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Kevin Bordi, also known as BlitzStream, is France's most-watched chess streamer. As one of the earliest adopters of playing chess on Twitch, he has over a decade of experience creating chess content and has witnessed monumental shifts in the popularity of online chess. With 173,000 followers on Twitch and 190,000 YouTube subscribers, he is one of the biggest chess content creators outside of the English-language sphere.

We spoke to Kevin to find out more about how he got started, his famous move against GM Magnus Carlsen, the similarities between chess and poker, and more.

How long have you been streaming chess, and what made you decide to start?

I think I've been streaming on Twitch for 10 years already. I started at the very beginning, but it's so long ago that I don't remember the exact year, whether it's 2012, 2013, or 14... its very long ago and its hard to find the archives from when I started! But I started streaming right at the start of Twitch.

I started because I was watching a guy on YouTube, Jerry from ChessNetwork. He was a big inspiration for me because I liked his content. I really enjoyed watching it, and I had some time at night and I wanted to play chess. So I thought, wait, let's try to do something like what this guy is doing. And then I discovered Twitch existed and so it was possible to do it live.

That was really what made me decide to start because the thought of recording myself playing chess and then posting it on YouTube was not the thing I wanted to do... even though I liked Jerrys content. When I heard that it was possible to do it live on Twitch, I decided that sounded right. So that's how I started streaming.

How long did it take you to start getting an audience?

Strangely enough, my channel became quite popular very quickly. I think after 4-5 months I had 30 or 40 viewers, which was a lot for Twitch at the time! That really looked like a lot of viewers back then.

Then I got very lucky, and I would again say thank you to ChessNetwork, because one day I saw that he had made a post on Twitter saying something like Check out this guys stream, great channel. This was maybe six months after I started. From that time onwards, I never had less than 100 viewers on Twitch! That was really a lot at the time; it was one of the big streams that existed back then. I started with a channel in English and it was really amazing for me that the guy who inspired me to start was encouraging people to check out my channel.

Why do you call your community Sharks?

We were playing sub battles against other streamers' teams. The first five we played, we lost! And I was desperate. With all these losses, I started to play a type of character, like a sports coach. Except it was a coach who was absolutely crazy because he lost every match, you know?

So I started to find some speeches by amateur rugby coaches on the internet, of teams in like the third or fourth division, and I would deliver a speech in that character to my viewers before every sub battle. Its not the inspirational stuff youd hear on TEDx or something. Its a bit more aggressive.

One day, I found a speech by a very famous coach, who was one of the best basketball players France had; he had a crazy Olympic Games where we got a silver medal in the Olympics and he was the key player. So hes like a great man in French basketball, and he said From a dolphin, you cant make a shark. He was basically explaining why his team was losing and said he can't do anything because there are only dolphins on the court and he cant turn them into sharks. From this we kind of started a running gag, like whenever guys started to lose the game, wed say, "You can't turn a dolphin into a shark." And well, the thing started like that and it stayed.

What is the ZEvent, and can you tell the international audience more about it?

So the ZEvent is an event created by ZeratoR, who is one of the biggest French streamers. It's one of the biggestmaybe it's the biggestcharity events worldwide for Twitch. He's inviting top French streamers to gather together in a place organized specifically for the stream, and you have the top 40 or 50 French streamers there getting together to raise money for charity. This year it was for environmental protection.

My community raised like 118,000 euros for charity, which is really a lot by French standards! All together, the 50 or so streamers in the event raised something like 10 or 11 million. Its one of my favorite events. The energy there is very positive and its nice to raise money for charity to help other people, so it was really very cool.

How about the B Cup?

The B Cup is another special event. It was the first edition last year in December. The event is played on the internet, but to get in the tournament you need to play from a certain place; in this case, we played from the biggest e-sports location in France, next to the Louvre. So we gathered together like 120 people to play in the tournament on Chess.com. Its the first event of this kind, where people meet together in one place to play online chess.

Our goal, our big dream, would be to organize more in the future. Were going to organize the next B-Cup on June 17 as the second edition, but our dream would be to make it an international event one day and to create international online events, like having people from Paris, New York, Los Angeles, Berlin, everywhere, all meeting in an e-sports place and having a worldwide tournament. Not just from home, but playing from actual places so the chess community can gather together and really spend time in one location. Its not like the usual chess tournament where you cant speak! It was a lot of fun to have people in one place, sometimes screaming that they lost their queen or things like that.

Around the world, were seeing young people pick up chess and a general mainstreaming of chess as a hobby. How have you seen chess grow in France in recent years?

