You and Magnus played a private game, 40 games of Blitz in 2010 in Moscow at a hotel. This sounds and just feels legendary. - The reason that I probably should not have agreed to play this match and why I very oftentimes reference it as one of the biggest mistakes in terms of competitive chess that I made is specifically because it gave Magnus a chance to understand my style of chess.

- Are you and Magnus friends, enemies, frenemies, what's the status of the relationship? - Yeah, I think with all the rivalries in chess, everybody tries to hype it up like everyone hates each other. But the thing is at the end of the day, yes, we're very competitive. We wanna beat each other, whether it's myself or Magnus or other top players.

But we also realize that it's a very small world. Like a lot of us are able to make a living playing the game as professionals. And as I alluded to earlier, the top 20 to 30 players can make a living. So even though we're competitive against each other, we wanna beat each other.

There is a certain level of respect that we have, and there is a sort of brotherhood, I would say. So all of us are, I would say, frenemies. - The following is a conversation with Ikaro Nakamura, a chess super grandmaster. He's one of the greatest chess players in the world, including currently being ranked world number one in Blitz Chess.

He's also one of the most popular chess streamers on Twitch and YouTube, which you should definitely check out. His channel's name on both is GM Ikaro. This is the Lux Rhythm Podcast. To support it, please check out our sponsors in the description. And now, dear friends, here's Ikaro Nakamura.

You and Magnus played a private game, 40 games of Blitz in 2010 in Moscow at a hotel. This sounds and just feels legendary. Final score was 24 and a half to 15 and a half for Magnus. Where'd you find out the score? I'm actually curious. I don't think it was publicly said or it was very briefly said, but it wasn't ever mentioned in a serious way.

- I think it's a deep dive based on a few links that started at a subreddit, which is how all great journeys start. - Yeah, so this is kind of a crazy story. This was not pre-planned at all. I remember this quite well. I went out to dinner that final night with someone who was actually very hype within the Internet Chess Club at that time.

I went out for a nice dinner. I think I had a couple of drinks. Maybe it was wine, beer. I don't know what it was. And I think towards the end of the dinner, somehow they got word of this and they relayed the information to me that Magnus wanted to play a private match.

Now I agreed to play this match. Probably I should not have. And actually it has nothing to do with like the state of having been out, had a few drinks, anything of that nature. But the reason that I probably should not have agreed to play this match and why I very oftentimes reference it as one of the biggest mistakes in terms of competitive chess that I made is specifically because it gave Magnus a chance to understand my style of chess.

And at the time I actually had pretty good results against Magnus. I think maybe he was up one or two games, but there were many games where I had been pressing close to winning against him prior to that match. And so when I went and played that match, there were a few things that happened.

First of all, Magnus really started to understand my style because we played all sorts of different openings. And so I think he understood that at times I wasn't so great in the opening. And there were many openings where I would play slightly dubious variations as opposed to the main lines.

And then secondly, from my standpoint, the problem that I realized is since we were playing with an increment, there were many games where I was close to winning and he would defend end games amazingly well. He would defend what are technically drawn end games, but where I would have like an extra pawn, it would be like rook and bishop versus rook and knight.

Say I have four pawns, he has three pawns, end games of this nature. Now, if you aren't super into chess, you might not understand what I'm referring to. If you are, you will. But there are end games where one side might have extra material and extra pawns, say extra two pawns, but theoretically it's a draw.

- Can you give an example of the set of pieces? We're talking about five, six, seven pieces, like this kind of thing? - Okay, like a very basic one would be rook and four pawns against rook and three pawns. So that would be nine total pieces on the board, four pawns on one side, three pawns on the other side, but it's all on the same side of the board.

Now this is a technical draw. It's been known for probably, let's just say, 70 years roughly, give or take, that this is a theoretical draw. - No matter the position of the pawns? - It's just all the pawns are on one side of the board. So like-- - But like where they are?

- So it's like, let's just say they're four pawns right here. They're just four pawns. And black has three pawns. So your pawns are on H6, G6, and F6. And there are no other pawns on the board, something like this. And you both have rooks. And it's a draw.

No matter what the next 50 moves of the game are, we know that it's a draw in end game with perfect play. And so it was things like this where Magnus actually saved, I wanna say like five or six of these. And I remember it quite well because I think the score was very, very close up until probably the last like 10 games of the match.

And then at the end, he started winning in spades. But there were a lot of situations where he was up like one game or maybe two games in the match. And I had some end game like this, and I was not able to win the end game. And so for me, after that match, it wasn't even so much that I lost the match or the margin I lost by, but it was the fact that I realized how hard it was to beat him even once you got the advantage.

And I think for Magnus, he learned that my weakness was openings. I remember 'cause I actually, I don't remember the game itself, but there was a game we played in Sicilian Nidorf. And he played this variation with Bishop G5 on move number six. I'm sure you can insert a graphic later, I can show you.

And I think-- - Sicilian is a type of opening. - Sicilian is the opening, Nidorf is the variation. It was played by Bobby Fischer, the former world champion, Garry Kasparov as well. And so we played all sorts of different openings 'cause of course it's not a serious, it's a serious match, but it's not serious where it's gonna count for the ranking.

So you're trying to fill out where your opponent is strong versus weak. And so there was one game, I remember this very clearly, he played the Bishop G5 variation in the Nidorf. And I think I played E5 or I played Knight BD7 in E5, which is dubious, it's not the best response.

And that's just one example where I was playing things that were a little bit dubious and I was not playing the absolute main line with 20 moves of theory. So I was trying to get outside of theory. And I think Magnus learned from that, that even though it appeared that I was very well prepared in these openings, I wasn't quite at that level.

- Couldn't you have a different interpretation of you going outside of the main line that you're willing to experiment, take risks, that you're chaotic, and that's actually a strength, not a weakness, especially when you're sitting in a hotel room at late at night, this is past midnight, playing chess.

I mean, why do you interpret that that's your weakness? - Because Magnus going forward was able to figure out the lines where you have to be super precise. You cannot deviate at all. And I got punished out of the opening in many games. So it was like, it wasn't about the Nidorf, the opening or the variation specifically, but he knew what my repertoire was.

And we would pick lines where I had to play the absolute best lines in order to equalize, or I would be much worse. And he was very effective at doing that. - But nevertheless, it's pretty legendary that the two of you, you're one of the best chess players in the world throughout the whole period still today, that you just sat down in a hotel room and played a ton of chess.

Like, what was that like? I mean, what's the, there's a, I think there's a little here, there is a little video of it. - Sure. - I mean, this is like epic, right? How did this video exist, by the way? - I think there was one journalist, Macaulay Peterson, who was able to film parts of it.

So it was in a room, it was me and Magnus. I think Henrik was there. I think Macaulay was there and that was it. People can go on YouTube and watch. It's on Chess Digital Strategies, Macaulay Peterson channel. For people just listening to this, there's a dimly lit room with a yellow light emerging out of the darkness of the two faces of (laughs) Sengaro.

I mean, and the deep focus here. And what time is this? This is must be like-- - This is probably like one in the morning. This was, I believe the day after the, this was the day that the final round occurred and the closing ceremony. So we're playing afterwards.

I mean, are you able to appreciate the epicness of this? - Many of my favorite memories are actually similar to this. Another memory that I really have, that I recall very fondly was after the US Championship. It was called the 2005 US Chess Championship. It was held at the end of 2004 in, I believe it was in La Jolla in San Diego.

I won that event. And after that event, I was playing Blitz probably for like four or five hours in the lobby of the hotel. So it's the same kind of situation where you're just playing for the love of the game as opposed to anything else. Of course, nowadays, I think both for Magnus and myself, just playing a dimly lit room like this would almost certainly not happen.

There would probably have to be certain stakes involved for us to play. But if you go back in time, these are the sorts of memories and moments that would happen all the time. - So is there a part of you that doesn't regret that this happened? - You know, I think it comes back to my general philosophy.

I feel like everything happens for a reason. And so because I have that, that's one of my core beliefs. Like I don't really look back on it as mistakes. I feel like everything has happened and things have transpired the way they have for a reason. If I look at it in terms of potentially like world championship aspirations, I think certainly it was a big mistake because from a competitive standpoint, Magnus figured out what my weaknesses were at the time and he exploited it for many, many years.

In fact, I think if you look at the match I played against him in the Meltwater Tournament at the, I think that was in June or no, it was later. It was like September of 2020, we played this epic match. It was the finals of the tour and it went all the way to the seventh match.

Magnus won in Armageddon. And in that match, my openings were much better. I was able to match him in the openings. I was not worse out of the opening in most of the games and that made a huge difference. But for many years, he was able to exploit my openings.

And I mean, that's why the score, I mean, it's not the only reason, but it's one of the reasons the score is so lopsided the way it is. - Is there any of those games that you mentioned, the seven games that are interesting to look at, to analyze, ideas that you remember that are interesting to you?

- I mean, the whole, it was actually, so to set it up, and this probably will come into play in terms of World Championship format, it was seven matches of four games. So we played a four game match. And after four games, say I'm up two and a half, one and a half, I win match number one.

Then it's, so it's like you have to win four matches of four games. - Do you remember how you won? - There were a couple of Berlin games in the sixth match, I believe in the seventh match as well, where Magnus actually made some mistakes and I won some critical games.

- You're gonna have to explain some basics here. So Berlin's the type of opening, what's that? - The Ruy Lopez or the Spanish opening. It actually existed all the way back in the '60s, but it really became popular in 2001, I believe it was, when Garry Kasparov and Vladimir Kramnik played their World Championship match.

Kasparov had been the world champion for a very long time. I think it was close, I think it was about 15, 15 years roughly, maybe a little bit more than that. And he lost the match because when Garry had the white pieces Kasparov was not able to effectively get an advantage.

A lot of those games were very quick draws, and in chess you want to put pressure on your opponent when you have the white pieces. So Kasparov was not able to do anything with the white pieces, and Kramnik was able to beat him when the colors were reversed. Kramnik won a game in the Grunfeld, he won a game in one of the Queens Gambit declined slash Nimzo variations as well.

And that was the reason Garry Kasparov lost the World Championship title, was because of this variation. - Can you teach me the Berlin opening? - Absolutely, so the opening starts, let me just move this microphone up a little bit, starts with E4, and then it goes E5, Knight F3, Knight C6.

Yeah, Bishop B5, and now Knight to F6. - And at which point is this the standard, like this is the Berlin standard? - Yeah, this is the Berlin, this is the starting position of the Berlin defense, and white has many, many options here. Now it's interesting because I did work with Garry at a certain point, and I remember I had access to his database, and he had something like 220 files on the Berlin defense.

Because what happened is, is Garry's somebody who, the way that he learned chess, it's very much like, there are certain openings that are okay, there are other openings that are not okay. And so this was considered dubious at the time. And so Garry basically decided to go into this endgame with castles, Knight takes pawn.

- Why is the castling an endgame? - So I'll show you, Knight takes pawn. All these moves are very, very forced. You got pawn to D4. - What does it mean they're very forced? That means like those are the optimal things that you should be doing? - Exactly, these moves are, I think they're almost, at least for black, they're absolutely forced, or else you end up in trouble.

- You said Knight takes D4? - Knight to D6. - Oh, sorry. - So this attacks the bishop on B5. - Got it. - White takes, black takes back with the pawn in front of the queen. Mm-hmm, pawn takes pawn, Knight to F5. And then it goes queen takes queen.

- What? - King takes queen. - It's very aggressive. - Yeah, so you get this position where we're in an endgame by the 10. - You just ruined all the normal conventions, I guess. - Right, on the other hand, for Kramnik, it was quite brilliant because Garry, what he was known for was opening preparation and getting the advantage.

He was a very tactical, very aggressive player. And you're playing an endgame right from the start. Now Garry basically thought that this was better for white, and he tried to prove it. And he was unable to prove it, I think, up until maybe it was game nine or game 11.

Actually, maybe I had the order wrong, 'cause I think he was white in the even number games. Basically, he spent four or five games with the white pieces trying to win this endgame. And he was not able to win. In fact, he didn't even come close to proving an advantage.

So he kept wasting the white pieces in that match. And Kramnik basically took advantage. When he had the white pieces and Garry had the black pieces, he was able to win some games in very nice style. And that was the difference. - D'oh, that's kind of brilliant. So he had, this is a new problem presented in that match.

And Garry's gut says-- - White is better. - White is better. And so in white, I'm going to push with this position. And I'm gonna not change anything from match to match. I'm going to try to find a way that this is better. So it's that kind of stubbornness.

And what do you think about that? Like, that's the way of chess, right? That's not a mistake. That's the way you should do it. If your gut says this position is better, you should capitalize, right? - I think that's an old school way of thinking in chess because before computers, basically it was up to humans.

Your intuition, your calculation process really determined whether a position is better. And so like, in Garry's time, if openings were dubious, they're dubious. It means somebody is better. But as we've learned with computers now, even small advantages, generally that doesn't mean anything. And a position is defendable where you won't lose the game if you play optimal moves.

Even if the advantage is like half a pawn, for example, like 0.50, with optimal play, a computer will still prove that that position, you can hold it and not lose the game. And so for Garry, he learned it where like, if an opening's not right, like he knows it's not correct.

He has to prove it. Now, finally, towards the end of the match, he tried to switch, but it was already way too late. And he didn't have time to win with the white pieces. He did come close in one of the later games, but he spent the whole match trying to prove that this Berlin defense is not playable.

- So this position, the computer would say that black is better. - It would say that white's very slightly better because black has moved the king. You're unable to castle the king, and it's kind of open in the center of the board. - Oh, so wait, so Stockfish or the engine would agree with Garry's intuition?

- Yes, but at the end of the day, when you go like five moves deeper in any number of the sequences, it's gonna go to 0.00. - Which means draw. - Yes, correct. - And that's a bad thing because white should be winning. - Well, you wanna put pressure on your opponent when you have the white pieces in any tournament, any match.

- Got it, so if the engine says 0.00, that means you're not doing a good job of playing white. - Correct. You should be putting pressure. That doesn't mean you're gonna win. There are gonna be a lot of draws 'cause the game of chess has drawish tendencies, but you wanna try.

Normally, the general approach these days because of computers is you try to put pressure on your opponent when you're white, and when you're black, you try to be solid, make a draw. That's the general approach. Now, when Garry was actually at his peak, it was quite the opposite. Garry was trying to win games with the black pieces as well by playing openings like the Sicilian Night Orth, but with modern technology, and I did a podcast recently where I also spoke about this, computers are so good, and players can memorize so many lines that nowadays trying to take risks with the black pieces, it almost always backfires, or if you're very lucky, you might make the draw, but you never get the winning chances.

So from a risk-reward standpoint, you have to play almost perfectly just to make the draw, but you're never gonna have any winning chances, where in the old days, generally, you might lose the games, but you're gonna have chances to win as well, but now it's very much one-sided. So a lot of players try to be very solid.

- This is, by the way, the C Squared podcast? - Correct, yes. - Yeah, this is an amazing podcast, so shout out to those guys. I'm glad that they started a thing that seems to be a good thing, and I hope they keep going with this good thing. That was a great interview that I did with you.

- In that podcast, I talked about the Sicilian Night Orth, very aggressive opening. The problem is white is the one who has the choices. After the first five to six moves, white has the choices. What do you wanna do? Can you show me that? - Sure, so it's, for example, that would be E4.

I'll just set it up, E4. C5. Now we get Knight to F3, Pawn to D6. Pawn to D4, trade. Knight to F6. - Knight to F6. - And now Pawn to A6. So this is a Knight Orth. Bobby Fischer really popularized it in his run-up to becoming the world champion.

Gary played it for probably the last 15 to 20 years of his career, so it's a very solid opening defense. - What is, what are then, sorry to interrupt, what's interesting about this? So there's a, for people listening, on the white side, there's a couple of Knights out, and on the black side-- - So black has many options.

Black can play for B5 here to develop the Bishop to B7. Because the Pawn on A6 guards the Pawn on B5. You can also play other setups, like potentially G6, and putting the Bishop on G7. - Okay, so bringing, doing different things and bringing out the-- - You can also push the Pawn to E5, or push the Pawn to E6.

So there are many different setups, and it's very, very flexible. But white is the one who has the choice here in terms of what to play. And there are many moves. There is this move that I mentioned before, Bishop to G5, which Magnus played against me. There's also Bishop to E3, Bishop to C4.

And now there are also moves like H3, H4, Rook G1. Even moves like A3 and A4. So there basically are nine or 10 moves that white can play here. But the move that white plays sort of dictates the direction of the game. And you have to be extremely precise if you're black.

So if white plays something like Bishop G5, this is very sharp and aggressive. But you can also play something like Bishop to E3, Pawn to E5, and something like Knight to F3 here. And it goes in a positional direction. So again, this is very advanced. These are very advanced sort of setups.

And what I'm explaining is not at a basic level. But white is the one who chooses the type of game. Is it very aggressive, very sharp, or both sides of chances? Is it something very positional, where if you're black, you're probably okay, but you have to play the best moves in order to equalize, or you can end up worse.

- Okay, so you're always responding as black in this situation. - Correct. - So how different are all those different variations? So like with the Bishop, with the different, you said you bring out the Bishop to this position, to this position, or to that position. Like how are those fundamentally different variations?

