The Grand Master of Commentary

Silence has become a rare commodity in chess commentary nowadays. Commentators treat the quiet between moves as an abominable void to be filled—and they do so with ceaseless chatter or engine analysis, rather than thoughtful reflection. Consequently, commentary feels less like a conversation about chess and more like a bite-by-bite description of a burger-eating contest. It sounds simultaneously brainy and brain-dead. Consider the following 30-second excerpt of commentary during the opening moves of a game:

(The game hasn’t yet begun. A man starts to drone about the venue, the colour of the pieces, the colour of the players’ shirts… Then the first move is played. We can see the moves on the live video feed, the overlaid graphic of the live demonstration board and the game score.)

d4 by White. Let’s see what Black plays. d5. c4. c6. It’s the Slav Defence. How will White respond? He brings out his knight to f3. Black puts his knight on f6. What is white’s move going to be? He goes g3.

(A woman who was, up until then, pouting and smiling alternately at the camera begins to speak. The commentary is dull, so she decides to inject some excitement by faking an orgasm after every move.)

Oh my god! g3! White has sacrificed a pawn! Oh my god!

(And the agony begins…)

Fans of White should not worry; this pawn sacrifice is well known. Black will attack on the king’s side.

Oh my god! Is Black going for a king-side attack?

And so it continues for hours. (Presumably, because by this time I’ve already swallowed a handful of aspirin and switched to the live PGN at TWIC.)

Why must we endure this tedious prattle? This is not Wrestlemania. This is chess. It’s fun just to see the moves. And while we wait for the next move, I’d like to hear commentators (many of whom are strong players with FIDE titles) talk sensibly about our beloved game: a human analysis of the position, the principal plans and tactics available to each side, or maybe an anecdote about that time when Tal went berserk in this position because he wanted to step out for a smoke… Anand, Seirawan, and Leko dish out these ingredients in pleasant proportions, as do (to a lesser extent) Hess, Grishchuk, Hambleton, and Polgar. They do get excited, but they don’t squirt it all over the board and into our ears.

And then, there’s Peter Svidler… With a personality brimming with understated humour, irony, and self-effacing charm, Svidler demonstrates that good commentary isn’t about drowning out the silence but about enriching it. He is the Grandmaster of Chess Commentary. (The lifelong validity of FIDE’s Grandmaster title is the subject for a rambling rant… Maybe later. Briefly: there ought to be a World Champion and just enough ‘Grandmasters’ to fit the round table at Camelot.)

I have never met GM Svidler. I would occasionally play through some of his games after he won against Kasparov in 1997, but my first meaningful encounter with him was by way of an interview and the recorded game-score published in a magazine(?) that I cannot find now. When asked to choose the favourite move of his chess career, Svidler, playing black, chose the accurate but counter-intuitive 22. …h6! which he played in the position shown above, in reply to Michael Adam’s Qf3. See the entire game here. This is the kind of position that chess players quaintly describe as being unpleasant: a pebble-in-the-shoe situation that gets incrementally worse with each step. Rather than being overwhelmed, Svidler decided to hold the fort, as it were, by destroying its walls! After a series of exchanges, he steered the game to a peaceful, drawn conclusion. I wasn’t at all surprised that Svidler, then rated 2750, found the best move. However, picking this as his favourite move spoke volumes about the man; it seemed to me that Svidler quite enjoyed being the scrappy, resourceful underdog in an unpleasant position: an attitude that is both endearing and rare in the ego-driven world of elite chess. I filed away the thought… When asked to pick his favourite game, he picked his famous 1997 win in Tilburg. This is his analysis of the game.

While Svidler was winning Russian Championships in the 1990s I was playing Rapid and Blitz at the local chess hangout. Ours was a properly diverse group of enthusiastic nerds, serious players, communist fanboys, dodgy hustlers, and pensioners who all considered themselves Botvinnik-level coaches. The left side flag of our battered Jantar clock betrayed its Soviet origins: it was ever so slightly “stickier” than the flag on the right. I owned an ancient edition of Modern Chess Openings published in the era when e4 was either P-K4 or P-K5, a tattered copy of Speelman’s Analysing Endgames, and a mouldy stack of old chess magazines, mostly Chess in the USSR and 64. I knew the principal lines and variations of a few openings, quite a few weird openings that relied on El Cheapo tactics, and had a passable understanding of how to play endgames though, while playing, I lost or drew winning endgames more often. I adored Mikhail Tal. Essentially, I was (and remain) a vaguely serious chess fan who enjoys playing and watching the game.

