GothamChess: Hans Niemann, Magnus Carlsen, Cheating Scandal & Chess Bots

00:00:00.000 | - I have anal beads that are communicating

00:00:03.080 | with stock fish via Bluetooth.

00:00:04.880 | We'll get to that.

00:00:05.720 | - If you cheat, you play God.

00:00:08.780 | You decide when the game is over.

00:00:12.400 | You can fake bad moves.

00:00:15.000 | You can fake everything.

00:00:16.200 | You can even, if you're cheating, quote unquote,

00:00:19.080 | the right way, you're gonna lose plenty of games.

00:00:21.720 | To avoid getting detected.

00:00:23.080 | - What's the probability that Hans cheated

00:00:25.260 | over the board against Magnus in St. Louis?

00:00:27.680 | - I think day by day, the evidence is slowly starting

00:00:32.680 | to show more and more that he's cheated,

00:00:38.240 | like how Magnus said, more than he said and more recently.

00:00:42.920 | - The following is a conversation with Levi Rosman,

00:00:48.280 | also known as Gotham Chess.

00:00:50.800 | He's a professional chess player and educator.

00:00:54.240 | I highly recommend you check out his YouTube channel

00:00:57.200 | called Gotham Chess.

00:01:00.160 | This is the Lex Friedman Podcast.

00:01:02.080 | To support it, please check out our sponsors

00:01:04.200 | in the description.

00:01:05.480 | And now, dear friends, here's Levi Rosman.

00:01:08.700 | You're known for being able to guess people's ELO rating.

00:01:12.160 | So what do you think?

00:01:13.000 | Just by looking at my face, deep into my eyes,

00:01:15.340 | what's my ELO rating?

00:01:18.440 | Here, I'll help you.

00:01:19.360 | I'll do E4 for the listener.

00:01:22.480 | I actually read that stock fish prefers E4.

00:01:26.760 | - Does it really?

00:01:28.400 | I actually didn't know that.

00:01:29.480 | - Because it maximizes the number of tactical options.

00:01:33.120 | So-- - That makes sense.

00:01:34.360 | - The right answer is 3,400, which is, I believe, stock fish.

00:01:37.700 | You guess people's ELO chess rating.

00:01:40.840 | What's that take?

00:01:41.960 | How hard is it to do that?

00:01:43.080 | And how would you actually do that?

00:01:45.000 | Like what are telltale signs or red flags

00:01:47.560 | about a person at different ratings?

00:01:49.880 | Is there something you look for?

00:01:52.000 | - Yeah, I think you can separate it something like

00:01:54.960 | the very first, the zero to about 8,900.

00:01:58.040 | For simplicity's sake,

00:01:59.240 | I'm gonna use the chess.com rating system

00:02:01.200 | because LeeChess is slightly different.

00:02:03.760 | It tends to go two, 300 points higher than chess.com,

00:02:07.800 | sometimes even four, 500 points higher.

00:02:10.060 | But then it catches up.

00:02:10.960 | They catch up around 22, 2,300, I would say.

00:02:13.960 | - What's chess.com?

00:02:15.320 | What's LeeChess?

00:02:17.040 | Can you like-- - Yeah, so--

00:02:18.600 | - Explain what the difference is and what they are?

00:02:20.880 | - They're two chess websites.

00:02:24.440 | - Good starting point.

00:02:25.280 | - Yes, chess.com is,

00:02:27.800 | it has obviously the free option where you can play games.

00:02:31.200 | You get some sort of puzzles every single day.

00:02:33.480 | You get some sort of lessons every single day.

00:02:35.580 | But then they have tiered memberships

00:02:37.600 | where you can pay annually or per month

00:02:39.560 | that you can unlock all the other features.

00:02:42.240 | And-- - Like what?

00:02:43.720 | Like for training, for like-- - For training.

00:02:45.440 | - Puzzles and all that kind of stuff?

00:02:46.280 | - Yeah, they have unlimited puzzles,

00:02:47.540 | but they also have,

00:02:48.380 | their biggest selling point for sure

00:02:50.080 | is like a dedicated game review

00:02:53.040 | that it's like very flashy and sophisticated

00:02:56.080 | and the coach will literally tell you what you did wrong

00:02:59.120 | every single moment the computer evaluated a mistake.

00:03:03.360 | But the most important thing that they have

00:03:05.080 | is they offer international masters, grandmasters,

00:03:07.880 | the opportunity to make video lesson libraries,

00:03:10.000 | which hundreds of hours of anything.

00:03:13.320 | I can even learn some stuff on there probably.

00:03:15.160 | - I have anal beads that are communicating

00:03:18.300 | with stock fish via Bluetooth.

00:03:19.920 | - Yeah, we've-- - We'll get to that.

00:03:20.880 | - Yes, we will get to that.

00:03:23.160 | It's epic.

00:03:24.000 | It's actually scary how many people think

00:03:25.440 | that's a real thing, by the way,

00:03:26.520 | which is the danger of the internet.

00:03:27.920 | But yeah, we will get into that.

00:03:29.720 | - I tend to believe that people believing a thing

00:03:33.080 | that's hilarious at scale will make that thing a reality.

00:03:37.920 | I'm with Elon on this.

00:03:39.480 | I think people manifest the meme, the meme becomes real.

00:03:42.700 | So that, but that's in all walks of life.

00:03:45.800 | I think there is something about humor sort of being,

00:03:50.280 | ugh, why did I, I was gonna, what was I was going to say

00:03:55.280 | is I feel like humor becomes a lubricant

00:03:58.280 | for the trajectory of human civilization,

00:04:00.360 | and I don't know why the word lubricant went into my head,

00:04:03.520 | which-- - Beads?

00:04:04.760 | - I understand, but it's very Freudian.

00:04:07.360 | Anyway, so zero to 900, if you're a 1300 player,

00:04:12.360 | you were saying? - Yeah.

00:04:13.680 | If you're not good at end games,

00:04:15.060 | you don't understand how to convert positions

00:04:17.080 | that have seven or eight pieces left on the board.

00:04:20.500 | You don't know when you're supposed to activate your king.

00:04:22.680 | You don't know how a bishop outplays a knight

00:04:24.800 | with just several pawns on the board.

00:04:26.280 | Those are all very important things

00:04:27.680 | because it's not just about knowing

00:04:30.340 | the theoretical end games.

00:04:31.280 | Like some positions in chess are literally solved.

00:04:33.920 | If I showed you a position, I asked,

00:04:35.000 | "What's the evaluation and how do you win it?"

00:04:36.820 | There's a technique, you're supposed to know that technique.

00:04:39.120 | - And the coaches on chess.com can help or no?

00:04:41.540 | - Yeah, so these lesson libraries,

00:04:43.140 | it's not like a live lesson,

00:04:44.200 | it's prerecorded training position, walk you through it.

00:04:48.320 | And then there's a dynamic factor as well

00:04:50.900 | where you can practice.

00:04:52.300 | You can practice the theoretical

00:04:53.560 | and you can practice a practical game

00:04:55.420 | where there's no set format to do something.

00:04:58.280 | It's just based on your previous experience.

00:05:00.800 | Basically, Lichess is their entire thing

00:05:03.760 | is it's an open source website

00:05:06.480 | that tries to be as free as possible

00:05:08.560 | and operates totally on donations.

00:05:10.460 | They don't have any advertisements.

00:05:12.680 | They don't have, which is weird

00:05:14.480 | because normally in big competitive settings,

00:05:18.360 | it's all capitalistic.

00:05:19.320 | You have one big entity and another big entity

00:05:22.520 | and they're both for profit.

00:05:23.420 | But in this case, the big argument is,

00:05:25.200 | well, they offer a lot of things for free.

00:05:27.300 | You can analyze your games for free.

00:05:29.240 | You can go into Lichess's lessons library

00:05:31.960 | and do things for free.

00:05:33.560 | The comparison that I always make is chess.com

00:05:36.560 | is basically like having a good personal trainer

00:05:40.040 | and having someone to help you at the gym.

00:05:42.720 | Lichess says you have to do all the stuff yourself.

00:05:45.520 | So you can combine YouTube with Lichess.

00:05:47.840 | No one's gonna really point you in the right direction.

00:05:49.520 | You gotta go fully explore on your own.

00:05:50.840 | If you wanna do it, you can.

00:05:52.260 | I also like to say, can I make a controversial joke?

00:05:54.960 | - Yes. - Okay.

00:05:55.920 | Ardent Lichess supporters are like very angry,

00:06:01.460 | only vegetarian or vegan folks

00:06:06.880 | because they will tear you apart

00:06:09.840 | and try to convert you as much as possible.

00:06:12.360 | - Did you just point a large number of haters

00:06:16.600 | onto this very podcast?

00:06:18.600 | Is this what just happened? - No.

00:06:19.760 | - Is there like several people

00:06:21.040 | that were very upset at you right now?

00:06:22.920 | - No. - And throwing things?

00:06:23.920 | Okay. - No, no.

00:06:24.740 | That's always the joke that I've made

00:06:25.720 | because if people have chess.com,

00:06:27.920 | and I love all people, but I'm just saying,

00:06:29.880 | chess.com patrons do not try to actively convert

00:06:34.880 | folks on Lichess.

00:06:36.740 | Folks on Lichess are like, there's a meme chess.com.

00:06:41.060 | Chess.com. - Oh, it started at Lichess.

00:06:44.640 | - Started somewhere on Reddit, Anarchy Chess, kind of a--

00:06:48.340 | - Oh, so Lichess is a little bit

00:06:49.700 | of an anarchist organization.

00:06:51.800 | Would you go as far as to say

00:06:53.300 | they're a terrorist extremist organization?

00:06:56.480 | Are we going there?

00:06:58.300 | - For legal reasons, that's a...

00:07:00.460 | I thought Lichess has really good analysis.

00:07:03.660 | Somebody, does it have an engine for analysis

00:07:06.660 | of games, or is that an open source thing that--

00:07:09.660 | - They both do, they both use Stockfish 15.

00:07:12.060 | - Okay, and then the rest is the interface

00:07:14.300 | around Stockfish that shows--

00:07:16.820 | - It's tough, it's the live,

00:07:18.860 | so chess has a live server where you and I

00:07:20.620 | can play a game against each other.

00:07:21.700 | We just both seek, and if we have the same rating,

00:07:24.140 | we have the same criteria, we'll play a game.

00:07:26.420 | But there's also reviewing your own games.

00:07:28.940 | There's an opening database,

00:07:30.500 | so you can see what the most popular trends are.

00:07:32.920 | So Lichess is great.

00:07:34.700 | I'm sponsored by chess.com, and I will openly say that,

00:07:37.620 | but you can't have--

00:07:39.300 | - So you're deeply biased?

00:07:40.980 | - Yes.

00:07:42.060 | But I'm also complimenting the competitor.

00:07:44.620 | - Can you play games on Lichess,

00:07:48.060 | or is it just for analysis?

00:07:49.900 | - Yeah, yeah, you can.

00:07:50.740 | - So it's the same exact thing.

00:07:52.060 | So they're legitimately competitors.

00:07:54.220 | Not exactly the same thing, but they have the...

00:07:57.260 | They're trying to match for features,

00:07:59.620 | but you're saying Lichess is more chaotic,

00:08:02.060 | and then chess.com is more professional?

00:08:05.540 | - Yeah, I don't know.

00:08:06.460 | I don't know if it's chaotic.

00:08:07.480 | I just know that it's...

00:08:08.980 | You have to...

00:08:10.900 | No one's gonna hold your hand if you go to Lichess.

00:08:15.420 | You absolutely can.

00:08:16.260 | You can play games, you can analyze your games,

00:08:18.120 | but you have to discover it yourself.

00:08:20.460 | The whole point of chess.com is to make the journey

00:08:22.700 | as simple as possible.

00:08:23.940 | But I also firmly believe you can't have any sort of growth

00:08:28.220 | in chess without a chess.com or a chess24.

00:08:31.660 | - What's chess24?

00:08:33.300 | - So chess24 was another live server

00:08:37.820 | with some lesson libraries and so on,

00:08:39.620 | but they were, I think the process was,

00:08:43.540 | they were bought by PlayMagnus.

00:08:45.140 | So...

00:08:46.940 | - What's PlayMagnus?

00:08:47.760 | - PlayMagnus is...

00:08:49.100 | - That's Magnus Carlsen's thing.

00:08:51.740 | - He doesn't own it.

00:08:52.580 | He owns some stake in it, I think nine or 10%.

00:08:54.980 | They owned a bunch of chess companies, including chess24,

00:08:58.180 | but now it seems like they're either merging

00:09:00.140 | or basically getting acquired by chess.com.

00:09:02.940 | - Got it.

00:09:03.780 | And then PlayMagnus, it's an app also

00:09:05.460 | where you can play magic at different levels,

00:09:07.500 | but there's also the educational stuff.

00:09:09.940 | - Yes.

00:09:10.780 | - Okay.

00:09:11.600 | - The for-profit chess companies make the option

00:09:14.980 | for grandmasters to make a living to make chess in eSport.

00:09:18.460 | Yeah, Lichess is great.

00:09:19.300 | It doesn't put on any events.

00:09:20.700 | There's no commentary.

00:09:21.580 | So you can have both in theory

00:09:23.300 | and probably some controversy is good.

00:09:25.340 | - Does chess.com like sponsor you?

00:09:27.580 | They help you out in some way?

00:09:29.540 | Like what's the connection between your videos

00:09:31.300 | and streams and so on in chess.com?

00:09:32.860 | Like are they supporting people in that way or no?

00:09:34.860 | - My content, they don't necessarily,

00:09:36.580 | I just make whatever I want.

00:09:37.860 | Like I don't have, I've not sensed,

00:09:39.420 | like if they do something stupid,

00:09:40.540 | I will call out their leadership.

00:09:42.420 | It's not like, but I, to have the logo up,

00:09:46.580 | like in my YouTube videos or on my, yeah, that's just.

00:09:49.220 | - That kind of stuff.

00:09:50.060 | - Yeah.

00:09:50.880 | - So anyway, back to, I mean, that was really helpful.

00:09:52.900 | I was confused about all of that.

00:09:54.340 | - No, it's.

00:09:55.380 | - The guessing people's rating.

00:09:58.460 | - Mm-hmm.

00:09:59.300 | - So the thing you mentioned about the end game,

00:10:02.100 | if you don't know what the hell you're doing

00:10:03.260 | with the end game, what does that mean about your rating?

00:10:05.540 | If you don't know how to finish

00:10:07.660 | with just a few pieces on the board.

00:10:09.860 | - You could be my rating.

00:10:11.220 | (laughing)

00:10:13.700 | End game is tough.

00:10:14.660 | - That's the self-deprecating humor we tuned in for.

00:10:17.420 | - End games are hard, man.

00:10:19.980 | They're tough.

00:10:20.820 | - So they're very difficult.

00:10:21.660 | - Yeah, you can't have, there's a reason Magnus is the best.

00:10:24.980 | It's because seven hours into a game

00:10:26.780 | when everybody's given up,

00:10:27.940 | he's still squeezing juice out of the fruit.

00:10:30.740 | So that's the way I would describe it.

00:10:33.660 | - So that's not a good source of information if you.

00:10:36.820 | - No, within the first 15 moves, generally you can tell.

00:10:40.700 | Because you can tell how well they played the opening.

00:10:43.180 | So how well they knew what they were supposed to memorize,

00:10:46.860 | what they were supposed to play,

00:10:48.100 | and then how they react to piece interactions.

00:10:51.460 | So if they are faced with a move

00:10:55.180 | that a more advanced player would deal with very swiftly

00:10:58.900 | because there's kind of a natural response,

00:11:01.620 | that gives you information.

00:11:02.860 | If they move their king when they're in check

00:11:04.980 | when they didn't have to, that's a massive giveaway.

00:11:08.420 | Some people just think, oh, I'm in check

00:11:09.780 | so I have to move my king.

00:11:11.020 | - Okay, so it's like how direct the response

00:11:15.180 | of your play is to the danger.

00:11:17.500 | So if you're more moving multiple pieces at a time,

00:11:21.500 | meaning you're moving, the pieces are tied together

00:11:25.780 | in interesting ways.

00:11:26.900 | Okay, okay.

00:11:29.740 | What about the opening, can you tell also?

00:11:33.620 | Because a lot of people can memorize openings, right?

00:11:36.260 | - Yeah, but it takes two to tango.

00:11:40.780 | So you could memorize a bunch of stuff,

00:11:43.180 | but if you're 900 and I'm 900,

00:11:45.020 | my rating is fluctuating all over the place

00:11:46.620 | in this podcast, I feel like.

00:11:48.100 | 12, 13, 900.

00:11:49.500 | You can memorize things, I'm gonna play some crap

00:11:51.740 | and you can't play the way you memorize them

00:11:55.860 | because I have to respond to you in certain ways.

00:11:58.780 | So you will either respond the way you think

00:12:00.500 | you're supposed to respond

00:12:01.620 | and that will probably be incorrect,

00:12:04.000 | or now you have to figure out how to deal

00:12:06.020 | with the fresh position.

00:12:08.020 | - Oh, so the 900 will reflect itself in both cases.

00:12:12.180 | - Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:12:13.660 | - I wonder if actually, so do you know your current rating

00:12:17.060 | or no, or your top rating?

00:12:18.540 | What was your top?

00:12:19.500 | - I know both my current ELO, like over the board,

00:12:23.700 | now is 2320, my peak was 2430.

00:12:26.660 | - Oh, cool.

00:12:27.500 | So can you play like a 900 player?

00:12:31.100 | Like can you force yourself?

00:12:34.380 | - Yeah.

00:12:35.220 | - So you can like, given that you've guessed

00:12:37.220 | a lot of ELO ratings, can you kind of emulate that?

00:12:42.220 | It's kind of an interesting question for me.

00:12:43.940 | - Yeah, yeah, of course.

00:12:44.780 | Before I was doing YouTube and Twitch,

00:12:46.620 | I was teaching kids.

00:12:48.460 | So I had to, not only did I have to play at their rating,

00:12:51.540 | I also had to play and sometimes even behave

00:12:54.540 | and explain things in a way that a kid could understand.

00:12:57.220 | So absolutely, yeah, I think that's what contributed

00:13:00.180 | to the growth of the channel, frankly.

00:13:02.000 | I kind of understood how beginners thought about the game.

00:13:04.560 | - So yeah, you did, you taught people chess,

00:13:07.460 | you coached people for many years, I guess in New York.

00:13:10.700 | - Yeah, New York.

00:13:11.860 | - What did you learn about the way people learn from that?

00:13:17.060 | So like how did people that were successful

00:13:21.740 | at getting good at chess quickly,

00:13:23.460 | what were some of the commonalities,

00:13:26.540 | some of the patterns that you saw?

00:13:28.860 | - Obsession.

00:13:29.800 | Yeah.

00:13:32.120 | - What does obsession look like?

00:13:33.300 | - I would say it's obsession and also love of the game.

00:13:39.260 | So if you're bored, you don't wanna watch a show,

00:13:42.640 | you wanna boot up chess.com or LeeChess,

00:13:45.660 | just so I don't get flamed by anyone in the audience.

00:13:49.580 | - So you're saying LeeChess people

00:13:52.380 | are the ones that would attack aggressively?

00:13:54.220 | They're the kind of people--

00:13:55.060 | - It's probably the Chess24 people.

00:13:56.940 | - Oh, that's another--

00:13:57.780 | (laughing)

00:14:00.100 | I didn't know, I thought Chess24 was part of the chess.com--

00:14:03.300 | - Well, now, yes.

00:14:04.140 | - A cult or tribe or whatever terms you wanna use.

00:14:08.020 | - I'm sure there's even more places to play live.

00:14:10.040 | There always have been more places to play live,

00:14:12.000 | but Chess.com, LeeChess, Dominate,

00:14:13.860 | and well, Chess24 is rough for live interface.

00:14:18.140 | Of course, they have good courses and everything, but--

00:14:21.140 | - Yeah, I get it, I get it.

00:14:23.980 | And some are even good people or whatever

00:14:26.900 | that quote goes.

00:14:28.340 | Okay, like obsession, that means the way

00:14:33.340 | they look at the board, when they're bored,

00:14:37.220 | how quickly do they return to the chess board,

00:14:40.100 | that kind of stuff.

00:14:41.300 | - Just like how many hours a day they want to spend.

00:14:43.940 | - Yes.

00:14:44.780 | - They spend and want to spend.

00:14:45.620 | - Some kids definitely have a talent.

00:14:49.780 | Of course, there's this eternal debate,

00:14:51.220 | talent versus hard work.

00:14:52.640 | I don't necessarily know if it's a talent

00:14:55.540 | for chess specifically, but it's a talent for,

00:15:00.480 | I'm sure there's some sort of spatial visualization

00:15:03.180 | in your mind, you start picking up what squares

00:15:07.860 | are controlled by your pieces

00:15:09.460 | and opponent's pieces faster,

00:15:11.540 | your memory is much stronger.

00:15:12.980 | So you don't just learn openings, like we discussed,

00:15:16.760 | you learn literal patterns such as,

00:15:19.980 | oh, I remember this from two tournaments ago.

00:15:22.380 | I remember this from a game I played just yesterday.

00:15:25.220 | And you just keep playing and playing and playing.

00:15:26.980 | But I think the one commonality,

00:15:29.200 | I think I've seen in all kids,

00:15:31.820 | it's obsession, you have to play a lot.

00:15:36.100 | And I've seen kids who are brilliant kids,

00:15:38.260 | like if you give them a page of tactics, puzzles,

00:15:41.580 | they solve faster than anybody.

00:15:43.340 | They can pick things up here super fast.

00:15:44.900 | They're a pleasure to teach.

00:15:46.460 | They go to a tournament, disaster.

00:15:49.100 | They can't handle the anxiousness.

00:15:52.020 | They can't handle that silent face-to-face war

00:15:55.020 | with another six-year-old.

00:15:58.400 | They can't even handle, there's also trash talk.

00:16:00.420 | One sentence by a kid can throw off your prize student.

00:16:04.420 | And I've seen kids just totally disintegrate.

00:16:06.380 | I've seen also my students bully other kids,

00:16:08.380 | according to my student wasn't that strong,

00:16:10.980 | but their verbal warfare, which is not allowed,

00:16:13.260 | but goes unnoticed.

00:16:14.740 | - But it's not even verbal warfare,

00:16:17.220 | like just going like, hmm.

00:16:19.420 | Like little like facial expressions you make at the board.

00:16:24.380 | Yeah, I didn't even think about that.

00:16:25.860 | That's pretty creepy, the intensity, not creepy,

00:16:29.620 | that's not the right word,

00:16:30.480 | but there's an intensity in that silence over the board.

00:16:33.920 | Like you can probably hear stuff,

00:16:35.400 | like just like, it's super quiet.

00:16:37.880 | It's like a library.

00:16:39.000 | - Yep.

00:16:39.840 | - And then there's just a tension that builds.

00:16:44.400 | You can hear the breathing.

00:16:46.240 | - Yeah, and at the highest level,

00:16:48.680 | both sides are involved in a battle

00:16:51.320 | that they both foresee 99% of the time.

00:16:53.800 | That's the scary part,

00:16:54.860 | is that you both see the exact same thing.

00:16:57.520 | It's very rare you play a move and I didn't see it.

00:17:00.120 | It's that I mis-evaluated it.

00:17:02.200 | I saw the move could be played,

00:17:04.200 | but I missed something three or four moves deeper.

00:17:06.400 | You play that move and suddenly you're excited

00:17:08.480 | and I'm nervous, but all of a sudden,

00:17:11.120 | you make an inaccuracy and now the tide shifts, right?

00:17:13.920 | We could be on totally different planes throughout the game

00:17:16.800 | or we could be on the same plane throughout the game.

00:17:18.280 | So it's really fascinating.

00:17:20.120 | - Yeah, so your thought is when you see a move

00:17:22.880 | that to you seems suboptimal and you start to think,

00:17:25.680 | what was that?

00:17:28.360 | You start to try to make sense of that.

00:17:29.760 | Did you miscalculate or did they miscalculate?

00:17:32.540 | Isn't that what Magnus is really good at,

00:17:36.320 | is taking people away from, making suboptimal moves,

00:17:40.680 | to take them away from the known openings,

00:17:44.680 | or is that unfair to say?

00:17:47.320 | - Yeah, he gets part of his really dominant reputation,

00:17:52.320 | I think, from not letting people get

00:17:56.800 | into ultra theoretical positions.

00:18:00.800 | He just won this tournament, this online tournament,

00:18:03.560 | and he said he had a young player strategy.

00:18:06.680 | He had an anti, sorry, a anti young player strategy.

00:18:09.920 | - What's that mean?

00:18:10.760 | - It means that by move seven or eight,

00:18:12.920 | you go to the database, no games.

00:18:15.360 | Kid is on their own, they have to swim on their own.

00:18:18.240 | And they have to deal with the strategic complexities

00:18:20.840 | of the position, which he just, he gets.

00:18:23.640 | And he might get from just an enormous database

00:18:26.960 | within his brain of historical games

00:18:28.840 | that have similar structures, or just sheer genius.

00:18:33.200 | Like we won't know.

00:18:34.840 | It's a mix of the two, for sure.

00:18:36.560 | The younger you are, you can't remember a game played

00:18:38.480 | in 1951 in some bar in the Soviet Union, but he does.

00:18:43.240 | 'Cause he read a book once, or a magazine once.

00:18:45.640 | - And he just remembers it.

00:18:46.480 | - He just remembers, and he remembers the structure,

00:18:48.040 | which it's just, it's not fair.

00:18:50.760 | It's crazy, right?

00:18:51.600 | - What do you think makes him,

00:18:52.880 | if we can sort of link on it,

00:18:53.960 | what do you think makes him so good?

00:18:55.720 | - I think it's the memory, and I think it's,

00:18:58.360 | he just seems to get the game better than anybody else.

00:19:06.120 | That's the best way I can describe it.

00:19:08.360 | In sports, you have reaction time, you have strength,

00:19:10.360 | you have, but also as he's now evolving, it's stamina.

00:19:15.360 | So there have been games that if you put two other

00:19:20.200 | 27, 50 rated players, or world top 10 players,

00:19:23.880 | they would have drawn the game.

00:19:25.160 | The game would have ended, the game,

00:19:26.320 | nobody would have won it.

00:19:28.240 | You put Magnus as one of the aggressors in that game,

00:19:31.680 | suddenly the chance of victory doubles from 5% to 10%.

00:19:36.080 | - What's that about?

00:19:36.960 | 'Cause what is it, game six against Netball League?

00:19:39.720 | - Right.

00:19:40.720 | - Isn't Stockfish say that it's supposed to be a draw?

00:19:43.560 | - So 0.00 does mean a draw sometimes,

00:19:47.720 | but other times it means,

00:19:49.120 | and this is the joke I always make,

00:19:50.200 | it means that Stockfish is out for a smoke break.

00:19:52.560 | It just, it can't-

00:19:53.400 | - Can you explain the joke, and can you explain 0.00?

00:19:55.920 | - Yes, so when, so Stockfish will show an evaluation,

00:20:00.680 | which determines whether the position is equal,

00:20:03.580 | slightly better for one side,

00:20:04.680 | slightly better for the other side, or completely winning.

00:20:08.080 | You can, 0.00, 0.2, minus 0.2,

00:20:11.480 | that's all within a balance.

00:20:13.580 | You can say, okay, black has a little sprinkle of activity,

00:20:16.960 | something, white has that, but if it's 0.00,

00:20:20.860 | it could be literally a dead draw,

00:20:23.480 | meaning theoretically just impossible to win,

00:20:26.360 | but oftentimes what that means is,

00:20:28.360 | the smoke break joke is, Stockfish doesn't know.

00:20:31.760 | There is so much complexity within the position,

00:20:34.320 | the combinations of different moves

00:20:35.960 | that are acceptable and okay, it cannot evaluate correctly.

00:20:40.140 | - Wow, so even the end games are tough for Stockfish.

00:20:44.960 | - Which is why Magnus won that game,

00:20:46.820 | because there was practical value remaining.

00:20:49.440 | It wasn't a dead draw.

00:20:50.760 | He continued to ask questions

00:20:53.060 | over the course of six or seven hours.

00:20:55.080 | He would sacrifice a pawn,

00:20:56.680 | he would sacrifice another pawn to damage the structure.

00:20:59.000 | Valuation stayed the same,

00:21:00.960 | because a machine could stop him, but not Jan.

00:21:05.440 | And that was one of my favorite,

00:21:07.400 | that game ruined my whole day, by the way.

00:21:09.400 | It destroyed, because I made- - It took so long?

00:21:11.320 | - Yeah, I made so many plans that day,

00:21:12.640 | it completely ruined my day,

00:21:13.760 | but it was a very worthy recap.

00:21:15.640 | - You were just all in, you watched that whole game?

00:21:18.400 | - I watched the whole game,

00:21:19.260 | and the World Championship was a crazy time,

00:21:21.480 | because I wanted to be first with the recap video,

00:21:25.220 | but I also wanted to be best with the recap video.

00:21:27.860 | So I spent all the hours of the games

00:21:29.620 | watching all the live broadcasts,

00:21:32.140 | and getting all the information, all the variations,

00:21:34.980 | and trying to put that into the recap.

00:21:36.580 | It was a lot of fun.

00:21:37.420 | It was a huge adrenaline dump when it was all over.

00:21:39.740 | - So just for people who don't know,

00:21:41.320 | that's the most recent World Championship.

00:21:45.380 | So you had a, I mean, that was a draw,

00:21:47.520 | after draw, after draw, after draw.

00:21:49.620 | - Yeah.

00:21:50.460 | - And it was kind of boring in that way.

00:21:52.340 | Or maybe, are draws, is there non-boring parts

00:21:57.060 | within the draw to you,

00:21:58.860 | when you were just studying it carefully?

00:22:01.100 | - For me, yes.

00:22:02.640 | For the average viewer, no.

00:22:05.580 | That's the truth.

00:22:06.400 | Especially when the game itself is not that exciting.

00:22:09.780 | When Magnus plays a strange move on move nine or 10

00:22:13.980 | that hasn't ever been played,

00:22:16.060 | and then Jan has to try to exploit it,

00:22:18.740 | and he fails, and no attack builds up,

00:22:21.220 | and they shuffle their pieces for three hours.

00:22:23.460 | - My favorite thing is when the commentator's like,

00:22:25.180 | "I don't know why he did that.

00:22:26.460 | "I wonder why he did that."

00:22:27.740 | Like, when the commentators are confused,

00:22:29.740 | that's my, as a person who's just a spectator,

00:22:32.340 | just like, that's interesting.

00:22:34.940 | 'Cause then you, the most interesting part

00:22:36.840 | is about listening to the commentators,

00:22:38.820 | who I guess themselves might be grandmasters.

00:22:41.740 | - Or all. - Yeah.

00:22:43.060 | They are trying to, I guess, just like Nepo,

00:22:46.540 | just like Magnus, try to figure out,

00:22:49.300 | what's the idea here?

00:22:50.780 | What are you thinking?

00:22:52.100 | That's cool.

00:22:52.940 | That's an interesting part of the game.

00:22:54.460 | But other than that, it seemed,

00:22:58.000 | yeah, I was sure this was just gonna keep being a draw,

00:23:03.100 | especially in that situation.

00:23:04.640 | So it's almost, it seems almost remarkable

00:23:07.220 | that Magnus was able to pull out a win in game seven.

00:23:12.580 | In game six.

00:23:13.420 | And after that, at least Magnus said that that ends it,

00:23:17.580 | because now Nepo's gonna have to take more risks,

00:23:20.240 | and that opens it up to pure chess.

00:23:22.260 | And then, who was it?

00:23:26.340 | Steve Prefontaine said, "Whenever there's a race,

00:23:29.960 | "it's down to pure guts, then that's when I win it."

00:23:33.780 | - There was also a conversation about Jan's first half,

00:23:38.700 | second half, in any tournament.

00:23:41.140 | In the first half, he's just brilliant on fire.

00:23:43.540 | You could even say he was outplaying Magnus.

00:23:45.640 | But the entire conversation before the match was,

00:23:47.940 | Jan slows down.

00:23:49.180 | And at the first sign of a loss or a setback,

00:23:52.220 | the match might fall apart.

00:23:54.640 | And that was the worst way to lose.

00:23:57.180 | There was literally no worse way.

00:23:58.700 | And it just got worse from there and there.

00:24:00.220 | I mean, it was one move mistakes.

00:24:01.920 | But he's back.

00:24:03.940 | Jan has won the candidates again.

00:24:06.700 | He's gonna play for the world championship.

00:24:08.140 | So who you got?

00:24:09.740 | - Who you got?

00:24:10.580 | What is this slang terminology?

00:24:13.200 | Can we somehow edit that into a more sophisticated

00:24:18.100 | with a British accent type of phraseology?

00:24:20.360 | Okay, who do you think will win that match?

00:24:24.380 | - I think it's 55-45, but I don't know for who.

00:24:27.820 | I don't know for who.

00:24:28.660 | - That's not the--

00:24:29.780 | - So it's close.

00:24:30.620 | - It's very close.

00:24:31.860 | You can make both cases.

00:24:33.080 | You could say, "Ding."

00:24:34.020 | You could say, "Jan has been here before."

00:24:36.140 | You can say, "To the world championship stage.

00:24:38.360 | He knows what it's like to have a training camp,"

00:24:40.840 | and so on and so forth.

00:24:41.800 | His playing style is very...

00:24:43.060 | But you can also say Ding Liran

00:24:44.600 | is one of the most stable,

00:24:47.320 | unemotional chess players.

00:24:50.720 | And Ding oftentimes goes from down to up.

00:24:53.800 | So in the candidates, he lost to Jan in the very first game.

00:24:57.760 | 14 round tournament, he got demolished in the first game.

00:25:00.800 | I'm sure he was suffering from jet lag, the flight.

00:25:03.300 | He came to Spain like two days before the games began,

00:25:05.860 | which was crazy to me.

00:25:07.400 | And he got second place by the end.

00:25:10.140 | His chances of finishing in the top two were like 2%.

00:25:14.580 | After that first round game,

00:25:15.520 | people wrote him off completely.

00:25:17.720 | So he doesn't go from top down.

00:25:19.640 | He goes the opposite way.

00:25:21.320 | And if he loses, he might come back.

00:25:23.400 | But the truth is, I don't know.

00:25:24.680 | The truth is it's gonna be an interesting match.

00:25:26.800 | And it's also disappointing

00:25:27.800 | we're not gonna get Magnus in it.

00:25:29.040 | - Yeah, what do you think about him

00:25:30.000 | stepping away from the world championship?

00:25:32.280 | Are you a romantic about the world championships?

00:25:34.640 | - No, I'm not a romantic about anything, I don't think.

00:25:36.800 | I can't imagine what-- - He's dark.

00:25:39.880 | That went dark quickly.

00:25:41.040 | - I don't think I'm sophisticated enough to be a romantic.

00:25:43.160 | I think I taught chess and now I make YouTube videos.

00:25:47.880 | I'm not qualified on the subject of romanticism, but I--

00:25:52.120 | - You don't think it's a beautiful game?

00:25:53.840 | - Chess? - Yeah.

00:25:54.680 | - No, I think it is a beautiful game.

00:25:56.080 | - There you go, I got you.

00:25:56.960 | - Yeah.

00:25:57.960 | Is that considered being a romantic?

00:25:59.480 | - Yeah, I was seeing the beauty in the,

00:26:02.520 | you can be like Bach and seeing the math in the music,

00:26:06.280 | but you can see the beauty, the magic.

00:26:08.720 | - I think I see beauty in certain types of chess for sure,

00:26:10.840 | not in all chess, so I'll partially romantic.

00:26:13.740 | - Part-time romantic. - Yeah.

00:26:16.760 | - Yeah, so what do you feel about Magnus

00:26:21.440 | stepping away from the world championships?

00:26:24.120 | - Disappointing, but understandable.

00:26:26.160 | - Can you still man his case?

00:26:28.000 | What's understandable about it to you?

00:26:30.940 | - I don't think it's as prestigious as it could be.

00:26:35.600 | I don't think-- - The world championships?

00:26:37.560 | - Yeah, yeah.

00:26:38.400 | - Why does Magnus still sign everything as world champion?

00:26:41.920 | - That's a good point, that he did just put out a statement

00:26:44.600 | and he did say-- - But he does it

00:26:45.800 | everywhere else too. - Does he really?

00:26:47.400 | - Yeah, like world champion, right?

00:26:48.880 | World champion. - Oh, I don't know.

00:26:50.000 | - World chess champion.

00:26:51.840 | - Maybe it's just because he won it,

00:26:54.960 | but he thinks that the journey to the top once again

00:26:59.960 | to maintain the status quo has lost its appeal.

00:27:04.080 | You know what the example that I like to make?

00:27:06.480 | I'm a big fan of UFC.

00:27:09.840 | So we've never really seen,

00:27:13.000 | with the exception of George St. Pierre walking,

00:27:15.960 | and Khabib, but Khabib was kind of a different story,

00:27:18.760 | walking away from a belt

00:27:22.200 | at the absolute zenith of their career.

00:27:26.880 | But also in the UFC,

00:27:28.400 | champions are extremely well taken care of.

00:27:31.480 | The champions have some of the best lives.

00:27:34.320 | Of course, you can argue not all champions,

00:27:35.760 | you can say some of the lower weight divisions, yes.

00:27:38.520 | But what I'm saying is a lot of them get all the sponsors,

00:27:40.520 | they get massive, massive paydays,

00:27:42.360 | they're international celebrities.

00:27:44.120 | I don't think chess has that.

00:27:45.600 | In fact, the world championship of chess prize fund

00:27:48.200 | has not changed much in like 40 years.

00:27:51.680 | - So you could probably make more money on YouTube.

00:27:55.840 | - Yes. - Playing randos,

00:27:58.320 | not randos, but other, having fun

00:28:01.120 | and playing challenging, really challenging games,

00:28:03.320 | playing other super grandmasters, like an ad hoc events,

00:28:07.060 | or maybe a little bit organized events,

00:28:09.720 | but not the world championship.

00:28:11.320 | - Yeah. - And still have a lot of fun,

00:28:13.800 | make a lot of money, get everybody excited,

00:28:17.100 | all that kind of stuff.

00:28:17.940 | - Yeah, so for Magnus specifically,

00:28:20.940 | and we're using him because he's the world champion,

00:28:23.580 | if you tally, if he wins every tournament

00:28:25.880 | that he plays in over the course of a year,

00:28:27.200 | which is really not even that crazy of an estimate,

00:28:29.860 | 'cause that's really how it seems sometimes.

00:28:31.840 | I don't know how much money that is, I haven't tallied,

00:28:33.640 | but if he dedicated an entire year

00:28:36.480 | to being managed on social media and doing various things

00:28:40.500 | and growing all his brands and getting sponsor deals,

00:28:43.000 | I think he would make five times more

00:28:44.020 | than being the world champion, which is crazy.

00:28:46.960 | - Yeah, but money isn't everything.

00:28:48.360 | - I know, that's totally fair.

00:28:50.200 | - Some people dedicate their whole life

00:28:51.560 | to winning the Olympics.

00:28:52.840 | The Olympics is an interesting one too,

00:28:55.120 | because I didn't even watch the Olympics

00:28:59.940 | as carefully as I usually do.

00:29:01.540 | - This year, yeah, me neither.

00:29:03.300 | - It's really strange, I'm not sure why that is.

00:29:06.020 | And during COVID, I'm not sure, that was weird.

00:29:09.980 | I don't know if it's losing its magic.

00:29:13.020 | Part of it is also the people that own the Olympics

00:29:15.140 | and the way they distribute it,

00:29:16.660 | they make it a little bit more difficult to watch.

00:29:19.260 | It should, in my opinion, it should all be just available

00:29:22.180 | on YouTube and easily accessible.

00:29:25.340 | It's like the difference between SpaceX

00:29:28.900 | and some other, even NASA, just SpaceX is better

00:29:33.740 | at streaming their launches and commentating them.

00:29:38.120 | They've made NASA better as well,

00:29:40.480 | but just the ability, it sounds ridiculous,

00:29:43.100 | but making it more frictionless for people to watch,

00:29:47.860 | get excited, to share, all that kind of stuff.

00:29:50.860 | I'm not exactly sure where the magic balance is

00:29:55.860 | between the classy, traditional world championships

00:30:00.620 | and the dramatic, exciting streamer world.

00:30:05.620 | And it feels like for the world championships

00:30:09.020 | to be relevant, they have to find that balance.

00:30:12.060 | - Yeah, well, this recent one had, I was--

00:30:15.500 | - It's pretty good commentating, yeah.

00:30:17.020 | - No, I'm not even necessarily talking about myself.

00:30:19.820 | There was a lot of-- - No, that was the worst part

00:30:21.540 | for me. (laughing)

00:30:23.060 | No. - There was--

00:30:24.300 | - Well, every single-- - No, you did amazing, yeah.

00:30:26.380 | - I appreciate that.

00:30:27.220 | It was a lot of, it was a big arms race.

00:30:29.820 | So every major chess platform tried to get

00:30:34.820 | one super grandmaster, Vishwanathan Anand,

00:30:38.020 | Fabiano Caruana, you name it, they were basically involved.

00:30:43.020 | And to go back to that point, yeah,

00:30:45.900 | the big question is money.

00:30:47.100 | And if Magnus is not motivated by money,

00:30:49.980 | if the price fund for the next world championship

00:30:51.580 | was $10 million, would he play it?

00:30:53.300 | If he says no, then it must be something else.

00:30:56.340 | It must just be a matter of something's not worth it.

00:30:59.580 | It's not worth-- - You gotta take him

00:31:00.420 | at his word, and his word is like,

00:31:02.300 | there's too much stress to the low sample play.

00:31:07.620 | - Yeah. - Like I wanna play

00:31:08.900 | many more times. - Yeah, he wants to play more.

00:31:10.780 | He wants to-- - Shorter games.

00:31:11.620 | - He wants to make it more interesting, yeah, exactly.

00:31:13.700 | - Yeah, more shorter games, like where you can,

00:31:17.500 | increase the possibility of pure chess,

00:31:19.540 | whatever the heck that means.

00:31:21.380 | - Yeah, but we can't go back to the first

00:31:23.100 | Karpov-Kasparov match, which they had to stop

00:31:25.820 | due to health concerns.

00:31:26.900 | I mean, the guy went down five nil,

00:31:28.660 | and it was first to six wins, and draws didn't count.

00:31:31.740 | So draws didn't amass to the total score.

00:31:33.780 | There was no best of system.

00:31:35.860 | - So what happened there?

00:31:37.300 | - The match went something like seven, eight months.

00:31:39.380 | Kasparov started making a comeback

00:31:40.980 | after being down five nothing.

00:31:42.180 | He was five three, and they called it off.

00:31:45.020 | They called it off, they said,

00:31:45.860 | "The players are in poor health conditions."

00:31:47.340 | Kasparov stormed down, yelled that this is a farce.

00:31:50.820 | But the match was 50 games long, even more maybe.

00:31:54.980 | I made a video, and I don't even remember

00:31:56.260 | how many games it was.

00:31:57.100 | It was so long.

00:31:58.740 | Can you imagine?

00:31:59.580 | Bobby Fischer wanted something almost as extreme.

00:32:02.660 | Draws don't count, it's first one to 10 wins.

00:32:05.340 | And if it's nine nine,

00:32:07.500 | the world champion retains his title.

00:32:09.780 | So you have to beat the world champion 10 eight.

00:32:12.620 | That's the only way.

00:32:13.660 | - You don't like that?

00:32:15.780 | - It's just grueling.

00:32:17.340 | - I don't know, maybe I like it for the YouTube recaps,

00:32:19.460 | but do I like it for the players?

00:32:21.140 | Do I like it for general public?

00:32:22.260 | No. - Torture.

00:32:23.100 | - Yeah, it's three, four hours, right?

00:32:24.780 | Imagine your favorite tennis match was six months long.

00:32:27.540 | What are we doing?

00:32:29.980 | - Yeah, yeah, there's still a magic

00:32:31.780 | to the world championship.

00:32:32.980 | I wish they could make it some interesting,

00:32:35.140 | make it work somehow.

00:32:38.820 | But I think Magnus is really challenging FIDE

00:32:42.300 | and everybody else to step up and try to figure that out,

00:32:44.780 | which is great ultimately.

00:32:46.140 | Who would you say is the greatest of all time?

00:32:50.660 | Can you make the case, you mentioned Kasparov,

00:32:53.340 | can you make the case for Kasparov,

00:32:54.620 | can you make the case for Magnus Carlsen,

00:32:57.300 | Bobby Fischer, Tall?

00:33:00.420 | - In my opinion, you can make a case

00:33:04.540 | for Magnus, Gary, and Bobby Fischer.

00:33:07.340 | I'm not one of the folks that's like,

00:33:09.260 | I mean, Capablanca was brilliant.

00:33:11.220 | You can argue Steinitz was brilliant,

00:33:13.060 | but I think it's probably Kasparov

00:33:18.060 | and Magnus has a chance to overtake it.

00:33:21.420 | - So the longevity is really important to you

00:33:24.580 | when you're thinking about this.

00:33:25.660 | - Yes, I think so.

00:33:26.860 | I think Magnus is very, very close.

00:33:29.380 | It's extremely close.

00:33:31.060 | - What would be the magic?

00:33:32.900 | - You gotta get that sixth one.

00:33:34.860 | - Oh, so the-- - No, I'm just kidding.

00:33:36.940 | - So the world championships matter.

00:33:39.220 | - It's kind of like basketball, right?

00:33:40.500 | Rings, it all comes down to,

00:33:42.220 | how many rings did this person win?

00:33:44.100 | - What about, well, basketball doesn't have this,

00:33:46.020 | the number of years at number one, right?

00:33:49.780 | Like rating, sorry.

00:33:51.780 | - Yeah.

00:33:52.620 | - Which is what Magnus really likes,

00:33:58.140 | is like there is a nice system of rating

00:34:00.820 | of who is ranked number one.

00:34:02.580 | It has to do not with some championships

00:34:05.260 | or low-sampled tournaments.

00:34:07.420 | It has to do with general, game after game after game

00:34:11.340 | helps estimate more accurately the ELO rating.

00:34:15.140 | - Yeah, he's been world number one for, I think, 11 years.

00:34:17.820 | - Which is still less than--

00:34:19.420 | - Yeah, he was world number one for 20 years.

00:34:21.940 | Yeah, which is quite wild.

00:34:24.180 | - But still lower rating, I think, than Magnus now, right?

00:34:27.380 | - Yeah, I think rating in general has sort of--

00:34:30.060 | - Allegedly, it got inflated?

00:34:31.740 | - Yeah. - Is that true?

00:34:32.580 | Is there a truth to that?

00:34:33.940 | - I think so.

00:34:34.900 | I can't speak to how exactly it happened,

00:34:37.460 | but it also happens online.

00:34:38.940 | If you go back just three or four years,

00:34:40.780 | I think some of the best Blitz players on,

00:34:43.060 | let's say, chess.com were 27, 2,800,

00:34:45.500 | and now they're 3,200.

00:34:47.700 | I think it's just sort of what happens,

00:34:49.020 | but I don't exactly know.

00:34:52.180 | I will mention that there was a very strange change,

00:34:56.140 | not exactly sure when the year was, in FIDE,

00:34:59.140 | so over-the-board chess, where if you were

00:35:02.060 | under the age of 16 or 18 years old, one of those two,

00:35:06.380 | and you were below 2,300, okay?

00:35:11.280 | Your rating change factor was three to four times higher.

00:35:15.500 | So just imagine what that means.

00:35:17.720 | Magnus has a rating change factor of, let's say, one.

00:35:21.060 | I have a rating change factor also of one.

00:35:23.840 | Anybody over the rating 2,400

00:35:26.800 | has the same rating change factor.

00:35:28.800 | - Oh, what is the rating change factor?

00:35:30.800 | So if you win--

00:35:31.640 | - Yeah, there's a formula, and basically,

00:35:33.840 | let's say at the very base level, five-point change,

00:35:36.960 | if your rating change factor is one.

00:35:38.920 | You beat somebody, you gain five points.

00:35:42.160 | Those kids who were under 18 and under 2,300,

00:35:45.520 | their rating change factor was four.

00:35:47.360 | So their ratings were going up four times higher

00:35:50.000 | and four times up and down compared to normal folks,

00:35:53.240 | and there was one teenager in the US in particular

00:35:57.360 | who in one month played a bunch of tournaments

00:36:01.540 | with his rating change factor

00:36:03.960 | and became nearly rated 2,640,

00:36:07.840 | which is top 50 in the world.

00:36:10.840 | He was just a random teenager from the United States.

00:36:13.760 | He became a grandmaster ultimately,

00:36:15.640 | but he bled like 90 points down

00:36:18.480 | because his rating was so inflated.

00:36:20.760 | And the K40 exists now.

00:36:23.520 | I mean, you have many kids who out of nowhere,

00:36:25.240 | 2,100, 2,100, 2,400 after one good month.

00:36:29.680 | It's like, what?

00:36:31.080 | - So that's interesting.

00:36:31.920 | That's like similar to how TikTok inflates your virality

00:36:37.420 | early on.

00:36:38.480 | - Does it?

00:36:39.600 | - Well, yeah.

00:36:40.440 | Like I, well, at least the rumor is like,

00:36:44.240 | they want you to get engaged.

00:36:45.880 | And I thought there was even artificial likes and so on,

00:36:48.600 | that they want you to get that dopamine addiction.

00:36:51.920 | So maybe they want to throw you,

00:36:55.520 | if you're really passionate about chess,

00:36:56.960 | they want you to throw you to the sharks

00:36:59.080 | by artificially inflating you, inflating your rating.

00:37:03.480 | And maybe that gets you into the game much more intensely.

00:37:06.880 | - Maybe.

00:37:07.720 | - I wonder how many like backdoor feed-in meetings

00:37:12.100 | there are with cigars.

00:37:13.180 | And so that was the factors determined by,

00:37:16.420 | who does the ELO rating?

00:37:18.860 | - Who changes this stuff?

00:37:19.860 | - Yeah.

00:37:20.700 | - Who knows?

00:37:22.940 | - It's probably those leech-ass anarchists.

00:37:25.180 | - Exactly.

00:37:26.020 | I think they wanna stay away from that stuff.

00:37:30.700 | - So there's a guy named Hans Nieman.

00:37:34.180 | - Yep.

00:37:35.540 | - And he beat Magnus Carlsen recently.

00:37:40.540 | - Yeah.

00:37:41.380 | - Has it been already, what is, was it August?

00:37:43.740 | - September 4th.

00:37:44.560 | - Oh, it was September?

00:37:45.960 | So he beat him twice, right, recently.

00:37:49.540 | Once is the allegations by the internet

00:37:54.540 | that Hans Nieman cheated.

00:37:57.080 | And then the second time,

00:37:59.380 | Magnus played a few moves and forfeited and resigned.

00:38:04.780 | - There's actually, so there's three.

00:38:06.140 | - Okay, sorry.

00:38:06.980 | - No, no, yeah.

00:38:07.940 | - Can we go through the stuff?

00:38:08.780 | - Yes, yes, yes.

00:38:10.140 | So they play a live e-sports event in Miami,

00:38:15.140 | Miami Beach.

00:38:16.540 | - Yes.

00:38:17.360 | - Eatin' Rock.

00:38:18.200 | - That's where I actually interviewed Magnus, yeah.

00:38:20.900 | - That's where that was?

00:38:22.980 | Oh.

00:38:23.820 | - By weird circumstance, I found myself in Miami

00:38:26.140 | unrelated to the chess event.

00:38:28.220 | And yeah, it was a very dramatic event for me

00:38:31.100 | for various reasons.

00:38:33.000 | One of which the camera stopped working

00:38:35.620 | halfway through the conversation.

00:38:36.700 | - I saw that, yeah, I saw that.

00:38:38.100 | I also, side note, I really respect how you write comments,

00:38:43.100 | pin them at the top, you add timestamps.

00:38:46.820 | You're like very true professional.

00:38:49.180 | I am the complete opposite on YouTube

00:38:51.000 | when I'm off the camera.

00:38:52.460 | So I dig in the mud.

00:38:54.580 | - What does that mean, dig in the mud?

00:38:56.580 | - From when I started on YouTube in 2020,

00:39:01.580 | in June, like May, June, 2020, I had no subscribers.

00:39:05.040 | So I got to a million in a year.

00:39:07.000 | I had a lot of people analyzing my every move,

00:39:11.360 | all of my small flaws.

00:39:12.640 | And I love getting hate comments because--

00:39:17.640 | - You pin, is it the comment of shame or something?

00:39:21.480 | - That's what it was, it's been named over the years

00:39:23.440 | by folks, I never called it that,

00:39:25.200 | but yeah, it's pin of shame.

00:39:26.840 | - Pin of shame, yes.

00:39:28.160 | - It's been tough because now people pretend

00:39:31.160 | to write hate comments just to get attention.

00:39:32.880 | So like anything, the public ruined the good thing.

00:39:36.380 | But it started that way.

00:39:39.340 | It started with people just shredding me to bits,

00:39:42.200 | calling me spin-offs of this and that.

00:39:44.480 | And I think I'm a human more than I am a creator,

00:39:49.480 | an influencer, an attention seeker.

00:39:53.320 | Like I'm just a person.

00:39:55.000 | So to me, even at the size of 1.6 million subscribers now,

00:39:59.520 | September 2022, I don't understand that I've gotten big

00:40:03.320 | and that I shouldn't do this stuff

00:40:04.560 | and that I should be beyond it

00:40:06.680 | or I shouldn't be checking my social media

00:40:09.400 | as much as I do and interacting one-on-one.

00:40:11.520 | I'm still very much a human being.

00:40:13.360 | And my guilty pleasure, my way of killing time

00:40:16.840 | if I'm not laying on the couch

00:40:18.400 | and playing some Chaz Blitz games off stream

00:40:20.200 | is I just interact with people who say nice things

00:40:23.720 | and who say horrible things.

00:40:25.240 | And I really like to get into the head of the people

00:40:27.200 | who say the terrible things.

00:40:28.800 | And sometimes you can, sometimes they are truly trolls,

00:40:30.920 | but sometimes people just, they just really hate you.

00:40:34.600 | - What's a successful interaction

00:40:38.240 | with the person that's trolling you?

00:40:40.920 | What's like at the end of that hero journey

00:40:43.360 | that you were partaking in,

00:40:46.880 | what's the top of the mountain look like?

00:40:50.560 | Is the troll conquered and broken mentally?

00:40:54.160 | - No, not mentally.

00:40:55.040 | I don't wanna defeat.

00:40:56.440 | I honestly sometimes, somebody writes a very long comment,

00:40:58.720 | I'll just, I'll respond with a question mark.

00:41:01.000 | - Yeah.

00:41:02.440 | Oh, so you're, you see each other as like a brother

00:41:06.080 | and sister, you're gonna travel together

00:41:07.680 | on this journey of deep meaning,

00:41:10.600 | like introspection of what does this mean?

00:41:12.560 | - Yeah, I've had people write, I can't quote now,

00:41:16.800 | but something about my persona, my behavior,

00:41:19.720 | this and that, and I just like respond to them.

00:41:21.680 | And I say, hey, it sounds crazy

00:41:23.860 | that a large creator might do something like this,

00:41:25.840 | but this kind of goes back to,

00:41:27.320 | you speak to folks on a very respectful way.

00:41:30.400 | If you make a mistake, you completely own up to it.

00:41:32.320 | So I have this sometimes,

00:41:33.160 | these one-on-one interactions where I say,

00:41:35.400 | I think you're reading too much into this.

00:41:38.060 | I think you're kind of, you don't understand

00:41:39.980 | maybe some of my humor or sarcasm as such.

00:41:42.640 | So you form this opinion that I'm this kind of a person,

00:41:46.080 | this and that, and now you're sort of,

00:41:48.000 | anything I do, you're trying to attach to that reasoning

00:41:50.520 | and here you are writing this lengthy essay

00:41:52.880 | of why nobody should watch my content.

00:41:54.320 | And sometimes people go, you know what?

00:41:56.160 | I think you have a point.

00:41:57.000 | Maybe I should relax a little bit.

00:41:58.960 | - Yeah, I would love to sort of interview

00:42:01.600 | and understand the lives of the folks

00:42:05.160 | that post that kind of stuff.

00:42:06.360 | I mean, they're human beings.

00:42:08.000 | They have interesting journeys also.

00:42:10.000 | I think they often don't realize,

00:42:12.120 | I think they don't realize their comment

00:42:14.720 | will be read by anybody, especially you.

00:42:18.520 | They think like, and they also don't realize

00:42:22.000 | you're a human being, I feel like.

00:42:24.280 | - That's, it's so interesting to watch it.

00:42:27.040 | Like some guy, 'cause I posted on Twitter

00:42:31.680 | for like a minute that I'm talking to you

00:42:34.480 | and asking for questions.

00:42:36.120 | I deleted that tweet because,

00:42:38.160 | - Yeah, not 'cause you didn't like it.

00:42:40.240 | - 95% of the people were talk about cheating,

00:42:43.240 | talk about the cheating.

00:42:44.240 | All right, I got it, thank you.

00:42:45.520 | This is not gonna be helpful at all.

00:42:47.400 | So I was like, all right.

00:42:48.360 | But in that time, like there was one comment,

00:42:51.880 | which it's hilarious to me that you found

00:42:53.880 | that one comment.

00:42:55.480 | The one comment says like,

00:42:57.000 | this seems like a waste of time or something.

00:42:59.120 | Like why talk, - Lame guest.

00:43:00.600 | - Lame guest. - Lame guest.

00:43:02.360 | Lame guest.

00:43:03.200 | - And then you like responded something like

00:43:06.920 | with a question mark.

00:43:07.800 | - Yeah, yeah, I wrote, why am I a lame guest?

00:43:10.080 | - Why am I, let's talk about this.

00:43:12.080 | - Yeah, I was like, why am I a lame guest?

00:43:13.320 | And he responded, he responded even after

00:43:15.120 | you deleted the tweet. - Yeah, what did he say?

00:43:16.480 | - He said he doesn't know what value I would bring

00:43:20.920 | because I just make videos about chess games.

00:43:23.600 | And that's true, you've had some absolutely

00:43:25.600 | brilliant people on.

00:43:27.080 | But I also looked at this gentleman's profile

00:43:29.600 | and he was one of the folks that put things

00:43:34.360 | about his family and God and his politics

00:43:36.980 | in his Twitter bio.

00:43:38.460 | And I started thinking, maybe I said something

00:43:41.600 | in some video and I made a joke about religion

00:43:45.560 | or something, just some offhand five second thing

00:43:47.780 | somewhere that someone turns me into just

00:43:51.640 | an absolute outcast in their household.

00:43:53.260 | They can no longer watch me.

00:43:54.100 | And that has happened.

00:43:55.160 | - Yeah. - That has happened.

00:43:56.000 | I'll record a 30 minute video and I'll make a joke

00:43:59.760 | about something and some phrasing and that's it.

00:44:03.520 | I've lost the viewer forever and they will let me know.

00:44:05.800 | They will write me an email and I just don't think

00:44:08.540 | people should be that serious.

00:44:11.020 | - Yeah, there's some of that 'cause I've seen people

00:44:14.660 | say that, sometimes about me, but I see it more

00:44:16.740 | with others.

00:44:17.960 | They'll say, I used to be, like Joe Rogan gets this.

00:44:21.520 | - Yeah. - I used to be a huge fan

00:44:23.080 | of Joe Rogan until he said this.

00:44:25.140 | - Mm-hmm. - Right, it's like one.

00:44:26.960 | First, I do wonder if you were ever really a big fan.

00:44:31.860 | That's one question mark I have.

00:44:34.840 | But the other is like, I think we should be more lenient

00:44:37.680 | with each other in terms of how much stupid shit we say.

00:44:41.920 | - Yeah. - And you know,

00:44:45.080 | if you actually, I wish people were able to sort of

00:44:47.920 | introspect on their own, on the stupid shit

00:44:52.200 | they say themselves, like to have a little bit of empathy.

00:44:56.060 | I wish there was a way to read all the emails

00:44:59.880 | you've ever written and just to see,

00:45:03.080 | or maybe do a search engine for all the stupid shit

00:45:05.640 | you've said in emails in the past and summarize it

00:45:08.640 | and to reveal it to yourself that you have bad days,

00:45:12.120 | you have good days, you have emotional days,

00:45:14.280 | you have stoic days.

00:45:16.840 | Sometimes you have, you take very different political views

00:45:22.360 | than you do on other days, and it's like,

00:45:23.720 | it's all over the place.

00:45:24.640 | And if you're a creator, if you're putting stuff out

00:45:26.920 | all the time, you're gonna have those,

00:45:29.920 | and you're still a full, complex bag of emotions

00:45:34.920 | and thoughts and ideas and contradictions and all of that.

00:45:40.920 | Like, you shouldn't judge a person by a single statement.

00:45:43.480 | And even when you do, you should try to infer

00:45:46.720 | the best possible interpretation of that statement.

00:45:50.180 | I feel like that's just a healthier way to interact

00:45:53.640 | with the world and with other humans.

00:45:55.380 | It's like, I wonder what's the best possible interpretation

00:45:59.520 | of the thing they just tweeted or they said.

00:46:02.200 | Let's imagine that the person saying those words

00:46:06.720 | is actually a really good human being,

00:46:08.800 | and what did they mean when they said

00:46:12.120 | that thing about anal beads?

00:46:13.680 | - Right, it was so good for so long.

00:46:17.080 | - Yeah, right.

00:46:19.640 | Or whatever it is.

00:46:21.240 | Like, they didn't mean to be offensive

00:46:24.840 | to the sexuality of a certain group.

00:46:28.320 | They're just talking shit about anal beads.

00:46:30.440 | Like, they're not, like, sometimes it's humor.

00:46:33.600 | Sometimes it's actually genuinely embodying

00:46:38.440 | like a political viewpoint, and like walking with it,

00:46:42.960 | thinking through it for a few days.

00:46:44.920 | Like, taking it seriously, empathizing,

00:46:49.160 | not just for a brief moment, but for a time.

00:46:51.600 | Like, walking with an idea,

00:46:53.120 | and allowing yourself to express it.

00:46:54.520 | Like, playing devil's advocate, I do that all the time.

00:46:57.000 | - With yourself?

00:46:58.000 | - With myself, yeah.

00:46:58.840 | In conversation, I do too, and I find I have to say,

00:47:02.080 | I'm playing devil's advocate.

00:47:04.000 | Like, you have to be very explicit,

00:47:05.480 | but with myself, I'll just do it in my head.

00:47:10.480 | Like, I have different voices.

00:47:12.600 | Like, you know, obviously,

00:47:16.720 | I've been getting so much information, so many thoughts

00:47:20.560 | in all the complexities of the war in Ukraine, for example,

00:47:23.840 | and all the different voices within Ukraine.

00:47:26.160 | I just interviewed hundreds of people,

00:47:27.960 | and they have very different perspectives

00:47:30.400 | in nuanced ways about the war.

00:47:33.080 | Some are full of hate, some are full of love.

00:47:36.040 | Like, hate for the other, love for their own country,

00:47:39.160 | love for family and tradition.

00:47:40.880 | All of it, it's a beautiful mix, and I have to walk,

00:47:45.040 | I have to carry those ideas in my head

00:47:48.120 | and empathize with them deeply,

00:47:49.680 | and then I have to listen to people that live elsewhere,

00:47:53.120 | that live in India, that have a very different perspective.

00:47:55.280 | There's a lot of people in India

00:47:56.400 | that have a very different perspective

00:47:58.760 | than the people in Ukraine.

00:48:00.480 | So, I don't know, and some of that will bleed out

00:48:03.280 | into the thoughts I express publicly.

00:48:05.880 | And when people judge you harshly for it,

00:48:09.920 | first of all, me as a human being,

00:48:13.160 | it's psychologically difficult,

00:48:15.520 | but also, it makes me less willing to be fragile.

00:48:20.520 | I still try to be strong enough to be fragile

00:48:24.520 | in front of the camera, just say,

00:48:26.160 | like, say things that are on my mind,

00:48:29.440 | even if I know it's going to create people

00:48:34.280 | that are going to be, like, ruthlessly negative towards me.

00:48:41.100 | So, I try to wear my heart on my sleeve,

00:48:43.040 | and still try to be fragile, but it's harder.

00:48:45.280 | You're going to pay a psychological cost.

00:48:47.440 | Like, in some sense, I try to be tough,

00:48:50.560 | but I can be a softie in that,

00:48:52.960 | in certain attacks can get to me.

00:48:57.960 | So, I'm surprised that they don't get,

00:48:59.880 | I mean, does some negativity get to you?

00:49:02.800 | Or is this the way you deal with it, by responding?

00:49:06.720 | Like, that guy saying,

00:49:10.560 | what value does talking to a lot of you add to the world?

00:49:13.920 | - Yeah. (laughing)

00:49:15.400 | No, but that was, I mean, that was so good.

00:49:16.560 | I was looking at, I was thinking at various moments,

00:49:19.680 | you went to jump in, and I was kind of letting you speak.

00:49:24.240 | One of the things I wanted to mention

00:49:25.560 | was it's significantly simpler to talk about chess

00:49:27.720 | than it is to talk about some of the things you talk about,

00:49:30.160 | and you have a big responsibility,

00:49:33.400 | because you have to absorb information like a sponge,

00:49:37.160 | but you also then need to present it in a way

00:49:40.520 | where you potentially have an opinion

00:49:43.200 | while trying to be fair to everybody.

00:49:45.760 | And you're talking about things

00:49:46.920 | that will literally never please everybody,

00:49:49.760 | just literally.

00:49:50.600 | So, you're gonna talk about some issues

00:49:51.800 | that are going to get out there into the,

00:49:54.300 | people are gonna watch it,

00:49:57.080 | the eyes, right, the ears of millions of people,

00:50:00.540 | and not everybody is going to be satisfied,

00:50:03.600 | and these are issues where people are going to be

00:50:06.300 | much more likely to speak up in all sorts of ways.

00:50:10.160 | - Like tremendous support or tremendous hatred, vitriol,

00:50:13.400 | and God knows what else.

00:50:14.800 | Yeah, you, it's one of the reasons

00:50:16.720 | I'm blown away to even be sitting here, frankly,

00:50:19.640 | because up until a few months ago,

00:50:21.120 | you weren't talking to, you know,

00:50:22.560 | I'm not saying you weren't talking to,

00:50:23.640 | but you hadn't spoken to chess players.

00:50:25.120 | You were speaking to people who were doing

00:50:27.320 | much more substantial things in the world.

00:50:29.880 | - I appreciate the humility there.

00:50:31.520 | - No, but--

00:50:32.840 | - Chess, to me, is incredible, is a beautiful game,

00:50:36.240 | but I think the reason comments hurt

00:50:39.240 | is not, I mean, they hurt no matter what, to me.

00:50:42.920 | Like-- - Not to me.

00:50:44.320 | Because I'm in a simpler space.

00:50:46.960 | That's what you have to understand.

00:50:48.200 | I-- - Even if,

00:50:49.360 | so if it's chess-based criticism,

00:50:51.540 | it doesn't hit as hard.

00:50:55.280 | - No, if you had a podcast about,

00:50:57.320 | anal bees, no, I'm just,

00:51:00.000 | if you had a podcast-- - I am launching this.

00:51:01.880 | - If you had a podcast about-- - I'm launching a new podcast.

00:51:03.880 | - Photography, you gotta realize,

00:51:05.600 | like, it wouldn't be the same way.

00:51:07.600 | You talk about potentially existential things.

00:51:10.220 | You talk about cyber, you know,

00:51:13.720 | things in cybersecurity or AI

00:51:16.800 | or people who are massive heads of companies

00:51:21.060 | that are just inherently going to be

00:51:22.640 | a bit more controversial.

00:51:23.580 | So that, I can't imagine being in your shoes

00:51:26.320 | because you have so many complex emotions about situations

00:51:30.280 | where you may not necessarily agree with everything

00:51:32.600 | that someone has said publicly,

00:51:35.100 | but you still invite them for a conversation

00:51:37.400 | because they're a human being.

00:51:38.480 | It's totally different, like, it's not--

00:51:40.040 | - I don't know, not the way I experience it.

00:51:42.940 | To me, I think what hurts is,

00:51:46.000 | it's not even on my, 'cause I'm super self-critical,

00:51:48.280 | usually way more than the internet can be.

00:51:50.840 | It's that, like, human beings can be cruel to each other.

00:51:53.800 | So like, the reason it hurts for some reason,

00:51:56.200 | it's like, it's almost like, there's disappointment

00:51:59.400 | in people, they don't give each other a chance.

00:52:02.280 | So in that sense, the negativity doesn't have to be

00:52:04.480 | about Ukraine or geopolitics.

00:52:06.240 | It could be about the silliest of things.

00:52:08.600 | - I see.

00:52:09.440 | - And like, to me, it's like, why be mean to each other?

00:52:12.960 | In a context where the mean doesn't,

00:52:15.160 | like, it's out of place.

00:52:18.480 | 'Cause like, for example, there is like a gaming culture

00:52:21.120 | where they just talk shit to each other nonstop.

00:52:23.880 | I think it's more acceptable there.

00:52:28.200 | It seems to fit.

00:52:29.280 | It seems to be funnier there.

00:52:31.360 | And like, when streamers talk shit to each other.

00:52:34.600 | I've been listening to several streamers recently,

00:52:37.680 | and it's like, it somehow works a little better,

00:52:39.840 | even if they're just, like, cruel to each other.

00:52:43.600 | It makes more sense.

00:52:45.280 | But I think when people are genuinely trying to educate

00:52:49.000 | or to help and so on, and you still get the shitty comments,

00:52:52.720 | I don't know, it makes me sad.

00:52:55.080 | - No, it doesn't make me sad.

00:53:01.040 | I think part of that is also the way I was brought up.

00:53:05.960 | So I was, I skipped kindergarten,

00:53:09.160 | so I was always the smallest kid.

00:53:11.520 | And--

00:53:12.560 | - You were picked on?

00:53:14.080 | - I was picked on, and then I did picking.

00:53:16.180 | So I had kind of both in my life.

00:53:18.000 | I kind of know I went home from summer camp crying,

00:53:21.740 | and I also made a kid cry once in fourth grade.

00:53:24.960 | So I had the balance.

00:53:26.520 | - A physical or mental abuse?

00:53:28.960 | Or both?

00:53:29.780 | - Verbal.

00:53:30.620 | I didn't beat anybody up, I was tiny.

00:53:32.560 | I think the kid in the younger grade was bigger than I was.

00:53:35.160 | - And you still broke him?

00:53:36.280 | - Because I was, yeah.

00:53:37.920 | - Well done, well done.

00:53:39.880 | - So I had to use my--

00:53:41.520 | - Mental warfare.

00:53:42.600 | - I had to use my words.

00:53:43.640 | I had to be, and growing up,

00:53:46.200 | my parents split when I was super young, and I played chess.

00:53:49.040 | So all things that make you super self-trustworthy.

00:53:53.960 | Like you believe your first instinct,

00:53:56.320 | you don't listen to what other people tell you.

00:53:58.960 | And if people give you advice, say, okay,

00:54:01.500 | I'm gonna think about that.

00:54:02.400 | I'm not gonna go and do that.

00:54:03.800 | I wasn't impressionable.

00:54:05.240 | You couldn't convince me to do something.

00:54:07.600 | That's stuck to this day.

00:54:08.520 | My wife has had to deconstruct some of my stubbornness

00:54:12.840 | I didn't even realize was incredible stubbornness.

00:54:16.240 | It's just something that you brought up with.

00:54:17.980 | So to me, that stuff doesn't bother me.

00:54:20.000 | - So the voices of others don't shake you quite.

00:54:24.400 | They can't mentally shake your psychological stability.

00:54:29.400 | - No, they haven't.

