About the Hype

We are living in a time where everything has to be bigger and better than it was ever before. Sponsors pay millions in advance, advertisement campaigns get planned a long time before the actual events. Tickets get sold in advance and they are always more expensive than they were before of course. Expectations go through the roof and then when it finally happens, it is usually a big disappointment.

What do we have here? We have a player, who is ranked 10th in the world, becoming the challenger. Many people don’t even know Karjakin, because he didn’t get much coverage for quite some time. He didn’t play in the Grand Chess Tour for instance. Him dethroning Carlsen could be a huge bust to the industry, because he is not the kind of guy whom you can do TV spots with, certainly not in the US.

Even worse, he seems to like Putin…

Oh boy, what happened to political correctness in Russia?

I am not claiming that Karjakin wouldn’t be worthy of the title, but he would certainly be less glamorous. Well, maybe that’s what chess is these days, simply less glamorous and less spectacular. The technical revolution that once replaced painters with photographers leaves us with chessplayers who are trying to emulate computers.