[marcelluspye]

A great example at how computers affect chess commentary is the currently ongoing tournament in St. Louis. On youtube, the game is broadcast by people using an engine to evaluate the position they're looking at, and on twitch, two grandmasters are providing commentary without an engine. The youtube stream can be easier to follow, but it takes some of the drama out when the story appears to be "look at this guy, missing the best move when he's #4 in the world, how could this happen?" for every game. On the other hand, the grandmasters' commentary might be closer to what the players are actually thinking (what would be deemed "human moves"), but sometimes even they aren't sure what exactly is going on.

https://www.youtube.com/user/STLChessClub https://www.twitch.tv/stlchessclub

[thom]

It's a shame Alejando Ramirez isn't on comms for this one, as I think he's the main draw for STL commentary for me - extremely well versed in current theory, able to balance human and computer analysis perfectly, and (with all the love in the world) doesn't bumble about as much as Yasser Seirawan.

Of course, the dream team remains Jan Gustafsson and Peter Svidler over on Chess24 when they're able to get together:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6aP-wa1q20

[marcelluspye]

Ramirez is doing the twitch stream, though you're right that he was able to balance out how the computer analysis affected his commentary. OTOH, I felt that as an event dragged on, he'd rely more and more on the machine to tell the story of the game. Conversely, it'd be nice if they made Maurice Ashley comment without the engine for a while, maybe he'd have more interesting things to say again.