Mr Beast teases chess match with grandmaster Hikaru

The Beast’s Gambit? After YouTuber Jimmy ‘MrBeast’ Donaldson revealed his ‘addiction’ to chess, and his wish to play with other creators, esports org TSM offered the services of their chess grandmaster, Hikaru Nakamura – and it’s looking like a collaboration is on the cards.

Chess has seen a big resurgence in popularity over the past year. After streamers like xQc and Forsen picked up the game early in 2020, chess.com established the Pogchamps: an amateur chess tournament. After the success of the first tournament, a second edition was completed in September.

Then Netflix released ‘The Queen’s Gambit’, a miniseries about a chess protege on a quest to conquer the chess world. The cultural impact has been insane. When the series was released, the International Chess Federation found that Google searches for people wanting to learn chess quadrupled.

MrBeast has already made his wish to get involved with esports abundantly clear. While chess isn’t technically an esport, the two overlap a lot nowadays, and this latest development seems like a definite step in that direction.

MrBeast teases match with TSM chess grandmaster Hikaru

After MrBeast tweeted out his desire to be matched up with chess content creators, TSM responded by offering the services of grandmaster, Hikaru.

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“Just started playing chess a few days ago, any creators want to play? I’m addicted,” MrBeast said.

MrBeast then talked about his fascination with Hikaru’s work, explaining how he “watch[es] all his videos.” TSM looked to seal the deal, and replied: “Let’s make it happen.”

A chess matchup between MrBeast and Hikaru, or even some sort of tutorial, would be an exciting piece of prospective chess content. Hikaru seems keen to capitalize on the current hype around chess. After the success of the first two Pogchamps, Hikaru tweeted his desire for the third edition of PogChamps to be created.

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He’s already had responses from big names, with Fnatic League coach YamatoCannon and StarCraft commentator Artosis willing to get involved.

If Hikaru’s bid to put together a new tournament comes to a head, perhaps we’ll be seeing MrBeast lining up as one of the competitors.