Hikaru Nakamura: Chess, Magnus, Kasparov, and the Psychology of Greatness

00:00:00.000 | You and Magnus played a private game,

00:00:03.200 | 40 games of Blitz in 2010 in Moscow at a hotel.

00:00:08.200 | This sounds and just feels legendary.

00:00:10.960 | - The reason that I probably should not have agreed

00:00:13.080 | to play this match and why I very oftentimes reference it

00:00:15.960 | as one of the biggest mistakes

00:00:18.040 | in terms of competitive chess that I made

00:00:20.520 | is specifically because it gave Magnus a chance

00:00:22.880 | to understand my style of chess.

00:00:24.960 | - Are you and Magnus friends, enemies, frenemies,

00:00:30.800 | what's the status of the relationship?

00:00:33.440 | - Yeah, I think with all the rivalries in chess,

00:00:36.000 | everybody tries to hype it up like everyone hates each other.

00:00:39.440 | But the thing is at the end of the day,

00:00:41.200 | yes, we're very competitive.

00:00:42.480 | We wanna beat each other,

00:00:43.440 | whether it's myself or Magnus or other top players.

00:00:46.880 | But we also realize that it's a very small world.

00:00:49.080 | Like a lot of us are able to make a living

00:00:50.960 | playing the game as professionals.

00:00:52.440 | And as I alluded to earlier,

00:00:54.520 | the top 20 to 30 players can make a living.

00:00:56.680 | So even though we're competitive against each other,

00:00:58.480 | we wanna beat each other.

00:00:59.800 | There is a certain level of respect that we have,

00:01:02.080 | and there is a sort of brotherhood, I would say.

00:01:04.720 | So all of us are, I would say, frenemies.

00:01:07.200 | - The following is a conversation

00:01:11.400 | with Ikaro Nakamura, a chess super grandmaster.

00:01:15.200 | He's one of the greatest chess players in the world,

00:01:17.600 | including currently being ranked world number one

00:01:20.440 | in Blitz Chess.

00:01:22.080 | He's also one of the most popular chess streamers

00:01:24.920 | on Twitch and YouTube, which you should definitely check out.

00:01:28.640 | His channel's name on both is GM Ikaro.

00:01:32.600 | This is the Lux Rhythm Podcast.

00:01:34.360 | To support it, please check out our sponsors

00:01:36.360 | in the description.

00:01:37.600 | And now, dear friends, here's Ikaro Nakamura.

00:01:42.000 | You and Magnus played a private game,

00:01:45.160 | 40 games of Blitz in 2010 in Moscow at a hotel.

00:01:50.160 | This sounds and just feels legendary.

00:01:53.280 | Final score was 24 and a half to 15 and a half for Magnus.

00:01:56.720 | Where'd you find out the score?

00:01:57.920 | I'm actually curious.

00:01:58.760 | I don't think it was publicly said

00:02:00.360 | or it was very briefly said,

00:02:01.760 | but it wasn't ever mentioned in a serious way.

00:02:04.960 | - I think it's a deep dive based on a few links

00:02:08.280 | that started at a subreddit,

00:02:10.400 | which is how all great journeys start.

00:02:13.080 | - Yeah, so this is kind of a crazy story.

00:02:16.120 | This was not pre-planned at all.

00:02:17.600 | I remember this quite well.

00:02:19.720 | I went out to dinner that final night

00:02:21.480 | with someone who was actually very hype

00:02:23.640 | within the Internet Chess Club at that time.

00:02:25.280 | I went out for a nice dinner.

00:02:26.440 | I think I had a couple of drinks.

00:02:27.760 | Maybe it was wine, beer.

00:02:28.600 | I don't know what it was.

00:02:29.760 | And I think towards the end of the dinner,

00:02:31.320 | somehow they got word of this

00:02:33.320 | and they relayed the information to me

00:02:35.600 | that Magnus wanted to play a private match.

00:02:37.880 | Now I agreed to play this match.

00:02:39.400 | Probably I should not have.

00:02:40.640 | And actually it has nothing to do

00:02:41.960 | with like the state of having been out,

00:02:43.600 | had a few drinks, anything of that nature.

00:02:45.400 | But the reason that I probably should not have agreed

00:02:47.560 | to play this match and why I very oftentimes reference it

00:02:50.440 | as one of the biggest mistakes

00:02:52.520 | in terms of competitive chess that I made

00:02:55.040 | is specifically because it gave Magnus a chance

00:02:57.360 | to understand my style of chess.

00:02:59.240 | And at the time I actually had pretty good results

00:03:02.600 | against Magnus.

00:03:03.440 | I think maybe he was up one or two games,

00:03:05.520 | but there were many games where I had been pressing

00:03:07.320 | close to winning against him prior to that match.

00:03:10.000 | And so when I went and played that match,

00:03:11.600 | there were a few things that happened.

00:03:12.600 | First of all, Magnus really started to understand my style

00:03:15.600 | because we played all sorts of different openings.

00:03:18.120 | And so I think he understood that at times

00:03:20.400 | I wasn't so great in the opening.

00:03:22.440 | And there were many openings

00:03:23.440 | where I would play slightly dubious variations

00:03:26.320 | as opposed to the main lines.

00:03:28.040 | And then secondly, from my standpoint,

00:03:30.520 | the problem that I realized

00:03:32.040 | is since we were playing with an increment,

00:03:33.480 | there were many games where I was close to winning

00:03:35.360 | and he would defend end games amazingly well.

00:03:37.960 | He would defend what are technically drawn end games,

00:03:41.480 | but where I would have like an extra pawn,

00:03:43.240 | it would be like rook and bishop versus rook and knight.

00:03:45.280 | Say I have four pawns, he has three pawns,

00:03:46.880 | end games of this nature.

00:03:48.160 | Now, if you aren't super into chess,

00:03:51.400 | you might not understand what I'm referring to.

00:03:53.520 | If you are, you will.

00:03:54.560 | But there are end games where one side

00:03:55.720 | might have extra material and extra pawns,

00:03:57.440 | say extra two pawns, but theoretically it's a draw.

00:03:59.560 | - Can you give an example of the set of pieces?

00:04:01.440 | We're talking about five, six, seven pieces,

00:04:03.200 | like this kind of thing?

00:04:04.040 | - Okay, like a very basic one would be rook and four pawns

00:04:06.480 | against rook and three pawns.

00:04:07.480 | So that would be nine total pieces on the board,

00:04:09.920 | four pawns on one side, three pawns on the other side,

00:04:13.960 | but it's all on the same side of the board.

00:04:15.520 | Now this is a technical draw.

00:04:16.800 | It's been known for probably, let's just say,

00:04:19.400 | 70 years roughly, give or take,

00:04:21.440 | that this is a theoretical draw.

00:04:22.680 | - No matter the position of the pawns?

00:04:24.360 | - It's just all the pawns are on one side of the board.

00:04:26.400 | So like--

00:04:27.240 | - But like where they are?

00:04:28.600 | - So it's like, let's just say they're four pawns right here.

00:04:31.720 | They're just four pawns.

00:04:32.720 | And black has three pawns.

00:04:34.080 | So your pawns are on H6, G6, and F6.

00:04:36.520 | And there are no other pawns on the board,

00:04:37.880 | something like this.

00:04:39.080 | And you both have rooks.

00:04:40.560 | And it's a draw.

00:04:41.400 | No matter what the next 50 moves of the game are,

00:04:44.200 | we know that it's a draw in end game with perfect play.

00:04:47.280 | And so it was things like this

00:04:48.520 | where Magnus actually saved,

00:04:49.960 | I wanna say like five or six of these.

00:04:52.320 | And I remember it quite well

00:04:53.640 | because I think the score was very, very close

00:04:55.880 | up until probably the last like 10 games of the match.

00:04:58.640 | And then at the end, he started winning in spades.

00:05:01.760 | But there were a lot of situations

00:05:03.160 | where he was up like one game

00:05:04.280 | or maybe two games in the match.

00:05:05.440 | And I had some end game like this,

00:05:07.080 | and I was not able to win the end game.

00:05:09.280 | And so for me, after that match,

00:05:11.600 | it wasn't even so much that I lost the match

00:05:13.640 | or the margin I lost by,

00:05:15.160 | but it was the fact that I realized

00:05:16.560 | how hard it was to beat him

00:05:18.080 | even once you got the advantage.

00:05:20.000 | And I think for Magnus,

00:05:21.160 | he learned that my weakness was openings.

00:05:22.840 | I remember 'cause I actually,

00:05:24.840 | I don't remember the game itself,

00:05:25.960 | but there was a game we played in Sicilian Nidorf.

00:05:27.880 | And he played this variation with Bishop G5

00:05:30.160 | on move number six.

00:05:31.440 | I'm sure you can insert a graphic later, I can show you.

00:05:34.320 | And I think-- - Sicilian is a type

00:05:35.320 | of opening.

00:05:36.560 | - Sicilian is the opening, Nidorf is the variation.

00:05:38.760 | It was played by Bobby Fischer, the former world champion,

00:05:41.720 | Garry Kasparov as well.

00:05:43.400 | And so we played all sorts of different openings

00:05:45.440 | 'cause of course it's not a serious,

00:05:46.760 | it's a serious match,

00:05:48.160 | but it's not serious where it's gonna count for the ranking.

00:05:50.520 | So you're trying to fill out

00:05:52.000 | where your opponent is strong versus weak.

00:05:53.720 | And so there was one game, I remember this very clearly,

00:05:56.000 | he played the Bishop G5 variation in the Nidorf.

00:05:58.440 | And I think I played E5 or I played Knight BD7 in E5,

00:06:01.960 | which is dubious, it's not the best response.

00:06:04.800 | And that's just one example

00:06:06.000 | where I was playing things that were a little bit dubious

00:06:08.120 | and I was not playing the absolute main line

00:06:10.040 | with 20 moves of theory.

00:06:11.440 | So I was trying to get outside of theory.

00:06:13.280 | And I think Magnus learned from that,

00:06:14.880 | that even though it appeared that I was very well prepared

00:06:17.520 | in these openings, I wasn't quite at that level.

00:06:21.240 | - Couldn't you have a different interpretation

00:06:23.640 | of you going outside of the main line

00:06:25.960 | that you're willing to experiment, take risks,

00:06:28.120 | that you're chaotic,

00:06:29.120 | and that's actually a strength, not a weakness,

00:06:31.320 | especially when you're sitting in a hotel room

00:06:34.240 | at late at night, this is past midnight, playing chess.

00:06:38.520 | I mean, why do you interpret that that's your weakness?

00:06:40.960 | - Because Magnus going forward was able to figure out

00:06:44.200 | the lines where you have to be super precise.

00:06:46.800 | You cannot deviate at all.

00:06:48.800 | And I got punished out of the opening in many games.

00:06:50.880 | So it was like, it wasn't about the Nidorf,

00:06:52.880 | the opening or the variation specifically,

00:06:55.160 | but he knew what my repertoire was.

00:06:56.720 | And we would pick lines where I had to play

00:06:58.440 | the absolute best lines in order to equalize,

00:07:01.880 | or I would be much worse.

00:07:03.120 | And he was very effective at doing that.

00:07:04.800 | - But nevertheless, it's pretty legendary

00:07:07.240 | that the two of you,

00:07:08.680 | you're one of the best chess players in the world

00:07:11.480 | throughout the whole period still today,

00:07:14.560 | that you just sat down in a hotel room

00:07:17.760 | and played a ton of chess.

00:07:20.080 | Like, what was that like?

00:07:21.520 | I mean, what's the, there's a,

00:07:23.520 | I think there's a little here,

00:07:25.920 | there is a little video of it.

00:07:27.440 | - Sure.

00:07:28.280 | - I mean, this is like epic, right?

00:07:30.360 | How did this video exist, by the way?

00:07:32.920 | - I think there was one journalist, Macaulay Peterson,

00:07:35.840 | who was able to film parts of it.

00:07:38.800 | So it was in a room, it was me and Magnus.

00:07:40.760 | I think Henrik was there.

00:07:42.200 | I think Macaulay was there and that was it.

00:07:44.040 | People can go on YouTube and watch.

00:07:46.240 | It's on Chess Digital Strategies,

00:07:48.880 | Macaulay Peterson channel.

00:07:50.440 | For people just listening to this,

00:07:51.720 | there's a dimly lit room with a yellow light

00:07:55.960 | emerging out of the darkness of the two faces of (laughs)

00:07:59.200 | Sengaro.

00:08:00.320 | I mean, and the deep focus here.

00:08:01.960 | And what time is this?

00:08:02.800 | This is must be like--

00:08:03.620 | - This is probably like one in the morning.

00:08:04.960 | This was, I believe the day after the,

00:08:08.040 | this was the day that the final round occurred

00:08:09.720 | and the closing ceremony.

00:08:10.840 | So we're playing afterwards.

00:08:12.040 | I mean, are you able to appreciate the epicness of this?

00:08:14.680 | - Many of my favorite memories are actually similar to this.

00:08:17.680 | Another memory that I really have,

00:08:19.680 | that I recall very fondly was after the US Championship.

00:08:22.800 | It was called the 2005 US Chess Championship.

00:08:24.720 | It was held at the end of 2004 in,

00:08:27.080 | I believe it was in La Jolla in San Diego.

00:08:28.660 | I won that event.

00:08:29.520 | And after that event, I was playing Blitz

00:08:31.720 | probably for like four or five hours

00:08:33.560 | in the lobby of the hotel.

00:08:35.140 | So it's the same kind of situation

00:08:36.880 | where you're just playing for the love of the game

00:08:38.860 | as opposed to anything else.

00:08:40.440 | Of course, nowadays, I think both for Magnus and myself,

00:08:43.880 | just playing a dimly lit room like this

00:08:46.300 | would almost certainly not happen.

00:08:47.800 | There would probably have to be certain stakes involved

00:08:50.960 | for us to play.

00:08:52.080 | But if you go back in time,

00:08:54.000 | these are the sorts of memories and moments

00:08:56.700 | that would happen all the time.

00:08:58.380 | - So is there a part of you that doesn't regret

00:09:00.660 | that this happened?

00:09:01.840 | - You know, I think it comes back to my general philosophy.

00:09:04.400 | I feel like everything happens for a reason.

00:09:06.320 | And so because I have that, that's one of my core beliefs.

00:09:09.940 | Like I don't really look back on it as mistakes.

00:09:12.200 | I feel like everything has happened

00:09:13.640 | and things have transpired the way they have for a reason.

00:09:16.480 | If I look at it in terms of potentially

00:09:18.560 | like world championship aspirations,

00:09:20.600 | I think certainly it was a big mistake

00:09:22.980 | because from a competitive standpoint,

00:09:24.560 | Magnus figured out what my weaknesses were at the time

00:09:26.960 | and he exploited it for many, many years.

00:09:29.240 | In fact, I think if you look at the match

00:09:31.520 | I played against him in the Meltwater Tournament

00:09:33.720 | at the, I think that was in June or no, it was later.

00:09:37.080 | It was like September of 2020, we played this epic match.

00:09:39.560 | It was the finals of the tour

00:09:41.400 | and it went all the way to the seventh match.

00:09:43.360 | Magnus won in Armageddon.

00:09:45.520 | And in that match, my openings were much better.

00:09:47.840 | I was able to match him in the openings.

00:09:49.560 | I was not worse out of the opening in most of the games

00:09:51.920 | and that made a huge difference.

00:09:53.460 | But for many years, he was able to exploit my openings.

00:09:57.040 | And I mean, that's why the score,

00:09:59.000 | I mean, it's not the only reason,

00:10:00.080 | but it's one of the reasons the score

00:10:01.200 | is so lopsided the way it is.

00:10:02.960 | - Is there any of those games that you mentioned,

00:10:06.280 | the seven games that are interesting to look at,

00:10:08.280 | to analyze, ideas that you remember

00:10:10.760 | that are interesting to you?

00:10:12.160 | - I mean, the whole, it was actually,

00:10:13.560 | so to set it up, and this probably will come into play

00:10:16.200 | in terms of World Championship format,

00:10:18.480 | it was seven matches of four games.

00:10:20.840 | So we played a four game match.

00:10:22.600 | And after four games, say I'm up two and a half,

00:10:24.720 | one and a half, I win match number one.

00:10:26.680 | Then it's, so it's like you have to win

00:10:27.920 | four matches of four games.

00:10:29.640 | - Do you remember how you won?

00:10:31.040 | - There were a couple of Berlin games in the sixth match,

00:10:34.320 | I believe in the seventh match as well,

00:10:35.660 | where Magnus actually made some mistakes

00:10:37.720 | and I won some critical games.

00:10:39.240 | - You're gonna have to explain some basics here.

00:10:40.920 | So Berlin's the type of opening, what's that?

00:10:43.240 | - The Ruy Lopez or the Spanish opening.

00:10:45.920 | It actually existed all the way back in the '60s,

00:10:48.360 | but it really became popular in 2001, I believe it was,

00:10:52.040 | when Garry Kasparov and Vladimir Kramnik

00:10:54.320 | played their World Championship match.

00:10:55.640 | Kasparov had been the world champion for a very long time.

00:10:58.320 | I think it was close, I think it was about 15,

00:11:01.360 | 15 years roughly, maybe a little bit more than that.

00:11:04.360 | And he lost the match because when Garry had the white pieces

00:11:06.840 | Kasparov was not able to effectively get an advantage.

00:11:10.080 | A lot of those games were very quick draws,

00:11:11.880 | and in chess you want to put pressure on your opponent

00:11:14.280 | when you have the white pieces.

00:11:15.200 | So Kasparov was not able to do anything

00:11:17.000 | with the white pieces, and Kramnik was able to beat him

00:11:19.660 | when the colors were reversed.

00:11:21.000 | Kramnik won a game in the Grunfeld,

00:11:22.640 | he won a game in one of the Queens Gambit

00:11:24.480 | declined slash Nimzo variations as well.

00:11:27.160 | And that was the reason Garry Kasparov

00:11:29.480 | lost the World Championship title,

00:11:30.600 | was because of this variation.

00:11:32.520 | - Can you teach me the Berlin opening?

00:11:34.080 | - Absolutely, so the opening starts,

00:11:36.520 | let me just move this microphone up a little bit,

00:11:37.960 | starts with E4, and then it goes E5,

00:11:41.600 | Knight F3, Knight C6.

00:11:45.120 | Yeah, Bishop B5, and now Knight to F6.

00:11:52.120 | - And at which point is this the standard,

00:11:57.480 | like this is the Berlin standard?

00:11:59.480 | - Yeah, this is the Berlin, this is the starting position

00:12:01.560 | of the Berlin defense, and white has many, many options here.

00:12:05.160 | Now it's interesting because I did work with Garry

00:12:07.640 | at a certain point, and I remember I had access

00:12:10.600 | to his database, and he had something like 220 files

00:12:14.640 | on the Berlin defense.

00:12:16.200 | Because what happened is, is Garry's somebody who,

00:12:18.520 | the way that he learned chess, it's very much like,

00:12:20.800 | there are certain openings that are okay,

00:12:22.440 | there are other openings that are not okay.

00:12:24.560 | And so this was considered dubious at the time.

00:12:26.920 | And so Garry basically decided to go into this endgame

00:12:29.680 | with castles, Knight takes pawn.

00:12:31.520 | - Why is the castling an endgame?

00:12:33.560 | - So I'll show you, Knight takes pawn.

00:12:35.120 | All these moves are very, very forced.

00:12:38.600 | You got pawn to D4.

00:12:39.440 | - What does it mean they're very forced?

00:12:40.880 | That means like those are the optimal things

00:12:42.600 | that you should be doing?

00:12:43.440 | - Exactly, these moves are, I think they're almost,

00:12:46.560 | at least for black, they're absolutely forced,

00:12:48.280 | or else you end up in trouble.

00:12:49.200 | - You said Knight takes D4?

00:12:50.440 | - Knight to D6.

00:12:51.360 | - Oh, sorry.

00:12:52.200 | - So this attacks the bishop on B5.

00:12:54.760 | - Got it.

00:12:55.600 | - White takes, black takes back with the pawn

00:12:58.320 | in front of the queen.

00:13:00.000 | Mm-hmm, pawn takes pawn, Knight to F5.

00:13:05.320 | And then it goes queen takes queen.

00:13:08.720 | - What?

00:13:09.560 | - King takes queen.

00:13:10.400 | - It's very aggressive.

00:13:11.240 | - Yeah, so you get this position

00:13:12.400 | where we're in an endgame by the 10.

00:13:15.040 | - You just ruined all the normal conventions, I guess.

00:13:18.640 | - Right, on the other hand, for Kramnik,

00:13:20.480 | it was quite brilliant because Garry,

00:13:22.400 | what he was known for was opening preparation

00:13:24.600 | and getting the advantage.

00:13:25.480 | He was a very tactical, very aggressive player.

00:13:27.640 | And you're playing an endgame right from the start.

00:13:29.920 | Now Garry basically thought that this was better for white,

00:13:33.400 | and he tried to prove it.

00:13:34.720 | And he was unable to prove it, I think,

00:13:36.440 | up until maybe it was game nine or game 11.

00:13:40.040 | Actually, maybe I had the order wrong,

00:13:41.160 | 'cause I think he was white in the even number games.

00:13:42.680 | Basically, he spent four or five games

00:13:44.240 | with the white pieces trying to win this endgame.

00:13:46.800 | And he was not able to win.

00:13:47.880 | In fact, he didn't even come close to proving an advantage.

00:13:50.360 | So he kept wasting the white pieces in that match.

00:13:53.240 | And Kramnik basically took advantage.

00:13:54.920 | When he had the white pieces and Garry had the black pieces,

00:13:56.920 | he was able to win some games in very nice style.

00:14:00.720 | And that was the difference.

00:14:01.840 | - D'oh, that's kind of brilliant.

00:14:03.040 | So he had, this is a new problem presented in that match.

00:14:06.920 | And Garry's gut says--

00:14:09.160 | - White is better.

00:14:10.000 | - White is better.

00:14:11.040 | And so in white, I'm going to push with this position.

00:14:13.800 | And I'm gonna not change anything from match to match.

00:14:17.280 | I'm going to try to find a way that this is better.

00:14:19.920 | So it's that kind of stubbornness.

00:14:22.120 | And what do you think about that?

00:14:23.560 | Like, that's the way of chess, right?

00:14:26.600 | That's not a mistake.

00:14:27.440 | That's the way you should do it.

00:14:28.720 | If your gut says this position is better,

00:14:32.080 | you should capitalize, right?

00:14:33.560 | - I think that's an old school way of thinking in chess

00:14:35.920 | because before computers, basically it was up to humans.

00:14:39.760 | Your intuition, your calculation process really determined

00:14:43.080 | whether a position is better.

00:14:45.880 | And so like, in Garry's time, if openings were dubious,

00:14:48.800 | they're dubious.

00:14:49.640 | It means somebody is better.

00:14:50.840 | But as we've learned with computers now,

00:14:52.760 | even small advantages, generally that doesn't mean anything.

00:14:55.600 | And a position is defendable where you won't lose the game

00:14:58.920 | if you play optimal moves.

00:15:00.520 | Even if the advantage is like half a pawn, for example,

00:15:03.200 | like 0.50, with optimal play,

00:15:06.080 | a computer will still prove that that position,

00:15:08.480 | you can hold it and not lose the game.

00:15:11.000 | And so for Garry, he learned it where like,

00:15:13.120 | if an opening's not right, like he knows it's not correct.

00:15:16.040 | He has to prove it.

00:15:17.280 | Now, finally, towards the end of the match,

00:15:18.720 | he tried to switch, but it was already way too late.

00:15:21.320 | And he didn't have time to win with the white pieces.

00:15:23.720 | He did come close in one of the later games,

00:15:25.880 | but he spent the whole match trying to prove

00:15:27.360 | that this Berlin defense is not playable.

00:15:29.440 | - So this position, the computer would say

00:15:31.880 | that black is better.

00:15:33.080 | - It would say that white's very slightly better

00:15:34.920 | because black has moved the king.

00:15:36.320 | You're unable to castle the king,

00:15:37.600 | and it's kind of open in the center of the board.

00:15:39.800 | - Oh, so wait, so Stockfish or the engine

00:15:41.960 | would agree with Garry's intuition?

00:15:43.560 | - Yes, but at the end of the day,

00:15:45.360 | when you go like five moves deeper

00:15:46.720 | in any number of the sequences,

00:15:48.080 | it's gonna go to 0.00.

00:15:50.280 | - Which means draw.

00:15:51.440 | - Yes, correct.

00:15:52.320 | - And that's a bad thing because white should be winning.

00:15:55.040 | - Well, you wanna put pressure on your opponent

00:15:56.640 | when you have the white pieces in any tournament, any match.

00:15:59.080 | - Got it, so if the engine says 0.00,

00:16:01.680 | that means you're not doing a good job of playing white.

00:16:04.040 | - Correct.

00:16:04.880 | You should be putting pressure.

00:16:05.720 | That doesn't mean you're gonna win.

00:16:06.560 | There are gonna be a lot of draws

00:16:07.880 | 'cause the game of chess has drawish tendencies,

00:16:11.000 | but you wanna try.

00:16:12.360 | Normally, the general approach these days

00:16:14.440 | because of computers is you try to put pressure

00:16:16.680 | on your opponent when you're white,

00:16:18.280 | and when you're black, you try to be solid, make a draw.

00:16:20.780 | That's the general approach.

00:16:22.120 | Now, when Garry was actually at his peak,

00:16:24.600 | it was quite the opposite.

00:16:25.480 | Garry was trying to win games with the black pieces as well

00:16:28.160 | by playing openings like the Sicilian Night Orth,

00:16:30.400 | but with modern technology,

00:16:32.120 | and I did a podcast recently where I also spoke about this,

00:16:35.240 | computers are so good,

00:16:36.920 | and players can memorize so many lines

00:16:38.800 | that nowadays trying to take risks with the black pieces,

00:16:41.600 | it almost always backfires,

00:16:43.400 | or if you're very lucky, you might make the draw,

00:16:45.280 | but you never get the winning chances.

00:16:46.760 | So from a risk-reward standpoint,

00:16:48.700 | you have to play almost perfectly just to make the draw,

00:16:51.400 | but you're never gonna have any winning chances,

00:16:53.280 | where in the old days, generally, you might lose the games,

00:16:55.980 | but you're gonna have chances to win as well,

00:16:57.560 | but now it's very much one-sided.

00:17:00.080 | So a lot of players try to be very solid.

00:17:02.160 | - This is, by the way, the C Squared podcast?

00:17:04.280 | - Correct, yes.

00:17:05.120 | - Yeah, this is an amazing podcast,

00:17:06.120 | so shout out to those guys.

00:17:07.320 | I'm glad that they started a thing

00:17:09.040 | that seems to be a good thing,

00:17:10.800 | and I hope they keep going with this good thing.

00:17:12.800 | That was a great interview that I did with you.

00:17:14.520 | - In that podcast, I talked about the Sicilian Night Orth,

00:17:16.840 | very aggressive opening.

00:17:18.640 | The problem is white is the one who has the choices.

00:17:21.780 | After the first five to six moves, white has the choices.

00:17:25.760 | What do you wanna do?

00:17:27.200 | Can you show me that?

00:17:28.280 | - Sure, so it's, for example, that would be E4.

00:17:31.160 | I'll just set it up, E4.

00:17:35.600 | C5.

00:17:40.280 | Now we get Knight to F3, Pawn to D6.

00:17:47.260 | Pawn to D4, trade.

00:17:50.900 | Knight to F6.

00:17:53.280 | - Knight to F6.

00:17:54.360 | - And now Pawn to A6.

00:17:57.080 | So this is a Knight Orth.

00:17:58.600 | Bobby Fischer really popularized it

00:18:01.040 | in his run-up to becoming the world champion.

00:18:03.480 | Gary played it for probably the last 15 to 20 years

00:18:06.640 | of his career, so it's a very solid opening defense.

00:18:10.760 | - What is, what are then, sorry to interrupt,

00:18:13.680 | what's interesting about this?

00:18:14.960 | So there's a, for people listening,

00:18:17.200 | on the white side, there's a couple of Knights out,

00:18:19.720 | and on the black side--

00:18:20.560 | - So black has many options.

00:18:22.480 | Black can play for B5 here to develop the Bishop to B7.

00:18:27.160 | Because the Pawn on A6 guards the Pawn on B5.

00:18:29.880 | You can also play other setups, like potentially G6,

00:18:34.040 | and putting the Bishop on G7.

00:18:35.820 | - Okay, so bringing, doing different things

00:18:39.360 | and bringing out the--

00:18:40.200 | - You can also push the Pawn to E5,

00:18:41.920 | or push the Pawn to E6.

00:18:44.160 | So there are many different setups,

00:18:45.760 | and it's very, very flexible.

00:18:47.720 | But white is the one who has the choice here

00:18:50.080 | in terms of what to play.

00:18:51.440 | And there are many moves.

00:18:52.280 | There is this move that I mentioned before,

00:18:53.840 | Bishop to G5, which Magnus played against me.

00:18:56.680 | There's also Bishop to E3, Bishop to C4.

00:19:00.680 | And now there are also moves like H3, H4, Rook G1.

00:19:05.140 | Even moves like A3 and A4.

00:19:06.600 | So there basically are nine or 10 moves

00:19:08.200 | that white can play here.

00:19:09.600 | But the move that white plays sort of dictates

00:19:11.400 | the direction of the game.

00:19:13.020 | And you have to be extremely precise if you're black.

00:19:15.320 | So if white plays something like Bishop G5,

00:19:17.000 | this is very sharp and aggressive.

00:19:18.920 | But you can also play something like Bishop to E3,

00:19:21.960 | Pawn to E5, and something like Knight to F3 here.

00:19:24.880 | And it goes in a positional direction.

00:19:27.600 | So again, this is very advanced.

00:19:30.040 | These are very advanced sort of setups.

00:19:32.640 | And what I'm explaining is not at a basic level.

00:19:36.280 | But white is the one who chooses the type of game.

00:19:37.920 | Is it very aggressive, very sharp,

00:19:39.400 | or both sides of chances?

00:19:40.800 | Is it something very positional,

00:19:42.160 | where if you're black, you're probably okay,

00:19:44.440 | but you have to play the best moves in order to equalize,

00:19:46.880 | or you can end up worse.

00:19:48.280 | - Okay, so you're always responding

00:19:49.560 | as black in this situation.

00:19:50.760 | - Correct.

00:19:51.600 | - So how different are all those different variations?

00:19:55.160 | So like with the Bishop, with the different,

00:19:57.040 | you said you bring out the Bishop to this position,

00:20:00.400 | to this position, or to that position.

