Chess should be played over the board at the Esports World Cup

The chess category at the Esports World Cup has a $1.5 million USD prize pool.

That is almost on par with the Grand Chess Tour’s prize pool of $2,000,000 USD, which is dispersed over the course of six tournaments. The EWC is giving it away in one. 

That places the EWC among the world’s best-funded individual chess tournaments, despite being ostensibly an esports tournament. The likes of Magnus Carlsen, Hikaru Nakamura, and Alireza Firouzja are rubbing shoulders with esports legends like Faker and Niko in what appears to an outsider to be a baffling crossover episode.

The tournament has drawn a decent bit of conversation around whether chess truly belongs at the EWC. I’m here to set the record straight: Chess in its online form is absolutely an esport, but it’s quite silly to force the esports version of the game when players are flying all around the world to compete on the same stage.

In 2020, TSM did something huge: they signed chess professional Hikaru Nakamura to their esports organization. Hikaru is, of course, a Chess Grandmaster and one of the greatest living chess players in the world.

He is also the pioneer of the online chess streaming community alongside figures like Levy “GothamChess” Rozman, Nemo Zhou (who beat Hikaru to the punch by signing with CLG a week before he signed with TSM), and the Botez Sisters, who signed with Envy around the same time as well. 

TSM’s announcement was more than just another roster move; it was the proverbial starting pistol for chess’s new identity: Chess, the esport. 

Six years later, the question of whether or not online chess is an esport isn’t particularly contentious among fans of chess or esports. Both groups generally agree that online chess — especially featuring stricter time controls under 10 minutes — is without a doubt an esport. 

The premoves, automatic move detection, and 2D visualization in lieu of 3D have all converged to create something unique, distinct from over the board chess. Aside from an occasional detractor or old-head who doesn’t really like the idea that chess could be a video game, it’s an issue we as chess players and fans have settled and buried at this point. 

But I have a different issue with the way the EWC does chess. 

Doesn’t it seem a little bit silly that EWC players travel from all around the world to be in the same place as each other, with the ability to play chess in real life, but instead the match is two world-class chess players in esports uniforms staring at their respective monitors?

While I understand that the point of the EWC is to show off the esport of chess, the reason for the esport of chess, unlike with other games, is almost entirely logistical. If chess players are together, they should play over the board.

I’m not alone in feeling this. Last year, a now deleted Reddit user posted this same observation in a thread: “Maybe I am old, but I don’t get why they play on screens when sitting opposite. Takes a lot of charm off.”

While I don’t agree that there is no charm in online chess, I do find myself agreeing there absolutely is more charm in in-person chess being played over, oh I don’t know, a chess board.

Of course, I understand the EWC’s argument against this. To play over the board would be to remove the “E” from the esport. Over the board chess is just the sport of chess, right? 

Even if this is the case, I beg the question: So what? Are we really choosing to sacrifice the thrilling spectacle of in-person chess in order to satisfy our need to meet an ultimately arbitrary definition? As one of the people who helped establish the definition of chess as an esport back in 2020, I’m ready to lay it aside in the name of making the event the best it can be.

After all, EWC is not just a minor chess event — it’s not a novelty. This is one of the biggest chess events in the world, boasting one of the largest prize pools in the game of chess. The conversation goes beyond esports — it’s a question of what’s good for chess. In my mind, the best thing for chess, the players, and the spectators of EWC is to make in-person chess over the board again, even at the esports tournament.

When I was 14, I saw my first in-person speed chess match. The tension, the dexterity, the drama; I could feel it all in the air. Clip, clep, clip, clep, the timer mashes back and forth, as my brain races to keep up with the moves of the two competitors, standing over a messy white-fold-out table in a church basement. It was thrilling to watch.

A lot of what I like about sports is what I like about esports. I love watching people do their thing at the highest level. In a world where every activity has someone who is the best at it, sports and esports lets us see those people prove it on a huge stage with all the bells and whistles.

When the best of the best face off, it hits different. 

As gamers, we are used to most of our competitive interactions being online, but one cool feature about esports is bringing folks who primarily have competed online into a LAN environment to compete. It upped the stakes. It’s an exceptional opportunity, the absence of which we really felt during the pandemic when in-person tournaments were canceled in favor of online ones. Playing in person feels bigger, for players and the audience.

Unfortunately, I don’t feel this when I watch chess at the EWC. The players are aloof, in comparison to over the board tournaments. They are focused on their screens and not on each other. There is just something that lets me down when I tune in to EWC chess only to watch them clicking on chess pieces on the screen.

Online chess is great, but at the end of the day, it will always be a compromise — a replacement for the real thing. That’s what makes the question of chess different from all these other esports events, which aren’t compromising what they are from the get-go.

Chess thrives in its over-the-board form. Players stand in opposition, viewing the battlefield and each other as they compete. And if we are being real, we aren’t losing much by switching over to over the board. Premoves and “mouse dexterity” aren’t features that make chess significantly better to watch. And in a 10-minute chess control like at the EWC, premoves and other online chess features are unlikely to play a role in the outcome anyway.

So why not make chess over the board?

For the esports purists out there, there is also a case to be made that so long as the board is digital, chess over the board is still an esport. That’s right, I found a loophole so you can come over to my side now.

Most esports are played on a controller or with mouse and keyboard. But that’s not the only way esports are played. Fighting games often bust out specialized fighting sticks to compete. Racing simulators play on specialized racing simulator setups that notably seek to be as accurate to the real world as possible. Guitar Hero tournaments are shredded on the official (and extremely accurate) Guitar Hero controller.

If racing sims can simulate the real world and still be an esport, why can’t chess be played on an electronic chess board that “simulates the real world” and still be considered an esport?

With an electronic chess board, moves could immediately and seamlessly update for viewers to see on the board, so there is a digital component. But the controller, in this case, would just be the pieces on the chess board. 

Whether you accept this loophole or not, one thing seems clear to me: competitive chess is at its best when players can see each other and play off each other’s energy. It makes for a better match and a better viewer experience, and if the only reason we are doing it on screens is to “make it an esport,” I say we do it over-the-board anyway, because it’s better.