There’s more to Samay Raina – his glorious chess jester days | Chess News

There came a point in Samay Raina’s life when one of his primary talents turned latent. And, unfortunately, it is this switch that has shaped the public perception about him. A moment of infamy has airbrushed the past of a stand-up comic well-known for his irreverent and dark humour but not for his contribution to Indian chess.If it was Queen’s Gambit on Netflix that saw millions of chess boards flying off the shelves around the world, in India it was a Clown’s Opening that turned many bored souls during pandemic into online chess-addicts.
Viswanathan Anand is fond of him, Magnus Carlsen has his number saved and he is credited with sparking businessman Anand Mahindra’s interest in starting chess’s IPL. Scan the internet and you will have testimonials of a generation of amateurs and pros acknowledging Samay’s role in making them realise that chess can be fun.
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There is more to Samay than the funny man in that viral ‘India has got Latent’ video seen in the company of those who, it is said, hurt the feelings of many their attempt at comedy. He is a known prankster and a bonafide fukra. He is also a self-styled curator of bakwaas – these days the in-vogue trash-talking genre goes a name that was once considered offensive. Samay is the true native of a world ruled Trump and Musk – no time for niceties or decency.
Today, Samay isn’t that uber-confident young guy. Couple of days back, called cops for questioning, he wasn’t his usual self – that unapologetic disruptor of the past. “I will be careful next time … my mental state is not well. My Canada tour also did not go well. I am sorry for what I said, I know what I said was wrong,” he said while promising full cooperation with the Maharashtra Police probe team.
How times change. Back in the day, it was this disdain for authorities and scorn for socially-accepted etiquettes and behavior that made Samay the game-changing chess streamer. Here’s how the Pied Piper with the red round joker nose waylaid India into the complicated world of black and white squares.
Samay Raina’s bot on Chess.com.
Before the pandemic, Samay was a struggler on the ‘open mic’ circuit, who had gained some popularity after Comicstaan, a TV contest that mostly the young tuned to. He was also a regular chicken diner on PUBG games that he live streamed. Samay, in a nutshell, was good at the cool things that mattered to the impressionable teens and those in their 20s. He was on the timeline of the demographic that every advertiser was desperate to woo. Chess got an ideal ambassador and promoter for free, and that too at the right time.Story continues below this ad
Samay had learnt chess from his grandfather and played a bit during his primary school days. After a break, it was in college he dived deeper into chess. On the advice of a senior comic, he started streaming chess games. This would prove to be a turning point. Not many gagsters, or their audience, were into chess. So Samay had got his niche.
His YouTube channel has his first chess video, where he can be heard saying that he has a grand total of just 40 concurrent viewers. Not too worried, he ploughed on. He would soon invite fellow comedians, those he knew from his Comicstaan show, to play with him. Never ever, chess was used as a comedy prop and the pieces would be butt of their jokes. As a collateral the game would get new players and audience.
Another big stroke of luck was his collaboration with chessbase.com. The founder of the immensely popular chess website’s Sagar Shah saw a potential in the tie-up with the man who cracked jokes between moves. Samay and Shah would think of the chess league and someone would tag Mahindra and Mahindra chief Anand Mahindra to the idea. In days to come the Mahindra-backed league would kick-off. “You started it all,” Mahendra can be heard telling Samay when the two would meet at the grand event.

As Samay’s chess feed continued to get shared, subscribed and liked, the world took notice of him. FIDE director general, GMs, Vishy Anand, actor Amir Khan, singer Abhijit too would share youtube screens with him. In Bangalore, an amateur tournament, inspired Samay, would come up. Here winning was not of utmost importance, entertainment would be the priority.
Samay, in one of his interviews, said that he didn’t start chess streaming to be an influential chess figure, his idea just grew organically. But once it did, he started dreaming big. He and a few comics had a dream guest l and on top of it was Carlsen. They would form a whatsapp group called ‘Road to Magnus’. Eventually, they would get chess GOAT. Samay’s outgoing and effervescent personality has a way of easing guests.Story continues below this ad
But he wasn’t like that always. As a Kashmiri Pandit, he has often expressed his angst of moving out of Srinagar and being bullied kids in Hyderabad as he stood out because he was very fair. This would draw him towards Eminem. He bonded with his pain of being white and getting isolated.
Intriguingly, Samay is alone again. There is not much support for him from the comics. But then it is a world where absolutely everything is a joke. They do talk about him but it is mostly to generate laughs. From being a content-creator, Samay is now the ‘content’. That’s how comics react, it is how their DNA is programmed. Maybe, even Samay would have done the same.
Chess, meanwhile, is more forgiving to minor slip-ups, comebacks are part of every game. And even if one gets checkmated, there is also the option of rearranging the pieces and starting again.