Antonio Radić (born 16 June 1987), better known as agadmator, is a Croatian

YouTuber A YouTuber is an online personality and/or influencer who produces videos on the video-sharing platform YouTube, typically posting to their personal YouTube channel. The term was first used in the English language in 2006. Influence Influent ...

and

chess Chess is a board game for two players, called White and Black, each controlling an army of chess pieces in their color, with the objective to checkmate the opponent's king. It is sometimes called international chess or Western chess to disti ...

player. He has one of the most popular chess channels on YouTube, and he previously had the most subscribers of any YouTube chess channel from 2018 until late 2021 when he was surpassed by

GothamChess Levy Rozman (born December 5, 1995), known online as GothamChess, is an American chess International Master and commentator. He produces content on the online platforms Twitch and YouTube. Early life Rozman was born in Brooklyn, New York, on D ...

. Although he does not participate in many international chess tournaments, he is active on various

online chess Online chess is chess that is played over the Internet, allowing players to play against each other in real time. This is done through the use of Internet chess servers, which often include a system to pair up individual players based on their rat ...

platforms, including

Lichess Lichess (; ) is a free and open-source Internet chess server run by a non-profit organization of the same name. Users of the site can play online chess anonymously and optionally register an account to play rated games. Lichess is ad-free and al ...

and

Chess.com Chess.com is an internet chess server, news website and social networking website. The site has a freemium model in which some features are available for free, and others are available for accounts with subscriptions. Live online chess can be pla ...

, surpassing 1,000,000 subscribers on 7 February 2021, the first chess channel to do so. As of November 2022 the videos on Radić's channel have over 661 million views in total, the third most of any individual chess-centric YouTuber (eclipsed only by

Levy Rozman Levy Rozman (born December 5, 1995), known online as GothamChess, is an American chess International Master and commentator. He produces content on the online platforms Twitch and YouTube. Early life Rozman was born in Brooklyn, New York, on D ...

, who has over 854 million views, and ChessBase India, which has more than 832 million views). On his channel, Radić reviews both recent games, such as

Grand Chess Tour The Grand Chess Tour (GCT) is a circuit of chess tournaments where players compete for multiple prize pools. Major tournaments that have been featured in the Grand Chess Tour include Norway Chess, the Sinquefield Cup, and the London Chess Classic. ...

events, and historical matches. He occasionally features chess compositions.

Background

Radić is a resident of Križevci, Croatia, and was introduced to chess at the age of four by his grandfather Anto Krnjić, a

FIDE Master FIDE titles are awarded by the international chess governing body FIDE (''Fédération Internationale des Échecs'') for outstanding performance. The highest such title is Grandmaster (GM). Titles generally require a combination of Elo rating an ...

. He later stopped playing and did not return to chess until he was 17 years old. Radić's peak

FIDE The International Chess Federation or World Chess Federation, commonly referred to by its French acronym FIDE ( Fédération Internationale des Échecs), is an international organization based in Switzerland that connects the various national c ...

rating of 2010 was achieved in July 2010, and his current rating is 1961.

YouTube channel

Radić originally began his YouTube channel in 2007 while he was working with his father, who had a job as a wedding videographer. He posted wedding videos to promote their business. He began posting chess videos in 2016. Once his subscriber count surpassed 20,000, he left his job as a graphic designer to his father's wedding photography business to focus on the channel full time. Almost all of Radić's videos follow the same format: a detailed analysis of one chess game. He typically posts new videos on a daily basis and consistently reviews games from big tournaments within 24 hours. Many of his reviews of historical games are organized into series; for example, games from the

World Chess Championship 1921 The 1921 World Chess Championship was played between José Raúl Capablanca and Emanuel Lasker. It was played in Capablanca's native Havana from March 18 to April 28. Capablanca won the match by a score of 9-5 (4 wins, 0 losses, 10 draws) to become ...

match. His most popular video is titled "The Greatest Queen Sacrifice in Chess History", which has over 7.2 million views as of May 2023. In the video, he analyzes a game between

Rashid Nezhmetdinov Rashid Gibiatovich Nezhmetdinov (Tatar language, Tatar: , ; russian: Раши́д Гибя́тович Нежметди́нов; December 15, 1912 – June 3, 1974) was a Soviet Union, Soviet chess player, chess writer, and checkers player. Thou ...

and Oleg Chernikov from 1962. Radić also started a podcast called ''The agadmator Podcast'' in 2020, which is hosted on his YouTube channel and on other platforms. He also has another channel, on which he posts videos of him playing video games. On 7 February 2021, he became the first chess content creator to cross the million-subscriber mark.

References

External links

Official website
* * * (Github database of videos searchable by filters, or moves entered into a chessboard.) * * * *{{cite web, last1=Shah , first1=Sagar , title=First Chess Channel to Hit 1 million Subs , url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hwgu3ru_4hk , website=ChessBase India YouTube channel, date= 8 February 2021, access-date=10 February 2021 Living people 1987 births People from Križevci Croatian chess players Croatian YouTubers Gaming YouTubers