Chaturanga, everyone’s favorite sixth-century precursor from the Gupta Dynasty, has sustained near-constant growth in its player base for well over a millennium as it evolved into the game we now recognize as chess. Impressively, chess has experienced never-before-seen legions of players, and countless active-user records in the past year alone. Everywhere you look, somebody is hunched over their Chromebook, training to become the next chess legend. Many long-time players wonder and debate: what lit the fuse?

The most noticeable wave of new chess players came with the release of Netflix’s “The Queen’s Gambit” in late 2020. In the month following its overwhelmingly successful debut, the show accumulated more than 60 million viewers, while major chess websites were delighted to behold new members joining at seven times the usual rate. The amount of major events in the chess world slowed down dramatically in the two years following, but the yearly World Rapid, World Blitz and World Chess Championships consistently drew lots of attention from most regions of the world.

Everyone and their mother dreams to witness Magnus Carlsen’s insane wins alongside his often-nonstandard openings. On that note, while it likely does more for engaging existing players than it draws in new ones, Magnus Carlsen – the previously undisputed “king of chess” – has recently been challenged by strong names such as Hikaru Nakamura, Fabiano Caruana and Anish Giri, making the upper echelon of chess more competitive, unpredictable and exciting.

Mid-2022 can be seen as the start of this phenomenon when 19-year-old Hans Niemann beat Magnus Carlsen with black. The controversy that followed this win is perhaps the biggest in chess history, with many convinced that Niemann cheated and multiple $100 million lawsuits filed. If you want to learn more, search for Alex’s previous story, “Alleged Chess Cheating Scandal” on tuhswolf.com.

Chess.com releases packs of new and fun-themed bots every month or so, generally with elo (chess-skill measurement/estimation) ranging from 500-2000. At the end of 2022, this pattern was broken. Within their “Cat” pack came Mittens, a bot with a supposed elo of just 1. To many players’ shock, Mittens did not play worse than Martin, Chess.com’s previously undisputed king of blunders. In fact, Mittens played more like a 2900-3000 – higher than any chess player alive today. Word of this “unbeatable bot” spread, and many people tried, failed, and perhaps cried attempting to beat the immovable object that is Mittens. As it turns out, Mittens is no immovable object when compared to the unstoppable force known as Stockfish 15.1 (3550+), but that did not stop it from being yet another large catalyst in The Great Chess Explosion.

Averaging more than a million active users per day, Chess.com — the most popular chess website and app — has become one of the most downloaded apps on Apple’s App Store and Google Play Store. This is the first time since the 1972 World Chess Championship that it has seen a popularity surge of this scale. The website hit a peak of 10 million online users in late January, after already setting many records in a short time frame.

Why is it a good thing that chess blew up? Studies from the Iran University of Medical Sciences show that playing chess can improve one’s memory as the game requires calculating numerous combinations and knowing their potential outcomes. Rather than play Slope-Unblocked or 2048 Cupcake Edition during class, try your hand at the scientifically-proven best game, chess! With over ten duodecillion (1040) reachable positions, each game will present you with a new opportunity and test your ability to evaluate, calculate and dominate! And who knows, you may even be the next chess prodigy — so what are you waiting for? Show off your skills, and go checkmate your friends!