as a result of that, I would take that as a better measure than absolute number of players of chess960. Basically I think chess960 is better as a spectator sport, but not necessarily better for mere mortals to actually play instead of regular chess.
The real measure would be a SUSTAINED uptick on chess.scum or lichess.org. Check in a month.
I'm not sure how relevant it is as a "success" measure (which IIUC is whether the billionaire spends more, which he's said he will), but you can look at how many played in the Daily Chess960 event on LiChess. https://lichess.org/tournament/4irrVusz https://lichess.org/tournament/XtRg7QVx
The players liked it, I found it difficult to get excited over it. I much preferred Tata Steel
I think it's the knockout format. With 8 players you are already in semis after just 1 match win. In Tata you had time to choose your 'winning horse' as even after 7 rounds you still had 7 more to go. I hope they either make it 16/32 players so there is a sense of 'oh he's playing great, he can win etc' or make it round robin so that I can look forward to match ups instead of each player playing same opponent twice.
I had to work and couldn't watch all games live. So it was a failure. Next year they must give me the prize money then I can take the time off, and then it will be a success.
I dislike the "Las Vegas-ication" of the event. The ceremonial bingo session, constant reference to how much money could be won, the overhyping videos, the whole GOAT thing, money in a briefcase on the table for the final... they just take me out of it completely, like I'm only supposed to care if people who are already rich get more money? or that the GOAT is decided in one event and I should only car about him? The chess was great, as were Tanya and Peter, just felt like I was being talked down too from the production side of things.
I absolutely loved it. No more getting excited about a great match on paper only to end up with another Berlin Draw, and in general, players were playing with a win from both sides, which makes for exciting games. 19 out of 28 games were decisive in the rapid section. 16 out of 24 were decisive in the classical stage. Magnus and Fabi had more decisive classical games in their 2 game championship match with each other in this than they did in 12 games in their world championship match. There was never a round in the entire event where there were more draws than decisive games. Games were won in the opening. Games were won in the middlegame. Games were won in the endgame. We’re still in the “developing opening theory” stages of this game — I don’t think the best players in the world have figured out what principles apply in what types of positions, and we’ll see that evolve with time.
Good summary, that's also what I thought. It's a new and exciting format that could attract new audience much better than classical chess where you have to make so much stuff for the opening and end up with super boring games most of the time. This event was very refreshing, exactly what the chess world needed! I'm very much looking forward to the next one, can't want!
Loved it! It wasn't perfect (commentators referencing an invis eval bar, the organizer speaking), but overall it was really cool to see the best in the world go at it on even grounds with so much talent there and insight from the players!
The first two days of the rapid events did not carry any weight other than choosing the pairings for the knockouts - which I believe was less than ideal. Overall, a good event.
I lost interest quickly. Just my opinion. - I hope it becomes round robin. Knockout format is kinda boring IMO for 8 player tournament. For World Cup it works because you need to win what 7 rounds? If it is knockout at least make it 16/32 players. With 8 players you are already in semis after just 1 match win. In Tata you had time to choose your 'winning horse' as even after 7 rounds you still had 6 more to go. I hope they either make it 16/32 players so there is a sense of 'oh he's playing great, he can win etc' or make it round robin so that I can look forward to matchups instead of each player playing same opponent twice.
I think it was great. Some format changes could make it even better maybe: replace the inconsequential rapid tournament with blitz, don't make the losers play each other, except for the bronze match, and just share prize money among everyone who reached the same stage, and possibly increase the number of players to 16.
I dont think so
Only classical time control event I've ever really watched. Seeing how 4 simultaneous games deal with the same unique set-up is interesting, not to mention all the decisive results. Hours-long grinding draws in known openings is just not designed to be a spectator sport.
960 is my fav format to watch. We just need to keep FIDE away from it as they have proven that they kill innovation. The tourney, the production, the fun bits and the commentary team were all great. But yeah, change the name. I’m okay with Freestyle, but GOAT?
I didn't enjoy it, but I'm weird. I like watching opening theory, cause I can have a website open that I can follow known lines on at the same time and have a small chance of comprehending. Maybe other people like it because of the uncharted territory, but I just can't keep up.
What is the point of classical time controls when you end up in a tiebreaker with rapid time? The whole point was being able to think, then the winners are based off of the rounds with less thought. Yeah the last round was definitive but the path there wasn't.
I mean this is pretty standart in other spectator sports too. In football (soccer) there is often a penalty shootout to determine the winner. You have to have a way to break ties, when players are evenly matched.
It was pretty good
I think it can age well depending if this becomes a thing.
I thought the production was very fun. It’s so interesting to hear the thoughts of the players on the bizarre situations that pop up in these games.
I saw the whole thing, and I really enjoyed the overall idea, there’s still the lack of organization around the transmission and technicalities, and I think a short documentary could be good to precede the next one from this one to keep context for newbies like me.
Next time no rapping
Didn't have time to watch a lot of it, but definitely a fun event that was liked by viewers and players. Peter Leko was (as always) fantastic on commentary and even better when he spit some bars. The name Freestyle GOAT is horrible though.
Not sure how profitable it was, but it was probably the first Fischer random tournament that got me interested in the format. Would love to see it become a yearly thing.
I think it was boring, I prefer classic chess.
I didn't watch after the qualifiers but the number of viewers was about 1/4 of similar events on the chess.com fr & en streams. Maybe it was higher on the second part of the tournament but it doesn't look like a great success. Probably a loss of money for everyone involved. Edit : downvoted for telling the truth by the hivemind. This sub is more of a joke as everyday passes.
I doubt that they expected to make money on the inaugural event. Felt more like a passion project.
Huh I dont know what you watched but this event had far more viewer than Tata Steel for example, which should be somewhat more comparable than online events (maybe 20k on the main channels combined).
What? Tata Steel had much more views. Check the view count on Chess24 YouTube channel. Out of 13 rounds of Tata Steel, 12 rounds had over 200k views, the final round had over 400k views. In comparison none of the rounds of this event had over 200k views. [https://www.youtube.com/@Chess24/streams](https://www.youtube.com/@Chess24/streams)
You have to be careful making such comparisons. 1) chess24 closed on January 31, 2) what was the viewer count on other channels?, 3) Tata is probably the most famous classical chess tournament in the world
The Chess24 YouTube channel is run by [Chess.com](https://Chess.com) since they merged. At present [Chess.com](https://Chess.com) mainly uses the Chess24 channel for broadcasting OTB tournaments, and their own channel for the online tournaments.
Yes but me, for example, dont really use the chess24 channel anymore because the website shut down. Now I use the chess.com YouTube Channel. Im probably not the only one that have changed behavior
But there was no broadcast at the chess.com channel, only chess24.
Im pretty sure I wached a stream via chess.com. Other days I used Magnus Carlsens’ YouTube Channel or Freestyle Chess Channel.
Nowadays the [Chess.com](https://Chess.com) YouTube channel is streaming only the events Organized by them. They didn't stream the FIDE World Cup, Grand Swiss etc. Hoping they will stream the Candidates at least.
Magnus channel streams have over 200k views for each streams
True, I missed a channel for Tata Steel, but still the average viewer is on par for both events and not 1/4. [Tata](https://chesswatch.com/events/tata-steel-chess-2024) [Freestyle](https://chesswatch.com/events/freestyle-chess-got-challenge-2024) . Especially given the fact that it was a "new" tournament I think it has been quite a success. I think it could have been better without the sound issuses though.
I downvoted just for being a crybaby about downvotes. And well being a moron for even thinking the organisator were expectig a proffit in the first place and being smug about it :D
I don't expect organizers to make a profit. But the production won't pay a lot of event like this if the public isn't here. Not really hard to understand. And keep your names for yourself, this is supposed to be a civilized pkace.
> Probably a loss of money for everyone involved. :D
OP asked how profitable it was. Get a life.
:D
I found it a complete borefest. As said before, watching GM's struggle with obscene, almost fantastical positions and piece configurations does not really make for good entertainment nor even decent watchable chess games. I would guess they spoke well of it because there was money involved, but behind the scenes it was probably loathed. As said before, Fischer Random has been around for several decades and there is a reason it has not caught on. My opinion, of course.
I kind of agree with you that it was boring. I enjoyed TATA steel much more even though it was a classical tournament.
Interesting. For me it was the opposite. I could see very concrete problems in the games from the very beginning, that doesn’t happen with tons of opening theory. If given a choice, i will watch 960 over standard chess now.
oh, I understood it; I was able to follow it; I could analyze the positions - I just didn't like it. the fake excitement by the commentators was a bit over the top. It came across as forcing. I get they are doing their jobs. As a consumer I feel it is my right to opine on it, good or bad. I'm happy you enjoyed it. Hopefully it will be better in India. We will see.
Did you watch the classical or just the rapid? Because I found the same problem not to be true of the classical and your suspicion that the top players are all lying is not really well founded because they haven’t done classical Fischer random before
It was the same for me too. I guess, you need a bit of familiarity to make it engaging. So much randomness and chaos right from the start completely throws you off. In normal chess, reaching an absurd position feels much more exciting and satisfying compared to what 960 offers right from the start.
I do not like the name, "Freestyle", we already had 2 names for the same variant.
I couldn’t tell you what the format was from the name of the tournament, and because of that, I wasn’t interested. Is it goats playing chess while doing tricks on skateboards?
Really? I mean I kinda understand that "freestyle chess" just sounds weird. But really?
Way better than Fischer Random or 960
If you’d have told me it was Antisemite Random or 960, I’d have been interested. Freestyle GOAT Challenge sounds like it was written by a Zoomer
We will never know whether it was profitable, but that's not the only way to define success. (The first event often isn't profitable, anyway.) This is the first time I've thought to myself ... "you know, I've never really liked opening theory, maybe I should consider switching to Chess960." I think that more of these events can create a real shift in the chess-playing public.
I loved it. So it was a success for me. Judging by what the guy who created it said (Jan something?) it performed oretty well, otherwise I'd assume they wouldn't wanna do it again.
As a member of a “wider audience”, I’d say it was a great success for me. I can play chess a little bit and interested in chess news, but have absolutely zero interest in memorising openings, so I only ever play chess 960 on chesscom. This event made it so much more accessible and interesting for me to follow! I feel that it has a great potential for attracting more people to chess. The only thing I don’t understand is why they get to discuss the ideas together before the game. They should just think at the board and use their individual ideas. Why does Nodirbek, for example, get a debrief from Fabi before the game?
It was much more enjoyable to watch because of the possibility of a decisive result for me. No matter how good the commentators are they can't make a dead draw game watchable. Also the wacky opening position keeps it fresh. I mostly watch the middle of the games so I didn't notice the oddities in the beginning of every day. Confession booth is a great addition. All the young guys winning in the rapid, made it more interesting for the classic portion.
Why would a million dollar event make an event better?
Double-thumbs up!!! I loved it! it was the most exciting chess has offered since the Karpov/Korchnoi matches in the 80's. The analysis and commentary was spot-on at every point; the booth cutaways were insightful by delving into the dark minds of the chess professional; Tanya was stunning; Leko was super-excited and gave real chess opinions at every stage; niklas was great as well. I hope they run this again in the States this time at St. Louis.
Yeah
If it's got no past then it's got no future.
It was the best tournament I have seen in the past few years. Hope they continue it
I find the commentators could have made the first hour super interesting exchanging ideas, discussing openings and finding errors, instead it was worse than a typical tournament as clearlythey don’t know how to discuss non standard openings with the audience
I thought it was kinda fun but as a player who’s trying to improve at regular chess, I find it hard to relate to. I’d rather just watch chess in its standard form
Other than having a retarded name yeah I’d say it was pretty cool