00:20:02.520 | Like how are those fundamentally different variations?

00:20:04.920 | Like I just wonder from a AI computational perspective,

00:20:09.440 | like a single step.

00:20:10.920 | - Yeah, well, I'll make it even simpler here.

00:20:12.560 | If you put the Knight here, it's very positional.

00:20:14.640 | If you put the Knight on this square, it's very aggressive.

00:20:17.160 | Because normally white is going to push this Pawn

00:20:19.800 | from F2 to either F3 or F4,

00:20:22.120 | and potentially a Pawn to G4 later.

00:20:24.200 | So even here, based on where you go,

00:20:25.960 | it changes whether it's a positional game,

00:20:28.280 | or it's a very tactical.

00:20:29.440 | - Just those little, and those are the choices

00:20:31.360 | you're constantly making.

00:20:32.400 | Am I going to be standard, and basic, and positional,

00:20:36.520 | or am I going to be aggressive and take risks?

00:20:38.240 | - And I can actually give you another example.

00:20:40.280 | So psychology plays a big role.

00:20:42.760 | And in the candidates tournament,

00:20:44.000 | which I played in June of this past year in Madrid, Spain,

00:20:47.440 | I actually, I had the white piece against Ali Reza Faruja,

00:20:50.200 | who is a rising junior, originally from Iran,

00:20:52.240 | representing France.

00:20:53.720 | And I knew that he wanted very aggressive games.

00:20:56.320 | So he doesn't normally play this Sicilian Eidorff,

00:20:58.080 | and he chose to play it in this one tournament.

00:20:59.680 | So I knew that he wanted these very sharp positions

00:21:02.240 | where he can lose, but he can also win.

00:21:04.280 | And so when I played him,

00:21:05.240 | I intentionally played this variation

00:21:07.360 | because I knew that he was going to be unhappy.

00:21:09.040 | He wanted these sharp, exciting games.

00:21:11.080 | And here I am playing something very boring,

00:21:12.880 | where if he plays it correctly, it's going to be a draw,

00:21:15.320 | but he's not going to be happy.

00:21:16.560 | And so he actually did something dubious

00:21:18.800 | because he wanted to create tension.

00:21:20.680 | He wanted to create chaos.

00:21:22.080 | - So you knew by being boring, you would frustrate him,

00:21:24.680 | and then he would make mistakes.

00:21:25.920 | - Exactly, yes, yes.

00:21:27.640 | - That's the ultimate troll at the highest level of chess.

00:21:31.600 | Yeah, you mentioned psychology,

00:21:32.840 | and then taking us back to the Magnus,

00:21:34.920 | even in 2010, the Magnus games.

00:21:38.000 | Reddit said that you've spoken about losing to Magnus

00:21:40.560 | being a hit on your confidence.

00:21:42.800 | Is there some truth to that?

00:21:45.240 | So is there some aspect about that 2010 match

00:21:48.720 | that's not just about Magnus figuring stuff out,

00:21:51.680 | but just a hit on confidence?

00:21:54.200 | Like how important is confidence at that level

00:21:57.160 | when you're both young and like firing at all cylinders?

00:22:00.680 | - Well, it's not just a problem with me.

00:22:02.320 | This is the problem everybody has when they play

00:22:04.120 | against Magnus, because what happens is,

00:22:07.200 | is on a broader level, when you play against somebody,

00:22:10.600 | no matter who you're playing against,

00:22:11.720 | but when they're somehow able to save positions

00:22:13.960 | where they're much worse, almost in miraculous ways,

00:22:17.120 | the way that Magnus has done against everybody.

00:22:18.880 | He's done it against me, done it against Aronian many times,

00:22:21.680 | done it against Kramnik, just about everybody.

00:22:23.880 | When someone's able to save games,

00:22:26.560 | it really starts to affect you

00:22:28.280 | because you don't know what to do.

00:22:30.400 | And the more and more times that happens,

00:22:32.760 | it starts adding up, and it just affects you

00:22:34.680 | in a way that it's very, very hard to overcome.

00:22:37.000 | And I think every top player has that issue,

00:22:39.040 | where if they've played against Magnus

00:22:41.040 | more than like five times,

00:22:42.760 | they've seen things happen in the game

00:22:44.080 | that don't happen against anybody else.

00:22:46.600 | And then psychologically,

00:22:47.640 | it becomes harder and harder to overcome it,

00:22:49.360 | which is why I think a lot of the junior players,

00:22:51.600 | they don't have this long history, and it does affect them.

00:22:54.600 | As far as myself directly,

00:22:56.440 | certainly after that match, though,

00:22:59.520 | it was not the same playing against Magnus,

00:23:01.440 | because I viewed him completely differently too.

00:23:03.520 | After all those games where he was saving these end games,

00:23:06.480 | I started thinking like, this guy is superhuman.

00:23:09.040 | But you can't really have those thoughts

00:23:10.600 | when you're playing competitively.

00:23:12.160 | But in the back of your mind, it's always there.

00:23:14.440 | And I think every top player has that issue.

00:23:16.000 | - Is there a way to overcome that?

00:23:17.080 | 'Cause you have to.

00:23:18.240 | - I don't know if I'll necessarily do better

00:23:20.160 | against Magnus going forward,

00:23:21.680 | but I felt that when I started playing against him

00:23:24.360 | more than just a game here or there in classical chess,

00:23:27.120 | during the pandemic, I played him

00:23:28.400 | in these online tournaments, seemed like every month.

00:23:31.080 | I came very close.

00:23:32.000 | I beat him in one event.

00:23:33.040 | I think I lost in two others, and then the tour final.

00:23:35.880 | But when I was playing against him more and more,

00:23:38.040 | he didn't feel superhuman.

00:23:39.280 | It felt like as I'm playing more and more

00:23:40.760 | and learning about his style, that I was doing better.

00:23:44.760 | So I think for me, the weird thing is

00:23:47.440 | that I just wasn't playing against him that many games.

00:23:49.440 | But when I start playing against him like 20, 30 games

00:23:51.800 | during the course of a year,

00:23:53.000 | I actually started feeling more confident

00:23:54.480 | 'cause I feel like I can compete.

00:23:56.120 | Whereas when I was only playing him like three

00:23:58.400 | or four times in classical chess

00:24:00.480 | in the previous couple of years, I wasn't doing great.

00:24:04.760 | And then you don't have those glimpses of,

00:24:07.080 | you don't have those moments where you feel like

00:24:08.720 | you're gonna be able to win against him.

00:24:10.440 | But when you start playing 20, 30 games

00:24:12.000 | and you get these opportunities,

00:24:13.480 | even if you don't convert,

00:24:14.320 | you feel like you have the chances.

00:24:15.560 | When you play three or four games and you might lose one,

00:24:18.560 | draw three, you never have those opportunities.

00:24:20.520 | And so you feel very negative about what's going on.

00:24:23.080 | - When you were able to beat him

00:24:24.560 | or not necessarily win the game,

00:24:27.280 | but win positionally something, what was the reason?

00:24:31.080 | Like technically speaking,

00:24:33.880 | the matchup between the two of you,

00:24:36.680 | what like, where were the holes that you were able to find?

00:24:39.760 | - I mean, the answer I think is actually quite simple.

00:24:41.760 | I think it's all psychological, actually,

00:24:43.640 | more than anything else.

00:24:45.000 | Because I didn't feel like I was doing anything differently,

00:24:51.280 | but I was also not making the mistakes

00:24:53.240 | that I was making before.

00:24:55.200 | So I think it was more psychological than anything else.

00:24:57.080 | - On your part versus his part.

00:24:59.360 | - It's very weird because when you think about chess,

00:25:02.200 | it's a mental game.

00:25:03.620 | But we all are capable of beating Magnus, all of us.

00:25:09.000 | But we all have very, very bad scores against him.

00:25:11.840 | And I think people underestimate

00:25:13.720 | how much of a role that plays.

00:25:15.840 | And for me, when I played him in these online events

00:25:19.840 | in 2020 specifically,

00:25:21.720 | I felt like there was really nothing to lose,

00:25:24.720 | which also ties into everything else that happened

00:25:27.760 | during the pandemic as well.

00:25:29.440 | But I just felt like there was nothing to lose.

00:25:30.680 | And I felt like I was playing very freely,

00:25:32.200 | unlike before.

00:25:33.640 | Now that's not to say that Magnus isn't a better player,

00:25:35.760 | that like somehow I expect to beat him,

00:25:37.600 | but I felt like I wasn't making the same mistakes

00:25:40.040 | that I was making in the previous years.

00:25:42.240 | - If we dig into the psychological preparation,

00:25:45.080 | is there something to your mental preparation

00:25:46.840 | that you do that makes you successful?

00:25:48.800 | Like what are the lessons over all these years

00:25:50.520 | that you learned?

00:25:51.600 | What works, what doesn't?

00:25:53.160 | Do you drink a bunch of whiskey the night before?

00:25:55.160 | Is there some small hacks or major ones

00:25:59.000 | about how you approach the game?

00:26:00.600 | - It's really hard sort of in a way

00:26:02.720 | because I feel like I'm two different people.

00:26:05.120 | I was one person up until the pandemic

00:26:07.720 | as a professional chess player solely,

00:26:09.720 | where I earned all my income.

00:26:11.200 | Everything was derived from that.

00:26:13.040 | And from the pandemic on, I'm sort of a different person

00:26:15.680 | 'cause that is not where I'm making my income from.

00:26:18.800 | And so the whole psychological profile that I had before

00:26:22.080 | is completely different from now.

00:26:24.000 | There's this joke about the, I literally don't care,

00:26:26.960 | the phrase that I've used.

00:26:28.000 | And in a sense, what that means is not that I don't care.

00:26:31.640 | Obviously I'm competitive, I want to do well.

00:26:34.240 | But if I lose a game or I don't do well in a tournament,

00:26:37.160 | it's not the end of the world in the same kind of way

00:26:39.600 | that I felt it was before,

00:26:40.960 | because that pressure of needing to always perform

00:26:43.360 | was very, very high.

00:26:44.600 | And so I think before the pandemic,

00:26:48.560 | what I would try to do more than anything

00:26:50.680 | is just not think about the previous game for the most part.

00:26:53.560 | Like say I had a bad game,

00:26:54.560 | I'd go out for a walk that evening, just clear my mind.

00:26:57.360 | These sorts of things, now they aren't really hacks per se,

00:26:59.880 | but it's trying essentially to have short-term memory loss.

00:27:02.840 | (laughs)

00:27:04.160 | So I literally don't care is not just a meme,

00:27:06.720 | it's a philosophy.

00:27:08.440 | - In a sense, yeah. - It's a way of being.

00:27:09.840 | - I mean, it's basically that, yes,

00:27:11.920 | like I do want to perform well, I'm gonna give it my all,

00:27:14.600 | but it's not, like if I lose a game,

00:27:16.720 | it's not the end of the world.

00:27:17.600 | - That should be the title of your autobiography.

00:27:20.720 | And it should be like, I know you're probably immortal,

00:27:25.720 | but if you do happen to die,

00:27:27.200 | that should also be in your tombstone.

00:27:29.120 | Charles Bukowski has "Don't Try" in his tombstone.

00:27:32.760 | - Yes.

00:27:34.440 | - Which I think emphasizes a similar concept,

00:27:39.040 | but slightly different, more in the artistic domain,

00:27:41.680 | which is, well, a lot of people have

00:27:44.600 | different interpretations of that statement,

00:27:46.080 | but I think it means don't take things too seriously.

00:27:51.080 | - Yeah, I mean, I agree with that completely.

00:27:53.960 | I think that if you look at my career prior to the pandemic,

00:27:59.040 | I put huge amounts of pressure on myself

00:28:01.600 | because I really wanted to be as good as I could be,

00:28:05.040 | but it was the way I was earning a living.

00:28:06.960 | And one thing that's very difficult about chess

00:28:09.400 | is that only the top 20, maybe 30 players in the world

00:28:12.160 | make a living from the game.

00:28:13.400 | Now you make a very good living,

00:28:15.480 | no way am I diminishing chess,

00:28:16.880 | but the problem with it is it's not secure at all.

00:28:19.760 | So if you don't get invitations

00:28:21.520 | to the absolute top tournaments,

00:28:23.040 | which have prize funds from anywhere from maybe 100,000

00:28:26.200 | up to potentially half a million dollars,

00:28:28.280 | if you don't get those invitations,

00:28:29.680 | it's very, very hard to earn a living.

00:28:31.440 | You can go from earning maybe 200,000,

00:28:33.280 | $300,000 a year to earning like 50,000.

00:28:36.040 | So it's very, very unstable.

00:28:37.960 | And I think for myself,

00:28:40.240 | I really put a lot of pressure on myself

00:28:42.320 | in a way that it affected me and not in a good way.

00:28:46.600 | - So in part, it was also financial pressure.

00:28:49.540 | So like once you're able to make money elsewhere,

00:28:53.000 | it makes you more free to take risks

00:28:56.320 | to play the pure game of chess.

00:28:58.360 | - Yeah, exactly.

00:28:59.800 | It took all that pressure off

00:29:02.100 | and I'm just trying to play as well as I can.

00:29:04.560 | And I don't really worry.

00:29:05.500 | Like if I lose a game, it's not the end all be all.

00:29:07.840 | And maybe that's just like psychological stuff

00:29:10.560 | that I should have tried to sort out before.

00:29:12.600 | I mean, I did at some period of time,

00:29:14.480 | like do certain things along those lines,

00:29:16.240 | but I became free.

00:29:20.200 | And I think it definitely, it was not about the chess.

00:29:23.320 | And that's one of those things that's also very hard

00:29:25.880 | because when I look at myself

00:29:27.740 | and when I had these periods

00:29:28.820 | where it seemed like I played better or improved,

00:29:30.960 | one of these periods was in 2008,

00:29:34.680 | where I basically, I dropped out of college.

00:29:37.100 | I was about 2650 Elo.

00:29:38.720 | So I was roughly top 100 in the world.

00:29:40.600 | And for the first, probably half part of 2008,

00:29:43.880 | I played very little, almost not all.

00:29:46.000 | I went up to Vancouver.

00:29:47.000 | I was living on my own for the first time

00:29:48.840 | and I was not studying that much.

00:29:51.100 | And then after that period, I started playing

00:29:52.540 | and I actually improved very quickly

00:29:54.400 | and I broke 2700 shortly thereafter.

00:29:57.160 | So it had nothing to do with chess.

00:29:58.720 | - When you moved to Vancouver and weren't doing much,

00:30:03.720 | what were you doing exactly?

00:30:05.360 | - Oh, I was enjoying nature.

00:30:06.600 | I was going outside, hiking mountains,

00:30:09.280 | like going and kayaking,

00:30:11.560 | all these things that I was not,

00:30:13.320 | that I had not done for many years.

00:30:15.280 | - I'm glad I asked 'cause I was imagining something else.

00:30:17.440 | I was imagining you like in a dark room,

00:30:19.200 | drinking and playing video games.

00:30:21.520 | - No, not at all.

00:30:22.600 | - Okay, cool.

00:30:23.520 | That's good.

00:30:24.520 | That's an interesting break.

00:30:25.840 | So dropping out of college and then giving,

00:30:28.360 | taking a break and then giving everything to chess

00:30:30.920 | in terms of preparation and so on.

00:30:32.620 | Maybe actually, if we can rewind back to the beginning,

00:30:37.720 | you've said about yourself

00:30:39.780 | that you're not a naturally talented chess player.

00:30:43.120 | Your brother was, but that's really fascinating

00:30:46.040 | because what would you say was the reason you're able

00:30:50.760 | to break through and become one of the best chess players

00:30:53.500 | in the world, having been not a naturally talented chess player?

00:30:57.600 | - Yeah, I think that this applies to actually chess

00:31:00.520 | or any number of sort of basic games actually

00:31:02.800 | for that matter is that I'm not naturally talented,

00:31:05.520 | but if I don't get something,

00:31:07.760 | I try to figure out why don't I get it?

00:31:09.840 | What am I doing wrong?

00:31:10.840 | Over and over and over again.

00:31:12.320 | And I mean, there are many games like this.

00:31:15.520 | There's this funny game on the phone.

00:31:16.880 | I'll just use it as an example.

00:31:18.160 | There's a game called Geometry Dash.

00:31:20.380 | Now I'm not like, I'm not world-class or anything at it.

00:31:22.360 | It's just a silly, silly little game on the phone

00:31:24.060 | that you play, you just tap and it goes up and down.

00:31:26.860 | People will probably know what that is.

00:31:29.220 | But like I said, I played that for maybe like an hour or so.

00:31:31.660 | I just randomly placed for one hour and I was terrible at it.

00:31:34.620 | And I kind of forgot about it for a week.

00:31:36.980 | And then I came back, I saw on my phone, I'm like, okay,

00:31:39.300 | what am I doing wrong?

00:31:40.140 | Like, why am I not good at this game?

00:31:41.900 | So I spent like probably like a hundred hours

00:31:44.540 | over the following month, just playing it nonstop

00:31:46.960 | over and over and over again to get better at it.

00:31:50.340 | And again, I'm not like world-class or anything,

00:31:52.520 | but I'm pretty good at the game.

00:31:54.000 | And so with chess, it's the same thing.

00:31:55.400 | It's like, when I started out, it's like,

00:31:56.640 | why am I not good?

00:31:57.520 | What am I doing wrong?

00:31:58.840 | And I basically refused to accept

00:32:00.680 | that I couldn't be good at the game.

00:32:02.280 | And so, you know, at the start, I actually,

00:32:06.160 | I played for a couple of months.

00:32:08.040 | I did very poorly.

00:32:09.480 | And then my parents stopped me

00:32:10.840 | from playing for about six months.

00:32:12.640 | They just said, no, you're not playing.

00:32:14.000 | Your brother's quite good.

00:32:15.760 | And my brother was one of the top ranked players

00:32:17.440 | in his age group in the United States.

00:32:19.400 | So you're not playing.

00:32:20.780 | Then after about six months,

00:32:22.020 | they relented and they let me play.

00:32:23.580 | And the first term of back, I actually, it was four games.

00:32:26.460 | I was playing against other kids

00:32:27.820 | and I won the first three games.

00:32:29.060 | So it was really good.

00:32:29.900 | And I lost the form of checkmate in the fourth game,

00:32:32.120 | which is of course quite ironic.

00:32:34.860 | - How did you?

00:32:35.700 | (laughs)

00:32:36.520 | - Yeah.

00:32:37.360 | - Oh, I guess this is, how old were you at this time?

00:32:38.860 | - I would have been about eight years old, seven or eight.

00:32:41.540 | - So an eight year old future top ranked chess player has,

00:32:46.540 | so it's great to know that somebody has lost

00:32:49.240 | to that checkmate.

00:32:50.400 | So it's possible to lose to that checkmate.

00:32:52.640 | - I remember that game quite well.

00:32:54.960 | - Was it, I mean, at that time,

00:32:56.040 | did you know that that checkmate exists?

00:32:59.080 | - I mean, I think I probably knew it existed,

00:33:01.280 | but I didn't, I was just playing.

00:33:02.840 | Like it's a completely different world than now.

00:33:05.020 | If a kid goes on their computer,

00:33:06.360 | they can immediately figure out

00:33:07.560 | what are the basic checkmates, all these different things.

00:33:10.280 | At the time that didn't really exist.

00:33:12.160 | You'd have to find it in a book.

00:33:13.720 | - Yeah.

00:33:14.560 | So this is just a basic blunder.

00:33:15.640 | - Yeah, exactly.

00:33:16.480 | - Cool.

00:33:17.320 | - Yeah, so it's like I came back, it was a very good start,

00:33:18.800 | and then I lose like this, but I stuck with it.

00:33:22.040 | I improved very, very quickly thereafter.

00:33:24.960 | And yeah, it was very straightforward.

00:33:26.800 | - What was the secret to that fast improvement?

00:33:28.720 | So you said like this very first important step,

00:33:33.000 | which is saying like, what am I doing wrong?

00:33:34.960 | Like I have to figure out what I'm doing wrong,

00:33:36.800 | but then you actually have to take the step

00:33:38.160 | for figuring out what you're doing wrong.

00:33:40.840 | - Yeah, I think it was just,

00:33:43.120 | I just, I played as much as I could.

00:33:45.640 | Like it wasn't like I was consciously thinking about it.

00:33:47.520 | As an eight year old, you're not really thinking

00:33:48.960 | about those sorts of things with a big picture.

00:33:51.160 | So I just basically kept playing as much as I could,

00:33:53.720 | whether it was online, whether it was against my brother,

00:33:55.840 | reading these chess books as much as I could.

00:33:57.960 | I just devoured as much information as I could.

00:33:59.880 | - So you were studying chess books?

00:34:01.520 | You were studying chess books?

00:34:02.360 | - I was, I mean, I wasn't studying them

00:34:03.760 | cover to cover though.

00:34:04.840 | It's like you just study certain diagrams,

00:34:06.440 | certain positions.

00:34:07.280 | - So openings and stuff like that, you were?

00:34:08.840 | - Mostly tactics, actually.

00:34:10.160 | Openings were not, other than top level chess,

00:34:13.200 | openings were not a thing probably.

00:34:15.680 | I want to say for players below maybe master level

00:34:18.200 | in a serious way until maybe like the early 2000s.

00:34:21.200 | - So for people who don't know chess,

00:34:23.080 | what kind of tactical ideas are interesting

00:34:25.720 | and basic to understand that once you understand,

00:34:29.200 | you take early leaps in improvement?

00:34:33.120 | - Yeah, so it's things like forks, for example,

00:34:35.120 | where you attack two pieces at the same time,

00:34:37.600 | discovered attacks like checkmates,

00:34:39.560 | and again, winning like a queen or other material.

00:34:42.440 | Those are probably two most important ones.

00:34:45.960 | Batteries, or batteries and pens, things of that nature.

00:34:50.080 | - How many, how rich is the world of,

00:34:53.080 | and by the way, discovered attacks are when you move a piece.

00:34:56.560 | - And you put a king in check to win like a rook,

00:34:59.600 | for example, or other material.

00:35:01.440 | - And forking pieces is when you're attacking two pieces,

00:35:03.800 | so obviously the other person can't move

00:35:06.320 | two pieces at a time,

00:35:07.200 | and they're gonna have to lose one of them.

00:35:08.720 | Okay, so how big is the world,

00:35:11.800 | the universe of forks and discovered attacks?

00:35:14.680 | You know, I myself know,

00:35:19.040 | so there's like knights attacking like, what is it?

00:35:24.040 | - There are forks, knight attacking like a queen

00:35:25.800 | and a rook, for example,

00:35:26.840 | or like a pawn attacking a queen and a rook,

00:35:29.360 | or like a rook and a bishop.

00:35:30.720 | It's innumerable.

00:35:32.720 | There, I mean, but I will say that I think that with chess,

00:35:36.000 | the more of these patterns you see,

00:35:38.000 | the quicker you catch them.

00:35:39.560 | And that's how you improve, I think, the most

00:35:42.200 | is by learning these basic tactical themes

00:35:45.120 | at the beginner levels.

00:35:46.760 | - Are you, when you're discovering those patterns,

00:35:49.160 | are you looking at the chessboard

00:35:50.840 | or are you looking at some like higher dimensional

00:35:53.480 | representation of the relative position of the pieces?

00:35:57.640 | So basically something that's disjoint

00:36:00.120 | of the particular absolute position of the piece,

00:36:02.400 | but like you're seeing patterns like this kind of pattern,

00:36:06.080 | but elsewhere on the board.

00:36:07.800 | Like, are you thinking in patterns

00:36:10.000 | or in like absolute positions of the pieces?

00:36:12.360 | - Both.

00:36:13.200 | I think that at the higher levels,

00:36:15.360 | you're always thinking about like,

00:36:16.680 | you're thinking about the patterns

00:36:18.280 | on one side of the board specifically,

00:36:19.760 | but then also what happens is you play more and more.

00:36:22.520 | If you're a very strong player,

00:36:23.440 | you will be able to remember say pawn structures

00:36:25.520 | where the pawns are on certain squares

00:36:27.320 | from games that you've played like 15, 20 years ago,

00:36:30.040 | even potentially.

00:36:31.360 | So it's a mix.

00:36:32.200 | I think a lot of it is more subconscious

00:36:34.080 | than actively thinking about it

00:36:35.600 | and like figuring it out like that.

00:36:37.440 | The only thing for me that I definitely

00:36:40.160 | am doing very frequently when I play

00:36:42.520 | is trying to look at my pieces.

00:36:45.720 | Are they placed on the optimal squares?

00:36:47.480 | Are there better squares?

00:36:48.720 | And then once I get past that, like using the basic logic,

00:36:51.680 | I start to think about, okay, pure calculations,

00:36:54.480 | like what are the moves that make a lot of sense

00:36:56.640 | and start calculating direct moves.

00:36:58.040 | But one of the most basic things that I think that I do

00:37:00.320 | that a lot of people actually should do that they don't do

00:37:03.000 | is looking at the piece placement

00:37:04.440 | and trying to figure out what pieces look like

00:37:05.920 | they're on good squares versus bad squares.

00:37:08.360 | - So am I, for each piece asking the question,

00:37:12.480 | am I in my happy place?

00:37:14.320 | Am I in my like optimally happy place?

00:37:16.680 | - Yeah, I think that's very important.

00:37:17.760 | Like if we look at this position on the board right now,

00:37:19.320 | this is a good example.

00:37:20.280 | - Who's not in their happy place on the board right now?

00:37:22.720 | - I think both sides are actually pretty happy right now.

00:37:25.760 | But the thing is, if you're playing with a black piece,

00:37:28.640 | what is a move that sticks out to you

00:37:31.160 | to like follow basic principles?

00:37:33.800 | - Basic principles probably bring out the bishop.

00:37:37.000 | - And then castle the king.

00:37:38.000 | - Castle the king.

00:37:38.840 | - Right, exactly, that's correct.

00:37:40.840 | And that's what you should do.

00:37:42.240 | That's the best way to play the position.

00:37:44.560 | Now, once you do that though--

00:37:46.040 | - By the way, I have a vibrating device inside me right now.

00:37:49.280 | So I knew that.

00:37:50.520 | - Right.

00:37:51.440 | - So my rating is 3,400,

00:37:52.800 | which is what I believe Stockfish is.

00:37:55.120 | - No, it's higher.

00:37:55.960 | It's like 3,800 actually.

00:37:57.000 | - Is it 3,800?

00:37:57.840 | - I think it is.

00:37:58.660 | - I'm using an earlier version of Stockfish.

00:38:00.360 | Okay.

00:38:01.280 | Anyway, sorry, you were saying?

00:38:02.480 | - So like that's very basic.

00:38:04.480 | But then if you move the bishop out and you castle the king,

00:38:07.640 | well, let's just say bishop B7, play this, you castle.

00:38:11.240 | Okay, so now you've done everything

00:38:14.400 | with the pieces on the king side.

00:38:16.060 | So what would be the next set of,

00:38:18.080 | what's the next way to try and develop the pieces?

00:38:20.920 | - So everything here is pretty strong,

00:38:24.200 | except maybe this pawn?

00:38:25.560 | I don't know.

00:38:26.400 | - Okay, but think about the pieces.

00:38:27.220 | So by pieces, I mean everything except the pawns.

00:38:29.240 | - Except the pawns, okay.

00:38:32.240 | Probably either bishop or knight on the other side.

00:38:37.240 | - Yeah, and that is correct.

00:38:39.840 | You wanna bring out the bishop and the knight.

00:38:41.840 | So let's say you go bishop to E6.

00:38:42.680 | - Bishop to E6, yeah.

00:38:43.840 | - Yeah, I'll castle.

00:38:46.240 | Now you can move the knight to either square.

00:38:47.520 | It's somewhat irrelevant, but just move the knight.

00:38:50.240 | I'll just play knight to C6.

00:38:52.880 | - What was your random move?

00:38:54.400 | Bringing the bishop up?

00:38:55.240 | - I just moved my rook to the center.

00:38:56.060 | - Okay, got it.

00:38:56.900 | Oh, well, what's your unhappy place right now?

00:38:58.720 | - Okay, so let me move the queen

00:38:59.560 | to just follow some basic principles.

00:39:01.160 | - Okay, 'cause I wanna bring my rooks

00:39:02.400 | to the center of the board.

00:39:03.480 | - Yes.

00:39:04.400 | - So in this position, you've pretty much

00:39:06.000 | developed all your pieces.

00:39:06.920 | There are only two pieces that you haven't

00:39:08.280 | brought into the game.

00:39:09.800 | - The queen and the rook.

00:39:12.720 | And this, you consider to be in the game because it was--

00:39:16.500 | - I wouldn't say it's in the game,

00:39:17.960 | but there isn't really a great square

00:39:19.560 | for that rook right now.

00:39:21.560 | But in this position, you would probably move your rook to C8,

00:39:25.720 | and then the middle game begins after that.

00:39:27.920 | - Got it, so here.

00:39:30.040 | - Because now you've gotten your piece

00:39:31.160 | to all the optimal squares,

00:39:32.560 | and now you have to look for a specific plan,

00:39:34.120 | but you have gotten these pieces developed

00:39:37.200 | out of the opening.

00:39:38.280 | And that's a very basic thing

00:39:40.240 | that I think a lot of people don't think about,

00:39:41.880 | is what are the optimal placements for the pieces?

00:39:44.600 | - So you're constantly thinking about the pieces

00:39:46.580 | that are not in their optimal placement

00:39:48.480 | as you're doing all the other kind of tactics

00:39:50.400 | and stuff like that.

00:39:51.240 | - But that's a basic thing that people can follow.

00:39:53.440 | Actually doing pure calculations,

00:39:54.880 | like moving five or 10 moves in your head,

00:39:57.080 | that's not realistic.

00:39:58.840 | But trying to use basic logic

00:40:00.960 | to figure out what pieces are on squares that look correct

00:40:04.680 | is something anybody can do.

00:40:05.920 | - What about looking at the other person's pieces

00:40:09.200 | and thinking about the optimal placement of them?

00:40:11.560 | Like if you see a bunch of pieces

00:40:13.360 | not in their optimal placement for the opponent,

00:40:15.900 | what does that tell you?

00:40:17.160 | - I mean, that's a higher level concept, of course.

00:40:19.560 | Like I'm trying to give a beginner example.

00:40:22.280 | That is something that I do think about as well.

00:40:24.640 | Like I try to think about my opponent's pieces.

00:40:26.260 | Like that is basic logic.

00:40:27.660 | I think a lot of people these days

00:40:29.760 | at the upper levels of chess,

00:40:30.880 | they look at the game as something of pure calculation

00:40:33.880 | and you lose that human element.

