He’s got the moves

Samay Raina says he enjoys the validation he receives while playing the game

Samay Raina hasn't slept all night. We are chatting over a video call at 8.45 am, and he plans to crash as soon as this interview is done. He wasn't partying, he tells us, just streaming - chess, that is. It all started last year; as Raina's Instagram bio explains, "I used to be a comic, till someone ate a bat." With COVID-19 hitting the stand-up scene in the most brutal way, Raina began streaming chess games online.

"I [first] learnt chess from my grandfather as a 10-year-old. I would go to Delhi from Hyderabad [where we then lived], for my vacation, and all I wanted to do was beat him [at the game]," remembers the 23-year-old Punekar. But, school and studies took over, and he had to keep the chessboard aside. "I only started playing again while in college. I would follow Antonio Radic, who is called the Agadmator on YouTube, and is one of the biggest creators. He brought beauty to the game of chess."

Samay Raina started playing chess in 2020 because he was stuck at home during the lockdown, waiting for the gigs scene to start

Having found fame with the stand-up competition series Comicstaan 2 (2019), which he won, everything else took a backseat. Raina feels he may have never met his old love again, if the pandemic hadn't thrown a spanner in the works. "It's been nearly two years now, and we are still waiting for live gigs. I was just sitting around, waiting for the pandemic to go away and Tanmay [Bhatt] suggested that I start streaming chess. I wanted to be relevant, and busy, so I said, why not," says Raina. In hindsight, it was one of his best decisions.

Online chess has grown exponentially during the lockdown. Chess.com, which was co-founded by international master and Phoenix native Daniel Rensch, received 1.5 million new subscribers in April 2020, compared to 6,70,000 in January, according to Forbes.

Comic Joel Dsouza feels that chess makes the player feel like a pseudo genius

In August last year, India was crowned joint winner with Russia at the online Chess Olympiad. This was the first time that the prestigious event was held virtually. During the online Olympiad final between India and Russia, Raina's YouTube stream saw over 60,000 people. He now has 742k subscribers. Even the legendary Gary Kasparov got wind of his work, and recently commented on his game.

"In the beginning, I didn't even know if people would watch. But I organised a tournament called Comedians on Boards, and around 1,500 people turned up. [Comedian] Akash Mehta won the first tournament. I won the fifth," he smirks, adding that Biswanath Ghosh and Joel Dsouza are some of the standup comics, who play great chess.

On some days, Raina says, he forgets that he is also a comic. "I had a show yesterday, and I wanted to write jokes. But instead, I played chess all day - before the show and even after. I am obsessed. I read a quote recently that applies to me - ‘Chess is worth giving up your life for'." Raina now spends most of his days analysing his own games, to see where he went wrong, playing puzzles, which ask him to end the game in four moves. He also feels he has learned a lot about life ever since he started playing the game. "I did realise I could make more money by sitting on a chair and streaming, than stand-up," he laughs, adding, "How you play chess, is how you live life. Some people takes risks, some play defensive. I want every move to complicate the position. Something crazy should happen. I am like that in life as well - I take decisions on the fly, but they should have a big impact. I need to be stimulated."

Comic Joel Dsouza, 25, who is a regular on Raina's teams, and who grew up playing gully chess with the neighbourhood boys, says it's the new online ecosystem, which is making it fun for everyone. "These skills can't be used anywhere, but it's a great sport, and it's fun to play," he tells us in a deadpan way, "It also makes us all feel like pseudo geniuses."

Ask Raina what he thinks the connection between a comic and chess player is, and he says, validation. "We want to feel like rockstars. When you laugh, that makes us feel good! If we win at chess, we feel, ‘Oh, we could do this in these many moves. Wow!'" He doesn't have any plans for the future though, and he says that's because he doesn't like thinking about it too much. "I only plan for two weeks into the future. It's like calculating five moves ahead, and then we'll see how it goes."