Like I just wonder from a AI computational perspective, like a single step. - Yeah, well, I'll make it even simpler here. If you put the Knight here, it's very positional. If you put the Knight on this square, it's very aggressive. Because normally white is going to push this Pawn from F2 to either F3 or F4, and potentially a Pawn to G4 later.

So even here, based on where you go, it changes whether it's a positional game, or it's a very tactical. - Just those little, and those are the choices you're constantly making. Am I going to be standard, and basic, and positional, or am I going to be aggressive and take risks?

- And I can actually give you another example. So psychology plays a big role. And in the candidates tournament, which I played in June of this past year in Madrid, Spain, I actually, I had the white piece against Ali Reza Faruja, who is a rising junior, originally from Iran, representing France.

And I knew that he wanted very aggressive games. So he doesn't normally play this Sicilian Eidorff, and he chose to play it in this one tournament. So I knew that he wanted these very sharp positions where he can lose, but he can also win. And so when I played him, I intentionally played this variation because I knew that he was going to be unhappy.

He wanted these sharp, exciting games. And here I am playing something very boring, where if he plays it correctly, it's going to be a draw, but he's not going to be happy. And so he actually did something dubious because he wanted to create tension. He wanted to create chaos.

- So you knew by being boring, you would frustrate him, and then he would make mistakes. - Exactly, yes, yes. - That's the ultimate troll at the highest level of chess. Yeah, you mentioned psychology, and then taking us back to the Magnus, even in 2010, the Magnus games. Reddit said that you've spoken about losing to Magnus being a hit on your confidence.

Is there some truth to that? So is there some aspect about that 2010 match that's not just about Magnus figuring stuff out, but just a hit on confidence? Like how important is confidence at that level when you're both young and like firing at all cylinders? - Well, it's not just a problem with me.

This is the problem everybody has when they play against Magnus, because what happens is, is on a broader level, when you play against somebody, no matter who you're playing against, but when they're somehow able to save positions where they're much worse, almost in miraculous ways, the way that Magnus has done against everybody.

He's done it against me, done it against Aronian many times, done it against Kramnik, just about everybody. When someone's able to save games, it really starts to affect you because you don't know what to do. And the more and more times that happens, it starts adding up, and it just affects you in a way that it's very, very hard to overcome.

And I think every top player has that issue, where if they've played against Magnus more than like five times, they've seen things happen in the game that don't happen against anybody else. And then psychologically, it becomes harder and harder to overcome it, which is why I think a lot of the junior players, they don't have this long history, and it does affect them.

As far as myself directly, certainly after that match, though, it was not the same playing against Magnus, because I viewed him completely differently too. After all those games where he was saving these end games, I started thinking like, this guy is superhuman. But you can't really have those thoughts when you're playing competitively.

But in the back of your mind, it's always there. And I think every top player has that issue. - Is there a way to overcome that? 'Cause you have to. - I don't know if I'll necessarily do better against Magnus going forward, but I felt that when I started playing against him more than just a game here or there in classical chess, during the pandemic, I played him in these online tournaments, seemed like every month.

I came very close. I beat him in one event. I think I lost in two others, and then the tour final. But when I was playing against him more and more, he didn't feel superhuman. It felt like as I'm playing more and more and learning about his style, that I was doing better.

So I think for me, the weird thing is that I just wasn't playing against him that many games. But when I start playing against him like 20, 30 games during the course of a year, I actually started feeling more confident 'cause I feel like I can compete. Whereas when I was only playing him like three or four times in classical chess in the previous couple of years, I wasn't doing great.

And then you don't have those glimpses of, you don't have those moments where you feel like you're gonna be able to win against him. But when you start playing 20, 30 games and you get these opportunities, even if you don't convert, you feel like you have the chances. When you play three or four games and you might lose one, draw three, you never have those opportunities.

And so you feel very negative about what's going on. - When you were able to beat him or not necessarily win the game, but win positionally something, what was the reason? Like technically speaking, the matchup between the two of you, what like, where were the holes that you were able to find?

- I mean, the answer I think is actually quite simple. I think it's all psychological, actually, more than anything else. Because I didn't feel like I was doing anything differently, but I was also not making the mistakes that I was making before. So I think it was more psychological than anything else.

- On your part versus his part. - It's very weird because when you think about chess, it's a mental game. But we all are capable of beating Magnus, all of us. But we all have very, very bad scores against him. And I think people underestimate how much of a role that plays.

And for me, when I played him in these online events in 2020 specifically, I felt like there was really nothing to lose, which also ties into everything else that happened during the pandemic as well. But I just felt like there was nothing to lose. And I felt like I was playing very freely, unlike before.

Now that's not to say that Magnus isn't a better player, that like somehow I expect to beat him, but I felt like I wasn't making the same mistakes that I was making in the previous years. - If we dig into the psychological preparation, is there something to your mental preparation that you do that makes you successful?

Like what are the lessons over all these years that you learned? What works, what doesn't? Do you drink a bunch of whiskey the night before? Is there some small hacks or major ones about how you approach the game? - It's really hard sort of in a way because I feel like I'm two different people.

I was one person up until the pandemic as a professional chess player solely, where I earned all my income. Everything was derived from that. And from the pandemic on, I'm sort of a different person 'cause that is not where I'm making my income from. And so the whole psychological profile that I had before is completely different from now.

There's this joke about the, I literally don't care, the phrase that I've used. And in a sense, what that means is not that I don't care. Obviously I'm competitive, I want to do well. But if I lose a game or I don't do well in a tournament, it's not the end of the world in the same kind of way that I felt it was before, because that pressure of needing to always perform was very, very high.

And so I think before the pandemic, what I would try to do more than anything is just not think about the previous game for the most part. Like say I had a bad game, I'd go out for a walk that evening, just clear my mind. These sorts of things, now they aren't really hacks per se, but it's trying essentially to have short-term memory loss.

(laughs) So I literally don't care is not just a meme, it's a philosophy. - In a sense, yeah. - It's a way of being. - I mean, it's basically that, yes, like I do want to perform well, I'm gonna give it my all, but it's not, like if I lose a game, it's not the end of the world.

- That should be the title of your autobiography. And it should be like, I know you're probably immortal, but if you do happen to die, that should also be in your tombstone. Charles Bukowski has "Don't Try" in his tombstone. - Yes. - Which I think emphasizes a similar concept, but slightly different, more in the artistic domain, which is, well, a lot of people have different interpretations of that statement, but I think it means don't take things too seriously.

- Yeah, I mean, I agree with that completely. I think that if you look at my career prior to the pandemic, I put huge amounts of pressure on myself because I really wanted to be as good as I could be, but it was the way I was earning a living.

And one thing that's very difficult about chess is that only the top 20, maybe 30 players in the world make a living from the game. Now you make a very good living, no way am I diminishing chess, but the problem with it is it's not secure at all. So if you don't get invitations to the absolute top tournaments, which have prize funds from anywhere from maybe 100,000 up to potentially half a million dollars, if you don't get those invitations, it's very, very hard to earn a living.

You can go from earning maybe 200,000, $300,000 a year to earning like 50,000. So it's very, very unstable. And I think for myself, I really put a lot of pressure on myself in a way that it affected me and not in a good way. - So in part, it was also financial pressure.

So like once you're able to make money elsewhere, it makes you more free to take risks to play the pure game of chess. - Yeah, exactly. It took all that pressure off and I'm just trying to play as well as I can. And I don't really worry. Like if I lose a game, it's not the end all be all.

And maybe that's just like psychological stuff that I should have tried to sort out before. I mean, I did at some period of time, like do certain things along those lines, but I became free. And I think it definitely, it was not about the chess. And that's one of those things that's also very hard because when I look at myself and when I had these periods where it seemed like I played better or improved, one of these periods was in 2008, where I basically, I dropped out of college.

I was about 2650 Elo. So I was roughly top 100 in the world. And for the first, probably half part of 2008, I played very little, almost not all. I went up to Vancouver. I was living on my own for the first time and I was not studying that much.

And then after that period, I started playing and I actually improved very quickly and I broke 2700 shortly thereafter. So it had nothing to do with chess. - When you moved to Vancouver and weren't doing much, what were you doing exactly? - Oh, I was enjoying nature. I was going outside, hiking mountains, like going and kayaking, all these things that I was not, that I had not done for many years.

- I'm glad I asked 'cause I was imagining something else. I was imagining you like in a dark room, drinking and playing video games. - No, not at all. - Okay, cool. That's good. That's an interesting break. So dropping out of college and then giving, taking a break and then giving everything to chess in terms of preparation and so on.

Maybe actually, if we can rewind back to the beginning, you've said about yourself that you're not a naturally talented chess player. Your brother was, but that's really fascinating because what would you say was the reason you're able to break through and become one of the best chess players in the world, having been not a naturally talented chess player?

- Yeah, I think that this applies to actually chess or any number of sort of basic games actually for that matter is that I'm not naturally talented, but if I don't get something, I try to figure out why don't I get it? What am I doing wrong? Over and over and over again.

And I mean, there are many games like this. There's this funny game on the phone. I'll just use it as an example. There's a game called Geometry Dash. Now I'm not like, I'm not world-class or anything at it. It's just a silly, silly little game on the phone that you play, you just tap and it goes up and down.

People will probably know what that is. But like I said, I played that for maybe like an hour or so. I just randomly placed for one hour and I was terrible at it. And I kind of forgot about it for a week. And then I came back, I saw on my phone, I'm like, okay, what am I doing wrong?

Like, why am I not good at this game? So I spent like probably like a hundred hours over the following month, just playing it nonstop over and over and over again to get better at it. And again, I'm not like world-class or anything, but I'm pretty good at the game.

And so with chess, it's the same thing. It's like, when I started out, it's like, why am I not good? What am I doing wrong? And I basically refused to accept that I couldn't be good at the game. And so, you know, at the start, I actually, I played for a couple of months.

I did very poorly. And then my parents stopped me from playing for about six months. They just said, no, you're not playing. Your brother's quite good. And my brother was one of the top ranked players in his age group in the United States. So you're not playing. Then after about six months, they relented and they let me play.

And the first term of back, I actually, it was four games. I was playing against other kids and I won the first three games. So it was really good. And I lost the form of checkmate in the fourth game, which is of course quite ironic. - How did you?

(laughs) - Yeah. - Oh, I guess this is, how old were you at this time? - I would have been about eight years old, seven or eight. - So an eight year old future top ranked chess player has, so it's great to know that somebody has lost to that checkmate.

So it's possible to lose to that checkmate. - I remember that game quite well. - Was it, I mean, at that time, did you know that that checkmate exists? - I mean, I think I probably knew it existed, but I didn't, I was just playing. Like it's a completely different world than now.

If a kid goes on their computer, they can immediately figure out what are the basic checkmates, all these different things. At the time that didn't really exist. You'd have to find it in a book. - Yeah. So this is just a basic blunder. - Yeah, exactly. - Cool. - Yeah, so it's like I came back, it was a very good start, and then I lose like this, but I stuck with it.

I improved very, very quickly thereafter. And yeah, it was very straightforward. - What was the secret to that fast improvement? So you said like this very first important step, which is saying like, what am I doing wrong? Like I have to figure out what I'm doing wrong, but then you actually have to take the step for figuring out what you're doing wrong.

- Yeah, I think it was just, I just, I played as much as I could. Like it wasn't like I was consciously thinking about it. As an eight year old, you're not really thinking about those sorts of things with a big picture. So I just basically kept playing as much as I could, whether it was online, whether it was against my brother, reading these chess books as much as I could.

I just devoured as much information as I could. - So you were studying chess books? You were studying chess books? - I was, I mean, I wasn't studying them cover to cover though. It's like you just study certain diagrams, certain positions. - So openings and stuff like that, you were?

- Mostly tactics, actually. Openings were not, other than top level chess, openings were not a thing probably. I want to say for players below maybe master level in a serious way until maybe like the early 2000s. - So for people who don't know chess, what kind of tactical ideas are interesting and basic to understand that once you understand, you take early leaps in improvement?

- Yeah, so it's things like forks, for example, where you attack two pieces at the same time, discovered attacks like checkmates, and again, winning like a queen or other material. Those are probably two most important ones. Batteries, or batteries and pens, things of that nature. - How many, how rich is the world of, and by the way, discovered attacks are when you move a piece.

- And you put a king in check to win like a rook, for example, or other material. - And forking pieces is when you're attacking two pieces, so obviously the other person can't move two pieces at a time, and they're gonna have to lose one of them. Okay, so how big is the world, the universe of forks and discovered attacks?

You know, I myself know, so there's like knights attacking like, what is it? - There are forks, knight attacking like a queen and a rook, for example, or like a pawn attacking a queen and a rook, or like a rook and a bishop. It's innumerable. There, I mean, but I will say that I think that with chess, the more of these patterns you see, the quicker you catch them.

And that's how you improve, I think, the most is by learning these basic tactical themes at the beginner levels. - Are you, when you're discovering those patterns, are you looking at the chessboard or are you looking at some like higher dimensional representation of the relative position of the pieces?

So basically something that's disjoint of the particular absolute position of the piece, but like you're seeing patterns like this kind of pattern, but elsewhere on the board. Like, are you thinking in patterns or in like absolute positions of the pieces? - Both. I think that at the higher levels, you're always thinking about like, you're thinking about the patterns on one side of the board specifically, but then also what happens is you play more and more.

If you're a very strong player, you will be able to remember say pawn structures where the pawns are on certain squares from games that you've played like 15, 20 years ago, even potentially. So it's a mix. I think a lot of it is more subconscious than actively thinking about it and like figuring it out like that.

The only thing for me that I definitely am doing very frequently when I play is trying to look at my pieces. Are they placed on the optimal squares? Are there better squares? And then once I get past that, like using the basic logic, I start to think about, okay, pure calculations, like what are the moves that make a lot of sense and start calculating direct moves.

But one of the most basic things that I think that I do that a lot of people actually should do that they don't do is looking at the piece placement and trying to figure out what pieces look like they're on good squares versus bad squares. - So am I, for each piece asking the question, am I in my happy place?

Am I in my like optimally happy place? - Yeah, I think that's very important. Like if we look at this position on the board right now, this is a good example. - Who's not in their happy place on the board right now? - I think both sides are actually pretty happy right now.

But the thing is, if you're playing with a black piece, what is a move that sticks out to you to like follow basic principles? - Basic principles probably bring out the bishop. - And then castle the king. - Castle the king. - Right, exactly, that's correct. And that's what you should do.

That's the best way to play the position. Now, once you do that though-- - By the way, I have a vibrating device inside me right now. So I knew that. - Right. - So my rating is 3,400, which is what I believe Stockfish is. - No, it's higher. It's like 3,800 actually.

- Is it 3,800? - I think it is. - I'm using an earlier version of Stockfish. Okay. Anyway, sorry, you were saying? - So like that's very basic. But then if you move the bishop out and you castle the king, well, let's just say bishop B7, play this, you castle.

Okay, so now you've done everything with the pieces on the king side. So what would be the next set of, what's the next way to try and develop the pieces? - So everything here is pretty strong, except maybe this pawn? I don't know. - Okay, but think about the pieces.

So by pieces, I mean everything except the pawns. - Except the pawns, okay. Probably either bishop or knight on the other side. - Yeah, and that is correct. You wanna bring out the bishop and the knight. So let's say you go bishop to E6. - Bishop to E6, yeah.

- Yeah, I'll castle. Now you can move the knight to either square. It's somewhat irrelevant, but just move the knight. I'll just play knight to C6. - What was your random move? Bringing the bishop up? - I just moved my rook to the center. - Okay, got it. Oh, well, what's your unhappy place right now?

- Okay, so let me move the queen to just follow some basic principles. - Okay, 'cause I wanna bring my rooks to the center of the board. - Yes. - So in this position, you've pretty much developed all your pieces. There are only two pieces that you haven't brought into the game.

- The queen and the rook. And this, you consider to be in the game because it was-- - I wouldn't say it's in the game, but there isn't really a great square for that rook right now. But in this position, you would probably move your rook to C8, and then the middle game begins after that.

- Got it, so here. - Because now you've gotten your piece to all the optimal squares, and now you have to look for a specific plan, but you have gotten these pieces developed out of the opening. And that's a very basic thing that I think a lot of people don't think about, is what are the optimal placements for the pieces?

- So you're constantly thinking about the pieces that are not in their optimal placement as you're doing all the other kind of tactics and stuff like that. - But that's a basic thing that people can follow. Actually doing pure calculations, like moving five or 10 moves in your head, that's not realistic.

But trying to use basic logic to figure out what pieces are on squares that look correct is something anybody can do. - What about looking at the other person's pieces and thinking about the optimal placement of them? Like if you see a bunch of pieces not in their optimal placement for the opponent, what does that tell you?

- I mean, that's a higher level concept, of course. Like I'm trying to give a beginner example. That is something that I do think about as well. Like I try to think about my opponent's pieces. Like that is basic logic. I think a lot of people these days at the upper levels of chess, they look at the game as something of pure calculation and you lose that human element.

