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Originally Posted by driveway
So ... what the hell has happened here? Why is chess having this moment? Why are all of my middle school students suddenly obsessed with their Elo ratings? Seriously, back in December this was not a thing, now it's constant. I went and bought two cheap $10 magnetic chess sets to have in my classroom just last week based on the demand.
Is it the lingering impact of butt-plug-gate?
Is there some other cultural, chess-related thing going on?
Did it just break into the zeitgeist somehow and suddenly all my students know what the "italian game" is?
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Hard to say. I would blame it on the Queen’s Gambit but that came out almost three years ago, didn’t it? I can’t really explain it otherwise. I’ve played chess since I was a kid, but I don’t remember it ever being “popular.”