Comments on: Why don't Indians follow chess?

By: Dinesh

Dinesh — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 14:45:36 +0000

Here are few ways to make people watch chess.
1. Players work out and wear a hot bathing suit and play in the beach.
2. Enclose chess pieces in sponsors ads.
3. Have cheer leaders jumping whenever there is a great move.
Basically make it lively for the layman. I am sure there are people who watch chess. The % is less, it is niche. It is like Mac market share, BMW market share. There is nothing wrong in being that way.
About Test cricket, you’ve got it all wrong. It is hardly a senior citizen’s game. In a one day cricket you stop at bowling 10 overs in 2 or 3 spells for just an innings. But in Test cricket you need extreme concentration and stamina. Ask any fast bowler or ask Kumble. It is more tiring than a one day game if you are playing a prolonged innings, believe me. I am not a cricketer, but I have played 25 overs a side game in school and college and it is exhaustive to bat, field and bowl.

By: shyam

shyam — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 14:29:08 +0000

1. I dont do chess because I’m too stupid and have too little patience and a total inability to visualise future moves and base my strategy on what might be.

2. Perhaps if, like one-day internationals in cricket, chess had a shorter quicker version of tournaments where the players get a maximum of 30 seconds to play each move? That might raise some interest and up the ante a bit. Ey, kya bolti tu?

By: Reema

Reema — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 06:59:38 +0000

Ahh me and my sister used to spend summer afternoons playing chess while eating sonpapdi. It was fun. Ever since we separated for higher studies we lost touch with chess but I have always liked playing chess. But I dont follow any game for that matter except when its Football World Cup.

By: Sakhi

Sakhi — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 06:16:49 +0000

I dont know why we dont follow chess, one thing i know is ‘I’ dont follow Chess and thats all!

By: Adithya

Adithya — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 22:38:23 +0000

I agree with max. There is an adrenaline factor that is not associated with Chess.
And it is simply not popular in India, just like why hockey is not, because of the lack of inspiration. For Sachin, Dravid, Gavaskar, Kapil Dev, Ganguly, Laxman, and I can go on, you have one Anand, one Dhanraj Pillai. It is a vicious circle now, that you need to develop sports, and to develop sports, you need ppl to show some interest.

And I don’t think those are statement of facts. You have a lunch break, a tea break, a drinks break because the game is played for about 8 hrs. Not 1.5 hrs like soccer, not 48 minutes or 60 minutes like the American sports, which is at most stretched to 2.5-3hrs with all the half time break, time outs in between. You have the players having gatorade, water all the time in between. Surely the batsman or bowler doesn’t call for drinks/water every 2 overs!

By: mystic margarita

mystic margarita — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 20:38:08 +0000

Ah! Lovely post! I think the reason chess isn’t hugely popular is because it’s a cerebral game that requires a lot of time, patience, and some degree of intelligence. Whereas, in cricket, most vocal supporters often don’t know the intricacies of the game, but can nevertheless enjoy it because all one needs to do is cheer when your players do well. Hardly requires any effort!

Lekhni: But don’t you think there are large numbers of nerds (all the engineers, for a start) whom you’d expect to love chess, precisely because it requires some degree of intelligence and patience and whatnot? At least, it should be fashionable to follow it, no?

By: Sands

Sands — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 16:18:02 +0000

Am so with you on this one. Used to play chess when I was a kid. Now I see my son’s love for this game & I must admit it is infectious:) He patiently sits through 2 hours of training over the weekend (his choice BTW) and dreams of meeting Vishwanathan Anand when we are in India end of this year Such lofty goals at the age of 8

It’s nice to see at least one person understands what I mean

By: Kima

Kima — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 16:01:27 +0000

Well, frankly speaking, I’ve been strangely interested in chess ever since Alexandra Kosteniuk became a chess grandmaster

Ah, I can see why

By: maxdavinci

maxdavinci — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 15:43:46 +0000

It’s all about the marketability! You need raw power, brute force and interval breaks!

You need the sixes and fours in a batsmen dominated game, or tantalising turn, steep bounce or mind boggling swing in a bowler dominated game. That is the stuff that brings spectators and pumps the adrenalin levels. How many ppl would watch NFL or NHL if players weren’t allowed to collide? Heck they give them gear so that they can hit each other!

Imagine basketball without the dunks or air hoops! We as spectators need raw agression in our sports, we are no less than the ppl who thronged to watch gladiator fights in rome!

Does chess or any game you mentioned have that?

PS: FOr this very same reason, hockey and soccer have a future in India if we pump some money into it…

sorry for the long comment

What about the people who play Scrabulous? Wikipedia tells me Scrabulous/ Lexulous has 850,000 users and is played by 500,000 people daily. I don’t know how many of them are Indians. I am not even talking about playing chess, but following chess – and unlike Scrabulous, chess doesn’t need language skills, and you can understand the game perfectly even if you don’t know that the players are using Nimzo Indian or whatever.

By: km

km — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 11:47:48 +0000

I think Salil already made this point, but does a sport like chess lend itself to mass consumption?

No, I agree it doesn’t. But what about just the sub-segment of nerds?