FIFA World Cup: Grandmaster Anish checkmate on Twitter after draw day

June 15th will be the day football accidentally brought the best point to chess in years. Four matches at the World Cup. Spain were kept scoreless by debutant Cape Verde. Belgium and Egypt trade goals to complete the level. Saudi Arabia and Uruguay cancel each other out out. Iran attacked New Zealand twice to share the spoils. A clean draw, one of those rare days at the World Cup where every match ends without a winner on one day.

Football Twitter was still processing the chaos when Anish Giri arrived.

Ranked among the best chess players in the world and arguably the sport’s sharpest wit on social media, the Dutch grandmaster couldn’t resist.

“All draws again,” he wrote, and that’s exactly what the man who spent his career was accused of doing.

“They need to shorten the time controls and make the game more interesting for the general public. Also terrible broadcasts with too many breaks. No excitement or stories behind the players. Football should learn from chess.”

Joke for those who needed a footnote: chess has spent the better part of a decade grappling with exactly these criticisms. The sport’s own fans have called for shorter formats, livelier broadcasts and a solution to the draw problem that has plagued the game at the elite level for generations. Giri himself was once the subject of a relentless online draw of 14 consecutive games in the 2016 Candidates Tournament. In other words, he was the last person in the world who could lecture football about draws, and he knew it. Screengrab by Anish Giri/X

However, football Twitter didn’t quite get the memo.

One respondent fired back with considerable fervor, arguing that football draws were born out of genuine rivalry – neither team agreed to split a point after nine moves, no one “sat for 20 minutes thinking about how to kick the ball only to kick it two metres”. The Defense of Berlin, the famously dogged draw weapon of chess, was invoked. The post ran long. At the end, a sickening respect was offered to Giri’s rating, the online equivalent of a firm handshake after a fight.

“I understand the analogy, but this is an attempt at low-IQ sarcasm. Sure, they were all draws, but none of these things agreed to a draw after move 9, none of these teams came with the intention of playing for a draw, which is what you consistently do when you show up with Berlin in chess. More importantly, none of the players sat for 20 minutes thinking about how to better kick balls into two meters.” in the football analogy, but you picked the dumbest and lowest IQ analogy and it’s not even shocking.

“That said, I respect your chess skills, I’m not a huge fan of your playing style, but I can appreciate that you’re 500 points higher than me, so you’re definitely better. But this is just ridiculous,” the user wrote.

Another responded with the kind of tribal gatekeeping that makes Internet sports discourse so consistently compulsive reading.

“If you don’t know why Oyarzabal’s touch time was a joke or why Curacao’s goal made the Advocate cry, you’re just an observer, not a fan. Go practice more chess bro.” There is no known record of Giri subsequently going on to practice more chess.

What he did do was respond with characteristic calmness. “If you want to make football more popular, you have to find a way to make it more interesting for a wide audience – not just experts like you.” Screengrab by X

FINALLY AN ANSWER THAT STRENGTHENED HIM

The best thread contribution, acknowledged by Giri himself, came from someone who suggested that football consider randomly shuffling the starting lineups before each game.

“They could definitely come up with somewhere between 950 and 1000 random formations that would be exciting.

Finally, Giri examined the wreckage of his mentions and delivered a verdict. “I tried to get into football,” he wrote, “but the online community is so elitist and toxic that I quit. Back to chess.”

Grandmaster played. Drew. And he went home.

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Issued by:

Akshay Ramesh

Published on:

16 Jun 2026 17:08 IST