My passion for chess started when I saw Magnus Carlsen win the World Cup against Karjakin in 2016.
That was shown on national TV here in Norway.
Over the last five years, I’ve spent countless hours trying to find the absolute best chess blogs and influencers online. These below-mentioned channels have helped me to stay motivated through all these years.
What they have in common is that these people are brilliant at chess, educational and entertaining.
Youtube is probably the best source of chess entertainment out there. I’ll start by presenting the best chess influencers on Youtube – and later in the article I’ll present a couple of good options if you rather want to read chess blogs.
Table of Contents
- Best Chess Youtubers
- Best chess blogs & websites
- Want to learn chess by a grandmaster?
- Other chess related articles
Best Chess Youtubers
#1: Chessbrah
There are many reasons why Chessbrah is my favorite chess Youtube channel.
The channel is hosted by two chess players: Aman Hambleton and Eric Hansen.
Both are brilliant at chess. And both are dead funny.
- Mixing humour with chess
- Innovative, raw and perfect for guys in their 20’s or 30’s who wants to watch chess entertainment
- Often playing the top grandmasters in the world
Favorite Chessbrah video
#2: Eric Rosen
Eric Rosen is a super relaxed guy from the US that uploads brilliant videos.
Everyone talks about chess being a game with a lot of adrenalin involved….well….not for this guy.
- New videos almost every day
- Highly educational
- Sometimes funny
- And Eric Rosen is also a chess teacher (however, he is expensive…)
Favorite Eric Rosen chess video
#3: Hikaru Nakamura
The Japanese-born American has grown to become one of the largest streamers on the Amazon-owned platform Twitch.
And he did that by playing a board game online. Quite astonishing.
- Top 3 rated chess player in blitz and rapid chess
- Plays a lot of speedruns (look below)
- Great at answering the chat and talking about non-chess related topics
My favorite video of Hikaru Nakamura:
#4: Magnus Carlsen
The one and only Magnus Carlsen does sometimes appear on Youtube as well.
It’s worth mentioning that Magnus obviously doesn’t want to be a “Chess YouTuber”.
The Norwegian world champion makes Youtube videos for one reason and one reason only: to promote his website Chess24.com. 🙂
However, it’s quite interesting to sometimes see how Carlsen crushes grandmasters while sipping on a beer and talking about the recent Real Madrid game.
Favorite Magnus Carlsen video
Below is one of the best videos on Youtube – not only in regards to chess:
Best chess blogs & websites
Chess blogs are not like football/soccer blogs.
There’s no transfer news. Nor is there any drama between the coach and the players that can be written about.
Let me be 100 % honest with you.
Chess blogs are very often extremely theoretical. If you enjoy reading stuff like “e4, b4, bishop c5, etc.”, they might be for you. If not, I’d try to watch Youtube videos instead.
So if you’re one of those who are eager to read more about chess, the below-mentioned websites might be something for you.
Want to learn chess by a grandmaster?
Watching chess online through Youtube and read some blogs can be fun.
But that’s more or less everything it is: entertainment.
If you want to develop your skills in order to understand more of the game, I would suggest that you get a proper chess teacher that can provide you with the right material. Mackenzie Molner is that type of chess teacher. He has brilliant reviews online and got his own website where you can read more about his courses as well as his skills.
Head over to online chess coaching to read more about Mac and how he can help you sky-rocket that ELO!
Other chess related articles
Even though Sustainability Matters is a website about sustainability, eco-friendly products, I have chosen to publish several useful chess articles on this website.
After all, I also aim for this website to be about helping as many people as possible.
These are some of the chess-related articles on my website:
