Antonio Radić (born 16 June 1987), better known as agadmator (Serbo-Croatian pronunciation: [agad'mator̩][2]), is a Croatian YouTuber and chess player. He has one of the most popular chess channels on YouTube, and was the most subscribed chess YouTuber from 2018 to late 2021, when he was surpassed by GothamChess.[3][4][5] Although he does not participate in many international chess tournaments, he is active on various online chess platforms, including Lichess and Chess.com.[3][6] On his channel, Radić reviews recent tournament games from top players, historical matches, and chess compositions. He occasionally features his own real-time rapid games, played on Lichess.

Agadmator
Antonio's profile picture at Chess.com
Born
Antonio Radić

(1987-06-16) 16 June 1987 (age 37)
Križevci, Croatia
Chess career
CountryCroatia
FIDE rating1967 (September 2024)
Peak rating2010 (July 2010)
YouTube information
Channel
Years active2016–present
Subscribers1.32+ million[1]
Total views769+ million[1]

Last updated: 16 September 2024

Background

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Radić is a resident of Križevci, Croatia,[7][8] and was introduced to chess at the age of four by his grandfather Anto Krnjić, a FIDE Master. He later stopped playing and did not return to chess until he was 17 years old.[3]

YouTube channel

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Radić created his YouTube channel in 2007 while he was working with his father, who had a job as a wedding videographer, posting wedding videos to promote their business. He began posting chess videos in 2016. Once he reached 20,000 subscribers, he left his job as a graphic designer for his father's wedding photography business to focus on the channel full time.[3][9][8] 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.[3] Many of his reviews of historical games are organized into series; for example, games from the World Chess Championship 1921 match.[10] His most popular video, titled "The Greatest Queen Sacrifice in Chess History", has over 7.4 million views as of March 2024. In the video, he analyzes a game between Rashid Nezhmetdinov and Oleg Chernikov from 1962.[11] On 7 February 2021, he became the first chess content creator to cross the million-subscriber mark.[12]

In 2020, Radić started a podcast called The agadmator Podcast,[13] which is hosted on his YouTube channel and various other platforms.[14] He also has a second channel, "Agadmator's Other Channel" where he plays video games, namely Hearthstone and Zelda II: The Adventure of Link.[15]

References

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  1. ^ a b "About agadmator". YouTube.
  2. ^ Radiç, Antonio (8 February 2021). "True Meaning of agadmator". YouTube. Retrieved 16 June 2023.
  3. ^ a b c d e Shah, Sagar (31 October 2018). "Agadmator - the man who has 290,000+ followers on YouTube". ChessBase India. Retrieved 1 September 2019.
  4. ^ "The Top YouTube Chess Channels". Chess. 18 September 2021. Retrieved 19 December 2021.
  5. ^ MaxData (8 July 2023). Current Largest Chess Channels | Subscriber Count History (2007-2023). Retrieved 16 August 2024 – via YouTube.
  6. ^ "Agadmator". Lichess. Retrieved 1 September 2019.
  7. ^ Belani, Hrvoje (21 February 2018). "Antonio Radić: 'Svojim YouTube kanalom mogu svakoga zainteresirati za šah'" (in Croatian). Retrieved 17 November 2019.
  8. ^ a b Ninan, Susan (4 August 2020). "Agadmator: From smalltown Croatia, an unlikely chess phenomenon". ESPN. Retrieved 4 September 2020.
  9. ^ Johnson, Ben (14 January 2020). "The Perpetual Chess Podcast Ep.160". The Perpetual Chess Podcast. Retrieved 1 May 2020.
  10. ^ "Capablanca vs. Lasker - World Championship Match 1921". YouTube. 26 June 2019. Retrieved 1 September 2019.
  11. ^ "The Greatest Queen Sacrifice in Chess History - Nezhmetdinov vs Chernikov (1962)". YouTube. 19 July 2017. Retrieved 11 May 2021.
  12. ^ Shah, Sagar (8 February 2021). "First Chess Channel to Hit 1 million Subs". ChessBase India YouTube channel. Retrieved 10 February 2021.
  13. ^ "The agadmator Podcast". Spotify. Retrieved 13 June 2020.
  14. ^ "YouTube". www.youtube.com. 27 June 2020. Retrieved 28 June 2020.
  15. ^ "Agadmator's Other Channel - YouTube". www.youtube.com. Retrieved 21 October 2020.
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