Svidler wasn’t—and still isn’t—my favourite player. I lack the strength to appreciate the complexities hidden in his games, or in the games of most modern masters. The advent of chess programs and the interweb gave amateur club players such as myself a better grasp of the game than the sparse annotations in Informant or 64 ever could. Yet, while useful, these tools were unwieldy and impractical for following a live game. It was tournament streaming that truly changed how I understood chess. The FIDE Candidates in 2014 was the first tournament I watched online, with commentary from two strong players. Their style was clunky, but it was clunky chess commentary. For the first time, viewers could peek into the minds of grandmasters as they thought about positions!

The post-match press conference after Round One at that tournament was the first time I heard Svidler speak.The man I had imagined—the underdog matador who had boldly brandished a red cape at Kasparov in Tilburg and won—now had a voice. And it sounded exactly as I had imagined it would.

For amateurs such as myself, a computer’s evaluation of even positions can be misleading. If Stockfish evaluates one side being significantly better, then we know to look for tactics that might lead to a gain in material. If Stockfish says both sides are equal then we would not know to look for tactics let alone where to look. But tactics and strategy exist on all moves! When, then, is the position even? It is in such positions that a good commentator shows his skill. Svidler, like Moses, parts the seas to expose the chaotic, beautiful lansdscape underneath. His methods are a pleasant variety of move-by-move exposition, jargon, and anecdote, appropriately suited to the position on the board.

‘A Minority Attack here might look promising, but it doesn’t work,’ he says and shows us the most interesting lines.

A very similar position occurred in a game between Anand and Yusupov, where White decided to decline the pawn offered up for sacrifice. Nowadays, you just take the pawn,’

‘Viewers might be wondering why Black doesn’t take on f7. It does win material, but there’s a cute refutation that leaves the Knight stranded.’ He pauses for a bit to give us a chance to find the sequence. Then, he shows the line.

Svidler’s provides enough depth for serious fans to explore with a computer later, while offering casual viewers just enough context to follow along. Like most Grandmasters, Svidler can turn up his savant setting to 11, but he rarely chooses to do so. When he does, it is reminiscent of that famous post-match interview of Ivanchuk in which he analysed an entire game from memory. Most importantly, when he has nothing meaningful to add, he says nothing—a rarity in modern commentary. Also, there’s that unwritten rule: Don’t smile stupidly at the camera all the time. Commentators look creepy when they smile for no reason. Svidler follows this rule with endearing awkwardness: He looks at the monitor, he looks at his colleague, he looks at his shoelaces, he looks away… Smiling all the time makes you look like a coked-up host on an American shopping channel. Speaking of coked-up…

On Chess R Us, the eval bar plummets.

And White has blundered!

Oh my god! Ng5. What a dominating performance by Black!

But was it really dominating? No—it was simply a blunder as White scrambled to reach the time-control. Calm down.

Injecting artificial excitement into slow-paced games such as chess, snooker, and cricket often feels disingenuous and diminishes their inherent charm. A skilled commentator respects the game’s natural pace, finding moments of genuine intrigue without hyping every action. In cricket, for instance, Richie Benaud and Sunil Gavaskar conveyed the gravity of key moments without resorting to theatrics. Genuine passion and excitement are an essential, welcome ingredient of good commentary. Sid Waddell and Geoffrey Boycott were known for their bouts of yelling and unbridled enthusiasm. The occasional whoop or cheer has its place, but the brilliance of commentary lies in blending enthusiasm with wit and humour. Such moments enhance the experience for the viewer, leaving an indelible impression without overwhelming the game’s natural rhythm. Svidler and Anand remind me of the commentary of Benaud; Leko’s ’earnest’ excitement is reminiscent of Tony Grieg: Hambleton is like Steve Davis in the commentary box, though he hasn’t quite reached Davis’s snooker standards over the chess board.

Some viewers cherish the eccentricities of commentators like Henry Blofeld and Sid Waddell precisely because they bring a burst of personality to the analysis. Blofeld’s obsession with earrings in the crowd may seem frivolous (he was quite the randy bastard, wasn’t he?) but they endeared him to viewers. However, whimsy can become distracting if overdone. Svidler, for instance, serves up anecdotes as palate cleansers as and when required-he has the extraordinary ability to pause the anecdote, briefly take us through interesting lines on the board, then resume the story. Yasser Seirawan is my favourite teller of tales; Anand too is pretty good, though he needs a simpatico opposite number–which is why he pairs well with Leko, who is definitely not a yarn-spinner. Svidler and Anand would get along like Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry. I would love to watch a chess podcast featuring Anand, Svidler, and Seirawan. They could call it Chess Talk (after Neil Degrasse Tyson’s show.)

