What are xQc Chess Ratings? Is he a GrandMaster? (PogChamps)

Felix Lengyel better known as xQc or xQcOW is one of the most popular Twitch streamers. He began his career as a Professional Overwatch Players but shifted to full-time Streaming after his followers increased on Twitch. xQc beans streaming focusing mainly on competitive esports then slowly extending his reach to various others games. In March 2020 his began his interest in chess. 

 

Fortunately enough, grandmaster Hikaru Nakamura himself came on his stream to teach him. And his chess rating improved. So what is the xQc chess rating? 

 

xQc Career

 

Felix Lengyel was born in Nov 1995 in Quebec, Canada. xQc began his career as an Overwatch player. At the dawn of his career, in 2016 he and his team won the Dreamhack Montreal Overwatch tournament. Then in 2017, he got the title of most valuable player. 

 

During 2017-2019 Lengyel represented his home country Canada. In 2019 he started streaming on Twitch and soon become the most-watched streamer and 29th most followed Account. By early 2020, he finally began his career as a full-time streamer, daily streaming up to 9 hours. 

 

Does xQc play chess?

xQc bean playing chess in March 2020. His streams soon became popular and took the number one spot in Twitch’s chess category. This was enough to irritate some professional chess players who were outshined by a new player. The viewers liked immature xQc chess streams more than theirs. 

 

They started trolling xQc calling him immature and loud. This Soon grabbed the attention of grandmaster Hikaru Nakamura. Hikaru came forward and showed his support to xQc. He said that there is nothing wrong if the popular streamer is sharing their chess knowledge with their fans as they are introducing chess to many lives. 

 

Grandmaster Hikaru “If I look at xQc, the reaction is the classic chess world saying he’s so bad at the game so it’s a waste of time to watch. He’s no good, so he’s nobody. That’s absolute rubbish obviously.” 

 

Hikaru said that XQc is already a grandmaster at overwatch. And if I or Magnus were to play that we would be considered total noobs. And that is the reality.

 

He openly stood up for xQc and others on Twitter and showing his happiness of chess getting new fans.

 

Moreover, he teaches xQc chess and plays matches with him. 

 

PogChamps

 

xQc and his role in the increased popularity of online chess were covered by great media outlets from Fast company to even the New York Times.  He participated in PogChamps on 5 June. Though he won no match still was able to reach the semifinals of the Consolation Bracket. Consequently, he was defeated by Ludwig.

 

He also participated in PogChamps 2 and 3. 

 

Is xQc a grandmaster?

 

During one of the streams playing online blitz matches on chess.com, xQc was jokingly ranted the title of grandmaster. It was shocking as his rating was around 589, which is a typical rating of a beginner. 

 

This was a part of a joke started by admins of chess.com. Moreover, his name was even added to their list of grandmasters on a separate page, Though it was later removed after the humor died. 

 

What is xQc doing now?

 

Recently on 1 Oct 2020, Lengyel announced that he has signed as a content creator of Luminosity Gaming.