If you refer to chess as a “game” rather than a “sport,” Manu Gurtu gets upset. A technologist at first, he became addicted to checks “before chess became cool.” He spent the Covid shutdown persuading Sreekar Channapragada, a student and current business partner, that chess is a sport. Together, they are now in charge of giving the world access to top-notch broadcast feeds of the sport from India.
At the FIDE Women’s Grand Prix, it involves 15 unmanned cameras in the playing rooms on a separate floor from where just two cable wires dangle, with all the maneuvering remote-controlled.