I know chess is getting bigger all over the world. I see it from the stats, I see it from events, and a lot of other metrics. In France as wellbut I cant say much about that! I just see it from these metrics. I see there are more people playing chess, but I cant say I have a concrete example of something that made me feel like there are so many people playing chess nowadays. I would say we had a very big buzz in France during the Candidates tournament with GM Maxime Vachier-Lagrave playing very well; its definitely getting bigger, but maybe less than the big boom were seeing in other countries right now.

You have your own bot on Chess.com. How do you feel like your bot compares to your real-life playing style?

My bot definitely plays differently than me! Its more of an homage to my Grob against Magnus, which is a move that kind of made me famous. So its playing a lot of unsound openings, which is not something I do much of.

Im very bad at openings for my level at least, and so Im always finding myself in difficult positions, but I usually try to play quiet and technical positions if I can, trying to get to the endgame and simplify but my bot is going crazy!

I would say my bot is definitely a tribute to the Grob against Carlsen, which is probably my best chess memory, so I like that the bot is set up like that, but I wouldnt say it plays like me. I havent played a match against it, so I don't know if the bot is stronger than me what I can say, and this is a message for Danny, is that I could beat his bot. So if Danny wants to give mine a try, lets see!

Youre a titled chess player and obviously have lots of over-the-board experience - but is it true that you learned how to play chess on a Game Boy?

Yes, totally true. My dad had a game, I think it was called Chessmaster, and I had a few games on the Game Boy like Mario and things like that... but my dad had the chess game. I really wanted to play this game, I dont know why but I wanted to, so I put the game in the Game Boy many times and tried to learn by playing. I was moving the pieces and learning step-by-step how they move to be able to play a game.

My dad said it was too complicated because I was six years old and said itd be more fun to play Mario, but I wasnt stopping, and really wanted to know how to play this game! One night my dad decided to teach me the rules so that I could play against the Game Boy. Then I had chess at school, and eventually, I went to the chess club after that. Thats how I started to become really serious about chess, but at first, I was really just fascinated by this game on the Game Boy.

Youre also a tennis fan. If you could pick any tennis player to join you on stream, who would it be, and why?

I would pick Gael Monfils. I know him a bit, and he has a very nice Twitch channel as well. He doesnt have many streams in English unfortunately, but his streams are amazing and hes really cool. He has such good energy and explains the game really well. For sure I'd pick him.

And then Im hesitating between Novak Djokovic and Roger Federer Federer is such a great attacking player. I had a debate not long ago with a friendobjectively Djokovic has achieved more than Federer, but people put Federer in front because of his playing style, which is so immaculate and clean. But I really think that Djokovic might even be a class above... his movement on the court, his vision, and his defense are crazy good. But I would pick Federer anyway because you just cant pick anyone else, hes a legend.

For a while you were a professional poker player. Many pro chess players are also big poker fans. What do you think the overlap between poker and chess is? What are some of the similarities that draw so many people into both games?

I cant say I love poker, honestly, but I do love earning money! One of the reasons chess players love poker is that its a game, like chess, and when you play chess you feel like you might have an edge on a simpler game. At least at the time, it was seen that way. By now poker has become more difficult as people are getting stronger and stronger, like at chess.

But in the past, it was seen as a slightly easier game and you felt you had an edge because you were already good at a game that involved deep calculation. And so it was a good way to make money! I think many chess players love poker for that reason; they can play a game, and they can feel like they may be better than others... which is often an illusion by the way since a lot of chess players are losing money at poker!

Also, poker is the kind of game where everybody thinks they are winning for some reason; I think all those things together are why chess players often love to play poker.

We often see a majestic dog on your social media. Can you tell us more about them?

My dog is called Misha, shes a little girl! A little Shiba. Every time I finish my stream we go to take a walk together; shes like my closest partner after my wife and my kid. Shes definitely part of my family. Im always very happy when she comes up to see me on the stream. Sometimes shell come up and ask me for some pats or a head massage when Im live on stream if Im streaming a bit late.

Do you have any advice for people who are thinking of starting to stream or create chess content?

Its very simple: just enjoy it, enjoy what you do and the content you make. Make it for fun, for your own pleasure. Be authentic, be yourself, and enjoy the content youre making.

The internet is full of inspirational people who say to follow your dream and your passion and everything will work out well, chess is my passion and streaming is my passion, but at some point, you also need to have some luck. Earlier I mentioned that I was inspired by ChessNetwork; this guy is the reason I started, and he helped me out a lot with the tweet he made. People who succeed in stuff are also a bit lucky sometimes, you know?

I always feel that its a bit unfair to say that if you follow your dreams and work a lot it just works out; sometimes it doesnt. Behind success is always some part of destiny, of luck, or whatever you want to call it, so just enjoy what you are doing. At the end of the day, the most important thing is just to be happy. If it works out, great, if it doesnt work out but you had a lot of fun and enjoyed making the content, then thats already a success in its own way.