00:40:35.400 | You're trying to just calculate

00:40:36.400 | all these different sequences of moves

00:40:38.160 | and you don't think about the basics.

00:40:40.880 | And it's something, it'll be interesting to see

00:40:42.720 | what happens with the next generation of kids

00:40:44.700 | who become very strong

00:40:46.280 | because that is really how they approach the game.

00:40:48.120 | They learn with computers.

00:40:49.180 | Whereas like I learned with computers at a certain point,

00:40:52.240 | but I did not start off with computers from the get-go.

00:40:55.000 | So human element still exists in my game.

00:40:57.400 | Actually, Magnus, I think has said this too,

00:40:59.600 | where he did not use a computer,

00:41:00.920 | I think until he was maybe like 11 years old,

00:41:02.880 | something around there.

00:41:04.320 | And so we have that human element to our game

00:41:06.380 | that I think the newer generation won't have.

00:41:08.480 | Now, it doesn't mean they aren't gonna be better than us,

00:41:10.540 | but it's gonna be a completely different approach.

00:41:12.480 | - What do you mean by human elements?

00:41:14.000 | Just basic logic versus raw calculation.

00:41:17.080 | - So it's like anybody now will use a computer

00:41:20.040 | from the time they start the game.

00:41:21.440 | And you use a computer,

00:41:22.920 | you look at the evaluations after the game

00:41:25.480 | to see how you're doing.

00:41:26.800 | But you don't really ever have those moments

00:41:29.400 | where you're just, it's you,

00:41:31.280 | or it's just you and your opponent.

00:41:32.440 | One thing that was great in the old days

00:41:33.960 | before computers simply became too strong

00:41:36.780 | is that you would actually do analysis

00:41:38.480 | with your opponent after the game.

00:41:40.120 | And that's very much this two humans analyzing a game.

00:41:42.840 | It's you and your opponent, two peers,

00:41:45.320 | and you come up with these human ideas.

00:41:47.440 | It's not automatically run back to your room,

00:41:49.460 | look with a computer and, oh, I should have played this move

00:41:51.520 | and it's just like winning the game.

00:41:53.280 | So that is kind of something that no longer exists

00:41:57.320 | in the game of chess because, as I said,

00:41:59.280 | there's no reason to analyze with your opponent after the game.

00:42:01.400 | - Are there ideas that the engine tells you

00:42:04.160 | that you can't reverse engineer with logic

00:42:08.680 | why that makes sense?

00:42:09.680 | And you start to just memorize it, that's good.

00:42:12.040 | - Yes, so in the opening, for sure,

00:42:14.960 | there's certain positions where moves are playable.

00:42:18.040 | And I can even give you an example,

00:42:19.920 | actually in this night,

00:42:20.960 | we can just set the position up a few moves earlier.

00:42:24.120 | Yeah, knight over on B8, bishop on C8,

00:42:27.620 | and just move the king back to the center,

00:42:32.160 | bishop back to F8, and pawn to E7.

00:42:36.840 | So the pawn in front of the king

00:42:38.600 | just push it back two squares.

00:42:39.680 | So like, here's an example.

00:42:41.980 | There's a move here that nowadays humans will play,

00:42:44.520 | which is this move, pawn to H4.

00:42:46.480 | And this is a move that 20 years ago,

00:42:49.500 | if someone showed this move to Kasparov,

00:42:51.480 | he would just laugh at them, no matter who you were.

00:42:53.240 | He would basically say, "You're an idiot.

00:42:54.360 | "What is this move?

00:42:55.520 | "You're pushing a pawn on the edge of the board.

00:42:57.060 | "It does nothing."

00:42:58.400 | And this is something that's playable,

00:43:00.400 | but even if you were to ask me or any other top grandmaster

00:43:03.040 | why it's playable or why it's a move that makes sense,

00:43:06.200 | we wouldn't be able to say why it makes sense.

00:43:08.320 | 'Cause it doesn't, we just know that it's fine

00:43:10.160 | because the computer says it's fine.

00:43:11.440 | - It's fine or is it good?

00:43:12.960 | It's just fine?

00:43:14.080 | - It probably, like everything else,

00:43:16.600 | is equal with perfect play,

00:43:17.800 | but it definitely, if you're not careful,

00:43:19.480 | black, you can be worse, for sure.

00:43:21.580 | But if you ask me, I can't say why it's a good move.

00:43:24.160 | I can say, "Okay, maybe I'm gonna expand on the king side.

00:43:26.680 | "I'll push this pawn here and push the pawn forward.

00:43:29.440 | "Maybe I can put the bishop on G5,

00:43:31.720 | "and in some situations, the pawn guard's the bishop,"

00:43:33.800 | but I can't give an actual good explanation

00:43:36.940 | for why it's a move that makes sense,

00:43:38.360 | 'cause it doesn't make sense.

00:43:39.520 | - It's fascinating that young people today,

00:43:41.720 | kids these days, would probably do that move

00:43:44.120 | much more nonchalantly.

00:43:48.160 | You'll see that a lot more

00:43:49.280 | because they know it's safe, at least.

00:43:50.960 | - Right, because they know the computer says it's fine.

00:43:52.640 | But I grew up without computers,

00:43:54.440 | and so to me, it's you're pushing a pawn on the edge,

00:43:56.520 | it's the opening phase, you don't do things like this.

00:43:58.800 | It's just, it looks ridiculous.

00:44:00.520 | Now, of course, I have worked with computers long enough

00:44:03.920 | that I know, like I'm not,

00:44:06.200 | I know that computers prove that everything is fine,

00:44:11.120 | but still, to me, it does feel wrong.

00:44:13.320 | - Yeah.

00:44:14.320 | Well, I think as computers get better,

00:44:16.280 | they'll also get better at explaining,

00:44:17.800 | which they currently don't do,

00:44:20.240 | at basically being able to do,

00:44:22.380 | so first of all, simple language generation.

00:44:27.320 | So a set of chess moves to language conversion,

00:44:30.400 | explaining to us dumb humans

00:44:32.480 | of why this is an interesting tactical idea.

00:44:36.240 | They currently don't do that.

00:44:37.160 | You're supposed to figure that out yourself.

00:44:38.920 | Like why, what's the deep wisdom

00:44:42.320 | in this particular pawn coming out in this kind of way?

00:44:45.800 | So let me ask you a ridiculous question.

00:44:48.720 | Do you think chess will ever get solved

00:44:52.400 | from the opening position

00:44:53.840 | to where we'll know the optimal, optimal level of play?

00:44:57.280 | - I highly doubt it.

00:44:59.520 | Without major advances in quantum computing,

00:45:02.280 | I don't think it's realistic

00:45:03.640 | to expect chess to be hard-solved.

00:45:05.960 | I just, I don't think that will happen,

00:45:09.300 | but I don't know.

00:45:10.680 | It could happen 20, 30 years maybe,

00:45:12.480 | but I think in the near future, it's not realistic.

00:45:15.080 | - Well, then let's go up with a pod head follow-up question.

00:45:18.360 | Suppose it does get solved.

00:45:20.520 | What opening do you think will be the optimal?

00:45:24.000 | - Well, everything will be a draw for sure after move one.

00:45:27.160 | - For sure. - After move one, yes.

00:45:28.720 | - For sure. - Absolutely.

00:45:29.560 | - You're absolutely sure of that?

00:45:30.520 | - Yes, yes.

00:45:31.640 | - That's, why are you so sure?

00:45:33.960 | - I'm so sure because when you look at the computer games

00:45:36.920 | and you see these decisive results,

00:45:38.560 | it's because they play, the openings are set generally.

00:45:41.760 | They can't, for move one, they play set openings.

00:45:44.280 | So you might play the knight

00:45:45.120 | or you might play the Berlin defense.

00:45:46.800 | Normally it's set openings as opposed to,

00:45:50.360 | as opposed to computers being able to do whatever they want.

00:45:52.320 | I just believe in general,

00:45:54.560 | in the openings that are symmetrical,

00:45:56.840 | like E4, E5, D4, D5, the computers will draw.

00:46:01.360 | And I think the optimal opening,

00:46:03.000 | I think E4, E5, knight F3, knight F6

00:46:05.760 | is probably a guaranteed draw.

00:46:08.040 | If there is perfect, if we have perfect information

00:46:10.580 | and we know that chess is solved,

00:46:12.840 | E4, E5, knight F3, knight F6,

00:46:14.440 | the Russian or the Petrov defense,

00:46:16.480 | that will be the optimal strategy.

00:46:18.360 | - See, so that's symmetrical play

00:46:22.000 | is going to lead to a draw.

00:46:23.600 | But what if you can constantly as white maintain asymmetry,

00:46:28.600 | constantly keep the opponent off balance?

00:46:31.800 | So yes, E4, then you're always doing this symmetry.

00:46:35.880 | But what if chess inherently,

00:46:37.720 | there's something about the mathematics of the game

00:46:40.120 | that allows for like that thin line that you walk,

00:46:45.120 | that maintains to the end game, the asymmetry constantly,

00:46:48.920 | that there's no move that can

00:46:51.080 | bring back the balance of the game.

00:46:55.160 | You don't think that exists?

00:46:57.800 | - I don't think it does.

00:46:58.640 | So basically I'm saying E4, E5, I think is a draw.

00:47:00.400 | I think D4, D5 is a draw.

00:47:02.200 | C4, C5, I think basically it's symmetry.

00:47:05.080 | That's- - All of it's a draw.

00:47:06.560 | - I think that's why it's a draw.

00:47:08.200 | - So it doesn't even matter.

00:47:09.200 | Like you're saying if it's solved,

00:47:12.640 | most openings will be a draw.

00:47:15.520 | - Yes, I think E4, D4, C4, Knight F3 for sure will be a draw.

00:47:19.640 | Other openings, I'm not sure about,

00:47:21.360 | but those first four possible starting moves,

00:47:24.600 | I think chess is a draw.

00:47:26.400 | - Knight F3, what's the response to Knight F3?

00:47:29.920 | - Probably Knight F6 again.

00:47:31.840 | Or to make it simple,

00:47:33.840 | if I play Knight F3 on move one,

00:47:37.920 | black here can also play D5 on move one.

00:47:41.640 | And normally at some point,

00:47:43.000 | white's gonna end up playing D4.

00:47:44.400 | - So the order of- (laughs)

00:47:45.760 | - So it's probably gonna lead back,

00:47:47.280 | yeah, all roads kind of lead back there as well.

00:47:49.560 | There probably are other ways which,

00:47:52.000 | where there is play,

00:47:53.360 | but I think that's at the end of the day,

00:47:54.880 | the symmetry is what's gonna lead to like a forced equality

00:47:59.880 | or draw in the game of chess.

00:48:01.560 | - So Demis Hassabis is the CEO of DeepMind.

00:48:06.200 | DeepMind helped create or created AlphaZero.

00:48:10.000 | He says that he's also a chess player

00:48:11.880 | and he's a fan of chess.

00:48:13.160 | And he says the reason,

00:48:15.680 | his hypothesis is that the reason chess is interesting

00:48:20.460 | as a game is the creative, quote unquote,

00:48:24.320 | tension between the bishop and the knight.

00:48:27.280 | So like there's so many different dynamics

00:48:30.360 | that are created by those two pieces.

00:48:32.400 | You think there's truth to that?

00:48:33.600 | I mean, some of that is just poetry,

00:48:34.920 | but is there truth to that?

00:48:36.520 | - I think it's definitely true

00:48:37.640 | when you look at the imbalances

00:48:39.580 | that are not like crazy attacking positions.

00:48:41.720 | Like one thing that Bobby Fischer

00:48:43.480 | was really, really good at when he was the world champion

00:48:45.840 | is playing end games with a bishop versus a knight.

00:48:48.080 | Now, traditionally we think of the knight

00:48:49.520 | being better than the bishop, even today in end games,

00:48:52.200 | but Fischer proved that there are a lot of end games

00:48:54.220 | where a bishop is better than a knight.

00:48:55.560 | So I do agree with that statement.

00:48:58.240 | It's like the imbalances between like bishops and knights

00:49:00.520 | in many positions, you never really know.

00:49:02.800 | Like there are many positions

00:49:03.760 | where a knight is better than a bishop

00:49:04.960 | or knight and bishop are better than two bishops

00:49:07.720 | or like it is all the imbalance.

00:49:09.440 | Generally it is the imbalances though

00:49:11.920 | between the bishops and the knights

00:49:13.200 | or combinations of the two pieces

00:49:14.820 | that lead to the most interesting positions.

00:49:17.440 | So I agree with that.

00:49:18.440 | - Interesting positions.

00:49:19.280 | What about fun?

00:49:20.220 | Is there like aspects that you find fun

00:49:22.720 | within the game itself?

00:49:23.840 | Not all the stuff around it,

00:49:26.560 | but just the purity of the game?

00:49:29.560 | - I think for me these days,

00:49:31.400 | when I see some of these moves that computer suggests

00:49:34.360 | after a game that I play and I just go, wow,

00:49:36.520 | that is the beauty for me

00:49:37.760 | because these are not moves that I would ever consider.

00:49:40.360 | And when I then see the move

00:49:41.760 | and then like I might make a couple of moves

00:49:43.040 | to try and understand why, that is the beauty to me

00:49:45.640 | is seeing all these things that just like 10 years ago,

00:49:48.420 | I never would have even seen

00:49:49.960 | 'cause computers weren't at the level they're at today.

00:49:51.800 | And so the depth and creativity of what they're saying,

00:49:54.880 | even if it's not like in our language,

00:49:56.640 | but in the evaluation, that's where I find a lot of beauty.

00:49:59.760 | - Oh, that's fun.

00:50:00.680 | So like the computer is a source,

00:50:03.200 | it's a source of creative fulfillment for you.

00:50:07.120 | - Absolutely.

00:50:07.960 | I mean, I think also it's very humbling as well.

00:50:10.360 | It's like, when you spend your whole life playing a game

00:50:12.920 | and you get pretty good, you think you're pretty good at it.

00:50:15.680 | But even like, even for Magnus,

00:50:16.960 | I think when we look at it and you see like these things

00:50:19.640 | that we've spent 20, 30 years playing this game

00:50:22.440 | and it just, it doesn't click and then you see it,

00:50:24.600 | it's just like, it really is beautiful.

00:50:27.080 | - You're known for being a very aggressive player.

00:50:30.680 | What's your approach to being willing to take big risks

00:50:34.040 | at the chessboard?

00:50:35.580 | - Well, I think that's another thing.

00:50:37.160 | I was a very aggressive player

00:50:38.560 | probably until I got to about this 2700 Elo

00:50:42.000 | and then it kind of, my style changed a little bit.

00:50:44.080 | I think what it is is I like to play attacking chess.

00:50:47.800 | I loved playing openings like the King's Indian,

00:50:50.640 | the Sicilian Eidorff as well when I was a little bit younger

00:50:54.160 | and it's just like, why not try to fight

00:50:56.300 | with both colors, try to fight in every game

00:50:58.200 | and win if you can, try as hard as you can.

00:51:01.000 | Now, one of the things is as you get better and better,

00:51:03.820 | players are also better and better prepared.

00:51:05.720 | So you have diminishing returns

00:51:08.420 | when you play these very aggressive openings

00:51:10.080 | like the King's Indian or even the Dutch,

00:51:11.720 | which I played for a while.

00:51:13.120 | You can only, it only takes you so far

00:51:15.600 | and then at a point people figure out what,

00:51:18.520 | how to respond to those choices.

00:51:20.180 | So I still do play these openings.

00:51:22.440 | For example, I played a tournament in St. Louis

00:51:24.480 | about three weeks ago and I played a great King's Indian

00:51:26.540 | game, which I won against Jeffrey Zhang,

00:51:28.540 | an American junior player.

00:51:29.620 | So I still do play it here and there.

00:51:31.540 | But when you start playing it every game,

00:51:33.620 | there's a point at which when you lose these games,

00:51:35.620 | you just can't, it becomes too much.

00:51:37.460 | And I spoke about this in the C Squared podcast

00:51:40.020 | where I played the Eidorff

00:51:41.300 | and then I played Fabiano Caruana,

00:51:43.380 | a very strong American player as well.

00:51:45.220 | And he just blew me off the board in like four straight games

00:51:47.380 | and I'm like, okay, enough, enough of this.

00:51:49.020 | I just can't, I can't keep doing it.

00:51:50.900 | - Because do you think he prepared for that opening then?

00:51:54.100 | - Absolutely.

00:51:54.940 | - Because you see what have,

00:51:56.520 | what has my opponent been playing recently?

00:51:59.380 | Where's their ideas?

00:52:00.400 | And so I'm going to prepare for those ideas

00:52:02.020 | that they've been playing with.

00:52:02.860 | - Exactly, yeah, that's what you do.

00:52:04.580 | And also you have to be very self-critical

00:52:06.780 | 'cause for Fabiano, the Eidorff was the one opening

00:52:09.460 | he did very poorly against, but he worked really hard

00:52:12.100 | and he came up with a lot of different ideas

00:52:13.820 | and he solved that weakness.

00:52:16.020 | - What's the role of, you're also known

00:52:18.620 | of having a bit of an ego.

00:52:20.780 | What's the role of ego in chess?

00:52:22.500 | Is it helpful or does it get in the way?

00:52:24.700 | - I think it's a mix.

00:52:25.660 | I think there's a fine line.

00:52:27.260 | I think you have to be very confident

00:52:29.180 | in order to get to the top.

00:52:30.340 | I know some players are very expressive like myself,

00:52:33.540 | like Kasparov and others.

00:52:34.980 | There are other people like Anand who don't express it,

00:52:37.060 | but then there was a book that I think was released

00:52:39.400 | fairly recently where he basically said

00:52:41.340 | like he was really angry in his room

00:52:43.140 | and he was like banging walls or doing something with chairs.

00:52:46.080 | I don't remember the exact story,

00:52:47.740 | but like he was able to, in public,

00:52:49.740 | he kept it very like very buttoned up,

00:52:51.620 | but then in private he wasn't.

00:52:53.180 | I think you have to have that edge.

00:52:56.500 | If you don't have that edge and you don't get upset

00:52:58.640 | when you lose games, because you will lose games

00:53:00.820 | along the way, then it's impossible

00:53:02.660 | to get anywhere near the top.

00:53:03.780 | So I think every top player has that ego

00:53:06.420 | or extreme confidence that is necessary.

00:53:09.100 | If you don't have that, you'll never, I think,

00:53:10.660 | get to the top, probably in almost any field, frankly.

00:53:12.820 | - Do you have to believe you're the best

00:53:15.060 | to have the capacity to be the best in the world?

00:53:18.060 | - Yeah, I think you have to have that.

00:53:19.060 | I think for me, it wasn't really ever about

00:53:21.820 | thinking I'm the best in the world.

00:53:22.780 | It's about like going into that game.

00:53:24.620 | That game, whoever I'm playing,

00:53:25.900 | I believe that I can beat them,

00:53:27.220 | or I know that I'm gonna beat them,

00:53:28.540 | or I'm better than them.

00:53:29.900 | For me, it was always about that,

00:53:32.060 | whenever I'm in that moment in the game,

00:53:33.580 | just knowing that I can do that.

00:53:35.300 | I think that is also another thing

00:53:37.500 | that when you start playing more and more

00:53:39.300 | in these top tournaments, you kind of lose that sometimes

00:53:42.060 | because the positions, you have the same opening strategies.

00:53:45.420 | You end up with positions that are very drawish

00:53:47.620 | where you reach end games, things of this nature.

00:53:49.740 | And so it can also make you very jaded as well

00:53:52.380 | after you've been up there for quite a long time.

00:53:54.660 | - Were there times you were an asshole to someone

00:53:57.500 | and you regret it at the chessboard or beyond?

00:54:01.420 | - Yeah, so I think-- - Asking internet questions.

00:54:03.300 | - Yeah, I mean, this is definitely true.

00:54:04.900 | I'm not gonna pretend it isn't.

00:54:06.060 | When I was younger, I was very angry

00:54:09.180 | when I would lose games on the internet.

00:54:11.060 | Many of these stories are specifically

00:54:13.420 | from the internet, of course.

00:54:14.500 | And I think I look back on it,

00:54:16.620 | and of course I wish that I'd been able

00:54:18.860 | to channel the anger differently.

00:54:20.420 | Basically, I think the simple gist of it is

00:54:22.460 | I would play Blitz games online and when I lost,

00:54:24.780 | I would get angry at my opponents

00:54:26.100 | instead of getting angry at myself.

00:54:28.300 | Which of course, it's silly 'cause they're playing the game,

00:54:30.540 | they're trying to win.

00:54:31.380 | Why shouldn't they try to beat you?

00:54:33.060 | I think for me, I'm not happy about that

00:54:35.300 | when I was a young teenager getting so angry

00:54:37.900 | over these online games and insulting a lot of people

00:54:40.300 | along the way.

00:54:41.460 | - But maybe that paved the way to your streaming career.

00:54:44.140 | - I think for me, I feel like having

00:54:47.420 | that me against the world attitude, though,

00:54:49.060 | it really fueled me when I was younger.

00:54:50.580 | Feeling like it was me against the world,

00:54:51.980 | everyone hating me or me hating the world.

00:54:54.500 | That was very important.

00:54:55.340 | I was able to channel that anger

00:54:56.580 | in a way that really helped me improve.

00:54:58.860 | So do I regret it?

00:55:00.900 | On the one hand, yes.

00:55:01.860 | Of course, I think you don't wanna be like that.

00:55:05.420 | On the other hand, what I've gotten as good as I am,

00:55:07.660 | if it was different, I'm not so sure.

00:55:09.780 | So, mix.

00:55:11.020 | - Well, then I'll ask you to empathize

00:55:13.620 | with somebody else who currently has

00:55:15.660 | a me against the world attitude and is helping him,

00:55:18.820 | which is Hans Niemann.

00:55:20.380 | For several reasons, he has me against the world

00:55:23.260 | kind of attitude.

00:55:24.100 | Well, let me ask, there's been a chess controversy

00:55:28.420 | about cheating and so on that you've covered.

00:55:30.220 | People should subscribe to your channel.

00:55:31.900 | You're hilarious, entertaining, brilliant,

00:55:35.100 | and it's just fun to learn from you.

00:55:37.940 | Do you think, as we stand now,

00:55:41.660 | Hans ever cheated in over-the-board chess?

00:55:44.580 | As things stand now at the beginning of October.

00:55:48.420 | - Yeah, that's a very tough question

00:55:51.180 | for a couple of reasons.

00:55:52.660 | I think, first of all, when people refer to evidence

00:55:56.020 | in regards to whether Hans cheated over-the-board,

00:55:57.880 | there is not, and I don't think there ever will be,

00:56:00.020 | quote-unquote, hard evidence.

00:56:01.180 | The only thing that would ever constitute that

00:56:03.340 | is if he's caught in the act.

00:56:04.500 | Literally, he's caught using a phone with an earpiece,

00:56:07.180 | whatever it might be.

00:56:08.100 | That is the only way that there would ever be hard evidence.

00:56:10.940 | So, as it stands right now,

00:56:12.740 | there's a lot of circumstantial evidence.

00:56:14.480 | How much of it is legitimate or not remains to be seen.

00:56:17.300 | I know people have questioned the statistics.

00:56:19.900 | Some people think it's very convincing.

00:56:21.660 | Some people think it's complete nonsense.

00:56:24.220 | I think that right now, I'm very undecided,

00:56:29.220 | but I do feel that within the next three to six months,

00:56:31.780 | assuming Hans is able to play over-the-board

00:56:34.100 | in more tournaments, the stats will make it very clear

00:56:36.940 | one way or the other based on our results,

00:56:38.660 | whether it's legitimate or not.

00:56:40.140 | I think for me, I would say that regardless

00:56:43.820 | of whether I believe he cheated or not,

00:56:46.740 | he is playing at probably at least 2,650, no matter what.

00:56:51.620 | Regardless of whether he's cheating or not,

00:56:53.180 | he's already at that level, which is very, very high.

00:56:55.900 | So, I think the stats will bear it out in the next,

00:56:57.980 | probably, I said three to six months,

00:56:59.940 | probably I would say next six to 12 months,

00:57:02.380 | whether something happened, but I really don't know.

00:57:05.780 | - Do you find compelling or interesting

00:57:09.180 | the kind of analysis where you compare

00:57:11.220 | the correlation between engines and humans

00:57:14.220 | to try to determine if cheating was done in part?

00:57:17.620 | - So, initially, I thought that

00:57:18.940 | that was actually quite legitimate,

00:57:20.820 | but as I found out much more recently,

00:57:23.060 | anybody can basically upload this data.

00:57:25.100 | So, that whole theory, while it seemed

00:57:26.940 | very convincing at the time,

00:57:28.460 | it simply isn't any statistical evidence, in my opinion, now.

00:57:33.460 | But there are games from some of those tournaments

00:57:37.060 | that definitely, considering where his rating was,

00:57:39.020 | look very suspicious in 2020, I would say.

00:57:43.060 | Again, that's not the role of myself to decide,

00:57:46.060 | or Chess.com, that's obviously gonna be up to FIDE,

00:57:48.700 | whether they think that's compelling evidence or not.

00:57:52.180 | I think, for me, what I would say

00:57:55.340 | from an intuitive standpoint is that

00:57:57.580 | I've been in this world for a very, very long time.

00:57:59.820 | I've seen most of the juniors as they've risen

00:58:02.700 | through the ranks, Magnus and many others,

00:58:04.980 | and there's always been something about them

00:58:07.260 | that has stood out to me,

00:58:08.300 | that's been a brilliant game they've played

00:58:10.140 | against someone who's much higher rated.

00:58:11.780 | I've just seen it from all of those players.

00:58:14.260 | I never really saw that with Hans Niemann.

00:58:17.100 | So, it's very difficult for me to,

00:58:19.740 | with my own two eyes, being in this chess world so long,

00:58:22.140 | see things a certain way,

00:58:23.820 | and then something that's never happened before is happening.

00:58:27.020 | But at the end of the day, it is still possible.

00:58:28.940 | It is completely possible that Hans,

00:58:30.860 | something clicked at a certain age,

00:58:32.260 | and he started improving, in spite of the fact that

00:58:34.740 | the statistics look weird,

00:58:36.340 | in terms of his rating improvement.

00:58:37.780 | So, I don't know.

00:58:39.020 | I think that in six to 12 months,

00:58:41.620 | I'll probably be able to say one way or the other,

00:58:44.580 | with very certain confidence,

00:58:46.100 | like whether he should be there or not.

00:58:48.660 | - Speaking of statistics, I should ask,

00:58:51.420 | I'm not sure about this, are you a data scientist?

00:58:53.940 | - Right, that's a good one.

00:58:54.900 | No, of course I'm not.

00:58:56.460 | But that's the thing.

00:58:58.060 | You see all these stats are thrown out there,

00:59:00.980 | and you try to understand what's being said.

00:59:03.540 | But it's also very scary,

00:59:06.020 | because when you see these things that look very legitimate,

00:59:08.500 | and then they're disproven,

00:59:10.180 | or people say you're cherry picking the dates,

00:59:12.740 | and all these other things,

00:59:13.580 | it almost feels like you can come to any conclusion

00:59:15.500 | that you want to.

00:59:16.780 | And that's why I think this is such a serious issue

00:59:18.980 | for the world of chess,

00:59:19.900 | because going forward, if we don't take it seriously now,

00:59:24.140 | I think at some point, there is the potential

00:59:26.220 | for a much, much larger scandal.

00:59:28.100 | - Do you agree that, like what Magnus, I think, said,

00:59:30.540 | that it is an existential threat to chess,

00:59:32.700 | like this is a very serious problem

00:59:35.020 | that's only going to get bigger?

00:59:36.900 | Because you're basically, from a spectator perspective,

00:59:41.860 | from a competitor perspective,

00:59:43.180 | are not sure that you can trust any of the results.

00:59:46.220 | - Yeah, I think that's for sure true.

00:59:48.420 | When I think back to the last five to 10 years,

00:59:50.980 | there are plenty of top-level tournaments that I played in

00:59:52.980 | where there was no security at all.

00:59:55.100 | You would just go into the auditorium and play your games,

00:59:58.020 | and that was that.

00:59:58.860 | So I do think it's a big issue.

01:00:00.820 | I think it has been a big issue,

01:00:02.300 | but the reason it's only coming to light now

01:00:04.580 | is because it features a very strong junior player

01:00:07.460 | who's very close to the world's elite.

01:00:09.340 | There have been many cheating scandals before.

01:00:11.620 | There was this French player, Sebastian Feller.

01:00:14.060 | There was this player, Igor Zrausis, from Latvia.

01:00:16.860 | There was this, I think it was from Belarus,

01:00:19.700 | or maybe I have that wrong, maybe it was Bulgaria,

01:00:22.220 | Borislav Ivanov as well.

01:00:23.740 | Those are three big cheating scandals,

01:00:25.660 | but they were not at the absolute top levels of chess,

01:00:28.220 | which I think is why it never became

01:00:30.860 | the huge news story that this is,

01:00:32.380 | or it wasn't viewed in the same kind of way.

01:00:34.140 | That's why I think organizers were perhaps

01:00:35.980 | a little bit too lax in terms of security.

01:00:38.500 | - So you said 2,650.

01:00:41.540 | Is it possible that Hans is in fact

01:00:45.700 | a kind of Bobby Fischer level of genius,

01:00:48.300 | and he's capable at times of genius at the chessboard?

01:00:52.340 | - Oh, absolutely.

01:00:53.340 | 100%, that is absolutely possible.

01:00:55.660 | I think that's why I think for everybody in the situation,

01:00:58.940 | we wanna see what happens in the next six to 12 months,

01:01:02.300 | because I think it will be very clear.

01:01:04.380 | Also, it's very interesting to me

01:01:05.940 | because there are other stats from that 72-page report

01:01:09.300 | that chess.com compiled, which in essence,

01:01:11.740 | say certain other junior players basically have peaked,

01:01:14.380 | that they're not likely to improve further.

01:01:16.180 | So it's also gonna be very interesting

01:01:18.300 | when you look at those, I think it was 50 pages of graphs,

01:01:22.420 | 'cause there are graphs that say

01:01:23.540 | some of the other junior players are done.

01:01:25.020 | So when we look forward in a year or two,

01:01:26.900 | if those players don't improve,

01:01:28.340 | it will also say something about their methods as well

01:01:31.380 | that they've used to sort of compile this data.

01:01:34.340 | - Yeah, I wonder what those junior players do

01:01:36.900 | if they look at that data.