Svidler’s self-deprecating humour is unique amongst chess commentators. During an online banter session, he is paired against a strong (2700+) opponent. (Svidler is rated 3000+ on the site.) He sighs loudly after an error in the middle game–an error that would be evident only to a computer or a super Gransmaster–and said, ‘Already I am beginning to question my life choices.’ The game continues; Svidler compliments his opponent’s moves graciously while suggesting improvements; his own moves are accurate according to Stockfish. Then his opponent blunders a piece. ‘It’s a decent plan, but it doesn’t work. Ng5 Nxg5, fxg5 and he plans to take my bishop on the next move. But I don’t have to take his Knight immediately. This is unfortunate.’ Svidler winces as he wins a piece after a three-move sequence. A small part of him was cheering for his underdog opponent who had fought well but must now lose. ‘Now I’m back to being happy about my life choices, which is an unusual state of affairs for me,’ he says, wryly.

An appreciation of irony grows naturally in the minds of any well-read Russian; it needs no cultivation to flourish, and while it might never be articulated, its presence is quite tangible. Without it how could there be happiness in Siberia? Or, for that matter, in Saint Leninsburg where Svidler was born. Irony also flourishes like wildflowers along the boundary lines of rural cricket grounds. It takes an ironic mind to appreciate and love a sport in which a player might spend the entire duration of the match without touching either bat or ball. Svidler is a Russian who loves test cricket. It shows. In an online game against Magnus Carlsen, Svidler–the underdog in this match–found himself in a better position out of the opening: ‘This is a big advantage but I’m not the world’s best at converting big advantages.’ A few moves later, Carlsen missed an intermezzo knight move and was left with a bishop against Svidler’s rook. The game continued. With ten seconds on the clock, Svidler had a rook and king vs Carlsen’s king and pawn. The ironic prediction became real: Svidler couldn’t pre-move fast enough and ran out of time two moves away from checkmate. The game was drawn. Some viewers apologized for Carlsen’s ’lack of respect’ but Svidler, visibly thrown by the loss, defended his opponent: ‘How do I not mate with 10 seconds on the clock? Disgusting! To people apologising for Magnus–he was clear before the match that there would be no increment, so I only have myself to blame.’ He laughed suddenly. I don’t mind the draw, but it would have been really nice to have won that game, he says, channelling the ghost of Akaky Bashmachkin.

In another game against Carlsen, Svidler was at a disadvantage. Again, disadvantage must be understood in the context of a match between two Super Grandmasters. (There, again, is the temptation to scratch that itch about the lofty title of Grandmaster needing an imbecilic explanatory adjective but I shan’t digress any further) Jan Gustaffson sat beside Svidler during this stream, commenting on the moves being played. This is the commentary:

‘This is a position where you normally resign,’ said Svidler. One can almost sense that his mouse is moving towards the ‘resign’ button.

‘No. This is a position where you resign,’ replied Gustaffson bluntly. (He’s German.)

‘Exactly. It’s a very resignable position,’ said Svidler. Then he resigned!

Peter Svidler is the kind of person every pawn-pushing underdog aspires to be. Someone who could play a brilliant game, win or lose, and then shrug it off with self-effacing humour, as if victories and defeats were merely flavours of a rapidly melting ice lolly. He reminds us that even in the highest echelons of chess, the game is still deeply, beautifully human—full of mistakes, triumphs, and unexpected flashes of epiphany. And perhaps that’s what makes him so compelling: the way he frames chess not as a cold battle of calculation or a gladiatorial contest, but as a tale of resilience, ingenuity, and joy. For players like us—amateurs, enthusiasts, lovers of the game—Svidler offers not just analysis, but a kind of quiet kinship.

Thank you, Peter Veniaminovich, for reminding us why we play.

Editor’s notes:

1. I fully expect to see the occasional article that was obviously written when wasted. This is one of them. In the spirit of fairness, I have only blue-pencilled rants that I did not fully understand after drinking a tumbler of our favourite booze. Examples: “…are consumed alive by the dryads that roam Tal’s Dark Forest”, “a countdown to the expiry date for the Grandmaster title ought to be tattooed on…”, “the inclusion of g3 into the Grünfeld landscape is an act of vandalism, akin to spray painting a moustache on Botticelli’s Aphrodite…”. A sober Meursault would not write an entire paragraph on Gogol playing something called the Bongcloud Opening against Chekov, while Svidler commented on their moves. I suspect that all of these rants will be returned to me as fully formed, article-length rants.

2. All illustrations are by our resident Artist-in-Exile Pica | π. Meursault and I agreed that any chess articles will only be published if he can convince Pica to draw portraits of players. Since Pica hates drawing from photographs, I’m sure Meursault has been bribing her with exotic alcohol, very likely the aforementioned Grey Areas.