00:54:33.240 | I think when it got, probably at its worst point

00:54:37.280 | was in combination with being unable to perform well

00:54:41.000 | in over-the-board play, but that was also self-driven.

00:54:44.440 | I wasn't performing poorly because I was getting comments,

00:54:48.000 | but because I was performing poorly,

00:54:50.940 | the comments got to me more,

00:54:52.760 | the cycle was sort of in the opposite direction.

00:54:56.660 | And that was probably the most frustrating out.

00:54:59.660 | But people have said some vile things to me,

00:55:01.460 | you know, about my whole Indonesia thing.

00:55:03.540 | - Ooh, this is good.

00:55:04.380 | This is gonna give the anarchist in Lee Chess some humor.

00:55:08.780 | Let's go, what's the Indonesia thing?

00:55:10.820 | - Yeah.

00:55:11.660 | - The way you said, okay,

00:55:12.480 | maybe we don't wanna talk about it, but let's talk about it.

00:55:14.780 | - No, it's totally fine.

00:55:17.260 | - Who did you kill?

00:55:18.180 | - I didn't, I was gonna say I wish,

00:55:20.380 | but I'm not even sure I can make a joke like that.

00:55:22.880 | So the Indonesia thing was I was streaming chess

00:55:29.060 | on chess.com, I might add.

00:55:30.760 | And I got booted up a 10 minute game,

00:55:35.060 | just a random account from Indonesia.

00:55:39.140 | That was the flag.

00:55:40.100 | Now, mind you on these websites, you can pick your flag.

00:55:43.700 | It can be from wherever, it's not geo-tracing,

00:55:46.220 | you can change it.

00:55:47.260 | I was like, okay, account from Indonesia.

00:55:49.060 | And as always, I looked at the account

00:55:50.820 | 'cause it was a untitled high rated account.

00:55:54.420 | And I looked through the games,

00:55:56.820 | win rate was suspiciously high,

00:55:59.140 | average accuracy was suspiciously high.

00:56:01.740 | I'm like, okay, I think this is a cheater.

00:56:04.180 | I said it out loud.

00:56:05.140 | It's not the first time I've played cheaters on stream.

00:56:08.020 | And I said, okay, I'm still gonna play.

00:56:09.140 | Let's see what happens.

00:56:10.740 | The game was not crazy suspicious,

00:56:13.360 | but definitely suspicious.

00:56:14.820 | A few critical moments where I just clearly thought

00:56:17.620 | I had a good position and then the person

00:56:20.660 | or the bot played some move that just killed my hopes.

00:56:23.420 | And I lost.

00:56:24.260 | I was like, okay, I lost.

00:56:26.260 | And I wrote to the chess.com fair play team.

00:56:29.460 | Like behind the scenes,

00:56:30.300 | I wasn't even saying anything publicly on stream

00:56:32.340 | and the guy got banned.

00:56:34.260 | It was a cheater.

00:56:35.140 | So that night, right before I'm going to sleep,

00:56:39.740 | 'cause Indonesia's 12 hours ahead of New York,

00:56:42.340 | I go on my Twitter.

00:56:43.900 | The hell is going on?

00:56:44.860 | I see hundreds of responses to my recent tweets.

00:56:47.900 | Levi, you got to check Facebook, man.

00:56:49.220 | You got to check Facebook.

00:56:50.660 | Like, here's a link.

00:56:52.140 | So allegedly that account belonged to an older gentleman

00:56:58.100 | and his son made a Facebook post that said,

00:57:02.140 | my dad played a big streamer in chess, Gotham chess,

00:57:05.900 | and Gotham got mad.

00:57:07.020 | He lost to my dad.

00:57:08.580 | So his community mass reported my dad

00:57:11.260 | and he was banned for cheating.

00:57:13.940 | Oh, it went viral.

00:57:17.540 | - Oh no.

00:57:18.580 | - Did you know that Indonesia

00:57:19.780 | has the fourth largest population in the world?

00:57:23.460 | I didn't know.

00:57:24.300 | I learned it the hard way.

00:57:25.460 | - Interesting.

00:57:26.300 | - Tens of thousands of DMs every second.

00:57:29.300 | Instagram DMs, 'cause I had my DMs open.

00:57:33.260 | I was never afraid of that stuff.

00:57:35.060 | My YouTube videos went from 99% downvote to 50, 50, 50.

00:57:41.420 | - 50, 50, 50?

00:57:43.340 | - Oh wow.

00:57:44.180 | - They swarmed my comments.

00:57:45.500 | - So all negative.

00:57:46.340 | - All, play him again.

00:57:49.340 | You, I mean, I don't know how much swearing

00:57:51.940 | there is on this podcast,

00:57:52.780 | but I mean, it was just all sorts of-

00:57:53.980 | - All the fucking swearing you want.

00:57:56.100 | Just everything, ruthless, the vicious-

00:58:00.780 | - They were gonna kill me.

00:58:01.980 | They were going to rape my family.

00:58:04.300 | They were going to,

00:58:05.500 | they were contacting people I followed on Instagram.

00:58:09.780 | They were contacting them and telling them crazy things.

00:58:12.540 | It was, I'm not joking,

00:58:13.540 | it was tens of thousands of people every minute.

00:58:16.060 | It was unbelievable.

00:58:18.020 | And I didn't know what to do because the guy cheated.

00:58:22.020 | I was in the right.

00:58:23.420 | - Yeah.

00:58:24.260 | - People-

00:58:25.100 | - How certain were you that he cheated?

00:58:25.920 | - 100%.

00:58:26.760 | - Okay.

00:58:27.580 | - 100%, I mean, okay, I don't know if you can say 100%, but-

00:58:29.180 | - So just.com also had a suspicion.

00:58:33.340 | - They, what I-

00:58:34.900 | - 'Cause they have like good,

00:58:35.980 | they have like good detection algorithms.

00:58:37.620 | - Yes, Danny Wrench would be able to,

00:58:39.300 | I legitimately know nothing about the behind the scenes

00:58:42.020 | because it's only kind of tech people.

00:58:44.060 | But one thing I did not realize was that this account,

00:58:49.060 | whether it was the son playing or the father playing,

00:58:51.580 | we will not know.

00:58:52.540 | We don't know who played.

00:58:53.460 | It could have been the son.

00:58:54.300 | It could have been the dad covering for him, whatever.

00:58:55.980 | But at some point that account won 27 games in a row

00:58:59.620 | at 95% accuracy.

00:59:00.740 | I mean, even Magnus can't do that.

00:59:01.980 | Even, you know, this took a month.

00:59:06.100 | This story took one month from start to finish

00:59:09.260 | first I had to work with a like a media company

00:59:12.980 | to geo block my content in Indonesia on YouTube.

00:59:16.780 | So Indonesians could not see my channel.

00:59:19.500 | - Oh, so you didn't wanna like lean into it,

00:59:22.460 | go fool Donald Trump.

00:59:24.580 | - No, no.

00:59:25.420 | - Let's, 'cause you're in the right,

00:59:27.740 | you feel like you're in the right.

00:59:29.300 | You, as far as you know, you're in the right.

00:59:31.140 | - Yeah, and I hated watching all my work

00:59:33.660 | burn to the ground.

00:59:34.580 | - Oh, you felt it was being.

00:59:37.260 | - Yeah, and one thing I'm learning about myself

00:59:39.740 | is I'm not a good crisis actor.

00:59:41.500 | I need someone to like slap me

00:59:43.220 | so I don't do something emotional in the moment

00:59:45.260 | when crisis is ongoing.

00:59:47.500 | - What would be the emotional act

00:59:49.300 | that's not productive there?

00:59:51.100 | - Partnering with an MCN that makes you give away

00:59:55.020 | a bunch of your revenue.

00:59:56.220 | And then when you break with them,

00:59:58.540 | I wasn't monetized for a week.

01:00:00.340 | It was a very big decision to plug in.

01:00:03.620 | I think they're called MCNs, but.

01:00:05.340 | - What are they?

01:00:06.180 | Sorry, I don't, what are MCNs?

01:00:07.020 | - They're like, we, there's specialized agencies

01:00:09.900 | that work behind the scenes with YouTube

01:00:11.940 | that if you connect your account,

01:00:13.580 | they say they can give you certain ad benefits.

01:00:16.180 | They can geo-block your content,

01:00:18.180 | which you can't do normally.

01:00:19.460 | They have certain perks that only YouTube allows

01:00:21.540 | behind the scenes.

01:00:22.380 | You pay them 10% of your monthly ad revenue,

01:00:26.420 | but they claim to do a handful of things for you.

01:00:28.940 | I just needed them to geo-block my content.

01:00:30.580 | I just didn't care how much money I was going

01:00:34.900 | to give away per month, but.

01:00:36.660 | - So why geo-block it?

01:00:37.620 | You just didn't like the downvoting?

01:00:40.240 | - Yeah, I didn't want.

01:00:43.340 | - You wanted positivity?

01:00:45.140 | Like you're being educational?

01:00:46.740 | You're, I mean, they're like, you do a bit of shit talking,

01:00:49.740 | but it's more like fun and easygoing.

01:00:51.500 | You didn't want this kind of viciousness.

01:00:53.660 | - Yeah, my comment section was just being

01:00:57.220 | completely flooded.

01:00:58.300 | Like they were destroying my channel.

01:00:59.820 | And to be honest, maybe all of the views

01:01:03.100 | and the downvotes would have actually been beneficial.

01:01:06.140 | Maybe it meant my videos would have actually

01:01:07.700 | started getting recommended to more people.

01:01:09.860 | But I'm a person.

01:01:11.140 | This all goes back to the same thing.

01:01:11.980 | - Oh, so this got to you.

01:01:13.540 | - Yeah, this was like, I was just watching it

01:01:15.660 | and I'm like, this is not fair.

01:01:16.780 | This is, I don't know what to do.

01:01:18.160 | So I'm gonna stop this as much as I can.

01:01:19.980 | They still got through, they have VPN.

01:01:22.380 | And they were like, you asshole,

01:01:23.940 | you don't think we have VPN in Indonesia?

01:01:25.900 | It was this whole, you know, it was this whole thing.

01:01:28.300 | This father and son got invited to every major news network.

01:01:33.140 | I'm not joking.

01:01:34.020 | They got invited to the major podcast.

01:01:36.060 | They like to say the Joe Rogan of Indonesia.

01:01:37.900 | - Yeah.

01:01:38.740 | - Dedy Korbuzied is this mentalist.

01:01:40.700 | He's a bald guy, very fun guy.

01:01:43.020 | He had them.

01:01:44.420 | And that's when the Indonesian Chess Federation stepped in.

01:01:47.060 | The thing is nobody who was harassing me

01:01:48.700 | knows anything about chess.

01:01:50.220 | They just saw the story.

01:01:52.140 | And long story short, they brought in a sponsor.

01:01:56.060 | The guy played a strong,

01:01:58.780 | one of the strongest chess players in the country

01:02:00.580 | who also happens to be a woman, Irene Sukander.

01:02:03.620 | She's like 2400 international master.

01:02:06.540 | She crushed him because his actual playing strength

01:02:08.940 | is 1300, 1400, you, something like that.

01:02:13.820 | He still got paid 'cause there was a winning prize fund,

01:02:16.580 | a losing prize fund.

01:02:17.980 | And we never heard from him again.

01:02:19.980 | And that was the whole story.

01:02:20.820 | So that was why I had to shut down all of my social media

01:02:24.500 | to DMs and DM requests and even notifications.

01:02:27.860 | Like I don't get notifications unless it's someone I follow.

01:02:30.980 | - But see stuff like that doesn't often get resolved

01:02:33.380 | in this kind of clear way.

01:02:34.580 | - No, it doesn't.

01:02:35.660 | Could have been.

01:02:36.500 | - So you got lucky there that there's a conclusion to this.

01:02:40.180 | - Yeah, somebody got views, somebody got money.

01:02:42.540 | I never got many apologies.

01:02:48.060 | - What did you learn from that experience about yourself,

01:02:50.140 | about the internet?

01:02:51.900 | - I think first and foremost, I learned that every moment

01:02:58.140 | you are live or broadcasting can be completely blown out

01:03:03.060 | of proportion.

01:03:03.900 | You have to be real careful.

01:03:06.020 | And I can't actively think about that, unfortunately,

01:03:09.500 | even when I'm streaming.

01:03:10.660 | I've had other instances where things come back to bite.

01:03:14.940 | I've even had these moments live on stream.

01:03:17.740 | I feel like I said something too sarcastically to somebody

01:03:20.460 | and I don't know how their day is going.

01:03:22.620 | It might ruin their whole day.

01:03:23.660 | You know, God knows what, you have these moments of regret

01:03:26.260 | where you want your personality to shine through

01:03:29.980 | and you wanna entertain.

01:03:32.260 | They start thinking at what cost,

01:03:34.220 | if I make a joke to a viewer that suddenly the whole chat

01:03:36.940 | is laughing at them, what if that puts them

01:03:39.660 | in a deep, dark place?

01:03:41.100 | And again, it all comes back to this one-on-one thing

01:03:43.180 | for me because I'm a human.

01:03:44.740 | I would hate to put another person into that situation.

01:03:47.900 | I would much rather get a drink with somebody,

01:03:51.780 | but it's all kind of part of this act

01:03:54.540 | and you wanna make jokes.

01:03:56.460 | And I also learned I'm a horrible crisis actor.

01:03:59.340 | So I have no patience, but I think that's normal in 2022.

01:04:01.900 | Everything is immediate.

01:04:03.260 | We can barely sit, think, let time go by.

01:04:07.260 | - It makes me sad 'cause I think that kind of stuff

01:04:09.460 | can destroy good people.

01:04:10.900 | That's what makes you sad.

01:04:12.020 | - Yeah, well, one of the things we discussed

01:04:14.540 | just here before recording, which I'm also,

01:04:17.460 | I've talked about this on stream.

01:04:18.620 | I'm very open with this type of stuff is over the,

01:04:20.620 | I think for me, a lot of that comes down

01:04:22.660 | to just a lack of control of the narrative.

01:04:25.580 | That phrase is kind of messy.

01:04:27.900 | It can be used for political stuff,

01:04:29.380 | but I hate when I say things

01:04:32.100 | and they get completely misconstrued

01:04:34.540 | or they are completely misinterpreted.

01:04:37.620 | And I can't imagine being in your shoes

01:04:40.140 | because again, I do chess.

01:04:41.540 | You cannot really, you can clip me saying something

01:04:44.780 | about a chess game out of context and it's hilarious.

01:04:47.500 | You know, it's dumb.

01:04:49.020 | It's nothing, it's not an attack on me

01:04:52.660 | or something that I said.

01:04:54.580 | It's not an attack on, kind of more similarly

01:04:58.660 | to what you were describing.

01:05:00.740 | - You don't say stuff like that,

01:05:03.460 | like ridiculous, you don't say ridiculous shit

01:05:05.180 | about yourself?

01:05:06.300 | - Oh, I do, I do, I do.

01:05:07.500 | - And you don't feel like that could be made.

01:05:11.220 | Isn't this the same guy that said X?

01:05:13.460 | - Maybe, maybe I either haven't said enough

01:05:17.980 | of those things or there's no moments in,

01:05:20.420 | I don't have three, four hour open conversations

01:05:22.780 | with other humans.

01:05:23.620 | And I'm pretty sure if I did,

01:05:24.700 | there would be more of that stuff out there.

01:05:27.060 | But it's probably what it is,

01:05:29.780 | it's just a lack of being able to kind of control

01:05:34.700 | what is actually reality.

01:05:35.980 | And that is very frustrating.

01:05:38.180 | - Yeah, you're right.

01:05:40.900 | I mean, there is a sense that there's not enough motivation

01:05:43.100 | for people to attack you.

01:05:44.620 | You're ultimately adding a lot of positive stuff

01:05:47.020 | to the world.

01:05:47.980 | And when you get into more political topics,

01:05:51.220 | there's people who are hurting,

01:05:53.460 | who have a lot of anger in their hearts

01:05:57.260 | and they want to direct it towards you.

01:05:58.700 | So then they need ammunition and ammunition comes in the way

01:06:01.540 | of like clips from the past.

01:06:03.780 | So I'm sure that you,

01:06:04.900 | I'm pretty sure you already have clips like that.

01:06:07.020 | It's just, there's not people that really have anger

01:06:11.020 | to direct towards you.

01:06:11.940 | Ultimately you're adding a lot of good stuff to the world.

01:06:15.300 | And so, yeah, but it's man,

01:06:20.500 | the viciousness of human beings

01:06:23.380 | under the veil of anonymity at scale can be really painful.

01:06:27.100 | So that's, I guess that's the curse,

01:06:29.340 | the challenge of being a creator on YouTube

01:06:32.100 | and so on, on Twitch.

01:06:33.900 | When you talked about retiring,

01:06:39.100 | I think you tweeted about retiring from chess.

01:06:42.180 | - I made a video, yeah, I tweeted.

01:06:43.940 | It's my value to the world.

01:06:47.420 | - The tweet or the video?

01:06:49.020 | The both.

01:06:50.860 | "I'm retiring from all competitive chess events.

01:06:53.660 | My preparation is outmatched.

01:06:56.260 | My calculation skills are too flawed.

01:06:59.580 | And most importantly, my anxiety is beyond repair.

01:07:03.180 | I physically and emotionally cannot do it anymore."

01:07:06.220 | What was the hardest thing?

01:07:07.580 | What was the hardest thing about competing?

01:07:10.180 | Like, can you elaborate on that?

01:07:12.380 | - Yeah, I think it's separated into phases of my life.

01:07:18.380 | So after being a creator and coming back

01:07:20.780 | and playing over the board

01:07:21.660 | and making recaps of all my games,

01:07:24.460 | I think the constant feeling that I had at the board

01:07:30.340 | was a kid who hadn't studied enough for a test,

01:07:34.420 | which is a very unique type of anxiety.

01:07:36.580 | And during the game, it was just self-hatred.

01:07:42.180 | Like, good moves did not feel as good

01:07:46.380 | as how bad bad moves felt and bad moments.

01:07:50.060 | - And underneath that, you're saying there's a sense

01:07:52.420 | that I did not prepare well enough.

01:07:54.900 | - Unquestionably.

01:07:56.100 | So I'm an international master,

01:07:59.580 | but there's international masters now who are 11.

01:08:03.660 | I got the title when I was 22, which is late.

01:08:08.460 | That might not sound like it's late, but it's really late.

01:08:10.900 | And I quit chess multiple times when I was a teenager.

01:08:13.940 | If I hadn't, one of my parents was like,

01:08:16.180 | "Sit down, this is the only thing that you're good at.

01:08:19.540 | "Focus on it."

01:08:21.220 | Maybe I would have been a grandmaster,

01:08:23.580 | but that's life, right?

01:08:25.220 | And I would come back to chess at various points in my life

01:08:28.260 | when I felt more mature, I felt more ready,

01:08:31.060 | and I felt more motivated.

01:08:32.300 | It was all me.

01:08:33.180 | I never, I had one coach when I was maybe about 10,

01:08:36.900 | I never listened to the guy, great guy.

01:08:39.220 | He emailed me even recently, just wanting to catch up,

01:08:41.700 | which I thought was adorable 'cause I don't even know

01:08:44.180 | if he knows that YouTube chess exists.

01:08:46.140 | He's in his 70s, he's just like a nice older guy.

01:08:49.420 | And he would come to my house, we would have dinner,

01:08:52.460 | my grandma would make us food,

01:08:54.460 | and he would tell her that I'm brilliant, but I never work.

01:08:57.660 | And I have so much potential.

01:08:59.980 | If only I ever worked at all, one minute on anything.

01:09:03.160 | I just played speed games online and I--

01:09:06.380 | - Did he speak the truth there?

01:09:08.340 | Like, could you have worked more?

01:09:10.180 | - I could have worked more, for sure, yeah, absolutely.

01:09:12.460 | - When you listen to Magnus, who doesn't,

01:09:14.660 | he seems like he doesn't work either.

01:09:16.580 | - He works.

01:09:17.940 | He might work in different ways, but I think for him,

01:09:20.580 | it's also obsession, again, love, it's everything.

01:09:25.580 | He might read a book, he doesn't consider it work.

01:09:28.820 | It's work, he's getting information in

01:09:30.540 | and he's learning something.

01:09:31.980 | It might just be easier for him to learn

01:09:33.860 | than for me, for example, or for anybody.

01:09:37.860 | Just everybody learns and absorbs things differently.

01:09:40.900 | So I would come back to chess,

01:09:43.260 | and the best run of my life that I had was in 2016,

01:09:46.900 | where I basically, while teaching a chess program,

01:09:50.380 | scholastic chess program, I told all the parents,

01:09:52.020 | "Hey, so for these four months,

01:09:54.940 | "I'm gonna stop doing private lessons,

01:09:56.380 | "and I'm gonna go travel and play tournaments

01:09:58.020 | "because I wanna become an international master finally.

01:10:01.440 | "I'm 20 years old, this is in 2016.

01:10:04.260 | "Like, can you help me raise some money?"

01:10:06.620 | These are all managing directors, these are lawyers,

01:10:09.060 | these are seven-figure, eight-figure households.

01:10:12.100 | And they contributed, and I kept a blog,

01:10:15.900 | and then I worked just six hours, seven hours, every day,

01:10:18.940 | like studying all the opening trends,

01:10:21.380 | all of the new ideas, reading the books,

01:10:24.360 | analyzing my own games, playing my own speed games

01:10:26.660 | and analyzing them, training every day.

01:10:28.460 | And that year, I went from 2240 over the board to 2404,

01:10:33.460 | with two of the three norms, as they call them,

01:10:37.700 | which are basically tournament performances.

01:10:40.220 | Like you perform at a certain level, not too complicated.

01:10:42.700 | So I got almost everything I needed to be an IM.

01:10:45.320 | But I just slipped up at the very end,

01:10:48.780 | and 2017, I didn't play chess, but in 2018,

01:10:52.020 | I came back once again with a vengeance,

01:10:53.660 | I started playing in the summer once again,

01:10:55.980 | and I went up, up, up to my peak.

01:10:58.320 | But then, something interesting happened.

01:11:02.660 | My life mission was accomplished.

01:11:04.980 | I never wanted or thought I could be a grandmaster.

01:11:07.460 | - Yeah.

01:11:08.380 | - I wanted to be an international master.

01:11:10.980 | And the adrenaline dump of hitting the IM title,

01:11:14.820 | I just stopped working completely.

01:11:17.180 | I just completely stopped working.

01:11:18.460 | I couldn't, and the second I started falling,

01:11:22.040 | I couldn't stop.

01:11:25.780 | And I spent the rest of the summer just tanking,

01:11:29.780 | and I said, "Ah, fuck this, I made my IM,

01:11:32.420 | "I'm gonna fuck off someplace and whatever.

01:11:34.780 | "I'll be IM, it doesn't matter."

01:11:37.380 | But when I play games online,

01:11:39.740 | I mean, I destroy grandmasters all the time.

01:11:42.260 | Like, dynamically, dynamics in chess

01:11:45.380 | are just complex positions with all sorts of calculation,

01:11:48.900 | attacking, defending, like very forcing lines.

01:11:52.020 | I think it's my best strength.

01:11:53.740 | I think I'm easily grandmaster level.

01:11:56.260 | - So you have the capacity to be grandmaster?

01:11:58.660 | - 100%.

01:11:59.500 | Like, if I--

01:12:00.780 | - If the work was put in.

01:12:02.260 | - If the work was put in,

01:12:03.480 | and I was not doing my current career,

01:12:06.780 | if I just trained full-time, I think I could do it.

01:12:10.600 | - Do you have a desire to be a grandmaster?

01:12:13.080 | Did you have a desire?

01:12:14.000 | You said, "I didn't really want,"

01:12:15.380 | like, the main goal was international master,

01:12:18.240 | which, by the way, is really interesting.

01:12:20.120 | Just, I've talked to Olympic athletes,

01:12:22.600 | the crash after the gold medal is fascinating.

01:12:26.080 | - Yeah, I didn't get gold, but for me, that was my goal.

01:12:27.760 | - That was your goal, I mean, it doesn't matter.

01:12:29.120 | It's the goal.

01:12:32.400 | It takes a very, very special person

01:12:36.900 | to not be destroyed by the gold and continue the dominance.

01:12:41.900 | It's to continue growing, to continue,

01:12:45.040 | I mean, it's hard to, that's why they talk about,

01:12:46.680 | it's hard to be a champion and defend your championships,

01:12:50.040 | or whatever the goal is, to achieve the goal

01:12:52.400 | and stick to, like, yeah.

01:12:57.040 | - Yeah, it broke me.

01:12:58.240 | - It broke you.

01:12:59.080 | - Yep.

01:12:59.900 | - So you have the capacity to be a grandmaster.

01:13:01.720 | Have you ever thought, by the way,

01:13:03.960 | is there still possible for you,

01:13:05.480 | or are you fully dedicated now

01:13:07.560 | to the love of creating and analyzing this game?

01:13:11.800 | - I don't think I'm going to do what I do right now forever.

01:13:14.900 | So--

01:13:16.840 | - Well, you're gonna die one day, just a heads up.

01:13:18.520 | - Yes, yes, yes, yes.

01:13:20.440 | I once cried when I realized that.

01:13:21.960 | It was at a funeral.

01:13:22.960 | It was very sad.

01:13:24.280 | That's another entirely separate rabbit hole to go down.

01:13:27.680 | - Which is when--

01:13:29.280 | - When did this happen?

01:13:30.120 | - Yeah.

01:13:30.940 | - It was like, years ago.

01:13:32.040 | Yeah, it was rough.

01:13:32.880 | - So you really were able to, like,

01:13:36.120 | like that realization really hit you,

01:13:38.640 | like, fuck, this ends.

01:13:40.400 | - Yeah, I'm the kind of person who,

01:13:43.680 | I have my active thoughts in my brain

01:13:45.880 | of things I have to get done,

01:13:47.040 | and the more of those, the better,

01:13:48.480 | 'cause my brain will walk me off a cliff,

01:13:51.000 | not the physical body,

01:13:52.600 | the brain itself will walk off a cliff,

01:13:54.560 | spinning in circles.

01:13:57.440 | So I try to keep myself as active as possible

01:13:59.720 | on tasks I have to do.

01:14:00.900 | It's good, and I'm busy.

01:14:01.740 | It's good I'm at the scale I am,

01:14:03.600 | 'cause you can't really rest a whole lot,

01:14:04.940 | but yes, that was,

01:14:08.180 | I have these moments in my life

01:14:09.420 | where I have realizations of past fuck-ups,

01:14:12.580 | or things I really have to do

01:14:14.100 | that I've been really doing poorly,

01:14:16.540 | or things like this,

01:14:17.860 | massive existential things that just hit me like a bus.

01:14:22.860 | - There's several things tricky about it,

01:14:25.780 | 'cause I meditate on death a lot.

01:14:27.700 | Like, in this conversation,

01:14:29.140 | I imagine this is the last thing both you and I do,

01:14:31.700 | just, we're gonna die after this.

01:14:33.700 | So you meditate on that.

01:14:35.140 | But then you also have to,

01:14:38.180 | I think what hits people really hard

01:14:40.420 | is the realization that life moves on.

01:14:44.140 | Not only does it just end for you,

01:14:46.860 | but most people will be like,

01:14:49.040 | they'll, in your case, they'll tweet.

01:14:53.100 | It's like, oh, he's so great.

01:14:54.580 | There'll be so much outpouring.

01:14:57.260 | There'll be outpouring of love and so on for a day,

01:15:00.420 | and then it moves on.

01:15:01.700 | And the new trees grow,

01:15:05.760 | new bridges are built,

01:15:08.420 | and then eventually human civilization ends,

01:15:10.580 | or moves over to Mars and so on,

01:15:12.420 | and you'll be forgotten completely.

01:15:14.840 | But that, for most people, will come right away.

01:15:17.180 | Like, you get a cancer diagnosis or something like that,

01:15:19.820 | and it's like, doesn't anyone else know

01:15:22.940 | that I'm going to die?

01:15:25.100 | Does anyone else care?

01:15:26.940 | Like, nobody gives a shit.

01:15:28.940 | I mean, they do.

01:15:30.140 | I mean, there's love there,

01:15:31.300 | but not in a dramatic way

01:15:33.920 | that you would somehow deep inside hope for,

01:15:36.940 | that the world would stop

01:15:38.340 | because your life is facing this catastrophic event.

01:15:41.980 | But I think ultimately,

01:15:45.180 | what you could channel that realization

01:15:48.180 | into appreciation of the current moment,

01:15:50.660 | it's just the people you love,

01:15:52.060 | and sharing love with them as intensely as possible,

01:15:56.020 | experiencing every moment as intensely as possible,

01:15:58.900 | 'cause eventually there'll be a last moment,

01:16:02.460 | and after that, there'll be no more moments.

01:16:04.340 | - That's sort of what I do.

01:16:05.860 | Yeah, I try to channel all of that into,

01:16:09.500 | sorry, I don't use these fancy microphones in my own--

01:16:13.940 | - You look uncomfortable.

01:16:15.260 | It's not your fault.

01:16:16.100 | It's not your fault, Levy.

01:16:16.940 | - With this microphone?

01:16:17.780 | - No, with this line of conversation.

01:16:20.380 | - Oh.

01:16:21.220 | - I'm playing therapist.

01:16:23.980 | - I don't know if I'm uncomfortable.

01:16:25.580 | I just, I don't know if I have a lot to say.

01:16:29.220 | Sometimes I just listen.

01:16:30.860 | - Yeah.

01:16:31.700 | - Like sometimes I'm intimidated.

01:16:33.100 | - It's not your fault.

01:16:33.940 | - You say a lot of good things,

01:16:34.760 | and I'm like, shit, what am I gonna say at the end of it?

01:16:37.060 | - Yeah.

01:16:37.900 | (laughing)

01:16:39.460 | - On this subject especially, I'm like,

01:16:42.100 | that's sort of what I--

01:16:42.940 | - There's nothing.

01:16:44.100 | What do you think happens after we die?

01:16:46.700 | - Oh, man.

01:16:47.580 | - No, that's a rhetorical question.

01:16:49.500 | What were we talking about?

01:16:50.340 | Grandmaster.

01:16:52.020 | Grandmaster.

01:16:53.100 | So how hard is it to reach?

01:16:55.900 | What are the requirements for Grandmaster, by the way?

01:16:58.700 | 'Cause, yeah, and what are the requirements

01:17:00.100 | for International Mastery?

01:17:01.220 | You mentioned a few requirements and so on.

01:17:03.900 | - Yes, so the first one is you have to know

01:17:06.260 | how to use a Shure mic and an arm.

01:17:08.700 | I'm slowly learning.

01:17:09.540 | - You were impressed by the Shure microphone, by the way.

01:17:11.260 | For people listening, we're using this Shure SM7B

01:17:16.260 | that a lot of podcasters use.

01:17:19.500 | I don't know why, and Michael Jackson on Thriller,

01:17:23.700 | which Grimes told me.

01:17:25.740 | - Really?

01:17:26.580 | - That's why.

01:17:27.420 | I think it looked a little different,

01:17:28.240 | but it's the same underneath it.

01:17:31.020 | A few musicians used it in studio.

01:17:32.620 | I don't know where it became popular

01:17:34.780 | as a podcasting microphone, 'cause I think

01:17:37.700 | most broadcasters use condenser mics

01:17:40.100 | that look really fancy.

01:17:42.540 | This looks a little--

01:17:44.020 | - No, this one's great.

01:17:45.420 | It sounds really, really good.

01:17:46.700 | And I told you before that I wanted to use it,

01:17:49.220 | but it requires an external dashboard of some sort,

01:17:52.980 | and I'm way too lazy to learn how to do it.

01:17:56.620 | And my microphone doesn't sound that bad

01:17:58.220 | for YouTube and for Twitch, but this is a long-term--

01:18:01.140 | - I still have to figure out how to stream stuff.

01:18:03.300 | I haven't figured that out.

01:18:05.060 | - You want to go down into the world of Twitch?

01:18:07.100 | - No, I don't.

01:18:07.940 | - Okay, you just want to learn how to do it, just in case.

01:18:11.100 | - No, for, no, not Twitch.

01:18:13.500 | (laughing)

01:18:15.700 | - Do you know what we have over there?

01:18:17.900 | - So first of all, yes, it's like,

01:18:19.820 | I feel like "The Hobbit" going into "Mortar."

01:18:24.900 | Yeah, Twitch is a very intense world.

01:18:29.020 | But there is useful cases when you should have

01:18:32.700 | your microphone work with the different,

01:18:37.420 | the processing chain work in real time,

01:18:40.740 | so you can do interviews.

01:18:42.860 | And also, I try to play a video game once a month.

01:18:47.220 | So I've done that like three times already.

01:18:50.620 | So stream that kind of stuff for like an hour.

01:18:55.420 | Like play "Skyrim."

01:18:56.500 | I love playing "Skyrim."

01:18:57.900 | I actually love the idea, I haven't done that yet,

01:19:00.740 | but apparently in "Skyrim" you can turn off the monsters

01:19:03.780 | and you can just walk around.

01:19:06.020 | So I love the idea of just walking around

01:19:07.700 | in "Skyrim" for a couple hours.

01:19:09.740 | And just like, 'cause it's beautiful nature.

01:19:11.740 | - I see.

01:19:12.580 | - Do you know anything about those?

01:19:15.100 | It's the other sponsor.

01:19:15.940 | - I know little about "Skyrim."

01:19:18.020 | - So it's kind of like, no.

01:19:21.020 | Yeah, it's just beautiful worlds.

01:19:25.100 | So there's games that are able to create this sense of,

01:19:30.100 | you know, the way you feel when you go hiking,

01:19:32.300 | a sense of nature.

01:19:33.380 | It's not that they're ultra realistic,

01:19:36.140 | but they capture some majestic aspect of nature.

01:19:40.020 | I think some of it is also music, something peaceful.

01:19:43.100 | It's like old-timey medieval type of music.

01:19:47.980 | And just the trees, like the wind, like (whooshing)

01:19:51.740 | and you could, and then there's,

01:19:53.300 | in the distance there's the mountains.

01:19:56.020 | And you can like, you have a sense of history

01:19:59.940 | that the nature gives you.

01:20:01.500 | You have a sense of space, like this,

01:20:03.940 | you're like this tiny little creature

01:20:05.620 | and there's this big world all around you.

01:20:07.620 | I don't know how, that's like an art

01:20:09.660 | for a video game to create that.

01:20:10.980 | It's not just about the monsters in front of you.

01:20:12.980 | It's about this world and this feeling of a world.

01:20:16.420 | So I can just walk around and enjoy it.

01:20:19.060 | - I get asked this question a lot.

01:20:20.140 | Why don't I stream more video games?

01:20:22.380 | - Yes.

01:20:23.220 | - And I didn't know that such video games,

01:20:26.860 | first of all, existed.

01:20:27.740 | I thought it was mostly just various sci-fi-ish characters

01:20:31.940 | and shooting and objective.

01:20:34.100 | - Oh, Call of Duty, yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:20:35.300 | - I've played Overwatch on stream.

01:20:36.820 | It's the only video game I actually played a lot

01:20:38.860 | and got decent at.

01:20:39.980 | And I couldn't play it on stream anymore

01:20:41.620 | because my teammates would use racial slurs

01:20:44.100 | in the voice chat.

01:20:45.820 | - Yeah.

01:20:46.660 | - So that is--

01:20:48.260 | - I will, one of the, 'cause I've been thinking

01:20:51.940 | of talking to a few streamers and they do,

01:20:54.940 | they're a little bit, I don't know as far as,

01:20:58.500 | that community broadly does use racial slurs

01:21:01.940 | and seem to make them okay.

01:21:03.560 | But for the ones I would talk to are a little bit,

01:21:08.380 | they're just harsh in general

01:21:10.180 | in the intensity of language.

01:21:11.700 | And I don't know what to do.

01:21:13.300 | Like, I don't wanna be the guy who says,

01:21:15.740 | kids these days with their mean language on the internet.

01:21:20.740 | You wanna kind of adapt to the different communities.

01:21:24.100 | But at the same time, there's lines that you can cross.

01:21:29.100 | Right, like if you make everything into a joke,

01:21:32.960 | because that's what they kinda do.

01:21:35.060 | Everything ends in LOL, everything is funny.

01:21:37.780 | - Yeah.

01:21:38.620 | - That becomes, once again, a lubricant.

01:21:43.620 | That it's like a slippery slope that takes you to a place

01:21:46.980 | where you actually make pretty mean ideas,

01:21:51.980 | even evil ideas okay, because it started as a joke.

01:21:58.500 | And so, I mean, you start getting into the territory of,

01:22:02.580 | I mean, because I've been reading a lot on Hitler

01:22:05.340 | and Stalin and so on, and you'll see those kinds

01:22:08.060 | of topic come up in that community.

01:22:09.740 | And it's like, ooh, they have a very different perspective

01:22:12.060 | on that stuff.

01:22:13.420 | To them, it's just a fun joke, fun time.

01:22:16.140 | And I see that the conscious of that with Call of Duty,

01:22:19.060 | where you're shooting, and I love shooting

01:22:24.060 | and killing things in video games.

01:22:27.140 | But there's a slippery slope there too,

01:22:28.900 | because then just having visited the front in Ukraine,

01:22:33.260 | you get to see the real killing of people.

01:22:37.020 | And you see how one can lead to another.

01:22:40.180 | It's non-obvious, but there's something that happens

01:22:45.180 | in video games where you're like, well, this is not reality.

01:22:50.180 | The same kind of things happens in war.

01:22:52.140 | Well, the people on the other side aren't really human.

01:22:55.260 | It does become a kind of video game.

01:22:57.620 | And that same mechanism, I feel like I wanna be cautious

01:23:02.620 | about our brain going down that road.

01:23:06.780 | So yeah, I do worry about that community.

01:23:10.620 | But there are video games that don't have

01:23:14.820 | such communities around them.

01:23:16.020 | I think Skyrim, I don't think Skyrim

01:23:18.020 | is an online component of people.

01:23:19.620 | - Minecraft, I think is relatively civil,

01:23:22.460 | from what I've seen.

01:23:23.700 | - Interesting. - Good community.

01:23:24.780 | I think it's a lot of, right now it's booming.

01:23:26.820 | It's a lot of young creators

01:23:28.580 | who are all seemingly quite close.

01:23:31.980 | And I think the community then extends to social media.

01:23:36.980 | Some of them are intense, but who isn't?

01:23:40.860 | And I think they foster a more or less

01:23:44.300 | kind of good group of folks.

01:23:46.460 | But no, I completely agree.

01:23:48.540 | I think a lot of that stuff,

01:23:49.620 | and combined with the anonymity stuff

01:23:51.540 | that we mentioned earlier, totally dehumanizes

01:23:54.460 | the way people interact with each other.

01:23:55.900 | And it's scary.

01:23:58.740 | I don't know.

01:24:01.420 | Combine that with two years

01:24:02.580 | of some people barely going outside.

01:24:05.220 | - Yeah, with COVID, yeah.

01:24:06.780 | - It's not a good mix.

01:24:07.740 | It's not a good mix at all.

01:24:08.700 | - I mean, you'd like to think that folks,

01:24:10.460 | it's like in their teenage years,

01:24:12.100 | kind of go through those and they mature out of it and stuff.

01:24:15.460 | So they start to realize the weight of their words.

01:24:19.820 | Like, that's my hope.

01:24:21.020 | But we're all trying to figure that out,

01:24:22.820 | how the internet has changed youth.

01:24:24.820 | Like easy access to porn,

01:24:27.820 | easy access to like some dark communities

01:24:30.900 | where dark ideas breed.

01:24:34.820 | I don't know.

01:24:36.180 | But then again, I trust in the goodness

01:24:38.060 | and the intelligence of people at the end of the day.

01:24:40.060 | And I think kids will,

01:24:42.020 | now I sound like an old man,

01:24:44.820 | but it's good for kids to play with different ideas

01:24:47.380 | and then they grow out of it, hopefully.

01:24:49.540 | But then you have to have parents and good school

01:24:51.340 | and like good friends that kind of call them out

01:24:53.420 | and they're bullshit.

01:24:54.620 | You need that.

01:24:55.460 | If you're stuck inside under anonymity,

01:24:59.260 | maybe you don't have some of those signals.

01:25:01.940 | Kids these days with their internet.

01:25:03.780 | - I had to go through this.

01:25:04.980 | It's kind of what I mentioned.

01:25:06.700 | So I didn't have two divorced, my parents were divorced.

01:25:09.900 | I didn't have two households.

01:25:11.940 | I had three.

01:25:13.220 | So I had-- - What was the third one?

01:25:14.740 | - So I went to school most of my childhood

01:25:18.380 | in a town where my grandmother lived.

01:25:21.500 | And she was kind of like the Switzerland.

01:25:24.100 | So I would be with her and my mom would come with me there,

01:25:29.020 | half the week, dad would take me to his place

01:25:32.580 | for the other half of the school week.

01:25:35.340 | And my parents would split weekends.

01:25:37.580 | My mom's weekends were in New York

01:25:39.460 | where my stepdad was and that family.

01:25:41.860 | So three houses.

01:25:43.180 | - So grandma, your dad, mom and then mom.

01:25:46.660 | - So step siblings there and there,

01:25:49.460 | new people there and there,

01:25:51.180 | extended family there and there.

01:25:53.020 | And also at grandma's where I would come

01:25:54.820 | anytime I had a conflict.

01:25:56.180 | And when I was 12 and 13

01:25:57.980 | and being just a total lunatic,

01:25:59.700 | emotional manipulator of all folks in my family,

01:26:03.540 | I was just teenager rebelling

01:26:05.540 | and also having to deal with three different households.

01:26:07.540 | And I mean, I carried a backpack,

01:26:09.540 | the same backpack, literally,

01:26:10.740 | that I not the physical one,

01:26:12.780 | but what's inside of it that I carried.

01:26:15.200 | Like when I came here to record the episode

01:26:18.420 | and have my stuff in the hotel,

01:26:19.860 | a backpack with a laptop, a bunch of clothes,

01:26:23.260 | a bunch of other things that I need throughout the week,

01:26:25.860 | deodorant, things like that.

01:26:27.180 | I mean, of course you start getting that stuff

01:26:28.900 | in all the houses,

01:26:30.220 | but that was the way I lived

01:26:31.900 | for some of the most important developmental years

01:26:34.420 | of my life.

01:26:35.460 | And who knows if I had too much of what we're describing,

01:26:40.460 | one sprinkle of this too much,

01:26:42.300 | one sprinkle of this too much,

01:26:43.220 | if I had someone influence me in a negative way.

01:26:45.380 | Luckily, I managed to steer clear of a lot of it.

01:26:48.500 | And--

01:26:49.940 | - Yeah, how did you not get into trouble with the internet?

01:26:53.620 | Meaning like, how did you--

01:26:54.900 | - I don't know.

01:26:55.740 | - What was your experience with the internet?

01:26:58.180 | So I was--

01:26:59.900 | - Having to move a lot,

01:27:00.740 | having to have multiple households,

01:27:03.380 | just psychologically difficult upbringing.

01:27:06.820 | - I, yeah, it was extremely tough.

01:27:09.820 | It's hard to speak about it now

01:27:13.700 | because I'm in a completely different mental state.

01:27:15.580 | I don't even remember some of like those moments, but--

01:27:17.980 | - It's almost like a different person.

01:27:19.140 | - Yeah, that's exactly how it feels.

01:27:21.220 | But I remember I had a big video game addiction,

01:27:24.820 | just like most teenagers.

01:27:26.540 | I wanna say teenagers, but probably teenage boys,

01:27:28.580 | but I'm not, I don't know.

01:27:29.900 | I don't know how addicted teenage girls are to video games.

01:27:33.860 | - Yeah, I didn't get on that.

01:27:35.620 | - I definitely look back on things that I did

01:27:40.340 | in certain instances, like,

01:27:42.980 | while I was a teenager, that was stupid.

01:27:44.460 | Oh, I scammed somebody in some video game.

01:27:46.340 | Oh, that was, you know, that was, oh, that's hilarious.

01:27:49.340 | Like, and just, I was just an idiot teenager.

01:27:52.540 | Like, I didn't do anything unforgivable, luckily.

01:27:55.180 | And for the most part, just kinda went about my life.

01:27:59.820 | And I somehow got older

01:28:04.740 | and started getting more independent

01:28:06.780 | and stopped playing video games.

01:28:08.660 | And to be honest with you, I would love to sit here

01:28:11.820 | and say I have some sort of logical explanation

01:28:13.740 | of why I am the person I am today.

01:28:15.740 | But I think you need elements of the right upbringing

01:28:20.060 | and support system, as you said, and you also need luck.

01:28:22.460 | You just, I've been in some situations as a teenager

01:28:26.540 | where I almost got, I almost got killed

01:28:29.540 | by some gang members.

01:28:31.260 | That's a very exaggerated story,

01:28:34.620 | but I was in a park in New York City

01:28:36.700 | and I got into it with a kid whose brother

01:28:38.900 | was in a notorious gang of that neighborhood.

01:28:41.780 | And he told me his brother was gonna come

01:28:43.380 | and kill me, basically, over a stolen basketball.

01:28:46.380 | And I was gonna fight this kid 'cause I was 14.

01:28:48.700 | You know, he stole my basketball.

01:28:49.740 | Of course I'm gonna fight this kid.

01:28:50.780 | This kid was like 12, he had a pierced tongue.

01:28:53.060 | - Yeah.

01:28:53.900 | - Like, this wasn't a joke.

01:28:55.340 | (laughs)

01:28:56.180 | - Yeah.

01:28:57.020 | - This kid was from a totally different way of life.

01:28:58.740 | And his brother did show up,

01:29:00.860 | but his brother was like, "I'm not gonna look at this kid."

01:29:03.420 | I was a little teenager, I wasn't a big,

01:29:04.900 | now 14-year-olds are six feet tall,

01:29:06.260 | maybe something would have happened to me.

01:29:07.940 | But I was a little kid.

01:29:09.500 | And his brother was like, "Bro."

01:29:10.540 | But looking back at that is crazy

01:29:12.460 | because I definitely had some of these moments

01:29:15.260 | in New York City more than anywhere else

01:29:17.180 | 'cause it's such a big place.

01:29:18.100 | But luck, you need some luck.

01:29:20.860 | - Yeah, it's kind of funny that there's certain moments

01:29:23.140 | in life on which the entire trajectory of your life can turn.

01:29:27.220 | - Yeah.

01:29:28.060 | - And then they're all, like, in that case, nothing happened.

01:29:31.220 | But, you know, I most intensely feel this

01:29:35.060 | when I get almost run over by a car kind of thing.

01:29:37.980 | - How many times have you almost get run over?

01:29:39.700 | - I don't know, maybe happened like twice in my life.

01:29:41.900 | - Oh, okay.

01:29:42.740 | - That kind of stuff.

01:29:43.580 | Like when somebody runs a red light.

01:29:45.300 | - Yeah.

01:29:46.140 | - That happened to me here in Austin.

01:29:47.980 | You realize, oh shit, that was,

01:29:50.820 | like your life flashes before your eyes.

01:29:53.980 | And those moments can turn.

01:29:56.980 | And then there's more meeting certain people

01:29:59.780 | where you meet them and for the positive,

01:30:01.700 | they're like, "Wow, this moment of inspiration,

01:30:06.700 | "like, wow, this is possible.

01:30:09.340 | "Wow, this kind of person can exist.

01:30:11.420 | "Maybe I can be that kind of person too."

01:30:13.620 | So yeah, those things can, like, change the direction.

01:30:16.420 | But maybe not, maybe they just reveal something

01:30:18.260 | that was already there and the momentum

01:30:19.660 | is always carrying you forward into a thing

01:30:21.740 | that you are always gonna end up in.

01:30:23.860 | Yeah, I wonder about that.

01:30:25.180 | Speaking of teens doing stupid things,

01:30:29.380 | let's return to the Magnus Hans saga.

01:30:32.620 | - I know, yeah.

01:30:33.700 | - How did it start?

01:30:36.260 | Who is Hans Nieman?

01:30:38.100 | Who is Magnus Carlsen?

01:30:39.660 | How did it start?

01:30:40.500 | There's three games.

01:30:41.700 | It started in Miami.

01:30:42.740 | - Yeah, a good background story is Magnus Carlsen

01:30:46.020 | is the arguable greatest player of all time.

01:30:49.060 | Very close, I would say, to Garry Kasparov,

01:30:51.580 | world number one for now over 10 years.

01:30:53.980 | - At the top of his game, you think?

01:30:55.620 | Like, close to the top of his game right now?

01:30:57.860 | - After the most recent thing, yes.

01:31:01.900 | I think he has the uncanny ability of top athletes

01:31:05.180 | to absorb the bullshit and show,

01:31:09.780 | "Oh yeah, dad's home now."

01:31:11.500 | You know?

01:31:12.620 | "Run, I was only trying 70% before that."

01:31:15.900 | You know?

01:31:16.740 | And I think that's what he,

01:31:17.660 | I really think that's what he showed.

01:31:18.900 | I was in awe.

01:31:19.740 | If Magnus is playing in a tournament,

01:31:22.180 | yes, it's good for views to put him in my YouTube thumbnails

01:31:24.700 | and make the video title about him

01:31:26.140 | if he does something brilliant,

01:31:27.700 | but I was legitimately just blown away.

01:31:29.420 | It wasn't even, wasn't farming him for content.

01:31:32.540 | This is unbelievable what he's doing to people.

01:31:34.900 | And he has a point to prove.

01:31:37.140 | Hans is a, I believe he's 19 years old right now.

01:31:41.420 | He's an American.

01:31:43.180 | I don't know if prodigy is necessarily the right word.

01:31:45.220 | Prodigies, you know they're prodigies

01:31:47.140 | from very, very young.

01:31:48.580 | You don't, in chess, you don't become a prodigy at 18,

01:31:52.300 | but he was always a good junior player.

01:31:55.340 | He was always a very unique character.

01:31:57.900 | Like, I met Hans when he was 11, 12 years old.

01:32:00.820 | He was this little kid,

01:32:01.940 | just trash talking folks at the Marshall Chess Club.

01:32:04.980 | And he already had a reputation, literally.

01:32:07.140 | Like, he had a reputation with counselors,

01:32:09.820 | with like, and the truth is I was similar.

01:32:12.340 | I was kicked out of chess camp

01:32:13.540 | by one of the best chess grandmasters of all time,

01:32:16.100 | Artur Yusupov.

01:32:17.260 | I was in a chess camp when I was nine years old.

01:32:18.660 | - What'd you do?

01:32:19.620 | - I was just an asshole.

01:32:20.580 | - Yeah. - I was too strong.

01:32:22.140 | So I helped other people with all their work.

01:32:24.340 | I was loud. - And you let your ego shine.

01:32:26.260 | - I was a kid.

01:32:27.140 | I mean, I wouldn't.

01:32:28.300 | - Well, you know, not every kid lets their ego shine,

01:32:30.220 | but some do. - Oh, yes.

01:32:31.660 | - You did?

01:32:32.580 | Hans does, there's interviews when he's young.

01:32:35.220 | - Yeah. - Where like,

01:32:36.540 | he's kinda talking shit. - Yes.

01:32:38.500 | - But it's entertaining.

01:32:39.420 | - Yes, what I try to stay away from is just,

01:32:41.900 | yes, I let my ego shine,

01:32:44.220 | but I don't think I even knew what any of that was

01:32:46.380 | when I was younger.

01:32:47.220 | Yeah, so it's just sort of,

01:32:48.060 | I was just a loud, boisterous kid from a household

01:32:50.700 | where I wasn't paid attention to,

01:32:51.860 | 'cause I had three of them.

01:32:53.020 | - Yeah. (laughs)

01:32:54.660 | - So I just was like,

01:32:55.500 | here's where I'm gonna show up and get my attention.

01:32:57.340 | And Artur Yusupov, he's a great, great man.

01:32:59.860 | I drove that man crazy.

01:33:00.900 | He was like, top five in the world at some point

01:33:03.220 | in the '80s and '90s.

01:33:04.500 | He said, "It's either me or this kid."

01:33:07.180 | - Oh, wow, so you really got to him.

01:33:08.780 | - Yes, he said, "I'm not gonna come back and teach camps

01:33:10.500 | "unless it's me."

01:33:11.340 | And I remember going through this.

01:33:12.540 | I have very vague, distant memories of this.

01:33:14.740 | My dad calling, apologizing.

01:33:17.020 | - Yeah, did it make you feel good

01:33:18.860 | that you got to a grandmaster?

01:33:20.340 | - No, I felt horrible.

01:33:21.500 | I felt guilty.

01:33:22.380 | I felt guilty my whole life about that.

01:33:24.140 | I very rarely feel proud of bad things

01:33:25.980 | or I showed them.

01:33:28.020 | Even things, it gets to the point

01:33:30.180 | you feel guilty about things you didn't do.

01:33:32.100 | That's when your brain really goes crazy.

01:33:34.680 | - Yeah, I'm with you on that.

01:33:37.660 | So, okay, so you can relate to Hans.

01:33:41.180 | - Yes, to young Hans.

01:33:42.500 | And he was in and out of chess.

01:33:47.500 | This is what I remember.

01:33:48.980 | He was around the rating of 2300.

01:33:51.060 | And I remember looking at some of his games

01:33:53.620 | in a tournament in Philadelphia.

01:33:56.420 | And I was like, there was some game that he played

01:33:59.340 | and he didn't know the opening.

01:34:00.380 | It was a London, which is a very popular opening,

01:34:03.220 | some theoretical line.

01:34:04.060 | I looked at it and I'm like, "Whoa, he didn't know that?

01:34:06.820 | "Okay, that's crazy."

01:34:08.180 | And then I just kind of walked by.

01:34:09.740 | And I saw him in a tournament a few months later

01:34:11.860 | and he did something very rare

01:34:13.500 | where in an open tournament,

01:34:15.480 | not a tournament of 10 players

01:34:16.660 | where everybody plays everybody,

01:34:17.680 | open tournament, randomized pairings,

01:34:19.280 | depending on how many points you have,

01:34:20.340 | he played nine grandmasters, which is crazy.

01:34:23.260 | That means he was performing so well, so consistently.

01:34:26.420 | That was where he got his first IM norm.

01:34:28.580 | It's like, oh, here it is.

01:34:29.420 | Here comes that like boom of a young player

01:34:31.520 | where he gets mature, he gets back into the game

01:34:34.060 | and he gets stronger.

01:34:35.980 | I don't follow a whole lot, pandemic happens.

01:34:39.020 | And he starts streaming a bit and he's boisterous.

01:34:44.020 | He's kind of like loud, he's talking trash

01:34:47.180 | and he's gaining rating constantly.

01:34:50.020 | But so are a lot of people.

01:34:51.520 | So you don't think much of it.

01:34:53.380 | And then now you can go play over the board again,

01:34:55.740 | live tournaments, face-to-face,

01:34:57.260 | as opposed to online events.

01:34:58.980 | And he's like, "I'm gonna go to this tournament.

01:35:00.660 | "I'm gonna win it.

01:35:01.620 | "I'm gonna get my last GM norm."

01:35:03.820 | And he does.

01:35:05.260 | And then he's like, "All right, my goal is this rating.

01:35:07.400 | "By the end of this year."

01:35:08.980 | He gets it.

01:35:09.820 | He just demolishes absolutely everybody.

01:35:11.820 | And you're like, "This guy's for real."

01:35:13.500 | - Over the board? - Over the board.

01:35:14.620 | Like, "This guy's for real."

01:35:15.460 | There's a lot of people like that.

01:35:16.500 | If you look at the top juniors of the world, it's crazy.

01:35:19.640 | Ali Reza Farooja, 2,800.

01:35:21.940 | Vincent Khymer, 2,700.

01:35:23.440 | A bunch of kids from India, 2,700.

01:35:25.140 | - Similar age or younger usually?

01:35:26.940 | - One or two years younger,

01:35:28.300 | maybe a little older by a year.

01:35:31.180 | But it's just this wave and you're just hype for the guy.

01:35:33.980 | Like, "This is fucking awesome.

01:35:35.300 | "We got a young American guy who shit talks

01:35:37.740 | "every time he's on camera

01:35:39.260 | "and he beats everybody he plays."

01:35:41.760 | But then you start hearing sprinkles here and there,

01:35:45.860 | maybe in some stream.

01:35:46.820 | "Oh, I think he doesn't get to play on chess.com anymore."

01:35:51.540 | Like, chess.com doesn't put that badge there

01:35:53.660 | on the account sometimes.

01:35:55.140 | Sometimes they just tell the player, "Listen, we know."

01:35:57.900 | And the player's like, "All right, you got me."

01:36:00.300 | And that's it.

01:36:01.140 | There's no conversation.

01:36:02.460 | So there's like these sprinkles.

01:36:03.660 | But people cheat online, especially when they're young.

01:36:06.980 | It's very captivating.

01:36:09.180 | It's a very nice thing to do.

01:36:10.420 | - Just to be clear, I mean, just to make explicit

01:36:12.500 | that the accusation, and I think it's proven,

01:36:15.780 | but they're still being shady about it

01:36:18.060 | to the degree it's done,

01:36:19.500 | is that he cheated on chess.com when he was 12?

01:36:24.060 | - 12 and 16, that's what he said.

01:36:26.300 | - That's what he said.

01:36:27.140 | - That's what he admitted to.

01:36:29.020 | But right now, chess.com put out a statement

01:36:31.540 | and now Magnus put out a statement as well saying,

01:36:34.460 | "We think it's more than that."

01:36:35.940 | - Yeah, I've talked to Danny

01:36:37.380 | 'cause he wants to come on the podcast,

01:36:39.620 | which I'm actually kind of interested in.

01:36:42.540 | I think he's a cool person.

01:36:44.520 | And they're also doing some really interesting

01:36:47.780 | anti-cheating stuff, which to me,

01:36:49.320 | from an algorithmic perspective, is interesting.

01:36:51.620 | But he is also the man.

01:36:55.280 | Like, there's always, in every field,

01:36:57.580 | there's the institution.

01:37:00.200 | So he represents the institution

01:37:01.940 | 'cause chess.com is the institution.

01:37:03.780 | It's like, in the Olympic, it's the IOC.

01:37:06.060 | It's like, I have to be careful.

01:37:10.300 | - And chessfide is the institution.

01:37:13.180 | - Fide, okay. - Yeah.

01:37:14.140 | - But chess.com-- - They've outgrown,

01:37:16.220 | way more people actually know chess.com,

01:37:18.500 | way more people know me, way more people know Hikaru.

01:37:21.460 | It's one of the reasons that--

01:37:22.300 | - It's interesting where the power lays.

01:37:23.660 | Who has the most power?

01:37:25.380 | Interesting.

01:37:26.200 | - Yeah, chess.com has the most power?

01:37:28.580 | Which power? - Well, I don't know.

01:37:29.540 | Maybe you and Hikaru would do.

01:37:31.220 | - No, I'm--

01:37:32.800 | - To steer public opinion, you know?

01:37:35.320 | - That's a very good question.

01:37:38.060 | I have to think with my evil cap now.

01:37:40.440 | What would happen if--

01:37:41.500 | - I'd rather you have the evil cap than Hikaru

01:37:44.080 | 'cause I feel like he would really,

01:37:46.140 | you know, the power absolute,

01:37:47.900 | if the two of you ruled the world, it'd be a problem.

01:37:50.640 | - You mean side by side or rivals?

01:37:53.060 | - Yeah, it would be like, yeah,

01:37:55.020 | as rivals, there would definitely be a war.

01:37:56.940 | It's one of the reasons I would not chess box him.

01:37:59.540 | - Do you guys, how much do you like each other?

01:38:03.660 | I mean, do you admire each other as fellow--

01:38:06.220 | - I can tell you how I feel.

01:38:08.660 | - As fellow entertaining--

01:38:10.820 | - Well, we should finish Magnus Hans.

01:38:12.460 | - Yes, yes, yes.

01:38:14.420 | - I know, I feel like just inside,

01:38:16.060 | we don't wanna talk about it

01:38:16.940 | 'cause it feels like it's been talked about so much.

01:38:18.300 | I'm trying to give--

01:38:19.140 | - No, for you, just remember, for me, it's much less.

01:38:23.020 | - Yeah, and for the listener, it might be zero.

01:38:24.780 | - For the listener, zero, yeah.

01:38:26.300 | So--

01:38:27.140 | - Like Rogan asked me, like, so what's this?

01:38:30.020 | - I know, I heard him even talking.

01:38:30.980 | - What's this chess?

01:38:32.020 | - You know, Joe talked about the Indonesia thing.

01:38:34.540 | - Oh, he did?

01:38:35.380 | - In some super random small thing,

01:38:37.300 | and that was a very funny moment for me.

01:38:39.140 | - I told him about this drama a few weeks ago,

01:38:42.100 | and then he's like, yeah, this is interesting.

01:38:43.860 | Is it anal beads, is that possible, is that good?

01:38:46.500 | I was like, yeah, I think it's possible.

01:38:48.500 | I don't remember how drunk he was,

01:38:50.580 | but so even, you know, he's curious, he doesn't really know.

01:38:54.200 | But anyway, cheating when he was 12, when he was 16.

01:38:56.540 | As he said, he admitted to cheating online

01:39:00.860 | when he was 12 and 16.

01:39:02.260 | - Yes, but for timeline's sake, let's just do it this way.

01:39:05.780 | He has a lot of over-the-board success,

01:39:07.620 | but nobody really talks about the online cheating stuff.

01:39:10.460 | It's sort of kind of kept low-key,

01:39:13.860 | couple hundred people, maybe a couple thousand people,

01:39:16.020 | which sounds like a lot, but it's not,

01:39:17.340 | 'cause there's millions of viewers know about this.

01:39:19.980 | It's generally kept kind of low-key,

01:39:21.760 | because historically, if you cheated online as a teenager,

01:39:26.720 | you're not cheating over-the-board.

01:39:27.980 | It's not possible, you will get caught,

01:39:29.700 | nobody has ever attempted it.

01:39:30.980 | We've had over-the-board cheaters,

01:39:32.820 | but not at the ultra elite level.

01:39:34.800 | And so what happens is, they play this tournament in Miami,

01:39:40.920 | and the first day, Hans loses three-nothing.

01:39:45.340 | This is important because on the very next day,

01:39:48.220 | it's not like Hans was destroying everything.

01:39:50.060 | The second day of the tournament,

01:39:51.640 | he sits down game one versus Magnus,

01:39:54.400 | in their best of four, and destroys him.

01:39:57.120 | Like, he destroyed him.

01:39:59.960 | Made it look like I was playing in Magnus' shoes.

01:40:03.600 | You know, the level difference,

01:40:04.880 | it went even, like, he wasn't close.

01:40:07.040 | Of course, we can argue it might be because of the,

01:40:11.520 | maybe Magnus knew something ahead of time,

01:40:13.660 | there's obviously the psychological element,

01:40:15.760 | not important.

01:40:17.600 | Hans leaves, they say, interviewer says,

01:40:21.820 | "Hans, yesterday,"

01:40:22.660 | by the way, horribly phrased interview question.

01:40:24.780 | He goes, "Hans, yesterday was terrible for you.

01:40:29.780 | "And today you start with a masterpiece.

01:40:33.100 | "What do you have to say?"

01:40:35.020 | Chess speaks for itself, walks away.

01:40:37.980 | Argue, you can argue, it's cringe, you can argue,

01:40:39.740 | I thought it was cool.

01:40:40.740 | And then the guy then keeps asking a question

01:40:43.340 | with his arm extended, 'cause he's so shocked,

01:40:45.060 | he doesn't know what to do.

01:40:45.900 | Like, he didn't even occur to him,

01:40:47.300 | how ridiculous it looked to be asking.

01:40:49.360 | And then not only does Hans come back

01:40:52.600 | and loses the best of four,

01:40:54.440 | he loses like two more games or maybe three,

01:40:56.320 | he had the thing, he lost the next three games.

01:40:58.980 | He then proceeds to lose every single best of four match

01:41:02.300 | for the rest of the tournament.

01:41:03.900 | He ends with zero points and a prize money of $0.

01:41:07.220 | They put up the graphic and he put Neiman zero.

01:41:11.140 | I think he got some minimum, right?

01:41:13.120 | So it's like, wow, this is like insane.

01:41:16.360 | This guy comes out with this crazy interview.

01:41:18.040 | And in my recap videos, I was like,

01:41:19.880 | the next time Hans has success,

01:41:21.120 | he has to stay away from the cameras.

01:41:22.480 | Don't let him talk, just don't let him talk.

01:41:24.160 | It's gonna be bad luck.

01:41:25.000 | You know, I'm joking around,

01:41:25.820 | like next time he plays, it's crazy, he's gonna.

01:41:28.040 | So that was their kind of first interaction there.

01:41:30.300 | They also, there was some photos,

01:41:32.560 | they were having fun playing on the beach.

01:41:34.100 | I don't know why they had a chessboard on the beach.

01:41:35.540 | Chess players are such-

01:41:36.380 | - Magnus and Hans?

01:41:37.200 | - Yeah, they were-

01:41:38.040 | - So they were still getting along.

01:41:39.960 | - I guess so, yeah.

01:41:41.280 | - It's interesting, 'cause I talked to him at that time.

01:41:43.120 | Would he have mentioned something?

01:41:45.000 | - Right.

01:41:45.840 | - That he would have said if I asked him about Hans,

01:41:47.920 | 'cause that was clueless.

01:41:49.320 | Did anyone care about Hans?

01:41:50.720 | - No, no, no.

01:41:51.760 | - Hans is not a super known entity, right?

01:41:54.520 | He became much more known.

01:41:56.280 | - He became probably a top five

01:41:58.640 | all-time popular chess player in the last three weeks.

01:42:01.240 | - Yeah, so it's not,

01:42:03.360 | it wouldn't even be a worthy question.

01:42:05.760 | - No, you don't know, maybe Magnus already kind of knew.

01:42:09.800 | A lot of the top players, it seems,

01:42:12.120 | are coming out now and saying, we already were suspicious.

01:42:14.760 | - It seems like Magnus might have known,

01:42:16.160 | but maybe not enough to address it.

01:42:18.920 | He still might not be willing to address it.

01:42:21.000 | - Yes.

01:42:21.920 | - But anyway, so yeah,

01:42:23.560 | so totally horrible tournament performance after-

01:42:26.440 | - Correct.

01:42:27.600 | - After Hans beat Magnus.

01:42:28.840 | - Then the annual tradition

01:42:30.760 | of the St. Louis tournaments happens,

01:42:32.320 | which is a strong field of players

01:42:35.640 | first for a fast tournament, rapid and blitz,

01:42:39.400 | and a classical tournament.

01:42:41.360 | And the classical tournament is the Sinkfield Cup.

01:42:43.200 | It's named after Rex Sinkfield,

01:42:45.200 | billionaire chess philanthropist.

01:42:47.160 | - And it's like St. Louis Chess Club

01:42:50.760 | is like a prestigious place.

01:42:52.600 | - It's this whole, yeah.

01:42:53.440 | - And a host of a prestigious tournament.

01:42:54.960 | - Hall of Fame is there for chess.

01:42:57.040 | I don't know if it's US Hall of Fame

01:42:58.640 | or Worldwide Hall of Fame, but yeah, it's the tournament.

01:43:02.120 | - Other countries play chess?

01:43:03.560 | - They do, but you know, we will,

01:43:06.000 | I don't know who determines

01:43:07.080 | where the Hall of Fame gets to be.

01:43:08.040 | If we say it's the Hall of Fame, okay.

01:43:09.940 | One day, some other part of the world's gonna be like,

01:43:12.760 | actually, it's over here.

01:43:14.400 | So basically what happens is we have a field set

01:43:18.180 | for the Sinkfield Cup.

01:43:19.280 | Set, it's the top 10 players in the world.

01:43:22.600 | Some can't make it, so okay,

01:43:23.760 | you get number 11 in there or something.

01:43:26.500 | One of them can't come

01:43:27.840 | because of something related to coronavirus.

01:43:30.960 | Now we're gonna get a little asterisk on Spotify

01:43:34.480 | 'cause it was mentioned.

01:43:35.680 | Get more info about COVID-19.

01:43:41.160 | So I don't know why he couldn't come, but he couldn't come.

01:43:43.640 | Okay, something happens, he can't make it.

01:43:45.360 | Hans Niemann is the replacement.

01:43:46.880 | At the time, we didn't know this,

01:43:50.040 | but now weeks later, we knew Magnus wanted to not play.

01:43:53.480 | This is very important.

01:43:56.160 | Back then, we didn't know.

01:43:58.160 | Apparently some other top players also didn't wanna play.

01:44:01.680 | They also were suspicious.

01:44:02.760 | They also wanted increased anti-cheating measures,

01:44:04.920 | which by the way in chess are dog shit.

01:44:07.000 | Like you give this little metal wand

01:44:09.840 | and you put it on the little ears, the body,

01:44:14.280 | and there's apparently an argument

01:44:15.480 | a micro earpiece would not be caught,

01:44:17.200 | something in the armpit vibrating

01:44:18.440 | would not be caught, something in the shoe.

01:44:20.400 | They don't make the players take their shoes off

01:44:21.880 | 'cause it's too elitist.

01:44:23.920 | How are you gonna make players take their shoes off?

01:44:25.880 | That's, oh my God.

01:44:27.440 | But if these things are out there.

01:44:29.760 | - Or if anything was inside any other orifice.

01:44:32.900 | - Correct, yes.

01:44:33.960 | - I have to bring that up.

01:44:34.800 | - I mean, to be honest, yes, that is very truthful.

01:44:38.400 | - If nothing else, this podcast is about honesty and truth.

01:44:41.960 | So I have to be complete.

01:44:43.040 | - Correct, and transparency.

01:44:44.600 | So what ends up happening in the Singfield Cup

01:44:47.680 | is Magnus ends up still playing,

01:44:49.320 | but the anti-cheat measures are not introduced.

01:44:51.680 | So the first few games,

01:44:54.920 | Hans has a very, very impressive first round game

01:44:57.360 | against Levon Oronian,

01:44:58.400 | one of the best players in the world.

01:45:00.880 | Okay, draw.

01:45:01.760 | He was pushing, draw.

01:45:03.360 | Second game, demolishes like a top player.

01:45:07.760 | Mamed Yaraf crushes him.

01:45:09.280 | Dominant opening, but not like a perfect game.

01:45:12.880 | You understand?

01:45:13.720 | He made some inaccuracies here and there,

01:45:17.120 | and he ended up winning in a complex game.

01:45:19.520 | This game three happens versus Magnus.

01:45:24.600 | And not only does he beat Magnus with the black pieces,

01:45:29.600 | he dominates him from start to finish.

01:45:35.160 | So in the opening, Magnus played something with white

01:45:38.400 | that he had maybe played once or twice before.

01:45:40.880 | There was some big debate about it.

01:45:42.200 | I'm not gonna get into it.

01:45:43.240 | Basically a very niche, small thing

01:45:46.680 | that just he had never played in maybe a long game before

01:45:51.680 | with some sprinkled in venom that might get Hans off guard.

01:45:57.240 | Hans proceeds to play like the first 15, 20 moves

01:45:59.360 | absolutely perfectly,

01:46:01.200 | and then converts the game into a slightly better end game

01:46:05.600 | and squeezes Magnus to death.

01:46:07.600 | Basically beats Magnus with black,

01:46:09.280 | which nobody had done in years,

01:46:11.280 | the same way Magnus would have beaten other players.

01:46:14.000 | Then he goes and gives this interview,

01:46:17.760 | where he claims that he had looked at those first 15, 20 moves

01:46:21.240 | right before the game basically.

01:46:23.080 | He got lucky.

01:46:23.920 | - Didn't he say he looked at something very similar?

01:46:26.760 | - No, no, it was either similar

01:46:28.480 | or literally that exact variation,

01:46:30.520 | which is possible.