01:01:38.340 | So there's a point where you should look at yourself

01:01:40.700 | like practically, like what is the actual empirical data

01:01:45.700 | over the past year of how much you have improved

01:01:48.820 | at a particular thing?

01:01:50.260 | Like it's one thing to kind of tell yourself

01:01:52.940 | that these are the ways I need to improve,

01:01:54.420 | and it's another to actually look at the data

01:01:56.500 | and face the reality of it.

01:01:58.580 | - Right, I think also that could have a psychological effect.

01:02:02.420 | That is the other thing that makes

01:02:03.580 | the whole Han situation so tough,

01:02:05.900 | because if you think that he's cheated

01:02:07.820 | or you're unsure about what's going on,

01:02:09.380 | that is another psychological factor

01:02:11.540 | whenever you play against him.

01:02:12.780 | - In his favor or against him?

01:02:15.100 | - Definitely in his favor.

01:02:16.780 | Because for example, if I go online

01:02:19.100 | and play against the computer,

01:02:20.100 | let's just say I go play against Stockfish tomorrow,

01:02:22.060 | I'm gonna play a very certain type of opening strategy,

01:02:24.660 | try to keep the board closed and maybe hope to get lucky.

01:02:27.380 | Now, computers have gotten so good

01:02:28.820 | that generally even that doesn't,

01:02:30.300 | I don't even have a chance even with such strategies,

01:02:33.060 | but you play differently than you normally would.

01:02:35.860 | And so if you're playing a game against him

01:02:37.620 | and there's a move that looks really weird,

01:02:39.940 | it doesn't seem logical at all,

01:02:41.380 | that can also start to affect you

01:02:42.700 | where you immediately make a mistake

01:02:43.980 | or you start questioning yourself,

01:02:45.060 | you start thinking, well, what's going on here?

01:02:47.020 | Is there something unbecoming?

01:02:49.300 | Like you start worrying about what is happening.

01:02:52.780 | And so it definitely is, it's a very tough situation.

01:02:57.540 | - Do you agree with Magnus' decision to forfeit the match,

01:03:00.460 | his most recent match with Hans?

01:03:02.540 | - Tough question.

01:03:04.540 | In my heart of hearts,

01:03:07.460 | I feel like there had to be a better way to handle it

01:03:09.540 | than what Magnus did.

01:03:11.300 | On the other hand, sort of being in this world

01:03:13.700 | of top grandmasters,

01:03:14.820 | having heard these rumors for two years,

01:03:16.700 | I think that the fact that it was blown off

01:03:19.780 | and it wasn't treated seriously,

01:03:20.980 | I'm not sure if there was a better option.

01:03:22.820 | So in my heart of hearts,

01:03:23.660 | I feel like there had to be a better way to handle it,

01:03:25.940 | but in practicality, like in the practical world,

01:03:28.940 | I think he might've made the only decision

01:03:31.500 | where it became a big issue.

01:03:33.460 | - Yeah, I mean, I guess I would've loved to see

01:03:37.180 | just where 100% it's certain that there's no cheating involved

01:03:41.580 | that they play a bunch of games.

01:03:43.780 | - Yeah, I think there was actually an article

01:03:45.340 | that was released today by Ken Rogoff,

01:03:47.900 | who is a grandmaster at Chess,

01:03:49.140 | where he wrote this article in the Boston Globe

01:03:51.380 | and he essentially said that,

01:03:52.260 | like have Hans and Magnus play a match

01:03:54.340 | and see what his score is

01:03:55.740 | 'cause statistically, if it's above a certain percentage,

01:03:58.620 | that means he's legitimate

01:04:00.180 | because of course you have security.

01:04:02.020 | If it's below, that probably means

01:04:04.420 | that he's not at the level that he's at.

01:04:06.860 | So I don't know if that's a real way

01:04:08.300 | to settle it necessarily

01:04:10.180 | because also for Magnus to ask him to play

01:04:12.460 | against someone who's cheated,

01:04:13.460 | I think for him, he would never entertain the idea

01:04:16.380 | 'cause it's like, why am I gonna play

01:04:18.060 | against someone who cheated?

01:04:18.900 | So I don't know, it's very tough.

01:04:21.100 | And one other thing I would say on the topic

01:04:23.980 | that's really important to note

01:04:25.060 | is this sort of came from left field

01:04:27.140 | for most people who are in the general public

01:04:28.980 | or very casual chess players,

01:04:30.820 | but this is not something that wasn't known,

01:04:33.340 | wasn't even on the radar.

01:04:34.940 | I think this has not been said before,

01:04:36.940 | but there's one of these things

01:04:38.580 | where they talk about how Hans has,

01:04:40.860 | he played better during a period of time

01:04:42.980 | when games were broadcast versus not broadcast.

01:04:46.220 | I actually heard this rumor two years ago

01:04:48.380 | during one of the terms he's playing specifically.

01:04:51.740 | So that is the thing is that this has been out there

01:04:53.820 | for a very long time.

01:04:55.140 | And so it's hard because you do believe

01:04:58.220 | that Magnus could have handled it better,

01:04:59.460 | but if it was two years of these rumors

01:05:01.220 | and nothing was done about it, I don't know.

01:05:04.220 | - And for people who don't understand,

01:05:06.460 | when it's broadcast, it's easier to cheat

01:05:08.940 | because you can have, it removes one of the challenges

01:05:13.780 | of cheating, which is the one-way communication

01:05:16.300 | from the board to the engine.

01:05:19.060 | Here, the engine can just watch the broadcast

01:05:23.100 | and then all you have to do is send signals right back.

01:05:26.140 | I mean, that's really, I woken up to this fact,

01:05:30.100 | actually programmed, so setting all the silly

01:05:33.140 | sex toys aside, I have a bunch of these devices.

01:05:38.140 | So like of this, it's the size of a coin

01:05:42.340 | and it has a high resolution vibration that you can send.

01:05:47.180 | So you can just have this in your pocket.

01:05:48.620 | It's basically what your smartphone has,

01:05:51.620 | ability to vibrate and can do programmatic communication

01:05:55.540 | through anything, Bluetooth is the easiest.

01:05:58.420 | So this made me wonder, wait a minute,

01:06:01.620 | how often does this happen?

01:06:03.820 | Like at every level of play.

01:06:05.140 | And you said this only became a huge concern

01:06:08.260 | for at the highest level of play,

01:06:11.920 | but then how much cheating is going on

01:06:13.700 | at the middle level of play,

01:06:16.700 | especially when more money is involved.

01:06:18.180 | So in the game of poker, when like,

01:06:20.340 | it really made me think like the future

01:06:26.100 | will have devices like this much easier to,

01:06:29.740 | like you will engineer smaller and smaller

01:06:31.540 | and smaller devices that have onboard compute

01:06:35.140 | that like this is the future.

01:06:38.740 | I mean, it makes me, I think probably

01:06:41.780 | with all kinds of cybersecurity,

01:06:43.980 | that means the defense will just have to get,

01:06:46.620 | start to get better.

01:06:47.740 | Even with chess, it seems like the security is very clumsy.

01:06:51.660 | Just looking at the scanning of the recent tournament.

01:06:54.060 | - One thing you'll see is that a lot of people

01:06:55.300 | are talking about whether Hans is a cheater or not.

01:06:57.260 | The one thing that almost nobody is doing

01:06:58.700 | is actually like trying to show how it can be done.

01:07:01.140 | Everyone's basically avoiding that.

01:07:02.420 | I think the single biggest reason for that

01:07:04.940 | is simply because it can be done very easily

01:07:07.740 | at like a weekend tournament.

01:07:08.740 | You play a weekend tournament where the top prize

01:07:11.180 | is a hundred dollars and the players are maybe master level.

01:07:13.260 | Somebody could already do this

01:07:14.940 | because even in St. Louis now where they have the security,

01:07:17.300 | my understanding is the non-linear junction device

01:07:21.300 | they bought costs about $11,000.

01:07:24.260 | And organizers, if you have a weekend tournament

01:07:27.020 | at the local club, you don't have $11,000

01:07:29.940 | to spend on such a device.

01:07:31.900 | And so that is why a lot of people

01:07:33.980 | have been talking about it,

01:07:34.820 | but I think it is very, very serious.

01:07:36.380 | And that's why it is good even if,

01:07:39.700 | aside from Hans even, it is a very important question

01:07:42.740 | or debate to be having at the present moment.

01:07:44.940 | - Well, I think it's good to talk about it, right?

01:07:47.580 | To make it so that the defenses will really step up.

01:07:50.300 | I think you could do pretty cheap,

01:07:51.660 | like the security pretty cheaply.

01:07:53.780 | But you have to take it seriously.

01:07:57.380 | - Right, right, of course.

01:07:59.140 | And again, we'll see what happens.

01:08:01.580 | I think that's gonna end up being on FIDE

01:08:03.500 | more than anyone else to try and do that.

01:08:06.140 | I don't think asking the organizers to do it.

01:08:08.260 | I mean, I feel like FIDE, they are the governing body.

01:08:10.340 | It will be on them at the end of the day to figure it out.

01:08:13.020 | But it's gonna be interesting to see what happens

01:08:16.380 | in the next couple of months.

01:08:17.580 | - Will you play Hans if the opportunity arises?

01:08:20.540 | - Well, right now that's not in the near future for me.

01:08:23.500 | I think fortunately. - Why not?

01:08:24.980 | Why not?

01:08:25.940 | - Well, because there's maybe only one tournament

01:08:28.140 | that I'm playing in that he could be playing in potentially

01:08:30.580 | and it's not even set to be happening

01:08:32.380 | at the end of the year.

01:08:33.220 | There might be like a World Blitz

01:08:34.100 | and Rapid Chess Championship.

01:08:35.740 | So I don't think I'm gonna have to make that decision

01:08:37.900 | for at least another six months.

01:08:38.740 | - What about a challenge match?

01:08:40.540 | You're one of, you're...

01:08:42.700 | (Lex laughing)

01:08:43.860 | The most famous super grandmaster in terms of online.

01:08:48.860 | So it makes sense in terms of chess is going through

01:08:55.620 | a kind of like a serious controversy.

01:08:59.940 | Since it's not just like the drama or something like this.

01:09:04.340 | This is in part an existential threat to the game

01:09:07.420 | in terms of how the public perceives the game.

01:09:09.980 | So if the story that lingers from this

01:09:12.740 | is chess is full of cheaters,

01:09:14.500 | like you never know who is cheating or not.

01:09:16.980 | That's not a good, that's not good for the game.

01:09:20.220 | So it makes sense for a high profile person

01:09:23.060 | to go head to head.

01:09:25.340 | How do you think you'd do against Hans?

01:09:27.700 | - I mean, I think I would probably beat him

01:09:29.940 | in Blitz and Rapid.

01:09:30.980 | Classical is a whole different question altogether.

01:09:33.660 | I think in Blitz and Rapid I would.

01:09:34.820 | I mean, one thing actually that was very telling

01:09:37.480 | in both the report and also Hans' interview

01:09:39.540 | for all the other stuff that was said

01:09:40.980 | is the one thing he did say and seemed very adamant about

01:09:43.660 | was the fact that he had never cheated against me.

01:09:45.860 | Which, so that was the one thing he did say

01:09:48.540 | that at least according to the report was truthful.

01:09:50.740 | So it's something possibly down the road to consider.

01:09:54.900 | But I do wanna see what happens

01:09:57.100 | with everything else first with FIDE

01:09:59.180 | and whatever they choose to do

01:10:01.500 | in regards to Hans and Magnus.

01:10:03.580 | And then see where the smoke stands.

01:10:06.380 | But I think also one other thing

01:10:09.540 | that is potentially very dangerous about the whole situation

01:10:12.500 | is that I'm not convinced that FIDE

01:10:14.740 | actually has the ultimate say in this

01:10:16.860 | in that the top players,

01:10:18.220 | if they feel that he has cheated over the board,

01:10:20.920 | even if there's a report that says he has,

01:10:22.620 | that Hans has not cheated,

01:10:23.940 | top players can still decide not to play him

01:10:26.360 | and sort of override whatever ultimate decision

01:10:28.780 | FIDE comes to.

01:10:29.620 | So that's also why it's very unclear.

01:10:33.420 | You know, this term, the US Championship, Hans qualified.

01:10:36.180 | He's playing the tournament.

01:10:37.340 | But beyond this, there are no tournaments

01:10:38.860 | where he's automatically qualified to.

01:10:41.060 | And so it also is on the top players

01:10:43.600 | to sort of have to reach some conclusion

01:10:46.180 | on their own separate defeating.

01:10:47.740 | - So to flip that, is there some part of you

01:10:51.800 | that regrets that the chess community and you included

01:10:56.800 | implied that Hans cheated early on?

01:10:59.260 | And I think without having evidence

01:11:01.940 | and that kind of thing as we learn now,

01:11:06.340 | can stick, right?

01:11:08.660 | And it kind of divided the chess community in part,

01:11:10.920 | but like,

01:11:11.760 | I mean, I guess I do want to empathize.

01:11:17.780 | From your position, can you empathize with Hans

01:11:20.100 | that his reputation is essentially in part

01:11:23.100 | or in whole destroyed at this point?

01:11:25.380 | - Yes, I absolutely can.

01:11:27.100 | Again, I think it comes down to the specifics

01:11:29.220 | of how it was handled.

01:11:30.780 | Now, as far as I go, I was covering the news

01:11:34.300 | and this is what makes it so difficult for me

01:11:36.660 | versus say some of the other content creators

01:11:38.760 | is that I do in a sense have that inside knowledge.

01:11:41.600 | Again, this is also not really public knowledge,

01:11:45.520 | but when I went to St. Louis

01:11:47.060 | to play this Rapid and Blitz tournament

01:11:48.780 | before the Sinkfield Cup happened

01:11:49.940 | where Magus and Hans were playing,

01:11:51.380 | there were people who told me very specifically

01:11:53.240 | that they thought he was cheating.

01:11:54.420 | Other players in the event,

01:11:55.680 | they even gave me like actual theories

01:11:57.940 | about like things in his shoes, things of this nature.

01:12:00.520 | So I'm in a very awkward spot there as well

01:12:03.060 | because I know why, I mean, I was like 99% sure

01:12:07.020 | why Magnus dropped out.

01:12:08.640 | It would have come out regardless though.

01:12:11.440 | It would have come out no matter what

01:12:13.020 | because Magnus was not gonna back down

01:12:15.100 | on his stance about Hans

01:12:17.260 | and others would have brought it up anyways.

01:12:19.300 | So it's very tough.

01:12:22.220 | I think if you wanna look for blame,

01:12:24.840 | I think probably it would be on chess.com ultimately

01:12:28.280 | because they were the ones

01:12:30.020 | who probably could have nipped all this in the bud

01:12:31.980 | at a much earlier stage

01:12:33.500 | and it wouldn't have gotten to where it got to.

01:12:35.260 | - Because they could have released the online cheating

01:12:37.620 | and that would have.

01:12:38.780 | - I think, yeah, I think they could have released that.

01:12:41.060 | I think also they could have probably not let him play

01:12:44.180 | after it happened the second time as well

01:12:46.740 | because it seems like it happened like,

01:12:48.340 | I think it was like at least like four

01:12:50.500 | or five different times.

01:12:51.700 | I haven't looked very, very closely at that

01:12:53.620 | but it wasn't just an isolated incident.

01:12:56.260 | And so I think if there is blame for that,

01:12:58.500 | it's definitely on chess.com

01:12:59.920 | which should stop people from thinking

01:13:02.660 | that I'm in some way influenced by--

01:13:05.420 | - Yeah, are you biased

01:13:06.540 | because are you supported in part by chess.com?

01:13:09.100 | - Yes, I am.

01:13:09.940 | I am.

01:13:10.780 | - So does that affect your bias?

01:13:12.700 | - No, it doesn't.

01:13:13.540 | I'm actually quite independent of them.

01:13:15.300 | One thing that's interesting to note

01:13:18.260 | is that a lot of people are under the assumption

01:13:20.280 | that when I do like broadcasts of tournaments

01:13:21.980 | or things of this nature

01:13:22.980 | that chess.com is actively helping me.

01:13:25.060 | They are not helping me.

01:13:26.260 | I'm an independent contractor

01:13:27.820 | and so my opinions are my own.

01:13:29.740 | And there are no lists given to me

01:13:32.000 | about like cheaters, anything of this nature.

01:13:34.160 | That has always been completely separate.

01:13:36.300 | - Do they have compromising video of you

01:13:38.800 | that forces you to,

01:13:41.860 | if you don't follow the main narrative

01:13:44.440 | that they will release that video publicly?

01:13:46.680 | - No, they definitely don't.

01:13:49.120 | But yeah, I think when I look at it all,

01:13:54.120 | I feel like if people are looking for someone to blame,

01:13:58.960 | I don't think it's actually Magnus.

01:14:00.520 | At the end of the day,

01:14:01.360 | I think it is on chess.com very squarely

01:14:03.560 | for not handling it sooner.

01:14:05.960 | - So you're okay with like Magnus being silent

01:14:09.200 | for long periods of time?

01:14:10.440 | - Well, I don't know why Magnus is still silent

01:14:14.040 | because my read of the situation

01:14:15.760 | was that there was some sort of NDA

01:14:17.320 | or there was some information that chess.com had

01:14:20.360 | that they could not release.

01:14:22.600 | And so my read of it was Magnus was essentially saying

01:14:24.680 | the same thing chess.com said

01:14:26.160 | where like, I can't say anything about it

01:14:29.120 | because of whatever or whatnot.

01:14:30.640 | But then chess.com releases what I perceive to be

01:14:33.440 | the stuff that they could not talk about anyway.

01:14:35.920 | And Magnus still isn't saying anything.

01:14:37.720 | So I don't really understand

01:14:39.940 | why Magnus has not said anything further on.

01:14:41.880 | - There could be legal implications

01:14:43.640 | of accusing somebody of cheating over the board.

01:14:47.280 | That could be like lawsuits

01:14:49.760 | that he just doesn't want the headaches.

01:14:51.080 | He just wants to focus on the game

01:14:52.440 | and have fun playing the game

01:14:53.760 | and not get bogged down into lawyers

01:14:57.360 | and all that kind of bullshit.

01:14:58.200 | - Yeah, it's definitely possible.

01:15:00.560 | But Magnus could also take the other route

01:15:01.960 | and just say, well, he cheated online in 100 games.

01:15:04.160 | Like I'm not gonna play against a cheater.

01:15:05.560 | That's very easy to say.

01:15:06.640 | That's factual, it's proven.

01:15:08.520 | And that doesn't have to go into the speculation

01:15:10.840 | of over the board.

01:15:11.680 | So I find it a little bit odd

01:15:13.840 | that Magnus hasn't said anything further.

01:15:15.360 | At the same time, it's also kind of peculiar

01:15:17.400 | because Magnus' reputation

01:15:19.440 | is also kind of in tatters in a sense.

01:15:21.900 | Like a lot of people are not happy with him

01:15:23.520 | for what he's done.

01:15:24.920 | But still, he goes and plays this tournament

01:15:26.520 | in this European Club Cup tournament

01:15:28.520 | and he's just gaining like 10 points

01:15:30.160 | as though nothing has happened.

01:15:31.240 | So I mean, I don't really know where Magnus' head is at

01:15:35.800 | 'cause like if I was in that situation

01:15:38.320 | and everyone's coming after me for making such an accusation,

01:15:40.940 | I don't think there's any way I would be able to play chess

01:15:43.760 | anywhere near the level that Magnus is playing at.

01:15:45.920 | So the whole situation is, yeah, it's very strange.

01:15:49.040 | - Yeah, I wonder where his mind is at

01:15:51.120 | that he's able to play at that level.

01:15:53.280 | Before I forget, let me ask you a technical question

01:15:56.040 | about cheating at your level.

01:15:58.880 | Not your level, but at a very high Grandmaster level.

01:16:02.120 | How much information do you need?

01:16:04.140 | This is a technical question.

01:16:05.600 | It's like, so for me, in terms of Morse code

01:16:08.760 | and all those kinds of things,

01:16:09.960 | I would need the full information.

01:16:12.840 | So I would need probably, in order to make a move,

01:16:16.660 | just let's think about a very simple representation.

01:16:19.480 | I would need two squares.

01:16:22.320 | The first to designate which piece

01:16:25.360 | and the second where the piece is moving.

01:16:27.320 | That's probably the easiest.

01:16:29.400 | What's the smallest amount of information

01:16:31.760 | you need to help you?

01:16:33.760 | - Basically like a buzz in a critical position.

01:16:36.200 | That would be good. - And what would the buzz say?

01:16:38.120 | - It would, basically it'd be something like

01:16:39.640 | one buzz means the position is great

01:16:42.360 | and two buzzes means the position is completely equal

01:16:45.200 | or there's nothing special in the position.

01:16:47.280 | That simple. - Oh, so just to know

01:16:48.640 | that it's great will tell you what?

01:16:50.800 | - It will tell me that with my intuition.

01:16:53.920 | There are many times I've played Blitz online,

01:16:55.440 | I'll say something along the lines of,

01:16:57.600 | I can feel like there's something here.

01:16:58.920 | Intuitively, I feel like there has to be a good move

01:17:01.160 | or I'm probably winning.

01:17:02.160 | There's something there, but I don't know that.

01:17:04.760 | And most of the time, I'm actually right about it.

01:17:06.840 | After the game, when I look with the computer,

01:17:08.120 | usually it's like, oh, I should have played this move

01:17:10.140 | and it would have given me a big advantage

01:17:11.840 | or I would have outright won the game.

01:17:13.380 | So if I just know whether there's something there,

01:17:15.840 | that's good enough.

01:17:16.680 | - That means it's worth it to calculate here.

01:17:20.280 | - Yes, and I can follow that intuition probably to,

01:17:23.480 | 'cause what normally is gonna happen in such a situation

01:17:26.520 | is there probably are two moves or three moves max

01:17:28.960 | that you're gonna consider in a really critical position.

01:17:31.320 | Like if I feel like there's something there,

01:17:32.660 | there are two to three moves.

01:17:33.800 | So if I know something is there,

01:17:35.360 | I'll be able to figure it out

01:17:37.000 | if I know that the position is very good.

01:17:39.800 | - Okay, one buzz for a good position.

01:17:42.360 | For the current position, not for the next position.

01:17:43.200 | - So I just need to know.

01:17:44.240 | I just need to know whether there's something really good,

01:17:47.800 | the position's really good,

01:17:48.960 | or it's just like an equal position or it's just normal.

01:17:51.600 | That's all I need to know.

01:17:52.440 | - So the current position, not even future moves,

01:17:54.200 | just the current position, there is a lot of promise here.

01:17:57.400 | - Yes.

01:17:58.240 | - Okay.

01:17:59.680 | What about the reverse, like something's bad?

01:18:02.160 | - So you're saying if I'm in trouble in a game

01:18:04.680 | and I am in the same situation.

01:18:06.740 | So if I'm in trouble in a game,

01:18:09.580 | it's probably a little bit more.

01:18:12.720 | It's probably like, I would say two to three times

01:18:15.300 | where I would need to know.

01:18:16.280 | - The source of the trouble.

01:18:17.280 | - Yeah, I would need to know.

01:18:18.560 | Yeah, I would need to know,

01:18:19.560 | is there one move that's good

01:18:20.880 | or there's more than one move?

01:18:22.760 | Again, how you extrapolate that.

01:18:24.760 | - Well, wouldn't it be useful to know the information

01:18:26.800 | that you're now in a position where the other person

01:18:30.240 | could create a lot of trouble for you?

01:18:33.920 | So find that.

01:18:35.760 | Like, it's out there, find it.

01:18:37.200 | - Like if you look at Magnus' games,

01:18:38.600 | there are a lot of situations where the position is equal,

01:18:41.040 | but it's equal with one move, but only one move.

01:18:44.160 | If you don't find that one move, you're significantly worse.

01:18:46.680 | A lot of times that's the case.

01:18:48.240 | So like, if I can somehow know that there's like

01:18:50.840 | only one move where I'm okay, I could figure it out.

01:18:54.080 | - Yeah.

01:18:54.920 | Yeah, so that's one move is significantly better

01:18:59.120 | than the rest.

01:19:00.840 | - I mean, I could give you like a perfect example

01:19:03.080 | as I played a game in the Canada's tournament last round

01:19:05.980 | against Ding Liren from China.

01:19:07.720 | And there were many times where it was completely fine

01:19:10.200 | for me, but it started drifting.

01:19:11.640 | I started making some mistakes and I was worse,

01:19:13.240 | but there was one last moment where I think I had one move

01:19:16.080 | where I would have been able to draw the game quite easily.

01:19:18.760 | And every other move I was significantly worse.

01:19:20.480 | I did not find that move and I lost the game.

01:19:22.520 | But if I had known-

01:19:23.360 | - It would have been nice to have a buzz there then.

01:19:25.280 | - Yes, I would have known.

01:19:26.880 | - Who do you think is the greatest player of all time?

01:19:28.960 | You've talked from different angles on this.

01:19:31.840 | Magnus Carlsen, Garry Kasparov, Bobby Fischer, many others.

01:19:35.440 | Can you make the case for each?

01:19:37.100 | Can you make the case for you?

01:19:41.040 | - No, I mean, I can't make the case for me, be serious.

01:19:43.040 | I know there are a lot of people who want that kind of like

01:19:45.920 | me to give off some kind of ego like that, but no.

01:19:48.480 | Obviously I'm nowhere near the conversation.

01:19:50.560 | I actually, on that note, I would say also,

01:19:52.800 | I know people wanted to know if I'm the greatest player

01:19:56.080 | to never have played for the world championship

01:19:57.560 | or to have not become world champion.

01:19:59.860 | I don't think that I'm actually anywhere near the top

01:20:01.800 | of that conversation.

01:20:03.120 | I actually think Levon Aronian tops that conversation

01:20:06.020 | by a big margin, simply because he was number two

01:20:08.360 | in the world for a very, very long time.

01:20:10.320 | And he never even got to the match.

01:20:12.000 | So as far as world champions and who's the GOAT,

01:20:14.980 | I think Magnus is the GOAT simply because he's playing

01:20:19.980 | the best chess by a bigger margin.

01:20:24.080 | He has the highest ELO of all time.

01:20:26.240 | On the other hand, chess is a game where you build upon

01:20:30.840 | the giants of the past.

01:20:32.240 | We learn from them.

01:20:34.120 | And so you can definitely make the case for Gary as well.

01:20:36.920 | I mean, he was the number one player in the world

01:20:38.200 | for 20 plus years.

01:20:39.580 | Lot of opening strategies he came up with

01:20:42.240 | and people still play them today.

01:20:44.740 | Bobby, I'm not so sure you can really make that case

01:20:47.720 | 'cause he shot up really quickly,

01:20:49.840 | but he was the world champion for a very short window

01:20:51.940 | of time.

01:20:52.780 | And then he quit the game as soon as he became

01:20:54.740 | world champion.

01:20:55.580 | So I don't really feel like you can put Fisher

01:20:57.940 | in that conversation simply because he didn't have

01:21:01.840 | that longevity at all.

01:21:03.160 | He was up there for a couple of years.

01:21:04.920 | So I would say it's probably Magnus,

01:21:07.000 | but I understand people can also say Gary's the best player

01:21:10.440 | ever, remains to be seen.

01:21:12.360 | But I think if Magnus is number one for probably

01:21:14.040 | another, let's say another three to four years,

01:21:16.100 | I don't think there's any debate at all.

01:21:18.100 | - Can you break down what makes him so good?

01:21:22.600 | We've already talked about different angles of this

01:21:24.760 | and then I would also try to get the same from you

01:21:29.180 | 'cause we talked about early Hikaru.

01:21:31.440 | Like I'd like to talk about that for, but first Magnus,

01:21:35.520 | what makes Magnus so good?

01:21:36.800 | What are the various aspects of his game

01:21:38.760 | that make him so good?

01:21:40.000 | - I think for Magnus, he just,

01:21:42.200 | you know that in the end games, if you get there,

01:21:45.240 | he's just, he's not gonna blunder.

01:21:46.840 | That's the first thing.

01:21:47.680 | So you know, if you reach an end game,

01:21:49.100 | he's not gonna make a mistake.

01:21:50.520 | He obviously plays great openings

01:21:52.960 | and there's just really no defined weakness that he has.

01:21:56.640 | There's no weakness that I can think of very specifically.

01:22:00.400 | Many, there are many times where players actually

01:22:02.120 | out-prepare him in the opening phase,

01:22:03.840 | but as soon as they're on their own and they have to think,

01:22:05.840 | very oftentimes they'll make mistakes.

01:22:08.520 | So there's just no weakness for Magnus, really no weakness.

01:22:12.000 | - Well, unlike say Kasparov, like Kasparov on the other hand,

01:22:14.480 | there are very clear weaknesses in his game,

01:22:17.880 | like Kramnik exploited them.

01:22:18.920 | First of all, very, I don't wanna say like,

01:22:22.260 | ego is the right word, but like very stubborn,

01:22:24.480 | believing that his openings were infallible,

01:22:26.560 | that he could just win, he could just prove an advantage

01:22:29.080 | and win the game out of the opening,

01:22:30.720 | like against Kramnik when he ultimately lost.

01:22:33.000 | Also generally not a great defender either,

01:22:35.900 | very strong tactically,

01:22:37.660 | but if he was in positions that were defensive,

01:22:39.240 | he would make mistakes and lose in end games,

01:22:41.000 | like he did in one of those games

01:22:42.880 | in the World Championship against Kramnik.

01:22:44.440 | So there were very clear defined weaknesses

01:22:46.840 | in Kasparov's game, whereas like Magnus,

01:22:49.560 | there are just, there are no clearly defined weaknesses.

01:22:52.200 | Maybe he doesn't like being attacked.

01:22:54.320 | Maybe that's the one thing.

01:22:55.800 | He likes King safety and he doesn't like being attacked,

01:22:58.000 | but that's not something that you can easily do.

01:22:59.900 | Whereas say, if someone's very tactical

01:23:02.400 | and they're not as strong positionally,

01:23:03.800 | that is something you can def,

01:23:05.240 | that will happen quite frequently in games.

01:23:07.160 | You can steer games a certain way.

01:23:08.880 | Doesn't mean you'll always get there,

01:23:10.200 | but that is something tangible.

01:23:12.040 | Whereas King safety, that's not something tangible at all.

01:23:15.080 | It's very, very hard to attack someone

01:23:17.740 | based on, unless they play certain style of openings.

01:23:20.660 | - Do you think Garry Kasparov,

01:23:23.480 | reflecting on your comment would agree?

01:23:25.600 | Like, what is it about his relationship with Kramnik

01:23:29.400 | that was so challenging?

