The Great Eval Bar Debate: Chess.com's Broadcasting Style

youtu.be/bTCAd3f1NNk?si=hIztUMqCjUeZjKwf - this is my starting point.

As mentioned by the others, Dojo guys don't do eval bars. Main argument is that having eval bars misrepresents the difficulty chess players face during a game. Having eval bars diminishes and takes away that vicarious experience from the viewers.

Ludwig, emphasizes the commentators skills. Good broadcasts depend more on the commentators, eval bars are just a small part of it.

My take is that, viewing sports is not meant to be a vicarious experience of the players for the viewers. For example, in F1, helmet view usage is sporadic. Sports broadcasts are meant to tell a comprehensive and understandable story for the general audience of what's happening. So I'm more in favor of what Ludwig is saying, the commentary is a much greater factor in having an enjoyable chess event viewing experience.

@GnocchiPup said in #11:
> - this is my starting point.
>
> As mentioned by the others, Dojo guys don't do eval bars. Main argument is that having eval bars misrepresents the difficulty chess players face during a game. Having eval bars diminishes and takes away that vicarious experience from the viewers.
>
> Ludwig, emphasizes the commentators skills. Good broadcasts depend more on the commentators, eval bars are just a small part of it.
>
> My take is that, viewing sports is not meant to be a vicarious experience of the players for the viewers. For example, in F1, helmet view usage is sporadic. Sports broadcasts are meant to tell a comprehensive and understandable story for the general audience of what's happening. So I'm more in favor of what Ludwig is saying, the commentary is a much greater factor in having an enjoyable chess event viewing experience.

The reason I disagree with this is because chess is not like F1 or other sports. The Chess viewer actually plays chess, unlike these other sports. F1 isn't mentally challenging to play (at least not in the same sense), but chess is. There is no real equivalent in sports to the eval bar in chess, so the comparison is a bit unimportant. the commentators in chess are meant to explain what is going on, to help give the viewer an idea. If anyone who actually wants to improve wants to watch the candidates or any other tournament, i would steer clear of any of the main broadcasts like chess.com, chess24 and FIDE, because you should also try and out in effort, and give a human evaluation based on the position. Better would be to go for ChessDojo or the Lichess stream (I don't know whether or not they use it, but last time I checked it was off). If you are someone who plays for fun then the eval bar streams should do, but don't expect it to help your chess in any way

@ParallelPringles is that really the direction we want to go?

Millions of non-basketball players watch the NBA, such as myself. Similarly, I don't drive an F1 car, or play tennis, or play football (soccer). But I watch broadcasts of those.

Not sure if the goal of catering exclusively to the chess playing audience is a good goal to pursue for broadcasting.

In summary, I don't think the goal of chess and sports broadcasts in general should be primarily educational. Sports broadcasts are meant to tell stories. Educational content, if present, could come at a distant second. Like with other sports, broadcasts are for entertainment. Learning comes from other places.

P.S. But do note that I'm not saying specialist broadcasts such as ChessDojo shouldn't exist. If there are viewers for this, then I hope they continue doing it. But the hard-core viewers should do their share. They should watch and support such broadcasts. Right now, there are less than 400 viewers.

So how spectacular can chess be as a non-player enterainment? Do people who don't play chess themselves ever watch games from begginning to end, if it was near them physically?

Isn't that pushing a bit far the notion that chess is sport, just because it is competitive? Maybe there should be televised betting, to make it more appealing for those who would not have any clue what is happening on the board, until it ends.

Or does anyone thing the eval bard, like a thrilling sport to watch in itself?

In ping pong or tenning, it is not just the score that people who don't play it, they can stil during short time frame see when the ball is not returned.... or hit the net. The scores and there to add to that visual pleasure.. Otherwise it might be any other pissing contest.. but having to wait and get hypothesized bar an eval bar that might be swinging randomly (if not a chess player, it would be like unknown hierogrlyps of each square on the board being like pixels of sort, and weird ones when a piece on it. Or they might think of them as actually king and queens dancing around on some court dance floor? Dare I say: LOL!

something is weird here to me, like am I missing something that would make it less weird, that chess could be a spectator sport? WT... Are they people getting hooked that don't play? what kind of cool aid?

When the author mention the Polgar/Leko commentary that got me. I loved those two, they took the time to explain Super GM thinking and strategy in a way that 1500 players like me can understand them. No eval bar, just 2 of the best to ever do it talking about chess.

The reason that eval in chess is so different, is that a vast majority of chess viewers also play chess themselves. How many F1 or UFC viewers actually play those sports? If you're a good chess player, part of the fun of watching a chess game is thinking about what YOU would do in that position, or trying and take something away from it, rather than just watch other people do that thing. If you could tell a football play wasn't going to work the moment the players got into formation, how many people do you think would watch?

great to be able to turn it on or off depending on e.g. how you want to focus

Wait, there are ad breaks on chess.com's stream? Why do people even still use this website lol

Strange to write this during the ongoing Candidates, without mentioning the super-chill Lichess and FIDE broadcasts.

There are different ways of using the eval bar.

"OMG LOOK THE BAR!"-style is not very appetising.

But to occasionally: "let's check the bar, hmm how can this be equal, where is the save?" can be quite nice.