00:00We will try to present the best and most exciting chess,
00:03but also the whole event is designed to use technology and presentation
00:10to make it attractive for the viewer, both visually and engage the viewer.
00:17We hope that the league will be a fresh impetus to the game.
00:20We're having a very innovative format, combination of franchise-based league,
00:25the best men players, the best women players, the best juniors in the same team.
00:30Six teams at the moment, a global league.
00:32We will try to present the best and most exciting chess,
00:35but also the whole event is designed to use technology and presentation
00:42to make it attractive for the viewer, both visually and engage the viewer,
00:47allow the viewer, through technology, to immerse himself or herself in the game
00:54while they're watching.
00:55And so the idea will be to engage with spectators at every level.
00:58If this succeeds, and it's going to be a made-for-television format
01:02that offers a route to new audiences
01:06that maybe have not had a chance to engage with chess before.
01:11So if it succeeds, I think it can be a big boost to the game.
01:15We are trying to basically grow the sport.
01:17It has had a huge boost in popularity during the pandemic.
01:20One of the big focus areas will be in new emerging powerhouses like India and China.
01:26Another big focus for FIDE is women's chess.
01:29The current team, so President Arkady Dvorkovich, myself,
01:35our team position was to have a big push,
01:40huge efforts to promote women's chess.
01:43That will be one of our main work areas.
01:45There are a couple of approaches.
01:47One is organizing new kinds of events, trying new things to engage the chess fan.
01:53The second thing is also to support your youngsters.
01:56In the future, if our young boys and girls succeed,
02:00and one of them becomes a world championship challenger or even a world champion,
02:04then I think, again, that will attract a lot of people to the game.
02:08But you keep working in that direction.
02:09At the moment, the two highest-rated juniors,
02:12if you leave out Alireza Firouzha, who is obviously in the top five in the world,
02:17but if you leave him out, I think already the next two juniors are Abdul Sattarov and Gokesh.
02:25But clearly, the gap between juniors and seniors is not that clear anymore.
02:31Many of the juniors are already playing at the highest level.
02:34And so this category really blends.
02:37But they are the ones we see the most promise in.
02:39What FIDE tries to do more and more is to have school competitions.
02:45You know, we try to get younger and younger.
02:48And like I said, a big focus is on women.
02:51So these are the two growth areas that we put a lot of effort into.
02:55There are many countries where there's been a growth in the game.
02:59As I mentioned, during the pandemic, the popularity of the game kind of exploded everywhere.
03:04The ability to pay online was a huge boost for the game.
03:07But in terms of the top ranked players,
03:12it's generally the strongest countries are India, China, America, Russia, in some order.
03:18There are many other strong powers like France and so on.
03:21For new countries, you can mention, let's say, Uzbekistan is showing a lot of growth recently.
03:26Kazakhstan is now organizing some of the best events.
03:28They also have extremely strong young chess players.
03:33Technology is playing a fundamental, very critical role in two areas.
03:37One is making training and knowledge available to everyone.
03:41So even if you're born in a remote island in the Pacific
03:46and you don't have access to good coaches nearby,
03:50you can still ask questions, you can go online, find out things.
03:54It allows you to study and learn the game.
03:56So that's one leveling effect.
03:58The second very interesting is the way that you can use technology itself
04:02to present the game in a more interesting way and to explain yourself better.
04:05You can have multiple channels of commentary going on during a game
04:10for each level of the fan.
04:13Things like that.
04:14It allows you to try all sorts of interesting new ideas
04:18and make people comfortable with the game.
04:21I've enjoyed it a lot.
04:22As you may remember, I was a commentator for the World Championship match in Dubai
04:27in 1921.
04:29Then I was a commentator for the whole match.
04:31This time I was only able to commentate for the first four games.
04:34But I've commentated in Jerusalem,
04:37commented in Kolkata,
04:40which I go to every year for the Tata Steel Chess event.
04:43So like this we have multiple places where I've attempted commentary and I like it.
04:48And nowadays you'll see most people are doing a little bit of commentary on the side.
04:51They may have their own YouTube channel,
04:53they may have some other medium to do it,
04:56but everyone tries because the growth area is trying to attract new followers
05:01and trying to present the case for chess.
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