01:23:32.080 | - I mean, I think it's 'cause Kramnik understood him.

01:23:34.140 | Actually, one thing that's funny speaking of Kasparov

01:23:36.280 | is that I think it got under his skin.

01:23:38.280 | Like when I worked with him,

01:23:39.640 | Kramnik actually played a certain style,

01:23:41.760 | very aggressive, very sort of risky opening play

01:23:45.720 | during the time when I was working with Garry.

01:23:47.880 | And I know that it annoyed Garry

01:23:49.200 | because he's like,

01:23:50.040 | "Why couldn't Kramnik play like this against me?"

01:23:51.880 | Because I think Garry felt if Kramnik did that against him,

01:23:53.860 | he would have just blown him off the board

01:23:55.320 | and had many great victories.

01:23:57.880 | So I think it's Kramnik understood Garry.

01:24:00.720 | They had worked together, I think, during the late '90s.

01:24:03.360 | I think Garry actually was very useful or very helpful

01:24:06.760 | in terms of Kramnik getting a spot

01:24:08.000 | on one of the Russian Chess Olympiad teams in the mid '90s.

01:24:12.680 | So I think it's just Kramnik understood him very well

01:24:14.800 | and Garry just could not, he couldn't figure it out.

01:24:18.320 | And I think also another thing,

01:24:20.120 | coming back to the psychological part,

01:24:22.520 | is that Kramnik actually beat Kasparov in many games

01:24:24.920 | in the Kings Indian defense.

01:24:26.400 | Kasparov played the Kings Indian defense for many years

01:24:28.800 | and then he started losing like four or five games

01:24:30.560 | in a row in it to Kramnik,

01:24:31.680 | very similar to what I mentioned

01:24:33.040 | about the Sicilian Eidorff and Fabiano.

01:24:35.160 | And Garry gave it up.

01:24:36.060 | He started switching to playing the Grunfeld defense.

01:24:38.360 | And so I think that also instilled

01:24:39.780 | some psychological fear as well,

01:24:41.760 | because Garry was, he was the boss.

01:24:43.400 | In openings, no one could compare to him.

01:24:45.800 | - What makes you so good?

01:24:49.720 | What's the breakdown of the strengths and weaknesses

01:24:54.520 | of Fikaro Nakamura?

01:24:56.240 | - So that's, I think probably my biggest strength

01:24:59.480 | is that I'm a universal player.

01:25:00.960 | I can play pretty much any opening strategy.

01:25:03.640 | It doesn't really matter.

01:25:06.040 | Beyond that, I think it's mainly that

01:25:08.560 | I don't really make many blunders.

01:25:11.640 | I don't make blunders

01:25:12.480 | unless I'm under a lot of pressure generally.

01:25:14.720 | So, I mean, I know I'm oversimplifying.

01:25:17.920 | It's not as simple as that.

01:25:19.120 | - Does this apply to blitz as well?

01:25:22.400 | - I think it's much more applicable to blitz in particular

01:25:25.600 | because my intuition is very good.

01:25:26.960 | So when I'm making less blunders

01:25:28.300 | with limited time on the clock,

01:25:29.920 | my opponents actually make a lot more blunders.

01:25:31.720 | That's why I think it's much more pronounced

01:25:34.200 | in blitz than it is in classical chess

01:25:36.040 | because in blitz, when you're down to like 10 seconds

01:25:39.480 | in the game, both players have 10 seconds,

01:25:41.280 | my intuition is just better than theirs.

01:25:43.360 | I mean, Magnus maybe not so clear,

01:25:44.880 | but like if you look at other players,

01:25:46.420 | say Fabian and Karjuan, a very strong player,

01:25:48.520 | when he gets down to 10 seconds or in these situations,

01:25:52.740 | he almost always makes a blunder, almost always.

01:25:55.440 | So I'm just more precise, I make less blunders.

01:25:57.840 | And that really, the effect is much more dramatic in blitz.

01:26:01.600 | - What do you think that intuition is?

01:26:03.760 | Like, sorry for the kind of,

01:26:06.740 | like almost philosophical question.

01:26:10.640 | What is that?

01:26:11.960 | Is that calculation?

01:26:14.200 | Or is it some kind of weird memory recall?

01:26:17.240 | What is that?

01:26:18.080 | Like being able to do that short line prediction.

01:26:21.680 | - I think that's just playing so many games online

01:26:24.560 | and there's some kind of subconscious feel that I have.

01:26:28.000 | Because when you're that low on time, you can't calculate.

01:26:30.040 | It's just, you have to look, you just have to figure out

01:26:31.840 | what's the move you want to play as,

01:26:33.120 | no calculation and just go with it.

01:26:34.960 | And I think just playing so many games probably,

01:26:37.780 | I mean, I'm guessing I've played over 300,000 games online.

01:26:41.480 | And I think just playing all those games, it's a feel.

01:26:44.360 | There's no tangible way that I can't put that

01:26:48.160 | really into words, it's just a feel.

01:26:49.480 | - What do you, and we should say that you're,

01:26:52.440 | I think currently the number one ranked blitz player

01:26:54.760 | in the world.

01:26:55.640 | You have been for a while, you're unquestionably

01:27:00.600 | one of the great, so classical, rapid and blitz,

01:27:04.680 | you're one of the best people for many years in the world.

01:27:07.080 | Okay, but you're currently number one in blitz.

01:27:09.680 | So I'd love to kind of, for you to dig into the secret

01:27:15.960 | to your success in blitz.

01:27:18.020 | Is it, as you're saying that intuition,

01:27:21.120 | being able to, when the time is short,

01:27:24.060 | to not make blunders and then to make a close to optimal move

01:27:27.520 | - I think it's generally that I'm able to keep the games

01:27:31.600 | going no matter what, until we're low on time.

01:27:34.400 | I'm always able to do that.

01:27:36.400 | Like if we play a game with three minutes,

01:27:37.800 | like there are games I will just win very quickly,

01:27:40.480 | but a lot of games between top players,

01:27:42.940 | players have to think you have to use time.

01:27:44.600 | And in those final critical stages, I just don't blunder.

01:27:47.840 | I just don't blunder really at the end of the day.

01:27:49.840 | That's really the only difference.

01:27:51.800 | 'Cause everybody's very, very strong,

01:27:54.140 | but it's sort of like, who is the better brain?

01:27:57.020 | Who is better CPU, for lack of a better way of putting it?

01:28:00.220 | It's like, who makes a split second decisions the best?

01:28:04.100 | And I do think that I'm extremely good at that

01:28:07.860 | in a way that almost nobody else is.

01:28:09.820 | That really is the only difference,

01:28:11.300 | is that the split second decisions.

01:28:12.980 | 'Cause you can get a worse position,

01:28:14.380 | but again, if you keep the game going,

01:28:15.840 | players have to use the time when you get down

01:28:17.700 | to those final 10, 15 seconds.

01:28:19.660 | I almost always end up winning in those situations.

01:28:22.640 | - What are you visualizing?

01:28:24.040 | Like in those, when you're doing the fast, fast calculations,

01:28:27.840 | what is it?

01:28:29.760 | - It's basically, you look at a move and you see,

01:28:32.500 | like when it's like five seconds or 10 seconds,

01:28:34.080 | you play a move and you just make sure

01:28:35.220 | that it's not a blunder.

01:28:36.060 | You just look, make sure it's not a blunder

01:28:37.880 | and you just go with it.

01:28:38.760 | And the first part though is the feel.

01:28:39.940 | So it's like, I see this move and it looks right.

01:28:41.760 | I don't know why it's right.

01:28:42.800 | I can't put that into words,

01:28:44.040 | but it looks like the right move.

01:28:45.160 | And then I look very, for like a split second,

01:28:47.160 | see as long as it's not some kind of blunder

01:28:48.800 | and you just play that move.

01:28:50.260 | - Is there a bit of a tunnel vision?

01:28:51.640 | Are you able to understand the positions

01:28:53.360 | of all the other pieces on the board

01:28:54.640 | or are you just focusing it on a very specific interaction?

01:28:57.280 | - It's just feel, it's really just feel.

01:28:58.920 | It's like this move feels right.

01:29:00.340 | And so I play it.

01:29:01.360 | When you're at that stage of the game,

01:29:02.840 | it's like, as long as it's not a blunder

01:29:05.200 | and it's just that feel,

01:29:07.000 | there is no way for me to put that into words.

01:29:09.560 | - And that feel, like empirically does result

01:29:14.300 | in low probability of blunder for you.

01:29:16.800 | - Yeah. - It's like you don't blunder.

01:29:18.400 | Even though there could be,

01:29:19.720 | like you don't forget like a random piece that was like-

01:29:23.360 | - I mean, it does happen of course, but very rarely.

01:29:26.660 | And I mean, I've done it on stream many times.

01:29:29.000 | Like it's just, you go with the move

01:29:30.960 | that for whatever reason, like it just intuitively,

01:29:34.200 | whether it's from playing hundreds of thousands of games

01:29:36.600 | on the internet or just that experience,

01:29:39.600 | like you just intuitively can feel like the move is right.

01:29:43.280 | - So over those 300,000 games played over the board,

01:29:47.440 | online, all kinds of variations,

01:29:50.480 | what's a game that stands out to you

01:29:52.240 | as particularly one you're proud of?

01:29:54.760 | Or maybe what's the Hikaru Immortal game

01:29:58.320 | or a strong candidate for that?

01:30:00.040 | - Yeah, so there are two games.

01:30:01.240 | There's a game that I won against Boris Gelfand in 2010

01:30:05.120 | where I offered a queen sack,

01:30:06.660 | I think on five consecutive moves.

01:30:08.320 | - Sack is sacrifice.

01:30:09.560 | - Sacrifice the queen, yeah.

01:30:10.680 | - Yes. - So.

01:30:11.840 | - Coming through with the lingo.

01:30:12.960 | You can't take me to that game?

01:30:14.560 | - It's just, there's one sequence in the late middle game

01:30:16.720 | where, it's funny 'cause I actually,

01:30:19.960 | I think I, 'cause I remember I tried to show this game

01:30:22.820 | to Peter actually, Peter Till,

01:30:24.560 | and I confused the move order in the late middle game,

01:30:27.360 | so I don't wanna do that again.

01:30:28.920 | - 2010?

01:30:29.880 | - Yeah, 2010, it was, yeah.

01:30:31.440 | - What kind of opening is this?

01:30:32.280 | - It's the King's Indian Defense.

01:30:34.200 | - So the knights are out.

01:30:40.000 | What's with the bringing the knight back?

01:30:41.640 | - You wanna push the pawn. - Who's black and white?

01:30:43.000 | - I have the black pieces and you wanna push the pawn.

01:30:45.600 | - The, make room for the pawn.

01:30:48.000 | - Yeah, normally in the King's Indian,

01:30:49.080 | you try to, it's sort of like storming with the pawns

01:30:52.400 | on the king side where the white king is.

01:30:54.240 | So you see now, I push and I start pushing

01:30:56.320 | all my pawns forward.

01:30:57.440 | - Are you happy with this position

01:30:58.600 | with all the pawns in diagonal like this

01:31:00.440 | with the knights behind it?

01:31:01.520 | This looks pretty. - This is, this is,

01:31:03.320 | this is, this, nowadays this is very well known

01:31:05.600 | as a standard theory, but at the time,

01:31:09.280 | the reason that I was aware of this

01:31:10.640 | is 'cause I had played a tournament, I think, in Montreal.

01:31:12.960 | I think it was Montreal, like the year, the summer before,

01:31:15.360 | and one of my friends had actually played this variation

01:31:17.640 | with the black pieces.

01:31:18.480 | So I was aware of it and it seemed very dangerous.

01:31:21.880 | But I-- - From the black perspective.

01:31:23.080 | - Yeah, I feel like it's very hard for white to play.

01:31:25.440 | Yeah, very hard for white to play.

01:31:26.720 | It feels like you're getting attacked,

01:31:28.800 | your king, you see the black pawns are coming down

01:31:30.640 | towards the king and it's very hard to defend.

01:31:32.800 | And also, a lot of players don't like being attacked.

01:31:35.760 | Generally, you try to avoid positions

01:31:37.440 | where your king is under fire,

01:31:38.880 | which comes back to what I said about Magnus as well.

01:31:41.280 | Like he doesn't like it when his king is under fire.

01:31:44.000 | And so therefore, you can't always get that.

01:31:47.000 | But you see, white had to play along

01:31:48.280 | to get to this point as well.

01:31:49.600 | If white didn't want something this double-edged

01:31:52.840 | and this complicated, he could have avoided it.

01:31:54.920 | - So is the black bishop also a threat?

01:31:58.040 | Are you like-- - Yes, the light square bishop

01:32:00.280 | in the King's Indian is vital to any attacking possibility.

01:32:03.640 | - So you're always like--

01:32:05.040 | - You don't wanna lose that bishop if you can help it.

01:32:07.440 | - Got it, and so he's bringing out the knights.

01:32:10.160 | Is there a particular moment that's interesting to you here

01:32:13.880 | so that-- - So keep going.

01:32:15.240 | Yeah, there's, so I play rook F7.

01:32:16.960 | This is all standard.

01:32:18.440 | - The rooks come out. - So I take, take.

01:32:20.600 | Now this is actually, this is an exception to the rule.

01:32:23.240 | Normally, the King's Indian,

01:32:24.600 | you don't wanna break this pawn chain

01:32:26.280 | from at least the four pawns in a row that connect four.

01:32:28.880 | - Why'd you break it?

01:32:30.120 | - Because this is an exception where you can do that.

01:32:31.800 | There almost are no variations in the King's Indian

01:32:33.920 | where you do that.

01:32:34.760 | You almost always retreat the bishop to guard the pawn,

01:32:37.840 | the bishop to F8.

01:32:38.880 | You break the pawn chain

01:32:39.720 | 'cause it's an exception to the rule

01:32:42.440 | because you're not actually worried

01:32:43.720 | about white being able to push the pawn to D6 here.

01:32:47.160 | It was probably the best game I ever played,

01:32:49.640 | so it keeps going.

01:32:51.200 | A5, G4, yep.

01:32:53.480 | - No, no, no, the diagonal's there again.

01:32:58.880 | That looks threatening.

01:33:01.360 | - Right, like white basically is trying to guard the King.

01:33:03.800 | He's gonna retreat this bishop from C5 to G1,

01:33:06.280 | as you'll see in a second.

01:33:08.240 | Actually, not quite yet.

01:33:09.160 | Yeah, he goes, now he goes here.

01:33:10.920 | And so he's trying to guard his King

01:33:12.400 | with the bishop on G1,

01:33:14.960 | but I'm able to keep attacking here in the next--

01:33:17.360 | - Is there any case to be made

01:33:19.200 | for you to take the pawn here?

01:33:22.600 | - No, that would actually be a mistake.

01:33:24.160 | I mean, it's very high level,

01:33:25.280 | but it's a mistake 'cause white

01:33:26.600 | will actually not recapture the pawn.

01:33:28.520 | Yeah, this is very high level.

01:33:32.520 | - Oh, so the pawn is--

01:33:33.680 | - The pawn ends up in front of the King, yeah.

01:33:36.120 | It stops the white King from being attacked, basically.

01:33:39.800 | - Oh, interesting.

01:33:40.680 | So your pawn is stopping their King from being attacked.

01:33:45.040 | Cool.

01:33:46.040 | - So yeah, so it just goes on.

01:33:46.880 | - So the pressure continues from you.

01:33:48.400 | - Right, and then I sack.

01:33:49.960 | - Is that, wait, wait, what's the sack?

01:33:52.760 | Oh, the-- - Knight takes pawn, yeah.

01:33:54.640 | - Is this, what are the strengths and weaknesses

01:33:57.960 | of you throwing the Knight into the abyss?

01:34:01.040 | - Well, basically I'm gonna,

01:34:03.160 | I'm destroying the protection in front of the white King,

01:34:05.440 | the white pawn's there.

01:34:06.680 | - And willing to take risks by placing--

01:34:08.920 | - I basically wanna open up the King

01:34:10.440 | and try to checkmate.

01:34:11.280 | If I don't checkmate, I'm probably gonna lose the game here

01:34:13.080 | in the center of the board.

01:34:14.080 | So yeah, and now there's some very nice moves

01:34:17.120 | after pawn takes pawn.

01:34:18.280 | I take this, 'cause now white takes the Queen.

01:34:21.080 | I push the pawn forward and it's checkmate.

01:34:23.240 | - So give me a second.

01:34:25.720 | So your Knight is taking,

01:34:29.280 | you're losing pieces left and right.

01:34:32.520 | - Right, but--

01:34:33.360 | - And you're pushing the pawn forward, check.

01:34:36.160 | He takes the pawn.

01:34:40.360 | - The rook, check.

01:34:42.160 | So just check nonstop.

01:34:44.200 | - Yeah, now same thing, though.

01:34:45.520 | I keep going for this checkmate with a pawn or a bishop on,

01:34:47.960 | on the square in front of the King.

01:34:49.720 | You see the Queen is still hanging.

01:34:51.920 | In fact, I actually sack the Queen again.

01:34:53.960 | - He never took the Queen.

01:34:55.880 | - He couldn't take the Queen, 'cause it'd be checkmate.

01:34:58.160 | - Got it.

01:34:59.000 | So constantly, and that's what you mean by sacrifice,

01:35:01.880 | you didn't actually, but there was--

01:35:03.320 | - Yeah, he couldn't take it, he would've gotten checkmated.

01:35:04.920 | But anyway, the smoke clears and I'm up material here

01:35:07.400 | and I win this game.

01:35:08.920 | So this is the game that I would say is my favorite game.

01:35:11.160 | - Why did it stand out?

01:35:12.840 | I mean, it's beautiful, but just the fact that--

01:35:16.040 | - It's mainly that I was able to offer the Queen sacrifice

01:35:18.680 | so many moves in a row,

01:35:19.920 | you almost never have that opportunity.

01:35:22.880 | And actually, normally the games you're gonna consider

01:35:25.120 | your best involve sacrifices,

01:35:27.200 | and if you can sacrifice the Queen,

01:35:28.440 | that makes it very memorable.

01:35:30.080 | It's just this constant theme of this one checkmate idea.

01:35:33.880 | - How often do you play with the sacrifice

01:35:37.920 | of a major piece?

01:35:39.200 | Like how often do you find yourself in that position?

01:35:41.200 | - Pretty rare, because players tend to avoid

01:35:43.280 | these sorts of situations.

01:35:44.640 | Players don't like games that can go either way.

01:35:47.920 | So when, like both players have to sort of cooperate,

01:35:51.600 | you have to want that kind of game

01:35:53.640 | in order for that situation to arise.

01:35:55.920 | And a lot of games at the top,

01:35:57.720 | neither player wants to go into that situation

01:35:59.880 | for the most part.

01:36:00.720 | So you don't really have those opportunities.

01:36:04.720 | - Nevertheless, Stockfish loves those opportunities,

01:36:07.640 | the sacrifices.

01:36:10.120 | - Well, that's one thing also

01:36:11.240 | that we're starting to learn more and more

01:36:13.120 | is that Stockfish and the other programs,

01:36:15.120 | they don't care about pawns.

01:36:16.280 | You can sacrifice one pawn, two pawns, three pawns

01:36:18.800 | in a lot of cases,

01:36:19.920 | if the rest of your pieces are very active.

01:36:22.160 | And that's something that we kind of knew on a basic level

01:36:24.880 | about the initiative is what we call it in chess,

01:36:27.480 | where like you'll give up material,

01:36:28.560 | but your pieces are very well placed.

01:36:30.200 | But we didn't realize just how important that is,

01:36:32.840 | and computers will do that all the time now, all the time.

01:36:35.480 | And even actually like they're in this variant,

01:36:37.840 | Fisher random is another variant

01:36:39.560 | where you arrange a piece on the back row.

01:36:41.240 | They will gladly sack rooks for bishops or for knights

01:36:43.960 | all the time, all the time.

01:36:45.920 | And so-

01:36:46.760 | - What do you take from that?

01:36:48.440 | - Material imbalance or the material you give up

01:36:50.800 | doesn't matter as much as having this attack

01:36:53.720 | or having this piece on certain squares.

01:36:56.080 | - Well, as long as you can hold on to the attack.

01:36:58.840 | - Right, and computers can't.

01:37:00.160 | But it's also very tricky

01:37:01.640 | 'cause when we as humans sometimes,

01:37:03.240 | you'll look at an opening variation

01:37:05.120 | and you'll see something like this

01:37:06.360 | and you want to do it in a game.

01:37:07.560 | But the problem is we don't know

01:37:09.800 | how we're supposed to follow it up afterwards.

01:37:12.440 | And so if you do that

01:37:13.800 | and you don't know how to follow up afterwards,

01:37:15.480 | very oftentimes we'll make mistakes.

01:37:17.400 | We'll try to look at it in a human way.

01:37:18.680 | And then of course, you end up losing in the longterm

01:37:21.560 | 'cause you've given up too much material.

01:37:22.960 | So it's a very double-edged sword.

01:37:24.800 | - But that's why it's dramatic

01:37:25.960 | and why people love those kinds of sacrifices

01:37:28.120 | 'cause you're putting it all on the line.

01:37:29.560 | What's the other game?

01:37:32.000 | - It was a game also with a queen sacrifice.

01:37:34.600 | It was a game against this Polish player,

01:37:36.560 | Michael Krasenkow.

01:37:38.280 | It was played in Barcelona in 2007, I believe it was.

01:37:41.600 | I also, I sacrificed a queen for one pawn

01:37:44.120 | to just bring the king out into the middle of the board.

01:37:46.880 | - You actually sacrificed it?

01:37:48.240 | - Yes, I did sacrifice.

01:37:49.200 | I took a pawn.

01:37:50.040 | - Did you want to go with that game?

01:37:50.880 | - Sure, yeah, absolutely.

01:37:52.400 | - And you're again black.

01:37:54.880 | - Yes.

01:37:55.800 | Yeah, this game you can just skip forward

01:37:57.440 | to about like the 20th move roughly.

01:38:00.080 | - What's the opening?

01:38:01.960 | - This is, I think it's like a Catalan.

01:38:05.080 | It says Neo-Catalan.

01:38:06.000 | So yeah, it's basically a Catalan opening,

01:38:07.600 | generally very slow.

01:38:09.080 | - Neo-Catalan declined?

01:38:10.640 | - Yeah.

01:38:11.480 | Yeah, and now here I sack the queen for the pawn.

01:38:16.200 | Or no, sorry, I take the knight first.

01:38:17.600 | Sorry, knight c6, keep going.

01:38:19.080 | - So, by the way, the pawn structure here is a mess

01:38:24.080 | or is missing.

01:38:26.480 | - Yeah, so I take the knight.

01:38:29.080 | - You take the knight with a rook.

01:38:31.160 | What's the discovery?

01:38:32.840 | - My queen's under attack now.

01:38:34.320 | So when he takes the knight,

01:38:36.280 | the rook on b1 is attacking my queen.

01:38:38.160 | - Got it, so the, got it?

01:38:40.080 | - Now, yeah.

01:38:41.120 | - You throw your queen into the middle,

01:38:46.120 | check, check the king.

01:38:50.400 | Wait a minute, that's not right.

01:38:52.560 | - Yeah, it's one pawn.

01:38:53.400 | It's a queen for a pawn.

01:38:54.600 | - For a pawn.

01:38:56.200 | And the king takes your queen.

01:38:58.980 | - What was the thinking here?

01:39:01.460 | You crazy madman.

01:39:03.420 | - King has to go up the board

01:39:06.500 | and the king is very vulnerable.

01:39:08.140 | - In this position, see,

01:39:09.180 | but you're gonna have to keep checking here then.

01:39:11.500 | - Yes.

01:39:12.340 | - Bishop checks, king, rook checks, knight checks.

01:39:17.340 | Did you see all of this ahead of time?

01:39:22.180 | - Yeah, I mean, not all of it,

01:39:24.100 | but I figured there had to be some way

01:39:26.020 | to win here with the king.

01:39:27.300 | - Too many attacking pieces on your end that could do.

01:39:30.940 | - Well, it's just basically the king,

01:39:32.380 | the only piece that can sort of guard the king

01:39:34.260 | is the queen on d1.

01:39:35.180 | That's the only piece.

01:39:36.020 | If I can just keep checking,

01:39:37.660 | I'm gonna be able to win here.

01:39:39.420 | So it goes there.

01:39:40.260 | And now I think I played, yeah, I played this move.

01:39:42.340 | - Ooh, no check.

01:39:43.660 | - 'Cause I'm threatening to move the rook over one square

01:39:45.500 | and make a checkmate.

01:39:46.620 | - Got it.

01:39:48.020 | And then the rook, what was that?

01:39:49.300 | The rook takes your knight

01:39:50.700 | and then you take it right back with a check.

01:39:56.520 | - No, I still wanna scoot the rook over

01:39:58.920 | to check on the h6 square, the dark square.

01:40:01.840 | I think, did he resign here or did he make a move?

01:40:04.640 | - Oh, he resigned, yeah.

01:40:06.280 | - He did resign here, yeah,

01:40:07.220 | because I just moved the rook over

01:40:08.680 | to that dark square in front of the pawn

01:40:10.160 | and that would be checkmate.

01:40:11.920 | - Dark square in front of the pawn over here.

01:40:13.800 | - It's h6, yeah.

01:40:14.960 | 'Cause now the bishop covers the light square.

01:40:16.640 | - Is there something he can do to mess with it?

01:40:19.640 | - Not really.

01:40:20.720 | I don't think there's any way to stop a checkmate.

01:40:23.080 | - Nothing with the queen.

01:40:24.000 | I guess he's gonna lose the queen.

01:40:25.960 | - Yeah, I think it's just actually forced checkmate

01:40:28.080 | here on a couple of moves.

01:40:29.100 | I don't think there's any way to stop it.

01:40:30.720 | - Even if he loses his queens.

01:40:33.880 | - Yeah, it's a forced checkmate.

01:40:35.820 | - Fascinating.

01:40:37.540 | So like that, you can't purely calculate,

01:40:40.340 | but you can have some intuition.

01:40:42.240 | - Also, I think what it is is in such situations,

01:40:44.840 | you know that there is at least a draw.

01:40:46.760 | I could always just check him with my rook

01:40:48.720 | if I wanted to, to make a draw.

01:40:50.200 | So that also gives me some margin

01:40:51.800 | where if I calculate, after I play the move

01:40:53.720 | and I calculate it doesn't work out,

01:40:55.120 | I can still make the draw.

01:40:56.420 | - Are you, I mean, for fun,

01:40:59.520 | do you do the sacrifices of this sort?

01:41:01.960 | - When it's not the serious competitive online events

01:41:05.140 | or over the board, I do actually do this quite frequently.

01:41:07.720 | And I wish there were more opportunities,

01:41:09.280 | but top level chess, it's become harder and harder

01:41:12.520 | because due to computers,

01:41:14.320 | everybody's very, very well prepared in the opening.

01:41:16.360 | They know the first like 15 to 20 moves sequences

01:41:19.440 | in no matter what you do.

01:41:20.980 | So it's very, the room for creativity is less and less,

01:41:24.200 | which makes it, which means you have less,

01:41:26.240 | less of those types of games.

01:41:28.160 | - I think you played Levy, Gotham chess

01:41:32.400 | with the, without a queen.

01:41:34.520 | Was that a thing?

01:41:35.360 | - I think that was a bullet game.

01:41:36.180 | Yeah, the one minute game.

01:41:37.020 | I think so, yeah.

01:41:37.840 | - Is that an actual thing that you can pull off?

01:41:39.960 | Like would you be like Levy or?

01:41:41.240 | - Yeah, I guess somebody like Levy.

01:41:42.640 | - In bullet, maybe I can win like 50%.

01:41:45.080 | It'll probably be.

01:41:45.920 | - What's bullet, what's the timing?

01:41:46.920 | - One minute for the whole game.

01:41:48.120 | - One minute for the whole game.

01:41:49.760 | Okay, what about, I mean, how much do you miss the queen

01:41:53.380 | if it's gone against the international master?

01:41:56.120 | - You know, in a bullet game, like I said,

01:41:58.660 | maybe in bullet I can maybe score 50%

01:42:00.900 | in a blitz game or anything slower, maybe 10%,

01:42:04.860 | maybe one out of 10 I can win.

01:42:06.180 | - One out of 10.

01:42:07.460 | - Yeah.

01:42:08.820 | - On the topic of Goat, let me ask about Paul Morphy.

01:42:12.160 | How good was he?

01:42:15.140 | Reddit asked me to ask you about this

01:42:17.700 | and why is he a tragic figure in chess?

01:42:21.160 | - Yeah, so Paul Morphy was the best player in the world

01:42:24.040 | by a bigger margin probably than anyone else

01:42:26.460 | in recent modern history.

01:42:27.740 | He was, I would say roughly using today's rating,

01:42:30.640 | he was around like 2,400 in my opinion.

01:42:33.080 | And the other best players were maybe around 2000

01:42:35.540 | or 2,100 at best.

01:42:37.600 | So he's the best player by a bigger margin.

01:42:39.340 | Fisher, for example, I think he was about 170-ish points,

01:42:43.060 | better than Boris Basky.

01:42:44.880 | But Morphy was 300 plus at least.

01:42:47.440 | Now by modern standards,

01:42:48.300 | he would probably be a very strong IM,

01:42:50.440 | which isn't saying a whole lot,

01:42:52.300 | but at the time no one was even close.

01:42:54.340 | So I don't think you can put him in that category

01:42:57.940 | of like best ever simply because he was not the best player

01:43:01.100 | for a long enough period of time.

01:43:03.540 | As far as why it's tragic, it's very tragic

01:43:05.760 | because he essentially quit chess.

01:43:07.100 | There was no competition for him.

01:43:09.540 | If you think about like Magnus talking

01:43:11.000 | about the world championship

01:43:12.020 | and feeling like it's not competitive enough,

01:43:14.140 | for Morphy there was no one

01:43:15.480 | who could even beat him probably in individual games.

01:43:18.960 | So he ended up quitting chess.

01:43:20.560 | I think he was sort of like a lawyer kind of,

01:43:23.280 | but he spent probably the last 15,

01:43:25.320 | I think last 15, 20 years of his life just doing nothing.

01:43:28.320 | Now I have actually seen his grave in New Orleans.

01:43:30.400 | I have been to where he lived.

01:43:32.320 | I think it's now Brennan's if I'm not mistaken

01:43:34.000 | or something like that.

01:43:36.360 | So it's very tragic that there was no one

01:43:38.080 | who was competitive with him at the time.

