Inside the Global Chess Revolution with Peter Doggers

[00:00:08] [SPEAKER_01]: Over a billion people play chess. And let me tell you something. Even if you're not interested in it, let me tell you something about chess. It's two armies facing each other on this board game and they're going to war. And this is called the Game of Kings. Kings used to play this because it's like a safe way to practice war without anybody actually dying. Even though losing a game of chess feels, you feel like you're dying.

[00:00:38] [SPEAKER_01]: Like I've seen, well, I was just in a tournament yesterday and I saw a kid. It was in the final round and this kid was like a teenager and he was losing his final round game and he started crying at the board. It feels really, you sit there for four hours, five hours, six hours sometimes, and you're putting your whole brain into it.

[00:00:59] [SPEAKER_01]: And all, like supposedly Magnus Carlsen, the best player in the world, burns 10,000 calories a day playing chess because that's how much energy the brain takes. But anyway, you're putting all this energy in and you lose for after all these hours of trying so hard, you feel like it's like a death and people cry. I've cried after losing.

[00:01:21] [SPEAKER_01]: But also, it's like the safe way to practice adversity in life. Like I've won a lot of games in my day, but I've also lost so many games. It's a great way to practice losing, feeling horrible, and then coming back the next day, having learned from it, bouncing back just as strong.

[00:01:42] [SPEAKER_01]: And I think people have realized this in our culture lately because first off, we had the TV show, The Queen's Gambit, which made chess incredibly popular throughout the world.

[00:01:55] [SPEAKER_01]: Popularity, Zoom, people started playing. And also, if you watch, I noticed this, if you watch any TV show or movie, there's always, like always the hero or the smart guy has a chess board in the background.

[00:02:08] [SPEAKER_01]: Like it's just part of our culture. There are novels about people going insane playing chess, like The Defense by Navikov or The Royal Game by Stefan Zweig or, of course, The Queen's Gambit by Walter Tevis.

[00:02:21] [SPEAKER_01]: By the way, the guy who wrote The Queen's Gambit also wrote The Hustler, which became a movie starring Paul Newman about shooting pool.

[00:02:28] [SPEAKER_01]: And he also wrote The Color of Money, which was the sequel to that, starring Paul Newman and Tom Cruise.

[00:02:33] [SPEAKER_01]: So chess is an interesting subculture. And this novelist who wrote The Queen's Gambit writes about subcultures.

[00:02:41] [SPEAKER_01]: And I could tell you the stories of that subculture are insane.

[00:02:46] [SPEAKER_01]: But also very important is chess has helped me in career.

[00:02:53] [SPEAKER_01]: Like if people hear you're a chess master, it's meaningful in some way.

[00:02:56] [SPEAKER_01]: It might not really be as meaningful as people think, but people do attribute it to some cultural significance or intelligence or whatever, whether correctly or incorrectly.

[00:03:05] [SPEAKER_01]: Helped me get into college. I would not have gotten into any college if not for my chess background.

[00:03:11] [SPEAKER_01]: Helped me get a job. I would not have gotten the job if it wasn't for the fact that the guy who hired me was a low-rated player.

[00:03:19] [SPEAKER_01]: My very first job back in 1994.

[00:03:22] [SPEAKER_01]: Anyway, a couple of years ago, it was in Norway. There's a famous tournament, Norway chess.

[00:03:28] [SPEAKER_01]: Magnus Carlsen, the best player in the world, was playing it in it.

[00:03:31] [SPEAKER_01]: And I ran into this guy, Peter Doggers, and we were just talking.

[00:03:35] [SPEAKER_01]: I said, oh, are you a chess player? And he's like, no, not really.

[00:03:38] [SPEAKER_01]: And whenever someone says that in these chess settings, it usually means they're practically a grandmaster.

[00:03:44] [SPEAKER_01]: And so I said, oh, let's play some games. And I figured I would crush him, and he crushed me.

[00:03:49] [SPEAKER_01]: So he was a very good player, and he's been a chess journalist forever, and he works for chess.com.

[00:03:55] [SPEAKER_01]: And he wrote a book, a really great book, The Chess Revolution, about all the ways in which chess has contributed to society

[00:04:03] [SPEAKER_01]: and all the intrigue and drama and stories going on in chess now and its significance in the world right now

[00:04:11] [SPEAKER_01]: and everything that's going on.

[00:04:13] [SPEAKER_01]: Why has it become so popular? Why has it taken the world by storm?

[00:04:17] [SPEAKER_01]: Why is it easier to get into college if you have a chess-playing background?

[00:04:22] [SPEAKER_01]: What's the role of computers and AI in cheating on chess?

[00:04:26] [SPEAKER_01]: How do you solve, with AI in general, how do you solve the cheating issue?

[00:04:33] [SPEAKER_01]: Again, chess has become a safe way to practice the great problems that we are facing here on Earth.

[00:04:41] [SPEAKER_01]: In any case, I talked to Peter about these issues and many more, all related to his book, The Chess Revolution,

[00:04:46] [SPEAKER_01]: which I highly recommend. If you know someone who plays chess, get them the book, or you should read the book.

[00:04:52] [SPEAKER_01]: In any case, had a great conversation with Peter about many topics, and here it is.

[00:05:01] [SPEAKER_01]: This isn't your average business podcast, and he's not your average host.

[00:05:06] [SPEAKER_01]: This is The James Altucher Show.

[00:05:18] [SPEAKER_01]: What an enjoyable book, by the way, Peter.

[00:05:21] [SPEAKER_01]: Great that you have it.

[00:05:21] [SPEAKER_01]: It's such a pleasure to read a good book about chess,

[00:05:26] [SPEAKER_01]: and where I can really relate to all the stories and things going on.

[00:05:31] [SPEAKER_01]: And it's like you basically wrote your cultural history, because chess has been such a big influence on your life,

[00:05:38] [SPEAKER_01]: as it has been for many players.

[00:05:40] [SPEAKER_01]: So anybody like that could relate to this book.

[00:05:43] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I hope so.

[00:05:44] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah, exactly.

[00:05:45] [SPEAKER_00]: And in the end, I'm covering more topics and pathways than I originally intended.

[00:05:52] [SPEAKER_00]: And then, yeah, I sort of hope that the effect of that is that it's also possibly going to have a wider audience

[00:05:58] [SPEAKER_00]: than I initially thought it would have.

[00:06:00] [SPEAKER_00]: So let's see.

[00:06:02] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I think it's going to be great, because look, the Queen's Gambit, as you point out many times in the book,

[00:06:08] [SPEAKER_01]: sort of kicked off this chess boom.

[00:06:10] [SPEAKER_01]: The Queen's Gambit combined with the pandemic, like everyone's staying at home looking for something to do.

[00:06:14] [SPEAKER_00]: And maybe book jams in the middle a little bit as well.

[00:06:17] [SPEAKER_00]: But yeah, those, yeah.

[00:06:19] [SPEAKER_01]: But then, as you pointed out too, it's a mystery.

[00:06:23] [SPEAKER_01]: In 2024, chess is more popular than even after the Queen's Gambit show appeared on the air.

[00:06:29] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, definitely.

[00:06:30] [SPEAKER_01]: And now there's going to be a movie maybe about the chess cheating scandal.

[00:06:34] [SPEAKER_01]: There's other chess TV shows coming out.

[00:06:36] [SPEAKER_01]: So chess is becoming this popular thing.

[00:06:42] [SPEAKER_01]: So your book's called The Chess Revolution.

[00:06:44] [SPEAKER_01]: What do you think is really happening underneath this?

[00:06:47] [SPEAKER_01]: What is the appeal?

[00:06:50] [SPEAKER_01]: And then I want to talk about issues like what is the nature of talent and skill?

[00:06:54] [SPEAKER_01]: Because chess is sort of like this laboratory for that, where it applies to almost every field of life.

[00:06:59] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, well, actually, this morning I was speaking to Danny Ranch.

[00:07:08] [SPEAKER_00]: Actually, I was sort of listening to him because the thing is, we're recording this from Cancun where chess.com, the biggest chess platform, has its 12th company meetup.

[00:07:20] [SPEAKER_00]: And we literally have hundreds of chess.com employees from all over the world walking around here in this Hilton resort and all kinds of sessions and talks.

[00:07:30] [SPEAKER_00]: And Danny actually predicted that 2025 might actually be the biggest year for chess after all that we have already.

[00:07:39] [SPEAKER_00]: And among the reasons are the things you mentioned is this film production where Emma Stone is involved.

[00:07:45] [SPEAKER_00]: And, well, the Drive to Survive kind of Netflix documentary about cheating that we're going to have in April, where Eric and Danny, the two big guys from chess.com, are apparently revealing more than we know so far.

[00:07:59] [SPEAKER_00]: And there's all kinds of collaborations between chess and other brands coming up.

[00:08:05] [SPEAKER_00]: So it's exciting.

[00:08:07] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[00:08:07] [SPEAKER_00]: And as to where this is coming from, I think it's become a snowball effect also that one effect is helping the other.

[00:08:18] [SPEAKER_00]: Of course, Pandemic was the first Kickstarter also, not just because people were more at home and were watching more Netflix and playing more chess,

[00:08:27] [SPEAKER_00]: but also because Magnus Carlsen, the world number one player, kind of jumped into it a month into the pandemic by immediately starting to organize these giant online events.

[00:08:38] [SPEAKER_00]: The Magnus Carlsen Tour, he called it, with all the world top players, big prize funds, decent sponsors and stuff.

