French GM Yannick Gozzoli shared his opinion on elite chess tournaments. Yannick believes that the current tournament format is outdated, and says that professional chess is in a transition period.

Yannick Gozzoli

Yannick Gozzoli

French GM

“After Wijk aan Zee, we had a whole series of tournaments with all sorts of time controls. We can’t even remember who won…

It’s great for top players: they can live comfortably off chess. But I’m not sure it’s suitable for spectators, for what people want to see.

Tata Steel lasts almost three weeks. Norway Chess lasts over 10 days. And yet, practically the same players play each other. At some point, it starts to tire. I never watched the games in Norway live — I only watched the results in the evening.

We continue to play as if we were still in the 1980s and 1990s. Wijk aan Zee is a long-standing tradition. The organizers are generally quite conservative. They don’t like to change anything, but it’s possible that high-level tournaments are currently missing something important.

Our tournaments are completely outdated compared to what people want to see. The French Top-16 league, for example, is played over 11 days. Games can last five to six hours, but almost no one follows them. The audience is tiny compared to the huge mass of potential viewers we could reach.

We’re currently in a kind of hybrid, transitional period. No one knows how to behave or which direction to take. That’s why everyone is slowly experimenting with different time controls and formats to see which ones work.”

Tata Steel Chess is one of the oldest elite chess tournaments still played to this day. Tata Steel is held annually since 1938, and the tournament still features traditional Classical time control. Most modern elite tournaments feature a similar format, including the FIDE Candidates Tournament, Prague International Chess Festival, TePe Sigeman & Co, Norway Chess, and others.