The Aimchess Rapid 2023 came to a close on the 14th of July this year, seeing Magnus Carlsen winning the event and taking home $30,000 USD and 150 tour points. Not only going home with dollars and points, Magnus has now directly qualified Magnus now has overtaken Hikaru Nakamura for the top spot of the Champions Chess Tour rankings: the Japanese-American grandmaster did not compete in this particular CCT event.
The 10+2 event saw 56 players compete in three different divisions, each with their own prize pool. Denis Lazavik of Belarus took home first place in Division II and Yu Yangyi of China was the winner of Division III. Lazavik took home $10,000 USD and 50 points, with Yu taking home $5,000 and 20 tour points.
For this event of the CCT, only three of the top ten rated players participated: Magnus Carlsen, Wesley So, and Fabiano Caruana. With this event lacking in the high-level stardom that the other events in the CCT calendar can boast of, there was certainly less electricity in the air during the tournament’s matches, but how did the event do in the end?
Aimchess Rapid 2023 viewership
The event was broadcasted on Chess.com’s official YouTube and Twitch accounts, with other personalities in the chess sphere costreaming. The event reached a peak of 77.7K concurrent viewers during the Grand Final between Magnus Carlsen and Wesley So, in which Magnus emerged triumphant with a 3-1 victory. The Winners’ Finals between Magnus and Uzbek Nodirbek Abdusattorov were also highly watched.
Ultimately, after 28 hours of broadcasting the event came to a close with 858K Hours Watched in total. Although not the most successful chess event of the year, it did earn enough watch time to rank within the top ten tournaments of 2023 so far. One key reason for the relatively low viewership for the event may be the lack of Hikaru’s presence.
Even when Hikaru and Magnus do not face each other in the Finals of the event, the exciting rivalry between the two always draws in huge viewership. So far in both CCT events of 2023, where both Hikaru and Magnus have competed, their match has been the most popular match of the event per Peak Viewers, with 114K concurrent viewers at Chessable Masters 2023 and 171K at Airthings Masters 2023.
Comparison of CCT 2023 events’ viewership
Comparison of Aimchess Rapid 2023 to other CCT events this year
The Aimchess Rapid 2023 did receive solid viewership, enough to rank it within the top ten events hosted so far this year. However, it did pale in comparison to the Airthings Masters and Chessable Masters of 2023. Both of these tournaments benefited from having more players from the top ten participating, such as Hikaru Nakamura (#2 Classical), Levon Aronian (#14 Classical), and Arjun Erigaisi (#30 Classical).
As mentioned, Hikaru and Magnus’ match against each other was the source of Peak Viewers for both of these events. However, at the Chessable Masters 2023 the Finals between Hikaru and Fabiano, ranked number 2 and 3 in Classical, respectively, drew in 105K concurrent viewers also.
Magnus, Hikaru, and Fabiano are the players every chess fan wants to see face off and as such they draw up the Average Viewers figure by a significant margin. At the Airthings Masters 2023, Magnus and Hikaru were the two most popular players per Average Viewers, with Wesley So at 40K Average Viewers behind them. Although the Aimchess Rapid 2023 struggled to match up against the top two events, this is most likely due to the participants of the event, not a reflection of the quality of the tournament.
The ChessKid Cup lags even further behind, although Hikaru made an appearance Magnus was not available for the event. The quintessential modern personality of chess not appearing in a tournament is as good a reason as any for low viewership, and his disappearance from this event was a factor in the lower viewership data.
Comparison of the biggest chess events of 2023
Comparison of the biggest Chess events of 2023
Comparison of the most watched events of 2023, per Hours Watched and Peak Viewers
Overall, the Aimchess Rapid 2023 was decently successful, but no event this year has come close to the FIDE World Championship 2023. Hardly a surprise, as FIDE host the largest and most prestigious world championship in chess. The event amassed 11.4M Hours Watched and a Peak Viewers figure of 572.3K, even without the mega personality of Magnus Carlsen, who announced in 2022 he would not defend his world championship title due to lack of motivation.
Following the FIDE World Championship 2023 are the Tata Steel Chess and Norway Chess of 2023, both of which are in-person prestigious chess events involving some of the best grandmasters. Critically analysed, these events have a much longer Airtime than the CCT events to thank for their watch time, when turning our attention to the Peak Viewers graphic we can see the Airthings Master 2023 outperformed both events, and the Chessable Masters 2023 was just 5K behind the Tata Steel Chess event.
The CCT has been an overall success so far this year, achieving similar viewership to the Tata Steel Chess event, which is usually one of the most-watched events of the year. Although the CCT currently sits as some of the most watched events of the year, this could change as more FIDE tournaments and championships take place later in the year.
Two events remain in the Champions Chess Tour for 2023, and although exact details are yet to be released, they will take place on 28.08-01.09 and 25.09-29.09. With 150 points available for winning Division I, the spots in the Playoffs are still volatile and many competitors could qualify. The Playoffs, which are functionally Semi-Finals, will take place from December 4th until December 12th, before the Finals from December 15th to 22nd.
Magnus Carlsen was the ultimate champion of the CCT 2022, but this year is looking even more competitive. Grandmasters like Hikaru Nakamura and Fabiano Caruana, who didn’t compete in the 2022 championship, are showing up to events and giving it their all. Keep an eye out for more information and analysis of these events on ChessWatch.
Credit to Rappler.com for the header image. Click here for the image source.