[00:08:45] [SPEAKER_00]: And that really started, got the ball rolling in terms of the increase of tournaments that people can play and people can watch.

[00:08:54] [SPEAKER_00]: Combine that with, well, the whole streamer revolution, basically.

[00:08:59] [SPEAKER_00]: That's my final chapter where I'm telling about all the names, big names in chess, like Hikaru Nakamura, who became an extremely successful streamer,

[00:09:06] [SPEAKER_00]: but also the biggest of them all, Levi Rossman.

[00:09:10] [SPEAKER_00]: I also talked to him.

[00:09:11] [SPEAKER_00]: He's Gotham Chess on YouTube.

[00:09:13] [SPEAKER_00]: And I think a lot of people listening to this one will also know about Levi now.

[00:09:18] [SPEAKER_00]: He's appearing everywhere in TikTok and YouTube shorts, and he's doing so much.

[00:09:22] [SPEAKER_00]: He's already had a talk at Google, had courses.

[00:09:25] [SPEAKER_00]: So he's really being successful and really becoming this big, big influencer.

[00:09:29] [SPEAKER_00]: There's so much to mention, but it's sort of all the powers coming together at the same moment,

[00:09:37] [SPEAKER_00]: backed by this big platform that is really a company that is about growing the game.

[00:09:43] [SPEAKER_00]: And then that all combined with the enormous history that we have, the 1,500 years of cultural history.

[00:09:51] [SPEAKER_00]: So it's all happening to a game that was already super big, that was already so famous.

[00:09:57] [SPEAKER_00]: So I think that's sort of the big picture summary story of it.

[00:10:01] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, like you mentioned in one sentence in the book that over 2,000 movies feature chess in some way or other.

[00:10:10] [SPEAKER_00]: More, yeah, yeah.

[00:10:11] [SPEAKER_01]: But I think it's actually much more.

[00:10:13] [SPEAKER_01]: I would say probably 90% of the TV shows I watch, chess is at some point –

[00:10:20] [SPEAKER_01]: even if the show has nothing to do with chess –

[00:10:22] [SPEAKER_01]: at some point chess is either mentioned or there's usually a chess board in the background

[00:10:27] [SPEAKER_01]: or like the main character who's a police detective or whatever has a chess board.

[00:10:32] [SPEAKER_01]: So there's this metaphor of chess as being – this metaphor to being good at war or being smart.

[00:10:41] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, thinking ahead, of course, and thinking three steps ahead, four steps ahead, stuff like that.

[00:10:46] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, definitely.

[00:10:47] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, no, I'm giving examples of funny scenes from Friends and Seinfeld.

[00:10:52] [SPEAKER_00]: And it appears in The Wire and The Big Bang Theory.

[00:10:56] [SPEAKER_00]: And in the last season of The Crown, there was a big chess scene.

[00:11:01] [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, the biggest, biggest series of today and the biggest films have chess in it.

[00:11:07] [SPEAKER_00]: It's just incredible, really.

[00:11:10] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and I don't know if it's so incredible.

[00:11:13] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, exactly. Maybe not.

[00:11:15] [SPEAKER_01]: Right, like it's not like this is – it's not like that part is new.

[00:11:19] [SPEAKER_01]: There's always been a rich cultural history of chess.

[00:11:22] [SPEAKER_01]: It's always been associated with – correctly or incorrectly – with intelligence,

[00:11:28] [SPEAKER_01]: with metaphors to war, like you say, thinking ahead.

[00:11:32] [SPEAKER_01]: And now, one thing which is contributing to this boom, I think,

[00:11:36] [SPEAKER_01]: and I'm curious what you think about this,

[00:11:37] [SPEAKER_01]: is the amount of parents who think slash know that if their kid is good at chess,

[00:11:45] [SPEAKER_01]: they're going to get into a better college.

[00:11:47] [SPEAKER_01]: I think that's a big part of it.

[00:11:49] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, although I think that image of chess is not that new.

[00:11:54] [SPEAKER_00]: I think, I mean, when I was young, it was also already like this connection

[00:11:59] [SPEAKER_00]: with intelligence and stuff, right?

[00:12:02] [SPEAKER_00]: But at the same time, I do think we have to admit that there was also always

[00:12:07] [SPEAKER_00]: a bit of a connotation of a nerd activity.

[00:12:11] [SPEAKER_00]: I would say, when I was young, I really thought it's a game played by old men.

[00:12:17] [SPEAKER_00]: And I do think that one of the biggest changes in the last five to ten years

[00:12:22] [SPEAKER_00]: is that that image has seriously improved, partly because of the simple facts that,

[00:12:28] [SPEAKER_00]: like, for example, female participation has increased,

[00:12:32] [SPEAKER_00]: thanks to the Queen's Gambit, among other things.

[00:12:35] [SPEAKER_00]: And now this boom that was the highest in January and February 23, by the way,

[00:12:41] [SPEAKER_00]: this enormous peak, the biggest peak so far that we had,

[00:12:45] [SPEAKER_00]: we saw that the biggest age group coming to chess.com as new members.

[00:12:49] [SPEAKER_00]: And we were talking about almost nine million new registered members,

[00:12:54] [SPEAKER_00]: both in January and in February 23, which is just insane.

[00:12:58] [SPEAKER_00]: And the biggest age groups were, well, the biggest one was,

[00:13:00] [SPEAKER_00]: I believe, something like 15 to 21-year-olds.

[00:13:02] [SPEAKER_00]: And the second biggest age group was 21 to 26-year-olds.

[00:13:05] [SPEAKER_00]: So it's really a young generation, high school students even, you could say,

[00:13:13] [SPEAKER_00]: that started to embrace it.

[00:13:15] [SPEAKER_00]: And that, I think, is largely due to the connection of the internet and the streamers.

[00:13:20] [SPEAKER_00]: And it's so present in video.

[00:13:24] [SPEAKER_00]: Chess.com also, we have now this huge event of, how do I say, content team.

[00:13:32] [SPEAKER_00]: I think we have, maybe in total, if you include all the video and social media,

[00:13:36] [SPEAKER_00]: we have like 100 people working only on content, video content, article content.

[00:13:41] [SPEAKER_00]: So we are really pushing the stories around the game and the stories around the players

[00:13:47] [SPEAKER_00]: to all the channels that we can.

[00:13:50] [SPEAKER_00]: And that is also bearing fruit, I think.

[00:13:54] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:13:54] [SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, it's interesting too.

[00:13:56] [SPEAKER_01]: I think it helps.

[00:13:57] [SPEAKER_01]: Again, this is for better or for worse, but depending on who the world champion is

[00:14:01] [SPEAKER_01]: or who the strongest player in the world is, that has some influence on what's happening

[00:14:06] [SPEAKER_01]: in the chess world.

[00:14:07] [SPEAKER_01]: Like Magnus Carlsen was seen not as a nerd, like the opposite of a nerd.

[00:14:11] [SPEAKER_01]: Exactly, yeah.

[00:14:11] [SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, there's photos of him and you, playing with you like soccer or basketball,

[00:14:18] [SPEAKER_01]: whatever it was.

[00:14:19] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:14:19] [SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, then in 2010, and you mentioned this in the book, he had that modeling campaign

[00:14:24] [SPEAKER_01]: with Anne Hathaway and G-Star.

[00:14:26] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:14:27] [SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, I remember the billboards in New York City, like huge billboards of like

[00:14:34] [SPEAKER_01]: the world champion.

[00:14:36] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[00:14:36] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:14:37] [SPEAKER_01]: And that probably, I don't know if that had a huge effect, but it had some effect.

[00:14:41] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, definitely.

[00:14:43] [SPEAKER_01]: So, and then, you know, now though, I would say it's getting big, but there's this also

[00:14:49] [SPEAKER_01]: this existential question of, will it exist?

[00:14:54] [SPEAKER_01]: Because cheating, you know, I think, you know, in this last speech as championship, Danny

[00:15:02] [SPEAKER_01]: Rensch, who you just mentioned, was talking to the guy who had received the first Neuralink

[00:15:07] [SPEAKER_01]: computer.

[00:15:08] [SPEAKER_01]: Did you see those interviews?

[00:15:09] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:15:09] [SPEAKER_00]: He was a guest at the championship in Paris.

[00:15:12] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[00:15:12] [SPEAKER_01]: And, and Danny said, like, can you, you know, he basically asked, can you cheat?

[00:15:17] [SPEAKER_01]: Is it possible to cheat with this?

[00:15:19] [SPEAKER_01]: And the guy said, no, you can only kind of say what square you want it to move.

[00:15:23] [SPEAKER_01]: You can't, you can't, you don't have anything kind of telling your brain what the best move

[00:15:31] [SPEAKER_01]: is.

[00:15:31] [SPEAKER_01]: But I was thinking you probably can cheat with it technically because you don't have to

[00:15:36] [SPEAKER_01]: say, do E2 to E4.

[00:15:38] [SPEAKER_01]: Or you could say to some intermediate, you know, computer, uh, make the best move for

[00:15:45] [SPEAKER_01]: me here.

[00:15:45] [SPEAKER_01]: Right.

[00:15:46] [SPEAKER_01]: And then hand those coordinates to the, to chess.com.

[00:15:50] [SPEAKER_01]: And so what's going to happen when basically cheating becomes undetectable because everyone's

[00:15:56] [SPEAKER_01]: got a chip in their brain?

[00:15:57] [SPEAKER_01]: Mm-hmm.

[00:15:58] [SPEAKER_00]: Uh, yeah.

