Journalists Stress Out Chess Players

Media attention and promotion will turn chess players into major celebrities

Chess fever rocks spectators in Bulgaria, driving the journalists into the game hall, and generating great promotion for the ancient game. Every day numerous articles get published, many television broadcasts are devoted to the Mtel Masters tournament, and more and more sport portals include big chess sections in their columns.

This enormous PR effect, achieved under the careful supervision of Zhivko Ginchev, without a doubt will have very positive effects for chess in general. Media attention and promotion will help the popularization of chess, but it will also turn chess players into major celebrities, thus having serious repercussions not only on their personal lives, but also on their play. A simple example we saw today, in round 8 of the Mtel Masters 2007, Mamedyarov felt extremely uncomfortable with the media exposure he was getting on board one. The GM from Azerbaijan was so bothered by the flashes and the noise, that he tried to cover his face with his hands and stayed like that for several minutes.

Here we can turn the game of "spot the differences" into "count the cameras". We counted seven.

Since Mamedyarov's frustration was noticeable, and it affected also Topalov and Nisipeanu, some of the journalists off stage (behind the thin red string that separates the game area from the observation area) decided that it is not necessary to bother the players any more and left. This was not the case for all and probably some colleagues continued taking photos and filming videos until the 10 minute window for press intervention was over.

Carlsen is bothered by journalists
photo by Carla Amse

Mamedyarov is not the first player that gets frustrated with the press. Several months ago a similar incident happened to Magnus Carlsen. At the Corus tournament, which is soon to become part of the Grand Slam, the young chess player was constantly surrounded by flashes and felt great discomfort, as we can see on his face. Back then his reaction was attributed to his first steps in big tournaments. However, today we can deduct that it was a precedent for a more visible trend – with the popularity, increased media interest and bigger prize funds comes the inconvenience of being in the focus of public's interest.