You're trying to just calculate all these different sequences of moves and you don't think about the basics. And it's something, it'll be interesting to see what happens with the next generation of kids who become very strong because that is really how they approach the game. They learn with computers.

Whereas like I learned with computers at a certain point, but I did not start off with computers from the get-go. So human element still exists in my game. Actually, Magnus, I think has said this too, where he did not use a computer, I think until he was maybe like 11 years old, something around there.

And so we have that human element to our game that I think the newer generation won't have. Now, it doesn't mean they aren't gonna be better than us, but it's gonna be a completely different approach. - What do you mean by human elements? Just basic logic versus raw calculation.

- So it's like anybody now will use a computer from the time they start the game. And you use a computer, you look at the evaluations after the game to see how you're doing. But you don't really ever have those moments where you're just, it's you, or it's just you and your opponent.

One thing that was great in the old days before computers simply became too strong is that you would actually do analysis with your opponent after the game. And that's very much this two humans analyzing a game. It's you and your opponent, two peers, and you come up with these human ideas.

It's not automatically run back to your room, look with a computer and, oh, I should have played this move and it's just like winning the game. So that is kind of something that no longer exists in the game of chess because, as I said, there's no reason to analyze with your opponent after the game.

- Are there ideas that the engine tells you that you can't reverse engineer with logic why that makes sense? And you start to just memorize it, that's good. - Yes, so in the opening, for sure, there's certain positions where moves are playable. And I can even give you an example, actually in this night, we can just set the position up a few moves earlier.

Yeah, knight over on B8, bishop on C8, and just move the king back to the center, bishop back to F8, and pawn to E7. So the pawn in front of the king just push it back two squares. So like, here's an example. There's a move here that nowadays humans will play, which is this move, pawn to H4.

And this is a move that 20 years ago, if someone showed this move to Kasparov, he would just laugh at them, no matter who you were. He would basically say, "You're an idiot. "What is this move? "You're pushing a pawn on the edge of the board. "It does nothing." And this is something that's playable, but even if you were to ask me or any other top grandmaster why it's playable or why it's a move that makes sense, we wouldn't be able to say why it makes sense.

'Cause it doesn't, we just know that it's fine because the computer says it's fine. - It's fine or is it good? It's just fine? - It probably, like everything else, is equal with perfect play, but it definitely, if you're not careful, black, you can be worse, for sure. But if you ask me, I can't say why it's a good move.

I can say, "Okay, maybe I'm gonna expand on the king side. "I'll push this pawn here and push the pawn forward. "Maybe I can put the bishop on G5, "and in some situations, the pawn guard's the bishop," but I can't give an actual good explanation for why it's a move that makes sense, 'cause it doesn't make sense.

- It's fascinating that young people today, kids these days, would probably do that move much more nonchalantly. You'll see that a lot more because they know it's safe, at least. - Right, because they know the computer says it's fine. But I grew up without computers, and so to me, it's you're pushing a pawn on the edge, it's the opening phase, you don't do things like this.

It's just, it looks ridiculous. Now, of course, I have worked with computers long enough that I know, like I'm not, I know that computers prove that everything is fine, but still, to me, it does feel wrong. - Yeah. Well, I think as computers get better, they'll also get better at explaining, which they currently don't do, at basically being able to do, so first of all, simple language generation.

So a set of chess moves to language conversion, explaining to us dumb humans of why this is an interesting tactical idea. They currently don't do that. You're supposed to figure that out yourself. Like why, what's the deep wisdom in this particular pawn coming out in this kind of way?

So let me ask you a ridiculous question. Do you think chess will ever get solved from the opening position to where we'll know the optimal, optimal level of play? - I highly doubt it. Without major advances in quantum computing, I don't think it's realistic to expect chess to be hard-solved.

I just, I don't think that will happen, but I don't know. It could happen 20, 30 years maybe, but I think in the near future, it's not realistic. - Well, then let's go up with a pod head follow-up question. Suppose it does get solved. What opening do you think will be the optimal?

- Well, everything will be a draw for sure after move one. - For sure. - After move one, yes. - For sure. - Absolutely. - You're absolutely sure of that? - Yes, yes. - That's, why are you so sure? - I'm so sure because when you look at the computer games and you see these decisive results, it's because they play, the openings are set generally.

They can't, for move one, they play set openings. So you might play the knight or you might play the Berlin defense. Normally it's set openings as opposed to, as opposed to computers being able to do whatever they want. I just believe in general, in the openings that are symmetrical, like E4, E5, D4, D5, the computers will draw.

And I think the optimal opening, I think E4, E5, knight F3, knight F6 is probably a guaranteed draw. If there is perfect, if we have perfect information and we know that chess is solved, E4, E5, knight F3, knight F6, the Russian or the Petrov defense, that will be the optimal strategy.

- See, so that's symmetrical play is going to lead to a draw. But what if you can constantly as white maintain asymmetry, constantly keep the opponent off balance? So yes, E4, then you're always doing this symmetry. But what if chess inherently, there's something about the mathematics of the game that allows for like that thin line that you walk, that maintains to the end game, the asymmetry constantly, that there's no move that can bring back the balance of the game.

You don't think that exists? - I don't think it does. So basically I'm saying E4, E5, I think is a draw. I think D4, D5 is a draw. C4, C5, I think basically it's symmetry. That's- - All of it's a draw. - I think that's why it's a draw.

- So it doesn't even matter. Like you're saying if it's solved, most openings will be a draw. - Yes, I think E4, D4, C4, Knight F3 for sure will be a draw. Other openings, I'm not sure about, but those first four possible starting moves, I think chess is a draw.

- Knight F3, what's the response to Knight F3? - Probably Knight F6 again. Or to make it simple, if I play Knight F3 on move one, black here can also play D5 on move one. And normally at some point, white's gonna end up playing D4. - So the order of- (laughs) - So it's probably gonna lead back, yeah, all roads kind of lead back there as well.

There probably are other ways which, where there is play, but I think that's at the end of the day, the symmetry is what's gonna lead to like a forced equality or draw in the game of chess. - So Demis Hassabis is the CEO of DeepMind. DeepMind helped create or created AlphaZero.

He says that he's also a chess player and he's a fan of chess. And he says the reason, his hypothesis is that the reason chess is interesting as a game is the creative, quote unquote, tension between the bishop and the knight. So like there's so many different dynamics that are created by those two pieces.

You think there's truth to that? I mean, some of that is just poetry, but is there truth to that? - I think it's definitely true when you look at the imbalances that are not like crazy attacking positions. Like one thing that Bobby Fischer was really, really good at when he was the world champion is playing end games with a bishop versus a knight.

Now, traditionally we think of the knight being better than the bishop, even today in end games, but Fischer proved that there are a lot of end games where a bishop is better than a knight. So I do agree with that statement. It's like the imbalances between like bishops and knights in many positions, you never really know.

Like there are many positions where a knight is better than a bishop or knight and bishop are better than two bishops or like it is all the imbalance. Generally it is the imbalances though between the bishops and the knights or combinations of the two pieces that lead to the most interesting positions.

So I agree with that. - Interesting positions. What about fun? Is there like aspects that you find fun within the game itself? Not all the stuff around it, but just the purity of the game? - I think for me these days, when I see some of these moves that computer suggests after a game that I play and I just go, wow, that is the beauty for me because these are not moves that I would ever consider.

And when I then see the move and then like I might make a couple of moves to try and understand why, that is the beauty to me is seeing all these things that just like 10 years ago, I never would have even seen 'cause computers weren't at the level they're at today.

And so the depth and creativity of what they're saying, even if it's not like in our language, but in the evaluation, that's where I find a lot of beauty. - Oh, that's fun. So like the computer is a source, it's a source of creative fulfillment for you. - Absolutely.

I mean, I think also it's very humbling as well. It's like, when you spend your whole life playing a game and you get pretty good, you think you're pretty good at it. But even like, even for Magnus, I think when we look at it and you see like these things that we've spent 20, 30 years playing this game and it just, it doesn't click and then you see it, it's just like, it really is beautiful.

- You're known for being a very aggressive player. What's your approach to being willing to take big risks at the chessboard? - Well, I think that's another thing. I was a very aggressive player probably until I got to about this 2700 Elo and then it kind of, my style changed a little bit.

I think what it is is I like to play attacking chess. I loved playing openings like the King's Indian, the Sicilian Eidorff as well when I was a little bit younger and it's just like, why not try to fight with both colors, try to fight in every game and win if you can, try as hard as you can.

Now, one of the things is as you get better and better, players are also better and better prepared. So you have diminishing returns when you play these very aggressive openings like the King's Indian or even the Dutch, which I played for a while. You can only, it only takes you so far and then at a point people figure out what, how to respond to those choices.

So I still do play these openings. For example, I played a tournament in St. Louis about three weeks ago and I played a great King's Indian game, which I won against Jeffrey Zhang, an American junior player. So I still do play it here and there. But when you start playing it every game, there's a point at which when you lose these games, you just can't, it becomes too much.

And I spoke about this in the C Squared podcast where I played the Eidorff and then I played Fabiano Caruana, a very strong American player as well. And he just blew me off the board in like four straight games and I'm like, okay, enough, enough of this. I just can't, I can't keep doing it.

- Because do you think he prepared for that opening then? - Absolutely. - Because you see what have, what has my opponent been playing recently? Where's their ideas? And so I'm going to prepare for those ideas that they've been playing with. - Exactly, yeah, that's what you do. And also you have to be very self-critical 'cause for Fabiano, the Eidorff was the one opening he did very poorly against, but he worked really hard and he came up with a lot of different ideas and he solved that weakness.

- What's the role of, you're also known of having a bit of an ego. What's the role of ego in chess? Is it helpful or does it get in the way? - I think it's a mix. I think there's a fine line. I think you have to be very confident in order to get to the top.

I know some players are very expressive like myself, like Kasparov and others. There are other people like Anand who don't express it, but then there was a book that I think was released fairly recently where he basically said like he was really angry in his room and he was like banging walls or doing something with chairs.

I don't remember the exact story, but like he was able to, in public, he kept it very like very buttoned up, but then in private he wasn't. I think you have to have that edge. If you don't have that edge and you don't get upset when you lose games, because you will lose games along the way, then it's impossible to get anywhere near the top.

So I think every top player has that ego or extreme confidence that is necessary. If you don't have that, you'll never, I think, get to the top, probably in almost any field, frankly. - Do you have to believe you're the best to have the capacity to be the best in the world?

- Yeah, I think you have to have that. I think for me, it wasn't really ever about thinking I'm the best in the world. It's about like going into that game. That game, whoever I'm playing, I believe that I can beat them, or I know that I'm gonna beat them, or I'm better than them.

For me, it was always about that, whenever I'm in that moment in the game, just knowing that I can do that. I think that is also another thing that when you start playing more and more in these top tournaments, you kind of lose that sometimes because the positions, you have the same opening strategies.

You end up with positions that are very drawish where you reach end games, things of this nature. And so it can also make you very jaded as well after you've been up there for quite a long time. - Were there times you were an asshole to someone and you regret it at the chessboard or beyond?

- Yeah, so I think-- - Asking internet questions. - Yeah, I mean, this is definitely true. I'm not gonna pretend it isn't. When I was younger, I was very angry when I would lose games on the internet. Many of these stories are specifically from the internet, of course. And I think I look back on it, and of course I wish that I'd been able to channel the anger differently.

Basically, I think the simple gist of it is I would play Blitz games online and when I lost, I would get angry at my opponents instead of getting angry at myself. Which of course, it's silly 'cause they're playing the game, they're trying to win. Why shouldn't they try to beat you?

I think for me, I'm not happy about that when I was a young teenager getting so angry over these online games and insulting a lot of people along the way. - But maybe that paved the way to your streaming career. - I think for me, I feel like having that me against the world attitude, though, it really fueled me when I was younger.

Feeling like it was me against the world, everyone hating me or me hating the world. That was very important. I was able to channel that anger in a way that really helped me improve. So do I regret it? On the one hand, yes. Of course, I think you don't wanna be like that.

On the other hand, what I've gotten as good as I am, if it was different, I'm not so sure. So, mix. - Well, then I'll ask you to empathize with somebody else who currently has a me against the world attitude and is helping him, which is Hans Niemann. For several reasons, he has me against the world kind of attitude.

Well, let me ask, there's been a chess controversy about cheating and so on that you've covered. People should subscribe to your channel. You're hilarious, entertaining, brilliant, and it's just fun to learn from you. Do you think, as we stand now, Hans ever cheated in over-the-board chess? As things stand now at the beginning of October.

- Yeah, that's a very tough question for a couple of reasons. I think, first of all, when people refer to evidence in regards to whether Hans cheated over-the-board, there is not, and I don't think there ever will be, quote-unquote, hard evidence. The only thing that would ever constitute that is if he's caught in the act.

Literally, he's caught using a phone with an earpiece, whatever it might be. That is the only way that there would ever be hard evidence. So, as it stands right now, there's a lot of circumstantial evidence. How much of it is legitimate or not remains to be seen. I know people have questioned the statistics.

Some people think it's very convincing. Some people think it's complete nonsense. I think that right now, I'm very undecided, but I do feel that within the next three to six months, assuming Hans is able to play over-the-board in more tournaments, the stats will make it very clear one way or the other based on our results, whether it's legitimate or not.

I think for me, I would say that regardless of whether I believe he cheated or not, he is playing at probably at least 2,650, no matter what. Regardless of whether he's cheating or not, he's already at that level, which is very, very high. So, I think the stats will bear it out in the next, probably, I said three to six months, probably I would say next six to 12 months, whether something happened, but I really don't know.

- Do you find compelling or interesting the kind of analysis where you compare the correlation between engines and humans to try to determine if cheating was done in part? - So, initially, I thought that that was actually quite legitimate, but as I found out much more recently, anybody can basically upload this data.

So, that whole theory, while it seemed very convincing at the time, it simply isn't any statistical evidence, in my opinion, now. But there are games from some of those tournaments that definitely, considering where his rating was, look very suspicious in 2020, I would say. Again, that's not the role of myself to decide, or Chess.com, that's obviously gonna be up to FIDE, whether they think that's compelling evidence or not.

I think, for me, what I would say from an intuitive standpoint is that I've been in this world for a very, very long time. I've seen most of the juniors as they've risen through the ranks, Magnus and many others, and there's always been something about them that has stood out to me, that's been a brilliant game they've played against someone who's much higher rated.

I've just seen it from all of those players. I never really saw that with Hans Niemann. So, it's very difficult for me to, with my own two eyes, being in this chess world so long, see things a certain way, and then something that's never happened before is happening. But at the end of the day, it is still possible.

It is completely possible that Hans, something clicked at a certain age, and he started improving, in spite of the fact that the statistics look weird, in terms of his rating improvement. So, I don't know. I think that in six to 12 months, I'll probably be able to say one way or the other, with very certain confidence, like whether he should be there or not.

- Speaking of statistics, I should ask, I'm not sure about this, are you a data scientist? - Right, that's a good one. No, of course I'm not. But that's the thing. You see all these stats are thrown out there, and you try to understand what's being said. But it's also very scary, because when you see these things that look very legitimate, and then they're disproven, or people say you're cherry picking the dates, and all these other things, it almost feels like you can come to any conclusion that you want to.

And that's why I think this is such a serious issue for the world of chess, because going forward, if we don't take it seriously now, I think at some point, there is the potential for a much, much larger scandal. - Do you agree that, like what Magnus, I think, said, that it is an existential threat to chess, like this is a very serious problem that's only going to get bigger?

Because you're basically, from a spectator perspective, from a competitor perspective, are not sure that you can trust any of the results. - Yeah, I think that's for sure true. When I think back to the last five to 10 years, there are plenty of top-level tournaments that I played in where there was no security at all.

You would just go into the auditorium and play your games, and that was that. So I do think it's a big issue. I think it has been a big issue, but the reason it's only coming to light now is because it features a very strong junior player who's very close to the world's elite.

There have been many cheating scandals before. There was this French player, Sebastian Feller. There was this player, Igor Zrausis, from Latvia. There was this, I think it was from Belarus, or maybe I have that wrong, maybe it was Bulgaria, Borislav Ivanov as well. Those are three big cheating scandals, but they were not at the absolute top levels of chess, which I think is why it never became the huge news story that this is, or it wasn't viewed in the same kind of way.

That's why I think organizers were perhaps a little bit too lax in terms of security. - So you said 2,650. Is it possible that Hans is in fact a kind of Bobby Fischer level of genius, and he's capable at times of genius at the chessboard? - Oh, absolutely. 100%, that is absolutely possible.

I think that's why I think for everybody in the situation, we wanna see what happens in the next six to 12 months, because I think it will be very clear. Also, it's very interesting to me because there are other stats from that 72-page report that chess.com compiled, which in essence, say certain other junior players basically have peaked, that they're not likely to improve further.

So it's also gonna be very interesting when you look at those, I think it was 50 pages of graphs, 'cause there are graphs that say some of the other junior players are done. So when we look forward in a year or two, if those players don't improve, it will also say something about their methods as well that they've used to sort of compile this data.

