Michael Jones wrote: Uncool? Geeky? Perhaps chess needs a makeover.
Who is most likely to provide that? Kirsan, Karpov or Carlsen? One thing I would be interested in knowing is whether the increasing youth of grandmasters has influenced the take-up of the game by young players? I suspect not (though it is difficult to measure the demographics of up-take on the internet), but there are two questions, I think: (1) Why does someone start playing chess; and (2) Why do they carry on playing or stop playing?