01:43:40.760 | As far as best ever, I don't think you can say he's the GOAT

01:43:44.280 | but I still think he's in the top 10

01:43:47.060 | if we're using a criteria of players

01:43:48.700 | who are better than their peers by a big, big margin.

01:43:52.540 | - So what do you think about the world championship?

01:43:54.940 | And what do you think about Magnus stepping down?

01:43:57.540 | Do you still see it as the height of chess?

01:43:59.900 | - I still think that there is merit

01:44:03.780 | in having the world championship the way it is.

01:44:05.720 | At the same time, the game is always evolving.

01:44:08.120 | And one of the things that has changed a lot

01:44:10.060 | in recent times is you now have a lot more blitz tournaments

01:44:13.300 | and also rapid tournaments.

01:44:15.020 | In the past, classical chess was the golden standard.

01:44:17.680 | That was the only thing that mattered.

01:44:19.300 | But in the last probably 10 years, slowly but surely,

01:44:22.220 | there probably are as many rapid/blitz tournaments

01:44:25.260 | as there are classical tournaments now.

01:44:27.120 | Maybe it's not quite 50/50, but at the top level at least,

01:44:29.960 | it feels like it's getting very close to 50/50.

01:44:32.300 | And in terms of the world championship,

01:44:35.140 | I feel that the biggest issue is you have too many draws.

01:44:38.260 | The games can be exciting,

01:44:39.540 | but the games inevitably end in a draw.

01:44:41.460 | And the single biggest reason is because players

01:44:43.860 | have about six months or more to prepare for the match.

01:44:46.820 | So for example, the Canada's tournament,

01:44:48.220 | which I just played, it was in June and July.

01:44:50.620 | It ended, I think, around July 5th.

01:44:52.300 | The world championship match

01:44:53.340 | will probably be in February of March.

01:44:54.860 | So that's nine months.

01:44:56.580 | And when players have that much time to prepare,

01:44:58.780 | they are not going to have any weaknesses

01:45:00.800 | in the opening phase of the game.

01:45:02.460 | And so both players are likely going to be very solid.

01:45:04.780 | You'll have a lot of draws.

01:45:05.880 | And in many cases, it might come down to tie breaks.

01:45:08.260 | Magnus, in fact, in two of the matches,

01:45:10.380 | both against Karjakin and against Karjuana,

01:45:12.820 | he had to win in rapid tie breaks.

01:45:15.100 | So I think for Magnus,

01:45:16.080 | he just doesn't feel like the format is right.

01:45:18.100 | I think he feels that there's just,

01:45:19.460 | it's too long, too many draws.

01:45:21.900 | He doesn't get to play creative or exciting chess.

01:45:23.900 | And that's why I think he pushed so hard

01:45:25.280 | for a change in the format.

01:45:27.300 | I don't know what the right change would be,

01:45:29.740 | but I do think that the format

01:45:31.420 | is becoming a little bit antiquated

01:45:33.280 | with all these classical games.

01:45:35.620 | If you don't want to change the format,

01:45:37.020 | the one suggestion that I've mentioned before,

01:45:38.700 | and I think is probably still valid,

01:45:40.740 | is that the match should be held maybe one month

01:45:42.800 | after the Canada's tournament to determine the challenger.

01:45:45.540 | It's held one month after that event.

01:45:47.200 | That's probably the only way to keep the format as it is,

01:45:51.300 | where I think both players have time to prepare,

01:45:53.380 | but it's not something crazy.

01:45:54.540 | Because when you compare the candidates

01:45:55.940 | to other classical tournaments,

01:45:57.780 | let's just say, let's just say St. Louis.

01:46:00.100 | I played there recently.

01:46:01.700 | There was the, I played the Rapids and Blitz,

01:46:03.380 | but there was the Sinkfield Cup.

01:46:05.080 | This was, I think like September 10th, something like that.

01:46:08.620 | Point is, players probably came in

01:46:10.460 | and had a week or two to prepare for that tournament.

01:46:12.860 | Now there's the US Championship.

01:46:13.980 | Players had a little bit of time to prepare.

01:46:15.620 | You play the event.

01:46:16.440 | Normally players don't have these long breaks

01:46:19.020 | where they can prepare for very long periods of time.

01:46:21.420 | So they are very well prepared,

01:46:22.900 | but you still have a lot of exciting games

01:46:24.540 | because that window of preparation is so much smaller.

01:46:27.060 | - But you had, you're pretty close,

01:46:29.640 | given how things rolled out,

01:46:31.380 | to having the opportunity to compete

01:46:34.880 | for the world championship.

01:46:36.820 | Hence the, the Copia meme,

01:46:38.340 | which I still don't quite understand.

01:46:40.180 | Are you and Magnus friends, enemies, frenemies?

01:46:47.020 | What's the status of the relationship?

01:46:50.820 | - Yeah, I think with all the rivalries in chess,

01:46:53.380 | everybody tries to hype it up,

01:46:55.400 | like everyone hates each other.

01:46:56.780 | But the thing is, at the end of the day,

01:46:58.580 | yes, we're very competitive.

01:46:59.860 | We want to beat each other,

01:47:00.820 | whether it's myself or Magnus or other, other top players.

01:47:04.260 | But we also realize that it's a very small world.

01:47:06.440 | Like a lot of us are able to make a living

01:47:08.340 | playing the game as professionals.

01:47:09.820 | And as I alluded to earlier,

01:47:11.900 | the top 20 to 30 players can make a living.

01:47:14.020 | So even though we're competitive against each other,

01:47:15.860 | we want to beat each other,

01:47:17.180 | there is a certain level of respect that we have.

01:47:19.440 | And there is a sort of brotherhood, I would say.

01:47:22.100 | So all of us are, I would say, frenemies.

01:47:24.460 | I think that's the simplest way of putting it.

01:47:25.860 | - What do you love most about Magnus Carlsen

01:47:29.820 | as a human being?

01:47:31.360 | - As a human being?

01:47:32.340 | I think it's, it's very similar actually,

01:47:34.700 | to use a comparison to Tennis and Roger Federer,

01:47:37.600 | in that it feels like with Magnus,

01:47:39.120 | everything comes very easily.

01:47:40.740 | It's, for example, we've seen the situation

01:47:42.520 | with Hans Niemann.

01:47:43.440 | Somehow it's rolled right off his back

01:47:45.080 | and he's playing amazing chess in his latest event.

01:47:48.400 | So it's really how easy he seems to make it look.

01:47:51.600 | And I know like, 'cause tennis is a sport

01:47:53.760 | that I've played a lot, I've followed it very closely.

01:47:56.240 | I remember hearing Andy Roddick say this about Federer,

01:47:59.080 | where it's like, somehow he handles it all.

01:48:00.720 | Like there's no pressure, he makes it look easy.

01:48:02.840 | And how does he do all of that?

01:48:04.160 | And I feel the same way about Magnus,

01:48:05.820 | where it seems too easy.

01:48:08.080 | 'Cause I know for myself, when I'm playing these games,

01:48:09.720 | like there's stress, the pressure.

01:48:11.720 | And for Magnus, it just, you don't ever see that.

01:48:14.080 | Now I'm sure it's probably there, but we don't witness it.

01:48:16.540 | So that's what I would say, is just how easy it is.

01:48:19.120 | - It was sad to see Federer retire, I don't know why.

01:48:22.080 | - Yeah.

01:48:22.920 | - Just greatness.

01:48:24.320 | You know, when Lionel Messi will retire,

01:48:27.320 | it would also be sad.

01:48:28.520 | - Yeah.

01:48:29.360 | - 'Cause there's certain people that are just singular.

01:48:33.520 | - Right.

01:48:34.360 | - In the history of a sport.

01:48:35.880 | I don't know if there's gonna be another Messi.

01:48:37.840 | I don't know if there's gonna be another Federer.

01:48:40.280 | - Yeah, not for a long time probably.

01:48:42.200 | - Is he greatest ever, would you say?

01:48:43.920 | Is he up there?

01:48:45.240 | - He's definitely up there.

01:48:46.200 | I mean, I grew up as like more of an Nadal fan,

01:48:48.400 | just because actually, I felt like Nadal,

01:48:50.920 | it never looked easy.

01:48:51.920 | It was the exact opposite.

01:48:52.920 | Like for Nadal, it feels like he's always,

01:48:54.480 | he's running after every ball, he's exerting himself.

01:48:56.560 | It looked really, really hard.

01:48:57.840 | And like for me, since nothing really came easily

01:49:00.620 | for me in chess, like I kind of, I can relate to that more.

01:49:04.280 | But at the same time, like, you know,

01:49:06.120 | especially when Federer started losing more

01:49:07.680 | and he seems more human,

01:49:08.920 | I started really liking him more as well.

01:49:12.320 | But I think Federer, he changed the game.

01:49:14.840 | I don't know if you say he's the greatest ever,

01:49:16.120 | but the game changed forever because of him.

01:49:18.560 | - Yeah, there's certain people,

01:49:19.600 | just last thing you'd pack, Sampras, Agassi, everybody.

01:49:23.980 | Okay, who wins in a chess boxing match

01:49:27.360 | between you and Magnus?

01:49:28.880 | - Probably Magnus just 'cause he's taller than me.

01:49:31.380 | I think. - Also reach?

01:49:32.660 | - He's taller, he has more reach, yeah.

01:49:34.540 | But I think he would win.

01:49:36.420 | - Question from Reddit.

01:49:37.620 | In what sport do you think you can beat Magnus

01:49:40.020 | 10 out of 10 times?

01:49:41.500 | - I think I could beat Magnus 10 out of 10 times in tennis.

01:49:44.140 | I mean, I took lessons for eight years.

01:49:45.700 | I try to go out and hit two or three times every week.

01:49:48.740 | I think I could beat him in tennis 10 out of 10.

01:49:50.620 | - Backhand, forehand, what's your style of tennis play?

01:49:55.180 | - I wish I was taller 'cause I really like

01:49:56.980 | trying to come into the net.

01:49:58.020 | I like volleying a lot, but I am no Rod Laver.

01:50:02.300 | Rod Laver was very short, but he was able to make it work

01:50:04.460 | like 50, 60 years ago.

01:50:06.100 | I really like volleying, but I'm a little bit too short,

01:50:08.300 | so I kind of have to stay back.

01:50:10.460 | And I mean, I normally hit, like I try to hit hard forehands

01:50:13.420 | and I try to slice or two-hand backhand.

01:50:16.900 | - You mentioned Magnus and Kariakin.

01:50:18.820 | And I just wonder if you have ideas, thoughts about

01:50:24.820 | the fact that he was originally a qualifier

01:50:27.500 | to the Candidates Tournament and was disqualified

01:50:29.940 | by FIDE for breaching his code of ethics

01:50:34.060 | about related to his support for

01:50:38.700 | the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

01:50:40.820 | Does that ever seep into the games

01:50:47.100 | that you play over the board, the geopolitics,

01:50:49.940 | the actual military conflict of it all?

01:50:52.380 | Do you feel the pressure of that?

01:50:53.580 | Because there's battles between nations.

01:50:56.020 | NEPO's Russian, there's America,

01:51:01.020 | every nation is in some profound way

01:51:05.540 | represented on the chessboard.

01:51:07.060 | - Right, I've never really felt that.

01:51:09.300 | I think actually for me, it's very eye-opening

01:51:11.940 | to realize how difficult it is for a lot of

01:51:13.940 | the Russian chess players right now

01:51:15.700 | to play because of the situation,

01:51:17.500 | even NEPO for that matter.

01:51:18.940 | I remember when we were in St. Louis,

01:51:20.740 | he essentially has to bring cash

01:51:23.220 | 'cause obviously Russia's cut off from SWIFT,

01:51:25.180 | no credit cards work.

01:51:26.460 | So if these Russians don't have cash,

01:51:28.340 | they can't play and I know a lot of them

01:51:29.860 | have fled the country just to try and keep

01:51:32.060 | their chess career going.

01:51:33.420 | So it's a very, very tough situation for them.

01:51:36.900 | Obviously for the Ukrainians who are suffering,

01:51:39.860 | it's really, really bad.

01:51:41.420 | - Do you know if NEPO, have you seen,

01:51:44.460 | has he talked about the politics,

01:51:47.820 | the geopolitics of it all?

01:51:49.580 | - I don't think he really has.

01:51:51.340 | I mean, I feel like most players try to avoid

01:51:54.900 | talking about it, I think it's very difficult.

01:51:57.180 | I remember when I was in St. Louis,

01:51:58.380 | there was another Russian player, Peter Savidler,

01:52:00.060 | and I basically asked him, he was like,

01:52:02.020 | "Don't get me started because I can't,

01:52:04.180 | "I just can't talk about it."

01:52:06.180 | So I think most of them are probably

01:52:08.620 | on the other side of the spectrum.

01:52:09.820 | I don't think they're probably supportive

01:52:11.220 | of what is going on right now.

01:52:13.580 | So it's a very, very, very difficult situation.

01:52:17.100 | But I don't really feel like that manifests itself

01:52:20.100 | in actual tensions when I play against

01:52:22.860 | the Russian players.

01:52:23.860 | I mean, maybe when I was younger playing certain events,

01:52:26.580 | the one country that I felt like maybe it actually,

01:52:28.860 | I felt some tension, I really wanted to go out of my way

01:52:31.460 | to win against was against the Chinese, perhaps.

01:52:33.700 | That is maybe the one time I felt something

01:52:35.420 | along those lines.

01:52:37.220 | But generally, I feel like we treat the players

01:52:39.340 | as individuals, it's not about the country they represent.

01:52:42.340 | - Yeah.

01:52:43.460 | Let's go back to the philosophical of chess.

01:52:47.540 | What do you find most beautiful about the game of chess?

01:52:51.060 | Looking back over your whole career.

01:52:52.980 | - I think looking back, it's really,

01:52:56.100 | it's both over the board and also just like the memories

01:52:58.860 | that I've created.

01:52:59.780 | I think for me, the fact that I've been able to travel

01:53:03.780 | because of chess to meet so many people

01:53:05.780 | who are playing this great game

01:53:07.180 | from all different nationalities,

01:53:08.780 | all different backgrounds is probably the thing

01:53:12.780 | that I really like the most.

01:53:15.420 | Chess is one of the, maybe the only thing

01:53:17.780 | I can think of where you can have people,

01:53:20.220 | different backgrounds, different ages.

01:53:22.380 | Honestly, you can have someone who's a billionaire

01:53:23.900 | talking to someone who's like a nine-year-old kid

01:53:25.860 | from the inner city.

01:53:26.940 | And when they're talking about the game of chess,

01:53:28.820 | they're on the same level.

01:53:30.300 | And I don't think that is really applicable

01:53:32.620 | to anything else in this world.

01:53:34.380 | You don't have that level of respect

01:53:36.180 | that is communicated through a game.

01:53:37.660 | So for me, that's probably the single most beautiful thing

01:53:40.180 | about sort of chess and the chess world itself

01:53:42.900 | is that you have that.

01:53:44.420 | In terms of the game itself, the creativity,

01:53:46.580 | the possibility of different positions,

01:53:48.940 | learning something new even after I've played the game

01:53:50.980 | for 30 years, it's very inspiring to me

01:53:53.940 | knowing that I've spent all this time,

01:53:55.460 | there still are new things that I can learn.

01:53:57.580 | Those are probably two biggest, biggest things

01:54:00.100 | that I would refer to.

01:54:01.700 | - Are there memories, big or small,

01:54:04.620 | like weird, surprising anecdotes from all those years

01:54:07.460 | of going to all the different places that stand out to you?

01:54:10.020 | Some of the darker times, weirder times,

01:54:14.340 | like weird places you've played,

01:54:15.860 | weird people you've played, weird people you hung out with.

01:54:18.700 | Anything that jumps to memory?

01:54:20.420 | - I think this is probably a little bit more like political,

01:54:24.420 | but I think one of the things that's great

01:54:25.780 | is whenever you go and play these tournaments,

01:54:27.580 | you have a certain impression of what a country is like

01:54:30.380 | or what the people are like.

01:54:31.580 | And probably the best example for me was in 2004,

01:54:35.340 | or actually, no, sorry, it was 2003, I think it was,

01:54:37.300 | I played in the FIDE World Cup and it was held in Tripoli,

01:54:40.620 | the capital of Libya at the time

01:54:42.020 | when Gaddafi was still running the country.

01:54:43.940 | And you hear a lot of these things,

01:54:46.060 | but then when you go there

01:54:47.180 | and you see the people are so friendly,

01:54:48.980 | it's very eye-opening and sort of you look at it

01:54:51.660 | without just believing things.

01:54:54.300 | You go to these places, you see how things truly are.

01:54:56.500 | And generally, I find that it's very different

01:54:58.180 | than how the media will portray it.

01:55:00.060 | One of my great regrets is as someone who loves history,

01:55:03.020 | not going to see Magnus Lepto,

01:55:05.020 | which were the greatest ruins,

01:55:07.020 | I think greatest ruins in Africa from the Roman times,

01:55:09.900 | and of course no longer exists.

01:55:12.180 | So I really do regret that.

01:55:14.100 | I think another thing that's very unique about chess

01:55:16.460 | is that all of us, even when we compete as children,

01:55:19.580 | like there are a lot of people like Nepo and others

01:55:21.100 | who I've known for a very, very long time.

01:55:22.780 | There are a lot of people

01:55:23.620 | who no longer play chess competitively,

01:55:25.980 | but inevitably you end up talking to these people

01:55:28.140 | many years down the road.

01:55:29.420 | And so you never truly lose touch with the game

01:55:31.980 | or the people that you grew up playing it with.

01:55:33.820 | And there's so many of these people

01:55:35.540 | that I connected with in the last couple of years

01:55:37.740 | who I knew when I was a kid

01:55:39.220 | and then they went off, did something else,

01:55:40.780 | but you still end up talking to them

01:55:43.860 | and being able to share these old memories.

01:55:47.180 | - So you said you're a bit of a student,

01:55:50.340 | a fan of history, even ancient history.

01:55:53.740 | Are there cultures, periods of time,

01:55:58.340 | people from human history that you draw wisdom from

01:56:02.540 | about human nature that you're particularly drawn to?

01:56:06.460 | - A lot.

01:56:07.300 | I mean, I probably study,

01:56:08.860 | mostly it'd be like ancient Roman history

01:56:10.660 | or pre-Roman empire,

01:56:12.660 | and of course ancient Persia is another subject

01:56:16.220 | that I've studied a lot on.

01:56:18.180 | If you ask me, I would say, I mean,

01:56:20.460 | it depends, you're talking like military generals,

01:56:24.140 | you're talking like philosophers,

01:56:26.380 | I mean, there's everything.

01:56:27.220 | - So yeah, so both, right?

01:56:28.300 | So philosophers is how people thought about the world.

01:56:32.180 | Of course, military has to do with

01:56:35.300 | how people sort of conquered lands.

01:56:39.940 | Both are interesting because in part,

01:56:42.180 | it seems so far away from what we are today,

01:56:46.620 | and it's cool to see that people were kind of the same

01:56:50.460 | in their ability to invent amazing things,

01:56:53.740 | and maybe the same and different

01:56:56.580 | in their willingness to go to war.

01:56:58.540 | - So I think, I mean, one of my favorite books

01:57:00.460 | that I've read in the last couple of years

01:57:01.900 | is "The Histories" by Herodotus,

01:57:03.940 | I mean, basically considered the father of history.

01:57:06.420 | And I mean, I really love reading about these things

01:57:09.860 | like Thermopylae or Marathon,

01:57:11.460 | these great ancient battles.

01:57:13.540 | I don't know if there's like a specific like quote

01:57:15.460 | or wording or something like that that I can come up with,

01:57:17.860 | but that is one of my favorite,

01:57:19.860 | favorite books on history by far.

01:57:22.340 | - So those books were written a long time ago.

01:57:24.460 | - Yeah, it's like 400, I think it was like 400 BC

01:57:27.300 | was when that was written.

01:57:28.180 | - So what's that like?

01:57:29.820 | What's that like reading that?

01:57:32.020 | - It's just--

01:57:33.180 | - Does it seem ancient?

01:57:35.300 | - It does seem ancient, like it's sort of,

01:57:37.900 | I feel like for myself,

01:57:38.980 | one of the things I really like doing

01:57:40.420 | is getting away from technology

01:57:41.940 | when I have the opportunity,

01:57:43.380 | trying to disconnect these sorts of things.

01:57:45.020 | And so when I read books like that,

01:57:46.500 | besides just having a general interest,

01:57:48.380 | it sort of reminds me like,

01:57:49.620 | there is really a life without all this stuff,

01:57:52.060 | or there was at least at some point.

01:57:54.080 | And so it's something that I can kind of relate to.

01:57:56.820 | - Like humanity flourishes without all the stuff we take,

01:58:00.980 | we think is fundamental to our current culture.

01:58:03.340 | Like all that we find beautiful about humanity

01:58:06.460 | can still exist without any of the technology.

01:58:08.580 | - Yes, definitely.

01:58:10.100 | That's a really good reminder,

01:58:11.420 | given the contrast, of course, is beautiful,

01:58:13.860 | because you're in the midst of the technology with streaming.

01:58:18.020 | Like to me, streaming somehow feels,

01:58:20.620 | because of how large of a percentage

01:58:25.620 | of young people are interested, like consumes streams,

01:58:31.460 | it feels to represent like the future,

01:58:35.020 | because so many people kind of develop their mind

01:58:38.260 | by watching Twitch and YouTube.

01:58:41.540 | - Right, I mean, that's definitely true.

01:58:43.540 | For myself, I remember when I was a little bit younger,

01:58:46.340 | I was like 17, 18 around then,

01:58:48.040 | I would actually try one day a week on the weekend

01:58:50.340 | to try not to look at like my computer or my phone.

01:58:53.140 | Now phones weren't where they are today, obviously,

01:58:55.540 | but I was able to do that pretty easily.

01:58:57.380 | Now it's very hard.

01:58:58.400 | Like when I try to go one day,

01:58:59.940 | recently I tried to do that,

01:59:01.400 | I actually just pulled some books out of my garage

01:59:03.540 | and I started reading, and it was a very foreign concept.

01:59:06.420 | So I do read a lot, but it's always on an iPad,

01:59:10.100 | or a Kindle, yeah, both of those actually.

01:59:12.200 | So it's very, very weird,

01:59:15.300 | but I do try when I can to get away from it all.

01:59:19.360 | I mean, another thing, like I said,

01:59:20.780 | I really like going out into nature

01:59:22.260 | when I have the opportunity.

01:59:23.300 | I've spent a lot of time in Colorado, for example,

01:59:25.740 | hiking some of the 14ers,

01:59:27.980 | that is one of those life goals that I have

01:59:30.060 | to go and get to the top of every single one of them.

01:59:33.180 | So I try to disconnect when I can,

01:59:34.760 | but of course it's very hard.

01:59:37.020 | - So whether it's disconnecting or not,

01:59:40.580 | can you take me through a perfect day

01:59:42.180 | in the life of Fikar and Nakamura

01:59:44.260 | on a day of a big chess match?

01:59:46.180 | Well, actually, multiple days, right?

01:59:49.660 | We'll take one where it's a big chess match

01:59:51.560 | and one that's just like your representative average day.

01:59:55.620 | - A perfect chess day, although I cannot do this,

01:59:58.660 | it would start the night before,

02:00:00.180 | I would get nine hours of sleep,

02:00:02.220 | like a consistent nine hours,

02:00:03.560 | like say 12 a.m. to 9 a.m., for example,

02:00:05.960 | let's just say the round starts at like two o'clock

02:00:08.160 | and then nine to say 12 o'clock, I do preparation,

02:00:11.420 | and then 12 to one, I go eat lunch,

02:00:13.440 | and at one to two, I just nap or I walk

02:00:15.440 | or I do something completely unrelated to it.

02:00:17.280 | That would be the perfect day.

02:00:19.180 | - When are you doing everything except the preparation,

02:00:22.640 | are you thinking about chess at all

02:00:23.840 | or are you trying not to think about chess?

02:00:24.920 | - Trying not to think about chess, definitely not.

02:00:27.000 | - And what do you do?

02:00:27.840 | Is there any tricks to that?

02:00:29.080 | - Well, I find that like if I go outside,

02:00:31.440 | I just try to hear like the birds or I try to listen,

02:00:34.200 | it's one of those like meditation kind of things,

02:00:36.040 | like they always say when you meditate,

02:00:37.640 | you try to hear yourself breathing.

02:00:39.480 | It's like when you close your eyes,

02:00:40.760 | try to hear yourself breathing, just focus on that.

02:00:43.220 | So I do try to do things like that

02:00:45.340 | from time to time as well.

02:00:46.920 | - So in terms of getting nine hours of sleep,

02:00:48.800 | does that come difficult to you?

02:00:50.840 | - That almost never happens.

02:00:52.200 | I mean, there've been a couple times where it has happened,

02:00:54.120 | like in Norway specifically,

02:00:55.560 | but generally, I don't sleep well during chess terms,

02:00:58.840 | I wish I did, but.

02:01:00.720 | - So we're talking about a perfect day,

02:01:01.920 | so sleep is really important.

02:01:03.360 | What about diet and stuff like that?

02:01:05.520 | - Yeah, I think for a lot of people,

02:01:07.680 | they try to keep it light before the round,

02:01:09.560 | actually like I remember hearing this story

02:01:11.560 | from Peter Savidler some years back, a Russian GM,

02:01:14.440 | and he said that Kasparov would go and eat like a big steak

02:01:17.440 | right before the game and he would be completely fine,

02:01:19.760 | but I think for most players, it's the exact opposite.

02:01:22.440 | You try to like eat like some snacks,

02:01:24.200 | like maybe some nuts, a few bars, things of this nature,

02:01:26.600 | or maybe just like maybe fish,

02:01:28.000 | something very light for lunch before the game,

02:01:30.880 | and then you probably eat a lot after the game.

02:01:33.760 | That's generally what you try to do,

02:01:34.960 | but I don't think there's any like specific diet

02:01:37.520 | that makes a huge difference,

02:01:38.880 | but everyone is different, of course.

02:01:40.600 | - So when you're actually at the board

02:01:42.480 | on that perfect day, how do you maintain focus

02:01:47.560 | for so many hours of classical chess?

02:01:49.600 | Like, you know what, like minute to minute,

02:01:53.560 | second to second, how are you able to maintain focus?

02:01:56.800 | Is there tricks to that?

02:01:57.800 | How difficult is that?

02:01:59.360 | - I think it really depends on the type of the game

02:02:02.480 | that you're playing.

02:02:03.320 | I think if it's a game that's very, very calm

02:02:05.240 | and very slow where not a lot happens at the start,

02:02:08.160 | it's a lot easier because you're not having

02:02:11.440 | to be super focused.

02:02:12.440 | Like your mind can drift and whatnot,

02:02:14.200 | and then at the critical moment, you have to sort of zone in.

02:02:16.680 | So those are the easiest ones.

02:02:17.880 | I think generally when games are very complicated

02:02:20.840 | from the start, what you're doing is you're just,

02:02:24.600 | you're trying to not let your mind wander at all,

02:02:27.480 | because when games are complicated like that,

02:02:29.280 | one of the things that I've never been very good at

02:02:31.200 | is my mind does wander, and you're always,

02:02:32.880 | like I'm always worrying about the next move.

02:02:34.720 | It's like, is this a blunder?

02:02:35.880 | What's going on?

02:02:36.880 | Like, what am I gonna do?

02:02:39.280 | So you're trying, I think, very much to block out the noise.

02:02:42.680 | I think that's actually the hardest thing,

02:02:44.680 | is also because like, I can say this,

02:02:46.560 | when I played Magnus before, there have been times

02:02:48.640 | when I've gotten winning positions against him.

02:02:50.680 | And in that moment when I had the winning position,

02:02:52.440 | very oftentimes my mind wanders, like, okay,

02:02:54.440 | you're about to win this game, and you're like, okay,

02:02:56.320 | what happens after the game?

02:02:57.280 | You win this game, gain the rating points,

02:02:58.800 | all these different things,

02:02:59.920 | but you haven't actually won the game yet.

02:03:02.280 | And I think for a lot of players, that's the hardest thing,

02:03:04.200 | is when you get a winning position, your mind does drift.

02:03:06.720 | It drifts to like, what happens after you've won the game,

02:03:10.800 | or what the outcome is.

02:03:11.840 | - So drifting into the future,

02:03:13.840 | and you should stay in the moment.

02:03:14.960 | You really should hold on.

02:03:17.040 | And also, what is it?

02:03:19.360 | Yeah, probably getting excited about the win.

02:03:24.520 | What is it about that that makes you worse at playing?

02:03:28.040 | So interesting, like getting--

02:03:30.200 | - I think it's like, it's nervous,

02:03:32.920 | but it's like you're too excited, I think.

02:03:35.320 | It's like you're waiting for it to end,

02:03:36.800 | you expect it to end.

02:03:38.200 | And then your opponent keeps defending,

02:03:40.520 | and you can make mistakes.

02:03:42.560 | - What about the flip side of that,

02:03:43.920 | where you start getting frustrated?

02:03:45.800 | Like, how do you try to recover from that kind of thing?

02:03:49.240 | - It's very difficult.

02:03:51.000 | I think for myself, I just try to basically focus on it

02:03:55.280 | every single move.

02:03:56.840 | Again, you try to block out the noise,

02:03:58.440 | no matter which direction it's going in.

02:04:00.560 | So I try as best I can.

02:04:02.120 | I mean, sometimes I'm very poor at it.

02:04:03.880 | Like, I just don't do a good job

02:04:05.880 | blocking out the noise at all.

02:04:06.760 | But I think generally, I try to think,

02:04:08.160 | okay, just make this next move.

02:04:09.480 | Make your opponent have to find the best moves.

02:04:11.880 | And just keep the game going, no matter what.

02:04:14.080 | Just keep it going.

02:04:15.080 | - By the way, what's a long day of classical chess?

02:04:18.520 | What's that look like?

02:04:19.680 | - It's pretty brutal.

02:04:20.760 | I mean, it would be something like,

02:04:22.040 | okay, so the game starts at two o'clock.

02:04:23.720 | So you've done all this other stuff.

02:04:24.960 | The game probably goes from like two to seven, for example,

02:04:27.520 | or maybe two to eight, five, six hours.

02:04:29.960 | Probably you eat dinner for an hour or so,

02:04:32.560 | maybe clear, like I'll go clear my head for 30 minutes.

02:04:35.360 | And then immediately it's right back to studying

02:04:37.080 | for a couple of hours.

02:04:38.480 | - Are you reviewing previous games, or you're already?

02:04:40.800 | - Generally, you're just moving on to the next game.

02:04:42.880 | That's what you're doing.

