#1: Welcome to the Newsletter! + Interview with Andras Toth (ChessCoach Andras)
In this first edition of the newsletter, I have interviewed one of the persons who inspired me to create the site www.howtoplaychess.online, IM Andras Toth.
Hi,
Welcome to this new newsletter.
If you don’t know me yet my name is Martin. I’m currently training towards hitting the 2000 FIDE rating.
To document the journey I have created a blog and a Youtube-channel. I have experienced that it is really hard to get noticed on YouTube, and when it takes a lot of effort to make a video I often lose motivation to continue creating them. I started two years ago and my most-watched video has 4K views.
On YouTube, the platform's users upload more than 500 hours of fresh video per minute. That is about 30,000 hours of new content per hour, and 720,000 hours of new content per day.1 Just think about that for a moment. How does that look when you open YouTube. Here is my screen:
Then the idea came to me after talking to other chess creators having trouble getting noticed. Why not make a site that presents a curated selection of chess content?
As an archivist, I have sometimes spent hours looking after a key document hidden away. That made me think there must be a way to help creators get surfaced and beat the random algorithm showing me everything from Minecraft videos to a video about Zlatan Ibrahimovic. Probably my son has watched something from my account.
That was a long intro, but it all resulted in the creation of www.howtoplaychess.online
The site will show a constant stream of the newest chess videos from YouTube. I have selected channels that provide value and also included a lot of smaller creators. They will all get their spot on the top of the site when releasing a new video. I have many ideas of how to expand the site, but for now, this setup will be the base. Hopefully, you will like it, start using it, and spread the word.
One of the people who also have struggled with the YouTube algorithm is IM Andras Toth, who in my own opinion creates some excellent videos about chess improvement.
Therefore, I asked Andras if he wanted to be the first to be interviewed, to which he gladly agreed.
Interview with IM Andras Toth
1. Tell us a little about yourself and your background in chess?
My Name is Andras Toth. IM, Fide rating 2377. (peak 2449). I am a 39 years old teacher and a chess coach originally from Hungary, living in Australia. I have been playing chess since the age of 10, and doing coaching for nearly a decade and a half. Among my own coaches, I had the amazing Laszlo Hazai, the trainer of the Polgar sisters and life-long second (sort of coach) of super-GM Boris Gelfand.
2. When and why did you start your YouTube-channel?
My current Channel is 5 years old (I had a channel before though) so quite an old fox in chess YouTubing terms.
3. What do you want to achieve with the material you are creating?
My material is 99% no-nonsense educational material for those who are serious about chess and about chess improvement (Which is why I think it is not valued too much).
4. Try to describe the target group for your videos?
Literally, anyone who is keen to get better at chess and is below IM level. probably best suited for 1500 and above.
5. Do you have any visions or plans for your channel?
The vision is that "the most underrated chess channel" becomes a very much appreciated and viewed channel.
6. What has been the biggest challenge starting and running a YouTube channel?
It is heart-breaking to see that many of my videos with excellent educational content have less than 2000 views. I find youtubing extremely challenging and at times frustrating. The algorithm is more mysterious than the best episode of X-files, my content is hugely liked by my subscribers but absolutely ignored outside of it. On top of it, it is a very time-consuming affair, that yields essentially nothing (In fact I have multiple people working for me on the side doing thumbnails, editing, uploading, etc and charge nothing for it! Without them and their kindness I would have most certainly quit!). This said, my subscribers are extremely grateful for my work and that is what keeps me going.
7. What video of yours has the most views? What do you think is the explanation?
Currently, my most popular video is "My Ultimate Book Recommendation” video, which has been seen at the time of me writing this by 20.000 people. By my standards that's HUGE.
A combination of things really, it was a topic a lot of people were/still are interested in, also it was referred to by other content creators. Last but not least, I don't know. Like I said above, the youtube algorithm (at least with chess videos) is certainly one of life's greatest mysteries.
8.Which video on your channel are you most happy about and why?
The video “How to Get Better at Chess” discusses a topic that is a shortcoming of a lot of players on lower levels and seemed to have hit home:
9. How can people follow you outside of Youtube?
Twitter: https://twitter.com/chesscoachandra
Twitch: https://t.co/fQ8DGpPG9x?amp=1
Facebook: https://t.co/BmUG3Y6r3F?amp=1
10.Can you recommend one other Chess YouTube-channel that you find interesting?
I really like channels with meaningful content. As such Chess Dojo definitely comes to mind: Like-minded people talk in-depth about various chess topics Quality chess, quality ideas done by great people. Big fan! (In my opinion, they are grossly underrated and undervalued too!)
I hope you enjoyed the interview and you will go subscribe to Andras’ channel!
Also, remember to subscribe to the newsletter and help spread the word about my new site.
Best,
Martin
Tubefilter (2019), www.tubefilter.com/2019/05/07/number-hours-video-uploaded-to-youtube-per-minute/