- Yeah, I wonder what those junior players do if they look at that data. So there's a point where you should look at yourself like practically, like what is the actual empirical data over the past year of how much you have improved at a particular thing? Like it's one thing to kind of tell yourself that these are the ways I need to improve, and it's another to actually look at the data and face the reality of it.

- Right, I think also that could have a psychological effect. That is the other thing that makes the whole Han situation so tough, because if you think that he's cheated or you're unsure about what's going on, that is another psychological factor whenever you play against him. - In his favor or against him?

- Definitely in his favor. Because for example, if I go online and play against the computer, let's just say I go play against Stockfish tomorrow, I'm gonna play a very certain type of opening strategy, try to keep the board closed and maybe hope to get lucky. Now, computers have gotten so good that generally even that doesn't, I don't even have a chance even with such strategies, but you play differently than you normally would.

And so if you're playing a game against him and there's a move that looks really weird, it doesn't seem logical at all, that can also start to affect you where you immediately make a mistake or you start questioning yourself, you start thinking, well, what's going on here? Is there something unbecoming?

Like you start worrying about what is happening. And so it definitely is, it's a very tough situation. - Do you agree with Magnus' decision to forfeit the match, his most recent match with Hans? - Tough question. In my heart of hearts, I feel like there had to be a better way to handle it than what Magnus did.

On the other hand, sort of being in this world of top grandmasters, having heard these rumors for two years, I think that the fact that it was blown off and it wasn't treated seriously, I'm not sure if there was a better option. So in my heart of hearts, I feel like there had to be a better way to handle it, but in practicality, like in the practical world, I think he might've made the only decision where it became a big issue.

- Yeah, I mean, I guess I would've loved to see just where 100% it's certain that there's no cheating involved that they play a bunch of games. - Yeah, I think there was actually an article that was released today by Ken Rogoff, who is a grandmaster at Chess, where he wrote this article in the Boston Globe and he essentially said that, like have Hans and Magnus play a match and see what his score is 'cause statistically, if it's above a certain percentage, that means he's legitimate because of course you have security.

If it's below, that probably means that he's not at the level that he's at. So I don't know if that's a real way to settle it necessarily because also for Magnus to ask him to play against someone who's cheated, I think for him, he would never entertain the idea 'cause it's like, why am I gonna play against someone who cheated?

So I don't know, it's very tough. And one other thing I would say on the topic that's really important to note is this sort of came from left field for most people who are in the general public or very casual chess players, but this is not something that wasn't known, wasn't even on the radar.

I think this has not been said before, but there's one of these things where they talk about how Hans has, he played better during a period of time when games were broadcast versus not broadcast. I actually heard this rumor two years ago during one of the terms he's playing specifically.

So that is the thing is that this has been out there for a very long time. And so it's hard because you do believe that Magnus could have handled it better, but if it was two years of these rumors and nothing was done about it, I don't know. - And for people who don't understand, when it's broadcast, it's easier to cheat because you can have, it removes one of the challenges of cheating, which is the one-way communication from the board to the engine.

Here, the engine can just watch the broadcast and then all you have to do is send signals right back. I mean, that's really, I woken up to this fact, actually programmed, so setting all the silly sex toys aside, I have a bunch of these devices. So like of this, it's the size of a coin and it has a high resolution vibration that you can send.

So you can just have this in your pocket. It's basically what your smartphone has, ability to vibrate and can do programmatic communication through anything, Bluetooth is the easiest. So this made me wonder, wait a minute, how often does this happen? Like at every level of play. And you said this only became a huge concern for at the highest level of play, but then how much cheating is going on at the middle level of play, especially when more money is involved.

So in the game of poker, when like, it really made me think like the future will have devices like this much easier to, like you will engineer smaller and smaller and smaller devices that have onboard compute that like this is the future. I mean, it makes me, I think probably with all kinds of cybersecurity, that means the defense will just have to get, start to get better.

Even with chess, it seems like the security is very clumsy. Just looking at the scanning of the recent tournament. - One thing you'll see is that a lot of people are talking about whether Hans is a cheater or not. The one thing that almost nobody is doing is actually like trying to show how it can be done.

Everyone's basically avoiding that. I think the single biggest reason for that is simply because it can be done very easily at like a weekend tournament. You play a weekend tournament where the top prize is a hundred dollars and the players are maybe master level. Somebody could already do this because even in St.

Louis now where they have the security, my understanding is the non-linear junction device they bought costs about $11,000. And organizers, if you have a weekend tournament at the local club, you don't have $11,000 to spend on such a device. And so that is why a lot of people have been talking about it, but I think it is very, very serious.

And that's why it is good even if, aside from Hans even, it is a very important question or debate to be having at the present moment. - Well, I think it's good to talk about it, right? To make it so that the defenses will really step up. I think you could do pretty cheap, like the security pretty cheaply.

But you have to take it seriously. - Right, right, of course. And again, we'll see what happens. I think that's gonna end up being on FIDE more than anyone else to try and do that. I don't think asking the organizers to do it. I mean, I feel like FIDE, they are the governing body.

It will be on them at the end of the day to figure it out. But it's gonna be interesting to see what happens in the next couple of months. - Will you play Hans if the opportunity arises? - Well, right now that's not in the near future for me.

I think fortunately. - Why not? Why not? - Well, because there's maybe only one tournament that I'm playing in that he could be playing in potentially and it's not even set to be happening at the end of the year. There might be like a World Blitz and Rapid Chess Championship.

So I don't think I'm gonna have to make that decision for at least another six months. - What about a challenge match? You're one of, you're... (Lex laughing) The most famous super grandmaster in terms of online. So it makes sense in terms of chess is going through a kind of like a serious controversy.

Since it's not just like the drama or something like this. This is in part an existential threat to the game in terms of how the public perceives the game. So if the story that lingers from this is chess is full of cheaters, like you never know who is cheating or not.

That's not a good, that's not good for the game. So it makes sense for a high profile person to go head to head. How do you think you'd do against Hans? - I mean, I think I would probably beat him in Blitz and Rapid. Classical is a whole different question altogether.

I think in Blitz and Rapid I would. I mean, one thing actually that was very telling in both the report and also Hans' interview for all the other stuff that was said is the one thing he did say and seemed very adamant about was the fact that he had never cheated against me.

Which, so that was the one thing he did say that at least according to the report was truthful. So it's something possibly down the road to consider. But I do wanna see what happens with everything else first with FIDE and whatever they choose to do in regards to Hans and Magnus.

And then see where the smoke stands. But I think also one other thing that is potentially very dangerous about the whole situation is that I'm not convinced that FIDE actually has the ultimate say in this in that the top players, if they feel that he has cheated over the board, even if there's a report that says he has, that Hans has not cheated, top players can still decide not to play him and sort of override whatever ultimate decision FIDE comes to.

So that's also why it's very unclear. You know, this term, the US Championship, Hans qualified. He's playing the tournament. But beyond this, there are no tournaments where he's automatically qualified to. And so it also is on the top players to sort of have to reach some conclusion on their own separate defeating.

- So to flip that, is there some part of you that regrets that the chess community and you included implied that Hans cheated early on? And I think without having evidence and that kind of thing as we learn now, can stick, right? And it kind of divided the chess community in part, but like, I mean, I guess I do want to empathize.

From your position, can you empathize with Hans that his reputation is essentially in part or in whole destroyed at this point? - Yes, I absolutely can. Again, I think it comes down to the specifics of how it was handled. Now, as far as I go, I was covering the news and this is what makes it so difficult for me versus say some of the other content creators is that I do in a sense have that inside knowledge.

Again, this is also not really public knowledge, but when I went to St. Louis to play this Rapid and Blitz tournament before the Sinkfield Cup happened where Magus and Hans were playing, there were people who told me very specifically that they thought he was cheating. Other players in the event, they even gave me like actual theories about like things in his shoes, things of this nature.

So I'm in a very awkward spot there as well because I know why, I mean, I was like 99% sure why Magnus dropped out. It would have come out regardless though. It would have come out no matter what because Magnus was not gonna back down on his stance about Hans and others would have brought it up anyways.

So it's very tough. I think if you wanna look for blame, I think probably it would be on chess.com ultimately because they were the ones who probably could have nipped all this in the bud at a much earlier stage and it wouldn't have gotten to where it got to.

- Because they could have released the online cheating and that would have. - I think, yeah, I think they could have released that. I think also they could have probably not let him play after it happened the second time as well because it seems like it happened like, I think it was like at least like four or five different times.

I haven't looked very, very closely at that but it wasn't just an isolated incident. And so I think if there is blame for that, it's definitely on chess.com which should stop people from thinking that I'm in some way influenced by-- - Yeah, are you biased because are you supported in part by chess.com?

- Yes, I am. I am. - So does that affect your bias? - No, it doesn't. I'm actually quite independent of them. One thing that's interesting to note is that a lot of people are under the assumption that when I do like broadcasts of tournaments or things of this nature that chess.com is actively helping me.

They are not helping me. I'm an independent contractor and so my opinions are my own. And there are no lists given to me about like cheaters, anything of this nature. That has always been completely separate. - Do they have compromising video of you that forces you to, if you don't follow the main narrative that they will release that video publicly?

- No, they definitely don't. But yeah, I think when I look at it all, I feel like if people are looking for someone to blame, I don't think it's actually Magnus. At the end of the day, I think it is on chess.com very squarely for not handling it sooner.

- So you're okay with like Magnus being silent for long periods of time? - Well, I don't know why Magnus is still silent because my read of the situation was that there was some sort of NDA or there was some information that chess.com had that they could not release.

And so my read of it was Magnus was essentially saying the same thing chess.com said where like, I can't say anything about it because of whatever or whatnot. But then chess.com releases what I perceive to be the stuff that they could not talk about anyway. And Magnus still isn't saying anything.

So I don't really understand why Magnus has not said anything further on. - There could be legal implications of accusing somebody of cheating over the board. That could be like lawsuits that he just doesn't want the headaches. He just wants to focus on the game and have fun playing the game and not get bogged down into lawyers and all that kind of bullshit.

- Yeah, it's definitely possible. But Magnus could also take the other route and just say, well, he cheated online in 100 games. Like I'm not gonna play against a cheater. That's very easy to say. That's factual, it's proven. And that doesn't have to go into the speculation of over the board.

So I find it a little bit odd that Magnus hasn't said anything further. At the same time, it's also kind of peculiar because Magnus' reputation is also kind of in tatters in a sense. Like a lot of people are not happy with him for what he's done. But still, he goes and plays this tournament in this European Club Cup tournament and he's just gaining like 10 points as though nothing has happened.

So I mean, I don't really know where Magnus' head is at 'cause like if I was in that situation and everyone's coming after me for making such an accusation, I don't think there's any way I would be able to play chess anywhere near the level that Magnus is playing at.

So the whole situation is, yeah, it's very strange. - Yeah, I wonder where his mind is at that he's able to play at that level. Before I forget, let me ask you a technical question about cheating at your level. Not your level, but at a very high Grandmaster level.

How much information do you need? This is a technical question. It's like, so for me, in terms of Morse code and all those kinds of things, I would need the full information. So I would need probably, in order to make a move, just let's think about a very simple representation.

I would need two squares. The first to designate which piece and the second where the piece is moving. That's probably the easiest. What's the smallest amount of information you need to help you? - Basically like a buzz in a critical position. That would be good. - And what would the buzz say?

- It would, basically it'd be something like one buzz means the position is great and two buzzes means the position is completely equal or there's nothing special in the position. That simple. - Oh, so just to know that it's great will tell you what? - It will tell me that with my intuition.

There are many times I've played Blitz online, I'll say something along the lines of, I can feel like there's something here. Intuitively, I feel like there has to be a good move or I'm probably winning. There's something there, but I don't know that. And most of the time, I'm actually right about it.

After the game, when I look with the computer, usually it's like, oh, I should have played this move and it would have given me a big advantage or I would have outright won the game. So if I just know whether there's something there, that's good enough. - That means it's worth it to calculate here.

- Yes, and I can follow that intuition probably to, 'cause what normally is gonna happen in such a situation is there probably are two moves or three moves max that you're gonna consider in a really critical position. Like if I feel like there's something there, there are two to three moves.

So if I know something is there, I'll be able to figure it out if I know that the position is very good. - Okay, one buzz for a good position. For the current position, not for the next position. - So I just need to know. I just need to know whether there's something really good, the position's really good, or it's just like an equal position or it's just normal.

That's all I need to know. - So the current position, not even future moves, just the current position, there is a lot of promise here. - Yes. - Okay. What about the reverse, like something's bad? - So you're saying if I'm in trouble in a game and I am in the same situation.

So if I'm in trouble in a game, it's probably a little bit more. It's probably like, I would say two to three times where I would need to know. - The source of the trouble. - Yeah, I would need to know. Yeah, I would need to know, is there one move that's good or there's more than one move?

Again, how you extrapolate that. - Well, wouldn't it be useful to know the information that you're now in a position where the other person could create a lot of trouble for you? So find that. Like, it's out there, find it. - Like if you look at Magnus' games, there are a lot of situations where the position is equal, but it's equal with one move, but only one move.

If you don't find that one move, you're significantly worse. A lot of times that's the case. So like, if I can somehow know that there's like only one move where I'm okay, I could figure it out. - Yeah. Yeah, so that's one move is significantly better than the rest.

- I mean, I could give you like a perfect example as I played a game in the Canada's tournament last round against Ding Liren from China. And there were many times where it was completely fine for me, but it started drifting. I started making some mistakes and I was worse, but there was one last moment where I think I had one move where I would have been able to draw the game quite easily.

And every other move I was significantly worse. I did not find that move and I lost the game. But if I had known- - It would have been nice to have a buzz there then. - Yes, I would have known. - Who do you think is the greatest player of all time?

You've talked from different angles on this. Magnus Carlsen, Garry Kasparov, Bobby Fischer, many others. Can you make the case for each? Can you make the case for you? - No, I mean, I can't make the case for me, be serious. I know there are a lot of people who want that kind of like me to give off some kind of ego like that, but no.

Obviously I'm nowhere near the conversation. I actually, on that note, I would say also, I know people wanted to know if I'm the greatest player to never have played for the world championship or to have not become world champion. I don't think that I'm actually anywhere near the top of that conversation.

I actually think Levon Aronian tops that conversation by a big margin, simply because he was number two in the world for a very, very long time. And he never even got to the match. So as far as world champions and who's the GOAT, I think Magnus is the GOAT simply because he's playing the best chess by a bigger margin.

He has the highest ELO of all time. On the other hand, chess is a game where you build upon the giants of the past. We learn from them. And so you can definitely make the case for Gary as well. I mean, he was the number one player in the world for 20 plus years.

Lot of opening strategies he came up with and people still play them today. Bobby, I'm not so sure you can really make that case 'cause he shot up really quickly, but he was the world champion for a very short window of time. And then he quit the game as soon as he became world champion.

So I don't really feel like you can put Fisher in that conversation simply because he didn't have that longevity at all. He was up there for a couple of years. So I would say it's probably Magnus, but I understand people can also say Gary's the best player ever, remains to be seen.

But I think if Magnus is number one for probably another, let's say another three to four years, I don't think there's any debate at all. - Can you break down what makes him so good? We've already talked about different angles of this and then I would also try to get the same from you 'cause we talked about early Hikaru.

Like I'd like to talk about that for, but first Magnus, what makes Magnus so good? What are the various aspects of his game that make him so good? - I think for Magnus, he just, you know that in the end games, if you get there, he's just, he's not gonna blunder.

That's the first thing. So you know, if you reach an end game, he's not gonna make a mistake. He obviously plays great openings and there's just really no defined weakness that he has. There's no weakness that I can think of very specifically. Many, there are many times where players actually out-prepare him in the opening phase, but as soon as they're on their own and they have to think, very oftentimes they'll make mistakes.

So there's just no weakness for Magnus, really no weakness. - Well, unlike say Kasparov, like Kasparov on the other hand, there are very clear weaknesses in his game, like Kramnik exploited them. First of all, very, I don't wanna say like, ego is the right word, but like very stubborn, believing that his openings were infallible, that he could just win, he could just prove an advantage and win the game out of the opening, like against Kramnik when he ultimately lost.

Also generally not a great defender either, very strong tactically, but if he was in positions that were defensive, he would make mistakes and lose in end games, like he did in one of those games in the World Championship against Kramnik. So there were very clear defined weaknesses in Kasparov's game, whereas like Magnus, there are just, there are no clearly defined weaknesses.

Maybe he doesn't like being attacked. Maybe that's the one thing. He likes King safety and he doesn't like being attacked, but that's not something that you can easily do. Whereas say, if someone's very tactical and they're not as strong positionally, that is something you can def, that will happen quite frequently in games.

You can steer games a certain way. Doesn't mean you'll always get there, but that is something tangible. Whereas King safety, that's not something tangible at all. It's very, very hard to attack someone based on, unless they play certain style of openings. - Do you think Garry Kasparov, reflecting on your comment would agree?

Like, what is it about his relationship with Kramnik that was so challenging? - I mean, I think it's 'cause Kramnik understood him. Actually, one thing that's funny speaking of Kasparov is that I think it got under his skin. Like when I worked with him, Kramnik actually played a certain style, very aggressive, very sort of risky opening play during the time when I was working with Garry.

