Twitch takes on Chess Grandmaster: 6,000 gamers beat chess champion on third try

By Jon Martindale September 13, 2016

twitch vs chess chesstwitch

“Twitch vs” interactive gaming streams like Twitch vs Pokémon and Twitch vs Dark Souls have been incredibly popular over the past couple of years, so when Twitch viewers got the opportunity to take on a chess grandmaster, some 6,000 people jumped at the chance. While they struggled in the early outings, the gaming hive-mind was eventually able to beat him in a single game — though to be fair, he was wearing a blindfold at the time.

Known as the Twitch vs Pure Chess Grandmaster challenge, the stream loaded up Ripstone’s Pure Chess and connected it up with stream viewers and international grandmaster and British chess champion Simon Williams. While Williams would make his plays based on his own thoughts and strategies, stream viewers voted on the next move.

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The first game involved two hours of intense back and forth action, with Williams coming out on top. He again triumphed in the second game, despite being blindfolded and using his memory of the pieces alone to combat the efforts of the thousands of communal opponents.

Related: Live-stream tonight’s dinner on Twitch; Social Eating is now a ‘thing’

However, it was in the third game, at which point we’re told Williams was suffering from some measure of “mental fatigue,” where the Twitch chat turned things around and was able to take home a single victory, finally defeating the chess grandmaster.

Watch live video from on www.twitch.tv

By defeating Williams, each of the thousands of viewers earned themselves Steam keys for various Ripstone games, like Pure Chess, Pure Pool and Pure Hold ‘Em. The full replay is available on Twitch above, where you can also see the moves as they were called by the community. It’s rather a long stream, but for chess fans and those who like to see gamers triumph against the odds, it’s not a bad watch.

Do we have any powerful chess players among the DT audience? Do you think you’d have been able to turn the tide in those earlier games?

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