Catch BlitzStream live on his Twitch channel, or follow his content on YouTube, Discord, Instagram, Twitter, and his official website. Want to see your favorite streamer here? Let us know in the comments. A special mention goes to @HasteCeler for nominating BlitzStream in the very first comment someone ever left on this series!

Previous Streamer of the Month articles:

See the rest here:
Chess.com Streamer of the Month: BlitzStream - Chess.com

Stefan Bondy,New York Daily News

Derrick Rose revealed his next move.

The Knicks guard announced Tuesday that hes starting a chess tournament called Chesstival with the inaugural competition this summer in Las Vegas.

Celebrities and professional athletes will be among the competitors in the high-stakes series chess tournament, which will run the same weekend that the NBAs Vegas Summer League opens July 7-8.

The game of chess is something Ive been passionate about since high school, Rose said in a press release. Chess is undeniably competitive and strategic at its core, which are two characteristics Ive carried throughout my career. I am thrilled to bring Chesstival to life at Resorts World Las Vegas and continue to grow interest in chess worldwide.

Rose, who fell out of the Knicks rotation early in the season and only played once since December, had previously listed founding a chess league as one of his post-retirement plans. Two others were vertical farming and buying a library.

Rose, 34, was the NBAs youngest MVP when he won the award in 2011, the highlight of a career that included three All-Star appearances. Two years ago, he was key to the Knicks run to the fourth seed in the East. That earned him a two-year, $28 million contract in the summer of 2021, but injuries and a youth movement left him on the bench for most of the last two seasons.

He has a $15.6 million team option next season that the Knicks will not pick up. Rose hasnt revealed when hell retire.

The young Knicks players have lauded Roses presence as a leader and mentor, particularly at the start of the playoffs. Rose has more than double the playoff experience (51 games) than anybody else on the roster.

Hes been great. I feel like the past week and a half or so, hes been a little more vocal, Quentin Grimes said leading up to the first round. I think he kind of feels the excitement coming back, the playoffs coming around.

Given what were going through, stuff out there in practice, hes definitely talking more. Hes talking to me, [Miles McBride], anybody, anybody who will listen. Having a guy like that hes an MVP, a Hall of Famer, youre gonna listen to him every time he talks.

Bigger and stronger.

That was the advantage Julius Randle held over Evan Mobley in Game 1, and it turned out to be the difference in the important matchup.

Mobley, making his playoff debut at a lanky 215 points, was bullied by Randle, who returned from an ankle sprain with tired lungs but his usual physicality.

Randle said the physical dominance came naturally, rather than a concerted effort to push around the smaller opponent.

Honestly, I wasnt even really it wasnt a thing that was on my mind or something that I was trying to take advantage of, he said. I was just playing how I would play, let the cards fall where they may.

Still, it was effective. Mobley managed just eight points in Game 1 less than half his season average while missing nine of his 13 attempts.

Among the games biggest plays was Randles offensive rebound in the final seconds, which created the extra Knicks possession that sealed the victory.

I ran through the elbow, tried to create as much space and create as much force as I could and got in the position to get the rebound, Randle explained Tuesday.

Randle, who hadnt played in over two weeks leading up to Game 1 because of the ankle sprain, said he was exhausted but used the two off-days before Game 2 to recover.

I slept the whole day the day afterward. My lungs were a little tired, he said. Ill be fine. Conditioning, Ill be fine. Takes time when youve been sitting out for that many days, but Ill be fine.

Related

More:
Knicks' Derrick Rose starts a chess tournament in Vegas - Fairfield Daily Republic

Think the game of chess has faltered in popularity? The students at Turlock High School want you to think again, as their growing chess club is preparing to host a community chess tournament on Saturday.

This years second annual Turlock Community Chess Tournament (G/30, Swiss play) will be held in the cafeteria at Turlock High, with a four to five-round tournament scheduled. Last year, the club had a relatively good turn out with about 30 players. This year, however, things are looking much better, as there are over 50 students participating in the club and over 60 people total signed up for this weekends event.

We have more than doubled the amount of people signed up, likely caused by increased support and outreach for this tournament and chess' recent increase in popularity, explained club president Andrew Gutierrez.

According to club advisor Matt Rosengarth, due to the increased popularity and participation for the tournament, extra boards and pieces may be needed, which he described as a good problem.

Cost for the tournament is $5 for students in K-12 and $10 for adults. Those interested in participating must register at https://forms.gle/wovDBTCDPphJsPcRA. Those registered are encouraged to pay their entry fee at the Turlock High School activities office weekdays from 7 a.m.to 4 p.m. If you do need to pay on the day of the tournament, the chess club will only be able to accept cash.

