Where’s the Twenty20 chess?

I’ve just finished watching an absolute ripper of a Twenty20 cricket match between Australia and Pakistan. After the lead changed a dozen times throughout the three hour game, the Aussies clinched victory on the final ball to secure a breathtaking victory.  Sixty thousand spectators at the ground and millions more around the world were treated to an extravaganza that was more than just a sporting contest, but extended to spectacular prime-time entertainment for cricket fans and non-fans alike.

The Twenty20 cricket phenomenon has taken the world by storm, and couldn’t have come at a more timely moment in the game’s history. Five years ago, cricket’s popularity had started to wane: the five-day test version hardly had the television appeal nor convenience when compared to the shorter, sharper, rival sports, and most of the world doesn’t understand the sport anyway (supergrandmaster Peter Swidler being one notable exception). Even the one-day version of the game (possibly the equivalent of the FIDE 90/30 time control) wasn’t enough to keep the public interested.

And then along game Twenty20.

This fast-paced, commercialised, condensed version of cricket comes packed to the rafters with massive slogging, regular wicket-taking, over-the-top commentators and a rollercoaster of drama played out in no longer than an extended dinner. And the pundits love it.

So of course, that got me thinking: Why isn’t there a Twenty20 version of chess? Surely we could make it work. For starters, a third of the world’s population understands chess, which is a magnitude more than for cricket. Plus, the internet gives literally billions of people the ability to watch multiple games live. So why hasn’t it happened?!

That’s a question I’ll leave unanswered. What I will do, however, is outline how I think it could work, basing my model on the Twenty20’s winning formula.

There are three key ingredients that make the Twenty20 what it is: (a) It is completely over-the-top and has just one goal: to entertain the fans; (b) It has all the top players we love to watch competing; and (c) To effectively meet the first two points, it has bucketloads of money.

To that, I’ll add one more. Cricket purists accept Twenty20 cricket because they don’t see it as detracting from the ‘classical’ test-match version. They see it as helping cricket’s popularity and fan base, and serving to help draw attention to the longer, higher quality form of the game, rather than as a substitute.

So how should this translate for chess? This last point is easy: we need Twenty20 chess (I’m going to have to think of a better name…) to be seen as a complement to classical tournaments and world championships, so we simply give them a different rating scale. We might even have a Twenty20 world championship, but everyone will know that it won’t compare in quality or importance to the classical championship – and, hopefully, we’ll have more people watching both forms as a result.

Ok, so this is how we’re going to make this work:

(a) We get in over-the-top commentators, and stream the commentary online. This is very important, and the choice of commentators is naturally critical, but I think it could work. Look at the cricket guys: when these ex-players started out in the commentary box, they were hopeless. But a bit of training, a couple of goes to get the nerves out, and suddenly we have a comedic team to fill the prime-time spots. And, using Shane Warne as an example, it’s not like the chess world has a shortage of top players with an ego problem and a trigger mouth… Let’s also chuck in a real personality of a commentator with no chess experience at all, to ensure that the conversation always takes in the non-chess-following crowd. And let’s give them all the benefit of computer analysis running simultaneously, and let’s give the online viewers a running graph of the position’s evaluation, with a few juicy stats displayed as well. This means that anyone of any skill watching (and not jsut chess players with Chessbase running in the background) can get a sense of what’s happening, and don’t feel left out. 

Without question (and we’ve started to see a bit of this already), we stream live video footage of the players over the board. But what’s exciting about watching two guys in silence? Ah, but wait: We then also mike up the players. That’s right: headset microphones for the players, and as they wander around when their opponent is to move (which happens a lot, let’s face it) the commentators can ask these guys questions live on air. Will it work? Maybe, maybe not. But, as a player, I’d do it. I get bored with the silence, anyway.

Finally, and this will be controversial: we give the players two moves each per game (compare with tennis challenges) in which they can request to see the computer’s best move suggestion for that turn. No evaluation, no analysis: just the best move at that particular moment. But use them wisely: you don’t want to be caught short trying to find the one drawing move in Rook vrs Rook-and-Bishop on move 48!

(b) is straightforward: we need the big guys to sign up. There’s no question they can do the job: all the top guys are used to being interviewed after their games, and the majority of them are at least one of witty/arrogant/eccentric. But to get them involved…

(c)…we need money. So here’s what we do: Because we’re providing the complete package of video/audio/entertaining commentary/players’ live views/computer evaluations, we either (i) chuck a whole bunch of advertising on the site, ala the billboards and grass advertising of the cricket; OR (ii) charge a minimal fee ($2? $5?) for every viewer. I prefer the latter; if we’re giving the public a really swell experience, why not let them pay less than a movie ticket to be entertained for a couple of hours?

Then, hopefully, the mass market that is chess players, combined with the widespread appeal of the internet, sees a couple of million spectators from across the world tuning in to chess at its best, suped-up, Vegas-style, commercialised, the whole SHEBANG. And there you have it.

Chess has been around for thousands of years. But today’s society demands satisfaction, and demands it now. It’s time to step up and bring chess back to the people, and in the process, give it the prestige it deserves.

Besides, I do a great Bill Lawry voice.