GCL’s headphone gambit: 3rd edition of chess league to let fans sport headphones to hear live commentary while watching contest at the venue

The third edition of the GCL will be the first held in India. This season, the league will also debut concepts like team booths (where players will sit next to each other before their games start) and offer the chance for fans to play in an over-the-board ‘vote chess’ game against elite grandmasters in the arena.

“Chess can be a pulsating event. But you may not exactly get that if you are watching the sport in a silent auditorium,” says GCL commissioner Gourav Rakshit. “The idea behind this innovation was that the level of chess being played by the grandmasters on the board is on a different level than what fans can appreciate. It’s fairly intricate. Without someone to guide them on the moves, a lot of the flavour of the tournament would be lost.”

Allowing fans to hear commentary in real time is a concept that was recently attempted by the Freestyle Grand Slam Tour in Las Vegas but evoked sharp criticism from grandmasters like Fabiano Caruana. But there are plenty of reasons why the Freestyle experience and the GCL one could be different.

For one, at the Freestyle event, fans were allowed to go close to the players, while the players at GCL are likely to be seated on a stage at a fair distance away from fans. Then, each board at the Freestyle event was placed at a distance from other boards so an audible gasp from a fan after hearing commentary was a dead giveaway about them reacting to something happening on a specific board. But in GCL, all six sets of players will be seated close to each other, so any sounds from audiences are unlikely to tip off players about the status of their position on the board.

At the Freestyle event, each game also held financial stakes since the prize money players could take home depended on their final position on the standings. This put players on the edge about any audience reaction.

The Freestyle event was not under FIDE’s jurisdiction, which makes the GCL the first officially-sanctioned event to attempt the headphones innovation.

Keeping players in the loop

Rakshit says that the league has already taken advice from a few elite players on the innovation, besides holding extensive conversations with FIDE to get their nod for the concept. With the headphones concept, GCL 3 will walk the fine line between making the sport more entertaining while also not compromising on the spirit of the game. He points out that the event will have strong anti-cheating measures in place. And while fans can hear commentary on headphones, they will be asked to put away their mobile phones after the initial phase.

“In order to make this a success, we will have to clearly indicate to fans what is expected of them in the playing hall and have staff on hand to handle any situation,” says Rakshit.

Over the past couple of years, tournaments have tried to push the envelope to give a more ‘entertaining’ experience to fans. This includes Freestyle Chess strapping players with heart- rate monitors and flashing the data on broadcasts to show how excited a player is at any stage. At the Chennai Grand Masters, the concept of fan zones was born. It’s a complete antithesis to the playing halls where there is library-like silence. At fan zones, commentators like Tania Sachdev, Sagar Shah and Sahej Grower talk about the games with big screens broadcasting action from the playing hall.

In these fan zones, a concept which was also adopted by FIDE at the recent World Cup in Goa, people are encouraged to interact with the commentators by asking questions and discussing moves.

“Chess can be an incredible spectator sport, but the ways in which we allow fans to consume the sport is what will drive the sport to its fullest potential. FIDE is also interested in seeing how these things work. What they have done is allowed GCL to push the envelope on entertainment, because our role in the ecosystem is to bring new fans in,” the commissioner said.