Don’t shoot the messenger here, but the game of chess isn’t what it used to be. People are bored with the board game. The pieces are the same; the rules consistent; and yet the Belle Epoque of Chess has faded into a besotted momento of past prosperity.
Long gone are those doleful days, fondly reflected upon with a certain Romantic Era-esque nostalgia, when sixth formers would congregate together in respectful silence, staring at their phones, engrossed in chess.com. Boisterous comparisons of chess ratings, which were once a standard part of the college students’ vernacular, have stopped. And, with the same ease that it once burst to life, we return the chessboard to the back of our mind, perhaps harboring a vague hope that the game might forge a brotherly companionship with other discraded games from our childhood like Pokémon Go and Fortnite.
Regardless, one thing is undeniable: People don’t care about chess in the same way that they used to. A few years ago, chess was everywhere. Chess used to be trendy. Chess used to be cool.
The Golden Age of Chess
Back in its heyday, the game dominated our attention spans (limited as they might be). And for a fleeting time, it seemed to wriggle out of its harness of being culturally perceived as a “nerdy” hobby.
Now, the whole genre–the live tournaments, the strategic exercises, the YouTube popularity–appears to be in deep recession. So how does a game that, half a decade ago, dominated the board of non-screen entertainment, drop off so suddenly?
Games, like all trends, come and go. And whilst it’s tempting to say that chess was always destined to return to a moribund state, we can make several key societal observations pertaining to gender imbalance, social class, and humanity’s propensity for easy acceleration, from chess’s brief moment in the spotlight. Unlike the game itself, chess isn’t so black and white.
Why did Chess become trendy?
To paraphrase Sabrina Carpenter, a devout chess connoisseur and long-time enthusiast, I’m sure, “When did chess get hot all of a sudden?”
Half a decade ago, chess was everything. It was vintage, intellectual, and sophisticated. And it was inescapable. An integral part of the dark academia aesthetic, chess was a totemic element of the COVID-19 era.
And a large part of this was down to the new Netflix original The Queen’s Gambit.
Hot girls play chess
Beth Harmon…the icon that you are.
The seven-episode miniseries made its debut in October 2020, following the childhood and early adult years of Beth Harmon (played by Anna Taylor-Joy) during the 50s and 60s. Viewers watched the plucky female protagonist first make contact with the game under the esoteric tutelage of the orphanage’s building custodian, Mr. Shaibel, and proceed to face off some of the world’s greatest players (all male) in intense matches.
It was an enigmatic rags-to-riches story. And online sites were only too eager to capitalize on this. According to industry reports, after The Queen’s Gambit premiered, sales of chess sets jumped 87% in the U.S., with chess book sales rising by 603%.
But beyond the show’s mere existence, The Queen’s Gambit played a pivotal part in marketing the game of chess worldwide, because it sagaciously advertised the chess world to a new demographic. Chess was now highly visible, à travers le regard féminin. Never underestimate the potency of the female gaze.
Chess as a new lens for sportsmanship
It goes without saying that, of course, many girls and women were playing chess at a range of levels before the show’s debut. Just look at Judit Polgar. She was the top-rated female player in the world for 26 continuous years from 1989 until her retirement in 2015. She became a Grandmaster by winning the “men’s” Hungarian championship in 1991 when she was just 15 years old, at the time the youngest grandmaster in history.
But the Netflix show was especially striking insofar as it featured Harmon fiercely competing against arrogant men from around the world and beating them (pun intended) at their own game. It was inspiring, to say the least.
Chess went from a nerdy game for socially awkward teenagers to a thrilling battle of intellectual sports(wo)manship. It contained a passionate series of well-deliberated tactical moves and strategic planning, inciting a widespread enthusiasm comparable to that enjoined by adrenaline-drunk sports fans in jam-packed stadiums. And the effects of the chess wave were further promulgated by the pandemic.
COVID-19: An open invitation into the chess world
During COVID-19, amidst all the lockdowns and political instability, one thing united the world at a time of uncertainty. There seemed to be an abundance of time. Looking back, the lockdown era (if “era” is the right word here) can be characterized as a time of romanticized boredom.
“We all have the same 24 hours in a day,” said Molly-Mae. But during Covid-19, those hours felt a hell of a lot longer.
With fewer people commuting to work, there was more time to spend dusting off old chessboards and launching back into the game. Covid wasn’t just a time for discovering new hobbies; it was also for rediscovering formerly-loved pastimes.
Think about it for a second. Chess is a game that doesn’t involve a lot, if any, substantive “movement.” You can play it inside (which, given the ever-changing lockdown restriction rules, was promising.
You can even play it by yourself, using online platforms such as Chess.com and Lichess–both of which reported a surge in new players during this time. There weren’t any age restrictions on these sites, and, because they were free, the game wasn’t privy to the same financial restrictions that hinder other hobbies, like cooking or gym plans.
Chess.com specifically experienced remarkable growth, adding 2.8 million new members in November 2020 alone. The new players could slowly advance through the different levels, learning the basics and challenging strangers to matches. It was enjoyable and exciting.
Needless to say, it filled a void in our pandemic hearts.
Playing chess indicated that you had hobbies. It showed that you did something else besides doom-scrolling. But on a more practical level, it was intellectually stimulating–perhaps characteristically analogous to The New York Times‘ Wordle, and it fed into the contemporary “autodidact” lifestyle.
Chess was, simply put, an amiable pastime that anyone could feasibly do.
It’s not a game, Brian. It’s a Lifestyle.
And with that, the entire essence of the game had fundamentally shifted. It was no longer a cringy or dorky pursuit; it was a public symbol of a desirable lifestyle. Playing chess was stylish and vintage–practically an art form in itself.
The board itself became a stylish embellishment to monochromic home décor and an accompaniment to the Parisienne ideal of cold mornings on the terrace, holding a dark volume of liquid, cigarette on scarlet lips and fingers poised around a black knight piece, primed for a dramatic opening move.
The simple glamorization of chess, combined with its online accessibility, contributed to its rising popularity. So where did it all go wrong?
The fatal checkmate of chess
A cyber-attack in June 2025, which exposed the private data of over 4000 users, might have partially contributed to the online game’s decline. But I think it’s fair to say that the game was already on the way out by then.
Chess, for all its long-standing history and cultural significance, is not immune to the trends. And, as we all know, trends come and go. Sadly, it looks like chess’s time has come. It’s gone from Parisian to passé in mere months. The show has gotten old, the fandoms have quieted down, and people have returned to their commuting jobs.
However, there is, I suspect, a more niche reason we can appeal to in order to better explain why chess has fallen off the board.
One of the many attractive qualities of chess is that it involves a clearly identifiable element of progression. But this is simultaneously its greatest caveat. It inevitably becomes harder to advance in the game without receiving technical training or professing a sustained commitment to the craft. In sum, you reach a point where tangible progression is made much more difficult and much less immediately gratifying.
You have to decide how seriously you want to take the game. Your score–your ability to predict your opponent’s move and ameliorate your logical analysis–is somewhat fixed if you’re only mentally signed up to play the occasional game on a Sunday evening. And when people realize this, they lose interest.
For chess, it was always going to be a matter of time.
Maybe we should give Pokémon Go another try instead. It’s our move.