[00:15:59] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[00:15:59] [SPEAKER_00]: Well, I, my, if we talk about the technology, technological possibilities for cheating,

[00:16:05] [SPEAKER_00]: I always believe in the end, everything will be possible.

[00:16:07] [SPEAKER_00]: So in the next iteration of the software that they're using, I'm sure if they want to program

[00:16:12] [SPEAKER_00]: something into it, they can.

[00:16:14] [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, this is simply how the world works.

[00:16:16] [SPEAKER_00]: Right.

[00:16:16] [SPEAKER_00]: Um, but I also want to say that, uh, although cheating is a very big topic still, I like,

[00:16:22] [SPEAKER_00]: and we're now talking about more than a year after the Carlson Neiman scandal and lawsuit

[00:16:27] [SPEAKER_00]: was basically, uh, ended because the, the parties agreed to move on and, uh, and, uh, and the

[00:16:33] [SPEAKER_00]: lawsuit was ended and, uh, uh, they may, they came to an agreement and now they're, they're,

[00:16:37] [SPEAKER_00]: they're playing again.

[00:16:38] [SPEAKER_00]: And, uh, Magnus and even Hans, they played against each other in Paris, but it's mostly

[00:16:44] [SPEAKER_00]: because of, uh, of our, uh, 14th world champion, Valimie Kramnik, uh, that the topic continues

[00:16:50] [SPEAKER_00]: to be, uh, discussed, uh, on a daily basis in the chess world because he believes that

[00:16:55] [SPEAKER_00]: so many people are cheating and, uh, he tries to, to sort of demonstrate that and, and prove

[00:17:01] [SPEAKER_00]: his point.

[00:17:02] [SPEAKER_00]: And, um, by now it's becoming a bit ridiculous, to be honest, uh, the, the, the,

[00:17:09] [SPEAKER_00]: yeah, the passion with which he, which he defends, uh, uh, statements that are clear,

[00:17:14] [SPEAKER_00]: clearly not, uh, not true.

[00:17:15] [SPEAKER_00]: Uh, he, for example, he claimed that just a calm has fired half of their anti-cheating

[00:17:19] [SPEAKER_00]: department, uh, personnel, which is, which is totally made up, totally made up stuff

[00:17:25] [SPEAKER_00]: like that.

[00:17:25] [SPEAKER_00]: So he, he's really getting into a territory where, where it's getting dubious.

[00:17:29] [SPEAKER_00]: But what I want to say is that the cheating problem is exists and definitely exists in chess

[00:17:34] [SPEAKER_00]: and we are fighting against it.

[00:17:36] [SPEAKER_00]: And also we will never be able to prevent a hundred percent of the cheaters, but because

[00:17:42] [SPEAKER_00]: of the technology and because it's just, we can catch a lot of them.

[00:17:45] [SPEAKER_00]: And actually one of my colleagues told me here that we have on the, on the brink of, uh, uh,

[00:17:52] [SPEAKER_00]: improving our algorithm for catching cheaters, like by threefold, there's this new software,

[00:17:58] [SPEAKER_00]: uh, that he partly with others has developed and it's apparently insanely good.

[00:18:01] [SPEAKER_00]: So we are going to get even better in catching the cheaters, but we're not going to get to

[00:18:05] [SPEAKER_00]: a hundred percent for sure.

[00:18:07] [SPEAKER_00]: Um, but let's compare it to other, other sports and then ask the question, is it really that

[00:18:13] [SPEAKER_00]: bad?

[00:18:13] [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, we know, uh, the steroids in, uh, in American sports, we know the stories of, uh,

[00:18:19] [SPEAKER_00]: the times of Lance Armstrong, uh, and cycling when basically everybody, everybody was taking

[00:18:23] [SPEAKER_00]: drugs.

[00:18:24] [SPEAKER_00]: There are other examples, uh, where we know that it's sort of common for, for, for a lot

[00:18:30] [SPEAKER_00]: of top athletes to, to actually take something, uh, either in the past or maybe still at the

[00:18:35] [SPEAKER_00]: moment.

[00:18:35] [SPEAKER_00]: And I think for chess, it's even, it's actually not that bad.

[00:18:39] [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I really do believe that if you look at the absolute top events where the top 10

[00:18:43] [SPEAKER_00]: or top 20 players are playing, I'm, I'm pretty sure that most of the, of them, and then maybe

[00:18:48] [SPEAKER_00]: just everybody, every one of them is, is, uh, is absolutely clean.

[00:18:52] [SPEAKER_00]: I don't think any cheating is taking place.

[00:18:53] [SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, it's like almost impossible to cheat.

[00:18:57] [SPEAKER_01]: So, and also like, what's the, there's really no fun.

[00:19:01] [SPEAKER_01]: Even like, even if you were cheating online, there's really no fun to it because what are

[00:19:06] [SPEAKER_01]: you proving?

[00:19:06] [SPEAKER_01]: Like, you're just like this anonymous nameless person doing well at a stupid, you know, an

[00:19:12] [SPEAKER_01]: online game.

[00:19:13] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm not going to say a stupid game.

[00:19:14] [SPEAKER_00]: But you know, you know, as well as I do that there's always this percentage of people for

[00:19:18] [SPEAKER_00]: whom the, the thrill of, of, of winning a game is, is, is going to beat their, uh, their

[00:19:25] [SPEAKER_00]: conscience.

[00:19:26] [SPEAKER_00]: And, and some of them are, are willing to do it with any means possible.

[00:19:29] [SPEAKER_00]: They just like to have, and it's partly because of the ratings also, they want to just want

[00:19:33] [SPEAKER_00]: to increase their rating and all for whatever reason, but there will always be people doing

[00:19:36] [SPEAKER_00]: it.

[00:19:41] [SPEAKER_01]: Take a quick break.

[00:19:42] [SPEAKER_01]: If you like this episode, I'd really, really appreciate it.

[00:19:45] [SPEAKER_01]: It means so much to me.

[00:19:46] [SPEAKER_01]: Please share it with your friends and subscribe to the podcast.

[00:19:49] [SPEAKER_01]: Email me at Alcatra at gmail.com and tell me why you subscribed.

[00:19:54] [SPEAKER_01]: Thanks.

[00:20:04] [SPEAKER_01]: So rating system is how chess and other sports actually have used the same rating system,

[00:20:10] [SPEAKER_01]: like ping pong table tennis uses the same rating system.

[00:20:14] [SPEAKER_01]: Uh, and basically it statistically determines which chess players, at least right now, based

[00:20:20] [SPEAKER_01]: on their recent performance are better than other players.

[00:20:23] [SPEAKER_01]: And it creates this enormous psychological hierarchy.

[00:20:29] [SPEAKER_01]: Like, even though it really doesn't mean anything, like it won't affect your employment.

[00:20:33] [SPEAKER_01]: It won't affect your, it won't, unless you're like a top 10 or top hundred in the world chess

[00:20:39] [SPEAKER_01]: player, it doesn't really affect anything in your life.

[00:20:41] [SPEAKER_01]: And yet people are addicted to this.

[00:20:45] [SPEAKER_01]: Like they, they go insane.

[00:20:46] [SPEAKER_01]: Like we just saw this in the U S championship.

[00:20:49] [SPEAKER_01]: Some player was just so frustrated at a loss.

[00:20:52] [SPEAKER_01]: But let's just say police got involved.

[00:20:54] [SPEAKER_01]: I won't say anything more about it, but, um, what, what makes it so personal?

[00:20:59] [SPEAKER_01]: Uh, a game of chess.

[00:21:02] [SPEAKER_01]: Like when you lose a, a particularly a game of tournament chess, it feels really personal.

[00:21:06] [SPEAKER_01]: You feel in pain and physical pain.

[00:21:08] [SPEAKER_00]: I know, I know.

[00:21:08] [SPEAKER_00]: And we, and all, all players who have been active in, in, in tournament play know this,

[00:21:14] [SPEAKER_00]: this saying that no matter how nice a game you played, the, um, the emotion you will get

[00:21:22] [SPEAKER_00]: from a win will never be as strong as the emotion you will get from a loss.

[00:21:26] [SPEAKER_00]: The loss will always, let's go, your, your, your, your neutral emotions are zero.

[00:21:32] [SPEAKER_00]: The best win you can get is maybe 10, but the worst loss you, you get will be minus 30.

[00:21:38] [SPEAKER_00]: It will be so much stronger, the effect on you, uh, when you lose a game and particularly

[00:21:42] [SPEAKER_00]: the way you lose it, of course, the games where you outplay a stronger player and you,

[00:21:47] [SPEAKER_00]: you, you, you had this great day and you only have to win one more move and it's over.

[00:21:52] [SPEAKER_00]: And then you blunder your, your, your queen.

[00:21:53] [SPEAKER_00]: And, and, and you realize that chess is just this horrible, brutal game.

[00:21:58] [SPEAKER_00]: And, and you're starting to think, why do I even play this?

[00:22:00] [SPEAKER_00]: And it's just too brutal.

[00:22:02] [SPEAKER_00]: It's in football.

[00:22:04] [SPEAKER_00]: You can be, be eight, zero up in soccer.

[00:22:06] [SPEAKER_00]: And, and there's no way in the last minute, the other team can score 10 goals and you know,

[00:22:11] [SPEAKER_00]: you're going to win that game.

[00:22:12] [SPEAKER_00]: It just, this can happen.

[00:22:13] [SPEAKER_00]: You can be eight, zero up.

[00:22:15] [SPEAKER_00]: And one minute later, you're, you're basically eight, nine down and you lose the game.

[00:22:19] [SPEAKER_01]: And yeah, it's painful.

