Chess, like any other highly competitive international sport has a lot of drama.

One of the big problems with it is that white is heavily advantaged, there's a large incentive for incumbents to play for a draw, and playing back-to-back matches is incredibly exhausting. Any attempts at correcting for this can result in an unfair set of rules for someone.

Not enough money in it either. Highly competitive people arent exactly known for their social maturity, but other sports/comps have entourages and $ to keep them in line. This read like the minutes of an academic department meeting.

I've been following chess tournaments for around two years now. Usually, they aren't this dramatic. In fact, more often than not, you have no clue what tournament is coming up next as there's little to no promotion happening for these events.

For instance, the FIDE World Chess Championship between Ian Nepomniachtchi and Ding Liren is starting in about two weeks, and there's hardly any hype related to it. However, once the tournament starts and there are some interesting results, hype gradually builds up. Like when Carlsen lost two back-to-back games against Giri and Abdusattorov, there was quite a bit of interest in the tournament. Or the famous Carlsen vs. Niemann controversy.

How is Niemann's lawsuit coming along?

Looks like FIDE is conducting an investigation. Their Fair Play Commission has recently submitted a report that has now been forwarded to the Ethics and Disciplinary Commission.

https://www.chessdom.com/fide-fair-play-commission-forwards-...

> Are these chess tournos usually this dramatic

Chess lately has been pretty dramatic, Google "Hans Niemann cheating allegations" if you don't already know -- in my opinion, far more dramatic than this.