And I know that it annoyed Garry because he's like, "Why couldn't Kramnik play like this against me?" Because I think Garry felt if Kramnik did that against him, he would have just blown him off the board and had many great victories. So I think it's Kramnik understood Garry. They had worked together, I think, during the late '90s.

I think Garry actually was very useful or very helpful in terms of Kramnik getting a spot on one of the Russian Chess Olympiad teams in the mid '90s. So I think it's just Kramnik understood him very well and Garry just could not, he couldn't figure it out. And I think also another thing, coming back to the psychological part, is that Kramnik actually beat Kasparov in many games in the Kings Indian defense.

Kasparov played the Kings Indian defense for many years and then he started losing like four or five games in a row in it to Kramnik, very similar to what I mentioned about the Sicilian Eidorff and Fabiano. And Garry gave it up. He started switching to playing the Grunfeld defense.

And so I think that also instilled some psychological fear as well, because Garry was, he was the boss. In openings, no one could compare to him. - What makes you so good? What's the breakdown of the strengths and weaknesses of Fikaro Nakamura? - So that's, I think probably my biggest strength is that I'm a universal player.

I can play pretty much any opening strategy. It doesn't really matter. Beyond that, I think it's mainly that I don't really make many blunders. I don't make blunders unless I'm under a lot of pressure generally. So, I mean, I know I'm oversimplifying. It's not as simple as that. - Does this apply to blitz as well?

- I think it's much more applicable to blitz in particular because my intuition is very good. So when I'm making less blunders with limited time on the clock, my opponents actually make a lot more blunders. That's why I think it's much more pronounced in blitz than it is in classical chess because in blitz, when you're down to like 10 seconds in the game, both players have 10 seconds, my intuition is just better than theirs.

I mean, Magnus maybe not so clear, but like if you look at other players, say Fabian and Karjuan, a very strong player, when he gets down to 10 seconds or in these situations, he almost always makes a blunder, almost always. So I'm just more precise, I make less blunders.

And that really, the effect is much more dramatic in blitz. - What do you think that intuition is? Like, sorry for the kind of, like almost philosophical question. What is that? Is that calculation? Or is it some kind of weird memory recall? What is that? Like being able to do that short line prediction.

- I think that's just playing so many games online and there's some kind of subconscious feel that I have. Because when you're that low on time, you can't calculate. It's just, you have to look, you just have to figure out what's the move you want to play as, no calculation and just go with it.

And I think just playing so many games probably, I mean, I'm guessing I've played over 300,000 games online. And I think just playing all those games, it's a feel. There's no tangible way that I can't put that really into words, it's just a feel. - What do you, and we should say that you're, I think currently the number one ranked blitz player in the world.

You have been for a while, you're unquestionably one of the great, so classical, rapid and blitz, you're one of the best people for many years in the world. Okay, but you're currently number one in blitz. So I'd love to kind of, for you to dig into the secret to your success in blitz.

Is it, as you're saying that intuition, being able to, when the time is short, to not make blunders and then to make a close to optimal move - I think it's generally that I'm able to keep the games going no matter what, until we're low on time. I'm always able to do that.

Like if we play a game with three minutes, like there are games I will just win very quickly, but a lot of games between top players, players have to think you have to use time. And in those final critical stages, I just don't blunder. I just don't blunder really at the end of the day.

That's really the only difference. 'Cause everybody's very, very strong, but it's sort of like, who is the better brain? Who is better CPU, for lack of a better way of putting it? It's like, who makes a split second decisions the best? And I do think that I'm extremely good at that in a way that almost nobody else is.

That really is the only difference, is that the split second decisions. 'Cause you can get a worse position, but again, if you keep the game going, players have to use the time when you get down to those final 10, 15 seconds. I almost always end up winning in those situations.

- What are you visualizing? Like in those, when you're doing the fast, fast calculations, what is it? - It's basically, you look at a move and you see, like when it's like five seconds or 10 seconds, you play a move and you just make sure that it's not a blunder.

You just look, make sure it's not a blunder and you just go with it. And the first part though is the feel. So it's like, I see this move and it looks right. I don't know why it's right. I can't put that into words, but it looks like the right move.

And then I look very, for like a split second, see as long as it's not some kind of blunder and you just play that move. - Is there a bit of a tunnel vision? Are you able to understand the positions of all the other pieces on the board or are you just focusing it on a very specific interaction?

- It's just feel, it's really just feel. It's like this move feels right. And so I play it. When you're at that stage of the game, it's like, as long as it's not a blunder and it's just that feel, there is no way for me to put that into words.

- And that feel, like empirically does result in low probability of blunder for you. - Yeah. - It's like you don't blunder. Even though there could be, like you don't forget like a random piece that was like- - I mean, it does happen of course, but very rarely. And I mean, I've done it on stream many times.

Like it's just, you go with the move that for whatever reason, like it just intuitively, whether it's from playing hundreds of thousands of games on the internet or just that experience, like you just intuitively can feel like the move is right. - So over those 300,000 games played over the board, online, all kinds of variations, what's a game that stands out to you as particularly one you're proud of?

Or maybe what's the Hikaru Immortal game or a strong candidate for that? - Yeah, so there are two games. There's a game that I won against Boris Gelfand in 2010 where I offered a queen sack, I think on five consecutive moves. - Sack is sacrifice. - Sacrifice the queen, yeah.

- Yes. - So. - Coming through with the lingo. You can't take me to that game? - It's just, there's one sequence in the late middle game where, it's funny 'cause I actually, I think I, 'cause I remember I tried to show this game to Peter actually, Peter Till, and I confused the move order in the late middle game, so I don't wanna do that again.

- 2010? - Yeah, 2010, it was, yeah. - What kind of opening is this? - It's the King's Indian Defense. - So the knights are out. What's with the bringing the knight back? - You wanna push the pawn. - Who's black and white? - I have the black pieces and you wanna push the pawn.

- The, make room for the pawn. - Yeah, normally in the King's Indian, you try to, it's sort of like storming with the pawns on the king side where the white king is. So you see now, I push and I start pushing all my pawns forward. - Are you happy with this position with all the pawns in diagonal like this with the knights behind it?

This looks pretty. - This is, this is, this is, this, nowadays this is very well known as a standard theory, but at the time, the reason that I was aware of this is 'cause I had played a tournament, I think, in Montreal. I think it was Montreal, like the year, the summer before, and one of my friends had actually played this variation with the black pieces.

So I was aware of it and it seemed very dangerous. But I-- - From the black perspective. - Yeah, I feel like it's very hard for white to play. Yeah, very hard for white to play. It feels like you're getting attacked, your king, you see the black pawns are coming down towards the king and it's very hard to defend.

And also, a lot of players don't like being attacked. Generally, you try to avoid positions where your king is under fire, which comes back to what I said about Magnus as well. Like he doesn't like it when his king is under fire. And so therefore, you can't always get that.

But you see, white had to play along to get to this point as well. If white didn't want something this double-edged and this complicated, he could have avoided it. - So is the black bishop also a threat? Are you like-- - Yes, the light square bishop in the King's Indian is vital to any attacking possibility.

- So you're always like-- - You don't wanna lose that bishop if you can help it. - Got it, and so he's bringing out the knights. Is there a particular moment that's interesting to you here so that-- - So keep going. Yeah, there's, so I play rook F7. This is all standard.

- The rooks come out. - So I take, take. Now this is actually, this is an exception to the rule. Normally, the King's Indian, you don't wanna break this pawn chain from at least the four pawns in a row that connect four. - Why'd you break it? - Because this is an exception where you can do that.

There almost are no variations in the King's Indian where you do that. You almost always retreat the bishop to guard the pawn, the bishop to F8. You break the pawn chain 'cause it's an exception to the rule because you're not actually worried about white being able to push the pawn to D6 here.

It was probably the best game I ever played, so it keeps going. A5, G4, yep. - No, no, no, the diagonal's there again. That looks threatening. - Right, like white basically is trying to guard the King. He's gonna retreat this bishop from C5 to G1, as you'll see in a second.

Actually, not quite yet. Yeah, he goes, now he goes here. And so he's trying to guard his King with the bishop on G1, but I'm able to keep attacking here in the next-- - Is there any case to be made for you to take the pawn here? - No, that would actually be a mistake.

I mean, it's very high level, but it's a mistake 'cause white will actually not recapture the pawn. Yeah, this is very high level. - Oh, so the pawn is-- - The pawn ends up in front of the King, yeah. It stops the white King from being attacked, basically. - Oh, interesting.

So your pawn is stopping their King from being attacked. Cool. - So yeah, so it just goes on. - So the pressure continues from you. - Right, and then I sack. - Is that, wait, wait, what's the sack? Oh, the-- - Knight takes pawn, yeah. - Is this, what are the strengths and weaknesses of you throwing the Knight into the abyss?

- Well, basically I'm gonna, I'm destroying the protection in front of the white King, the white pawn's there. - And willing to take risks by placing-- - I basically wanna open up the King and try to checkmate. If I don't checkmate, I'm probably gonna lose the game here in the center of the board.

So yeah, and now there's some very nice moves after pawn takes pawn. I take this, 'cause now white takes the Queen. I push the pawn forward and it's checkmate. - So give me a second. So your Knight is taking, you're losing pieces left and right. - Right, but-- - And you're pushing the pawn forward, check.

He takes the pawn. - The rook, check. So just check nonstop. - Yeah, now same thing, though. I keep going for this checkmate with a pawn or a bishop on, on the square in front of the King. You see the Queen is still hanging. In fact, I actually sack the Queen again.

- He never took the Queen. - He couldn't take the Queen, 'cause it'd be checkmate. - Got it. So constantly, and that's what you mean by sacrifice, you didn't actually, but there was-- - Yeah, he couldn't take it, he would've gotten checkmated. But anyway, the smoke clears and I'm up material here and I win this game.

So this is the game that I would say is my favorite game. - Why did it stand out? I mean, it's beautiful, but just the fact that-- - It's mainly that I was able to offer the Queen sacrifice so many moves in a row, you almost never have that opportunity.

And actually, normally the games you're gonna consider your best involve sacrifices, and if you can sacrifice the Queen, that makes it very memorable. It's just this constant theme of this one checkmate idea. - How often do you play with the sacrifice of a major piece? Like how often do you find yourself in that position?

- Pretty rare, because players tend to avoid these sorts of situations. Players don't like games that can go either way. So when, like both players have to sort of cooperate, you have to want that kind of game in order for that situation to arise. And a lot of games at the top, neither player wants to go into that situation for the most part.

So you don't really have those opportunities. - Nevertheless, Stockfish loves those opportunities, the sacrifices. - Well, that's one thing also that we're starting to learn more and more is that Stockfish and the other programs, they don't care about pawns. You can sacrifice one pawn, two pawns, three pawns in a lot of cases, if the rest of your pieces are very active.

And that's something that we kind of knew on a basic level about the initiative is what we call it in chess, where like you'll give up material, but your pieces are very well placed. But we didn't realize just how important that is, and computers will do that all the time now, all the time.

And even actually like they're in this variant, Fisher random is another variant where you arrange a piece on the back row. They will gladly sack rooks for bishops or for knights all the time, all the time. And so- - What do you take from that? - Material imbalance or the material you give up doesn't matter as much as having this attack or having this piece on certain squares.

- Well, as long as you can hold on to the attack. - Right, and computers can't. But it's also very tricky 'cause when we as humans sometimes, you'll look at an opening variation and you'll see something like this and you want to do it in a game. But the problem is we don't know how we're supposed to follow it up afterwards.

And so if you do that and you don't know how to follow up afterwards, very oftentimes we'll make mistakes. We'll try to look at it in a human way. And then of course, you end up losing in the longterm 'cause you've given up too much material. So it's a very double-edged sword.

- But that's why it's dramatic and why people love those kinds of sacrifices 'cause you're putting it all on the line. What's the other game? - It was a game also with a queen sacrifice. It was a game against this Polish player, Michael Krasenkow. It was played in Barcelona in 2007, I believe it was.

I also, I sacrificed a queen for one pawn to just bring the king out into the middle of the board. - You actually sacrificed it? - Yes, I did sacrifice. I took a pawn. - Did you want to go with that game? - Sure, yeah, absolutely. - And you're again black.

- Yes. Yeah, this game you can just skip forward to about like the 20th move roughly. - What's the opening? - This is, I think it's like a Catalan. It says Neo-Catalan. So yeah, it's basically a Catalan opening, generally very slow. - Neo-Catalan declined? - Yeah. Yeah, and now here I sack the queen for the pawn.

Or no, sorry, I take the knight first. Sorry, knight c6, keep going. - So, by the way, the pawn structure here is a mess or is missing. - Yeah, so I take the knight. - You take the knight with a rook. What's the discovery? - My queen's under attack now.

So when he takes the knight, the rook on b1 is attacking my queen. - Got it, so the, got it? - Now, yeah. - You throw your queen into the middle, check, check the king. Wait a minute, that's not right. - Yeah, it's one pawn. It's a queen for a pawn.

- For a pawn. And the king takes your queen. - What was the thinking here? You crazy madman. - King has to go up the board and the king is very vulnerable. - In this position, see, but you're gonna have to keep checking here then. - Yes. - Bishop checks, king, rook checks, knight checks.

Did you see all of this ahead of time? - Yeah, I mean, not all of it, but I figured there had to be some way to win here with the king. - Too many attacking pieces on your end that could do. - Well, it's just basically the king, the only piece that can sort of guard the king is the queen on d1.

That's the only piece. If I can just keep checking, I'm gonna be able to win here. So it goes there. And now I think I played, yeah, I played this move. - Ooh, no check. - 'Cause I'm threatening to move the rook over one square and make a checkmate.

- Got it. And then the rook, what was that? The rook takes your knight and then you take it right back with a check. - No, I still wanna scoot the rook over to check on the h6 square, the dark square. I think, did he resign here or did he make a move?

- Oh, he resigned, yeah. - He did resign here, yeah, because I just moved the rook over to that dark square in front of the pawn and that would be checkmate. - Dark square in front of the pawn over here. - It's h6, yeah. 'Cause now the bishop covers the light square.

- Is there something he can do to mess with it? - Not really. I don't think there's any way to stop a checkmate. - Nothing with the queen. I guess he's gonna lose the queen. - Yeah, I think it's just actually forced checkmate here on a couple of moves.

I don't think there's any way to stop it. - Even if he loses his queens. - Yeah, it's a forced checkmate. - Fascinating. So like that, you can't purely calculate, but you can have some intuition. - Also, I think what it is is in such situations, you know that there is at least a draw.

I could always just check him with my rook if I wanted to, to make a draw. So that also gives me some margin where if I calculate, after I play the move and I calculate it doesn't work out, I can still make the draw. - Are you, I mean, for fun, do you do the sacrifices of this sort?

- When it's not the serious competitive online events or over the board, I do actually do this quite frequently. And I wish there were more opportunities, but top level chess, it's become harder and harder because due to computers, everybody's very, very well prepared in the opening. They know the first like 15 to 20 moves sequences in no matter what you do.

So it's very, the room for creativity is less and less, which makes it, which means you have less, less of those types of games. - I think you played Levy, Gotham chess with the, without a queen. Was that a thing? - I think that was a bullet game. Yeah, the one minute game.

I think so, yeah. - Is that an actual thing that you can pull off? Like would you be like Levy or? - Yeah, I guess somebody like Levy. - In bullet, maybe I can win like 50%. It'll probably be. - What's bullet, what's the timing? - One minute for the whole game.

- One minute for the whole game. Okay, what about, I mean, how much do you miss the queen if it's gone against the international master? - You know, in a bullet game, like I said, maybe in bullet I can maybe score 50% in a blitz game or anything slower, maybe 10%, maybe one out of 10 I can win.

- One out of 10. - Yeah. - On the topic of Goat, let me ask about Paul Morphy. How good was he? Reddit asked me to ask you about this and why is he a tragic figure in chess? - Yeah, so Paul Morphy was the best player in the world by a bigger margin probably than anyone else in recent modern history.

He was, I would say roughly using today's rating, he was around like 2,400 in my opinion. And the other best players were maybe around 2000 or 2,100 at best. So he's the best player by a bigger margin. Fisher, for example, I think he was about 170-ish points, better than Boris Basky.

But Morphy was 300 plus at least. Now by modern standards, he would probably be a very strong IM, which isn't saying a whole lot, but at the time no one was even close. So I don't think you can put him in that category of like best ever simply because he was not the best player for a long enough period of time.

As far as why it's tragic, it's very tragic because he essentially quit chess. There was no competition for him. If you think about like Magnus talking about the world championship and feeling like it's not competitive enough, for Morphy there was no one who could even beat him probably in individual games.

So he ended up quitting chess. I think he was sort of like a lawyer kind of, but he spent probably the last 15, I think last 15, 20 years of his life just doing nothing. Now I have actually seen his grave in New Orleans. I have been to where he lived.

I think it's now Brennan's if I'm not mistaken or something like that. So it's very tragic that there was no one who was competitive with him at the time. As far as best ever, I don't think you can say he's the GOAT but I still think he's in the top 10 if we're using a criteria of players who are better than their peers by a big, big margin.

