Game Number 743: The Storyteller Who Needs No Arena

On the ChessBase platform, a notice is posted every Wednesday evening: "Game of the Week #743: Gaal vs Smeets". No flashy poster, no sensational promise. Just two players' names, an episode number, and a silent frame waiting for the viewer to press play.

I have spent many years sitting before games like this. Not to find the most beautiful move, but to hear what keeps a storyteller patiently sitting down, week after week, for fourteen straight years. 743 episodes. More than a decade. That number appears in no ranking, promotes no one, wins no trophy. It quietly proves one thing: the chess world has a need that never runs dry — the need to understand.

The person behind this series is IM Merijn van Delft, an international master from the Netherlands. He was born in the country of quiet players, lived for years in Hamburg before moving to Amsterdam. In 2026, van Delft earned a GM norm — a milestone every professional understands: three norms plus a 2500 rating are required to complete the Grandmaster title. He has one norm, and in his own words, still "craves more".

But what caught my attention was not that GM norm. It was that a man standing at the threshold of the highest title chooses to spend most of his time before a microphone, analyzing other people's games. In a world where everyone wants to be the protagonist, van Delft chooses to be the narrator.

And this is where I want to pause longest. If you read only that notice, you would know nothing about the game Gaal vs Smeets. No opening, no result, no move. The entire substantive content of the notice revolves around the presenter's biography. That is the nature of a promotional product — it sells you faith in the storyteller, not information about the game.

I used to think that was a weakness. Now I think otherwise. Because after many years in this trade, I have realized that faith in the storyteller is what holds an audience longest. A game can be beautiful, but only a trustworthy voice brings people back.

When I started writing about chess, I always believed the value lay in the game. A good game, a mistake, a historic moment — that was what deserved writing. But the more I observed, the more I realized: the game is only raw material. What holds viewers across 743 weeks is not the moves, but the steady presence of someone who knows how to turn that material into a lesson.

Think about the number 743 differently. A single game can draw attention for a few days. A major tournament holds interest for a few weeks. But an analysis series lasting more than fourteen years creates what no tournament can: a habit. Viewers do not come for a specific game. They come because Wednesday evening is the evening they learn something.

This is the point the sports content industry often overlooks when talking about chess. We are enamored with peaks — games of super grandmasters, world championships, history-making moments. But the foundation of the chess world is not there. It lies in hundreds of thousands of club players who spend a few hours each week understanding why their seventeenth move was wrong.

And it is precisely the gap between the peak and the foundation where true value is born.

A grandmaster's game, if no one translates it into a language amateur players understand, will sit forever in a database as a dry document. The storyteller — in this case van Delft — is the bridge. He does not create the game. He creates its meaning.

I remember my early years, when I was assigned to commentate a match in an empty arena. No applause, no sighs, my voice grew so monotonous that even I did not want to listen back. An editor told me something I still carry: "You said everything correctly, but no one heard your heart." At the time I thought it was criticism of technique. Later I understood it was a reminder about the nature of storytelling.

A series like Game of the Week does not survive on data. It survives on rhythm. Viewers know that every Wednesday evening someone will sit down, open a board, and guide them through a game with the patience of a teacher rather than the haste of a reporter. In an era when all content fights to shock in the first three seconds, that steadiness becomes a rare asset.

This makes me think of my own field. In football, a big match can make the whole planet hold its breath for ninety minutes, then fade within days. Chess operates in reverse. There is no roar of the crowd, no collective explosion. Only one person, one board, and a decision made in silence. That silence is no weaker than cheering. It is just a different frequency.

I once wrote that when the stadium is empty, I hear the ball speak for thousands of people. With chess, the same holds: when no one cheers, I hear the pieces touch the board. And in that touch lies an entire world of stories waiting to be told.

From a business perspective, an archive of 743 episodes is a revenue machine that costs almost nothing more to run.