[00:22:20] [SPEAKER_01]: And yet that's part of what is addictive.

[00:22:23] [SPEAKER_01]: Like, uh, and you describe this in the book, like you could say, okay, I'm going to play

[00:22:27] [SPEAKER_01]: one more game online tonight.

[00:22:28] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm just, my rating is 1998.

[00:22:30] [SPEAKER_01]: I just want to get over 2000 and, uh, I'll play one more game and clinch it and then go

[00:22:35] [SPEAKER_01]: to sleep.

[00:22:36] [SPEAKER_01]: And then seven hours later, you're at like, as you, the exact number you put, you're,

[00:22:40] [SPEAKER_01]: you're, you're at night, 1911, you never made it to 2000 and you're upset and crying

[00:22:46] [SPEAKER_01]: and whatever.

[00:22:47] [SPEAKER_01]: But, but yet it is like strangely more addictive than any other game I've ever played.

[00:22:54] [SPEAKER_01]: You know, maybe poker comes close.

[00:22:56] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[00:22:56] [SPEAKER_00]: And of course the, the, I think the rating is one of the most important parts of that.

[00:23:00] [SPEAKER_00]: If the rating system wouldn't exist, I think it would be a totally different story.

[00:23:04] [SPEAKER_00]: But, but, and, and also it's a, it's a really twisted way that we, we approach this, this

[00:23:10] [SPEAKER_00]: rating because I mean, it, it, uh, it doesn't really make sense.

[00:23:14] [SPEAKER_00]: For example, I'm also describing that Magnus, uh, had 2882, uh, twice in his career.

[00:23:19] [SPEAKER_00]: And for a while he changed 2900.

[00:23:21] [SPEAKER_00]: It's just 18, 18 points on a scale.

[00:23:24] [SPEAKER_00]: And it's just, it doesn't mean anything basically to have this round number.

[00:23:29] [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, myself, my highest rating ever was 2292 and I'm annoyed that I never reached

[00:23:33] [SPEAKER_00]: 2300, but it's just a, what is the difference?

[00:23:36] [SPEAKER_00]: Right.

[00:23:37] [SPEAKER_00]: And, and, and in fact, the whole rating system, uh, which was devised by a Hungarian American,

[00:23:43] [SPEAKER_00]: uh, professor Arpat Ilo, it, it was basically only intended to actually compare contemporary

[00:23:51] [SPEAKER_00]: players of the same era with each other.

[00:23:53] [SPEAKER_00]: So it's mostly a comparison tool, not a, not a tool for actually telling someone who,

[00:23:58] [SPEAKER_00]: uh, what, what the strength is.

[00:24:00] [SPEAKER_00]: I have this great, uh, quote from him, uh, this, this, uh, founder or inventor of the

[00:24:06] [SPEAKER_00]: system.

[00:24:06] [SPEAKER_00]: And already in, in 1962, he, he wrote that the calculations of the rating system system

[00:24:12] [SPEAKER_00]: should be compared to the measurement of the position of a cork bobbing up and down

[00:24:17] [SPEAKER_00]: on the surface of agitated water with a yardstick tied to a rope and which is swaying

[00:24:22] [SPEAKER_00]: in the wind.

[00:24:24] [SPEAKER_01]: So that's saying something about people use it as a goal, as a, as like life goal.

[00:24:29] [SPEAKER_01]: People say, I'm going to quit when I'm, you know, 2400 or 2300.

[00:24:34] [SPEAKER_01]: No, but it's the same.

[00:24:35] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:24:35] [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I'm, I'm, I'm running, I'm now running a lot these days and it's the same thing.

[00:24:41] [SPEAKER_00]: People want to finish it under three hours, under three, three and a half or under four

[00:24:44] [SPEAKER_00]: hours.

[00:24:45] [SPEAKER_00]: Those are the, those are the marks, right?

[00:24:47] [SPEAKER_00]: You, nobody cares if you're, you're, if you're running in 401 or 403.

[00:24:51] [SPEAKER_00]: No, it's important that you get it in 359, but it's such a small difference.

[00:24:56] [SPEAKER_01]: And yet, I don't know if the addiction really is that connected to, I mean, now thinking

[00:25:01] [SPEAKER_01]: about like, think about like a player, like not a player, but like the, the artist Marcel

[00:25:05] [SPEAKER_01]: Duchamp.

[00:25:06] [SPEAKER_01]: So famous artist was already had like this amazing career as an artist.

[00:25:09] [SPEAKER_01]: And then he basically stopped doing art for like, I don't know, 30 years just to play

[00:25:15] [SPEAKER_01]: chess.

[00:25:16] [SPEAKER_01]: Like, yeah, that's true actually.

[00:25:17] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[00:25:18] [SPEAKER_00]: You're, you're basically saying the addiction definitely existed before the ELO system existed,

[00:25:23] [SPEAKER_00]: right?

[00:25:24] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:25:25] [SPEAKER_01]: Although I know the, the, the rating system, the ELO system pumps it up a little bit because

[00:25:31] [SPEAKER_01]: I will sit there aiming for like a certain ELO.

[00:25:35] [SPEAKER_01]: But, uh, you know, and, and again, it's all these people like, like Duchamp that gave

[00:25:41] [SPEAKER_01]: up an entire career.

[00:25:42] [SPEAKER_01]: Many people have given, I've known, I've known many people, particularly in New York city,

[00:25:45] [SPEAKER_01]: like homeless people who have given up their lives just to play this game.

[00:25:50] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, no, I think it's, it's definitely also partly, uh, the intrinsic, uh, uh, components

[00:25:56] [SPEAKER_00]: of the game itself.

[00:25:57] [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, uh, as I, as I describe it in the book, uh, a lot of people have, have, have different

[00:26:04] [SPEAKER_00]: meanings and different feelings for the game.

[00:26:06] [SPEAKER_00]: But for me personally, I always saw it as a kind of a story.

[00:26:11] [SPEAKER_00]: Uh, every, when you have this beautiful starting, the starting position, by the way, is one

[00:26:15] [SPEAKER_00]: of the most beautiful positions of chess because you really see these two, uh, two armies sort

[00:26:21] [SPEAKER_00]: of, uh, waiting for each other to, to, to approach each other again.

[00:26:24] [SPEAKER_00]: They're really sort of always ready to, to, to make a new fight.

[00:26:28] [SPEAKER_00]: And for me, it's making a new story.

[00:26:31] [SPEAKER_00]: They are ready to create a new story.

[00:26:33] [SPEAKER_00]: And we have like this two authors playing, uh, one color each, and they're sort of co-creating

[00:26:39] [SPEAKER_00]: this new, uh, story that will emerge on the board.

[00:26:42] [SPEAKER_00]: And they have no idea where it will be going, but they know that they have created earlier

[00:26:46] [SPEAKER_00]: stories and some of them were absolutely brilliant and beautiful.

[00:26:50] [SPEAKER_00]: And so it's also always this excitement.

[00:26:52] [SPEAKER_00]: Okay.

[00:26:53] [SPEAKER_00]: We're starting a new game and where this, where will it bring us this time?

[00:26:56] [SPEAKER_00]: Right.

[00:26:57] [SPEAKER_00]: So, and, and, and yeah, it's basically, yeah, you're, you're, you're finishing a game

[00:27:01] [SPEAKER_00]: and you just, you, you do set up the position, the starting position once again, and you immediately

[00:27:05] [SPEAKER_00]: have this, this urge to try again, basically.

[00:27:08] [SPEAKER_00]: Where will it bring us this time?

[00:27:09] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[00:27:11] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's true.

[00:27:12] [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, and no matter how horribly I might feel over the last game I had played, like if

[00:27:16] [SPEAKER_01]: it, let's say it didn't go well, I'm always excited when I sit down for that new

[00:27:20] [SPEAKER_01]: game.

[00:27:20] [SPEAKER_01]: Like it's always a fresh start and it's, and it's like ready to go.

[00:27:24] [SPEAKER_01]: So let me ask you this.

[00:27:25] [SPEAKER_01]: And you're, you've been in the chess world for decades.

[00:27:30] [SPEAKER_00]: Are chess players...

[00:27:30] [SPEAKER_00]: Close to two decades.

[00:27:31] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:27:32] [SPEAKER_01]: Two decades.

[00:27:33] [SPEAKER_01]: But you were a player since you were a kid.

[00:27:34] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, true, true.

[00:27:36] [SPEAKER_01]: Are chess players smart?

[00:27:38] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[00:27:39] [SPEAKER_00]: That's, that's what we talk about, what I talk about in the third chapter, which is

[00:27:44] [SPEAKER_00]: all about science and chess.

[00:27:45] [SPEAKER_00]: And well, I think, yeah, I think in, on average, they are a bit smarter than let's say the

[00:27:52] [SPEAKER_00]: general population.

[00:27:53] [SPEAKER_00]: But of course, the main question is, was it chess that made them smart?

[00:27:58] [SPEAKER_00]: Or is, is people, are people with a higher IQ somehow a little bit more attracted to

[00:28:04] [SPEAKER_00]: the game?

[00:28:04] [SPEAKER_00]: And so there is a bigger chance they will actually pick chess up and therefore they will be,

[00:28:08] [SPEAKER_00]: there will be better represented in the population of chess players.

[00:28:11] [SPEAKER_00]: I think it's the latter, to be honest.