02:04:43.720 | - And trying to, no matter what happened,

02:04:46.040 | put that behind you.

02:04:47.280 | Win or lose or draw.

02:04:49.960 | - Okay, so that's also why there's another question

02:04:53.120 | a lot of people wonder,

02:04:53.960 | which is why don't I play more of these classical tournaments

02:04:56.080 | and sort of, it gets back to the, you know,

02:04:59.080 | the literally don't care sort of stuff.

02:05:00.720 | But when I'm going to play in tournaments,

02:05:02.600 | I want to be able to give it my best shot.

02:05:05.200 | And if I don't feel that I can, I'm not going to play,

02:05:08.600 | which is why, like I play here and there,

02:05:11.000 | but I do balance my schedule very carefully

02:05:13.480 | because I'm not just going to go and play a tournament

02:05:15.160 | simply because if I don't feel that I can put in the work,

02:05:18.520 | it's not the right thing to do.

02:05:20.800 | Also because I'm taking away a spot from somebody else

02:05:23.480 | who probably will be putting in the work,

02:05:25.320 | who will want to compete in that event.

02:05:26.880 | And so when I look at the candidates,

02:05:28.880 | or a lot of people said, "Well, why is he playing?"

02:05:30.840 | They're like, "Okay, he qualified,

02:05:31.920 | "but he's not going to take it seriously."

02:05:34.040 | But I did give it everything I had in that tournament.

02:05:36.960 | And I always will as much as I can.

02:05:39.720 | If I can't do that, then I'm just not going to play.

02:05:42.920 | - So what about a perfect day in the life of Fakaro

02:05:47.040 | when you're not doing anything?

02:05:48.320 | - Oh, a perfect day.

02:05:49.360 | A perfect day would be something along the lines of,

02:05:51.960 | I get up very early at like three, four o'clock

02:05:54.440 | in the morning, drive an hour away, and go climb mountains.

02:05:57.600 | That's the perfect day.

02:05:58.440 | Out into the mountains.

02:06:00.000 | Oh, do you mean a normal non?

02:06:01.960 | - Yeah, a perfectly productive normal day.

02:06:04.000 | - Oh, perfectly productive.

02:06:04.960 | Okay, so perfectly productive would be along the lines

02:06:07.160 | of I wake up at like 7.30, eight o'clock.

02:06:10.160 | Probably I watch either Bloomberg or CNBC

02:06:12.640 | for 30 minutes to an hour.

02:06:15.040 | And then watch the markets for maybe an hour or two,

02:06:17.320 | look at certain things that are going on.

02:06:18.680 | - So you really care about investing?

02:06:20.240 | - I do follow it quite closely.

02:06:21.680 | Yeah, I follow the markets very closely.

02:06:23.360 | Closer than I should, but yes.

02:06:25.120 | - For personal reasons, or do you comment on it?

02:06:28.080 | Like for personal investing reasons

02:06:30.960 | or for like philosophical understanding

02:06:33.680 | what's going on in the world?

02:06:35.120 | - It's sort of everything.

02:06:36.640 | I think, first of all, obviously I'm interested in investing.

02:06:39.560 | I have been for many, many years.

02:06:41.320 | I've done investing trading for at least a decade now.

02:06:45.000 | So like I am very interested on that level.

02:06:46.760 | I'm also quite interested as well

02:06:48.480 | because when you see the policy that's being dictated,

02:06:50.760 | like you look in the last six months specifically,

02:06:53.400 | you see the Fed policy around things like interest rates,

02:06:56.160 | unemployment, things of this nature.

02:06:58.440 | It is something that interests me also

02:07:00.160 | 'cause I do invest in real estate

02:07:01.840 | aside from the stock market.

02:07:03.520 | So therefore I'm always keeping an eye

02:07:05.400 | on these sorts of things and always looking.

02:07:07.720 | And as a better example, like I'm looking for trends.

02:07:11.440 | So if we go back to, I think it was 20,

02:07:14.320 | I could have the year wrong.

02:07:15.160 | 2015 or 2016, there was a pattern that I found

02:07:18.560 | that on the Fed minutes that came out,

02:07:21.800 | I believe two to 15, I think it's on the Wednesday

02:07:24.520 | of every, well, third Wednesday of every month,

02:07:27.280 | that gold would actually, the gold ETFs and ETNs

02:07:30.040 | would actually go up every single Wednesday of the month

02:07:34.440 | that the minutes came out.

02:07:35.680 | So I would follow things like that.

02:07:37.440 | Now, of course I wasn't like trading huge volume,

02:07:39.560 | but I found a trend there.

02:07:40.720 | Of course it stopped working at a certain point,

02:07:42.840 | but those are the sorts of things that,

02:07:44.000 | they just interest me.

02:07:44.840 | Even if it's not something that I'm doing to make a living,

02:07:47.200 | trying to spot those trends,

02:07:48.400 | it's always been something that has fascinated me.

02:07:51.320 | - One Reddit said that you shorted Tesla some time ago.

02:07:55.720 | Do you regret doing so?

02:07:58.680 | - Well, when I did those plays,

02:08:00.320 | that was small amounts of money,

02:08:02.240 | and that was only via puts.

02:08:04.320 | That was where I would buy puts or put spreads on it.

02:08:07.280 | So it wasn't something where I was straight shorting.

02:08:09.080 | I would never actually do that

02:08:11.640 | because it's just, it's not worth the risk.

02:08:13.840 | And I don't want to ever be in a situation

02:08:16.080 | where I have to think about those sorts of things.

02:08:18.280 | And I think a better example is,

02:08:20.320 | there was a period in 2016,

02:08:21.920 | actually shortly before the candidates,

02:08:23.520 | when I actually was in oil.

02:08:25.240 | I had a long position in oil.

02:08:26.800 | And this is when oil completely crashed.

02:08:29.560 | It went very, I don't think it went below,

02:08:32.480 | did it go below 30 even?

02:08:33.680 | It went very low.

02:08:34.560 | And of course the Saudis were not cutting,

02:08:37.880 | they were not, I think they were,

02:08:40.440 | were they cutting or not cutting production?

02:08:42.080 | But anyway, there was a period in 2016

02:08:44.160 | where I had a big long position in one of the 3X oil ETFs.

02:08:47.240 | And it kept going down day after day after day.

02:08:50.240 | And then of course, right near the bottom,

02:08:51.840 | I finally couldn't take it anymore.

02:08:53.080 | I took a loss.

02:08:54.120 | And that really sort of,

02:08:56.640 | it was very difficult dealing with that,

02:08:58.280 | the stress, everyday looking, seeing those losses.

02:09:01.040 | And after that, I kind of decided

02:09:03.120 | I would never put myself in such a situation again.

02:09:05.720 | And so that's why I don't do shorting.

02:09:09.840 | And then separately,

02:09:10.680 | and I think I posted a reply to this comment,

02:09:13.080 | but in 2021, as Tesla started going up,

02:09:15.520 | I actually started selling puts.

02:09:17.200 | And I did quite well off of that.

02:09:18.760 | So it's sort of play both sides,

02:09:21.160 | never become hard set with your conviction.

02:09:24.560 | Like where you refuse,

02:09:25.960 | like this is just like, it has to go down

02:09:29.000 | or like it has to go up.

02:09:30.760 | Just you have to be willing to adapt.

02:09:34.400 | - Do you think shorting should be legal?

02:09:37.720 | Do you think it's ethical?

02:09:39.000 | Like to me, I don't know much about investing,

02:09:41.800 | but I feel like it feels wrong.

02:09:44.920 | Now I know if something is overinflated,

02:09:49.920 | it's good for there to be an opposing force

02:09:53.160 | to like balance it or something like that.

02:09:55.600 | But it just feels like in our current modern internet world,

02:09:59.680 | I think Tesla, I vaguely saw somewhere

02:10:02.440 | that's like the most shorted stock like ever.

02:10:05.960 | And so that incentivizes a lot of the publication

02:10:10.960 | of misinformation about it.

02:10:13.120 | Like it just feels like the incentives are wrong.

02:10:16.760 | Not when we look at the markets,

02:10:19.040 | but at the future of human civilization perspective,

02:10:22.640 | it just feels like shorting is somehow wrong.

02:10:25.040 | But maybe I'm misunderstanding

02:10:26.800 | the broader picture of markets.

02:10:28.080 | - Well, I actually try not to do that.

02:10:30.400 | Like I almost only take long positions specifically

02:10:33.160 | 'cause I feel like you're betting like on world collapsing.

02:10:37.480 | I just, I feel like morally, I don't wanna be in that.

02:10:40.440 | That I don't wanna have that viewpoint.

02:10:42.400 | I think, you know, that sort of is another thing

02:10:44.960 | that I've noticed.

02:10:45.800 | Like I've been very lucky.

02:10:47.000 | I've traveled a lot.

02:10:47.840 | I've met a lot of famous people.

02:10:49.640 | And the one thing that I've noticed is like

02:10:50.960 | a lot of the people who are the most successful,

02:10:53.500 | they're the ones who are very optimistic.

02:10:55.080 | No matter what is happening day to day,

02:10:56.600 | they remain very optimistic

02:10:58.400 | about the future of where things are going.

02:11:01.280 | So I try not to end up in that situation.

02:11:03.560 | I think as far as like shorting specifically,

02:11:05.480 | the real danger to me is that anybody can now invest.

02:11:09.320 | And I feel like actually some of these apps like Robinhood,

02:11:11.840 | they go out of their way to try and make it seem

02:11:13.840 | like it's this fun game.

02:11:15.760 | Like I've seen people where you place a trade

02:11:18.120 | and it like, it gives you like these stickers

02:11:20.280 | or these pop-ups like of confetti.

02:11:22.040 | And it's like, wait a second, what's going on here

02:11:25.040 | with the whole game?

02:11:26.420 | Like people are sort of,

02:11:27.520 | they're going after the wrong thing.

02:11:30.020 | So I don't think shorting like will be banned,

02:11:32.920 | but I think it's very dangerous that everybody has access

02:11:35.400 | to being able to do things like that.

02:11:38.000 | - So according to Reddit on the topic of Tesla,

02:11:40.540 | you have trouble admitting when you make a mistake.

02:11:44.420 | Is that true?

02:11:45.300 | - No, that's generally not true.

02:11:48.360 | Actually, I think that-

02:11:49.440 | - Wait, Reddit is not 100% accurate and truthful

02:11:54.120 | in its representation of a character?

02:11:56.080 | That's fascinating.

02:11:57.040 | - No, I think the thing that I've learned is

02:12:00.220 | I'm obviously very good at chess,

02:12:02.420 | but that doesn't automatically mean that I'm a genius

02:12:05.020 | in everything else.

02:12:05.860 | And I feel like that's another thing actually

02:12:07.860 | that I really, really admire about Magnus

02:12:09.980 | is that he is the world champion, he's the best player,

02:12:12.180 | but he does not automatically believe

02:12:13.980 | that that translates to every area of life.

02:12:17.100 | I feel like with some other world champions,

02:12:19.380 | they think that they're great no matter what they do.

02:12:22.180 | And that's not like intentionally trying to be like rude,

02:12:25.300 | I do feel like there's certain people who feel like that.

02:12:27.320 | Like anything they say is right and they are the authority.

02:12:30.800 | When in reality, we are the authorities

02:12:32.860 | when it comes to chess, we know chess the best,

02:12:34.960 | we are the experts, but that doesn't automatically mean

02:12:37.480 | we're geniuses in everything else.

02:12:39.040 | - That said, I think you said somewhere,

02:12:41.240 | could have been on the C Squared podcast,

02:12:44.400 | that I forget if it's chess or streaming

02:12:49.200 | that taught you to generalize to various,

02:12:52.640 | you feel like you're able to do other things now.

02:12:55.340 | Was that streaming?

02:12:56.700 | - I don't know if that's specifically streaming,

02:12:59.020 | but I think streaming has taught me a lot

02:13:01.380 | about sort of life and also how to run a business honestly.

02:13:05.740 | Like I have read a lot of business books

02:13:07.880 | and one of the things with streaming

02:13:10.260 | is that when you start out, it's like this very small thing.

02:13:12.660 | It's just you, maybe you have a couple of people

02:13:14.340 | who help you along the way,

02:13:15.680 | but as it becomes bigger and bigger, if there's a boom,

02:13:17.940 | you suddenly start having to hire employees,

02:13:19.840 | you're basically running this business.

02:13:21.500 | And like for me, I've learned a lot about that

02:13:24.740 | because there was this book that I read some years back,

02:13:27.940 | I think it was by Mary Buffett, it was on Warren Buffett

02:13:30.460 | and how he tries to be hands-off,

02:13:33.100 | like when he buys these companies, it's hands-off,

02:13:34.940 | management stays the same, you don't do anything.

02:13:36.980 | And I actually, I try to do things kind of the same way

02:13:39.620 | where like I try to be hands-off,

02:13:41.420 | there are a couple of people around me,

02:13:42.480 | I leave a lot of the general day-to-day decisions up to them

02:13:45.480 | and then like things that are really important,

02:13:47.140 | obviously I'm involved in, but I try to do things like that.

02:13:49.700 | So streaming is, you learn a lot along the way.

02:13:53.500 | And I think now having done that,

02:13:54.980 | there probably are several other potential careers

02:13:57.980 | that I could have if I really wanted to.

02:13:59.940 | - Almost about that generalizing terms

02:14:02.980 | is what it takes to build a business from the ground up.

02:14:05.600 | From the process of becoming a successful streamer,

02:14:09.300 | you have learned what it takes to start from the ground up

02:14:12.180 | with a single person and to build a business

02:14:14.420 | as multiple people and as successful.

02:14:16.860 | What do you attribute your success as a streamer to?

02:14:20.420 | - I mean, many things.

02:14:22.500 | I think being a very strong chess player

02:14:24.820 | and having had a following

02:14:26.140 | was incredibly important at the start.

02:14:28.540 | I think anybody, whether it's chess or whatever field,

02:14:31.900 | if you have that following to begin with from your career

02:14:34.860 | or whatever activity or video game you do,

02:14:37.100 | that's already a big step up if you have that to begin with.

02:14:39.700 | So that definitely played a big role.

02:14:41.620 | I think more than that though, for me, it's about the fans.

02:14:44.620 | It's about hearing from people how they feel.

02:14:47.660 | I mean, there are trolls obviously,

02:14:49.000 | but the positive messages you hear

02:14:50.740 | when you hear about people who are struggling in life,

02:14:53.940 | whether it's say, I've heard people talk about having cancer

02:14:56.900 | or you hear about someone going through a divorce

02:14:58.660 | or they're just trying to make it through day to day.

02:15:00.900 | When you hear about things like that,

02:15:02.660 | I think it really puts it all into perspective

02:15:05.140 | about what it all means at the end of the day.

02:15:07.380 | And so for me, it really is the fans

02:15:10.400 | that they give me that motivation.

02:15:12.340 | They are the reason I do it.

02:15:14.300 | And when I meet some of these fans in person,

02:15:16.580 | like I have at a couple of events,

02:15:19.180 | like just talking to them, hearing their story,

02:15:21.360 | just knowing that I can bring them some joy is,

02:15:24.740 | again, at the end of the day, it's why are you doing it?

02:15:27.100 | That's what it's about.

02:15:28.140 | If I can bring people joy,

02:15:30.060 | if it's someone working in a factory all day,

02:15:32.580 | someone in the middle of the country,

02:15:33.500 | if I bring them joy through my chess, that means a lot.

02:15:36.820 | If it's a kid, for example,

02:15:37.980 | if I can inspire them to take up chess in a more serious way

02:15:40.780 | or even honestly, if they just learn

02:15:42.640 | from chess certain skills like critical thinking

02:15:44.440 | and that leads to them becoming like a great scientist

02:15:46.840 | or something down the road,

02:15:48.020 | that is what I'm ultimately hoping.

02:15:51.280 | That's what I hope will come out of it.

02:15:52.760 | - I mean, what gave you strength to have to turn on,

02:15:55.680 | I mean, I don't know how much you stream, but it's a lot.

02:15:58.260 | So day after day after day,

02:15:59.760 | to be able to put that content out there,

02:16:02.120 | is there some, can you comment on the challenge of that

02:16:05.880 | and maybe the low points,

02:16:07.440 | how you're able to overcome that?

02:16:09.360 | - I actually don't feel the lows.

02:16:11.760 | And I think the main reason I don't feel the lows

02:16:13.920 | is because at the end of the day, I've been very fortunate,

02:16:16.480 | even as a chess player, very, very fortunate,

02:16:18.960 | travel the world, meet people, I've lived a great life.

02:16:22.400 | So for me to see myself as a streamer doing so well

02:16:26.400 | and bringing joy to people,

02:16:28.160 | I don't feel like I'm in a position,

02:16:29.620 | maybe this is wrong to say this

02:16:30.720 | 'cause mental health is very important,

02:16:32.360 | but for myself, I feel like I'm very lucky.

02:16:35.120 | I don't really have any right to complain.

02:16:37.540 | So I don't really feel those lows in the same way.

02:16:40.400 | There are times when there are certain things like Reddit

02:16:42.320 | or otherwise that will get on my nerves a little bit,

02:16:45.360 | but I'm able to realize that I'm so fortunate.

02:16:48.200 | And so I don't generally struggle with the lows that much.

02:16:52.760 | - Speaking of Reddit and trolls,

02:16:55.140 | Reddit asked me to ask you to tell me the story of Chess Bay,

02:17:00.140 | the Reddit moderator who pitted you against Eric Hansen,

02:17:04.560 | also known as Chess Bro.

02:17:07.000 | I'm just saying things I don't know.

02:17:08.960 | I don't know much about Eric Hansen.

02:17:10.240 | I guess Eric is another grandmaster.

02:17:12.400 | You guys had some drama and tension between each other.

02:17:17.400 | So I will also ask you to tell me what you like best

02:17:22.360 | about Eric Hansen as a human being.

02:17:24.280 | - Here's what I would say.

02:17:25.120 | The whole streamers and the whole boom of chess,

02:17:28.880 | there are certain people, certain entities

02:17:30.880 | that are very, very important to what happened.

02:17:33.960 | There are a lot of people in the right place

02:17:35.400 | at the right time, myself, Botez,

02:17:37.280 | the Chess Bros, Levy as well.

02:17:39.440 | We were all kind of in the right place at the right time.

02:17:41.280 | But just having the personalities alone is not enough.

02:17:43.840 | You need people who push things.

02:17:45.320 | And there are a lot of things that have been said

02:17:48.160 | about Chess Bay, about what she did.

02:17:50.120 | At the end of the day,

02:17:50.960 | the way that I view it is pretty straightforward.

02:17:52.820 | You don't have to agree with what she did,

02:17:54.720 | the manner in which she did things,

02:17:56.200 | but it pushed the directory and Chess on Twitch forward

02:18:00.660 | in a way that would not have been possible

02:18:02.500 | with anybody else at the time.

02:18:04.200 | Chess.com, for example, they were not directly pushing it.

02:18:08.600 | So you needed someone who was pushing it.

02:18:10.480 | And that, so to me, when I look at the whole boom actually

02:18:13.160 | of what happened on Twitch,

02:18:14.560 | in many ways I think she's just as responsible as I was,

02:18:17.360 | Levy was, Botez was, and the Bros were.

02:18:19.640 | All of us were extremely fortunate

02:18:21.320 | 'cause if you didn't have someone pushing it forward

02:18:23.520 | and Chess.com was not really that involved at the time,

02:18:26.400 | it never would have gotten to where it was.

02:18:28.140 | So you can sort of look at it and say,

02:18:30.360 | okay, you don't agree with what happened,

02:18:32.300 | but you needed someone like that

02:18:33.560 | who was gonna push, push really hard

02:18:35.920 | to get chess to where it is today.

02:18:38.620 | - Can you comment on what happened for people

02:18:40.340 | who have no clue what you were talking about?

02:18:42.060 | Is that not useful?

02:18:43.020 | - I don't think it's specifically useful to get into it.

02:18:45.820 | I think there are a lot of layers.

02:18:47.740 | People felt there were things like abuses of power,

02:18:49.500 | things of that nature.

02:18:50.340 | There were a lot of things that were said.

02:18:52.620 | You know, I don't wanna be super negative

02:18:54.340 | about what happened specifically,

02:18:56.920 | but one thing people will note

02:18:59.140 | is that prior to what did happen in April of 20,

02:19:01.940 | I think that was 2021 now,

02:19:03.940 | there were a lot more collaborations.

02:19:05.340 | The chess world was much more together as a whole.

02:19:07.660 | A lot of streamers did things together.

02:19:09.620 | After what happened in April,

02:19:10.940 | there was a big sort of separation.

02:19:12.780 | A lot of streamers went off in their own directions

02:19:15.480 | because of what happened.

02:19:17.480 | So that is, I mean, that's not the whole story.

02:19:19.700 | There's a lot more to it, of course,

02:19:21.480 | but I think it's fair to say that.

02:19:23.180 | - If I can just comment on the few times

02:19:26.180 | I've tuned into the streaming world,

02:19:28.260 | I do hate to see the silos that were created.

02:19:31.100 | One of the reasons I've been a fan

02:19:32.800 | and now a good friend of Joe Rogan,

02:19:35.740 | you call it collaborations,

02:19:36.980 | but it's basically everybody's supporting each other,

02:19:39.420 | gets excited for each other, promotes each other,

02:19:41.820 | and there's not that competitive feeling.

02:19:43.860 | With streamers, sometimes I've just noticed

02:19:46.900 | that there's a natural siloing effect.

02:19:51.900 | I don't know why that is exactly.

02:19:54.820 | Maybe because drama is somehow good

02:19:58.900 | for views and clicks and that kind of stuff.

02:20:01.580 | I don't know what that is,

02:20:02.440 | but I hate to see it

02:20:03.780 | 'cause I love seeing friendship and collaboration.

02:20:08.780 | - I think this also goes,

02:20:11.460 | again, try not to be super negative,

02:20:13.020 | but this also goes to the chess world as a whole.

02:20:15.380 | One of the things that I've been in this chess world

02:20:17.260 | for a very long time, not talking about online,

02:20:19.280 | but just the chess world itself,

02:20:20.580 | and I've been very fortunate

02:20:22.260 | 'cause I've seen a couple of booms and busts.

02:20:24.820 | It actually wasn't late '90s, it was in the mid '90s.

02:20:27.340 | There was a period of time when Intel and IBM

02:20:30.420 | and all these tech companies were very big on chess.

02:20:33.200 | There was this PCA Grand Prix World Championship

02:20:35.800 | held in New York.

02:20:36.940 | I think there was the Deep Blue stuff later on

02:20:41.040 | in the late '90s with Garry Kasparov,

02:20:43.720 | and you had a lot of interest at the time,

02:20:45.400 | and then it sort of went up in flames

02:20:47.560 | for a couple different reasons.

02:20:49.140 | Also in the late 2000s or maybe mid 2000s,

02:20:52.720 | there was a group in Seattle that was very big on chess.

02:20:55.760 | They hosted the US Championship, all these different things.

02:20:57.640 | There have been a lot of booms and busts.

02:21:00.200 | Of course, if you go way back,

02:21:01.260 | there was the Fisher boom as well,

02:21:03.520 | but inevitably what leads to these busts?

02:21:05.440 | And the thing that leads to it is at the end of the day,

02:21:07.500 | people in the chess world have this natural tendency

02:21:10.440 | to want to not work together.

02:21:12.200 | You wanna hang on to whatever piece

02:21:15.480 | of the chess world you have,

02:21:16.620 | as opposed to thinking about it from the standpoint

02:21:19.040 | of what's good for one is good for all.

02:21:21.360 | And so it's one of those things

02:21:22.820 | that now that I'm in this situation,

02:21:24.280 | having seen these booms and busts,

02:21:25.540 | I remember when I was younger,

02:21:27.260 | I would very oftentimes think,

02:21:28.480 | why is it that chess isn't bigger?

02:21:29.880 | Why do we struggle so much to grow the game?

02:21:32.800 | And I think we see the reason.

02:21:34.720 | So now when I'm in this position,

02:21:36.680 | it's also very tough 'cause I know what's happened.

02:21:39.080 | You try to learn from the past,

02:21:41.100 | but it still feels very hard to break out from that.

02:21:44.520 | It feels very tough.

02:21:45.400 | And it's also difficult because another thing

02:21:48.500 | that people kind of misunderstand is from time to time,

02:21:51.400 | I'll talk about myself.

02:21:52.480 | I'll actually talk about Levy and incomes

02:21:54.460 | or how well we're doing.

02:21:55.980 | And the main reason I talk about this

02:21:58.000 | is that I want it to inspire like FIDE,

02:22:00.120 | the governing bodies and others for like,

02:22:01.560 | wow, these people, they're having such success.

02:22:03.680 | Like we surely we can do something different.

02:22:05.680 | We can change things.

02:22:06.880 | And somehow it has not happened,

02:22:08.960 | which is in a way very, very disheartening to me

02:22:11.320 | 'cause I wanna see more interest in chess.

02:22:13.720 | So you wanna see more sponsors,

02:22:15.200 | more of the general public getting excited by the game.

02:22:17.920 | So it is one of those things that's very, very difficult.

02:22:20.400 | - Yeah, so you wanna see innovation

02:22:22.760 | on the parts of everybody,

02:22:25.040 | but also the organizations like FIDE and chess.com

02:22:28.560 | to how to inspire a large number of people,

02:22:31.680 | which is what, this is what streamers are doing.

02:22:34.040 | They're constantly innovating, I guess,

02:22:35.680 | of how to reach a very large audience.

02:22:38.920 | Before we forget, just to put a little love out there.

02:22:41.240 | - Oh, you want me to ask about Eric?

02:22:42.320 | I was gonna ask Eric. - Yeah, yeah, yeah.

02:22:43.160 | A little love out there.

02:22:44.400 | What do you like best about Eric Hansen as a human being?

02:22:48.360 | - I think it's mainly, he's just,

02:22:50.640 | he's very charismatic.

02:22:52.520 | He's very charismatic.

02:22:54.000 | He knows the brand that he has,

02:22:56.040 | and he doesn't pretend to fake it.

02:22:59.000 | He knows what his brand is, and he owns it.

02:23:01.120 | - So he's, just for people who don't know,

02:23:03.200 | and I don't know, he's a grandmaster.

02:23:05.240 | - He's very strong. - Chess grandmaster.

02:23:06.080 | - Yeah, he's a strong grandmaster.

02:23:07.520 | - But he's also a creator.

02:23:09.840 | - Yeah, one of the earliest major

02:23:12.160 | chess content creators on Twitch.

02:23:13.840 | - Like educational stuff too?

02:23:16.040 | - A mix, mix of educational, mix of high level.

02:23:18.520 | - Entertainment, okay. - A mix of everything, yeah.

02:23:19.720 | - Okay, awesome.

02:23:22.000 | What historical chess figure do you think

02:23:24.040 | would have the best dreams?

02:23:26.240 | - Historical chess figure, I would say probably Mikhail Tal.

02:23:30.400 | He was a former world champion.

02:23:32.400 | Now he lived a very, very exciting life, let's put it that.

02:23:37.400 | He was somebody who drank.

02:23:39.320 | He's from Latvia.

02:23:41.200 | He's called the magician from Riga.

02:23:44.200 | So he drank a lot.

02:23:45.760 | He smoked a lot.

02:23:46.920 | A lot of other stuff as well.

02:23:49.240 | - Oh, like sex, drugs, and rock and roll?

02:23:51.600 | - Kind of, yeah.

02:23:52.800 | I think if you look at, actually,

02:23:55.200 | not even just top grandmasters,

02:23:56.960 | or not even world champions, but top grandmasters,

02:23:58.840 | he probably had the most interesting life by far, by far.

02:24:03.840 | And even as an example of how much he loved chess

02:24:07.200 | and what a character he was,

02:24:09.600 | I think when he was dying in 19,

02:24:12.680 | I think it was 1989 or maybe it was '91,

02:24:14.720 | when he was dying, he actually left the hospital

02:24:16.800 | to go play a Blitz tournament in Moscow,

02:24:18.720 | and he actually beat Garry Kasparov

02:24:20.200 | in that Blitz tournament in one of the games.

02:24:22.560 | - At what age?

02:24:23.960 | - Probably like late 50s, mid 50s, late 50s.

02:24:26.520 | I mean, he drank too much, so he died young.

02:24:28.280 | But yeah, he left the hospital in Moscow

02:24:31.280 | and went to play a Blitz tournament, he beat Kasparov.

02:24:34.000 | - Well, first of all, just to push back,

02:24:36.600 | I think we all die too young,

02:24:38.800 | and some of the most impactful people,

02:24:41.720 | like Churchill, did quite a bit of drinking and smoking,

02:24:45.600 | all that kind of stuff.

02:24:46.440 | So you can still do brilliant things,

02:24:49.240 | even if you partake in the old,

02:24:51.560 | whisking, drugs, and rock and roll, and women.

02:24:54.920 | - Okay, just about streaming though,

02:24:57.600 | there's this quote that I love,

02:25:01.040 | which is the Steve Jobs quote,

02:25:02.320 | which is you can never connect the dots looking forward,

02:25:05.880 | you can only connect them looking backwards.

02:25:07.520 | And when I look at how I got into streaming,

02:25:10.720 | there were all these things that happened along the way

02:25:13.120 | that were so beneficial.

02:25:14.520 | So first thing would be that when I was young

02:25:17.360 | and I was growing up, I played a lot of Blitz chess

02:25:19.720 | on the Internet Chess Club,

02:25:20.920 | it was one of the predecessors to chess.com.

02:25:23.640 | And there was no cameras or audio or these things,

02:25:27.280 | but one thing that people did was you could commit,

02:25:29.240 | so you would write comments about your games

02:25:31.200 | and things of this nature.

02:25:32.080 | And so I was doing something very similar,

02:25:35.080 | where instead of talking, I was writing and chatting

02:25:37.840 | during some of the games that I was playing.

02:25:39.720 | So that was something that I was doing

02:25:40.840 | that was very, very beneficial.

02:25:42.320 | Without that, I don't think that I would have been able

02:25:44.500 | to have the success that I've had streaming.

02:25:46.240 | I think it would have taken much longer to get used to it

02:25:48.800 | and feel comfortable with it,

02:25:49.900 | but I already had that built-in advantage.

02:25:52.560 | Additionally, when I was younger, up until,

02:25:54.840 | I think I was 10 or 11, I don't remember exactly,

02:25:58.000 | I did not actually have a TV.

02:25:59.300 | Well, I had a TV, but I didn't have cable.

02:26:00.880 | So I did not watch TV growing up.

02:26:02.520 | So I listened to the radio a lot.