01:46:31.520 | I've done that before.

01:46:32.400 | One of my best ones of my life.

01:46:33.600 | That morning I went, you know, I'm not prepared.

01:46:35.680 | What if my opponent plays this

01:46:36.800 | Queen's Gambit accepted variation?

01:46:38.480 | And I literally learned the first 12 moves.

01:46:40.520 | He didn't know move 12.

01:46:41.600 | I killed him.

01:46:42.640 | Okay, like it just happens.

01:46:44.200 | - Yeah.

01:46:45.040 | - Unfortunately, when you combine that

01:46:48.800 | with other small elements of the interview,

01:46:50.840 | and now there's body language experts going all on this,

01:46:54.040 | it was odd.

01:46:55.000 | - He gave an interview afterwards,

01:46:56.760 | explaining various details of the game.

01:47:00.160 | - But not really explaining them.

01:47:01.560 | That's the thing.

01:47:02.400 | The standard chess player interview is you sit down

01:47:04.640 | and you go something about the opening,

01:47:07.120 | something about not,

01:47:08.160 | oh yeah, I looked at this right before the game.

01:47:09.960 | And then you explain various symphonies

01:47:13.680 | and compositions of variations,

01:47:15.680 | things that went through your head,

01:47:17.000 | things you were evaluating.

01:47:18.840 | But Hans's interviews are different.

01:47:20.360 | So everything about him as a chess player

01:47:21.880 | already is different.

01:47:22.800 | And his interviews are extremely strange

01:47:24.960 | and also different.

01:47:26.160 | That's fine.

01:47:28.120 | But not when you combine it then with the world champion

01:47:31.920 | withdrawing right after you beat him

01:47:33.720 | and ghosting the entire chess world.

01:47:37.040 | - Yeah, so there's, for people who haven't listened to it,

01:47:39.560 | there's a kind of sloppiness

01:47:43.520 | to the way he analyzes the game.

01:47:47.760 | Like he's like, oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:47:49.520 | Like it's very--

01:47:51.320 | - 'Cause it's very obvious.

01:47:52.160 | Like what do you mean?

01:47:53.000 | Just completely winning here.

01:47:53.920 | - Yeah, I'm completely winning here.

01:47:55.000 | And it's like, yeah, I just played perfect.

01:47:58.080 | I played perfect.

01:47:58.920 | Like there's a sense of like,

01:48:00.560 | but it also doesn't, for me, again,

01:48:04.760 | a very outside spectator,

01:48:06.240 | it doesn't raise any red flags.

01:48:08.280 | That's just his personality.

01:48:09.760 | He seems to really like to talk this way.

01:48:12.320 | And plus this could be crazy.

01:48:14.200 | But do you have a sense that he's more of an intuitive player

01:48:17.640 | versus like he's just not the kind of person

01:48:20.440 | that analyzes really well?

01:48:22.200 | Or is that a ridiculous notion?

01:48:25.200 | - Well, let's put it this way.

01:48:27.720 | To succeed legitimately,

01:48:30.080 | because obviously this is a cheating scandal

01:48:31.760 | at the end of the day,

01:48:32.720 | at the 2750, 82800 level, the upper echelon of chess,

01:48:37.080 | you cannot be an intuitive player.

01:48:40.200 | You can be a little bit more intuitive

01:48:42.320 | than a calculator and a concrete evaluator of positions.

01:48:48.480 | Meaning if I give you five seconds to play a move,

01:48:51.960 | you're gonna choose the best move quickly.

01:48:53.320 | Those people are generally better at fast time controls.

01:48:56.600 | But you have to be good at everything.

01:48:58.920 | And what raised red flags in this interview

01:49:02.280 | was the fact that it was different

01:49:06.680 | than every other interview any human being ever gave

01:49:10.200 | at that level of chess,

01:49:11.120 | particularly after beating Magnus

01:49:12.600 | for the first time as a teenager,

01:49:14.040 | which is a very small group of people.

01:49:16.480 | And so that's where it got weird.

01:49:19.680 | And the very next day, Magnus withdraws from the event.

01:49:23.560 | Chess World lights completely on fire for multiple weeks.

01:49:26.840 | And--

01:49:27.680 | - He also tweets.

01:49:29.240 | - Right, yeah, that was--

01:49:30.720 | - That's the resignation.

01:49:32.240 | No, resignation--

01:49:33.560 | - The tweet was, "I'm withdrawing

01:49:34.560 | "from the tournament in St. Louis.

01:49:35.680 | "I've always enjoyed playing here,

01:49:36.880 | "and I will in the future."

01:49:38.160 | And then it's a clip of Jose Mourinho.

01:49:40.280 | "I cannot speak.

01:49:41.280 | "I choose not to speak.

01:49:42.600 | "If I speak, I'm in big trouble.

01:49:43.720 | "I don't wanna be in big trouble."

01:49:44.920 | - Yeah.

01:49:45.760 | - And that's when people,

01:49:48.360 | nuts, people said it's not even a cheating insinuation,

01:49:51.600 | which was one of the theories.

01:49:52.480 | Another theory was someone in Team Magnus

01:49:55.120 | told Hans what Magnus was looking at.

01:49:58.240 | And that's why Hans learned those first 15 moves,

01:50:01.160 | which is so fucking stupid

01:50:03.480 | because Magnus knows like five people.

01:50:05.600 | Not in his life, but his team is five people.

01:50:09.800 | - Yeah, it's very close to that group.

01:50:10.960 | - Right, but to the outsider,

01:50:12.400 | that sounds like a very legitimate theory.

01:50:14.000 | How else can you explain?

01:50:15.760 | Hans said he knew before the game what was gonna happen.

01:50:19.120 | Magnus senses a mole he's not, no.

01:50:22.080 | - By the way, just so I know,

01:50:25.320 | like if that was, forget the cheating aside,

01:50:27.680 | if you knew, doesn't matter how,

01:50:30.520 | the opening your opponent is going to do, they prepared,

01:50:34.800 | is that a significant help to you?

01:50:36.520 | - If that opening is ultra sharp

01:50:41.120 | and requires basically the game to be on a knife's edge,

01:50:46.120 | yes, meaning one mistake can be fatal.

01:50:48.940 | - 'Cause then you can look up what the engine says

01:50:51.720 | and you can-- - Yeah, you can know everything.

01:50:53.000 | You can know all the possibilities.

01:50:54.360 | So even if your opponent goes off that engine path,

01:50:56.920 | you will know how to punish it.

01:50:58.800 | In this case, what happened basically

01:51:03.640 | was Magnus played a line

01:51:05.320 | that if completely optimally punished

01:51:08.140 | would have given Hans a slightly better position.

01:51:10.960 | And that's what happened.

01:51:12.160 | But then he also demolished him

01:51:14.440 | in that later phase of the game.

01:51:17.840 | - Yes, and then, okay, so Magnus' designs go silent,

01:51:22.840 | the chess world goes crazy.

01:51:25.980 | What else is interesting in that period of time?

01:51:30.120 | - Hans' fourth round game of that tournament,

01:51:32.560 | right after beating Magnus,

01:51:35.000 | was also just absolutely genius.

01:51:37.840 | Just an absolutely brilliant game, which he failed to win.

01:51:41.560 | But then after that game,

01:51:43.640 | he also gives once again another interview

01:51:46.880 | where he's like, "This game was absolutely genius.

01:51:49.440 | I was just killing him from start to finish."

01:51:51.000 | And there was a moment he literally says,

01:51:53.740 | "Oh yeah, I just gave him a piece, like a full piece,"

01:51:55.760 | which is a substantial advantage to the other side.

01:51:58.400 | And he starts explaining why the position is winning,

01:52:03.400 | but in words, not in chess moves,

01:52:07.320 | not in specific concrete chess moves,

01:52:09.140 | which is the way you're supposed to

01:52:10.440 | if you understand the position, right?

01:52:11.800 | So now there's this new theory that's being cultivated.

01:52:15.880 | The interviews are gonna be used as the evidence.

01:52:19.080 | And beyond round four,

01:52:21.720 | he just played like a good grandmaster.

01:52:26.120 | And he lost two or three games, maybe two games,

01:52:30.580 | and he drew the rest, so he didn't win again.

01:52:33.120 | Like he beat, the first two out of his first three games,

01:52:35.520 | he beat Mamid Yarev, he beat Carlsen.

01:52:37.780 | And he also went on the attack himself.

01:52:42.600 | That was when he publicly admitted to cheating

01:52:44.600 | in an interview that he gave to the St. Louis Chess Club.

01:52:47.320 | That's when he said he has never cheated over the board.

01:52:49.800 | Then he said, "Chess.com has banned me

01:52:53.200 | from the Global Championship,"

01:52:54.920 | which is what I was invited to to play.

01:52:56.920 | Privately, they banned me, they didn't even ban me publicly.

01:52:59.600 | And then he said, "And Hikaru is on Twitch every day,

01:53:04.320 | saying things about me, this and that."

01:53:06.280 | And since then, nothing.

01:53:09.960 | Tournament finishes somehow.

01:53:11.760 | I don't know how we got to the end of the tournament.

01:53:13.480 | I really thought that it was gonna get called off.

01:53:15.880 | But tournament ends.

01:53:17.320 | Hans hasn't said anything since then.

01:53:19.160 | - Has he still said, when was the last time he said that?

01:53:22.160 | - That was the last tweet that he sent, September 7th.

01:53:25.000 | He said, "Hikaru wants to play the victim,"

01:53:28.160 | something like this.

01:53:29.280 | - They faced each other again recently.

01:53:32.520 | When was that, what was that about?

01:53:33.920 | - They played in the online event

01:53:36.160 | of this Meltwater Champions Chess Tour,

01:53:40.600 | which is a 16-player tournament

01:53:43.520 | where everybody plays everybody first.

01:53:46.320 | And after 15 games, the top eight make a knockout bracket.

01:53:51.040 | And Magnus played the game.

01:53:54.820 | There was obviously a lot of hype prior

01:53:57.080 | for what was gonna happen in this game.

01:53:59.920 | Magnus plays one move and resigns.

01:54:02.880 | Actually, I imagine he didn't wanna play one move.

01:54:06.480 | I imagine he would have resigned the game

01:54:08.320 | as it was starting.

01:54:09.200 | But I think some websites don't let you resign

01:54:11.480 | before you make one move,

01:54:12.760 | 'cause then the game isn't counted.

01:54:14.760 | So I think he didn't wanna play at all,

01:54:16.480 | but he played one move and that made it even more epic,

01:54:18.640 | I suppose, and he resigned.

01:54:20.760 | And that was that.

01:54:23.520 | - So you lose, that game counts, right?

01:54:26.080 | - Oh, game counts.

01:54:26.920 | - You lose the rating.

01:54:28.560 | - These online events, unfortunately,

01:54:29.980 | don't count for any sort of rating.

01:54:33.000 | But on a tournament, yeah, you play one move, yeah.

01:54:36.680 | - So he resigns.

01:54:37.520 | And then how does the tournament still work out?

01:54:39.680 | Is the tournament already over?

01:54:41.500 | So he made the eight,

01:54:42.800 | as Magnus still made the top eight.

01:54:45.360 | - It was round five, or like round six or something.

01:54:48.040 | So it was halfway through the preliminary stage.

01:54:50.720 | It affected his standings.

01:54:52.100 | But then after resigning that game,

01:54:54.540 | Magnus finished first in the bracket,

01:54:57.980 | in the preliminaries, and then he won the entire event.

01:55:00.160 | There was a chance that they were gonna meet in the final,

01:55:03.280 | but Hans lost in the first round

01:55:05.520 | against the Vietnamese strong player, Le Quang Liam.

01:55:08.560 | And then Magnus gave a short interview

01:55:12.560 | to the live broadcast,

01:55:13.680 | where he said he would give a statement

01:55:15.960 | at the end of the tournament.

01:55:16.800 | And then he did.

01:55:17.620 | He gave a statement at the end of the tournament.

01:55:19.980 | And now here we are.

01:55:21.720 | The only other thing missing from this

01:55:24.740 | is the very intense scrutinization

01:55:29.740 | of all those over-the-board games that I mentioned earlier,

01:55:34.960 | that Hans dominated in.

01:55:37.720 | So people are now going through all of his games

01:55:39.640 | that he played in tournaments,

01:55:42.440 | and they're analyzing them with engines,

01:55:43.920 | and they're saying he played exceptionally well.

01:55:45.680 | And the debate is, was he cheating,

01:55:48.120 | or was he way too good already, but underrated?

01:55:51.680 | Because he could have had incubated knowledge,

01:55:54.980 | so he could have not played for a couple of years,

01:55:57.080 | was 2,700 level, but was playing people who were 24, 2,500.

01:56:00.360 | - Well, well, over the board, I see.

01:56:04.640 | So not just over the board with the top level people

01:56:07.080 | like Magnus, but over the board in general.

01:56:10.160 | - Yes, before he got a chance to play

01:56:11.840 | in these super tournaments against the best players

01:56:13.960 | in the world, he had to go to Europe.

01:56:15.800 | He was the most active chess player in 2021.

01:56:18.960 | - And he was quite dominant.

01:56:21.560 | - Yes, I think he played more over-the-board games

01:56:23.600 | than any player in 2021 or 2022.

01:56:25.920 | I think it's 2021.

01:56:27.280 | And yes, I think his rise was steeper than everybody,

01:56:32.960 | maybe with the exception of, well,

01:56:34.760 | there was a Feruzza who got to 2,800.

01:56:37.240 | - See, I'd like to believe, 'cause he talks about being very,

01:56:41.520 | he just became obsessed with chess.

01:56:43.360 | I like stories like that.

01:56:46.720 | I like stories of the underdog,

01:56:51.040 | especially with the scarlet letter

01:56:53.280 | of having been a cheater in the past.

01:56:56.240 | I like the idea of somebody who is flawed psychologically

01:57:02.240 | and ethically and just a full fascinating personality.

01:57:07.240 | And this somehow just becomes obsessed.

01:57:09.400 | I mean, similar to Bobby Fischer,

01:57:11.320 | is also a tortured soul, also flawed,

01:57:14.920 | also just chaotic all over the place.

01:57:17.480 | You could see Bobby Fischer being somebody

01:57:19.080 | that might cheat when he was 12 on online chess, right?

01:57:22.760 | - If it existed, yeah, actually,

01:57:24.000 | I think in some podcasts, like small chess podcasts,

01:57:27.000 | I don't wanna, I like Ben Johnson,

01:57:30.560 | so I'm apologizing for calling it small,

01:57:33.520 | but compared to, let's say, Lex Fridman podcast, it's--

01:57:37.800 | - What's his podcast?

01:57:39.960 | - It's Perpetual Chess, it's kind of like--

01:57:41.480 | - Oh, I love Perpetual Chess.

01:57:43.200 | Are you joking?

01:57:44.320 | - Really? - How dare you call, yeah.

01:57:46.120 | I'll show you, 'cause it does a lot of, it talks,

01:57:51.560 | it makes me feel special.

01:57:53.800 | Let me see, where is it, Perpetual Chess?

01:57:55.920 | He does like improver series.

01:57:58.760 | - Yes, yes, yes.

01:58:00.680 | - Yeah, he's great, Ben, I forgot,

01:58:02.400 | I'm so horrible with names, his name is Ben, Ben Johnson?

01:58:04.720 | Yeah, it is Ben Johnson, that's right.

01:58:07.160 | Yeah, the Perpetual Chess podcast.

01:58:08.840 | - That's amazing, see, Lex, when,

01:58:12.180 | even individuals like myself who might have a large audience

01:58:14.920 | when I look at you, you're just at a different level.

01:58:17.880 | I don't expect you to be listening to chess podcasts,

01:58:21.240 | just imagine you're doing something to change the world

01:58:23.360 | or talking to some visionary people.

01:58:26.880 | - Well, I should say, I've been running a lot

01:58:29.760 | and I listen to podcasts a lot because they're such,

01:58:33.160 | I love human beings excited about stuff,

01:58:38.040 | that really energizes me,

01:58:39.160 | and I've listened to a bunch of chess podcasts,

01:58:42.320 | I'm really energized by your love of chess.

01:58:46.240 | I really like, yeah, sorry, I did forget his name,

01:58:48.280 | but Ben Johnson, I love it when he talks to grandmasters,

01:58:50.480 | I love it when he talks to the regular folks

01:58:55.720 | for the improvers, to see how they balance life in chess

01:59:00.640 | and all that kind of stuff, he's just pretty good at it,

01:59:02.800 | he's super excited, and they talk about books,

01:59:06.080 | and they get excited about different books.

01:59:08.200 | I mean, it also gives me a sense of where the chess world is

01:59:13.200 | from a different perspective,

01:59:17.880 | it's like people studying chess,

01:59:20.560 | like what they get excited about, how difficult it is,

01:59:24.560 | yeah, it's nice to get a sense of the community,

01:59:26.920 | the language that's used,

01:59:28.360 | because I did wanna have a bunch of conversations

01:59:30.760 | with folks about chess,

01:59:33.560 | 'cause I think it's a beautiful game

01:59:34.880 | and I think it's a beautiful community,

01:59:36.680 | so that's one of the podcasts I listen to,

01:59:39.000 | so yeah, anyway, it's great.

01:59:40.600 | Anyway, you were saying, why'd you bring him up?

01:59:42.840 | - Yes. - Great podcast.

01:59:44.400 | - Great podcast, only reason I thought of it

01:59:48.080 | and I use the word small, no disrespect, Ben,

01:59:50.840 | is because even that episode, which he did with Hans,

01:59:54.960 | like it was a small episode,

01:59:56.040 | it wasn't seen by mass audience of chess.

01:59:59.400 | - He did an episode with Hans recently?

02:00:01.160 | - I know, some time ago, yeah,

02:00:02.840 | and in that episode, Hans very openly is like,

02:00:04.640 | "Bobby Fischer was misunderstood and he was my idol."

02:00:07.880 | - Oh, wow. - Said a couple

02:00:08.720 | of things like that, and Hans is an intense guy,

02:00:12.040 | like when I listen to Hans, I get a little anxious,

02:00:14.680 | I just, he brings out some sort of disturbance

02:00:17.560 | in my ecosystem.

02:00:18.760 | - Yeah, I can't really pin him down

02:00:21.280 | to what's going on there,

02:00:24.160 | as a person who's trying to read people.

02:00:25.840 | - Yeah.

02:00:26.680 | - It's difficult, like I can, this is the dark aspect,

02:00:31.200 | he could be both the genius of Bobby Fischer

02:00:33.680 | and a genius cheater, and you could see,

02:00:37.040 | like there's something chaotic about him

02:00:39.080 | which makes him very appealing in that way.

02:00:41.320 | - Yes, so right now, late September 2022,

02:00:45.960 | the current environment is such that Hans

02:00:50.960 | hasn't said anything in weeks,

02:00:53.360 | and people are sort of dissecting every bit

02:00:58.360 | of circumstantial evidence that they can,

02:01:03.080 | and they're trying to present the case,

02:01:05.680 | I don't even know to who, ultimately,

02:01:08.400 | I guess it would be the FIDE cheating,

02:01:10.720 | anti-cheating commission or whatever.

02:01:12.920 | - It might be to you, essentially.

02:01:14.480 | - I mean-- - To people

02:01:15.320 | on the platform. - It could be.

02:01:16.960 | - To present convincing evidence to where the people,

02:01:21.500 | the people are convinced that one way or the other.

02:01:23.720 | Because for people who don't know,

02:01:25.120 | and they should definitely follow Gotham Chess,

02:01:27.080 | you've been on this, you've covered it a lot,

02:01:29.840 | and I'm sure if anything comes out, you'll cover it more,

02:01:32.360 | but you've been quite balanced and thoughtful

02:01:34.420 | and kind of objective about the whole thing.

02:01:36.160 | - Yeah, so the reason for that is,

02:01:39.200 | I understand the power that I wield

02:01:44.440 | with anything, and if I say one sentence the wrong way,

02:01:49.440 | I might be sending 10,000 people or more to go do something.

02:01:54.960 | - Yeah.

02:01:56.280 | - And I hate that.

02:01:57.120 | I want to present the evidence,

02:01:59.120 | and I want the video to end, and people go,

02:02:00.680 | okay, I understand, not, I'ma go fuck someone up.

02:02:05.680 | You know what I mean?

02:02:06.760 | 'Cause that's, and I also believe that even if Hans,

02:02:12.680 | even if Hans is guilty, this goes all the way back.

02:02:17.320 | He's a human being.

02:02:18.960 | - Yeah.

02:02:20.000 | - And you can argue that cheaters gotta be punished,

02:02:24.320 | and you can argue that people who do things wrong,

02:02:27.440 | you shouldn't feel any sort of compassion,

02:02:29.960 | but I would hate to have the whole world

02:02:31.520 | pointing their fingers at me,

02:02:33.080 | the entire world that I've known my entire life,

02:02:35.640 | and even if I messed up, there's still a world after chess.

02:02:40.760 | There might still even be a world in chess.

02:02:42.760 | I don't know, but that stuff, it doesn't make me,

02:02:47.040 | it doesn't make me feel good to present

02:02:49.880 | all of the circumstantial evidence in my videos

02:02:52.360 | and start being like, yeah, it looks, you know, so.

02:02:55.560 | - But at the same time, you deeply care about chess

02:02:57.840 | and the chess community, and there's some sense where,

02:03:02.160 | was it you or was it Magnus that said

02:03:04.160 | that cheating poses an existential threat to chess?

02:03:07.200 | - Magnus said that.

02:03:08.280 | - I mean, there is some aspect of truth to that,

02:03:10.200 | which is like, you know, the chess is in a state

02:03:13.960 | where bots, chess engines are much better than humans,

02:03:18.800 | and we're living in a world where technology

02:03:21.000 | becomes easier and easier to integrate with human beings,

02:03:24.640 | whether you put it in some office or elsewhere,

02:03:27.500 | and that does pose a threat to our ability to trust

02:03:32.500 | that a world champion is indeed a world champion,

02:03:35.480 | that somebody we think is good is indeed good,

02:03:38.720 | and so there is some aspect to the ecosystem

02:03:42.400 | that should punish cheating and perhaps over-punish cheating.

02:03:47.040 | - And the other thing is, in sport, you can take PEDs

02:03:51.680 | and have bigger muscles, bigger, better reaction time,

02:03:56.040 | but you still have to perform the action

02:04:00.040 | in a successful way.

02:04:01.280 | There is still a chance you can lose if you take PEDs.

02:04:05.620 | Maybe in some sports, the gap between non-PED

02:04:08.600 | and PED user is significantly more noticeable,

02:04:11.440 | but in chess, if you cheat, you play God.

02:04:16.440 | - Yeah.

02:04:19.880 | - You decide when the game is over.

02:04:21.840 | You can fake bad moves.

02:04:24.440 | You can fake everything.

02:04:25.640 | You can even, if you're cheating, quote-unquote,

02:04:28.520 | the right way, you're gonna lose plenty of games

02:04:31.160 | to avoid getting detected.

02:04:32.960 | - So you can create bots that are 2,800, like--

02:04:36.920 | - You can also just not listen.

02:04:38.560 | If you know all the best moves,

02:04:39.840 | but choose to play on your own,

02:04:40.960 | and, oh, I made a mistake, not a big deal.

02:04:42.600 | You could, yes, bots are all at a different level,

02:04:45.840 | but if you were to cheat, that, you play God.

02:04:50.840 | You can decide when you make your move

02:04:53.880 | and when the engine makes its move,

02:04:55.200 | and if you know the top four lines of the engine,

02:04:57.200 | you choose the fourth one.

02:04:58.320 | So in hindsight, people will analyze your game

02:05:01.040 | and they will go, oh, it wasn't perfect.

02:05:03.680 | Well, no shit.

02:05:04.520 | Only the stupid cheaters play the top engine line

02:05:06.520 | the whole game.

02:05:07.360 | - By the way, I'm not saying that this is

02:05:08.800 | what's happening here, but-- - Correct.

02:05:11.080 | - But there's probably an excitement to playing God

02:05:16.080 | to, and getting away with it.

02:05:20.480 | - I know people, I know adults, grown adults

02:05:25.640 | who are successful in their fields,

02:05:28.600 | and they cheat, they cheat in lessons,

02:05:31.680 | they cheat in, like I've, I don't wanna say I've taught any.

02:05:35.720 | May or may not have.

02:05:37.840 | For some reason, one of them watches this

02:05:39.280 | and they know they're guilty.

02:05:40.960 | And it happens, it happens.

02:05:42.680 | Not just teenagers, not just young adults,

02:05:44.840 | but full-grown adults will cheat when they play

02:05:47.600 | because they think it helps them learn.

02:05:49.860 | - Oh, well, that's good, that could be just justification.

02:05:52.600 | But I just meant like, it might not be just about winning.

02:05:56.560 | It might also just feel good to have that power.

02:06:00.000 | - Power?

02:06:01.200 | - Like, I bet you it's a drug.

02:06:03.200 | - Oh yeah.

02:06:04.360 | I mean, like with a lot of criminals,

02:06:06.280 | with a lot of criminals, I feel like part of,

02:06:10.200 | like the mass murderers, serial killers,

02:06:13.300 | I feel like a lot of it is they can get away with it.

02:06:15.840 | The fact that they, like everyone else is a sucker

02:06:20.080 | and they figured out how to do this evil thing.

02:06:23.260 | And obviously cheating is nowhere close to that,

02:06:26.280 | but there's still a feeling of getting away with it.

02:06:30.320 | Yeah, I wonder.

02:06:31.300 | I mean, you're pretty objective on the whole thing.

02:06:33.640 | But where, if you were a betting man,

02:06:38.160 | what would you say is the probability?

02:06:40.800 | Are you changing day by day in your head?

02:06:42.560 | What's the probability that Hans cheated?

02:06:44.600 | Over the board against Magnus in St. Louis.

02:06:50.320 | - That's a tough one, man.

02:06:51.960 | - Have you even allowed yourself to put a probability on it?

02:06:57.000 | - No, not on that specific game,

02:06:58.960 | because I think a lot of that game was affected

02:07:03.120 | by Magnus' own psyche.

02:07:05.160 | That was one of his worst games ever.

02:07:07.320 | - So he played poorly too, Magnus played poorly.

02:07:09.280 | - Which doesn't help his case.

02:07:11.160 | Hans might've cheated in that game, but we'll never know.

02:07:14.580 | I think day by day,

02:07:19.760 | the evidence is slowly starting to show more and more

02:07:25.020 | that he's cheated, like how Magnus said,

02:07:29.560 | more than he said and more recently.

02:07:32.460 | It's undeniable, a lot of the statistics are there.

02:07:36.160 | The problem is you can't prove you're not cheating.

02:07:40.920 | Unless you strip naked, like that site

02:07:46.680 | offered him a million bucks too.

02:07:48.360 | Everything about the--

02:07:51.000 | - Wait, which site offered him a million bucks?

02:07:52.960 | - I saw some headline that said

02:07:53.800 | Hans Niemann has offered a million bucks.

02:07:55.280 | - It can't be real.

02:07:56.680 | - And where I struggle to comprehend

02:07:59.200 | is how on earth he could pull it off

02:08:02.200 | and I'm a guilty, my brain goes to guilt first

02:08:07.200 | and resentment, remorse, guilt, that trio.

02:08:11.760 | - Magnus put out a statement as we speak yesterday

02:08:15.280 | saying, "Dear Chess World, at the 2022 Sinkfield Cup,

02:08:18.920 | "I made the unprecedented professional decision

02:08:20.880 | "to withdraw from the tournament

02:08:22.160 | "after my round three game against Hans Niemann.

02:08:25.200 | "A week later, during the Champions Chess Tour,

02:08:28.720 | "I resigned against Hans Niemann

02:08:30.840 | "after playing only one move.

02:08:32.580 | "I know that my actions have frustrated

02:08:34.880 | "many in the chess community.

02:08:36.520 | "I'm frustrated.

02:08:37.620 | "I want to play chess.

02:08:38.740 | "I want to continue to play chess

02:08:40.040 | "at the highest level and the best events.

02:08:42.220 | "I believe that cheating in chess is a big deal

02:08:45.600 | "and an existential threat to the game.

02:08:48.220 | "I also believe that chess organizers

02:08:50.640 | "and all those who care about the sanctity of the game

02:08:53.560 | "we love should seriously consider

02:08:55.500 | "increasing security measures

02:08:56.880 | "and methods of cheat detection for over-the-board chess.

02:09:00.260 | "When Niemann was invited last minute

02:09:02.940 | "to the 2022 Sinkfield Cup,

02:09:05.020 | "I strongly considered withdrawing prior to the event

02:09:08.220 | "I ultimately chose to play."

02:09:09.680 | That's the thing you're referring to,

02:09:10.840 | is that he can, like now we know

02:09:13.260 | he was torn about the whole thing.

02:09:15.140 | "I believe that Niemann has cheated more and more recently

02:09:18.980 | "than he has publicly admitted.

02:09:20.700 | "His over-the-board progress has been unusual

02:09:24.280 | "and throughout our game in Sinkfield Cup,

02:09:27.000 | "I had the impression that he wasn't tense

02:09:29.940 | "or even fully concentrating on the game

02:09:31.780 | "in critical positions,

02:09:33.060 | "while outplaying me as black in a way

02:09:35.280 | "I think only a handful of players can do.

02:09:38.080 | "This game contributed to changing my perspective.

02:09:41.720 | "He must do, we must do something about cheating.

02:09:45.240 | "And for my part, going forward,

02:09:47.140 | "I don't want to play against people

02:09:49.400 | "that have cheated repeatedly in the past

02:09:51.480 | "because I don't know what they're capable

02:09:54.040 | "of doing in the future.

02:09:55.380 | "There's more than I would like to say, unfortunately.

02:09:58.960 | "At this time, I'm limited in what I can say

02:10:01.120 | "without explicit permission from Niemann to speak openly.

02:10:04.080 | "So far, I have only been able to speak with my actions

02:10:08.660 | "and those actions have stated clearly

02:10:10.860 | "that I am not willing to play chess with Niemann.

02:10:13.540 | "I hope that the truth in this matter comes out,

02:10:16.240 | "whatever it may be.

02:10:17.360 | "Sincerely, Magnus Carlsen, world chess champion."

02:10:21.720 | - How would you sign off your statements?

02:10:25.240 | - If I was a world--

02:10:26.180 | - No, just say whatever.

02:10:27.600 | Lex Fridman, what would be the title?

02:10:29.760 | - Yeah, I don't know.

02:10:30.600 | I think I would not, even if I was a world champion,

02:10:34.520 | I would just say Lex.

02:10:35.660 | Or make up a title.

02:10:38.920 | And I feel like I really fucked up in life

02:10:42.040 | if I have to tweet a statement as an image.

02:10:45.880 | That's like when you get, you're a politician

02:10:49.240 | and you got caught cheating on your wife,

02:10:51.680 | like for many years in a row.

02:10:54.200 | - Yes.

02:10:55.040 | - Then I tweet an image.

02:10:56.640 | I'm sorry for all the people I have hurt

02:10:59.360 | and the people that believed in me and whatever else.

02:11:03.480 | And then I would sign world chess champion.

02:11:05.680 | - You know the most, like the modern way to give a statement

02:11:08.520 | what I thought Magnus was gonna do.

02:11:09.960 | - Yeah.

02:11:10.800 | - Thought he was gonna write,

02:11:11.920 | "On the recent scandal,"

02:11:16.920 | or my statement on the past few weeks, tweet longer.

02:11:20.280 | - What do you mean?

02:11:23.120 | - So you put a URL.

02:11:24.680 | - Oh yeah.

02:11:25.520 | - For tweets, but it's unlimited characters.

02:11:27.920 | It's not 140.

02:11:28.760 | - I didn't know what that is.

02:11:29.580 | Can you explain that to me?

02:11:30.420 | - Yeah, so generally when a celebrity

02:11:32.680 | has a giant audience on Twitter,

02:11:34.480 | they will make their statement on social media

02:11:37.600 | and say what it is in a sentence, one line,

02:11:40.920 | and then there's a link.

02:11:42.200 | - Where does the link take you?

02:11:43.400 | - To a website called TwitLonger.

02:11:45.560 | - Oh, that's the national website.

02:11:46.400 | - TwitLonger, yeah.

02:11:47.640 | And that is where they write their statements.

02:11:49.240 | That is what I was expecting.

02:11:50.360 | - Who did this?

02:11:51.200 | I haven't seen this before.

02:11:52.520 | - Oh, this is awesome.

02:11:53.680 | I don't have one off the top of my head,

02:11:55.000 | but it's just that Kanye, Kim Kardashian breaking up,

02:11:57.240 | they would use that?

02:11:58.080 | - Streamers, musicians, yeah.

02:12:00.360 | I don't think politicians use it

02:12:01.760 | 'cause it's just feel like--

02:12:03.480 | - Yeah, they use the image.

02:12:05.000 | - Yeah, MySpace and Facebook, right?

02:12:07.280 | Yeah.

02:12:09.680 | I would probably go, I like,

02:12:13.380 | I mean, I'm not just being biased here

02:12:16.400 | just 'cause I have a podcast.

02:12:17.960 | I'm a huge fan of podcasts.

02:12:19.560 | I feel like I would go on a podcast to talk about it

02:12:22.480 | with somebody I trust, so like long form

02:12:24.600 | and discuss it.

02:12:25.440 | - Thought he was gonna do that too.

02:12:27.040 | In fact, I wanted to write him a message

02:12:29.680 | and be like, I can be that guy for you.

02:12:34.360 | I have a very strange relationship with Magnus because--

02:12:37.680 | - Good, bad?

02:12:38.800 | - I don't, we've never interacted.

02:12:40.620 | I very openly,

02:12:44.900 | I don't wanna say use him for views

02:12:48.880 | because that is a very crude way of saying it.

02:12:51.320 | But if you wanted to insult my YouTube channel,

02:12:53.440 | that is what you would say.

02:12:55.360 | So-- - Oh, Magnus is in a lot

02:12:56.720 | of videos? - Thumbnails or videos.

02:12:59.440 | Not clickbaity, but if he's playing in a tournament

02:13:02.440 | and he plays a great game,

02:13:03.920 | he's going on that fucking thumbnail.

02:13:06.320 | Because-- - Oh, because,

02:13:08.320 | let's see, he's the number one chess player,

02:13:10.560 | very likely the greatest chess player of all time.

02:13:12.960 | Plus he's exciting.

02:13:14.320 | - And YouTube algorithm loves his name

02:13:17.240 | and people click on it.

02:13:18.600 | - Oh, do they? - His videos do the best.

02:13:20.680 | - Yeah, but I don't know what the chicken

02:13:23.200 | or the egg is, but the reason it loves it,

02:13:26.760 | the reason people click on it is because

02:13:28.280 | he is an exciting personality,

02:13:29.760 | he's an exciting chess player.

02:13:31.800 | There's something compelling about him.

02:13:34.320 | - Yeah. - He's also,

02:13:36.000 | he knows how to, in a subtle, dry,

02:13:38.320 | wit, humor way, talk shit.

02:13:40.640 | With the silences and all of that.

02:13:44.000 | - Yes. - He knows it,

02:13:45.400 | he knows it, he knows the whole game of it.

02:13:47.360 | - Specifically to Magnus, my relationship with him,

02:13:49.640 | we've never interacted and throughout

02:13:51.640 | the last couple of years,

02:13:53.880 | he generally has interacted with Hikaru as a competitor.

02:13:57.880 | He has done some collabs with the Bottezes,

02:14:01.040 | he obviously has talked to Ludwig,

02:14:03.880 | who's a very, very big streamer.

02:14:05.960 | And part of me regrets the fact that

02:14:09.440 | when I was smaller as a YouTuber and a Twitch streamer,

02:14:14.960 | I'm sure I used to make jokes or some tweets at Magnus,

02:14:20.320 | like when Magnus would tweet something,

02:14:21.640 | I would try to respond so I could be the top reply,

02:14:23.840 | 'cause that was my social media.

02:14:24.880 | I literally think, I once responded to a Magnus tweet

02:14:26.800 | and saying, "Responding for engagement."

