The Chess.com plague – Zara S

The Chess.com plague – Zara S

Either you have been living under a rock, or you have been playing, watching others play and watching others get caught on chess.com. This new addiction rampaging through the school has effected the masses, so much so that the IT felt the need to block it under the new Joe white dictatorship, ridiculous considering chess is arguably educational, but then again watching someone get caught three times within the space of 15 minutes during an economics lesson may suggest that such extreme measures were necessary, but where did this new chess craze actually come from. 

Some would suggest that the new trend could have come from the Netflix series the queens gambit, however it is evident that although this may have been a factor in the start of its growing popularity, ultimately TikTok and other social media has inspired people to grab their bishops. For instance this January chess.com had over 10 million members, a 3 million increase since December 2022.

 Too look more closely, in November of last year Ronald’s and messi, as part of a Louis Vuitton campaign posed in front of a chess board, consequently causing 10 million people to watch Magnus Carlsen playing in the world blitz chess champion. A spark of interest for many came then from Carlsen accusing Hans Moke Neimann of cheating. After chess.com reviewed these claims they discovered that Neimann may have cheated up to 100 times during online games, drawing attraction to digital, rather than traditional chess.

Whether #chesstok has influenced you to to move a pawn, or simply being surrounded by chess.com everywhere you look. Is it really worth getting caught every single lesson? Or rather attend Mr Cuddihy’s chess club on a Wednesday after school.