02:26:04.560 | I listened to a lot of baseball games

02:26:06.020 | in New York Yankees specifically.

02:26:07.920 | And so I think by listening to those games,

02:26:09.920 | like I sort of, I've heard a lot of announcers,

02:26:12.360 | and I think that's also, it's one of those things

02:26:14.200 | where you learn from what you see, kind of,

02:26:16.080 | when you're growing up, their examples.

02:26:18.320 | And so I think that was very, very beneficial.

02:26:20.720 | And then a third thing, in terms of having some flair,

02:26:23.760 | is when I was growing up and I was homeschooled,

02:26:25.680 | probably about 14, 15, there was this great courses.

02:26:29.680 | I think they still do some of these great courses.

02:26:31.720 | And there was this, I don't remember who the guy was,

02:26:34.400 | but he was a professor.

02:26:35.520 | And so I watched some of these DVDs of his lectures.

02:26:37.680 | And he would always dress up as someone,

02:26:39.560 | it was like middle ages.

02:26:40.960 | So he would dress up and he was sort of like an orator,

02:26:43.220 | and he would explain what happened

02:26:45.120 | in the 13, 14 hundreds in this sort of style.

02:26:47.360 | And that's also something that, obviously,

02:26:49.240 | it's not something that I can consciously internalize,

02:26:51.760 | but I think it's something as well,

02:26:52.960 | that from having watched those courses

02:26:55.200 | and seeing that style of oration

02:26:57.360 | really helped me a lot as a streamer too.

02:27:00.080 | - Yeah.

02:27:00.920 | (laughs)

02:27:01.920 | Yeah, all those little experiences contribute to life.

02:27:05.120 | That's definitely something I think about,

02:27:06.880 | 'cause I took a pretty nonlinear path through life.

02:27:09.480 | And I think they somehow get integrated into the picture.

02:27:14.080 | But I do connect to your idea

02:27:19.080 | that you being good at chess was a part,

02:27:22.400 | was an important part of your success in streaming.

02:27:25.520 | I think that's really good advice for people to be good,

02:27:29.960 | like in order to be a creator or a podcast

02:27:35.600 | or create videos, all that kind of stuff, or stream.

02:27:38.520 | I feel like it enriches you if you pursue

02:27:42.600 | with your whole heart something else outside of that.

02:27:45.720 | Like you don't have to be, obviously,

02:27:46.960 | at your level of chess,

02:27:49.160 | but just you have to be developed

02:27:52.000 | in a passionate pursuit of something outside of that.

02:27:53.840 | - Yeah, you get to know what that passion,

02:27:55.280 | kind of, what it is, I think, for sure.

02:27:57.240 | - I think if you're only doing streaming,

02:28:00.080 | there's something, first of all,

02:28:02.240 | I feel like that's going to empty you over time.

02:28:05.920 | For some reason, I've seen some of the lows that people hit

02:28:08.560 | if they don't have this other passion

02:28:10.280 | pursued outside of streaming.

02:28:12.040 | But also, it'll just make you a better creator,

02:28:15.080 | which is interesting.

02:28:16.320 | I think, again, with podcasting, this applies.

02:28:20.760 | With Rogan, I think it's just would not,

02:28:23.280 | the reason his podcast is very good

02:28:25.680 | is because all of his passion is put into being a comedian

02:28:30.320 | and being a fight commentator.

02:28:34.000 | The podcast is a side hobby.

02:28:37.600 | That's the way I feel about it, too.

02:28:40.600 | Your main passion is outside of it.

02:28:42.760 | I don't know what that is.

02:28:44.680 | I think it puts everything in its proper context.

02:28:47.640 | And also, it allows you to mentally escape

02:28:49.800 | into that place that you find deeply fulfilling.

02:28:54.480 | You mentioned, like, offline,

02:28:57.440 | you told me that you're interested.

02:28:59.440 | You found it interesting that I said

02:29:02.280 | that I'm renting this particular place,

02:29:04.080 | and I always rent because of the sense of freedom it gives.

02:29:09.960 | I tend to actually try to be a minimalist for the most part

02:29:13.920 | when it comes to things like clothes

02:29:15.800 | or owning cars, for example, or watches.

02:29:19.760 | I don't own a lot of these material things.

02:29:22.760 | They don't really interest me.

02:29:24.640 | But at the end of the day, the one thing is,

02:29:27.360 | and this might actually play a role

02:29:29.280 | in a lot of the hiccups, why I didn't get

02:29:31.320 | to maybe being closer to world champion,

02:29:33.400 | is that one of the things from the time

02:29:35.960 | that I was very young is I didn't grow up

02:29:38.240 | from a wealthy background.

02:29:39.720 | And I had a single mother for the first six years of my life.

02:29:43.360 | She worked as an elementary teacher

02:29:44.720 | to support my brother and myself.

02:29:46.040 | So I saw a lot of these sort of lows in life early on now,

02:29:50.320 | even once she remarried.

02:29:51.880 | All the money that my stepfather made was, not all of it,

02:29:54.640 | but a lot of it was directed towards my mom and I

02:29:57.560 | traveling to tournaments internationally,

02:29:59.200 | or even in the US.

02:30:00.920 | So seeing some of these struggles,

02:30:02.480 | once I actually made it as a chess player,

02:30:04.080 | and this goes back to investing as well,

02:30:07.000 | is that it's kind of like you wanna be secure

02:30:08.880 | at a certain point.

02:30:09.720 | So I've always looked at that,

02:30:11.240 | how do you get to that point at the end of the day?

02:30:15.880 | And again, like I said, with my experiences,

02:30:18.040 | seeing, actually even now, my stepfather,

02:30:20.000 | he's 72 years old, still teaches chess all the time,

02:30:22.880 | probably works harder than I do, actually.

02:30:26.400 | And so I see things like that,

02:30:28.720 | and that really interested me,

02:30:30.040 | how do you get from point A to point B?

02:30:32.320 | And that's in large part what led to it.

02:30:34.440 | That being said, obviously, when you start owning things

02:30:37.360 | like properties, houses, or condos and whatnot,

02:30:41.440 | there are headaches that come along with

02:30:42.880 | getting some of these bills in the mail,

02:30:44.400 | or you see HOA about a tenant not parking their car illegally,

02:30:48.320 | $50 that you have to pay in fees, these sorts of things.

02:30:51.400 | It is kind of a pain,

02:30:53.320 | but I try to reduce the number of things

02:30:58.280 | that can really bother me in life,

02:31:00.040 | and that's really the only thing that I let,

02:31:02.720 | not let, but it's one of those things,

02:31:04.120 | the only things that kind of ties me down in a way.

02:31:06.520 | And I still feel pretty free, though,

02:31:08.600 | for the most part, despite owning.

02:31:10.400 | - But you mentioned security,

02:31:11.760 | so that meaning like security stability?

02:31:13.800 | - Stability, yeah, sorry.

02:31:15.520 | - So that's the thing you chase, you value.

02:31:19.320 | - When it comes to chess, as I said,

02:31:20.960 | if you're a pro player, you can do very well,

02:31:22.920 | make a couple hundred thousand dollars a year.

02:31:24.440 | Of course, I'm talking pre-tax,

02:31:26.140 | but if you do poorly in one year, that income dries up,

02:31:30.640 | and there is a chance you'll never get back there.

02:31:32.960 | So I feel like for much of my career,

02:31:34.680 | that was always on my mind.

02:31:36.440 | And maybe that held me back to some degree.

02:31:38.360 | I don't know those sort of thoughts about things like that,

02:31:42.160 | as opposed to purely being focused only on chess,

02:31:45.720 | like worrying about the results,

02:31:46.680 | worrying about the prizes, things like this.

02:31:49.140 | It might've held me back,

02:31:50.160 | but that was always something that was on my mind.

02:31:52.920 | - For me, I really worked hard to make sure

02:31:57.080 | that I'm philosophically, intellectually, spiritually,

02:32:01.880 | in every way, I'm okay with having nothing,

02:32:04.860 | as close to nothing as you can get.

02:32:07.240 | And the reason I want that is so that I have the freedom

02:32:10.920 | to not crave stability, or rather have stability,

02:32:14.160 | because my bar for stability is so low.

02:32:16.680 | And that gives me the freedom to take big risks.

02:32:19.880 | And I thought that for me,

02:32:21.800 | I felt like the way I could really help the world

02:32:25.000 | is by optimizing the positive I can do,

02:32:29.040 | and for that, you have to take big risks.

02:32:30.960 | And big risks really does mean

02:32:34.500 | potentially losing everything.

02:32:37.160 | - So you're saying like startups, you mean like that?

02:32:39.820 | - Yeah, startups in every aspect,

02:32:42.340 | meaning pivoting career paths completely

02:32:47.340 | when everybody else is telling you not to do that.

02:32:49.380 | - Actually, it's interesting,

02:32:50.500 | 'cause when I think about streaming,

02:32:52.380 | it's not a startup, 'cause I'm not investing money

02:32:55.820 | where I can lose everything if it's not successful.

02:32:58.160 | But it was also a big risk for me doing that,

02:33:00.420 | because at the time,

02:33:01.520 | I was a professional player doing very well.

02:33:03.620 | When I kind of started in October 2018,

02:33:05.760 | I was still top 10 in the world doing very well.

02:33:08.160 | 2019 was actually a very bad year for me.

02:33:10.100 | I started playing much worse.

02:33:11.520 | And towards the end of 2019,

02:33:13.680 | I intended to take a six-month break.

02:33:15.620 | Last time I played was November 2019 in India.

02:33:17.980 | And then I was gonna take a break

02:33:19.040 | until the US Championship in April of 2020.

02:33:21.460 | So I did, in a sense, actually take a risk,

02:33:24.260 | because I was potentially risking my career

02:33:27.580 | by spending this extra time that I had streaming.

02:33:30.440 | So it's not the risk where financially

02:33:32.700 | I can lose everything,

02:33:33.700 | but it actually was a bit of a risk

02:33:35.300 | now that I think about it in a sense.

02:33:37.420 | Because if I lose my career as a player,

02:33:39.100 | there's no guarantee that streaming

02:33:41.100 | is gonna be anything substantial.

02:33:44.020 | - You didn't think it was a risk at the time?

02:33:46.180 | - I think at the time, I just, I don't know.

02:33:49.420 | I thought it was just something fun to spend my time on.

02:33:51.340 | I didn't somehow, I don't know.

02:33:54.740 | I figured that after a six-month break,

02:33:56.980 | I would come back and play better chess, kind of.

02:33:59.740 | But as far as streaming,

02:34:01.260 | I never thought of it as being something

02:34:02.980 | that would be a career, something viable.

02:34:04.740 | I just thought it's something fun to do.

02:34:07.180 | Maybe it gives fans some access to me.

02:34:10.020 | It broadens the platform.

02:34:11.100 | More people hear about me.

02:34:12.100 | And that was about it, really.

02:34:13.580 | I did not ever expect it to become what it did.

02:34:16.660 | - You said growing up with a single mother

02:34:18.740 | and just giving your whole life to chess at a certain point.

02:34:24.960 | Has there been through that low points,

02:34:30.540 | maybe times when you felt lonely, isolated,

02:34:35.220 | maybe even depressed?

02:34:36.940 | - Oh, absolutely.

02:34:38.820 | Chess is very difficult.

02:34:39.940 | You're on your own.

02:34:41.580 | You can have friends, people you compete against

02:34:43.580 | who are friends, but at the end of the day,

02:34:44.900 | it's a very singular pursuit.

02:34:46.620 | It's just you, and your results dictate everything.

02:34:49.180 | So there have been many moments throughout my life

02:34:53.420 | when I've struggled.

02:34:54.920 | I think probably the biggest time when that happened

02:34:59.100 | would have been about 2005 into 2006,

02:35:02.380 | where I stopped playing chess and I went to college.

02:35:04.840 | And that was mainly because I had gotten to a level

02:35:07.380 | where I was top 100 in the world,

02:35:09.300 | but I stagnated for that year, about 2005, 2006.

02:35:12.300 | And so I decided to go to college

02:35:13.820 | primarily because I had stagnated.

02:35:15.580 | I didn't feel like I was going anywhere.

02:35:17.040 | And then also kind of being on your own,

02:35:19.500 | just having a few friends here or there in the chess world,

02:35:21.500 | you kind of, you wonder what it's like.

02:35:22.980 | And especially because I was homeschooled as well,

02:35:25.800 | like that further added to kind of wanting

02:35:28.020 | to be around other people.

02:35:30.380 | It really played a very big role

02:35:32.500 | in my decision to go to college.

02:35:34.980 | But at the end of the day, as I realized,

02:35:37.300 | college kind of was a big disappointment

02:35:39.400 | because the strongest or the biggest strength

02:35:42.060 | of playing chess is that you mingle with people

02:35:44.340 | from all different backgrounds, all different ages.

02:35:46.380 | And when I went to college, the whole notion of basically

02:35:49.380 | people who are juniors and seniors being more important

02:35:51.900 | or more equal than others to do the animal farm line,

02:35:55.820 | like when you're in that situation,

02:35:57.200 | it didn't really jive with my childhood

02:35:59.340 | and growing up in the world of chess.

02:36:00.900 | And that is one of the biggest reasons

02:36:02.520 | that I actually came back to chess

02:36:04.180 | 'cause it's like this world of where certain people

02:36:07.380 | can are more important and things are different,

02:36:10.660 | like I just could not really relate to that.

02:36:12.460 | And that was one of the biggest reasons, it really was.

02:36:15.340 | That wasn't the only reason.

02:36:17.660 | The other reason though, was that towards the end

02:36:20.500 | of my first semester, I played a tournament

02:36:22.500 | after not studying, actually when I was in college,

02:36:25.240 | when I wasn't actually studying for class,

02:36:26.740 | I was mainly on poker stars playing poker all night long.

02:36:30.460 | So like towards the end of that semester,

02:36:32.740 | I actually went to play a tournament in Philadelphia

02:36:35.300 | 'cause I was going to college nearby.

02:36:37.020 | And with very little preparation, I won that tournament

02:36:40.140 | against other strong grandmasters.

02:36:41.780 | And that kind of made me think, well, okay,

02:36:44.860 | if I'm ever gonna take a chance, it has to be now.

02:36:47.180 | If I stay in college for four years,

02:36:48.860 | probably get a major in political science,

02:36:53.180 | do something in the political arena.

02:36:55.320 | And then I felt like I'm gonna probably look back

02:36:58.160 | like five, 10 years from now and wonder what if?

02:37:00.560 | What if I had played chess, how far could I have gone?

02:37:04.080 | And if I had taken those four years,

02:37:05.480 | there would have been no opportunity for me

02:37:07.340 | to reach my full potential or even see how far I go.

02:37:10.400 | So therefore, that was also a big, big reason.

02:37:14.000 | - So another what if question, if you didn't play chess,

02:37:17.480 | you mentioned political, what other possible--

02:37:21.340 | - That depends.

02:37:22.180 | - Successful trajectory might have you had?

02:37:25.320 | - That depends on what point, really,

02:37:27.400 | if when you ask that question.

02:37:29.560 | I think if we're talking about the time of college,

02:37:31.960 | probably I would have done something in political science,

02:37:35.220 | maybe law, being a lobbyist or something terrible like that,

02:37:38.400 | honestly.

02:37:39.940 | If I was a little bit younger, I really,

02:37:42.160 | I loved ancient history, archeology,

02:37:44.840 | and also languages as well.

02:37:46.300 | So probably something along those lines.

02:37:48.440 | And if we talk like more recently, something in finance,

02:37:52.120 | I don't know what exactly, but something in finance.

02:37:55.020 | - What do you think, when we talk again, 30 years,

02:37:58.700 | what do you think you're doing?

02:38:00.260 | - 30 years.

02:38:01.300 | I honestly wanna believe that I'm just sitting

02:38:05.740 | in a beach house in Malibu, just relaxing.

02:38:08.940 | - Yeah, right, so you and I are in a yacht for some reason.

02:38:12.460 | Why we're in a yacht?

02:38:14.140 | You paid for it, it's your yacht.

02:38:15.900 | - I don't ever wanna own a yacht.

02:38:17.780 | - Nope, okay, all right, fine.

02:38:19.580 | But I mean, that's like the amount of money you waste

02:38:23.920 | on docking fees, the gas, like no way, no way.

02:38:28.480 | - I guess I was trying to construct an example.

02:38:30.280 | You're being super rich for some reason.

02:38:31.920 | It doesn't have to be that.

02:38:32.760 | - That actually, no, I don't think that,

02:38:34.720 | that actually does not appeal to me at all.

02:38:37.680 | I think another great thing about chess

02:38:41.000 | is that within the chess world,

02:38:42.080 | I'm very prominent and famous,

02:38:44.140 | but I can go out to the supermarket and nobody recognize me.

02:38:47.040 | And so I am famous, but I'm not famous at the same time.

02:38:49.940 | So I don't actually wanna be like,

02:38:52.060 | I don't want to be in a situation

02:38:53.580 | where everyone recognizes me or I'm super famous.

02:38:55.940 | That's not, that to me sounds like a very miserable life.

02:38:59.300 | I do not want TMZ chasing me down the street.

02:39:02.420 | - So you're famous in a community you love,

02:39:04.580 | and that, so whenever you plug into that community,

02:39:07.780 | it's always like, there's a deep connection there.

02:39:10.540 | You can always escape when you need a break.

02:39:15.020 | What advice would you give to young people

02:39:17.640 | about career, about life?

02:39:19.600 | Maybe they're in high school, maybe they're in college.

02:39:22.400 | Maybe they wanna achieve the heights

02:39:24.120 | that you have achieved in chess.

02:39:25.680 | They wanna do that for something they care about.

02:39:27.800 | - Yeah, so I think the main thing is follow your heart,

02:39:31.000 | follow your passion.

02:39:31.880 | One thing we didn't touch on this,

02:39:34.000 | like both my parents, my mom was a musician.

02:39:38.160 | She was very good.

02:39:39.200 | I think she was like maybe all state in California

02:39:41.120 | when she was growing up on the violin,

02:39:43.240 | but she still was nowhere near good enough

02:39:45.020 | to get into Juilliard or the top music schools

02:39:47.300 | and pursue that as a career.

02:39:49.520 | And there are a lot of starving musicians

02:39:51.140 | who never are able to quite make it.

02:39:53.500 | So like when I see my mom and what happened with her,

02:39:57.620 | you know, her passion, the fact she wasn't able to make it,

02:40:00.180 | or then my stepfather, who we haven't talked about.

02:40:02.380 | My stepfather actually, he's of Sri Lankan descent.

02:40:05.860 | He comes from a family of lawyers.

02:40:08.420 | His father was a lawyer, his uncle was a lawyer

02:40:10.980 | for the International Court of Justice.

02:40:12.940 | So it's a family of lawyers.

02:40:14.120 | And my stepfather, he went to England to study law.

02:40:17.920 | He went to Southampton.

02:40:19.520 | I think it was University of Southampton.

02:40:21.400 | And at some point, he was going and playing

02:40:23.600 | these tournaments on the weekend,

02:40:25.080 | playing at the school club, all these things.

02:40:27.400 | And his parents actually, they took away his chess board.

02:40:30.480 | They took away his chess books.

02:40:31.920 | They took everything away and told him

02:40:33.440 | he was going to become a lawyer.

02:40:34.680 | He could not play chess.

02:40:36.520 | So when I look at my upbringing,

02:40:40.360 | I feel very lucky that my parents,

02:40:42.380 | having had these experiences,

02:40:43.980 | they were so supportive of everything I did.

02:40:45.980 | And I think that at the end of the day,

02:40:47.580 | you have to pursue your passion,

02:40:50.300 | to whatever end that might be.

02:40:51.740 | You might pursue it, you might fail,

02:40:53.900 | but I do think you have to pursue it.

02:40:55.780 | It's better, what's it, it's better to have tried and failed

02:40:58.200 | than to have not tried at all.

02:40:59.340 | So I really do believe that's the most important thing

02:41:01.900 | is that you do that.

02:41:03.820 | And where it takes you, who knows,

02:41:05.260 | but the experiences I feel are much more important

02:41:07.500 | than like the what-ifs and possibly missing out

02:41:09.980 | on living life.

02:41:10.820 | - So even if it's, you know, everybody around you

02:41:14.360 | in your own judgment says that this is not going

02:41:16.440 | to be financially viable long-term, still pursue?

02:41:19.480 | - I think, I mean, at some point you have to make

02:41:21.000 | those tough decisions, but absolutely.

02:41:22.720 | I feel like too many people follow the standard route.

02:41:25.440 | It's like you're supposed to, you know, go to college,

02:41:27.320 | get that degree, be $200,000 in debt,

02:41:29.960 | these sorts of things.

02:41:31.280 | But then at the end of the day, are you really living?

02:41:34.440 | Are you pursuing what you want to pursue?

02:41:35.720 | It's just because that's what you're supposed to do.

02:41:37.760 | That's what society tells us,

02:41:39.000 | that you're the route you're supposed to go.

02:41:41.360 | So I think you just have to, you pursue it.

02:41:44.720 | Of course, at a certain point, if you're not making it,

02:41:46.160 | you have to make hard decisions.

02:41:47.240 | But I think that, you know, in life,

02:41:48.960 | the only thing really, you know, time and sort of experiences

02:41:53.000 | those are the only things that you really

02:41:54.880 | can't put a price on.

02:41:56.120 | - Yeah, and, you know, and really pursue it.

02:41:59.960 | You know, even like streaming, I'll see people

02:42:02.600 | like on YouTube with that kind of stuff.

02:42:04.240 | It's a world in many ways foreign to me.

02:42:07.520 | It's like, there's levels to this game in that like,

02:42:11.320 | there's a way to really pursue it

02:42:12.840 | and there's a way to half-ass it.

02:42:14.200 | And I guess the point is not to half-ass it.

02:42:16.880 | Like, don't, you know, don't just keep it a hobby.

02:42:21.880 | Make it a full-time, if that's your passion,

02:42:25.480 | then go all out.

02:42:27.000 | So sometimes people can think that like,

02:42:29.500 | these things they love is just a hobby,

02:42:32.800 | like music or something like that.

02:42:34.700 | But there's a way to do it seriously, to go all out, yeah.

02:42:38.700 | - That's probably my general advice is like,

02:42:42.660 | whatever it is, you pursue it.

02:42:43.820 | Because even with chess, when I dropped out of college,

02:42:46.560 | there was no guarantee that I was gonna make it

02:42:48.460 | as a professional player.

02:42:49.820 | There was no guarantee.

02:42:51.220 | But like, I took that chance and very fortunately for me,

02:42:54.980 | it worked out.

02:42:56.500 | - Would you rather fight a horse-sized duck

02:42:58.620 | or a hundred duck-sized horses?

02:43:02.580 | - Probably a horse-sized duck.

02:43:04.940 | Just one enemy is better than having to keep an eye on 100.

02:43:08.580 | - This, the stress or what?

02:43:09.980 | The anxiety?

02:43:10.820 | You don't, why don't you like a hundred?

02:43:15.820 | I mean, they're tiny.

02:43:17.640 | - Tiny?

02:43:18.480 | - Duck-sized horses.

02:43:20.100 | - Well, I don't know if they're gonna attack you or not,

02:43:21.380 | but I feel like having one enemy saying

02:43:23.100 | like the clear objective, I would always, I prefer that.

02:43:26.920 | - If you could be someone else for a day,

02:43:31.980 | alive or dead, who would you be?

02:43:35.380 | - Who would I wanna be for a day?

02:43:37.100 | If I had to pick someone, actually,

02:43:40.380 | I would probably pick Elon.

02:43:41.960 | When, how many years ago is now?

02:43:44.940 | When the rockets were blowing up.

02:43:46.560 | I'd be very interested to see those processes

02:43:49.060 | of how they went through that

02:43:50.980 | and they got out on the other side.

02:43:52.840 | 'Cause like, I feel like most of the time

02:43:56.100 | when you hear about the startups,

02:43:57.840 | like, okay, you look at Amazon.

02:43:59.160 | You have the big investment, the start.

02:44:01.060 | It doesn't feel like there were those super, super lows

02:44:04.140 | for like the Amazons of the world.

02:44:05.620 | Maybe not when the three rocks blew up,

02:44:06.940 | but maybe when that, was it fourth or fifth one?

02:44:09.380 | Actually succeeded, but somewhere in that timeframe.

02:44:12.600 | - Yeah, that is probably one of the lowest lows

02:44:15.140 | that I've publicly I've ever seen.

02:44:17.100 | Yeah, that's, yeah.

02:44:18.940 | - Those are the moments that make us.

02:44:20.580 | - If everyone on earth disappeared

02:44:22.740 | through a horrible atrocity and it was just you left,

02:44:26.140 | what would your days look like?

02:44:28.420 | What would you do?

02:44:29.460 | - It's just me.

02:44:30.300 | It's just dead bodies everywhere.

02:44:31.140 | - There's a movie like this, right?

02:44:32.460 | - There's many movies like this.

02:44:34.420 | - Honestly, if I could, I would probably just,

02:44:38.060 | but you're saying there's like no life,

02:44:39.500 | like no plants, none of this stuff at all?

02:44:41.300 | - No, there's life.

02:44:42.500 | - There's life, just not in humans.

02:44:43.620 | - Not in human life.

02:44:45.460 | There's like goats and stuff.

02:44:46.940 | - I remember reading a, I mean, it's slightly different,

02:44:50.540 | there was a sci-fi book I read many years ago.

02:44:52.380 | I think it was "Rendezvous with Rama,"

02:44:54.060 | where I think there were people

02:44:54.900 | that were just going all over the land,

02:44:56.660 | like in this cylinder.

02:44:59.520 | And so I think for me, I would just explore,

02:45:01.780 | I would just like walk, bicycle, maybe plant,

02:45:04.700 | plant some trees, things of this nature.

02:45:07.060 | - I wonder how that would change your experience of nature,

02:45:10.900 | knowing that it truly is,

02:45:13.340 | 'cause that's one of the magical things with nature,

02:45:16.100 | it's humbling that it's just you out there.

02:45:19.140 | - That's why I love it.

02:45:20.500 | That's why I love going hiking,

02:45:23.180 | 'cause obviously you get the exercise,

02:45:24.300 | but honestly it's a reminder of how small we really are.

02:45:27.580 | - And here you would realize,

02:45:29.260 | I mean, it's an extra humbling effect

02:45:33.440 | of like you really are alone out here.

02:45:36.360 | - Yeah, I don't know.

02:45:38.600 | I probably spend a lot of time just thinking about,

02:45:42.760 | thinking about everything too.

02:45:44.760 | - Do you hate losing in chess or do you love winning?

02:45:47.760 | - Do I hate losing or do I love winning?

02:45:49.640 | I think I love winning.

02:45:51.640 | I mean, maybe 'cause I'm doing so many different things,

02:45:55.360 | like losing doesn't have the same effect on me

02:45:57.400 | that it once did.

02:45:59.260 | So I think like now I definitely love winning more,

02:46:01.600 | but I think when I was younger,

02:46:02.440 | I hated losing much more than I liked winning.

02:46:06.980 | - What comforts you on bad days?

02:46:08.820 | - I think similar to what gives me the motivation

02:46:12.320 | for streaming is the fact that at the end of the day,

02:46:14.520 | no matter how bad things appear or seem,

02:46:17.660 | I mean, we've never been at a better time in human history.

02:46:20.480 | People have things much better off now than any other time.

02:46:23.320 | So I find it hard to really have pity,

02:46:25.960 | or not have pity, but like feel really bad.

02:46:28.040 | I just use those sorts of things as like the way to get over

02:46:31.720 | is just knowing how lucky I am.

02:46:33.720 | - What's the role of love in the human condition?

02:46:38.160 | Let me ask if Hikaru about love.

02:46:40.640 | - Love is, I mean, I think it can be the greatest thing

02:46:44.800 | in the world.

02:46:45.640 | I think when it, you know, when things fall apart,

02:46:48.240 | like, you know, I've been through this

02:46:51.000 | quite a few times actually.

02:46:53.000 | Some really real highs, some really real lows as well.

02:46:56.960 | I think love is, it can inspire you to do things

02:47:00.200 | you never thought were possible.

02:47:01.840 | And without it though, I think life is very empty.

02:47:06.640 | I think it's probably the most important thing

02:47:08.440 | to have in life in one way or another.

02:47:11.560 | - Which is extra sad if you were the last person

02:47:14.160 | left on Earth.

02:47:15.520 | - Right, exactly, yeah.

02:47:16.920 | I mean, I think, again, also in terms of chess,

02:47:20.580 | I think that it can be, as far as chess goes,

02:47:22.840 | or any competition, it can be the greatest thing

02:47:25.360 | in the world, it can also be the worst thing in the world

02:47:27.400 | when you're in love.

02:47:28.240 | A lot of chess players, for many, it does not help them.

02:47:31.080 | It actually makes them play much worse chess

02:47:33.120 | because you kind of, you don't have that energy

02:47:36.120 | or that drive in the same kind of way.

02:47:38.140 | So it's very mixed for chess.

02:47:40.880 | As far as me personally though, I think, you know,

02:47:43.040 | I would say what I've said before,

02:47:44.000 | it's better to have loved and lost

02:47:45.240 | than to never have loved at all.

02:47:46.600 | And I definitely have been through that.

02:47:48.880 | - I thought you don't care.

02:47:51.240 | I thought you don't care.

02:47:52.240 | (laughing)

02:47:53.560 | Turns out you care sometimes, a little bit, a tiny bit,

02:47:56.600 | a very, very, very tiny bit, Hikaru.

02:47:58.560 | You're an amazing person, I'm a huge fan.

02:48:01.280 | It's really an honor that you would talk with me today.

02:48:03.280 | I can't wait to see what you do next.

02:48:05.160 | - Thank you, it was good being here.

02:48:07.280 | - Thanks for listening to this conversation

02:48:08.760 | with Hikaru Nakamura.

02:48:10.440 | To support this podcast, please check out our sponsors

02:48:12.760 | in the description.

02:48:14.120 | And now, let me leave you with some words

02:48:16.320 | from David Bronstein.

02:48:17.600 | It is my style to take my opponent and myself

02:48:21.760 | onto unknown grounds.

02:48:23.960 | A game of chess is not an examination of knowledge.

02:48:27.040 | It is a battle of nerves.

02:48:30.320 | Thank you for listening, and hope to see you next time.

02:48:33.400 | (upbeat music)

02:48:36.000 | (upbeat music)

02:48:38.600 | [BLANK_AUDIO]

Hikaru Nakamura: Chess, Magnus, Kasparov, and the Psychology of Greatness | Lex Fridman Podcast #330

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