[00:28:14] [SPEAKER_00]: But at the same time, there are some benefits of the game and that will indirectly help them

[00:28:23] [SPEAKER_00]: to, to probably use their, their intelligence well as also, I think, because, well, I guess,

[00:28:29] [SPEAKER_00]: if you're young, a very clear example, I think is, it kind of teaches you to be, to be more

[00:28:37] [SPEAKER_00]: patient, to not make these spontaneous decisions without thinking.

[00:28:43] [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I, I'm teaching my own nephew who is 11 now.

[00:28:48] [SPEAKER_00]: I'm teaching him chess and it's still, we're, we're now playing chess for one and a half years

[00:28:53] [SPEAKER_00]: and still, whenever I'm telling, giving him a puzzle, he immediately wants to give the answer.

[00:28:58] [SPEAKER_00]: And now he's sort of slowly learning that it actually makes sense to try to be a bit quiet

[00:29:05] [SPEAKER_00]: and then think about the position first and then come on.

[00:29:08] [SPEAKER_00]: And that is, of course, some value that is useful for, for every life.

[00:29:12] [SPEAKER_00]: And chess, we call it sitting on your hands.

[00:29:14] [SPEAKER_00]: So you sort of, it will make yourself, it will make it harder to actually make a move on the

[00:29:19] [SPEAKER_00]: board because it will take time to get your hands out of your, your, under your legs.

[00:29:23] [SPEAKER_00]: Right.

[00:29:23] [SPEAKER_00]: And, uh, yeah, so you're building this, this, your, your appreciation of being patient and

[00:29:29] [SPEAKER_00]: being thoughtful.

[00:29:30] [SPEAKER_00]: Um, and that's, that can only help, uh, uh, in other aspects, I think.

[00:29:36] [SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, also there's, it's hard to get good at chess and this is all relative.

[00:29:43] [SPEAKER_01]: Like no matter what your starting point is, it takes work to get better.

[00:29:49] [SPEAKER_01]: And, and it's, it's not like getting, okay, you're a runner.

[00:29:54] [SPEAKER_01]: It would be impossible for me essentially to start starting from where I am now to run

[00:29:59] [SPEAKER_01]: a marathon anytime soon.

[00:30:00] [SPEAKER_01]: But with chess is something anybody can sort of starting from scratch can get better enough

[00:30:07] [SPEAKER_01]: that they feel good about their progress.

[00:30:09] [SPEAKER_01]: They could notice their progress, but it does take actual work.

[00:30:12] [SPEAKER_01]: And you learn that skill of getting better at something like that meta skill of getting

[00:30:17] [SPEAKER_01]: better at something by sticking to a domain like chess, which is a very, you know, concrete

[00:30:22] [SPEAKER_01]: domain.

[00:30:23] [SPEAKER_01]: It's, it's, as you mentioned in the book, it's a game of perfect information.

[00:30:26] [SPEAKER_01]: You could study different aspects of the game and you could see your progress by measuring

[00:30:31] [SPEAKER_01]: very quickly whether you're winning or losing.

[00:30:34] [SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, one thing I always wonder, and I'm, I'm wondering it now because I'm going

[00:30:38] [SPEAKER_01]: through this, how does one get better?

[00:30:41] [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I think people don't really know the answer, even though we all have worked at it.

[00:30:48] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[00:30:48] [SPEAKER_00]: Well, my, my answer is the best way to get better at chess is to have this intrinsic, deep

[00:30:58] [SPEAKER_00]: love for the game.

[00:31:00] [SPEAKER_00]: And that, that, because that basically means that you're automatically going to spend a

[00:31:04] [SPEAKER_00]: lot of time on it.

[00:31:06] [SPEAKER_00]: And that, and that's the start you need.

[00:31:08] [SPEAKER_00]: You really need that.

[00:31:09] [SPEAKER_00]: And what, what, what, the, the, the, what's so, what is both beautiful and interesting and

[00:31:18] [SPEAKER_00]: also a bit of a downside of the game of chess is that I've always felt that when you start

[00:31:25] [SPEAKER_00]: on it, when you're an absolute beginner and you learn the rules and you start making the

[00:31:29] [SPEAKER_00]: first tricks, maybe the game is not that great yet.

[00:31:33] [SPEAKER_00]: It's, it feels a little bit like, yeah.

[00:31:37] [SPEAKER_00]: Why is everybody so crazy about this?

[00:31:38] [SPEAKER_00]: It's not that great right now.

[00:31:40] [SPEAKER_00]: But then if you are somehow able to go further than a certain step, certain threshold, simply

[00:31:49] [SPEAKER_00]: because you do kind of like it or a friend urges you to play a lot, or you've got this

[00:31:55] [SPEAKER_00]: brilliant book from the library or from the bookstore and you just absolutely loved it and

[00:31:59] [SPEAKER_00]: you finish it all the way through.

[00:32:01] [SPEAKER_00]: And you somehow managed to, to, to keep learning for a couple of months and you actually get

[00:32:05] [SPEAKER_00]: to a slightly higher level.

[00:32:07] [SPEAKER_00]: You realize that the game becomes richer.

[00:32:09] [SPEAKER_00]: The game immediately becomes a bit bigger than you thought.

[00:32:11] [SPEAKER_00]: And that, that is a process that will continue in, in, for a couple of years.

[00:32:17] [SPEAKER_00]: For a couple of years, you're playing this game and, and it's sort of growing because it's,

[00:32:22] [SPEAKER_00]: yeah, there's this famous exponential thing to it, of course, with another possibility,

[00:32:27] [SPEAKER_00]: the number of possible chess games to be played being bigger than the number of atoms in

[00:32:31] [SPEAKER_00]: the universe.

[00:32:33] [SPEAKER_00]: That is, you're learning.

[00:32:35] [SPEAKER_00]: There are so many things that can be enjoyed.

[00:32:37] [SPEAKER_00]: There's so many beautiful themes and tricks and ways of winning.

[00:32:41] [SPEAKER_00]: Just like other sports, you can win in an aggressive way.

[00:32:44] [SPEAKER_00]: You can win beautifully by defending beautifully.

[00:32:47] [SPEAKER_00]: You can be, be artful.

[00:32:49] [SPEAKER_00]: Like, like, like Michael Tall was playing with, with lots of sacrifices.

[00:32:52] [SPEAKER_00]: You can be super beautifully positional, like Petrosian and Carp were doing.

[00:32:57] [SPEAKER_00]: So there's all these styles, like you also have in other sports where you can play.

[00:33:01] [SPEAKER_00]: Well, they used to, in tennis, we used to have, what is it called?

[00:33:08] [SPEAKER_00]: Baseline play, but there was also service folly.

[00:33:11] [SPEAKER_00]: Doesn't really exist that much anymore.

[00:33:13] [SPEAKER_00]: But, and in football, you have the catonaccio from the Italians and you have the attacking

[00:33:17] [SPEAKER_00]: play for my own country, total football, you know?

[00:33:20] [SPEAKER_00]: So, all these things are also happening in chess and the better you get at it, the more

[00:33:25] [SPEAKER_00]: you will discover.

[00:33:26] [SPEAKER_00]: And then, and that's why I think a lot of players, a lot of people, there's still a lot of potential

[00:33:31] [SPEAKER_00]: for this game to grow also.

[00:33:32] [SPEAKER_00]: Because if more people sort of become a bit better, they will all sort of make all these

[00:33:38] [SPEAKER_00]: new discoveries.

[00:33:39] [SPEAKER_00]: And only then, yeah, will they sort of realize how, how, how beautiful this game is.

[00:33:46] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, what did you do as you were getting better to kind of, what do you think was the biggest

[00:33:53] [SPEAKER_01]: sort of aspect that you studied or learned that, that increased your strength?

[00:34:00] [SPEAKER_00]: Um, I think it was sort of two things.

[00:34:02] [SPEAKER_00]: Uh, by the way, we're talking about early nineties.

[00:34:05] [SPEAKER_00]: So it was sort of just, just before computer influence and internet influence started changing.

[00:34:10] [SPEAKER_00]: For me, it was late eighties.

[00:34:11] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[00:34:11] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[00:34:12] [SPEAKER_00]: But it was a similar age, I think, because basically the internet just started in like

[00:34:16] [SPEAKER_00]: 93, 94 only, or ICC is from, uh, from 95.

[00:34:20] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[00:34:20] [SPEAKER_00]: Uh, by the way, you, you have a great quote about ICC, but we can get to it later.

[00:34:25] [SPEAKER_00]: I saw it.

[00:34:26] [SPEAKER_01]: Uh, thank you very much.

[00:34:27] [SPEAKER_01]: No, ICC started, cause I had already left Pittsburgh in 94.

[00:34:31] [SPEAKER_01]: ICC was around in like 92.

[00:34:33] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[00:34:34] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[00:34:35] [SPEAKER_00]: Uh, it was still ICS, the internet chess server.

[00:34:38] [SPEAKER_00]: Oh yeah.

[00:34:38] [SPEAKER_00]: And it became ICC in like 95.

[00:34:40] [SPEAKER_00]: Anyway, it doesn't really matter.

[00:34:41] [SPEAKER_00]: We're talking about early nineties and, uh, but anyway, for me, I think it was a combination

[00:34:46] [SPEAKER_00]: of two things.

[00:34:47] [SPEAKER_00]: I, I got, uh, a bunch of books from the library and I, I like that.

[00:34:54] [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, it helps when you actually like to go through books that are about chess and

[00:34:58] [SPEAKER_00]: you like to actually put the positions on your own chess set and you like to read and

[00:35:01] [SPEAKER_00]: check the annotations.