- So what do you think about the world championship? And what do you think about Magnus stepping down? Do you still see it as the height of chess? - I still think that there is merit in having the world championship the way it is. At the same time, the game is always evolving.

And one of the things that has changed a lot in recent times is you now have a lot more blitz tournaments and also rapid tournaments. In the past, classical chess was the golden standard. That was the only thing that mattered. But in the last probably 10 years, slowly but surely, there probably are as many rapid/blitz tournaments as there are classical tournaments now.

Maybe it's not quite 50/50, but at the top level at least, it feels like it's getting very close to 50/50. And in terms of the world championship, I feel that the biggest issue is you have too many draws. The games can be exciting, but the games inevitably end in a draw.

And the single biggest reason is because players have about six months or more to prepare for the match. So for example, the Canada's tournament, which I just played, it was in June and July. It ended, I think, around July 5th. The world championship match will probably be in February of March.

So that's nine months. And when players have that much time to prepare, they are not going to have any weaknesses in the opening phase of the game. And so both players are likely going to be very solid. You'll have a lot of draws. And in many cases, it might come down to tie breaks.

Magnus, in fact, in two of the matches, both against Karjakin and against Karjuana, he had to win in rapid tie breaks. So I think for Magnus, he just doesn't feel like the format is right. I think he feels that there's just, it's too long, too many draws. He doesn't get to play creative or exciting chess.

And that's why I think he pushed so hard for a change in the format. I don't know what the right change would be, but I do think that the format is becoming a little bit antiquated with all these classical games. If you don't want to change the format, the one suggestion that I've mentioned before, and I think is probably still valid, is that the match should be held maybe one month after the Canada's tournament to determine the challenger.

It's held one month after that event. That's probably the only way to keep the format as it is, where I think both players have time to prepare, but it's not something crazy. Because when you compare the candidates to other classical tournaments, let's just say, let's just say St. Louis.

I played there recently. There was the, I played the Rapids and Blitz, but there was the Sinkfield Cup. This was, I think like September 10th, something like that. Point is, players probably came in and had a week or two to prepare for that tournament. Now there's the US Championship.

Players had a little bit of time to prepare. You play the event. Normally players don't have these long breaks where they can prepare for very long periods of time. So they are very well prepared, but you still have a lot of exciting games because that window of preparation is so much smaller.

- But you had, you're pretty close, given how things rolled out, to having the opportunity to compete for the world championship. Hence the, the Copia meme, which I still don't quite understand. Are you and Magnus friends, enemies, frenemies? What's the status of the relationship? - Yeah, I think with all the rivalries in chess, everybody tries to hype it up, like everyone hates each other.

But the thing is, at the end of the day, yes, we're very competitive. We want to beat each other, whether it's myself or Magnus or other, other top players. But we also realize that it's a very small world. Like a lot of us are able to make a living playing the game as professionals.

And as I alluded to earlier, the top 20 to 30 players can make a living. So even though we're competitive against each other, we want to beat each other, there is a certain level of respect that we have. And there is a sort of brotherhood, I would say. So all of us are, I would say, frenemies.

I think that's the simplest way of putting it. - What do you love most about Magnus Carlsen as a human being? - As a human being? I think it's, it's very similar actually, to use a comparison to Tennis and Roger Federer, in that it feels like with Magnus, everything comes very easily.

It's, for example, we've seen the situation with Hans Niemann. Somehow it's rolled right off his back and he's playing amazing chess in his latest event. So it's really how easy he seems to make it look. And I know like, 'cause tennis is a sport that I've played a lot, I've followed it very closely.

I remember hearing Andy Roddick say this about Federer, where it's like, somehow he handles it all. Like there's no pressure, he makes it look easy. And how does he do all of that? And I feel the same way about Magnus, where it seems too easy. 'Cause I know for myself, when I'm playing these games, like there's stress, the pressure.

And for Magnus, it just, you don't ever see that. Now I'm sure it's probably there, but we don't witness it. So that's what I would say, is just how easy it is. - It was sad to see Federer retire, I don't know why. - Yeah. - Just greatness. You know, when Lionel Messi will retire, it would also be sad.

- Yeah. - 'Cause there's certain people that are just singular. - Right. - In the history of a sport. I don't know if there's gonna be another Messi. I don't know if there's gonna be another Federer. - Yeah, not for a long time probably. - Is he greatest ever, would you say?

Is he up there? - He's definitely up there. I mean, I grew up as like more of an Nadal fan, just because actually, I felt like Nadal, it never looked easy. It was the exact opposite. Like for Nadal, it feels like he's always, he's running after every ball, he's exerting himself.

It looked really, really hard. And like for me, since nothing really came easily for me in chess, like I kind of, I can relate to that more. But at the same time, like, you know, especially when Federer started losing more and he seems more human, I started really liking him more as well.

But I think Federer, he changed the game. I don't know if you say he's the greatest ever, but the game changed forever because of him. - Yeah, there's certain people, just last thing you'd pack, Sampras, Agassi, everybody. Okay, who wins in a chess boxing match between you and Magnus?

- Probably Magnus just 'cause he's taller than me. I think. - Also reach? - He's taller, he has more reach, yeah. But I think he would win. - Question from Reddit. In what sport do you think you can beat Magnus 10 out of 10 times? - I think I could beat Magnus 10 out of 10 times in tennis.

I mean, I took lessons for eight years. I try to go out and hit two or three times every week. I think I could beat him in tennis 10 out of 10. - Backhand, forehand, what's your style of tennis play? - I wish I was taller 'cause I really like trying to come into the net.

I like volleying a lot, but I am no Rod Laver. Rod Laver was very short, but he was able to make it work like 50, 60 years ago. I really like volleying, but I'm a little bit too short, so I kind of have to stay back. And I mean, I normally hit, like I try to hit hard forehands and I try to slice or two-hand backhand.

- You mentioned Magnus and Kariakin. And I just wonder if you have ideas, thoughts about the fact that he was originally a qualifier to the Candidates Tournament and was disqualified by FIDE for breaching his code of ethics about related to his support for the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Does that ever seep into the games that you play over the board, the geopolitics, the actual military conflict of it all?

Do you feel the pressure of that? Because there's battles between nations. NEPO's Russian, there's America, every nation is in some profound way represented on the chessboard. - Right, I've never really felt that. I think actually for me, it's very eye-opening to realize how difficult it is for a lot of the Russian chess players right now to play because of the situation, even NEPO for that matter.

I remember when we were in St. Louis, he essentially has to bring cash 'cause obviously Russia's cut off from SWIFT, no credit cards work. So if these Russians don't have cash, they can't play and I know a lot of them have fled the country just to try and keep their chess career going.

So it's a very, very tough situation for them. Obviously for the Ukrainians who are suffering, it's really, really bad. - Do you know if NEPO, have you seen, has he talked about the politics, the geopolitics of it all? - I don't think he really has. I mean, I feel like most players try to avoid talking about it, I think it's very difficult.

I remember when I was in St. Louis, there was another Russian player, Peter Savidler, and I basically asked him, he was like, "Don't get me started because I can't, "I just can't talk about it." So I think most of them are probably on the other side of the spectrum.

I don't think they're probably supportive of what is going on right now. So it's a very, very, very difficult situation. But I don't really feel like that manifests itself in actual tensions when I play against the Russian players. I mean, maybe when I was younger playing certain events, the one country that I felt like maybe it actually, I felt some tension, I really wanted to go out of my way to win against was against the Chinese, perhaps.

That is maybe the one time I felt something along those lines. But generally, I feel like we treat the players as individuals, it's not about the country they represent. - Yeah. Let's go back to the philosophical of chess. What do you find most beautiful about the game of chess?

Looking back over your whole career. - I think looking back, it's really, it's both over the board and also just like the memories that I've created. I think for me, the fact that I've been able to travel because of chess to meet so many people who are playing this great game from all different nationalities, all different backgrounds is probably the thing that I really like the most.

Chess is one of the, maybe the only thing I can think of where you can have people, different backgrounds, different ages. Honestly, you can have someone who's a billionaire talking to someone who's like a nine-year-old kid from the inner city. And when they're talking about the game of chess, they're on the same level.

And I don't think that is really applicable to anything else in this world. You don't have that level of respect that is communicated through a game. So for me, that's probably the single most beautiful thing about sort of chess and the chess world itself is that you have that.

In terms of the game itself, the creativity, the possibility of different positions, learning something new even after I've played the game for 30 years, it's very inspiring to me knowing that I've spent all this time, there still are new things that I can learn. Those are probably two biggest, biggest things that I would refer to.

- Are there memories, big or small, like weird, surprising anecdotes from all those years of going to all the different places that stand out to you? Some of the darker times, weirder times, like weird places you've played, weird people you've played, weird people you hung out with. Anything that jumps to memory?

- I think this is probably a little bit more like political, but I think one of the things that's great is whenever you go and play these tournaments, you have a certain impression of what a country is like or what the people are like. And probably the best example for me was in 2004, or actually, no, sorry, it was 2003, I think it was, I played in the FIDE World Cup and it was held in Tripoli, the capital of Libya at the time when Gaddafi was still running the country.

And you hear a lot of these things, but then when you go there and you see the people are so friendly, it's very eye-opening and sort of you look at it without just believing things. You go to these places, you see how things truly are. And generally, I find that it's very different than how the media will portray it.

One of my great regrets is as someone who loves history, not going to see Magnus Lepto, which were the greatest ruins, I think greatest ruins in Africa from the Roman times, and of course no longer exists. So I really do regret that. I think another thing that's very unique about chess is that all of us, even when we compete as children, like there are a lot of people like Nepo and others who I've known for a very, very long time.

There are a lot of people who no longer play chess competitively, but inevitably you end up talking to these people many years down the road. And so you never truly lose touch with the game or the people that you grew up playing it with. And there's so many of these people that I connected with in the last couple of years who I knew when I was a kid and then they went off, did something else, but you still end up talking to them and being able to share these old memories.

- So you said you're a bit of a student, a fan of history, even ancient history. Are there cultures, periods of time, people from human history that you draw wisdom from about human nature that you're particularly drawn to? - A lot. I mean, I probably study, mostly it'd be like ancient Roman history or pre-Roman empire, and of course ancient Persia is another subject that I've studied a lot on.

If you ask me, I would say, I mean, it depends, you're talking like military generals, you're talking like philosophers, I mean, there's everything. - So yeah, so both, right? So philosophers is how people thought about the world. Of course, military has to do with how people sort of conquered lands.

Both are interesting because in part, it seems so far away from what we are today, and it's cool to see that people were kind of the same in their ability to invent amazing things, and maybe the same and different in their willingness to go to war. - So I think, I mean, one of my favorite books that I've read in the last couple of years is "The Histories" by Herodotus, I mean, basically considered the father of history.

And I mean, I really love reading about these things like Thermopylae or Marathon, these great ancient battles. I don't know if there's like a specific like quote or wording or something like that that I can come up with, but that is one of my favorite, favorite books on history by far.

- So those books were written a long time ago. - Yeah, it's like 400, I think it was like 400 BC was when that was written. - So what's that like? What's that like reading that? - It's just-- - Does it seem ancient? - It does seem ancient, like it's sort of, I feel like for myself, one of the things I really like doing is getting away from technology when I have the opportunity, trying to disconnect these sorts of things.

And so when I read books like that, besides just having a general interest, it sort of reminds me like, there is really a life without all this stuff, or there was at least at some point. And so it's something that I can kind of relate to. - Like humanity flourishes without all the stuff we take, we think is fundamental to our current culture.

Like all that we find beautiful about humanity can still exist without any of the technology. - Yes, definitely. That's a really good reminder, given the contrast, of course, is beautiful, because you're in the midst of the technology with streaming. Like to me, streaming somehow feels, because of how large of a percentage of young people are interested, like consumes streams, it feels to represent like the future, because so many people kind of develop their mind by watching Twitch and YouTube.

- Right, I mean, that's definitely true. For myself, I remember when I was a little bit younger, I was like 17, 18 around then, I would actually try one day a week on the weekend to try not to look at like my computer or my phone. Now phones weren't where they are today, obviously, but I was able to do that pretty easily.

Now it's very hard. Like when I try to go one day, recently I tried to do that, I actually just pulled some books out of my garage and I started reading, and it was a very foreign concept. So I do read a lot, but it's always on an iPad, or a Kindle, yeah, both of those actually.

So it's very, very weird, but I do try when I can to get away from it all. I mean, another thing, like I said, I really like going out into nature when I have the opportunity. I've spent a lot of time in Colorado, for example, hiking some of the 14ers, that is one of those life goals that I have to go and get to the top of every single one of them.

So I try to disconnect when I can, but of course it's very hard. - So whether it's disconnecting or not, can you take me through a perfect day in the life of Fikar and Nakamura on a day of a big chess match? Well, actually, multiple days, right? We'll take one where it's a big chess match and one that's just like your representative average day.

- A perfect chess day, although I cannot do this, it would start the night before, I would get nine hours of sleep, like a consistent nine hours, like say 12 a.m. to 9 a.m., for example, let's just say the round starts at like two o'clock and then nine to say 12 o'clock, I do preparation, and then 12 to one, I go eat lunch, and at one to two, I just nap or I walk or I do something completely unrelated to it.

That would be the perfect day. - When are you doing everything except the preparation, are you thinking about chess at all or are you trying not to think about chess? - Trying not to think about chess, definitely not. - And what do you do? Is there any tricks to that?

- Well, I find that like if I go outside, I just try to hear like the birds or I try to listen, it's one of those like meditation kind of things, like they always say when you meditate, you try to hear yourself breathing. It's like when you close your eyes, try to hear yourself breathing, just focus on that.

So I do try to do things like that from time to time as well. - So in terms of getting nine hours of sleep, does that come difficult to you? - That almost never happens. I mean, there've been a couple times where it has happened, like in Norway specifically, but generally, I don't sleep well during chess terms, I wish I did, but.

- So we're talking about a perfect day, so sleep is really important. What about diet and stuff like that? - Yeah, I think for a lot of people, they try to keep it light before the round, actually like I remember hearing this story from Peter Savidler some years back, a Russian GM, and he said that Kasparov would go and eat like a big steak right before the game and he would be completely fine, but I think for most players, it's the exact opposite.

You try to like eat like some snacks, like maybe some nuts, a few bars, things of this nature, or maybe just like maybe fish, something very light for lunch before the game, and then you probably eat a lot after the game. That's generally what you try to do, but I don't think there's any like specific diet that makes a huge difference, but everyone is different, of course.

- So when you're actually at the board on that perfect day, how do you maintain focus for so many hours of classical chess? Like, you know what, like minute to minute, second to second, how are you able to maintain focus? Is there tricks to that? How difficult is that?

- I think it really depends on the type of the game that you're playing. I think if it's a game that's very, very calm and very slow where not a lot happens at the start, it's a lot easier because you're not having to be super focused. Like your mind can drift and whatnot, and then at the critical moment, you have to sort of zone in.

So those are the easiest ones. I think generally when games are very complicated from the start, what you're doing is you're just, you're trying to not let your mind wander at all, because when games are complicated like that, one of the things that I've never been very good at is my mind does wander, and you're always, like I'm always worrying about the next move.

It's like, is this a blunder? What's going on? Like, what am I gonna do? So you're trying, I think, very much to block out the noise. I think that's actually the hardest thing, is also because like, I can say this, when I played Magnus before, there have been times when I've gotten winning positions against him.

And in that moment when I had the winning position, very oftentimes my mind wanders, like, okay, you're about to win this game, and you're like, okay, what happens after the game? You win this game, gain the rating points, all these different things, but you haven't actually won the game yet.

And I think for a lot of players, that's the hardest thing, is when you get a winning position, your mind does drift. It drifts to like, what happens after you've won the game, or what the outcome is. - So drifting into the future, and you should stay in the moment.

You really should hold on. And also, what is it? Yeah, probably getting excited about the win. What is it about that that makes you worse at playing? So interesting, like getting-- - I think it's like, it's nervous, but it's like you're too excited, I think. It's like you're waiting for it to end, you expect it to end.

And then your opponent keeps defending, and you can make mistakes. - What about the flip side of that, where you start getting frustrated? Like, how do you try to recover from that kind of thing? - It's very difficult. I think for myself, I just try to basically focus on it every single move.

Again, you try to block out the noise, no matter which direction it's going in. So I try as best I can. I mean, sometimes I'm very poor at it. Like, I just don't do a good job blocking out the noise at all. But I think generally, I try to think, okay, just make this next move.

Make your opponent have to find the best moves. And just keep the game going, no matter what. Just keep it going. - By the way, what's a long day of classical chess? What's that look like? - It's pretty brutal. I mean, it would be something like, okay, so the game starts at two o'clock.

So you've done all this other stuff. The game probably goes from like two to seven, for example, or maybe two to eight, five, six hours. Probably you eat dinner for an hour or so, maybe clear, like I'll go clear my head for 30 minutes. And then immediately it's right back to studying for a couple of hours.

- Are you reviewing previous games, or you're already? - Generally, you're just moving on to the next game. That's what you're doing. - And trying to, no matter what happened, put that behind you. Win or lose or draw. - Okay, so that's also why there's another question a lot of people wonder, which is why don't I play more of these classical tournaments and sort of, it gets back to the, you know, the literally don't care sort of stuff.

