Streamers Take Over the Maia Chess Open

This year, Portugal's biggest tournament was overtaken by 12 streamers representing 11 different countries, making the Maia Chess Open the most internationally covered amateur tournament... maybe ever?

The Maia Chess Festival in Maia, Porto, encompasses multiple blitz events, masterclasses, social events, and, of course, the Open, a nine-round Swiss tournament attracting over 200 chess players of all skill levels. It was my first time in Portugal since I was eight years old, and I had never been to Porto, so I was excited when we arrived the day before the main event began to play the Douro Blitz Cruise, a six-round 3+2 rated event where I hung a piece to a 1400 and forced a repetition on move eight against a 1500 so I could get a glass of wine and sit in the sun on the boat. What can I say? Blitz is my weakest time control.

The boat across the river was an awesome way to start the trip, and I wanted to keep exploring on the cable car and walk through the historic city... but by then, it was late, and the classical tournament started the next day.

In round one, I got checkmated with a queen sacrifice. It doesn't sound promising, I know, but after that I started to play really well... and, for the first time in a long time, I actually had a good tournament! I may have lost rating points in the blitz event, but I'm gaining almost 25 points to my classical rating, so I'm taking that as a win.

In Maia, I won three games, drew two, and lost four. I finished 126th, which is pretty good considering my starting rank of 172nd! More important for me was the actual content and quality of my games; it feels good to play well. I scored my highest-rated draw (1957) and crushed some 1700s, which shows that my rating should be on the way up.

It's only just this April that I got my first over-the-board draw against an 1850-rated player, and it feels like I'm getting closer and closer to beating them. After a bad loss in round 7, I thought back to what got me into chess in the first place. For those of you who don't know, it was The Queen's Gambit. What does Beth do in the show? She goes to the zoo in Mexico City. So... I, too, went to the Maia Zoo. I also walked around Maia itself, ate many pastel de natas (the famous Portuguese custard tarts), and filmed a lot of content. It was after that morning off that I played one of my highest accuracy games ever, against 1766-rated Luigi Scarlato.

In this game, my opponent declined my Smith-Morra Gambit, which led to me getting a really nice position in a transposition to the Sicilian Defense: Alapin Variation. We were both convinced there was an attack brewing for White in the position, an evaluation Stockfish vehemently disagrees with, but it led to my opponent making a mistake, meaning I did actually get a great attack:

It's nice to be at an event where everyone around you is also recording, filming, streaming, and editing. The Reykjavik Open was my first real experience of being around so many streamers at a tournament. Even though I'd met most of them at the 2022 Chennai Olympiad, I was the only one streaming my games there. In Portugal, it was nice to have a shared experience of all setting up, streaming, and filming recaps and to be around people going through the same experience. Doing content creation while playing classical chess is a lot of extra work, and being the only creator at the chess tournament often leads to a lot of stares and questions. Not all chess players are in favor of streamers making content at classical events or receiving accommodations from arbiters to use electronic equipment.

I understand the paranoia; there was a cheater caught and disqualified at the Maia Chess Open. Obviously, however, it wasn't a streamer. The truth is, streamers have a lot more at stake here; if we cheated, we would lose our jobs and credibility, and our chess careers would be ruined. I don't know a single streamer who isn't hyper-vigilant at these events about keeping their streaming setup silent and giving their phone to the arbiters before the round.

Streaming at open chess tournaments is still such a new thing that a lot of players and arbiters struggle to navigate it. Sometimes, there is a compromise between content and safe play. For example, there was a 10-minute delay on the digital boards. Streaming these games, though, is an amazing way of bringing classical chess to an online audience of amateur players who may not always want to watch super-GMs battle it out with extremely high-level commentary.

I love watching the World Chess Championship as much as the next person, but there's something else in watching your favorite streamer playing over-the-board chess. Maybe it's the sense of community, but you feel more invested. I love commentating for other streamers and rooting for them when they're playing classical events!

The Maia Chess Festival included many side events like the Streamers Blitz (which I opted out of after I'd already gotten crushed in the first blitz tournament), a women's-only blitz and brunch event called Queens Maia Blitz, and a chess dinner and party.

Honorary streamer GM Noel Studer won the Streamers Blitz Tournament with 5.5/6, after he was brought in as the 12th player after I declined to play more than one blitz tournament per trip. FM Anna-Maja Kazarian came second with 4/6, followed by WFM Anna Cramling, also with 4/6.

The dinner and party was held at a bar in Maia. I've never understood why chess players are so insistent on playing even more blitz when you put them all together in a location with alcohol. You'd think that after a classical game, a blitz tournament, and preparation for the game the next day... they'd have had enough for one day. Nope!

Many of the other streamers also had great success in the classical tournament, including WFM Lile Koridze, who started the event with a draw against the top seed, Brazilian GM Alexandr Fier. In Maia, Lile scored 5.5/9, and only lost one game in the whole event—to an IM. Here is Lile's impressive draw, annotated by herself:

Anna-Maja, who is currently chasing the WGM title, was also playing in Maia. She gained rating at the tournament, scoring 6/9, and her best game from the event was an impressive win against IM Matthias Dann in round five. Here is the game, annotated by her:

Anna-Maja has recently completed her first WGM norm and will be playing in more strong events, looking for her final two. You can follow her progress on her YouTube channel, including the recap of this game:

This tournament was the first time I filmed my recaps while the rounds were still going on. In the past, I waited until after the event. It really kept the hype going and kept me motivated, knowing every night after the game I was going to share exactly what happened, my thoughts, feelings, and calculations from the game, and having all of this still be fresh in my mind.

However, by the end of the event, I was exhausted. I'm used to nine-round tournaments being around a week long, with some double-round days. The Maia Open is one round a day, plus a blitz tournament the day before. Ten days of full chess and content wiped me out, especially since it was my first time playing a full tournament without any byes. Usually, I like to take some time to explore the city I'm visiting, but because we had some afternoons off after morning rounds... I tried to fit everything in!

For those who had extra time to spare before the 4 p.m. rounds began, there were pre-round masterclasses held by world-renowned grandmasters, like legendary Spanish GM Juan Manuel Bellon Lopez (known by many newer chess players as Anna Cramling's dad). I regretted not having time to attend these masterclasses this trip, as I was filming recaps for my tournament games!

On this trip, I had the privilege of meeting some streamers I'd never crossed paths with before, including IM Kostya Kavutskiy, who is known for being one-third of ChessDojo. He shared with me what he thinks was one of the best games of the whole event... Unfortunately, though, in his opponent's favor. I hope to one day be this gracious about a loss, but honestly, Kostya was right... this is a really spicy game of chess from his round five opponent, GM Victor Mikhalevski.

Annotations courtesy of Kostya:

You can find more of Kostya's chess content on his X account.

The Maia Open was won by French GM Pierre Bailet, who scored 8/9 with seven wins and two draws, followed by Canadian GM Kevin Spraggett with 7.5/9, and Portuguese IM Jose Veiga. 

For those of you who are wondering... I did get to go back to Porto after the first morning round, but it was too foggy to go on the cable car. I guess I'll just need to come back in 2025 for the eighth edition of the Maia Chess Festival!

The Maia Chess Open was a nine-round Swiss with a time control of 90 minutes for the first 40 moves plus 30 minutes for the rest of the game, with a 30-second increment from the first move. It was held from August 23-31, 2024.