[00:35:02] [SPEAKER_00]: Are you, when you are enjoying that and you can read book after book, that seriously helps

[00:35:06] [SPEAKER_00]: in getting better at chess.

[00:35:08] [SPEAKER_00]: There's a lot of people who simply are not a big fan of doing that.

[00:35:11] [SPEAKER_00]: They just want to play games and, uh, yeah, and that's it.

[00:35:15] [SPEAKER_00]: And that also works.

[00:35:16] [SPEAKER_00]: Uh, you can also get very good by playing a lot of chess games.

[00:35:18] [SPEAKER_00]: Uh, but for me, it was, uh, this, uh, this, uh, love for going through books.

[00:35:25] [SPEAKER_00]: And also from the very early start, uh, I was introduced to Bobby Fischer and his, his,

[00:35:32] [SPEAKER_00]: well, not to him personally, but to, to his story, his incredible story of him being a

[00:35:36] [SPEAKER_00]: prodigy and becoming a grandmaster in, uh, 15 years old in the, in the sixties and late

[00:35:42] [SPEAKER_00]: fifties and, uh, yeah, beating, beating all the Soviets of course, and his famous match

[00:35:46] [SPEAKER_00]: in 72.

[00:35:47] [SPEAKER_00]: And, and I actually, uh, watched his games with Spassky in 92 because 20 years later they

[00:35:55] [SPEAKER_00]: had this, uh, rematch and, um, it was right before the internet sort of started in, in,

[00:36:00] [SPEAKER_00]: in the Netherlands, but we had the games on, uh, teletext on the television.

[00:36:05] [SPEAKER_00]: Uh, the British called it CFAX.

[00:36:07] [SPEAKER_00]: Uh, we, we call it teletext by the way, in Holland, it's still quite popular.

[00:36:11] [SPEAKER_00]: Uh, it sort of disappeared in almost every country, but in the Netherlands, we still use

[00:36:14] [SPEAKER_00]: teletext a lot and the moves were coming in.

[00:36:17] [SPEAKER_00]: They were playing in, uh, Sveti Stefan and in Belgrade.

[00:36:19] [SPEAKER_00]: And it was amazing.

[00:36:20] [SPEAKER_00]: Bobby Fischer was on the board again.

[00:36:22] [SPEAKER_00]: Uh, it was a huge, it was worldwide news.

[00:36:25] [SPEAKER_00]: And, uh, and the, and the games were, the moves were coming in live through teletext.

[00:36:29] [SPEAKER_00]: And I had this chess set, uh, uh, uh, in the living room and I was literally following

[00:36:34] [SPEAKER_00]: the game and looking at it.

[00:36:36] [SPEAKER_00]: And that also helped it.

[00:36:37] [SPEAKER_00]: So it helps.

[00:36:38] [SPEAKER_00]: My point is it helps when you have, um, someone to look up to, uh, you have, uh, a hero that

[00:36:44] [SPEAKER_00]: you really like, and you can study his games.

[00:36:46] [SPEAKER_00]: I have had this book with, with all his 700 and what was it?

[00:36:50] [SPEAKER_00]: 750 games all in one book.

[00:36:52] [SPEAKER_00]: So I played through almost all of them.

[00:36:54] [SPEAKER_00]: And, uh, so that's the second thing I believe that I had this, this guy I looked up to and

[00:36:59] [SPEAKER_00]: I wanted to be like him and I wanted to, I started playing his chess openings for, with

[00:37:03] [SPEAKER_00]: white and with black.

[00:37:03] [SPEAKER_00]: Like I was started copying what he was doing and, and I wanted to play in his style.

[00:37:07] [SPEAKER_00]: And it also, it really helps if you have someone like that also.

[00:37:26] [SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, it's interesting also, like speaking of Bobby Fischer, who contributed so

[00:37:31] [SPEAKER_01]: much to chess being popular in the U S particularly in the seventies, there's so much drama in

[00:37:37] [SPEAKER_01]: chess.

[00:37:38] [SPEAKER_01]: Like, again, we've recently seen it with the Magnus Carlsen and Hans Niemann cheating

[00:37:44] [SPEAKER_01]: stuff, but that's minimal compared to like, like Bobby Fischer versus Spassi.

[00:37:48] [SPEAKER_01]: It was like the West versus, you know, the Soviets.

[00:37:52] [SPEAKER_01]: And, and then Fischer was like already very eccentric at that time in 1972.

[00:37:58] [SPEAKER_01]: And, and, and, you know, Henry Kissinger, the secretary of state had to call Bobby Fischer and beg him to play.

[00:38:06] [SPEAKER_01]: And then he forfeited, then he lost the first game, forfeited the second game was unclear.

[00:38:11] [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, there was so much drama and then the drama didn't stop.

[00:38:14] [SPEAKER_01]: Like, as you point out, like Kortchnoi Karpov in the Philippines, a few years later, huge drama.

[00:38:20] [SPEAKER_01]: It became the basis, maybe, you know, some of the basis for the, the, the, the theater show

[00:38:26] [SPEAKER_01]: chess that, that Tim Rice did.

[00:38:28] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:38:28] [SPEAKER_01]: And then Karpov Kasparov, like, and, and how Kasparov like did all these draws to avoid losing

[00:38:37] [SPEAKER_01]: the match.

[00:38:38] [SPEAKER_01]: It was maybe the longest match ever.

[00:38:39] [SPEAKER_01]: And then the game, the match was canceled when Karpov started to break.

[00:38:43] [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, every kind of sort of decade or, or set of years, there's another huge dramatic

[00:38:51] [SPEAKER_01]: story.

[00:38:52] [SPEAKER_01]: That's like a thriller.

[00:38:53] [SPEAKER_01]: Definitely.

[00:38:53] [SPEAKER_01]: Somehow chess lends itself to these personalities and these, these dramas that I feel like other

[00:38:58] [SPEAKER_01]: sports don't really have.

[00:39:00] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:39:01] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:39:01] [SPEAKER_00]: It's true.

[00:39:02] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[00:39:02] [SPEAKER_00]: And, um, I think partly this is because of the same things we were talking about.

[00:39:08] [SPEAKER_00]: Uh, it is in the end, it is a game that, that just everybody knows because it is, it is

[00:39:14] [SPEAKER_00]: everywhere.

[00:39:14] [SPEAKER_00]: Actually, I, I don't write it in this book, but I, I see it as a bit of a paradox because

[00:39:20] [SPEAKER_00]: it is, it is a niche, but it's at the same time, it's mainstream.

[00:39:23] [SPEAKER_00]: So it's the most mainstream niche that we have in our culture, sort of.

[00:39:27] [SPEAKER_00]: Right.

[00:39:27] [SPEAKER_00]: And, uh.

[00:39:28] [SPEAKER_01]: 600 million people play it.

[00:39:30] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, yeah.

[00:39:30] [SPEAKER_00]: I think more.

[00:39:31] [SPEAKER_00]: I think more these days.

[00:39:32] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[00:39:33] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:39:33] [SPEAKER_01]: So let's say a billion people play it and, and yeah, like you say, it's, it's, it's considered

[00:39:39] [SPEAKER_01]: this odd thing if you're really good at it.

[00:39:42] [SPEAKER_00]: A little bit odd maybe.

[00:39:44] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[00:39:44] [SPEAKER_00]: But, um, no, but let's, let's put it this way.

[00:39:47] [SPEAKER_00]: Uh, I think in 72 when it was, was, was the West versus East and Nixon was involved and,

[00:39:54] [SPEAKER_00]: and, and, uh, Nixon invited Fisher to the white house after he won and all that.

[00:39:59] [SPEAKER_00]: But the thing is, it was, it was the cold war and, and it was also, what is it?

[00:40:05] [SPEAKER_00]: 10 years after the Cuba crisis, a missile crisis.

[00:40:09] [SPEAKER_00]: And, and it was still this feeling of a nuclear arms race.

[00:40:13] [SPEAKER_00]: And, uh, will this, will this lead to world war three?

[00:40:15] [SPEAKER_00]: That, that was always, I believe a little bit in the background, uh, of people's minds.

[00:40:20] [SPEAKER_00]: And suddenly you have this two guys from representing the two sides playing a game that is in fact

[00:40:27] [SPEAKER_00]: from its origin, two armies opposing each other and, and getting into a battle.

[00:40:33] [SPEAKER_00]: And then the next day again, and the next day again.

[00:40:35] [SPEAKER_00]: So it is this perfect metaphor for everything that is related to, uh, yeah, the, the human

[00:40:41] [SPEAKER_00]: clash and, and, and, and, uh, the, the, the possible war, uh, between, uh, between countries

[00:40:46] [SPEAKER_00]: and stuff.

[00:40:47] [SPEAKER_00]: So I think that played a very large role as well there.

[00:40:50] [SPEAKER_00]: Um, but then the personalities, yeah, the personalities, yeah, exactly.

[00:40:54] [SPEAKER_00]: The personalities were, were, were very, uh, important as well.

[00:40:58] [SPEAKER_00]: And the funny thing is, uh, as I actually also spoke to Tim Rice, as you mentioned, uh,

[00:41:05] [SPEAKER_00]: behind, uh, behind the musical chess and he, uh, he went into, to, to watching this, this

[00:41:12] [SPEAKER_00]: match and thinking about it, like, well, the West are the good guys.

[00:41:15] [SPEAKER_00]: Right.

[00:41:15] [SPEAKER_00]: And then, and the commies are the ones we're fighting.

[00:41:18] [SPEAKER_00]: Right.

[00:41:18] [SPEAKER_00]: And then it turned out that Fisher was actually a very problematic person.