02:14:28.560 | 'Cause it was some, it wasn't some controversial tweet,

02:14:31.360 | it was just something funny.

02:14:33.040 | And I went, "Ha ha, responding for engagement."

02:14:35.360 | Because I was just being a little bit of an idiot

02:14:38.040 | and I knew that if it got enough likes,

02:14:40.880 | it would be at the top and people would see me, my brand,

02:14:43.160 | and just get to know me, this is the type of--

02:14:45.040 | - Please don't use the word brand, but yes.

02:14:46.640 | - Yes. (laughs)

02:14:49.160 | But yeah, no, and your worry is that

02:14:51.360 | he wouldn't take you seriously.

02:14:52.600 | - He wouldn't take me seriously,

02:14:53.440 | and if I was one of the best of all time

02:14:57.120 | and I saw some dude on YouTube just kind of being a moron

02:15:00.760 | and I'm all over his thumbnails,

02:15:02.000 | I can imagine he has a very legitimate case.

02:15:04.200 | - I appreciate your humility and self-critical nature,

02:15:06.520 | but one of the realities with people like him

02:15:11.520 | is he wouldn't hold a grudge or not treat you seriously.

02:15:19.200 | I'm pretty sure he's a fan, he's a big supporter.

02:15:24.200 | He doesn't watch YouTube videos of that kind.

02:15:26.880 | - I barely watch YouTube videos.

02:15:28.040 | - I think of chess.

02:15:29.520 | He might watch more fun chess adjacent stuff,

02:15:33.680 | but it's not for him.

02:15:36.280 | So I'm pretty sure he knows of you and likes you

02:15:39.560 | and your commenting on stuff has zero effect on his belief,

02:15:44.200 | which is funny that's something you think about.

02:15:46.320 | Now you're perfect, but you're well-respected.

02:15:49.360 | A lot of people mention you as a person who's like,

02:15:52.960 | "Okay, this person's legit," which is an important thing.

02:15:55.720 | It's not just an entertainer.

02:15:57.560 | It's not just a shit talker and so on.

02:16:00.320 | This person is a great educator,

02:16:02.520 | great fan and student of chess,

02:16:05.800 | a great player himself, so all of those components.

02:16:08.560 | So yeah, you're definitely a good person.

02:16:10.600 | And on this particular aspect, have been very objective.

02:16:13.800 | I understand that I'm nowhere near perfect.

02:16:17.440 | I'm not a different person on camera, off camera.

02:16:19.920 | I will say it like it is, maybe on Twitch.

02:16:24.000 | You gotta dig in the mud there a little bit more,

02:16:26.040 | a lot more sarcastic, a lot more brash and whatnot,

02:16:28.440 | but you meet me in a taco place

02:16:32.280 | and I'll talk with you the same way I might

02:16:34.680 | if it was a video, just that you may not consider me

02:16:38.960 | just a random guy at a taco place.

02:16:40.360 | And that's why I think about this stuff

02:16:41.920 | with specific to Magnus.

02:16:43.600 | And it's one of the reasons I don't reach out

02:16:46.280 | to him directly ever.

02:16:47.920 | I never have, I've never DM'd him on Instagram

02:16:49.680 | hoping for a response, never.

02:16:51.400 | I've never even reached out to anyone on his team

02:16:53.920 | trying to get a conversation very candid with him,

02:16:57.320 | which I think it would be.

02:16:59.040 | I even barely reached out to guys in the top 10,

02:17:02.480 | like top 15, only recently started pushing myself more

02:17:05.160 | to do that.

02:17:06.560 | And I, even in my intro messages to them,

02:17:10.440 | preemptively say something like,

02:17:12.440 | "You might think I'm some idiot,

02:17:14.280 | you might not be totally wrong."

02:17:16.360 | - Yes.

02:17:17.200 | - But like, I think this would be a good conversation

02:17:19.760 | and give it a shot.

02:17:20.600 | And I've been surprised, I've been ignored by a few,

02:17:23.080 | but some said, "Oh yeah, I've seen your stuff."

02:17:25.160 | Generally a fan, like no problem.

02:17:27.000 | I was actually really blown away.

02:17:28.800 | This YouTube channel, Levidov Chess,

02:17:31.560 | it's a Russian chess channel.

02:17:33.360 | And I think the last name of the guy is,

02:17:36.040 | the name of the channel is named after Ilya Levidov

02:17:38.000 | who has some sort of managerial role

02:17:40.280 | in the Russian Chess Federation.

02:17:41.920 | And this channel has interviewed

02:17:44.600 | some of the greatest players of all time.

02:17:46.880 | They have interviews with the modern best Russian players

02:17:49.960 | and Kasparov, Karpov, Kramnik,

02:17:52.040 | you name these guys from Russian chess.

02:17:54.840 | History, it's unbelievable.

02:17:56.480 | I just thought this was a channel

02:17:57.720 | of just unbelievably well-respected chess players

02:18:02.120 | and legion of fans that were longtime chess fans.

02:18:05.840 | And I mentioned them very briefly in a YouTube video.

02:18:10.080 | And that little clip went into their next community event.

02:18:15.080 | And the founder of the channel went on this two minute,

02:18:18.560 | beautiful description of why he liked me

02:18:22.360 | and how he only watched my channel as a beginner

02:18:24.560 | and how I have a natural voice

02:18:26.720 | and how if I talked about cards,

02:18:28.120 | I would have a million, a hundred million subscribers,

02:18:30.320 | just all this really kind stuff that in my mind,

02:18:34.000 | I thought was either undeserved or I just never fathomed that.

02:18:38.080 | - Yeah, I mean, you certainly should not feel as deserved.

02:18:41.840 | You should have humility about that kind of stuff.

02:18:44.360 | But I think that is the thing that works over time.

02:18:47.200 | It's like reputation spreads,

02:18:48.720 | which is like if one person likes you

02:18:51.760 | and they tell you to other people

02:18:53.400 | and it kind of spreads and over time,

02:18:56.080 | you have one conversation with a top 10,

02:18:58.260 | like a super grandmaster,

02:19:01.280 | and they say nice things about you.

02:19:02.880 | And it just kind of spreads.

02:19:04.200 | 'Cause I've been very surprised in all walks of life.

02:19:07.340 | This really gets me, this makes me happy, honestly.

02:19:15.520 | 'Cause people ask me how I get guests and so on.

02:19:19.800 | And it just seems honestly, just be a good person

02:19:23.120 | and like a real person and honest.

02:19:27.440 | And it just kind of spreads the word of mouth.

02:19:31.800 | - You know, even coming here, I almost didn't reach out.

02:19:35.400 | - What do you mean?

02:19:36.240 | - I had seen you at Denver talk to a chess person

02:19:39.120 | and I've watched a lot of,

02:19:40.800 | I've watched some of the things start to finish,

02:19:42.200 | especially if the guest I'm really interested in,

02:19:43.920 | like George St. Pierre, I'll watch that guy do whatever.

02:19:46.440 | - Yeah, exactly.

02:19:47.280 | I'll watch him do basically anything.

02:19:48.560 | - Yeah. - Make an omelet or something.

02:19:49.840 | - Yeah, I love listening to him.

02:19:51.440 | Some of the other things I've listened to as well.

02:19:54.080 | And I noticed that neither, well, to me,

02:19:58.200 | you obviously and Joe are the two biggest podcasters.

02:20:02.040 | I don't know if that's like factual.

02:20:03.240 | I don't know if some influencer has some podcasts,

02:20:05.280 | but you guys interview folks that I listen to

02:20:08.000 | more often than anybody else.

02:20:11.240 | And when Magnus came on, I was like, oh, that's amazing.

02:20:15.440 | I don't even know how I would reach out

02:20:17.560 | to someone like you.

02:20:18.400 | It just seems like a limb, like climbing a mountain.

02:20:21.840 | And then a couple of days later,

02:20:23.120 | and I even in that episode wanted to write,

02:20:25.560 | but I didn't know how.

02:20:26.400 | I was like, do I make a YouTube comment?

02:20:28.040 | I don't want that.

02:20:28.880 | I'm a little like I'm clout chasing on the Magnus episode.

02:20:30.840 | But then you talked about Tezos and I said,

02:20:32.640 | oh, I shouldn't overthink it.

02:20:35.480 | - Yeah.

02:20:36.320 | - Like, you know, so I just said, all right, fuck it.

02:20:39.040 | I'll just write a comment.

02:20:40.480 | And you're like, yeah, I'd love to have you on.

02:20:41.680 | I was shocked.

02:20:42.680 | I didn't even, you responded just within a couple hours

02:20:45.840 | or something.

02:20:46.680 | - Yeah, yeah, I loved it, man.

02:20:47.880 | I mean, it was an honor.

02:20:49.200 | It's a good way to connect.

02:20:50.360 | I also like on live streams, I'll watch,

02:20:53.520 | I try to resist commenting, but you know,

02:20:56.960 | I'll watch some even smaller channels.

02:21:00.160 | Like I'll get super excited by them

02:21:02.240 | and connect in that way.

02:21:03.560 | There's an intimacy to that.

02:21:05.080 | Man, YouTube is beautiful.

02:21:06.360 | I don't know anything about Twitch.

02:21:08.360 | Maybe it's similar.

02:21:09.200 | - You don't need to know anything about it.

02:21:10.640 | - But YouTube has--

02:21:12.000 | - Ruin you.

02:21:13.480 | - There is an intimacy, like, especially if it's live.

02:21:16.640 | I don't know what that is, but if it's live,

02:21:19.360 | they're like right there.

02:21:21.400 | You can just like reach out and say hello.

02:21:24.160 | - Yeah, it's cool.

02:21:25.000 | It's like really, I don't know.

02:21:26.600 | I'm just happy to live in this time

02:21:29.720 | when you can connect with people in that way.

02:21:31.480 | There is an intimacy.

02:21:32.400 | That's why I love podcasts too.

02:21:34.320 | I listen to people and I feel like they're my friend.

02:21:38.160 | It's cool.

02:21:39.000 | It's a cool feeling.

02:21:40.680 | It makes you feel less lonely in this world.

02:21:44.280 | Like you have a lifelong companion,

02:21:46.080 | especially like people that do a podcast

02:21:47.640 | for many, many years.

02:21:49.120 | I'm like, you've gone through all the ups and downs

02:21:52.200 | of life together.

02:21:53.400 | With a creator, with a podcast, or with anything, it's cool.

02:21:57.480 | I don't know, it makes it,

02:22:00.000 | it's surprisingly intimate, a one-way friendship.

02:22:02.440 | (laughs)

02:22:03.880 | Maybe for an intro, I don't know.

02:22:05.280 | - There's some negatives that people definitely describe.

02:22:10.280 | The word that gets used a lot is parasocial.

02:22:13.920 | You think you, like the viewer will think

02:22:16.120 | that the streamer or the YouTuber knows them

02:22:20.040 | or owes them something or has some,

02:22:22.240 | they have a bigger connection than they do.

02:22:25.120 | - Yeah, you know what, actually, sorry to interrupt.

02:22:27.320 | I have to look, maybe you can explain to me.

02:22:28.960 | I've heard this term parasocial a lot.

02:22:31.000 | I'm meaning to look it up.

02:22:32.440 | Might as well look it up while in live.

02:22:34.720 | (laughs)

02:22:35.560 | - Yeah, sure, sure, sure.

02:22:36.400 | - Parasocial interaction, PSI, refers,

02:22:39.400 | is this a new term?

02:22:40.520 | 'Cause I have just started listening,

02:22:41.920 | hearing it like the last year or so.

02:22:44.960 | - Yeah.

02:22:45.960 | - Parasocial interaction, PSI, refers to a kind

02:22:48.200 | of psychological relationship experienced

02:22:50.120 | by an audience in their mediated encounters

02:22:53.400 | with performance in the mass media,

02:22:55.160 | particularly on television and on online platforms.

02:22:58.700 | Viewers or listeners come to consider media personalities

02:23:01.800 | as friends despite having no or limited interaction

02:23:04.700 | with, oh shit, that's a term for a thing

02:23:06.920 | I've been referring to, interesting.

02:23:11.220 | The term was coined by Donald Horton

02:23:13.320 | and Richard Wall in 1956.

02:23:15.920 | - Wow.

02:23:16.760 | - When there was like a very limited media, huh?

02:23:19.340 | - Wow.

02:23:20.520 | - I guess TV and radio and stuff, yeah, yeah.

02:23:23.200 | Parasocial interaction and exposure

02:23:25.400 | that gamers' interest in a persona

02:23:27.400 | become a parasocial relationship

02:23:29.000 | after repeated exposure to the media.

02:23:30.840 | Yeah, okay, what's the downside, bro?

02:23:32.920 | What's, okay.

02:23:34.080 | - Oh, well, I can tell you the downside.

02:23:35.480 | The downside is people thinking they're

02:23:37.560 | in relationships with streamers and stalking them.

02:23:40.640 | That's--

02:23:41.480 | - Oh, the stalking part, but the relationship is like,

02:23:44.160 | I mean, okay, you mean like actual relationship,

02:23:48.000 | like waking up and saying, how are you doing?

02:23:52.140 | Like in your head to them, yeah, no.

02:23:54.340 | But that might be an extension, more like,

02:23:57.820 | yeah, getting mad they don't respond to you

02:24:01.140 | in anytime you're in the stream

02:24:04.700 | or that convincing yourself the other person wants you

02:24:09.020 | and you need to go to them,

02:24:11.860 | so you need to find where they are.

02:24:14.140 | Like this has happened.

02:24:15.620 | Some of the biggest female streamers have reported

02:24:18.180 | that they get stalked and harassed for months

02:24:21.840 | and that's born out of this.

02:24:23.820 | This on a very small scale is you come into a stream

02:24:28.640 | every so often and give an update about your academic career.

02:24:32.180 | That's not so bad.

02:24:33.060 | I was gonna mention, I've streamed on Twitch for years

02:24:36.340 | and I watched people have kids.

02:24:38.960 | Like people will come in over the course of months

02:24:41.180 | and say, hey man, I just finished,

02:24:43.100 | I just took the bar exam.

02:24:44.540 | Yo man, like I'm having my first kid.

02:24:46.740 | And that's crazy, that's amazing.

02:24:49.160 | But if they do it in a healthy way, that's one thing.

02:24:52.240 | - But there's always gonna be downsides,

02:24:56.620 | but most of it is beautiful, man.

02:24:58.180 | I have very, I have, I guess,

02:25:03.180 | parasocial relationships of people

02:25:06.900 | that take it a little too far, but it's all love.

02:25:10.300 | - You also have a fundamental belief

02:25:12.220 | and hope in people to be good.

02:25:14.660 | - Yeah, yeah.

02:25:15.940 | And I haven't gotten in trouble with it yet.

02:25:19.280 | - That's a good thing.

02:25:21.540 | Me too, I've interacted with plenty of people in person

02:25:23.980 | and no one's been negative.

02:25:25.980 | - And I've even gone to a war zone.

02:25:28.060 | - I can't.

02:25:30.100 | - There's no, there hasn't been,

02:25:32.180 | people have been very, I don't know.

02:25:35.660 | People have only surprised me in the positive direction,

02:25:40.460 | in the depth of the capacity they have for compassion.

02:25:43.980 | Do we, okay, so now we're in this weird place

02:25:48.420 | with the cheating.

02:25:49.420 | Can I ask you a question about how it's possible to cheat?

02:25:54.420 | If you and I, the conversation you're gonna have

02:25:58.300 | with Magnus, we're gonna play chess.

02:26:00.340 | If we're trying to figure out how can you beat him,

02:26:02.840 | what are the different ways, do you think?

02:26:05.940 | Over the board chess, what are the ways to cheat?

02:26:08.060 | - Cheating? - Yeah.

02:26:09.180 | - That's where I lose the thread because I don't know.

02:26:13.300 | - That's what I immediately went to,

02:26:16.020 | is the engineering challenge of cheating.

02:26:18.380 | - Right, well, that's because that's,

02:26:20.740 | that's 'cause you're good at that.

02:26:21.740 | I mean, you're not good at creating cheating

02:26:24.140 | in over the board situations.

02:26:25.140 | I'm just saying your brain works differently.

02:26:27.060 | I just choose to not even, I can't entertain that.

02:26:30.240 | I can come up with some bullshit,

02:26:31.780 | but it's not gonna be anywhere near--

02:26:33.180 | - Oh, your mind is not immediately attracted

02:26:36.100 | to pulling at that thread of how would you fuck

02:26:38.700 | with the system?

02:26:39.580 | - Yeah, my mind stops at,

02:26:41.260 | ha, that would have to be a really sophisticated thing,

02:26:43.780 | and that's it, it doesn't go any further.

02:26:46.140 | My brain every day thinks about the best way

02:26:48.260 | to compartmentalize chess into a digestible format

02:26:51.300 | and put it out into content.

02:26:53.740 | - Chess on the board, chess not cheating.

02:26:58.260 | - Yeah, I just think about YouTube,

02:27:00.500 | I just think about that.

02:27:01.380 | That's currently where my mind is fully focused.

02:27:03.340 | I'm also working on a book, so.

02:27:05.860 | - So that's what you're thinking.

02:27:06.700 | - Yes. - Yeah, for me,

02:27:07.900 | 'cause I've built chess engines

02:27:09.700 | without understanding chess much.

02:27:12.620 | As anyone does who's interested in AI,

02:27:16.900 | you build all kinds of systems

02:27:18.340 | that do all kinds of stuff,

02:27:19.420 | and chess is just an easy game.

02:27:21.860 | It starts with Othello, goes up to chess, and go.

02:27:25.660 | It's just a great benchmark, a great place

02:27:28.460 | to explore different AI algorithms,

02:27:30.440 | from search to machine learning and so on.

02:27:34.260 | But to me, cheating is like,

02:27:36.020 | it's a similar kind of ideas.

02:27:38.620 | Well, if I make it a board instead of eight by eight

02:27:41.940 | to 10 by 10, how does it change things?

02:27:45.100 | And with cheating, it's almost like expanding

02:27:47.340 | the engineering challenge of chess out into the real world.

02:27:50.900 | To me, okay, so just allow me,

02:27:53.140 | I know cheating is horrible and everything,

02:27:55.240 | but Stockfish, AI engine, and human working together

02:28:02.140 | in interesting ways, forget chess.

02:28:05.100 | Just machine and human working together

02:28:07.900 | to expand the capability of the human is really fascinating.

02:28:11.300 | And that's a beautiful thing to me.

02:28:13.620 | Of course, purely for the chess game, it ruins the game.

02:28:18.220 | But I just like thinking of how AI can interact

02:28:23.220 | with the human in ways that it's frictionless,

02:28:29.620 | like neural link brain computer interfaces dream

02:28:34.060 | of directly connecting the human brain to AI system.

02:28:38.420 | - The problem in this case is I don't think the human

02:28:41.020 | and the AI are interacting together.

02:28:43.840 | The AI dominates.

02:28:45.060 | The human is just the mechanism that makes the moves.

02:28:47.940 | - I actually played, if I may,

02:28:50.820 | maybe I need your advice on this.

02:28:52.180 | I thought, and I told myself I won't do it,

02:28:55.020 | and then a friend of mine said,

02:28:58.500 | a couple of friends, and both of them are previous guests

02:29:02.860 | in this podcast, told me I definitely need to do it,

02:29:05.740 | which is connect.

02:29:10.060 | So I already have, for the chess arm that I built,

02:29:13.160 | this computer vision on the chess board is able

02:29:16.100 | to extract from vision the way you do optical character

02:29:21.100 | recognition to extract the board.

02:29:24.340 | So I was gonna just build that cheating system

02:29:27.780 | to demonstrate it with,

02:29:29.660 | the reason I thought it was interesting,

02:29:32.020 | so something we didn't mention is,

02:29:35.220 | I don't know who started this rumor,

02:29:36.460 | but the rumor started that it might've been like anal beads

02:29:39.540 | that, I don't know who started this,

02:29:41.900 | but I do know that Elon magnified it.

02:29:44.500 | - My username was dead center in that thing

02:29:46.400 | that he retweeted, which was hilarious to me.

02:29:48.700 | - You're using, what do you mean?

02:29:51.300 | Oh, for tweet.

02:29:52.420 | - He retweeted the clip, but also the copy pasta,

02:29:56.100 | like the paragraph that was like describing

02:30:01.060 | the whole anal beads theory and dead center

02:30:04.220 | in the middle of that paragraph is as Gotham chess says.

02:30:08.100 | And the worst part about it was I was literally tagged.

02:30:12.260 | So it was as user slash Gotham chess says.

02:30:16.300 | So every time that paragraph gets posted on Reddit,

02:30:19.460 | I get tagged.

02:30:20.300 | Getting posted a lot.

02:30:23.180 | So yes, but yes, he tweeted.

02:30:24.820 | - And then there's also the funny thing,

02:30:26.620 | which I really love, the weirdest, most entertaining thing.

02:30:31.220 | Was that part of the same thing where like a plot twist,

02:30:36.220 | Magnus has been using anal beads this whole time.

02:30:39.580 | That's how he got.

02:30:40.500 | - Yes, yes.

02:30:42.100 | - Oh, I love that so much.

02:30:43.860 | Okay, but anyway, there's a,

02:30:46.300 | I quickly realized that there is,

02:30:53.020 | I have to admit that I know not much about sex toys.

02:30:57.220 | And then I quickly realized that there's a lot of sex toys

02:31:01.220 | that have Bluetooth capability that you can interact with.

02:31:04.060 | So it's very easy to connect stock fish to sex toys.

02:31:08.500 | - Actually, wow.

02:31:10.980 | - Actually, yes.

02:31:11.820 | So apparently that's a popular thing.

02:31:13.940 | Like a lot of sex toys are Bluetooth enabled

02:31:18.940 | so you can communicate with them.

02:31:20.260 | So this is actually pretty trivial to do.

02:31:22.700 | Not trivial, but then, and then in fact,

02:31:25.980 | there's several libraries.

02:31:28.860 | One of them is really active called,

02:31:31.380 | now this is on GitHub, friends.

02:31:33.780 | It's in Rust, but I think there's Python wrappers.

02:31:35.900 | It's called Buttplug is the name of the library.

02:31:39.060 | That communicates with,

02:31:41.420 | it supports a bunch of different devices,

02:31:43.980 | a bunch of different like vibrators

02:31:46.460 | and all that kind of stuff.

02:31:47.660 | But then I looked at the kind of vibrators it supports

02:31:49.900 | and they're all like creepy looking.

02:31:51.220 | I mean, like it doesn't have,

02:31:56.220 | I don't know, it felt too dirty.

02:32:00.100 | Like there's a line, I was like,

02:32:01.300 | ah, is this not gonna,

02:32:02.820 | 'cause the reason I like that kind of stuff

02:32:04.620 | is I like the joke of it

02:32:06.220 | that ultimately is somehow educational.

02:32:09.420 | 'Cause to me, I really care about AI

02:32:10.940 | and this is a cool little project to do.

02:32:12.700 | It's super easy to share.

02:32:14.060 | Yeah, but I was thinking about doing it.

02:32:17.300 | I was thinking about doing it.

02:32:18.460 | At first I said, no, it's just kind of feels dirty.

02:32:21.540 | But then the aforementioned friend said,

02:32:24.820 | no, you should definitely do it.

02:32:26.420 | I like the--

02:32:28.140 | - Who's your test subject?

02:32:30.380 | - No, we wouldn't test,

02:32:31.220 | you should just, well,

02:32:32.860 | I'm sure that people would sign up, right?

02:32:35.740 | I just went on the table, like show the vibration,

02:32:38.460 | like you're basically converting.

02:32:41.780 | Now it's not, I'm not obviously a grandmaster.

02:32:45.700 | So you have to say everything.

02:32:48.020 | I feel like--

02:32:48.860 | - No, you don't.

02:32:50.260 | You could say the square.

02:32:51.500 | You don't have to say the piece.

02:32:52.900 | The human will fill in the gap.

02:32:54.340 | - No, a good human chess player, I can't.

02:32:57.220 | - Oh, okay.

02:32:58.740 | - That's the point I wanted to make is like,

02:33:00.780 | for me, I would like to know

02:33:03.460 | the actual move I need to make.

02:33:05.700 | So I need the full information.

02:33:07.740 | So I have to convert the Bishop C5, whatever,

02:33:11.660 | to Morse code, which is a lot of vibration.

02:33:14.700 | - Yes, exactly.

02:33:18.060 | - But it still works.

02:33:19.060 | It's hilarious and fun.

02:33:20.060 | So I was thinking about doing it,

02:33:21.500 | but because it's pretty easy to do.

02:33:25.300 | It would be just like a fun exercise.

02:33:28.340 | I love a mix of technical rigor and humor.

02:33:32.500 | - Well, this is the perfect project for that.

02:33:35.180 | - Right, exactly.

02:33:36.020 | - This was born, I think,

02:33:36.940 | out of a user comment in a Twitch stream.

02:33:41.300 | So I thought it was born on Reddit, this theory,

02:33:43.340 | but I think Eric Hansen was streaming.

02:33:46.820 | Chaz Bra, and someone in his chat made that joke,

02:33:50.620 | and he read it out loud.

02:33:51.900 | That was the first time it was read out loud.

02:33:54.220 | And then somebody clipped it,

02:33:55.460 | and it became international news.

02:33:59.700 | Have you followed how big the traction got

02:34:03.820 | on this anal beads thing?

02:34:05.140 | - No.

02:34:05.980 | - It was covered by every major news network,

02:34:08.500 | late night talk show, Trevor Noah, Stephen Colbert.

02:34:11.300 | - No.

02:34:12.140 | - International news, international news

02:34:14.180 | in countries like China,

02:34:15.580 | where I would have never thought

02:34:16.740 | that they would report about anal beads.

02:34:19.000 | Yeah.

02:34:19.840 | - Did they, what was the tonality of it?

02:34:22.660 | Was it seen as a joke?

02:34:24.140 | Or did they say there's a cheating scandal?

02:34:26.980 | - I think to a--

02:34:27.820 | - How do people mention anal beads?

02:34:29.460 | - Literally anal beads.

02:34:30.940 | Like just--

02:34:31.780 | - Just saying, accused?

02:34:33.660 | - Accused denies cheating with anal beads,

02:34:38.860 | which he never did.

02:34:39.940 | He never denied cheating with anal beads.

02:34:41.860 | It was a joke internet theory.

02:34:43.780 | - If I was him, I would lean into it.

02:34:45.680 | - Yeah, I can't imagine, man.

02:34:48.180 | Like that's, I don't know what the right thing

02:34:50.360 | for him to do is, but it's--

02:34:52.020 | - Are you not touching this one?

02:34:53.540 | The anal beads?

02:34:54.380 | - I've talked about it.

02:34:55.380 | I don't say the words anal beads in my YouTube videos,

02:34:57.700 | but I'll say beads.

02:34:58.540 | - Yeah, you don't say anal beads.

02:34:59.380 | - Yeah, I'll, the thing is--

02:35:00.820 | - Do you think I should do the code thing?

02:35:02.620 | It's like a tutorial.

02:35:03.680 | - Sure, yeah, I think it would be hilarious.

02:35:07.420 | If you find a way to do it.

02:35:09.180 | - Yeah.

02:35:10.020 | - Yeah, you can show that it is possible

02:35:11.900 | to theoretically vibrate via Bluetooth chess moves,

02:35:16.860 | and if someone shoves it up their ass,

02:35:20.940 | it was another joke.

02:35:22.060 | Okay, they offered you to play naked.

02:35:23.820 | They're gonna make you spread your cheeks?

02:35:25.540 | - Yeah, I didn't understand why naked solved the problem.

02:35:29.020 | I think there's, it doesn't have to be naked.

02:35:31.060 | I don't think naked is enough.

02:35:32.300 | - Yeah.

02:35:33.140 | - Okay, some questions from Reddit.

02:35:38.300 | Ask him, ask Levi if he deep down hates his audience.

02:35:42.140 | - I saw that, yeah, I saw that was the one.

02:35:44.220 | I have a love-hate relationship with the chess subreddit.

02:35:47.980 | - Yeah.

02:35:48.820 | - So that's why some of those questions

02:35:49.660 | were gonna be tough.

02:35:51.100 | I have a love-hate relationship--

02:35:52.420 | - Do you think that's a tough question,

02:35:53.420 | or does that come from a place of love?

02:35:55.180 | - Ah, very tough to say, very tough to say.

02:35:58.340 | - 'Cause love and hate, like,

02:35:59.660 | they're basically next door neighbors on Reddit,

02:36:01.820 | I feel like.

02:36:02.660 | - Correct.

02:36:03.480 | - They oscillate very quickly between each other.

02:36:05.180 | - Yes, so Reddit chess specifically,

02:36:07.460 | I think, is mostly folks who are around

02:36:10.540 | before the chess boom.

02:36:11.640 | So the chess--

02:36:13.420 | - Chess is the chess subreddit, sorry to interrupt.

02:36:15.100 | - Yeah, yeah.

02:36:15.940 | So a lot of them have been around for five years,

02:36:18.100 | seven years, 10 years, even more.

02:36:20.780 | And I think the average age on Reddit

02:36:22.940 | is lower than the average age on the chess subreddit.

02:36:26.100 | I think the chess subreddit is beyond the age of 20,

02:36:29.660 | maybe even 25.

02:36:30.700 | Like a lot of folks there are--

02:36:31.540 | - Oh, ancient, ancient people, in their mid-20s.

02:36:34.020 | - Yeah, I mean, not 15 or 16.

02:36:36.340 | Anarchy chess is younger.

02:36:37.580 | So anarchy chess is basically chess memes.

02:36:40.380 | - That's a subreddit name?

02:36:41.220 | - Yes, you got it, yeah, anarchy chess.

02:36:42.460 | It's great.

02:36:43.300 | A lot of stupid memes on there.

02:36:44.860 | - Do they like you or no, or is it love and hate?

02:36:46.900 | - They did until my crypto sponsorship.

02:36:48.780 | (laughs)

02:36:51.580 | Which is a separate convo that I'm more than happy to have.

02:36:55.320 | But yeah, so my relationship with the Reddit chess subreddit

02:37:00.320 | is tough because my content on YouTube

02:37:04.740 | stops at a certain point with them.

02:37:07.540 | They can't learn from me

02:37:09.620 | because I'm tailoring to 95% of my audience,

02:37:12.580 | which is about 1,600, 1,700 and below.

02:37:15.020 | And I have a lot of content where I jokingly

02:37:19.900 | make fun of low-rated players.

02:37:21.580 | And everyone's in on it, and we all have fun.

02:37:24.160 | And I laugh at myself a ton.

02:37:26.180 | Laugh at, as you can even see in this conversation.

02:37:28.660 | But just like you mentioned with clips

02:37:31.860 | and out of context things,

02:37:33.820 | folks have already formed the perception of my personality.

02:37:36.940 | There's nothing I can do to win them back.

02:37:39.100 | And I think the dominant percentage

02:37:40.780 | of the loudest group of folks on the chess subreddit,

02:37:43.540 | they just, they have a certain perception of me.

02:37:45.580 | It's not going to change.

02:37:47.300 | And you add something like cryptocurrency sponsorship,

02:37:49.640 | which people on Reddit just in general

02:37:52.720 | are relatively negative on the subject,

02:37:55.380 | is gonna start snowballing more and more.

02:37:57.600 | So if you ever look up a thread of,

02:38:00.540 | should I buy a Gotham course?

02:38:03.020 | And it's on Reddit chess, it's gonna say no.

02:38:05.180 | Everyone's calling it a scam, overpriced.

02:38:07.620 | - Interesting.

02:38:08.460 | I heard a lot of really positive stuff.

02:38:10.740 | I don't know where, on Reddit in general.

02:38:13.340 | - About me? - Yeah.

02:38:14.420 | - You might've been looking for it.

02:38:16.100 | You might've not been looking for negative things.

02:38:18.940 | And I do-- - No, I was looking

02:38:20.380 | for like best educators online, like that kind of stuff.

02:38:23.980 | - I don't, it might've not been Reddit chess.

02:38:26.240 | I'll be totally honest with you.

02:38:27.220 | If you ever go there and look for something

02:38:29.740 | like best recaps or best educational content

02:38:33.080 | for intermediates, I'm not mentioned.

02:38:35.060 | I might not be mentioned because I'm already expected

02:38:37.580 | to be on the list.

02:38:38.620 | So they just kind of want to generally shout out

02:38:40.580 | smaller creators, totally fine with that.

02:38:42.700 | And I'm not even going on this whole explanation

02:38:44.820 | because I want to win folks back.

02:38:46.780 | It's just sort of the reality of the situation.

02:38:48.860 | A lot of my stuff is really clickbaity

02:38:50.780 | and I'm playing the YouTube game.

02:38:53.340 | - Yeah. - They don't want that.

02:38:54.220 | - Do you ever feel like a limit or a tension

02:38:57.940 | between your creativity and the YouTube algorithm?

02:39:02.660 | Like, do you feel like it has negative effects on you?

02:39:04.980 | - Yeah, yeah, I want to cover more in-depth stuff

02:39:08.180 | in a 30 minute video that I think is super useful to people.

02:39:11.260 | It's only going to get 60,000 views.

02:39:13.420 | - And you feel, why is that a bad thing?

02:39:15.700 | Is it good to mix it up?

02:39:18.740 | - Yes, it's good to mix it up, but I make a video a day.

02:39:22.260 | I make one bad video, the other videos suffer.

02:39:26.700 | And then if I make two videos that underperform,

02:39:30.220 | the rest of the videos don't get pushed out as much.

02:39:32.460 | Your earnings can go down 40% day to day,

02:39:34.780 | which doesn't happen in other careers.

02:39:37.740 | And if I ever want to supplement,

02:39:40.460 | if I ever want to make a very instructional video,

02:39:42.820 | I try to do it in a very fun way.

02:39:45.220 | So something like eight of Magnus Carlsen's best end games.

02:39:48.340 | You can still learn a ton,

02:39:49.900 | but the concept of the video is going to be different.

02:39:52.220 | Like I try to still teach things,

02:39:53.620 | but in more interesting and exciting ways.

02:39:56.260 | Like the guy who was scammed for a million dollars,

02:40:01.260 | Alexey Shirov, who was basically promised

02:40:04.340 | the world championship if he won his match,

02:40:06.060 | he won his match, he didn't get a world championship.

02:40:08.860 | So there's still stuff in there you can learn.

02:40:10.380 | And you can, my goal is just you click on the video,

02:40:13.540 | you learn something and you enjoy yourself, that's it.

02:40:16.140 | - Get people to click on it by any means necessary.

02:40:21.140 | But once they're there,

02:40:22.180 | have quality stuff they can learn.

02:40:25.940 | - Yeah, man, I wish, so I have zero of those pressures,

02:40:28.980 | but I also really, really, like I turn off views

02:40:33.060 | and all that kind of stuff.

02:40:34.020 | I don't pay attention to any of that.

02:40:35.860 | But I wish YouTube would like,

02:40:39.140 | the algorithm would include how good the video is.

02:40:45.460 | Like beneficial for people's long-term wellbeing

02:40:49.180 | in the calculation.

02:40:52.180 | I actually really hate the fact

02:40:53.940 | that they turned off dislikes.

02:40:56.380 | - Yeah, I didn't get that at all.

02:40:57.860 | - Because like, now I don't know the difference

02:40:59.740 | between like, for tutorials specifically,

02:41:02.100 | like I don't know what's a good chess video or not,

02:41:05.300 | or what's a good review or not.

02:41:07.940 | I mean, it emphasizes following certain people more

02:41:10.740 | than like if you trust the creator,

02:41:12.020 | but like, man, I really don't know

02:41:15.780 | what's a good video or not, essentially.

02:41:17.380 | And then you have to trust more the title,

02:41:19.340 | and then the click baiting comes in and it's no good.

02:41:22.820 | You have to use your own gut instinct as opposed to data.

02:41:25.500 | Sucks.

02:41:26.340 | - Yeah, there's videos that have almost no views

02:41:28.620 | that are still great.

02:41:29.820 | - Incredible.

02:41:30.660 | - Yeah.

