After more than 1 year without any streams on his channel, Magnus Carlsen celebrates his streaming comeback with a live chess match against his friend and fellow chess grandmaster Hikaru Nakamura. The undisputed chess champion of the world spent the past months simply focusing on defending his title as world champion and growing the popularity of his chess platform, playmagnus.com.
Magnus Carlsen, streamed his match with Hikaru live on his Twitch Channel, Maskenissen in front of more than 12,000 viewers. Carlsen and Hikaru played 8 games in his first stream after his 13-month hiatus from Twitch. The Norwegian won 8 out of 6 matches that day and made the fans go crazy when he announced that he would be more visible on the platform in the coming weeks.
Magnus, the reigning chess world champion, rarely streams on the platform but, manages to gather huge audiences when he does. Chess fans all over the world celebrated Carlsen’s comeback. He announced that in the coming weeks, he will spend more time with Twitch streaming and challenge other famous chess streamers and also random members from his audience that get the chance to beat the current world chess champion.
Magnus ridicules Hikaru on stream
After showing his dominance on the chess field by winning 5 consecutive matches against Hikaru, the chess champion of the world could not help but tease Hikaru who is arguably the most successful chess streamer in the world.
Magnus said hauntingly: ”It’s not a fair competition. It’s like when we play in chess tournaments, and I’m a professional chess player, and he is a professional streamer, that’s not fair.” With this statement, he referred to his 5th consecutive win in a 10-minute match against Nakamura.
The two players have been friends since their youth and are used to roasting each other regularly in their streams. While Magnus Carlsen without a doubt is the better chess player, his Twitch channel lacks behind Hikaru’s in viewership. But the Norwegian also made a cocky comment towards Hikaru’s subscriber count. Jokingly, he mentions that he only streams every couple of months and reaches a viewership that is half the size of Hikaru’s channel. Since Hikaru is a full-time streamer, he should have way more viewers than Carlsen.
Magnus vs. Hikaru on Twitch
While Hikaru certainly is a weaker chess player than the current world-champion, he certainly won the streaming race for himself. With over 20,000 average viewer per stream, the American grand champion is considered one of the biggest streamer on the platform. His Twitch channel GMHikaru counts a followship of an incredible 1.5 Million subscribers on Twitch, and he is regarded as one of the most influential voices in modern chess. Magnus Carlsen cannot exactly compete in terms of views on his channel, but certainly attract a huge crowd to his chanel every time he plays.
Chess fans on Twitch are excited to see more matches between the two on Twitch and see their idols on the platform more frequently.