But when I'm going to play in tournaments, I want to be able to give it my best shot. And if I don't feel that I can, I'm not going to play, which is why, like I play here and there, but I do balance my schedule very carefully because I'm not just going to go and play a tournament simply because if I don't feel that I can put in the work, it's not the right thing to do.

Also because I'm taking away a spot from somebody else who probably will be putting in the work, who will want to compete in that event. And so when I look at the candidates, or a lot of people said, "Well, why is he playing?" They're like, "Okay, he qualified, "but he's not going to take it seriously." But I did give it everything I had in that tournament.

And I always will as much as I can. If I can't do that, then I'm just not going to play. - So what about a perfect day in the life of Fakaro when you're not doing anything? - Oh, a perfect day. A perfect day would be something along the lines of, I get up very early at like three, four o'clock in the morning, drive an hour away, and go climb mountains.

That's the perfect day. Out into the mountains. Oh, do you mean a normal non? - Yeah, a perfectly productive normal day. - Oh, perfectly productive. Okay, so perfectly productive would be along the lines of I wake up at like 7.30, eight o'clock. Probably I watch either Bloomberg or CNBC for 30 minutes to an hour.

And then watch the markets for maybe an hour or two, look at certain things that are going on. - So you really care about investing? - I do follow it quite closely. Yeah, I follow the markets very closely. Closer than I should, but yes. - For personal reasons, or do you comment on it?

Like for personal investing reasons or for like philosophical understanding what's going on in the world? - It's sort of everything. I think, first of all, obviously I'm interested in investing. I have been for many, many years. I've done investing trading for at least a decade now. So like I am very interested on that level.

I'm also quite interested as well because when you see the policy that's being dictated, like you look in the last six months specifically, you see the Fed policy around things like interest rates, unemployment, things of this nature. It is something that interests me also 'cause I do invest in real estate aside from the stock market.

So therefore I'm always keeping an eye on these sorts of things and always looking. And as a better example, like I'm looking for trends. So if we go back to, I think it was 20, I could have the year wrong. 2015 or 2016, there was a pattern that I found that on the Fed minutes that came out, I believe two to 15, I think it's on the Wednesday of every, well, third Wednesday of every month, that gold would actually, the gold ETFs and ETNs would actually go up every single Wednesday of the month that the minutes came out.

So I would follow things like that. Now, of course I wasn't like trading huge volume, but I found a trend there. Of course it stopped working at a certain point, but those are the sorts of things that, they just interest me. Even if it's not something that I'm doing to make a living, trying to spot those trends, it's always been something that has fascinated me.

- One Reddit said that you shorted Tesla some time ago. Do you regret doing so? - Well, when I did those plays, that was small amounts of money, and that was only via puts. That was where I would buy puts or put spreads on it. So it wasn't something where I was straight shorting.

I would never actually do that because it's just, it's not worth the risk. And I don't want to ever be in a situation where I have to think about those sorts of things. And I think a better example is, there was a period in 2016, actually shortly before the candidates, when I actually was in oil.

I had a long position in oil. And this is when oil completely crashed. It went very, I don't think it went below, did it go below 30 even? It went very low. And of course the Saudis were not cutting, they were not, I think they were, were they cutting or not cutting production?

But anyway, there was a period in 2016 where I had a big long position in one of the 3X oil ETFs. And it kept going down day after day after day. And then of course, right near the bottom, I finally couldn't take it anymore. I took a loss. And that really sort of, it was very difficult dealing with that, the stress, everyday looking, seeing those losses.

And after that, I kind of decided I would never put myself in such a situation again. And so that's why I don't do shorting. And then separately, and I think I posted a reply to this comment, but in 2021, as Tesla started going up, I actually started selling puts.

And I did quite well off of that. So it's sort of play both sides, never become hard set with your conviction. Like where you refuse, like this is just like, it has to go down or like it has to go up. Just you have to be willing to adapt.

- Do you think shorting should be legal? Do you think it's ethical? Like to me, I don't know much about investing, but I feel like it feels wrong. Now I know if something is overinflated, it's good for there to be an opposing force to like balance it or something like that.

But it just feels like in our current modern internet world, I think Tesla, I vaguely saw somewhere that's like the most shorted stock like ever. And so that incentivizes a lot of the publication of misinformation about it. Like it just feels like the incentives are wrong. Not when we look at the markets, but at the future of human civilization perspective, it just feels like shorting is somehow wrong.

But maybe I'm misunderstanding the broader picture of markets. - Well, I actually try not to do that. Like I almost only take long positions specifically 'cause I feel like you're betting like on world collapsing. I just, I feel like morally, I don't wanna be in that. That I don't wanna have that viewpoint.

I think, you know, that sort of is another thing that I've noticed. Like I've been very lucky. I've traveled a lot. I've met a lot of famous people. And the one thing that I've noticed is like a lot of the people who are the most successful, they're the ones who are very optimistic.

No matter what is happening day to day, they remain very optimistic about the future of where things are going. So I try not to end up in that situation. I think as far as like shorting specifically, the real danger to me is that anybody can now invest. And I feel like actually some of these apps like Robinhood, they go out of their way to try and make it seem like it's this fun game.

Like I've seen people where you place a trade and it like, it gives you like these stickers or these pop-ups like of confetti. And it's like, wait a second, what's going on here with the whole game? Like people are sort of, they're going after the wrong thing. So I don't think shorting like will be banned, but I think it's very dangerous that everybody has access to being able to do things like that.

- So according to Reddit on the topic of Tesla, you have trouble admitting when you make a mistake. Is that true? - No, that's generally not true. Actually, I think that- - Wait, Reddit is not 100% accurate and truthful in its representation of a character? That's fascinating. - No, I think the thing that I've learned is I'm obviously very good at chess, but that doesn't automatically mean that I'm a genius in everything else.

And I feel like that's another thing actually that I really, really admire about Magnus is that he is the world champion, he's the best player, but he does not automatically believe that that translates to every area of life. I feel like with some other world champions, they think that they're great no matter what they do.

And that's not like intentionally trying to be like rude, I do feel like there's certain people who feel like that. Like anything they say is right and they are the authority. When in reality, we are the authorities when it comes to chess, we know chess the best, we are the experts, but that doesn't automatically mean we're geniuses in everything else.

- That said, I think you said somewhere, could have been on the C Squared podcast, that I forget if it's chess or streaming that taught you to generalize to various, you feel like you're able to do other things now. Was that streaming? - I don't know if that's specifically streaming, but I think streaming has taught me a lot about sort of life and also how to run a business honestly.

Like I have read a lot of business books and one of the things with streaming is that when you start out, it's like this very small thing. It's just you, maybe you have a couple of people who help you along the way, but as it becomes bigger and bigger, if there's a boom, you suddenly start having to hire employees, you're basically running this business.

And like for me, I've learned a lot about that because there was this book that I read some years back, I think it was by Mary Buffett, it was on Warren Buffett and how he tries to be hands-off, like when he buys these companies, it's hands-off, management stays the same, you don't do anything.

And I actually, I try to do things kind of the same way where like I try to be hands-off, there are a couple of people around me, I leave a lot of the general day-to-day decisions up to them and then like things that are really important, obviously I'm involved in, but I try to do things like that.

So streaming is, you learn a lot along the way. And I think now having done that, there probably are several other potential careers that I could have if I really wanted to. - Almost about that generalizing terms is what it takes to build a business from the ground up.

From the process of becoming a successful streamer, you have learned what it takes to start from the ground up with a single person and to build a business as multiple people and as successful. What do you attribute your success as a streamer to? - I mean, many things. I think being a very strong chess player and having had a following was incredibly important at the start.

I think anybody, whether it's chess or whatever field, if you have that following to begin with from your career or whatever activity or video game you do, that's already a big step up if you have that to begin with. So that definitely played a big role. I think more than that though, for me, it's about the fans.

It's about hearing from people how they feel. I mean, there are trolls obviously, but the positive messages you hear when you hear about people who are struggling in life, whether it's say, I've heard people talk about having cancer or you hear about someone going through a divorce or they're just trying to make it through day to day.

When you hear about things like that, I think it really puts it all into perspective about what it all means at the end of the day. And so for me, it really is the fans that they give me that motivation. They are the reason I do it. And when I meet some of these fans in person, like I have at a couple of events, like just talking to them, hearing their story, just knowing that I can bring them some joy is, again, at the end of the day, it's why are you doing it?

That's what it's about. If I can bring people joy, if it's someone working in a factory all day, someone in the middle of the country, if I bring them joy through my chess, that means a lot. If it's a kid, for example, if I can inspire them to take up chess in a more serious way or even honestly, if they just learn from chess certain skills like critical thinking and that leads to them becoming like a great scientist or something down the road, that is what I'm ultimately hoping.

That's what I hope will come out of it. - I mean, what gave you strength to have to turn on, I mean, I don't know how much you stream, but it's a lot. So day after day after day, to be able to put that content out there, is there some, can you comment on the challenge of that and maybe the low points, how you're able to overcome that?

- I actually don't feel the lows. And I think the main reason I don't feel the lows is because at the end of the day, I've been very fortunate, even as a chess player, very, very fortunate, travel the world, meet people, I've lived a great life. So for me to see myself as a streamer doing so well and bringing joy to people, I don't feel like I'm in a position, maybe this is wrong to say this 'cause mental health is very important, but for myself, I feel like I'm very lucky.

I don't really have any right to complain. So I don't really feel those lows in the same way. There are times when there are certain things like Reddit or otherwise that will get on my nerves a little bit, but I'm able to realize that I'm so fortunate. And so I don't generally struggle with the lows that much.

- Speaking of Reddit and trolls, Reddit asked me to ask you to tell me the story of Chess Bay, the Reddit moderator who pitted you against Eric Hansen, also known as Chess Bro. I'm just saying things I don't know. I don't know much about Eric Hansen. I guess Eric is another grandmaster.

You guys had some drama and tension between each other. So I will also ask you to tell me what you like best about Eric Hansen as a human being. - Here's what I would say. The whole streamers and the whole boom of chess, there are certain people, certain entities that are very, very important to what happened.

There are a lot of people in the right place at the right time, myself, Botez, the Chess Bros, Levy as well. We were all kind of in the right place at the right time. But just having the personalities alone is not enough. You need people who push things. And there are a lot of things that have been said about Chess Bay, about what she did.

At the end of the day, the way that I view it is pretty straightforward. You don't have to agree with what she did, the manner in which she did things, but it pushed the directory and Chess on Twitch forward in a way that would not have been possible with anybody else at the time.

Chess.com, for example, they were not directly pushing it. So you needed someone who was pushing it. And that, so to me, when I look at the whole boom actually of what happened on Twitch, in many ways I think she's just as responsible as I was, Levy was, Botez was, and the Bros were.

All of us were extremely fortunate 'cause if you didn't have someone pushing it forward and Chess.com was not really that involved at the time, it never would have gotten to where it was. So you can sort of look at it and say, okay, you don't agree with what happened, but you needed someone like that who was gonna push, push really hard to get chess to where it is today.

- Can you comment on what happened for people who have no clue what you were talking about? Is that not useful? - I don't think it's specifically useful to get into it. I think there are a lot of layers. People felt there were things like abuses of power, things of that nature.

There were a lot of things that were said. You know, I don't wanna be super negative about what happened specifically, but one thing people will note is that prior to what did happen in April of 20, I think that was 2021 now, there were a lot more collaborations. The chess world was much more together as a whole.

A lot of streamers did things together. After what happened in April, there was a big sort of separation. A lot of streamers went off in their own directions because of what happened. So that is, I mean, that's not the whole story. There's a lot more to it, of course, but I think it's fair to say that.

- If I can just comment on the few times I've tuned into the streaming world, I do hate to see the silos that were created. One of the reasons I've been a fan and now a good friend of Joe Rogan, you call it collaborations, but it's basically everybody's supporting each other, gets excited for each other, promotes each other, and there's not that competitive feeling.

With streamers, sometimes I've just noticed that there's a natural siloing effect. I don't know why that is exactly. Maybe because drama is somehow good for views and clicks and that kind of stuff. I don't know what that is, but I hate to see it 'cause I love seeing friendship and collaboration.

- I think this also goes, again, try not to be super negative, but this also goes to the chess world as a whole. One of the things that I've been in this chess world for a very long time, not talking about online, but just the chess world itself, and I've been very fortunate 'cause I've seen a couple of booms and busts.

It actually wasn't late '90s, it was in the mid '90s. There was a period of time when Intel and IBM and all these tech companies were very big on chess. There was this PCA Grand Prix World Championship held in New York. I think there was the Deep Blue stuff later on in the late '90s with Garry Kasparov, and you had a lot of interest at the time, and then it sort of went up in flames for a couple different reasons.

Also in the late 2000s or maybe mid 2000s, there was a group in Seattle that was very big on chess. They hosted the US Championship, all these different things. There have been a lot of booms and busts. Of course, if you go way back, there was the Fisher boom as well, but inevitably what leads to these busts?

And the thing that leads to it is at the end of the day, people in the chess world have this natural tendency to want to not work together. You wanna hang on to whatever piece of the chess world you have, as opposed to thinking about it from the standpoint of what's good for one is good for all.

And so it's one of those things that now that I'm in this situation, having seen these booms and busts, I remember when I was younger, I would very oftentimes think, why is it that chess isn't bigger? Why do we struggle so much to grow the game? And I think we see the reason.

So now when I'm in this position, it's also very tough 'cause I know what's happened. You try to learn from the past, but it still feels very hard to break out from that. It feels very tough. And it's also difficult because another thing that people kind of misunderstand is from time to time, I'll talk about myself.

I'll actually talk about Levy and incomes or how well we're doing. And the main reason I talk about this is that I want it to inspire like FIDE, the governing bodies and others for like, wow, these people, they're having such success. Like we surely we can do something different.

We can change things. And somehow it has not happened, which is in a way very, very disheartening to me 'cause I wanna see more interest in chess. So you wanna see more sponsors, more of the general public getting excited by the game. So it is one of those things that's very, very difficult.

- Yeah, so you wanna see innovation on the parts of everybody, but also the organizations like FIDE and chess.com to how to inspire a large number of people, which is what, this is what streamers are doing. They're constantly innovating, I guess, of how to reach a very large audience.

Before we forget, just to put a little love out there. - Oh, you want me to ask about Eric? I was gonna ask Eric. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. A little love out there. What do you like best about Eric Hansen as a human being? - I think it's mainly, he's just, he's very charismatic.

He's very charismatic. He knows the brand that he has, and he doesn't pretend to fake it. He knows what his brand is, and he owns it. - So he's, just for people who don't know, and I don't know, he's a grandmaster. - He's very strong. - Chess grandmaster. - Yeah, he's a strong grandmaster.

- But he's also a creator. - Yeah, one of the earliest major chess content creators on Twitch. - Like educational stuff too? - A mix, mix of educational, mix of high level. - Entertainment, okay. - A mix of everything, yeah. - Okay, awesome. What historical chess figure do you think would have the best dreams?

- Historical chess figure, I would say probably Mikhail Tal. He was a former world champion. Now he lived a very, very exciting life, let's put it that. He was somebody who drank. He's from Latvia. He's called the magician from Riga. So he drank a lot. He smoked a lot.

A lot of other stuff as well. - Oh, like sex, drugs, and rock and roll? - Kind of, yeah. I think if you look at, actually, not even just top grandmasters, or not even world champions, but top grandmasters, he probably had the most interesting life by far, by far.

And even as an example of how much he loved chess and what a character he was, I think when he was dying in 19, I think it was 1989 or maybe it was '91, when he was dying, he actually left the hospital to go play a Blitz tournament in Moscow, and he actually beat Garry Kasparov in that Blitz tournament in one of the games.

- At what age? - Probably like late 50s, mid 50s, late 50s. I mean, he drank too much, so he died young. But yeah, he left the hospital in Moscow and went to play a Blitz tournament, he beat Kasparov. - Well, first of all, just to push back, I think we all die too young, and some of the most impactful people, like Churchill, did quite a bit of drinking and smoking, all that kind of stuff.

So you can still do brilliant things, even if you partake in the old, whisking, drugs, and rock and roll, and women. - Okay, just about streaming though, there's this quote that I love, which is the Steve Jobs quote, which is you can never connect the dots looking forward, you can only connect them looking backwards.

And when I look at how I got into streaming, there were all these things that happened along the way that were so beneficial. So first thing would be that when I was young and I was growing up, I played a lot of Blitz chess on the Internet Chess Club, it was one of the predecessors to chess.com.

And there was no cameras or audio or these things, but one thing that people did was you could commit, so you would write comments about your games and things of this nature. And so I was doing something very similar, where instead of talking, I was writing and chatting during some of the games that I was playing.

So that was something that I was doing that was very, very beneficial. Without that, I don't think that I would have been able to have the success that I've had streaming. I think it would have taken much longer to get used to it and feel comfortable with it, but I already had that built-in advantage.