Each episode, once produced, keeps attracting new viewers for years without further investment. This economic model is entirely different from live event rights — where value evaporates the moment the match ends. While a final is worth only a few hours, a lecture on a good game can be worth decades.

That is why I argue the education segment — annotation, instruction, analysis — is the stable foundation of any chess ecosystem. It is not glamorous. It produces no media explosions. But it keeps the house standing when major tournaments fall silent between cycles.

I have observed the sports content market long enough to see a rule: the longest-living products are rarely the loudest. They are the ones that become habits. And once a habit, people do not abandon it for a new wave, because it has entered the rhythm of their lives.

However, I do not want to paint this picture rosy. There is a worrying downside.

The entire credibility of a 743-episode series rests on a single person.

This is the biggest risk and also the least-mentioned one. If van Delft decides to focus on completing the Grandmaster title — something he has every right to pursue — the series loses its pillar. A brand tightly bound to one individual is strong while that individual is at full strength, and fragile the moment they change direction.

There is a second pressure: the commoditization of free content. Streaming channels and online chess platforms are offering analysis at zero cost. This forces paid products like Game of the Week to compete on what free content struggles to offer: depth, systematic rigor, and database integration. The competition is no longer on price. It is on trustworthiness.

And there is a third, quieter risk: creator fatigue. Fourteen years, one episode a week, is a pace few can sustain without burning out. That endurance is admirable, but also worth those in the trade looking at and asking themselves: where is my limit?

And here is the paradox I want to stress: it is precisely endurance that is easiest to forget.

We devote hundreds of articles to a beautiful game in a major tournament. We devote thousands of lines to debates over a controversial move. But we are nearly silent before a series that has run 743 weeks. Steadiness generates no news, because news needs novelty. But steadiness generates value, because value needs time.

If there is a blind spot in the chess world's collective memory, it is the habit of undervaluing what makes no noise. A tournament can make history in a week. But a patient teacher can change how thousands of players understand chess over fourteen years. The second has no glory, but its influence is deeper and more lasting.

I think of archives like this as graveyards of names — not to bury, but to let their stories live one more inning. Each episode is a moment when someone decides a game deserves to be remembered. And when a game is remembered, the people who played it are remembered too.

There is one small detail I cannot ignore. In the game's name — Gaal vs Smeets — both surnames carry a European, perhaps Dutch, ring. This suggests that the narrator, despite trying to stay neutral, still reveals his network and sphere of influence through his choices. That is not a flaw. It is identity. Every storyteller tells from a position, and that position shapes the story they tell.

From following series like Game of the Week I learned a lesson about patience. In chess, the best player is not the most aggressive attacker, but the one who knows how to wait for the opponent to understand the value of a sacrifice. In storytelling, the best is not the one who talks most, but the one who knows that sometimes the silence on the board speaks for every commentary.

There is a line I always carry: the microphone does not make the storyteller; it is the silence of the arena that signs each line of dialogue. For a series with no arena, no applause, this rings even truer. A chess storyteller needs no crowd. They need one viewer, one board, and the belief that next week there will again be a game worth understanding.

I also remind myself that sport does not promise victory; it only promises a heartbeat daring to continue. A 743-episode series is such a heartbeat — promising no glory, only that each week someone keeps going. In an industry obsessed with peak moments, that quiet promise is the hardest to keep.

So what comes next for a series like this?

I do not want to make predictions. I only want to pose a question to myself and to those making chess content: are we building games to be remembered for a week, or lessons to live for fourteen years? The answer does not lie in any single game. It lies in the decision of the storyteller, every Wednesday evening, whether to sit down.

And when someone still sits down at episode 743, I understand that the chess world still has someone who believes in the value of understanding — slowly, quietly, and persistently. That is something no ranking can measure, but also something that keeps this sport alive across generations. If one day that storyteller stands up and leaves the board, I hope someone else will sit in the empty seat — not to replace, but to continue the heartbeat.