Lichess WCC anti-spectacular streams - Follow them!

The Lichess live commentary of the 2024 World Championship in Singapore does not disappoint!
I am definitely pleased to have followed all five of them - so far - and I strongly recommend them

Levon Aronian, Matthew Sadler, Felix Blohberger and the host Laura Unuk offer plenty of entertaining 'mediations' and have raised the bar of how chess events are supposed to be streamed.

So, what is standing out?

• Proper chess analysis... Incisive, persistent, truth-seeking - the analysis aims to reach the understanding of the developing positions
• No interfering evaluation bar... In general, limited reliance on engines (and only at the end of the analysis)
• In contrast, plenty of good and instructive ideas and plans, which highlight the educational usefulness in such streams; and no least, chess' intrinsic complexity and playing value.
• While ideas, moves and plans are tested on the board, viewers are turned into active participants/observes: That's the great quality of chess!

Indeed, something whereby many other streams and popular channels fail is the way they try to create a 'spectacle' out of chess events, and doing so, not only reduce chess to commodified content, but crucially, they also tend to reduce viewers to passive consumers/observers (as it is commonly the case in most sports, cinema, etc. but not in chess!)

As we, the viewers, follow the thinking process and the critical decision-making that dialectically is involved in playing chess, we are also able to think, evaluate, consent, disagree, innovate, etc. with what is proposed and analysed during the streams. In other words, we can also "move"....

Let's add two bonus factors that distinguish Lichess' WCC broadcasts, highlighting, what I would call, its welcoming 'anti-spectacular' coverage:

• Insider chess jokes and anecdotes - the common way chess players "talk"... Authentic part of the chess culture!
• Calm narrating voices, with appropriately placed short silences or a slower pace.

That's how chess streams should be - especially of prestigious chess events: Not a fast-consuming and superficially-mediated spectacle for passive viewers. Let's follow and support them