Additionally, when I was younger, up until, I think I was 10 or 11, I don't remember exactly, I did not actually have a TV. Well, I had a TV, but I didn't have cable. So I did not watch TV growing up. So I listened to the radio a lot.

I listened to a lot of baseball games in New York Yankees specifically. And so I think by listening to those games, like I sort of, I've heard a lot of announcers, and I think that's also, it's one of those things where you learn from what you see, kind of, when you're growing up, their examples.

And so I think that was very, very beneficial. And then a third thing, in terms of having some flair, is when I was growing up and I was homeschooled, probably about 14, 15, there was this great courses. I think they still do some of these great courses. And there was this, I don't remember who the guy was, but he was a professor.

And so I watched some of these DVDs of his lectures. And he would always dress up as someone, it was like middle ages. So he would dress up and he was sort of like an orator, and he would explain what happened in the 13, 14 hundreds in this sort of style.

And that's also something that, obviously, it's not something that I can consciously internalize, but I think it's something as well, that from having watched those courses and seeing that style of oration really helped me a lot as a streamer too. - Yeah. (laughs) Yeah, all those little experiences contribute to life.

That's definitely something I think about, 'cause I took a pretty nonlinear path through life. And I think they somehow get integrated into the picture. But I do connect to your idea that you being good at chess was a part, was an important part of your success in streaming. I think that's really good advice for people to be good, like in order to be a creator or a podcast or create videos, all that kind of stuff, or stream.

I feel like it enriches you if you pursue with your whole heart something else outside of that. Like you don't have to be, obviously, at your level of chess, but just you have to be developed in a passionate pursuit of something outside of that. - Yeah, you get to know what that passion, kind of, what it is, I think, for sure.

- I think if you're only doing streaming, there's something, first of all, I feel like that's going to empty you over time. For some reason, I've seen some of the lows that people hit if they don't have this other passion pursued outside of streaming. But also, it'll just make you a better creator, which is interesting.

I think, again, with podcasting, this applies. With Rogan, I think it's just would not, the reason his podcast is very good is because all of his passion is put into being a comedian and being a fight commentator. The podcast is a side hobby. That's the way I feel about it, too.

Your main passion is outside of it. I don't know what that is. I think it puts everything in its proper context. And also, it allows you to mentally escape into that place that you find deeply fulfilling. You mentioned, like, offline, you told me that you're interested. You found it interesting that I said that I'm renting this particular place, and I always rent because of the sense of freedom it gives.

I tend to actually try to be a minimalist for the most part when it comes to things like clothes or owning cars, for example, or watches. I don't own a lot of these material things. They don't really interest me. But at the end of the day, the one thing is, and this might actually play a role in a lot of the hiccups, why I didn't get to maybe being closer to world champion, is that one of the things from the time that I was very young is I didn't grow up from a wealthy background.

And I had a single mother for the first six years of my life. She worked as an elementary teacher to support my brother and myself. So I saw a lot of these sort of lows in life early on now, even once she remarried. All the money that my stepfather made was, not all of it, but a lot of it was directed towards my mom and I traveling to tournaments internationally, or even in the US.

So seeing some of these struggles, once I actually made it as a chess player, and this goes back to investing as well, is that it's kind of like you wanna be secure at a certain point. So I've always looked at that, how do you get to that point at the end of the day?

And again, like I said, with my experiences, seeing, actually even now, my stepfather, he's 72 years old, still teaches chess all the time, probably works harder than I do, actually. And so I see things like that, and that really interested me, how do you get from point A to point B?

And that's in large part what led to it. That being said, obviously, when you start owning things like properties, houses, or condos and whatnot, there are headaches that come along with getting some of these bills in the mail, or you see HOA about a tenant not parking their car illegally, $50 that you have to pay in fees, these sorts of things.

It is kind of a pain, but I try to reduce the number of things that can really bother me in life, and that's really the only thing that I let, not let, but it's one of those things, the only things that kind of ties me down in a way.

And I still feel pretty free, though, for the most part, despite owning. - But you mentioned security, so that meaning like security stability? - Stability, yeah, sorry. - So that's the thing you chase, you value. - When it comes to chess, as I said, if you're a pro player, you can do very well, make a couple hundred thousand dollars a year.

Of course, I'm talking pre-tax, but if you do poorly in one year, that income dries up, and there is a chance you'll never get back there. So I feel like for much of my career, that was always on my mind. And maybe that held me back to some degree.

I don't know those sort of thoughts about things like that, as opposed to purely being focused only on chess, like worrying about the results, worrying about the prizes, things like this. It might've held me back, but that was always something that was on my mind. - For me, I really worked hard to make sure that I'm philosophically, intellectually, spiritually, in every way, I'm okay with having nothing, as close to nothing as you can get.

And the reason I want that is so that I have the freedom to not crave stability, or rather have stability, because my bar for stability is so low. And that gives me the freedom to take big risks. And I thought that for me, I felt like the way I could really help the world is by optimizing the positive I can do, and for that, you have to take big risks.

And big risks really does mean potentially losing everything. - So you're saying like startups, you mean like that? - Yeah, startups in every aspect, meaning pivoting career paths completely when everybody else is telling you not to do that. - Actually, it's interesting, 'cause when I think about streaming, it's not a startup, 'cause I'm not investing money where I can lose everything if it's not successful.

But it was also a big risk for me doing that, because at the time, I was a professional player doing very well. When I kind of started in October 2018, I was still top 10 in the world doing very well. 2019 was actually a very bad year for me.

I started playing much worse. And towards the end of 2019, I intended to take a six-month break. Last time I played was November 2019 in India. And then I was gonna take a break until the US Championship in April of 2020. So I did, in a sense, actually take a risk, because I was potentially risking my career by spending this extra time that I had streaming.

So it's not the risk where financially I can lose everything, but it actually was a bit of a risk now that I think about it in a sense. Because if I lose my career as a player, there's no guarantee that streaming is gonna be anything substantial. - You didn't think it was a risk at the time?

- I think at the time, I just, I don't know. I thought it was just something fun to spend my time on. I didn't somehow, I don't know. I figured that after a six-month break, I would come back and play better chess, kind of. But as far as streaming, I never thought of it as being something that would be a career, something viable.

I just thought it's something fun to do. Maybe it gives fans some access to me. It broadens the platform. More people hear about me. And that was about it, really. I did not ever expect it to become what it did. - You said growing up with a single mother and just giving your whole life to chess at a certain point.

Has there been through that low points, maybe times when you felt lonely, isolated, maybe even depressed? - Oh, absolutely. Chess is very difficult. You're on your own. You can have friends, people you compete against who are friends, but at the end of the day, it's a very singular pursuit.

It's just you, and your results dictate everything. So there have been many moments throughout my life when I've struggled. I think probably the biggest time when that happened would have been about 2005 into 2006, where I stopped playing chess and I went to college. And that was mainly because I had gotten to a level where I was top 100 in the world, but I stagnated for that year, about 2005, 2006.

And so I decided to go to college primarily because I had stagnated. I didn't feel like I was going anywhere. And then also kind of being on your own, just having a few friends here or there in the chess world, you kind of, you wonder what it's like. And especially because I was homeschooled as well, like that further added to kind of wanting to be around other people.

It really played a very big role in my decision to go to college. But at the end of the day, as I realized, college kind of was a big disappointment because the strongest or the biggest strength of playing chess is that you mingle with people from all different backgrounds, all different ages.

And when I went to college, the whole notion of basically people who are juniors and seniors being more important or more equal than others to do the animal farm line, like when you're in that situation, it didn't really jive with my childhood and growing up in the world of chess.

And that is one of the biggest reasons that I actually came back to chess 'cause it's like this world of where certain people can are more important and things are different, like I just could not really relate to that. And that was one of the biggest reasons, it really was.

That wasn't the only reason. The other reason though, was that towards the end of my first semester, I played a tournament after not studying, actually when I was in college, when I wasn't actually studying for class, I was mainly on poker stars playing poker all night long. So like towards the end of that semester, I actually went to play a tournament in Philadelphia 'cause I was going to college nearby.

And with very little preparation, I won that tournament against other strong grandmasters. And that kind of made me think, well, okay, if I'm ever gonna take a chance, it has to be now. If I stay in college for four years, probably get a major in political science, do something in the political arena.

And then I felt like I'm gonna probably look back like five, 10 years from now and wonder what if? What if I had played chess, how far could I have gone? And if I had taken those four years, there would have been no opportunity for me to reach my full potential or even see how far I go.

So therefore, that was also a big, big reason. - So another what if question, if you didn't play chess, you mentioned political, what other possible-- - That depends. - Successful trajectory might have you had? - That depends on what point, really, if when you ask that question. I think if we're talking about the time of college, probably I would have done something in political science, maybe law, being a lobbyist or something terrible like that, honestly.

If I was a little bit younger, I really, I loved ancient history, archeology, and also languages as well. So probably something along those lines. And if we talk like more recently, something in finance, I don't know what exactly, but something in finance. - What do you think, when we talk again, 30 years, what do you think you're doing?

- 30 years. I honestly wanna believe that I'm just sitting in a beach house in Malibu, just relaxing. - Yeah, right, so you and I are in a yacht for some reason. Why we're in a yacht? You paid for it, it's your yacht. - I don't ever wanna own a yacht.

- Nope, okay, all right, fine. But I mean, that's like the amount of money you waste on docking fees, the gas, like no way, no way. - I guess I was trying to construct an example. You're being super rich for some reason. It doesn't have to be that. - That actually, no, I don't think that, that actually does not appeal to me at all.

I think another great thing about chess is that within the chess world, I'm very prominent and famous, but I can go out to the supermarket and nobody recognize me. And so I am famous, but I'm not famous at the same time. So I don't actually wanna be like, I don't want to be in a situation where everyone recognizes me or I'm super famous.

That's not, that to me sounds like a very miserable life. I do not want TMZ chasing me down the street. - So you're famous in a community you love, and that, so whenever you plug into that community, it's always like, there's a deep connection there. You can always escape when you need a break.

What advice would you give to young people about career, about life? Maybe they're in high school, maybe they're in college. Maybe they wanna achieve the heights that you have achieved in chess. They wanna do that for something they care about. - Yeah, so I think the main thing is follow your heart, follow your passion.

One thing we didn't touch on this, like both my parents, my mom was a musician. She was very good. I think she was like maybe all state in California when she was growing up on the violin, but she still was nowhere near good enough to get into Juilliard or the top music schools and pursue that as a career.

And there are a lot of starving musicians who never are able to quite make it. So like when I see my mom and what happened with her, you know, her passion, the fact she wasn't able to make it, or then my stepfather, who we haven't talked about. My stepfather actually, he's of Sri Lankan descent.

He comes from a family of lawyers. His father was a lawyer, his uncle was a lawyer for the International Court of Justice. So it's a family of lawyers. And my stepfather, he went to England to study law. He went to Southampton. I think it was University of Southampton. And at some point, he was going and playing these tournaments on the weekend, playing at the school club, all these things.

And his parents actually, they took away his chess board. They took away his chess books. They took everything away and told him he was going to become a lawyer. He could not play chess. So when I look at my upbringing, I feel very lucky that my parents, having had these experiences, they were so supportive of everything I did.

And I think that at the end of the day, you have to pursue your passion, to whatever end that might be. You might pursue it, you might fail, but I do think you have to pursue it. It's better, what's it, it's better to have tried and failed than to have not tried at all.

So I really do believe that's the most important thing is that you do that. And where it takes you, who knows, but the experiences I feel are much more important than like the what-ifs and possibly missing out on living life. - So even if it's, you know, everybody around you in your own judgment says that this is not going to be financially viable long-term, still pursue?

- I think, I mean, at some point you have to make those tough decisions, but absolutely. I feel like too many people follow the standard route. It's like you're supposed to, you know, go to college, get that degree, be $200,000 in debt, these sorts of things. But then at the end of the day, are you really living?

Are you pursuing what you want to pursue? It's just because that's what you're supposed to do. That's what society tells us, that you're the route you're supposed to go. So I think you just have to, you pursue it. Of course, at a certain point, if you're not making it, you have to make hard decisions.

But I think that, you know, in life, the only thing really, you know, time and sort of experiences those are the only things that you really can't put a price on. - Yeah, and, you know, and really pursue it. You know, even like streaming, I'll see people like on YouTube with that kind of stuff.

It's a world in many ways foreign to me. It's like, there's levels to this game in that like, there's a way to really pursue it and there's a way to half-ass it. And I guess the point is not to half-ass it. Like, don't, you know, don't just keep it a hobby.

Make it a full-time, if that's your passion, then go all out. So sometimes people can think that like, these things they love is just a hobby, like music or something like that. But there's a way to do it seriously, to go all out, yeah. - That's probably my general advice is like, whatever it is, you pursue it.

Because even with chess, when I dropped out of college, there was no guarantee that I was gonna make it as a professional player. There was no guarantee. But like, I took that chance and very fortunately for me, it worked out. - Would you rather fight a horse-sized duck or a hundred duck-sized horses?

- Probably a horse-sized duck. Just one enemy is better than having to keep an eye on 100. - This, the stress or what? The anxiety? You don't, why don't you like a hundred? I mean, they're tiny. - Tiny? - Duck-sized horses. - Well, I don't know if they're gonna attack you or not, but I feel like having one enemy saying like the clear objective, I would always, I prefer that.

- If you could be someone else for a day, alive or dead, who would you be? - Who would I wanna be for a day? If I had to pick someone, actually, I would probably pick Elon. When, how many years ago is now? When the rockets were blowing up.

I'd be very interested to see those processes of how they went through that and they got out on the other side. 'Cause like, I feel like most of the time when you hear about the startups, like, okay, you look at Amazon. You have the big investment, the start. It doesn't feel like there were those super, super lows for like the Amazons of the world.

Maybe not when the three rocks blew up, but maybe when that, was it fourth or fifth one? Actually succeeded, but somewhere in that timeframe. - Yeah, that is probably one of the lowest lows that I've publicly I've ever seen. Yeah, that's, yeah. - Those are the moments that make us.

- If everyone on earth disappeared through a horrible atrocity and it was just you left, what would your days look like? What would you do? - It's just me. It's just dead bodies everywhere. - There's a movie like this, right? - There's many movies like this. - Honestly, if I could, I would probably just, but you're saying there's like no life, like no plants, none of this stuff at all?

- No, there's life. - There's life, just not in humans. - Not in human life. There's like goats and stuff. - I remember reading a, I mean, it's slightly different, there was a sci-fi book I read many years ago. I think it was "Rendezvous with Rama," where I think there were people that were just going all over the land, like in this cylinder.

And so I think for me, I would just explore, I would just like walk, bicycle, maybe plant, plant some trees, things of this nature. - I wonder how that would change your experience of nature, knowing that it truly is, 'cause that's one of the magical things with nature, it's humbling that it's just you out there.

- That's why I love it. That's why I love going hiking, 'cause obviously you get the exercise, but honestly it's a reminder of how small we really are. - And here you would realize, I mean, it's an extra humbling effect of like you really are alone out here. - Yeah, I don't know.

I probably spend a lot of time just thinking about, thinking about everything too. - Do you hate losing in chess or do you love winning? - Do I hate losing or do I love winning? I think I love winning. I mean, maybe 'cause I'm doing so many different things, like losing doesn't have the same effect on me that it once did.

So I think like now I definitely love winning more, but I think when I was younger, I hated losing much more than I liked winning. - What comforts you on bad days? - I think similar to what gives me the motivation for streaming is the fact that at the end of the day, no matter how bad things appear or seem, I mean, we've never been at a better time in human history.

People have things much better off now than any other time. So I find it hard to really have pity, or not have pity, but like feel really bad. I just use those sorts of things as like the way to get over is just knowing how lucky I am. - What's the role of love in the human condition?

Let me ask if Hikaru about love. - Love is, I mean, I think it can be the greatest thing in the world. I think when it, you know, when things fall apart, like, you know, I've been through this quite a few times actually. Some really real highs, some really real lows as well.

I think love is, it can inspire you to do things you never thought were possible. And without it though, I think life is very empty. I think it's probably the most important thing to have in life in one way or another. - Which is extra sad if you were the last person left on Earth.

- Right, exactly, yeah. I mean, I think, again, also in terms of chess, I think that it can be, as far as chess goes, or any competition, it can be the greatest thing in the world, it can also be the worst thing in the world when you're in love.

A lot of chess players, for many, it does not help them. It actually makes them play much worse chess because you kind of, you don't have that energy or that drive in the same kind of way. So it's very mixed for chess. As far as me personally though, I think, you know, I would say what I've said before, it's better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all.

And I definitely have been through that. - I thought you don't care. I thought you don't care. (laughing) Turns out you care sometimes, a little bit, a tiny bit, a very, very, very tiny bit, Hikaru. You're an amazing person, I'm a huge fan. It's really an honor that you would talk with me today.

I can't wait to see what you do next. - Thank you, it was good being here. - Thanks for listening to this conversation with Hikaru Nakamura. To support this podcast, please check out our sponsors in the description. And now, let me leave you with some words from David Bronstein.

It is my style to take my opponent and myself onto unknown grounds. A game of chess is not an examination of knowledge. It is a battle of nerves. Thank you for listening, and hope to see you next time. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)