26 December 2021

A Trio of World Championship Video Makers

A couple of weeks ago, for my monthly post featuring a Youtube video, A Flood of World Championship Videos (December 2021; on the 2021 Carlsen - Nepomniachtchi title match), I finished with an action:-

Now I have some time to spend making sense of that flood. Where to start?

I decided that this month's post on The Sociology of Chess (November 2016), would be a great place to start. How to proceed?

I discovered that three important chess sites had produced videos about the match -- FIDE, Chess.com, and Chess24.com -- so I created the following table linking to the different clips.

  : FIDE : Chess.com : Chess24.com :
  : EN RU PC AR : CHR RR ? : HHS PG DK DH HL :
OC : EN   PC   :       :     DK     :
g.01 : EN RU PC AR : CHR   ? : HHS PG DK     :
g.02 : EN RU PC AR : CHR RR ? : HHS PG DK DH HL :
g.03 : EN RU PC AR : CHR RR ? : HHS PG DK DH HL :
g.04 : EN RU PC AR : CHR RR ? : HHS PG DK DH HL :
g.05 : EN RU PC AR : CHR RR ? : HHS PG DK DH HL :
g.06 : EN RU PC AR : CHR RR ? : HHS PG DK DH HL :
g.07 : EN RU PC AR : CHR RR ? : HHS PG DK DH HL :
g.08 : EN RU PC AR : CHR RR ? : HHS PG DK DH HL :
g.09 : EN RU PC AR : CHR RR ? : HHS PG DK DH HL :
g.10 : EN RU PC AR : CHR RR ? : HHS PG DK DH HL :
g.11 : EN RU PC AR : CHR RR ? : HHS PG DK DH   :
CC : EN       :       :           :

The codes are cryptic, but there is only so much info you can place on a blog where the posts are limited in width. Following is a legend for the codes used in the table..

FIDE:-

  • EN - Live commentary in English by GM Viswanathan Anand and GM Anna Muzychuk; OC/CC - Opening and closing ceremonies
  • RU - Live commentary in Russian by GM Sergei Shipov and WGM Dina Belenkaya
  • PC - Press Conference
  • AR - Recap by GM Alejandro Ramirez

Chess.com:-

  • CHR - Live commentary by GM Fabiano Caruana, GM Robert Hess, and IM Daniel Rensch
  • RR - Rapid replay
  • ? - I don't know what these short videos should be called, but they're worth mentioning

Chess24.com:-

  • HHS - Live commentary by GM David Howell, IM Jovanka Houska, and Norwegian journalist Kaja Snare
  • PG - Live commentary by GM Judit Polgar and GM Anish Giri
  • DK - Recap by GM Daniel King
  • DH - 'Play of the Day with GM David Howell'
  • HL - Highlights

I watched a few of the videos and was impressed with what I saw. There was a tremendous amount of chess talent commenting on the match, including two top GMs who themselves faced GM Carlsen in previous title matches. After the competence of the commentators, the most important factor in a commentary team is to have good chemistry between the various personalities.

Don't overlook the 'NBC Recap' videos, which I documented on my World Championship blog. To find them, start with the post 2021 Carlsen - Nepomniachtchi, Wrapup (December 2021), and follow the links back for each of the three weeks, e.g. 'First Week', etc.

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