02:41:31.500 | - And some of the best ones,

02:41:32.580 | some people who are just focused on like the quality

02:41:36.460 | and don't wanna play the game,

02:41:38.100 | or don't even know how to play it,

02:41:39.300 | and they don't really wanna play the game

02:41:40.660 | of the YouTube algorithm.

02:41:42.380 | Yeah, it sucks.

02:41:43.940 | It sucks, especially given how dominant YouTube is

02:41:46.580 | in defining the sort of the creative energy

02:41:52.460 | of our whole civilization of the youth.

02:41:55.580 | - Not just chess.

02:41:56.780 | - Not just chess.

02:41:57.780 | When are you going to chess box against Eric Rosen?

02:42:02.380 | This is a question from Reddit, chess box.

02:42:04.460 | You said your hands are all messed up.

02:42:07.380 | - Yeah, yeah.

02:42:09.100 | - Are you training for something or regular like?

02:42:12.100 | - So I also just remembered we never talked about Hikaru,

02:42:15.380 | so I can talk about Rosen and Hikaru

02:42:17.300 | in the same chess boxing.

02:42:18.940 | - Oh shit, all right.

02:42:20.020 | Is this your MacGregor like shit talk segment?

02:42:24.380 | - No, no, no, no.

02:42:25.780 | Eric Rosen is actually a close friend of mine.

02:42:27.660 | I probably have five of those,

02:42:29.820 | and he just so happens to be not just a chess streamer,

02:42:34.180 | but we talked about buying homes,

02:42:36.660 | we've talked about, he's stayed at my place.

02:42:38.980 | He took my wedding photos.

02:42:40.820 | I flew him to New York and paid for all his stuff

02:42:43.060 | just so he could hang out with my wife and I

02:42:45.340 | and take some 6 a.m. photos in the sun in the park.

02:42:49.380 | - Oh, he looks familiar.

02:42:50.660 | - Yeah, so he's a good friend of mine.

02:42:53.860 | Now in terms of chess boxing,

02:42:56.260 | chess boxing is this really fascinating sport

02:42:58.340 | where you have boxing, but you also have chess,

02:43:01.100 | and you have rounds.

02:43:03.020 | So you start a chess game with a clock.

02:43:05.260 | That segment itself lasts for a couple of minutes.

02:43:08.300 | They put the board away and pause the clock,

02:43:10.140 | whatever the time situation is,

02:43:11.540 | then you box for a minute, and that keeps going on.

02:43:15.220 | I don't know how it works in terms of the time expiring,

02:43:18.060 | meaning in fighting, there's judges

02:43:20.660 | that just tell you how the fight was going.

02:43:22.740 | Here, I don't know who wins and how.

02:43:25.020 | Do you win by, you can win by knockout,

02:43:26.820 | you can win by checkmate,

02:43:27.980 | or their clock can run out on the chess board,

02:43:29.700 | but is there-- - Who judges?

02:43:31.740 | - Is there a round limit?

02:43:33.100 | Does this just go on and on and on and on?

02:43:35.600 | You know what I mean?

02:43:36.440 | - Yeah, I thought it's like 12 rounds, right?

02:43:37.860 | Isn't this a thing in Russia?

02:43:40.580 | - It's a big thing in the UK.

02:43:41.980 | - UK? - Yeah, UK.

02:43:43.180 | I don't know why.

02:43:44.520 | - And there's a lot of YouTuber events just for boxing.

02:43:48.160 | So YouTubers just learn to box,

02:43:50.920 | and then they just box, no chess.

02:43:52.600 | They just straight up box each other.

02:43:55.000 | Like Jake Paul, for example.

02:43:56.560 | You ever gonna get Jake Paul in here?

02:43:58.200 | - Yeah, I'm sure.

02:43:59.360 | - Okay. - I'm sure.

02:44:00.480 | - I feel like so many different guests have been mentioned.

02:44:03.440 | Jake Paul would be a fun guest,

02:44:06.280 | but he's obviously the biggest scare, right?

02:44:07.520 | He's legitimately boxing people.

02:44:09.160 | But chess players is never gonna learn to box to that level,

02:44:13.460 | and all of us are starting basically from zero.

02:44:16.200 | And Ludwig talked to me behind the scenes,

02:44:19.080 | said, "Hey, how would you feel

02:44:19.920 | "about being in a chess boxing match?"

02:44:22.240 | I said, "Okay, yeah, maybe.

02:44:25.520 | "When is it gonna be?"

02:44:26.360 | He said, "Five months from now."

02:44:27.920 | I've always wanted to train combat.

02:44:29.880 | I've weight lifted, I've done cardio,

02:44:31.760 | I've played basketball. - And you said

02:44:32.600 | you're a UFC fan too? - Yeah.

02:44:34.280 | - So you admire fighting? - Yeah, I would enjoy it.

02:44:37.360 | I just have a really bad lower back,

02:44:40.280 | and that makes a lot of different combat difficult.

02:44:43.500 | But I said, "You know what, screw this.

02:44:45.040 | "I'm going to contact a few local gyms."

02:44:47.820 | And one of them, the guy emailing me back and forth,

02:44:50.060 | had actually watched my YouTube videos.

02:44:52.260 | So he was the first to respond.

02:44:54.140 | And he said, "Yeah, come in, do a couple of classes,

02:44:56.340 | "see how you feel."

02:44:57.340 | So first I did conditioning, which killed me,

02:44:59.540 | because fighting conditioning, as you know, it kills you.

02:45:02.540 | It's a completely different type of conditioning.

02:45:04.620 | But I felt good, and I really wanted to come back.

02:45:07.260 | And since July, I've been training three, four days a week.

02:45:10.240 | - Nice, you feel pretty good? - I love it.

02:45:11.920 | - Lower back feels good? - Lower, everything feels,

02:45:13.680 | whole body got stronger, physique.

02:45:15.160 | - So what you're saying is you're gonna fuck up at Kara.

02:45:17.520 | (laughing)

02:45:18.360 | Is he training?

02:45:20.040 | - I'm not fighting.

02:45:21.240 | So I talked to Eric about it,

02:45:23.480 | and the truth is we're both concerned about head trauma.

02:45:26.240 | I haven't actually sparred.

02:45:27.880 | I like sparring, shadow boxing, but I go there,

02:45:30.100 | I do personal training, I don't do a group class.

02:45:33.360 | I'm not fighting, I'm fighting the bag,

02:45:35.480 | I'm doing shadow boxing.

02:45:36.840 | My form is improving, but I haven't been punched.

02:45:39.220 | I get hit in the stomach, you know,

02:45:40.440 | I get hit in the side with kicks.

02:45:42.480 | Nobody's punched me in the face yet.

02:45:44.360 | So I think we both were adequately concerned about that,

02:45:46.760 | and there was not some ridiculous amount of money

02:45:48.900 | on the table, so we decided it's just not worth pursuing.

02:45:52.760 | - How does Hikaru come into the picture?

02:45:55.480 | 'Cause he's a possible competitor?

02:45:58.320 | - People ask me all the time, who would you fight?

02:46:01.120 | People are like, "Andrea Botez with 'Kick Your Ass.'"

02:46:03.960 | That's a tough one, 'cause I can't, what am I gonna say?

02:46:05.760 | I'm gonna fight a woman who I'm larger than,

02:46:09.000 | and so I just have to take the L against

02:46:11.200 | any time a woman is mentioned, that's fine.

02:46:12.800 | I'm like, oh, and six-- - There's no winning that one.

02:46:14.280 | - Right, exactly.

02:46:15.120 | So I've lost to both Botezes, Anna Rudolph, Anna Kremling,

02:46:19.080 | they're all chess creators.

02:46:20.320 | - And like hypothetically?

02:46:22.080 | - Yeah, I get a little bit of--

02:46:22.900 | - In this hypothetical fight?

02:46:23.740 | - Yeah, yeah. - Okay.

02:46:25.200 | - He's been training.

02:46:26.800 | I think, yeah, Andrea's been training.

02:46:28.720 | - That's because an event got announced.

02:46:30.440 | This event that I was hypothetically gonna be

02:46:32.720 | the main event against Eric Rosen.

02:46:34.480 | - Yeah.

02:46:35.320 | - That got announced? - Yeah.

02:46:36.160 | - And then you kinda like thought,

02:46:38.280 | like maybe let's not do this.

02:46:40.560 | - No, I knew once I declined to fight Eric

02:46:43.680 | that I would not be participating.

02:46:45.560 | And I even knew, I knew who was gonna be the main event,

02:46:49.240 | 'cause I was kind of offered both of those guys.

02:46:52.400 | So Amon Hambleton--

02:46:53.240 | - Oh, is this still going on?

02:46:54.720 | - The chess boxing event will happen

02:46:56.560 | in December in Los Angeles, yeah.

02:46:58.080 | - Nice, so who is the main event?

02:46:59.640 | - It's Amon Hambleton, who's also Chessbrah.

02:47:02.560 | So they have a couple of guys

02:47:04.080 | that's part of the Chessbrah channel,

02:47:05.280 | and Lawrence Trent.

02:47:06.120 | Lawrence Trent is a international master from England.

02:47:09.440 | He's a, I think he's done some boxing a little bit.

02:47:14.040 | He's a commentator, brash guy.

02:47:16.520 | - Nice.

02:47:17.360 | - Controversial guy, yeah.

02:47:18.440 | It's funny, 'cause they started,

02:47:20.480 | Lawrence put out some videos,

02:47:21.520 | and I went, damn, I should've done this.

02:47:24.000 | - Yeah, I think it.

02:47:25.480 | - But--

02:47:27.880 | - I mean, you're right.

02:47:28.720 | First of all, there's so many things to say,

02:47:30.320 | one of which is, if you wanna take it seriously,

02:47:34.240 | it does pull you in.

02:47:36.520 | If you train a lot, it's gonna affect

02:47:38.840 | the rest of your life, and then there's,

02:47:42.280 | it changes you, I think.

02:47:43.680 | Taking combat sports seriously changes you, in good,

02:47:47.080 | and there's negative costs to it, I think,

02:47:49.720 | 'cause it's a whole 'nother thing, man.

02:47:51.200 | It's like doing marathon running or something.

02:47:53.960 | It really pulls you in.

02:47:55.080 | And the other thing is the head trauma.

02:47:58.440 | You have to take that kind of stuff seriously,

02:48:00.080 | especially if you're doing sparring

02:48:01.280 | and all that kind of stuff.

02:48:02.680 | Still, some of the celebrities,

02:48:05.880 | I don't know why, but it's pretty exciting.

02:48:08.240 | I don't know why it'd be fun to watch Hikaru.

02:48:11.120 | There's something--

02:48:11.960 | - Well, I always said, if Hikaru and Magnus

02:48:13.880 | did a boxing event, and I was the co-main event

02:48:16.880 | against I don't know who, that would be--

02:48:20.520 | - Has Magnus said anything about it?

02:48:22.280 | Like about doing chess boxing?

02:48:24.480 | - Well, first of all, he's gonna commentate

02:48:26.480 | the Ludwig event, which he said.

02:48:28.920 | He kind of said, "Oh, there's been people in the past

02:48:31.320 | "that are my level in chess," not my, his level in chess,

02:48:34.760 | "and have wanted to get physical with him."

02:48:37.600 | I think he's talking about Hikaru.

02:48:40.120 | I don't think anybody else is.

02:48:41.920 | That'd be a good one, man.

02:48:43.120 | That'd be a good one.

02:48:43.960 | I think Magnus--

02:48:44.800 | - What do you think?

02:48:45.620 | Who is that one?

02:48:46.460 | - I think Magnus is in better physical shape.

02:48:49.520 | He's also a little bit bigger, I think, than Hikaru.

02:48:52.200 | - Longer reach.

02:48:53.040 | - I think Hikaru's a dog, though.

02:48:54.760 | I think he'll, I don't think he's gonna get out of that.

02:48:57.880 | Like, I don't think he's gonna quit in the ring.

02:49:00.440 | - I would think Hikaru just goes nuts in the beginning

02:49:03.320 | and burns himself out.

02:49:04.400 | So if Magnus can survive that,

02:49:07.000 | I feel like Hikaru would just go crazy

02:49:08.760 | and then just get exhausted,

02:49:09.920 | would not be able to pace himself correctly.

02:49:12.000 | - Maybe, chasing that first round knockout.

02:49:14.200 | - Yeah, just swing like crazy.

02:49:16.800 | Honestly, I'd just love to see that,

02:49:19.160 | which is like the effect of physical exertion on the game.

02:49:23.560 | I'm sure they're strong enough to--

02:49:26.800 | - Yes, but I think we definitely underestimate

02:49:29.520 | the effect of being punched,

02:49:31.800 | maybe bleeding out of your nose or something like that.

02:49:34.200 | It's no joke.

02:49:35.600 | I can't say I'm anticipating the first day

02:49:39.640 | I actually do some sparring and get seriously hit

02:49:42.400 | 'cause I know it's not gonna feel good.

02:49:44.940 | Even now, I take a hard jab to the stomach or the ribs

02:49:47.840 | and I'm just like, man, this is rough.

02:49:49.720 | I mean, I had to do three minutes on heavy bag.

02:49:53.540 | And when I finished, I had been slacking on my form

02:49:58.540 | 'cause my arms were tired and I hit with my fingers

02:50:02.000 | instead of my knuckles and my hands are,

02:50:04.000 | like you can see the red skin,

02:50:06.320 | like completely pink, meaty skin under.

02:50:08.720 | I didn't realize when I was hitting

02:50:10.280 | and only today the pain is unbearable.

02:50:13.280 | So I can't imagine, head?

02:50:15.000 | This must be--

02:50:15.880 | - No, I mean, it's a different thing.

02:50:18.320 | I mean, of course, your skin gets tougher,

02:50:20.080 | everything gets tougher, so you get used to it.

02:50:22.040 | The head is a weird one 'cause it's not gonna send you

02:50:24.980 | those kinds of signals.

02:50:26.440 | You're not gonna get the skin type of signals.

02:50:29.200 | The brain is a weird thing 'cause it doesn't hurt.

02:50:32.800 | - Yeah.

02:50:33.920 | - It just does the damage and the damage can materialize

02:50:36.400 | itself, manifest itself only years later.

02:50:39.640 | It's a weird one.

02:50:40.960 | But then we all die.

02:50:42.720 | There's that brave heart speech.

02:50:44.460 | I gotta ask you about bots

02:50:47.040 | 'cause to me it's super interesting

02:50:48.880 | and you've played a lot of bots at different levels.

02:50:51.480 | You have a video called

02:50:54.360 | "The Advanced Chess Bots Are Terrifying."

02:50:57.920 | So what's the difference between playing humans and bots?

02:51:01.160 | Like you mentioned this Nelson bot.

02:51:03.240 | - Yeah.

02:51:04.080 | - That brings his queen out, I think rated 1600?

02:51:06.800 | - 1200 or 1400.

02:51:07.640 | - Okay, 1240.

02:51:08.880 | So there's a style to those.

02:51:11.040 | What's the difference between the way bots play

02:51:14.000 | and the way humans play?

02:51:15.640 | - A lot of people prefer playing bots

02:51:17.880 | because they have anxiety playing other humans.

02:51:19.960 | It's a very legitimate thing.

02:51:21.320 | - Interesting.

02:51:22.160 | - A lot of beginners, they don't like live chess.

02:51:24.320 | They get nervous, you know, anxiety.

02:51:26.900 | You get close to your highest ever rating, you panic.

02:51:29.680 | Happens to me too.

02:51:30.520 | - Yeah.

02:51:31.360 | - Happens to me even now.

02:51:33.120 | So they play bots.

02:51:34.240 | - They're somehow more reliable or something?

02:51:36.120 | - Yeah, they're, I don't know.

02:51:38.120 | But that's, it's a big thing.

02:51:39.560 | It's a big thing and the popularity of that video

02:51:41.880 | shows that people enjoy watching you play chess bots.

02:51:45.440 | So I'm gonna demystify this.

02:51:49.320 | This might be shocking.

02:51:50.500 | Those bots are all the same bot for the most part.

02:51:54.880 | You could just program a bot

02:51:57.400 | to make mistakes at a certain moment.

02:52:00.280 | You could program a bot to spend less time on certain moves.

02:52:04.160 | And it's gotten sophisticated enough

02:52:06.760 | that you can basically program it to play

02:52:08.240 | at whatever more or less level that a human plays at.

02:52:12.480 | You say, I'll play at an 1800 level.

02:52:15.000 | So it's programmed to throw in mistakes.

02:52:17.560 | The problem is, and this is why it's all beginners

02:52:20.880 | to not play bots,

02:52:22.720 | because bots are programmed in the following way.

02:52:25.440 | Beginner bots are like literal toddlers.

02:52:29.160 | They have no understanding whatsoever.

02:52:31.320 | They will literally lose all their pieces,

02:52:33.040 | but they won't lose all their pieces

02:52:34.240 | and make mistakes the way beginners do.

02:52:35.640 | Beginners actually know how to start a game.

02:52:37.640 | They just struggle the first eight moves, nine moves.

02:52:42.120 | Their mistakes are very different than bot.

02:52:43.680 | Bot plays completely outlandish types of mistakes

02:52:46.400 | that you cannot pick up in terms of a pattern standpoint

02:52:49.240 | 'cause no actual humans play like that.

02:52:51.040 | They just move their queen to the opposite side

02:52:52.360 | of the board for no reason, and you can take it.

02:52:54.580 | - Yeah, it's not even a blunder.

02:52:56.480 | It's almost like randomness.

02:52:57.880 | - Yeah, it's completely random.

02:52:59.200 | And this problem extends further

02:53:01.240 | because advanced bots will play an opening

02:53:04.200 | completely reasonably, and they just hang a rook,

02:53:07.060 | which, okay, maybe happens,

02:53:09.940 | but that's not exactly how you get to 1800.

02:53:12.080 | At 1800, that's a very strong level of the game.

02:53:14.520 | You know your openings very well.

02:53:16.280 | You start navigating the middle game

02:53:17.720 | based on already things that you remember.

02:53:20.340 | And then basically one side chooses a bad plan,

02:53:22.640 | and the other side chooses a better plan,

02:53:24.160 | and one thing leads to another.

02:53:25.740 | Nobody just recreationally hangs all their pieces,

02:53:28.560 | which is the way bots are kind of programmed to play.

02:53:30.520 | But some of those bots in that video were,

02:53:33.280 | I remember playing them, and they were, yeah, they were nuts.

02:53:37.880 | They were out calculating me every time

02:53:39.520 | I thought I had a trick in two, three second

02:53:41.880 | moment of thought.

02:53:43.280 | It would just play the best move.

02:53:45.000 | And sometimes that also happens.

02:53:46.200 | It gets into a dead loop

02:53:47.800 | where it just starts bulldozing you, and it can't stop.

02:53:51.320 | So it made its mistakes already.

02:53:53.200 | It's programmed to make only a few,

02:53:55.380 | and then it just bulldozes you the rest of the way.

02:53:57.360 | - Interesting.

02:53:58.200 | I mean, that's why I played with Stockfish a bunch.

02:54:02.180 | So I got,

02:54:07.880 | I built for myself a bunch of different chess experiments

02:54:10.720 | recently.

02:54:11.560 | It had to do with the chess playing bot,

02:54:13.080 | but I also built an infinite chess board

02:54:16.000 | where Stockfish was playing an infinite number

02:54:19.120 | of chess games.

02:54:20.680 | And one of the parameters that was interesting to play with

02:54:24.400 | is how long it gets to think about a move

02:54:27.520 | and how that affects the rating of the thing.

02:54:29.760 | - Oh, I did that a little bit.

02:54:31.720 | - So that's a tricky one.

02:54:32.960 | I'm sure people know how to do that well,

02:54:34.500 | but it's not trivial to understand

02:54:37.560 | like what, there must be a good formula for it.

02:54:41.040 | But it's also interesting to think about

02:54:43.040 | like a controlled number of blunders.

02:54:45.300 | But it's probably better,

02:54:50.520 | the controlled number of blunders

02:54:51.720 | is not a good way to build a bot.

02:54:54.040 | - Yeah, it's, yeah.

02:54:55.000 | - For training purposes, at least.

02:54:56.800 | - The time per move is probably better.

02:54:59.640 | But the craziest thing is I did that.

02:55:01.320 | A couple of my devs were helping me with the build,

02:55:05.200 | like I'm scaling my courses

02:55:07.740 | into a better chess learning platform, essentially.

02:55:10.520 | We've done a lot of different experiments with Stockfish,

02:55:13.360 | which I'm even happy to get into here.

02:55:15.320 | And Stockfish making moves in 0.1 millisecond

02:55:19.640 | plays better than a human, which is disgusting

02:55:22.520 | and disturbing, frankly, 'cause that's crazy.

02:55:24.960 | Like you can't react to a car stopping in front of you

02:55:27.640 | anywhere near that fast.

02:55:29.000 | And yeah.

02:55:30.320 | - So the reason I was interested in that

02:55:33.180 | is because when you have a very large chess board,

02:55:35.720 | you have tens of thousands,

02:55:37.840 | hundreds of thousands of game going on at the same time.

02:55:40.880 | You have to think of the minimum amount

02:55:44.800 | of thinking per move that you can allow for.

02:55:48.360 | And it does seem, it's damn good,

02:55:51.760 | at least to my eye, basically,

02:55:53.280 | at the lowest possible setting you can give it.

02:55:56.560 | So yeah, it's incredible.

02:55:58.520 | It's incredible what bots are able to do.

02:55:59.880 | And now it's, as far as I know,

02:56:02.780 | is primarily machine learning based, Stockfish.

02:56:05.540 | So Stockfish moved to machine learning completely.

02:56:07.900 | It's not doing search, as far as I know.

02:56:10.980 | - Yeah, this is where you lose me a bit,

02:56:14.000 | but the move discovery and evaluation

02:56:16.540 | is what's been changing in the way Stockfish works.

02:56:19.820 | So it's discovering of moves,

02:56:21.260 | and then the way it looks forward

02:56:23.540 | and then evaluates positions, that has changed.

02:56:25.840 | But Matthew Sadler, who wrote the book "Game Changer"

02:56:29.940 | about AlphaZero. - AlphaZero, yeah.

02:56:31.660 | - Yeah, he explains it significantly better.

02:56:34.380 | But that's the way I think it works.

02:56:36.600 | - What did that make you feel

02:56:38.660 | when you first saw AlphaZero play?

02:56:40.500 | - I was excited.

02:56:41.340 | I didn't have any sort of existential thoughts.

02:56:45.740 | I enjoyed watching it completely destroy openings

02:56:49.160 | that people thought were good.

02:56:52.480 | And that experiment, though, does have some caveat

02:56:57.000 | in the sense that I think AlphaZero was playing

02:57:00.080 | with a full tank of servers, and I think Stockfish wasn't,

02:57:02.760 | which I think is one of the things people point out.

02:57:05.040 | They weren't playing--

02:57:05.880 | - Yeah, but since then, they were able

02:57:06.960 | to demonstrate much less.

02:57:08.560 | - Yeah.

02:57:09.400 | - But also, AlphaZero stopped developing.

02:57:15.280 | They stopped developing it.

02:57:16.800 | - Yes.

02:57:18.040 | - Which sucks, but again, from their perspective,

02:57:20.800 | from DeepMind's perspective, it's like, all right,

02:57:23.020 | well, we took on this really tricky game,

02:57:25.060 | did something honestly incredible.

02:57:27.760 | - They won.

02:57:28.600 | They won.

02:57:30.400 | - Well, not just won.

02:57:31.700 | I mean, they did it without any human supervision,

02:57:33.820 | so without any training on human expert games,

02:57:38.820 | so only through self-play, which,

02:57:40.700 | I mean, that's what learning is about.

02:57:43.820 | It's what you think of as a child, a human child, a toddler,

02:57:47.460 | learning from somewhat nothing and becoming a capable human.

02:57:52.460 | That's what we think of when we think about intelligence.

02:57:57.900 | So the fact that it's able to play itself

02:57:59.680 | and become the best player in the world at the game of Go

02:58:03.240 | in all kinds of games is just incredible,

02:58:05.640 | and obviously, that inspired the modern Stockfish

02:58:08.600 | to do all the same kind of self-play methods.

02:58:12.220 | Somebody on Reddit asked a pretty interesting question.

02:58:16.760 | I don't know if you have an interesting answer to it.

02:58:19.280 | What makes a chess move, quote-unquote, human?

02:58:22.280 | As you are someone, oh, this is to me,

02:58:26.440 | but it's mentioning you in third person.

02:58:28.960 | As you are someone working in AI,

02:58:30.560 | this idea of humanness would seem incredibly interesting.

02:58:33.640 | Yes, sir, it is, especially since most cheat detection

02:58:37.360 | relies on humanness as a way to detect cheaters.

02:58:40.600 | I think since children being born right now

02:58:42.800 | will have the advantage of engine training their whole life,

02:58:45.840 | they will start to see the game the way an engine does.

02:58:49.120 | Will a person be considered a cheater

02:58:50.680 | if they play like an engine?

02:58:52.220 | There also seem to be a discrepancy,

02:58:55.520 | especially with Levy, about who can play

02:58:57.880 | what appears to be a non-human move.

02:59:00.120 | He often says things like, quote,

02:59:02.280 | "If you were a normal player," normal in quotes,

02:59:06.240 | "If you were a normal player,

02:59:07.760 | "I would think you were cheating, but since it's Magnus,

02:59:11.600 | "I don't doubt Magnus is great,

02:59:12.940 | "but if humanness is our benchmark,

02:59:14.400 | "what is the ELO rating where your moves

02:59:16.240 | "can start to look like an engine without critique?"

02:59:19.320 | There's a bunch of questions in there.

02:59:21.120 | - They combine two of my quotes into one.

02:59:24.080 | So one thing that I like to say is,

02:59:26.800 | sometimes in a chess game, moves look,

02:59:29.080 | or an opening looks so ridiculous

02:59:31.360 | that if a viewer played it, I would make fun of them,

02:59:34.060 | or slap them, that's always the drill.

02:59:35.440 | If I was your chess coach, I'd smack you,

02:59:36.920 | but when Magnus plays it, we're just, oh, wow,

02:59:40.440 | you know, it's very different.

02:59:41.840 | So they mixed up this quote with another quote,

02:59:45.200 | which is, you know, if I,

02:59:49.800 | if I'll be explaining something and I'll say,

02:59:52.480 | oh, and here the engine says you should play like this.

02:59:54.880 | If one of your opponents plays like this,

02:59:57.000 | report them for cheating.

02:59:58.540 | So they fused two quotes.

02:59:59.800 | They said, oh, human can't play like that,

03:00:02.200 | but because it's an engine move,

03:00:04.260 | but because Magnus is playing.

03:00:05.680 | So they mixed kind of two things.

03:00:07.760 | - But there's interesting levels of humor

03:00:11.080 | and insight there on both of those.

03:00:14.520 | - Yeah, the difference between human move and engine,

03:00:17.240 | and like what an engine move is, is I think two things.

03:00:20.480 | Number one, a computer move is outlandish

03:00:25.480 | in its concept and its idea.

03:00:31.440 | So the best example that I can give of that

03:00:35.480 | is if you gave a hundred grandmasters a position

03:00:37.840 | and told them, you know, what do you think

03:00:40.040 | the best move here is for black?

03:00:41.200 | Not in this position right here, we have nothing,

03:00:43.240 | but an overwhelming amount of them would look

03:00:45.760 | at the position, evaluate everything they know

03:00:47.920 | about the game of chess, which is relatively similar,

03:00:50.060 | but obviously slightly imbalanced

03:00:52.240 | based on their skill level.

03:00:53.640 | And they would come up with a sample size

03:00:55.040 | of two or three moves.

03:00:56.720 | And in comes the computer with a fucking haymaker.

03:00:59.940 | And suddenly everybody goes,

03:01:01.340 | oh, everything we know about chess has gone out the window.

03:01:05.040 | So they all start looking at that move

03:01:06.280 | and they know it's the best move.

03:01:07.120 | So now they start adding the evidence

03:01:08.520 | behind the verdict, as opposed to getting to the verdict

03:01:12.920 | while first looking at the evidence.

03:01:15.100 | So the concept of it and the idea of it is so outlandish

03:01:19.400 | based on a certain type of position

03:01:21.800 | that you can't fully grasp it.

03:01:23.640 | You have to continue to beg the engine

03:01:25.780 | to tell you what the variation is.

03:01:28.040 | A move is only good if its extension is good.

03:01:30.920 | That's the way chess works.

03:01:32.480 | So it's like a move is good,

03:01:34.600 | it's because the computer has seen

03:01:36.320 | that the various branches of things going forward

03:01:39.280 | are also good.

03:01:40.280 | So you bring all that back.

03:01:41.340 | And no human could have even conceptualized

03:01:44.040 | that initial thing.

03:01:45.520 | But the second thing about computer moves is

03:01:47.800 | they look counterintuitive.

03:01:50.440 | So that's a, if you might be in a position

03:01:54.280 | where it looks like the demands of the position are A, B, C,

03:01:59.280 | and then the computer is like, nope, it's not

03:02:01.800 | because I've seen the future way more

03:02:03.320 | than you possibly could have.

03:02:04.280 | And I don't have emotions.

03:02:06.360 | (laughing)

03:02:07.200 | - So like dumb moves and brilliant moves can look similar.

03:02:10.840 | - Yes, and oftentimes do.

03:02:13.080 | And this is actually back to the Hans thing.

03:02:14.960 | A lot of people now dissecting these games they're playing

03:02:18.000 | and they're basically saying, like even Fabiano Caruana,

03:02:21.280 | one of the best players in the world

03:02:22.120 | was on his podcast yesterday basically saying,

03:02:25.480 | okay, this is beyond my level.

03:02:27.200 | Saying, it's out of my league.

03:02:29.080 | - Yeah.

03:02:29.920 | - What's out of your league?

03:02:30.740 | You played for the world championship.

03:02:31.580 | Can we get what, we can read between the lines, right?

03:02:33.480 | It's--

03:02:34.320 | - Is it possible that Hans is that level of genius?

03:02:36.760 | Is there like different kinds of genius?

03:02:41.760 | Like where one, you could be out of each other's league

03:02:46.760 | kind of thing?

03:02:48.200 | - Maybe.

03:02:49.120 | In the case of Magnus, it's understanding of end games.

03:02:52.840 | It's just somehow he understands that last phase

03:02:56.000 | of the game and the complexities

03:02:57.400 | and the problems he can pose better than anybody else.

03:02:59.440 | - So you can see Magnus do poor looking moves

03:03:04.440 | in the end game.

03:03:06.280 | - Or--

03:03:07.120 | - Like moves that don't fit what your gut says

03:03:11.360 | is would be the optimal.

03:03:13.900 | - Yes, but also, so it's not that you even think

03:03:18.200 | they're right.

03:03:19.040 | You just might not even consider them

03:03:21.280 | because of over-reliance on your own information

03:03:23.720 | or even the computer.

03:03:24.540 | That was what was going on in game six.

03:03:26.840 | Just kept doing things and kept playing

03:03:28.600 | and kept finding play and posing those questions

03:03:31.320 | that humans and computers could not understand.

03:03:34.280 | So he beat the engine basically.

03:03:36.360 | He wouldn't have beaten the engine

03:03:37.840 | 'cause it would have defended.

03:03:39.320 | Jan lost that game in the '90s move psychologically.

03:03:42.720 | He thought the game was over, so that contributed.

03:03:44.440 | Computer would have defended.

03:03:45.800 | - So by the time this podcast comes out,

03:03:47.880 | which I don't know, it would be in a week

03:03:49.140 | or something like that, I feel like more will happen.

03:03:51.800 | Let's see your predicting engine.

03:03:54.240 | How does this Hans drama end saga?

03:03:58.120 | Like let's look in three months.

03:04:02.200 | By the time we get to the next world championship,

03:04:04.480 | let's say, what are the options?

03:04:09.480 | Let's imagine, let's not say like what the probabilities are.

03:04:12.400 | What are the options?

03:04:13.460 | Chess.com is forced to or agrees to or whatever

03:04:19.560 | to come up with a huge amount of evidence

03:04:21.160 | of cheating in the past.

03:04:22.440 | Or Hans comes out.

03:04:27.000 | What can Hans do with this?

03:04:29.680 | So I'm uncomfortable with the general,

03:04:32.800 | Nick, you can maybe update me on this,

03:04:35.160 | but there was a little bit of an attack on him,

03:04:37.960 | a lot of an attack that he's a cheater, right?

03:04:41.680 | Without evidence, without clear conclusive evidence.

03:04:45.080 | - Physical evidence.

03:04:46.780 | - Physical evidence.

03:04:47.900 | So all of those.

03:04:49.280 | - Right, that's the tricky thing.

03:04:51.280 | - Yeah, so like that stuff we're talking about

03:04:53.960 | is beyond my level.

03:04:55.880 | That starts being kind of intuitive circumstantial evidence.

03:05:00.880 | - There's the statistical evidence

03:05:04.920 | behind the over the board games that he's played in 2020,

03:05:08.160 | 2021, where the games match what's called engine correlation

03:05:13.160 | more than Magnus and many other top grandmasters combined.

03:05:17.740 | But that can be argued is because he was very strong

03:05:22.080 | in playing weaker opposition.

03:05:23.480 | So there's always kind of this argument

03:05:25.200 | against statistics, right?

03:05:26.560 | There's the fact that the guy who Magnus name dropped,

03:05:30.040 | Maxim Blugi.

03:05:31.360 | Blugi is a chess grandmaster,

03:05:34.120 | and he's even been, I think,

03:05:35.360 | president of the US Chess Federation.

03:05:37.040 | I've played him in some Blitz games.

03:05:39.160 | It turns out, I wasn't even fully aware

03:05:41.440 | of the extent of this.

03:05:42.280 | He has been banned from chess.com.

03:05:44.880 | - For cheating.

03:05:45.700 | - For cheating.

03:05:46.540 | - Have they actually, has him and Hans actually worked?

03:05:49.400 | - Yes.

03:05:50.280 | So that was why he named dropped that, right?

03:05:51.840 | That's also not good.

03:05:53.600 | You see where this is getting,

03:05:55.320 | you still don't have the physical proof,

03:05:56.760 | but you have smoke.

03:05:59.180 | So I don't know how this ends.

03:06:01.680 | I don't know if this,

03:06:02.520 | if he denies it to the death

03:06:05.720 | and he ends up filing some sort of legal action,

03:06:08.920 | some sort of ethics complaint,

03:06:10.960 | or he admits everything.

03:06:12.160 | I don't know.

03:06:15.400 | - Boy, well, no matter what,

03:06:16.720 | I hope despite chess or not,

03:06:19.040 | that he's mentally strong enough for whatever is to come.

03:06:22.040 | - That's what I keep saying because I--

03:06:22.880 | - He's been under fire, right?

03:06:24.080 | - Yeah, I can't imagine, right?

03:06:25.400 | Like I just, I really can't imagine.

03:06:27.040 | And maybe, well, we just have too much compassion,

03:06:29.120 | but I don't think so.

03:06:29.960 | I really just feel like,

03:06:31.320 | at the end of the day, chess is just a game,

03:06:34.360 | but it is a game played by millions of people

03:06:37.720 | throughout history,

03:06:39.320 | and nations have basically fought wars over the chessboard.

03:06:43.460 | So like, there's a lot.

03:06:46.920 | It's like Olympics.

03:06:47.860 | Olympics is just a little,

03:06:49.120 | "Oh, this dude running and so on."

03:06:50.760 | Hockey is just a thing with a puck,

03:06:52.720 | and, but you know.

03:06:54.240 | It's also much more than that.

03:06:58.640 | It's also nations

03:07:01.480 | sort of figuring out their conflict

03:07:06.840 | in a way that doesn't involve violence.

03:07:09.440 | Yeah, it's a serious thing,

03:07:11.640 | and it's a thing that inspires millions of people,

03:07:16.360 | and it's a testing ground for intelligent systems

03:07:19.800 | that eventually take over human civilization.

03:07:23.640 | - Yeah, I know.

03:07:25.040 | - Yeah, I mean, the bots are really interesting.

