20 February 2018

Twitch.TV/Chess

I ended a recent post, Bobby Speaks from the Grave, with the comment:-

For the rest of the commentary, see Nakamura-Carlsen... (twitch.tv/chess).

That reminded me of a few links that I had bookmarked some months ago, but never followed up. The first was Twitch, Chess.com Partner To Promote Chess Streaming (chess.com; November 2017), 'FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE':-

Chess.com and Twitch today announced a multi-year partnership to benefit chess streaming and major chess events. Twitch had long been the broadcast partner for Chess.com's regular chess programs and major events like the Speed Chess Championship and PRO Chess League. Now the social video service will officially partner with Chess.com as a sponsor for its entire lineup of chess events and to help grow the global brand of chess as an online spectator sport.

The press release included a comment from Mr. Chess.com himself:-

"I've been a video gamer my whole life," said Erik, CEO and founder of Chess.com. "To see the game of chess reach this status among other top online games is a dream come true and something I never imagined when starting Chess.com. I'm more excited than ever about the future of online chess. I cannot imagine a better partner than Twitch."

Not being a video gamer, I had trouble parsing those sentences into any coherent narrative. Wikipedia came to the rescue in Twitch.tv:-

Twitch is a live streaming video platform owned by Twitch Interactive, a subsidiary of Amazon.com. Introduced in June 2011 as a spin-off of the general-interest streaming platform, Justin.tv, the site primarily focuses on video game live streaming, including broadcasts of eSports competitions, in addition to creative content, "real life" streams, and more recently, music broadcasts. Content on the site can either be viewed live or via video on demand.

That helped immensely. Another bookmark dated the same day as the press release, What Are The Best Chess Streams On Twitch? (chess.com), anticipated my next question:-

What are some of the best chess channels on Twitch? First, the obvious one: Twitch.tv/chess. But outside of the biggest events, who else is streaming Chess.com and where can you find them? There are already dozens of streamers and channels listed right here at Chess.com/streamers.

Turning those two italicized references into clickable format gives:-

The logically next question was answered by yet another bookmark from November, How To Become a Chess.com and Twitch Partnered Streamer (chess.com):-

Chess.com has partnered with Twitch to bring chess fans around the world more options to watch their favorite players. To grow the chess streaming ecosystem, Chess.com and Twitch are offering a number of benefits to chess players of all skill levels who want to get involved.

An 'Apply here' link on that page goes to How To Become A Streamer On Chess.com (chess.com; January 2017):-

How do I start streaming on Chess.com? • First, singup [sic] for a username and channel url at twitch.tv (your channel will be twitch.tv/yournamehere with whatever name you choose).

That's pretty much everything I needed to know. Now I'll go watch some chess 'streams' and maybe even look at some other video games.

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