Twitch: The Botez Sisters Dethrone King Hikaru – Who Blames: “They Win Nothing In Chess”

On March 16, 2023By Garmin Philip

There’s stress in the chess corner of streaming service Twitch. At an awards ceremony, the Botez sisters, Alexandra and Andrea, received an award as the “Chess Streamers of the Year 2022”. The real favorite for the prize, Grandmaster Hikaru Nakamura, went away empty-handed in 2022 and 2023. He blasphemed: he didn’t care, the Botez sisters would never win anything in real chess anyway.

What sparked the argument? Streamer QTCinderella has been hosting the Streamer of the Year awards since 2022, sort of like the unofficial Oscars on Twitch. There were a bunch of prizes up for grabs: Asmongold was 2023 MMORPG Streamer of the Year, Boxbox was the top strategist, Tyler1 won the LoL award.

Because chess has been a big thing on Twitch ever since The Queen’s Gambit was such a hit on Netflix, the 2023 Best Chess Streamer award continued.

The Queen’s Gambit in the trailer

Nakamura is the Strongest and Biggest Chess Streamer on Twitch – Loses 2 Times at Awards Ceremony

These streamers were nominated for 2023 Chess Streamer of the Year:

BotezLive – the Canadian sisters had won in 2022
GM Hikaru – the 35-year-old is the biggest chess streamer on Twitch and one of the best players in the world
Anna Cramling – the 20-year-old Spaniard was nominated for the first time in 2023
Levy “GothamChess” Rozma – who ultimately won the title.

The Botez sisters had won the title in 2022, even then ahead of GM Hikaru.

Why is this particularly noteworthy? GM Hikaru is the biggest chess streamer on Twitch:

GM Hikaru has 11.83 million watch hours and an average of 10,037 viewers
GothamChess has clocked up just 2.9 million watch hours with an average viewership of 4,467
The Botez sisters only 684.185 hours with 6,675 spectators

In terms of attendance, Nakamura is in a different league than the competition and is therefore actually a favorite to win.

Nakamura proves to be a bad loser: ‘I don’t care’

This was Hikaru’s reaction to his defeat: The grandmaster, who otherwise looks so cute, turned out to be a pretty bad loser on Twitch. He said in a stream: He doesn’t care. He has won so much, so many prizes, he doesn’t get super angry about something like this:

“If you ask me, if I’ve won stuff like the US Championship, should I really care? Of course, I don’t care. If you look at Levy, if you look at the Botez or those people, they’re never going to win anything when it comes to chess. That’s the truth. So why should I be upset that they win these awards?”

How do the sisters react? They’re having fun with the pissed-off grandmaster. In a video, Alexdrana Botez first shows the snapped statements from him and then happily cuts the two award ceremonies together, in which Hikaru is beaten both times.

Her sister also writes proudly: “Hello? I was Canadian National Champion (Girls under 8).