03:07:27.640 | I don't know if there's other lessons.

03:07:28.960 | Like you played a clone of yourself.

03:07:31.600 | - Nah, it was.

03:07:32.440 | - You watched Stockfish versus Stockfish.

03:07:35.840 | You have a video.

03:07:37.600 | People should check out your channel.

03:07:38.440 | You have a lot of awesome videos.

03:07:39.840 | You have a video titled Stockfish versus Stockfish.

03:07:41.960 | - That was the experiment.

03:07:43.820 | I made them play each other.

03:07:45.760 | So I made them play--

03:07:46.600 | - What did you learn from that experiment?

03:07:49.640 | - Ah, I enjoyed, first of all, they will always make a draw.

03:07:53.240 | So engines don't get to play each other

03:07:55.320 | from a beginning position because they will always draw,

03:07:58.360 | especially if they're the same engine.

03:07:59.920 | So Stockfish 15, Stockfish 15,

03:08:01.440 | I don't think one side will ever beat the other, basically.

03:08:05.280 | But if you program them to play a certain opening position,

03:08:08.560 | according to chess theory,

03:08:10.360 | you get to see interesting ways into how they evaluate.

03:08:13.600 | One of the things, one of the ways that it played

03:08:15.480 | against the London opening was absurd.

03:08:18.120 | Like it just, it was completely ridiculous.

03:08:20.360 | Black sacrificed two pawns as early as move six,

03:08:23.080 | which is a borderline completely lost position.

03:08:25.820 | And then both sides foresaw that the only way white

03:08:29.440 | was gonna be able to use that material advantage

03:08:32.080 | was to give it back and stabilize their own position.

03:08:35.120 | Like black just got a crazy attack.

03:08:37.640 | Jesus Christ, this is crazy.

03:08:40.080 | But they drew them and they ended up drawing.

03:08:41.360 | So I'm also gonna make them play against each other

03:08:44.400 | in either bad openings

03:08:47.240 | or like some of the most popular gambits,

03:08:49.280 | looking at something like that.

03:08:52.400 | And the way I'm gonna do this is basically say,

03:08:55.680 | which chess gambits are the best?

03:08:58.320 | And the way I'm gonna do that is,

03:09:00.120 | theoretically, the engine should be able to beat a gambit

03:09:03.800 | because a gambit is very rarely blessed by the computer.

03:09:07.460 | So if the computer cannot beat that gambit,

03:09:12.000 | that means it's good.

03:09:13.600 | That means it's not losing.

03:09:14.440 | If it's a completely lost gambit, it will beat it.

03:09:17.360 | But if it draws, despite getting that early disadvantage,

03:09:21.300 | then that means the gambit is very reliable

03:09:23.200 | and you can play it.

03:09:24.440 | - So that's a good way to evaluate opening games.

03:09:27.640 | - Yeah.

03:09:29.200 | - What's the best?

03:09:30.240 | What's your favorite opening?

03:09:31.680 | Or what openings do you like?

03:09:36.000 | - There was an opening that got me back into chess

03:09:39.760 | when I was 15.

03:09:40.600 | I had quit for like three years

03:09:41.800 | and I went to my friend's house

03:09:43.080 | and he had a book by Lars Skendorf,

03:09:46.640 | a Danish grandmaster called "The Karakhan Defense,"

03:09:49.600 | which is C6.

03:09:51.840 | - Do you want white or do you want black?

03:09:53.520 | Do you wanna show the opening?

03:09:55.040 | - This is the opening.

03:09:56.360 | - That's it. - "The Karakhan Defense."

03:09:57.180 | So you play, before I play C6, I have to play black.

03:10:00.200 | - That's it.

03:10:01.040 | - Yeah, and we develop from here.

03:10:03.680 | I put my D points.

03:10:04.520 | - But what counts as an opening?

03:10:07.080 | Okay, but the development, does the development matter?

03:10:10.760 | - Yeah, so from here,

03:10:11.640 | the development goes into the variations of the Karakhan.

03:10:14.400 | So this is the Karakhan.

03:10:16.360 | Like you can be in a city,

03:10:17.840 | but then you can be in neighborhoods.

03:10:19.680 | - That's a very non-dramatic, okay.

03:10:21.880 | - Yeah.

03:10:23.000 | Two pawns in the center.

03:10:24.200 | So that's called the Breyer variation.

03:10:26.040 | - So what's a good thing for me?

03:10:28.360 | - Two squares, yeah.

03:10:29.200 | If you can put two pawns in the center, yeah, you should.

03:10:31.400 | And then--

03:10:32.240 | - So that's a good thing.

03:10:33.060 | - Yes, and then I will go here.

03:10:34.560 | And now you have to decide what you're gonna do

03:10:36.120 | with your center pawn.

03:10:37.880 | You can push, take, or defend it.

03:10:40.320 | - And push, take, or defend, right.

03:10:43.600 | - Yeah.

03:10:44.440 | - What would you suggest?

03:10:45.840 | Take is the worst?

03:10:47.400 | - Take is just stable, so we just trade.

03:10:49.480 | But pushing is considered the best,

03:10:51.960 | advancing and taking my space away from me.

03:10:55.000 | So I think alpha zero or stockfish

03:10:57.040 | would probably always push.

03:10:59.240 | - Push.

03:11:00.080 | - And now there's something called like

03:11:02.560 | the main line or the sideline.

03:11:04.000 | Main line is what's the most popular played at all levels,

03:11:06.320 | which is moving the bishop here.

03:11:08.160 | I've played this a lot.

03:11:09.520 | But for beginners, and intermediate players,

03:11:12.880 | this is why I love this opening so much.

03:11:14.600 | On move three, black already has a plus score,

03:11:17.520 | which is crazy.

03:11:19.960 | It's not supposed to happen.

03:11:21.360 | And there's this very tricky second most popular move,

03:11:24.480 | which is undermining your center,

03:11:25.800 | trying to get you to take my free pawn,

03:11:27.800 | but destabilize and leave both of them kind of hanging.

03:11:30.800 | - Is that why the plus score?

03:11:34.400 | Is because you're susceptible to the destabilization?

03:11:37.840 | - Yes, because people at 99% of the rating ladder

03:11:42.040 | do not understand how to deal with what's coming basically.

03:11:45.480 | They don't know how to deal with a structural attack.

03:11:49.000 | - So would stockfish try to defend the pawn here

03:11:51.880 | and keep the structure?

03:11:52.720 | - No, it would take the pawn and tell you to go fuck yourself.

03:11:54.640 | - Oh.

03:11:55.480 | (laughing)

03:11:56.320 | I knew that.

03:11:57.160 | 'Cause I am 3,400.

03:11:58.200 | - Right.

03:11:59.040 | It would take the pawn and be like, all right, win it back.

03:12:02.000 | And even if you did, you would suffer.

03:12:03.920 | It would make you win it back in the most annoying way.

03:12:05.600 | It would make you tie your shoes together.

03:12:06.920 | And block it.

03:12:08.400 | - So I, like as stockfish, I would take.

03:12:10.960 | - Yes.

03:12:11.800 | That's the best move.

03:12:12.880 | - That's the best move.

03:12:13.720 | - But not at 99% of the rating ladder, which is funny.

03:12:18.040 | - Interesting.

03:12:18.880 | But you like to play this.

03:12:23.120 | - I play this against GMs.

03:12:24.800 | I play both.

03:12:25.640 | I move my bishop.

03:12:26.480 | I push the-

03:12:27.400 | - What are the different ways it evolves?

03:12:29.400 | Like then the rest doesn't matter.

03:12:30.720 | So this is just like a pawn structure thing.

03:12:33.640 | - Yeah.

03:12:34.480 | And I mean, it, again-

03:12:35.320 | - How deep are most openings?

03:12:37.320 | So it's anywhere from like two moves

03:12:39.080 | to like 10 moves kind of thing?

03:12:40.400 | - Yeah.

03:12:41.240 | You can be out of theory very, very quickly.

03:12:43.000 | Two move, two move, three.

03:12:44.120 | Like basically on your own, you have a general idea,

03:12:46.480 | but you don't remember games.

03:12:47.680 | I mean, I know Caro-Kann games from start to finish

03:12:51.000 | because I've played it since 2011.

03:12:53.240 | - So you know all the different branches

03:12:54.680 | that goes with that down.

03:12:55.600 | - Yeah.

03:12:56.440 | I think I know every opening in chess, basically.

03:12:58.920 | I think most title players know every opening,

03:13:02.600 | but we don't know, we can't play it competitively

03:13:05.360 | because we'd be, but-

03:13:06.880 | - What are some of the weirder openings

03:13:08.920 | that like slightly suboptimal, but might be explored?

03:13:13.920 | Like Magnus might play them

03:13:19.640 | just to fuck with the opponent.

03:13:21.200 | - He played something recently actually

03:13:23.320 | against this German prodigy, Vincent Keimer,

03:13:26.600 | which was a specific move order

03:13:31.240 | in a very popular opening.

03:13:33.360 | So it was basically a position

03:13:34.520 | that had been reached thousands of times,

03:13:36.300 | but the move order Magnus chose with white

03:13:39.860 | was played maybe 0.05% of the time,

03:13:43.800 | which is crazy, it's thousands of games.

03:13:46.040 | And it's supposed to be not good,

03:13:47.720 | meaning it allows black to equalize

03:13:49.840 | 'cause that's what black is going for.

03:13:51.840 | Not winning the game, but equalizing 'cause you go second.

03:13:55.240 | Magnus says, "I don't care about equalizing.

03:13:57.320 | I just want a position.

03:13:58.160 | I don't want my opponent to know the answers to the test."

03:14:01.660 | - That's so interesting.

03:14:04.720 | 'Cause it also fucks you psychologically.

03:14:06.600 | It throws you off and just always keep you on your toes.

03:14:09.680 | He's in a weird position,

03:14:10.840 | but he also has the advantage of being able to intimidate.

03:14:13.760 | I wonder how many people,

03:14:16.280 | how much is that a role of it?

03:14:19.240 | Like being scared of the other person?

03:14:21.240 | - It's a huge role, I think.

03:14:22.720 | I think some of the top guys would deny it,

03:14:24.320 | but you know when you're in the seventh hour

03:14:27.280 | and you're playing Magnus,

03:14:29.080 | it's a very different feeling than some of the other.

03:14:31.480 | When Magnus is messing around in the opening,

03:14:33.360 | it's very different than another person

03:14:35.480 | messing around in the opening.

03:14:36.600 | You just kind of like expect for something to be there.

03:14:41.600 | We'll see if it translates to poker for him,

03:14:44.520 | but I think he gets a little bit maybe less respect

03:14:47.100 | in the poker world.

03:14:47.940 | In the chess world, he's sort of alpha.

03:14:49.120 | - He gets a lot of respect.

03:14:50.160 | I just talked to Daniel Negreanu.

03:14:51.800 | The only person that doesn't respect Magnus Carlsen

03:14:57.200 | honestly either in chess or poker is Magnus Carlsen.

03:15:00.280 | - I was gonna say Hans Niemann.

03:15:01.440 | (laughing)

03:15:02.680 | - That's true.

03:15:03.520 | But like Magnus is hilarious.

03:15:05.680 | I mean, when he talks about his rating,

03:15:07.080 | he's like, "It was pretty good."

03:15:08.440 | When he talks about how good he is at poker,

03:15:10.280 | "I suck."

03:15:11.720 | But I think that self-critical view,

03:15:15.000 | I think he honestly believes to a degree

03:15:19.000 | is probably part of the engine that fuels him

03:15:22.240 | to get better and better and better and better.

03:15:23.760 | - Yeah, but what I'm saying is if you're face-to-face

03:15:26.280 | with Magnus at a chess board,

03:15:27.240 | it's not the same as being in a nine-handed poker table

03:15:29.440 | with him.

03:15:30.280 | You kind of keep an eye on him maybe

03:15:31.240 | and then he's a mysterious guy,

03:15:32.720 | but chess is different 'cause you're like,

03:15:34.520 | "This is the man."

03:15:36.120 | - Yeah, there's very few people.

03:15:37.760 | Yeah, so in poker, they talk about Phil Ivey that way.

03:15:41.080 | - Yeah, yeah, yeah.

03:15:41.920 | - As like this super intimidating.

03:15:43.400 | I think that's,

03:15:45.120 | it's probably harder to intimidate in poker.

03:15:49.860 | Actually, I don't know.

03:15:52.560 | I don't know.

03:15:53.400 | There's something intimidating about

03:15:56.320 | excellence in a deterministic game

03:15:59.720 | that's just terrifying.

03:16:00.920 | I mean, it's like playing stockfish.

03:16:04.080 | You're fucked.

03:16:06.400 | This thing will suffocate you,

03:16:08.600 | and especially when it makes moves

03:16:11.400 | that you don't understand.

03:16:12.700 | To me, the most beautiful thing, honestly,

03:16:15.360 | is the sacrifices that the engines do.

03:16:19.360 | It's such a fuck you.

03:16:23.560 | Like I could sacrifice pieces,

03:16:25.760 | and I'll get 'em back, and I'll get 'em back more,

03:16:27.800 | and I could look--

03:16:28.640 | - I don't even have to get them back.

03:16:30.120 | Your position is so bad, I gave you full material,

03:16:32.720 | and there's nothing you can do about it, yeah.

03:16:34.600 | - That's terrifying.

03:16:35.880 | - Yeah.

03:16:36.720 | - That's terrifying.

03:16:37.560 | That transfers to AI systems in general,

03:16:40.800 | like a system that plays weak

03:16:45.040 | just to fool you.

03:16:52.080 | For people who are trying to get better at chess,

03:16:55.760 | beginners or at any stage of their development,

03:16:58.800 | what advice would you give about getting better?

03:17:01.280 | Except watch your channel.

03:17:05.080 | - Yeah, of course, watch my videos.

03:17:06.720 | Check out Chessly.com.

03:17:08.080 | That's where we're gonna scale the courses to.

03:17:10.380 | But no, on a serious note,

03:17:13.960 | you have to be prepared to lose way more than win.

03:17:17.720 | My mom gave me advice when I was maybe 13 or 14,

03:17:22.680 | and I just discovered that I liked girls.

03:17:26.200 | She said, "You're gonna get a lot more no's in life

03:17:28.760 | "than yeses."

03:17:29.720 | That even happened with my wife, actually.

03:17:33.040 | Our whole journey is quite fascinating.

03:17:35.800 | - It's paved with rejection?

03:17:37.400 | - Paved with, yes, various ghostings

03:17:40.680 | over the course of years,

03:17:41.680 | but we got married, and we love each other very much,

03:17:43.800 | so it's a wonderful tale.

03:17:47.160 | But it's the same in chess.

03:17:49.720 | You're gonna lose a lot,

03:17:51.400 | and you have to be, for adults, I noticed,

03:17:55.200 | kids and adults learn chess very differently.

03:17:56.720 | Kids yell out in class, and they're very excited,

03:17:59.440 | and they don't realize how many times

03:18:00.520 | they get something wrong.

03:18:01.960 | Adults never wanna talk during lessons,

03:18:04.800 | 'cause they're afraid of being wrong.

03:18:06.200 | Adults will preface correct answers

03:18:07.920 | with, "This is probably wrong,"

03:18:09.600 | but shut up, you're paying for a private lesson.

03:18:14.000 | This is the place to be wrong.

03:18:16.200 | So adults especially think that being dominant

03:18:19.240 | in a career where they've dedicated

03:18:21.600 | a lot of their brain power,

03:18:22.760 | a lot of their work ethic,

03:18:23.920 | and a lot of their study time,

03:18:25.040 | it's gonna translate to chess.

03:18:26.280 | They do it to their own kids.

03:18:27.520 | They helicopter their own kids,

03:18:28.600 | 'cause they try to apply a lot of the same stuff.

03:18:31.640 | Studying chess is different than studying anything else.

03:18:34.600 | Anything else.

03:18:35.440 | Same could be argued for martial arts, I guess, but--

03:18:39.280 | - Yeah, 100%.

03:18:40.120 | You have to have a beginner's mind,

03:18:41.400 | and what that actually means is sucking

03:18:43.880 | in every aspect of the game,

03:18:46.040 | and studying all the interesting ways in which you suck.

03:18:49.360 | - And you will realize you get better

03:18:51.880 | without actually trying to get better.

03:18:53.440 | I show up to the boxing gym one day,

03:18:54.840 | I move my hips better.

03:18:56.320 | And I would do shadow boxing,

03:18:58.280 | sensei goes, "You're moving your feet better today.

03:19:00.280 | "You got better."

03:19:01.120 | I'm like, "I didn't practice footwork."

03:19:02.720 | Your brain just starts putting it all together randomly.

03:19:05.480 | You might study a shitload and still lose 100 points.

03:19:08.280 | If you're gonna study chess,

03:19:09.680 | oh, and for fuck's sake,

03:19:10.800 | this is the only activity where people go in going,

03:19:14.120 | "How much do I have to work to be a grandmaster?"

03:19:16.600 | Nowhere else in my life have I ever seen someone

03:19:18.560 | try to pick up a hobby and wanna be the top-ranking level.

03:19:21.920 | Only in chess.

03:19:23.400 | - You're right, but for example,

03:19:26.120 | when I, like grappling sports,

03:19:28.280 | I'll see people come to a gym and basically ask,

03:19:32.080 | how long before I can get into the UFC, right?

03:19:35.760 | But UFC champion is different.

03:19:38.000 | I mean, no, grandmaster is equivalent

03:19:39.680 | to getting into the UFC.

03:19:42.760 | - I guess, yeah.

03:19:44.440 | - But people quickly realize when the 110-pound girl

03:19:48.480 | taps them out over and over,

03:19:49.720 | and they're a 230-pound ripped dude,

03:19:54.480 | they realize, okay, this is an art, this is a journey.

03:19:58.160 | And I think if you resist the lessons

03:20:01.260 | that failure teaches you, that's when you don't grow.

03:20:03.400 | So just relax.

03:20:06.280 | And one of the things you have to learn,

03:20:08.120 | probably applies to chess too,

03:20:09.920 | is to know how to relax your body, your mind.

03:20:13.360 | And just like, there's something about,

03:20:16.520 | just like you said, if you don't resist it,

03:20:19.520 | if you relax, then your body, your mind

03:20:22.680 | will learn the way of this game.

03:20:24.720 | And probably add to that is just put a lot of hours in

03:20:31.000 | of having fun.

03:20:32.240 | But then on that Perpetual Chess Podcast,

03:20:36.720 | I listened to somebody that say,

03:20:38.880 | it doesn't, like puzzles, none of that,

03:20:40.520 | what matters is the number of hours you spend

03:20:43.160 | kind of suffering.

03:20:44.220 | Meaning like thinking deeply.

03:20:47.080 | Like straining, like thinking with your mind,

03:20:51.840 | like really working hard.

03:20:53.040 | And then you have the Magnus who says,

03:20:56.500 | no, what matters is the number of hours

03:20:58.240 | you spend having fun.

03:20:59.380 | - Yeah, it's a mix, it's a mix.

03:21:02.600 | He's right, I don't quite agree with suffering,

03:21:05.000 | but I think people do a lot of fake learning.

03:21:07.800 | They play speed games, they just go through tactics.

03:21:12.120 | So, okay, I have to do 20 tactics.

03:21:13.900 | Okay, boop, wrong, next one.

03:21:16.440 | I used to tell my students, you need to do 10 puzzles

03:21:21.320 | and you need to get 100% correct.

03:21:23.480 | I don't care how long it takes.

03:21:25.280 | So I suppose that kind of is like the suffering theory.

03:21:28.820 | But if you do 30 puzzles and you get eight correct,

03:21:33.080 | what even is that?

03:21:35.240 | That's laughable in the correct amount of,

03:21:40.240 | what is it, 29%, I don't know, but 26%.

03:21:43.960 | You can't do that, you have to get things right

03:21:46.120 | and that's the only way you're actually--

03:21:47.320 | - And that requires like thinking deeply

03:21:48.800 | and like really struggling.

03:21:50.200 | Especially if you're doing the puzzles at the level

03:21:51.980 | that that's your level.

03:21:54.360 | - I've done a puzzle for an hour before

03:21:57.200 | 'cause I was so stubborn.

03:21:58.840 | I didn't wanna just put in a wrong answer.

03:22:00.680 | - Yeah, the guy I was listening to said like, that's good.

03:22:03.960 | You should do that.

03:22:04.800 | - That would be for me.

03:22:05.620 | And the same with blindfold chess, I have to say.

03:22:07.440 | Like my blindfold skills, I never practice.

03:22:09.560 | I just, I can visualize the board quite well.

03:22:11.880 | I've played, at most I've played four games blindfolded

03:22:16.200 | at the same time.

03:22:17.280 | That sucks, that just feels horrible in the brain afterward.

03:22:19.720 | But like I can play four simultaneous games.

03:22:23.280 | - Blindfolded?

03:22:24.120 | - Yeah.

03:22:24.940 | - What's that take to do that?

03:22:25.840 | - I don't know.

03:22:26.680 | And I get asked that all the time.

03:22:27.720 | How do I practice?

03:22:28.560 | Why the fuck would you do that to yourself?

03:22:31.320 | There's no need.

03:22:32.160 | - It's a good party trick.

03:22:33.000 | - It is, yes, it is.

03:22:34.800 | The video of Magnus doing it in Columbus Circle

03:22:37.080 | on YouTube has like, I don't know how many views.

03:22:40.160 | I did it live with an announcer.

03:22:42.040 | I can't imagine how chaotic that was,

03:22:43.600 | but he, yeah, it's a great party trick.

03:22:46.720 | - Yeah.

03:22:47.720 | Oh, there is a Reddit thing.

03:22:49.560 | I forgot to ask Magnus, but they asked me to ask him

03:22:53.360 | 'cause they moved the wrong piece.

03:22:55.240 | - Yes.

03:22:56.360 | And then somehow he remembered.

03:22:57.640 | I don't know how that happened, I have to tell you.

03:23:00.600 | - I kind of presume that he figured out

03:23:03.920 | from the way the other person was moving

03:23:05.880 | that they moved the wrong piece.

03:23:07.840 | Yeah, I forgot to ask him that.

03:23:09.320 | - Yeah.

03:23:10.160 | - Why did I forget?

03:23:11.000 | I mean, my memory sucks.

03:23:12.320 | You said, you know, ups and downs in your childhood,

03:23:18.760 | a little rough sometimes.

03:23:20.040 | Also, you get attacked by the beautiful,

03:23:23.000 | wonderful people on the internet.

03:23:24.680 | - Sure.

03:23:25.520 | - So sometimes it's difficult.

03:23:26.600 | What's been the lowest point that you've ever gone to

03:23:30.200 | in your mind?

03:23:31.040 | - In my career or in my life?

03:23:35.000 | - In your life, in your career and everything, your mind.

03:23:37.760 | So have you ever been depressed?

03:23:40.160 | - For sure, yes.

03:23:43.400 | - How did you, like if you can remember moments,

03:23:46.600 | how did you overcome that?

03:23:48.800 | - Well, I will share two anecdotes.

03:23:53.480 | One, when I was,

03:23:57.440 | May 2012, so I was 16 and a half

03:24:01.160 | and I was living in a household situation

03:24:07.160 | where I thought nobody knew what was going on basically

03:24:14.200 | without sharing obviously extremely personal details,

03:24:18.800 | like what was going on except me.

03:24:20.440 | And I confided in my grandmother.

03:24:25.760 | I was, imagine living in a house

03:24:30.120 | where you basically feel like a prisoner.

03:24:32.080 | You don't wanna interact with anybody in the house.

03:24:33.960 | You don't know how you're supposed to bring these things up.

03:24:36.400 | Of course, this sounds extremely vague

03:24:38.520 | and I just don't, I don't feel like exposing

03:24:41.600 | all of my entire family drama to the audience,

03:24:43.900 | but I lived this way for probably something like

03:24:48.640 | eight months, I don't know, something ridiculous.

03:24:52.120 | It was the junior year of high school.

03:24:53.920 | So I was supposed to take my SATs.

03:24:56.000 | That was the year I was supposed to finish up

03:24:58.200 | my portfolio for college 'cause you only get really

03:25:00.760 | a few months of senior year to start applying.

03:25:02.560 | It was a nightmare, complete nightmare.

03:25:05.400 | And I don't know how I got through it.

03:25:09.060 | Time went by, I listened to sad music

03:25:12.080 | and tried to spend as little time at home as possible.

03:25:14.000 | I would pretend to fall asleep at my friend's houses

03:25:16.480 | so that my mom was like, "You coming for dinner?"

03:25:19.040 | And I would just pretend to be asleep.

03:25:21.080 | - So it was just a grind.

03:25:22.640 | - Yeah, yeah, it was a grind.

03:25:24.160 | I don't remember a whole lot from that period,

03:25:26.960 | just sort of finding what made me happy

03:25:30.640 | and trying to focus on it.

03:25:33.080 | And I was a teenager in the house.

03:25:34.480 | I wasn't gonna run away.

03:25:35.460 | I still had a roof over my head.

03:25:36.640 | So I'm not saying I had it better or worse than others.

03:25:40.320 | I just had it different.

03:25:42.320 | And actually recently, this is much more on my memory.

03:25:45.580 | I more or less tore up a very happy life

03:25:52.580 | my wife and I had.

03:25:54.000 | And I've talked about this in bursts on stream,

03:25:58.120 | but essentially what happened was

03:25:59.920 | we had just been living in,

03:26:06.480 | it's actually funny that the way we got into this apartment

03:26:08.560 | was also very bad,

03:26:09.840 | but we were living in just a very nice little apartment,

03:26:13.160 | like high-rise apartment, safe.

03:26:14.680 | And the reason we moved into a high-rise

03:26:16.000 | was because we had lived in a house for two weeks

03:26:18.240 | that got broken into.

03:26:19.920 | Not because of who I am,

03:26:21.800 | but because we suspect we had people moving in mattresses

03:26:25.200 | and they went, "Oh shit, these two people live here?

03:26:28.000 | "That's it?"

03:26:29.420 | And basically there was three apartments.

03:26:31.620 | My upstairs neighbor let in somebody

03:26:33.360 | that they didn't expect.

03:26:35.300 | And the guy cracked our door open with a crowbar.

03:26:37.520 | Thank God that was the first day.

03:26:39.080 | In two years, my wife went to work.

03:26:40.840 | Did they know?

03:26:43.080 | Did they not know?

03:26:43.960 | I don't know.

03:26:45.020 | Everything happens for a reason.

03:26:46.620 | - So nobody got hurt.

03:26:48.520 | - Hmm?

03:26:49.360 | - Nobody got hurt. - Nobody got hurt.

03:26:50.180 | - They stole some couple of important things,

03:26:54.280 | but nobody was hurt.

03:26:56.080 | And the cops did nothing.

03:26:57.320 | - So you moved into a high-rise.

03:27:01.200 | - We moved into a high-rise.

03:27:02.040 | - In New York?

03:27:02.860 | - Yeah, in New York.

03:27:03.700 | For safety and we're away from things

03:27:06.060 | and we have our own nice little nook.

03:27:08.580 | And somewhere some months into it,

03:27:10.540 | I started hearing noises from above our neighbors.

03:27:14.880 | And it started in the morning, 7 a.m.

03:27:17.560 | It started in the afternoon.

03:27:19.460 | And I picked up on it.

03:27:22.440 | And I expected it every day for weeks.

03:27:25.440 | Then it was driving me crazy.

03:27:27.920 | And I was like, okay, we're gonna go have

03:27:29.440 | a civil conversation with whosoever up there.

03:27:31.320 | Sounds like kids.

03:27:32.200 | So we go knock.

03:27:34.360 | Lady gas lit the shit out of us.

03:27:35.780 | I've never been gas lit that hard in my life.

03:27:37.160 | She went, "Noise, what noise?"

03:27:38.480 | It's probably our other neighbor, who's a boxer.

03:27:41.440 | I was like, "Lady, you have kids.

03:27:43.960 | "We can hear you through the vents.

03:27:45.560 | "You're talking to your kids."

03:27:47.640 | Went to the front desk of the building.

03:27:48.960 | They did nothing.

03:27:49.800 | Went to the leasing office.

03:27:50.620 | They did nothing.

03:27:51.460 | And basically over time, it just was driving me nuts.

03:27:53.520 | It was, back to the stubbornness thing,

03:27:56.240 | I decided we were leaving.

03:27:59.240 | We were going to live somewhere there was no noise.

03:28:01.500 | 'Cause we can't beat these people.

03:28:02.960 | There's nothing we can do, right?

03:28:05.100 | And my wife, I dragged her around

03:28:08.440 | to a bunch of different viewings.

03:28:09.520 | I was dead set.

03:28:10.360 | I decided I was completely miserable.

03:28:13.600 | And we found a house to rent, a nice house.

03:28:17.200 | Family had just moved away.

03:28:18.600 | House, standalone house, not gonna have neighbors.

03:28:21.920 | But wife decided that, not wife decided,

03:28:24.880 | we decided that it's too big.

03:28:26.640 | It's too big for us.

03:28:27.560 | So we're gonna get a dog.

03:28:28.400 | We always wanted an animal, so we're gonna get a dog.

03:28:31.760 | So we get an absolute lunatic puppy

03:28:33.640 | who just doesn't let us sleep at all.

03:28:35.840 | This is on top of everything else,

03:28:37.160 | the mental health crisis that's going on.

03:28:39.160 | And the day we are moving to this house,

03:28:41.480 | I realized I fuck up.

03:28:44.200 | Like I realized that this whole thing was in my head

03:28:47.340 | and I don't wanna leave.

03:28:49.140 | I don't wanna leave.

03:28:50.480 | This could have all been avoided.

03:28:52.560 | And the guilt and resentment, I didn't wanna exist.

03:28:55.260 | Like it's not that I, it wasn't suicide,

03:28:57.380 | but you know the feeling of just,

03:28:59.360 | you want to just observe yourself from a distance.

03:29:02.520 | And I couldn't sleep.

03:29:04.120 | I thought my wife was gonna leave me.

03:29:05.760 | Like this is the way, and that's what anxiety does.

03:29:07.900 | It also takes everything you feel to an absolute dread.

03:29:10.640 | And that I experienced for a good chunk of two weeks.

03:29:16.560 | And then we kind of settled down

03:29:17.760 | and decided like we're gonna live.

03:29:19.400 | - Did you tell her about it?

03:29:20.240 | Like were you able to talk through it?

03:29:21.920 | - Yeah, yeah.

03:29:22.760 | I, yeah.

03:29:25.160 | - Does she know the levels of madness

03:29:27.200 | that could be inside your mind?

03:29:28.600 | - I don't know if she'll ever know,

03:29:29.520 | but I tried to tell her that.

03:29:30.920 | And--

03:29:31.960 | - Give glimpses.

03:29:32.800 | - Yes.

03:29:33.620 | - I'm not sure you'll ever know.

03:29:34.840 | I kind of took point.

03:29:36.360 | - Yeah, I tried to, that's why I try to keep busy.

03:29:38.980 | But that was the darkest it got.

03:29:40.720 | And yet through all of that, I went on stream every day.

03:29:43.000 | I made YouTube videos every day.

03:29:44.360 | Like I understood that I had a job to do,

03:29:46.640 | and I did it, and I talked about it here and there.

03:29:49.300 | But that was the worst that ever got

03:29:51.340 | because I'm learning that the emotions I experience

03:29:56.340 | are guilt, remorse, and your brain just goes in circles,

03:30:01.960 | basically, about things that you've done or haven't done.

03:30:04.360 | - It's funny 'cause noise can do that also.

03:30:07.400 | So the noise was real, but it was building in your head.

03:30:10.600 | - Yeah.

03:30:11.440 | So--

03:30:13.960 | - I try to, I actually, it's kind of funny

03:30:17.320 | because I like to focus deeply.

03:30:18.840 | And I'll have like sources of noise.

03:30:21.160 | I've tried to teach myself over time.

03:30:23.320 | I'll go to like coffee shops and stuff to like,

03:30:25.880 | I like, I almost try to put myself

03:30:27.940 | next to annoying situations.

03:30:29.400 | So I get like trained.

03:30:31.280 | Really, maybe I should do that.

03:30:33.200 | But it's a certain point, at the same time,

03:30:36.040 | I've gotten to hang out with certain people,

03:30:38.080 | especially in LA, they're like in the middle of nowhere,

03:30:41.080 | like in Malibu or something.

03:30:42.360 | And it's like that quiet.

03:30:44.640 | - Can you hear your ears ringing it's so quiet?

03:30:46.920 | - Basically. - Yeah.

03:30:47.880 | - And it's like, holy shit, this is a good way

03:30:50.520 | if you wanna write something or create something.

03:30:52.840 | This is like super quiet.

03:30:54.680 | - So my mom does, my mom's a science,

03:30:57.120 | journalist, science author.

03:30:58.320 | She just published her first book, actually,

03:31:00.520 | on poop, of all things, yeah.

03:31:03.120 | Fecal, the waste management.

03:31:05.720 | It's actually a very fascinating concept

03:31:07.720 | and look through history.

03:31:09.200 | And she would do that.

03:31:10.240 | She goes to complete solitude.

03:31:12.080 | - Yeah. - And she writes, yeah.

03:31:14.680 | - It's beautiful, no sirens.

03:31:16.600 | I mean, New York is the opposite of that.

03:31:17.920 | So you've brought it, you brought it on yourself.

03:31:22.920 | - I've lived there for 20 years.

03:31:26.240 | - Has it been tough going on stream

03:31:29.480 | to put on the face of happiness through that?

03:31:32.000 | - Yeah, yes, but I find my ways to have moments

03:31:37.000 | where I can talk about it.

03:31:39.520 | If it's on a stream, I don't get 10,000 live viewers,

03:31:42.720 | so it's very different.

03:31:44.280 | If I stream late night, I get 1,500, 2,000 viewers.

03:31:47.920 | I used to care a lot more about viewers on stream,

03:31:50.680 | but I've basically invested fully in YouTube,

03:31:52.880 | so that's kind of the way I--

03:31:54.800 | - And I think, I don't know, maybe you can correct me,

03:31:56.920 | but I think people appreciate the human being

03:32:00.960 | behind the chess streamer.

03:32:04.040 | - I think so, I think so.

03:32:05.600 | I think a lot of people, not in the chess world,

03:32:08.600 | but just a lot of people, they put on a persona,

03:32:11.480 | and just in general, social media's the highlights

03:32:13.400 | of your life, or the lowlights,

03:32:15.320 | just as long as they're dramatic.

03:32:17.480 | But I try to be very open and honest.

03:32:21.040 | When I'm tired, I'm tired.

03:32:22.240 | It's what makes my recaps of my tournaments,

03:32:24.860 | I think, so real.

03:32:26.480 | - Yeah, man, you're an incredible person.

03:32:27.880 | I've been a fan for a long time.

03:32:29.280 | It's kind of funny that we connected,

03:32:31.240 | and we got a chance to talk.

03:32:33.400 | Please, please keep creating, keep teaching people.

03:32:36.640 | - For now, I'm not going anywhere.

03:32:38.240 | (laughing)

03:32:39.280 | - Well, it could end at any moment, as we talked about.

03:32:44.280 | So yeah, thank you so much for talking today, man.

03:32:46.840 | Thank you for everything you do.

03:32:47.920 | It was an honor.

03:32:49.120 | - It was great.

03:32:49.960 | Thanks for having me on.

03:32:51.640 | - Thanks for listening to this conversation

03:32:53.200 | with Levi Rosman.

03:32:54.360 | To support this podcast,

03:32:55.600 | please check out our sponsors in the description.

03:32:58.400 | And now, let me leave you with some words

03:33:00.480 | from Irving Cherneff.

03:33:02.040 | Every chess master was once a beginner.

03:33:06.880 | Thank you for listening, and hope to see you next time.

03:33:10.240 | (upbeat music)

03:33:12.840 | (upbeat music)

03:33:15.440 | [BLANK_AUDIO]

GothamChess: Hans Niemann, Magnus Carlsen, Cheating Scandal & Chess Bots | Lex Fridman Podcast #327

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