Check in for Saturdays tournament will be from 8 a.m. to 8:45 a.m. The first round is expected to kick off at 9 a.m. In order to keep the tournament moving and to be able to play all five rounds, clocks will be set to 30 minutes per side. Since there will be limited clocks available, participants are encouraged to bring their own chess clock, or download the app, Chess Clock.

Aside from some fun and competitive chess playing, there will be a small concession stand with drinks and snacks. Funds from the concession stand will directly benefit the Turlock High Chess Club.

It is shaping up to be a great tournament, with lots of friendly competition, so practice, practice, practice, said Rosengarth.

For more information on this years Turlock Community Chess Tournament, email Rosengarth at mrosengarth@turlock.k12.ca.us.

Original post:
Time to test your chess - The Turlock Journal

The first Texas A&M University-San Antonio esports chess team lost 11.5-4.5 against Baylor University during the final round of the Collegiate Chess league tournament April 15.

Despite losing the match, the chess team made a historic run taking down big-name schools like Duke and Brown universities in its first semester as a team in the esports program at A&M-San Antonio.

The team originally started as a club in 2021. English senior Asher Honeycutt said a key contribution to their success was the bond they forged before becoming a team. They became familiar with each other and their play styles, which made competing together easier and more cohesive.

Esports head coach Aaron Jaggers approached the players about potentially becoming a team in fall 2022.

It was by coincidence the club already had four inaugural members, the minimum necessary to compete the following semester.

Playing against Baylor, the team said they couldnt catch a rhythm because their opponents skill level varied from match to match.

There seems to be a pretty big division in the skill level of [Baylors] roster, biology junior Julian Regino said. It was a perfect game and [then] a not-so perfect game.

The team credited Baylor for their win.

These guys were way stronger than me and I was borderline winning two of [those matches], but I still lost, Jared Theis, a computer science junior, said.

The matches are four-on-four with each player having a one-on-one with a member of the opposing team.

Players use their mouse to move chess pieces on a digital game board when facing opponents online.

A win is worth one point, a draw is worth half a point and a loss is worth nothing. The wins are determined by which team meets or exceeds 8.5 points after four rounds.

In an interview on March 28, cyber security sophomore Eli Campos, a member of the chess team, said he understood the expectations that came with the team flourishing so quickly.

With us being so successful, we have a standard now, Campos said.

As much as the team enjoyed the success, there was more on the line than a title.

One of the things that was really hinging on our success was whether the chess esports program would continue at TAMUSA, Honeycutt said. If we had a team that stayed consistent and committed then it was going to get funding.

This is the first time were doing this. We have to do well for it to stay here and we want it to stay here, because we love chess.

More here:
Chess team's historic run ends in the finals | Texas A&M University ... - The Mesquite

Romanian GM Liviu-Dieter Nisipeanu has returned to his native country after nine years playing for Germany. The 46-year-old becomes the third top grandmaster to switch to Romania in less than a year.

"Welcome back, Dieter! We're happy to have you back!" the Romanian Chess Federation announced on Twitter. The transfer was officially confirmed by FIDE on Wednesday.

Before the transfer of world number 13 GM Richard Rapport, Nisipeanu had been the highest-rated Romanian grandmaster ever, peaking at world number 15 with a 2707 rating in 2005. The highlight of his career was when he reached the semifinal of the FIDE World Chess Championship in 1999, after knocking out favorites such as GMs Alexei Shirov and Vasly Ivanchuk. Another highlight was his title as the European Champion in 2005.

Nisipeanu started playing for Germany in 2014. Three years later he also became the German champion for the first time.

"Thanks to Dieter for the great years on our top board and all the best for the new challenges ahead!" the German Chess Federation wrote in a goodbye message on Twitter.

Nisipeanu is the third top player to change federations to Romania in less than a year. Just a few months ago, Ukrainian youngster Kirill Shevchenko completed his transfer and moved to Bucuresti. Rapport, along with his wife Jovana, moved from Hungary in September, making Romania a contender for medals in future Olympiads.

The veteran now strengthens an already strong national team:

Nisipeanu's return appeared to be a goal since Vlad Ardeleanu was appointed the new president of the Romanian Chess Federation in 2021. He told the news site Fanatikthen:

It is our obligation to open the dialogue with Mr. Nisipeanu. And it is the Federation's obligation to find solutions to bring Romania's most successful player to the country at the moment. I can't make a promise, but obviously we will try to bring the most titled player.

Romanian chess has also seen a boost thanks to Sacha Dragic, the Serbian founder of the Romanian company Superbet Foundation, which the federation credits for Nisipeanu's transfer. The company has become a major Grand Chess Tour sponsor. One classic, as well as one rapid and blitz event, will take place in Romania and Poland respectively in May.

Originally posted here:
Nisipeanu Returns To Native Romania After 9 Years - Chess.com