The Gazette from Montreal, Quebec, Canada • NP8

YOU PETER HUM In late January, Nemo Zhou paused her studies at the University of Toronto, all the better to play nightly sessions of online chess, sometimes into the wee hours. For the 21-year-old, who lived in Ottawa before moving to Toronto in 2018, the board game is much more than a cerebral diversion. Zhou was a child chess prodigy who won the Canadian Chess Championship in 2016 and holds the internationally recognized title of Woman Grandmaster. With her economics and statistics classes on hold, she can put more energy into her exploits on Twitch, the leading streaming service for gamers. am a lot happier focusing on streaming, which I Zhou says.

Zhou only joined Twitch last June, but has amassed 124,000 followers. Recently, thousands watched Zhou play each player has just a minute for all moves with online adversaries. Computer screens showed a view of the virtual board, with pieces moving with every mouse click. Zhou, in a separate screen, provided droll banter punctuated by her squeaky laugh. nitely a lot of people stay around for just Zhou says.

Streaming has even become livelihood. Two months after her Twitch debut, she was signed by Counter Logic Gaming, and is one of just a handful of sponsored chess streamers. Before she began streaming, Zhou thought about going into investment banking. Now, not so sure. think that far she says.

pretty open for Her runaway popularity, along with successes by other top young Canadian chess players, relies on not only her engaging personality and willingness to sit for hours at her computer, but also on the pandemic and a certain Net ix show. While COVID-19 closed chess clubs where players battled in person, sheltering in place has sparked a chess resurgence, in family rooms and online. The chess.com community has 30 million members and during the pandemic, tens of thousands of Canadians have joined each month, says Nick Barton, the vice-president of business development. More than 1.8 million Canadians are on chess. com, which can be joined for free, including 500,000 who joined in 2020, Barton says.

Meanwhile, the Chess Federation of Canada, the 90-year-old organization principally for enthusiasts who play now called at tournaments, had about 3,800 members last May plus roughly 5,000 junior players, says CFC president Vladimir Drkulec. The Gambit, the chess- themed Net ix smash that debuted in late October, helped extend the chess boom, says Barton. More than 100,000 Canadians joined chess.com in November, he notes. Zhou and her peers use Twitch and other social media to popularize chess for a younger generation that enjoys online gaming. While Zhou previously created instructional DVDs for the German company ChessBase, she now targets newcomers through immediacy and less rigorous interactions.

have to have played chess for years and years. You can have she says. A precursor for successes is Calgary-based Eric Hansen. 28, a Grandmaster, and third-rated chess player behind two Russian He also pioneered chess streaming, having broadcast his quick, casual games in the early 2010s. He even took the handle Chessbrah now his brand on Twitch, where 175,000 fans follow him.

Hansen was ahead of the curve in 2015 when he committed more time and resources to streaming chess, unsure if he could build an audience. While online games had embraced streaming, still Hansen says. But after a few years, rising celebrity on Twitch led to opportunities including invitations to play in better tournaments abroad and provide commentary for world-class chess events. ended up getting really busy outside of the channel due to the he says. Chessbrah, which also involves fellow Calgarian and Grandmaster Aman Hambleton, always been a fun, relaxed Hansen says.

trying to be edgy. There might be drinks, loud music, un ltered commentary. done 24 hours in a row, without a break. We do that too says Hansen. Hansen admits streaming eight hours daily can burn you out.

But he says he has no choice if he wants to capitalize on the chess boom. While Chessbrah signed with an esports company, it accepts donations and has advertisers, partnerships and even merch at the Chessbrah e-store. top chess streamers are a two-sibling team. BotezLive stars Alexandra Botez, a 25-year- old who has represented Canada at Chess Olympiad events with Zhou, and her 18-year-old sister Andrea. The sisters, who signed last December with esports giant Envy Gaming, have more than 625,000 Twitch followers and almost 250,000 YouTube subscribers.

In addition to support, Bote- zLive has A-list sponsors. During a recent stream, Alexandra pitched co ee and DoorDash deliveries between chess moves. Originally from Vancouver, the Botezs live in Austin, Texas. While Alexandra studied international relations at Stanford University, she now streams full time. BotezLive, which launched in 2016, has exploded from 73,000 followers on Twitch last May to almost nine times that, broadening from its chess focus to while forging partnerships with other gaming communities and personalities.

crazy moving so fast. become so much a part of my says Andrea, who plans to attend university after a gap year but still continue streaming. Esports and chess are both male-dominated and Andrea says being a young woman in both elds is double-edged The chess community has largely been supportive, she says, although some people attribute their success to their looks rather than their chess abilities. point is that you really have to be really good at making chess understandable and entertaining for any Andrea says. huge goal is to have chess become part of mainstream gaming she says.

will take years to build up, but BRINGING THEIR A-GAME Young Canadian chess stars lead the drive to popularize the royal game on witch BotezLive stars Andrea, left, and Alexandra Botez, sisters originally from Vancouver, have hundreds of thousands of followers and subscribers on social media. ALEX A NDR A AND ANDREA BOTEZ Our huge goal is to have chess become part of mainstream gaming culture. at will take years to build up, but happening. ANDREA BOTEZ, 18, BotezLive star Before she started streaming, Nemo Zhou thought about going into investment banking. Now, pretty NEMO ZHOU Martin Scorsese has blasted the movie industry for being more focused on and on being produced for streaming companies.

The legendary director, 78, shown, says streaming movies has had a negative impact on cinema, which he says is being devalued, sidelined, demeaned and reduced to its lowest common denominator, In Magazine, he says: re- cently as 15 years ago, the term was heard only when people were discussing the cinema on a serious level, and it was contrasted and measured against gradually, it was used more and more by the people who took over media companies, most of whom knew nothing about the history of the art form, or even cared enough to think they WENN STREAMING BAD FOR ART: SCORSESE MONTREAL GAZETTE THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 2021 PAGE NP8.