Llada said it was too soon to measure the full impact of “The Queen’s Gambit” on chess, but said it was already comparable to the buzz usually generated around world championships, held every two years. Sites that required users to be registered reported an increase in new membership of around 40 percent, he said. When the pandemic hit, the numbers grew to an estimated 16 million to 17 million games per day. Chess Federation reported an increase in sales of wooden sets, which can cost several thousand dollars, since the show began.Īt the beginning of the year, as many as 11 million chess games were played online every day, Mr. Gibson said, chess sets at eBay were already selling 60 percent more than last year, which the company attributes to people spending more time at home during the pandemic. Vintage set sales have increased seven times, as have sales for equipment, including chess clocks and timers, which are up 45 times since last month.īefore “The Queen’s Gambit,” Ms. Of the different types of chess sets, wooden are the most popular and sell nine times more than plastic, electronic or glass on eBay, she said. At Goliath Games, a toy company that sells several varieties of chess sets, set sales are up more than 1,000 percent compared with this time last year, the company’s director of marketing told NPR.Ī spokeswoman for eBay, Kara Gibson, said the company had recorded a 215 percent increase in sales of chess sets and accessories since the debut of the show in October.
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