[00:41:21] [SPEAKER_00]: And maybe you could say, maybe not a very nice person actually.

[00:41:25] [SPEAKER_00]: And, and, and Spassky was this very soft human being, a lovely guy.

[00:41:29] [SPEAKER_00]: And, and he sort of allows all the shenanigans that Fisher was, was putting into this match.

[00:41:34] [SPEAKER_00]: And he, and you could say that Spassky was the one who saved the match because the whole

[00:41:38] [SPEAKER_00]: team, they were actually telling him we should, we should stop here.

[00:41:42] [SPEAKER_00]: This is too much.

[00:41:43] [SPEAKER_00]: What, what Fisher is doing is all his demands with the cameras have to go out of the room

[00:41:47] [SPEAKER_00]: and all that.

[00:41:48] [SPEAKER_00]: But, and, and Spassky was like, no, no, no, I want to play this.

[00:41:51] [SPEAKER_00]: I want to play this.

[00:41:52] [SPEAKER_00]: So in, in, in essence, uh, he, he, he made, uh, he saved the match actually together with,

[00:41:58] [SPEAKER_00]: with the FIDE president, uh, at the time, Max Oewe.

[00:42:01] [SPEAKER_00]: But so it's this interesting, uh, paradox of, of, of their personalities.

[00:42:06] [SPEAKER_00]: And then, yeah, well, in, in 78, Karpov was a very strong, uh, communist representative,

[00:42:12] [SPEAKER_00]: but Kortchnoy had actually defected.

[00:42:13] [SPEAKER_00]: Kortchnoy was a Soviet player, but he defected to, to, to Europe.

[00:42:16] [SPEAKER_00]: So suddenly it was also a West versus East and, uh, and, uh, and Karpov were both not

[00:42:22] [SPEAKER_00]: that soft.

[00:42:23] [SPEAKER_00]: They were really, uh, they really didn't like each other.

[00:42:26] [SPEAKER_00]: And there were all these real things happening.

[00:42:28] [SPEAKER_00]: Kortchnoy wearing reflective sunglasses, uh, to annoy his opponent.

[00:42:33] [SPEAKER_00]: And, uh, yeah.

[00:42:34] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[00:42:34] [SPEAKER_01]: Because he thought Karpov brought a parapsychologist.

[00:42:37] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, exactly.

[00:42:37] [SPEAKER_01]: Who was sitting in the first row.

[00:42:39] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:42:39] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[00:42:39] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[00:42:40] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[00:42:40] [SPEAKER_00]: And then the, the story of the famous blueberry yogurt brought to Karpov's board that led to

[00:42:44] [SPEAKER_00]: a protest because bringing a yogurt during the game can be a sign of cheating, of course,

[00:42:49] [SPEAKER_00]: because it's a way of giving information maybe.

[00:42:50] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[00:42:51] [SPEAKER_00]: So after that, he was only allowed to get the yogurt at the exact same time every day

[00:42:55] [SPEAKER_00]: so that it couldn't be a sign anymore.

[00:42:58] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:42:58] [SPEAKER_01]: And, and these, these kinds of dramas and stories aren't just in the modern era.

[00:43:02] [SPEAKER_01]: Like in the 18, was it the 1860s, Paul Morphy, an American suddenly became out of nowhere,

[00:43:10] [SPEAKER_01]: the best player in the world.

[00:43:11] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:43:11] [SPEAKER_01]: And it was like blowing up Europe in terms of like just destroying everyone.

[00:43:16] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:43:16] [SPEAKER_01]: But he also was this eccentric conflicted person who, who after like flaming all over the world,

[00:43:22] [SPEAKER_01]: like he just, it was the best ever.

[00:43:23] [SPEAKER_01]: And then suddenly he completely rejected chess and refused to play it or talk about it.

[00:43:30] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:43:30] [SPEAKER_01]: And which of course, Steinitz, the world champion, tried to play him.

[00:43:33] [SPEAKER_01]: You want to play?

[00:43:35] [SPEAKER_00]: No, of course the chess fans always feel it's such a huge pity that, that Morphy played

[00:43:41] [SPEAKER_00]: only a couple of years actually.

[00:43:43] [SPEAKER_00]: And he had this unbelievable tour going through Europe and he was clearly better than, than

[00:43:48] [SPEAKER_00]: the rest.

[00:43:49] [SPEAKER_00]: He had this unbelievable talent and was crushing all the masters in Europe.

[00:43:54] [SPEAKER_00]: And then just after a few years later, he, he already quit.

[00:43:56] [SPEAKER_00]: Which is, which is, yeah, this is just unfathomable, uh, basically.

[00:44:00] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[00:44:01] [SPEAKER_00]: And unfortunately, yeah.

[00:44:02] [SPEAKER_00]: He's also an example of someone who, uh, who, uh, had mental issues later in life.

[00:44:07] [SPEAKER_00]: And, uh, yeah.

[00:44:09] [SPEAKER_01]: I wonder if like to be so obsessed with something, there's a danger always of like tipping over

[00:44:14] [SPEAKER_01]: into that, um, you know, mental instability.

[00:44:18] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I think so.

[00:44:19] [SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, I do think that is, that is, uh, that you run a higher risk with that.

[00:44:24] [SPEAKER_00]: Um, but at the same time, uh, just, I think just a handful of people have created this

[00:44:32] [SPEAKER_00]: image that like all chess players must be a little bit crazy, right?

[00:44:37] [SPEAKER_00]: Because they are so good at chess.

[00:44:39] [SPEAKER_00]: I think that is extremely, uh, exaggerated.

[00:44:42] [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, we had Morphy who, uh, was, was mentally, uh, ill at the end of his life while Fisher,

[00:44:48] [SPEAKER_00]: uh, was, uh, was not great.

[00:44:51] [SPEAKER_00]: So let's put it that way.

[00:44:52] [SPEAKER_00]: At the end, uh, later in his life, he'd be as a strong anti-Semite, for example.

[00:44:55] [SPEAKER_00]: And, uh, he, uh, conspiracy theorists, uh, that anyone these days would be proud of.

[00:45:00] [SPEAKER_00]: And now, unfortunately, uh, what, what, as I said, what Vladimir Kramnik is doing is also

[00:45:06] [SPEAKER_00]: starting to edge towards, uh, the very weird, uh, areas.

[00:45:11] [SPEAKER_00]: But yeah, let's say, let's face it.

[00:45:13] [SPEAKER_00]: We had thousands and thousands of strong chess players.

[00:45:16] [SPEAKER_00]: And if it's only, uh, if we can only mention a handful of people going in that direction,

[00:45:20] [SPEAKER_00]: maybe it's not that different from everyday life, you know?

[00:45:24] [SPEAKER_01]: You know, another thing that interesting and this, like, let's compare this to tennis,

[00:45:28] [SPEAKER_01]: for instance, if you take the best tennis players from the sixties, like say Arthur Ashe,

[00:45:34] [SPEAKER_01]: and you take them at their peak time, travel them to now and put them up against, you know,

[00:45:42] [SPEAKER_01]: Federer, let's say at his peak, Federer is going to destroy it.

[00:45:46] [SPEAKER_01]: Like there won't, it would be six Oh six.

[00:45:48] [SPEAKER_01]: So every match, even though Arthur Ashe was the best player maybe in history at his time

[00:45:52] [SPEAKER_01]: and chess is a similar kind of thing.

[00:45:55] [SPEAKER_01]: Like, like sports and games evolve and, and the best of any one era is always going to

[00:46:02] [SPEAKER_01]: be better than the best of the eras before.

[00:46:06] [SPEAKER_01]: And like, if like, you know, I once, uh, read some quote that Caruana who's, who's ranked

[00:46:12] [SPEAKER_01]: number two in the world, Fabiano Caruana.

[00:46:15] [SPEAKER_01]: Somebody once told me that if Caruana time traveled back into the 1950s, he could basically

[00:46:21] [SPEAKER_01]: beat any prior world champion, you know, while blindfolded.

[00:46:25] [SPEAKER_01]: And that's probably true.

[00:46:27] [SPEAKER_00]: But if you were saying teleported to the 1950s, you always have to ask yourself, are you teleporting

[00:46:32] [SPEAKER_00]: him with all the knowledge that he currently has about the game?

[00:46:35] [SPEAKER_00]: Or are you sort of letting him grow, uh, grow up in that era?

[00:46:38] [SPEAKER_00]: Because then of course it's a very different story.

[00:46:40] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, that is the question.

[00:46:41] [SPEAKER_01]: So if you take like, uh, uh, so, so let's take the world champion from like the twenties,

[00:46:46] [SPEAKER_01]: uh, Jose Capablanca.

[00:46:48] [SPEAKER_01]: Uh, and if you time traveled him as a kid to now, would he have the talent and, and strength

[00:46:55] [SPEAKER_01]: to learn how to be among the top players or even be the number one player as he was then?

[00:47:01] [SPEAKER_00]: Well, yeah.

[00:47:01] [SPEAKER_00]: And then we get into the era, um, of would, would he had the personality to, uh, to work,

[00:47:10] [SPEAKER_00]: to work with computers, for example.

[00:47:11] [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, a famous quote from, uh, from Jan Timman, uh, the, the, for years, the strongest

[00:47:17] [SPEAKER_00]: player, uh, of the Netherlands.

[00:47:18] [SPEAKER_00]: And he was actually number two in the world in 1981, best of the West, we called him.

[00:47:22] [SPEAKER_00]: Jan Timman said, I don't think I would, would have been a chess player at all in the modern

[00:47:28] [SPEAKER_00]: age because he really liked how chess was before the computers were there.

