Antonio Radic, often known as Agadmator, is a chess celebrity, content developer, and expert in Croatian chess. As of March 2021, he had over a million subscribers to his largest YouTube chess channel.
Career In Chess
When Agadmator was five years old, he began to play chess. He learned the rules from his grandfather, FIDE master Anto Krnjic. He didn’t play chess until he was seventeen years old, having stopped at the age of seven.
Despite not being a regular participant in international tournaments, Radic has won several championships in Krizevci, where he was born. In September 2010, he achieved his highest FIDE rating ever, and in 2019 he became the Croatian “majstorski kandidat” (candidate master). As of January 2021, Agadmator has a national rating of 2115.
The following match, which took place at the 2018 Križevci Chess Club Championship, pitted Agadmator versus Domagoj Frtalic as Black. Quickly balancing the position in the beginning, he applied his knowledge from a GM Bobby Fischer game that Agadmator had previously examined on his YouTube channel. He discovered a forced mating sequence, which allowed him to gradually get the upper hand and win the game.
YouTube Channel
Radic began focusing only on chess on his channel in 2016. He was a graphic designer back then, and to introduce his love of chess to a wider audience, he decided to make chess movies after work. When he attained 25,000 subscribers a year later, he left his day job to give all of his time to his channel.
Currently, Agadmator is the largest chess channel on YouTube worldwide. As of March 2021, he had more than 400 million views and one million subscribers. His videos mostly consist of brief analyses of master players’ plays of modern or classic games.
Agadmator’s humble and sincere mindset to filmmaking—he doesn’t try to hide his errors and is honest about every choice he makes—has helped to some of his success. The chess community has also taken notice of him due to his reliability and lightning-fast editing of excellent movies. Radic’s desire to post footage immediately following significant games has even drawn the notice of GM Anish Giri:
His most famous video discusses the 1962 classical match between GM Oleg Chernikov and IM Rashid Nezhmetdinov. By giving up his queen on the twelfth move, Nezhmetdinov won the match and produced a work of art.
Podcast And Manga
In 2020, in addition to maintaining his YouTube account, Agadmator launched two new activities. He interviewed General Manager Maxime Vachier-Lagrave for his debut podcast episode, which was released in March. In his podcast’s second episode, he also spoke with streaming behemoth and bullet legend Hikaru Nakamura:
Agadmator released the first episode of the Age of Caissa manga in September 2020. The Croatian YouTuber claims that the manga aims to make chess accessible by turning it into an engaging story. The manga’s first chapter is available here for free reading.