JulesGambit is a rising star in the chess streaming community who is currently based in California. With a background as a junior chess champion, she returned to chess as an adult and started sharing her passion for the game on Twitch earlier this year. Since then, she's amassed over 2.5k followers on the platform and regularly streams her games to hundreds of viewers.
Get to know Jules in our interview below and find out what chess and ballet have in common, what the most chaotic possible move in chess is, and why it's never too late to pursue your passions.
How long have you been streaming chess, and what made you decide to start?
I’m actually a bit of a streaming newbie! I only started around 2-3 months ago now, because I was back in my hometown over the summer and I was desperately looking for someone to play chess with. I found this group chat for the Collegiate Chess League; I had no idea what it was, but I just signed up to ask if anyone near me wanted to play chess! Joe Lee, the CCL Commissioner, reached out and said: "If you have a little extra time, would you consider streaming?" and I said “No!”
But he told me a little more about streaming and helped set everything up for me, and ever since then, I’ve been streaming chess!
What was your hesitation?
I feel like this is an experience for a lot of people interested in streaming: the #1 thing you hear is that it’s too late to start streaming on Twitch. That there’s zero discoverability, it’s just very hard to get on the platform, to get started, the tech is very difficult…. There are a lot of discouraging things out there on the internet! That’s what my mind went to immediately.