Chess is enjoying a renaissance on Twitch largely driven by charismatic streamers such as grandmaster Hikaru Nakamura, who periodically reaches out to other Twitch personalities to teach them the ancient game of Chess.
After growing explosively on the streaming platform throughout 2020, chess is continuing to barrel into 2021 with all pawns blazing and it's starting off the year with the return of its annual celebrity tournament, PogChamps 3.
This year's PogChamps tourney is going to be bigger than ever with even more celebs playing the game of kings. The list starts with YouTuber MrBeast, Twitch streamer with a $5 maximum Pokimane, former Fortnite pro player Myth, recent chess convert and self Twitter pirate xQc, previous PogChamps bracket winner moistCriTiKaL, poker star that got lost on his way to Vegas Daniel Negreanu, and world-renowned rapper Logic.
Oh, and there's also going to be Dwight from The Office there (or Mud from Star Trek Discovery, if you prefer), Rainn Wilson.
This year's prize fund is going up to a whopping $100,000, with a matching donation set to be handed out to non-profit organizations. Commentators will include grandmaster Hikaru Nakamura, woman FIDE master Alexandra Botez, international master Levy "GothamChess" Rozman, international master Anna Rudolf, and Chess.com's international master Danny Rensch.
PogChamps 3 will be broadcast on Twitch, YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, "as well as a new broadcast platform yet to be announced." Streamers are already getting coached ahead of the tournament, which will run from February 14 to February 28. That's still plenty of time for Hikaru to convince Arnold Schwarzenegger, Elon Musk, and The Notorious AOC to join the tournament.
Source: Chess.com