“And that these tournaments will become some of the most ... a lottery draw with a bowl of wooden balls determines how the chess board will be scrambled, and the players convene to discuss ...

Chess.com hosted its first tournament with the league in 2022, Rensch explains. Players used to duking it out on the field sat behind screens instead, moving their pieces around the board.

If you scrunch your eyes up just as an offensive line sets for a play, the outlines of the players look like chess pieces being moved around the board by some invisible hand. Some run in the straight ...