[00:47:32] [SPEAKER_00]: The preparation wasn't that, uh, that much.

[00:47:35] [SPEAKER_00]: They didn't, then maybe they looked at something for half an hour in a, in a, in one of the

[00:47:38] [SPEAKER_00]: books they brought in their suitcase.

[00:47:40] [SPEAKER_00]: And that was about it.

[00:47:41] [SPEAKER_00]: And afterward they would go for a drink and they would get drunk and they would have these

[00:47:45] [SPEAKER_00]: amazing discussions at the bar with the other participants.

[00:47:48] [SPEAKER_00]: And, uh, and these days it's three hours of computer prep in your hotel room.

[00:47:53] [SPEAKER_00]: You play the game and then, uh, you need to also do a bit of fitness.

[00:47:56] [SPEAKER_00]: You have your dinner.

[00:47:57] [SPEAKER_00]: You need to get to bed early.

[00:47:58] [SPEAKER_00]: Maybe if you're like Hikaru Nakamura, you're, you're streaming your game.

[00:48:02] [SPEAKER_00]: You're explaining it to your fans, uh, how you played that day.

[00:48:04] [SPEAKER_00]: And then you go to bed and then next, next day I rinse and repeat.

[00:48:07] [SPEAKER_00]: So it's, it's a very different lifestyle.

[00:48:09] [SPEAKER_00]: And to be honest, as if you mentioned Capablanca, who was also famous for doing pretty well

[00:48:14] [SPEAKER_00]: with women, I don't, I don't know if he, uh, if he would have enjoyed this, this life

[00:48:19] [SPEAKER_00]: that much actually, but maybe, maybe someone like Lasker who was, was a very good mathematician

[00:48:23] [SPEAKER_00]: as well.

[00:48:24] [SPEAKER_00]: Maybe he would have been someone who could actually be pretty good these days.

[00:48:28] [SPEAKER_01]: But, but interestingly, like Lasker is very unusual in that he was still world champion

[00:48:33] [SPEAKER_01]: when he was over 60 years old, I believe.

[00:48:36] [SPEAKER_01]: And there's one section in your book is actually part of the chapter on cheating, but you mentioned

[00:48:42] [SPEAKER_01]: this player Gaussis is his last name?

[00:48:45] [SPEAKER_01]: Rousis.

[00:48:45] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[00:48:45] [SPEAKER_01]: Rousis.

[00:48:46] [SPEAKER_01]: And he, um, he was people suspected of him cheating because it was unusual for someone

[00:48:53] [SPEAKER_01]: of his age.

[00:48:54] [SPEAKER_01]: He was 58 to suddenly improve so much.

[00:48:56] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:48:57] [SPEAKER_01]: And I'm sitting here thinking at 56, Hey, I'd like to improve, but maybe it's just not possible.

[00:49:03] [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know.

[00:49:04] [SPEAKER_01]: Like here's somebody who actually was suspected of cheating simply because he went up like a

[00:49:08] [SPEAKER_01]: hundred rating points and it turned out he was cheating.

[00:49:11] [SPEAKER_01]: So, uh, uh, well, you know, I'm 49.

[00:49:16] [SPEAKER_00]: You're, you're, uh, you're in your fifties.

[00:49:18] [SPEAKER_00]: I, to be honest, I do think that people like us can improve.

[00:49:22] [SPEAKER_00]: Um, but I don't think anybody, almost anybody of us wants to make the sacrifice that it needs

[00:49:27] [SPEAKER_00]: because I think we would have to spend at least four hours a day seriously on chess on a daily

[00:49:36] [SPEAKER_00]: basis doing lots of training, working with good training program and, and maybe a bit

[00:49:40] [SPEAKER_00]: of fitness.

[00:49:41] [SPEAKER_00]: Even we would have to play, uh, like at least six tournaments a year.

[00:49:45] [SPEAKER_00]: I believe get the, get the games properly analyzed or analyze ourselves.

[00:49:50] [SPEAKER_00]: It's like you would have to change your lifestyle completely.

[00:49:53] [SPEAKER_00]: And just about half of your day, every single day, half of your day should be dedicated to

[00:49:57] [SPEAKER_00]: the game.

[00:49:58] [SPEAKER_00]: For one thing, are we really going to enjoy that?

[00:50:01] [SPEAKER_00]: And second thing is we will have so many other commitments and we just cannot do that.

[00:50:05] [SPEAKER_00]: That is, but only if you really can make that enormous change in your life and you can sort

[00:50:10] [SPEAKER_00]: of put it in a highest priority sort of, uh, I do think, uh, we can still improve.

[00:50:15] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[00:50:16] [SPEAKER_00]: But yeah.

[00:50:16] [SPEAKER_00]: Who, who, who has the time for that at this time, at this stage, right?

[00:50:20] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:50:21] [SPEAKER_01]: But I, I do think, I do think kids have some extra benefits they bring to the table.

[00:50:26] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:50:26] [SPEAKER_01]: Of course.

[00:50:27] [SPEAKER_01]: They have more energy.

[00:50:27] [SPEAKER_01]: They have more stamina.

[00:50:29] [SPEAKER_01]: Their brains are like, this is like scientifically shown, like their brains are just quicker.

[00:50:34] [SPEAKER_01]: Um, and you know, the part of their brain that does calculate calculation and visualization

[00:50:39] [SPEAKER_01]: is probably faster than when they get older.

[00:50:42] [SPEAKER_00]: No, that's for sure.

[00:50:43] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that's for sure.

[00:50:44] [SPEAKER_00]: And I think that means that if they would do the same, maybe in a, in the same period of

[00:50:49] [SPEAKER_00]: six months to a year, maybe they would get to 150 ELO points stronger or even 200.

[00:50:54] [SPEAKER_00]: And, and we would only get a 75 ELO points stronger, uh, for the same efforts because yeah, exactly.

[00:51:01] [SPEAKER_00]: We, uh, our brains are not that great anymore at this age.

[00:51:04] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[00:51:06] [SPEAKER_01]: So, so now with, with a billion people playing movies coming out, the streamers have, have

[00:51:12] [SPEAKER_01]: taken this to a whole new level of popularity.

[00:51:14] [SPEAKER_01]: Like, you know, because it's not just like, like, like, as you said earlier, oh, our chess

[00:51:20] [SPEAKER_01]: players somewhat nerds or nerdish.

[00:51:23] [SPEAKER_01]: Like you see these streamers, they're all like good looking people.

[00:51:27] [SPEAKER_01]: And, and just like in any game or sport, the, the, the good looking women do very good

[00:51:33] [SPEAKER_01]: streaming and, uh, and, and, and then, and the great players do very good streaming.

[00:51:38] [SPEAKER_01]: And, uh, so, so there's all these things that are contributing to its popularity, like

[00:51:42] [SPEAKER_01]: the internet, the, the, you know, culture, the entertainment world, uh, the, the rise of

[00:51:48] [SPEAKER_01]: platforms like chess.com.

[00:51:49] [SPEAKER_01]: So everybody can play all, I mean, how many games are going to be played on chess.com this

[00:51:53] [SPEAKER_01]: month?

[00:51:54] [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, I don't know the numbers, but we're talking about million, uh, more than, uh, I think

[00:51:58] [SPEAKER_00]: that these months, these days, I don't know, what is it like 30 million a month or something

[00:52:03] [SPEAKER_00]: like that?

[00:52:03] [SPEAKER_00]: This is a number I vaguely remember, but I think like over a billion a month.

[00:52:07] [SPEAKER_00]: So maybe it's 30 million is, is it, is actually daily then?

[00:52:11] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[00:52:11] [SPEAKER_00]: I think it's 30 million a day.

[00:52:13] [SPEAKER_00]: No, that's probably a day.

[00:52:14] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[00:52:14] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[00:52:14] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[00:52:14] [SPEAKER_00]: That's the number I have in my mind, but I forgot.

[00:52:16] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[00:52:18] [SPEAKER_01]: So like it's going, this boom is going to continue.

[00:52:23] [SPEAKER_01]: And what, you know, what does that mean?

[00:52:25] [SPEAKER_01]: Like should, should everybody learn to play chess just to kind of like, just the way everybody

[00:52:29] [SPEAKER_01]: learns to play golf or whatever.

[00:52:31] [SPEAKER_01]: I wish chess was like golf.

[00:52:32] [SPEAKER_01]: I wish like you could professionally like hang out with a bunch of CEOs and network by playing

[00:52:36] [SPEAKER_01]: chess, but it doesn't, that doesn't really happen yet.

[00:52:39] [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, I don't know.

[00:52:40] [SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes it does.

[00:52:41] [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, uh, there have been, uh, some, some events actually, I'm, I remember, but with actually

[00:52:48] [SPEAKER_00]: quite a while ago, uh, maybe more than 10 years ago, um, Magnus, Magnus was, uh, at some

[00:52:54] [SPEAKER_00]: point on a tour through California and, and, uh, um, he actually met several billionaires.

[00:53:03] [SPEAKER_00]: He met with, uh, Mark Zuckerberg.

[00:53:05] [SPEAKER_00]: He was on television with Bill Gates where he destroyed Bill Gates in like seven moves

[00:53:09] [SPEAKER_00]: or something.

[00:53:10] [SPEAKER_00]: And, uh, he met a few others and, uh, some, and there was like a party where some of them

[00:53:15] [SPEAKER_00]: also gathered.

[00:53:15] [SPEAKER_00]: So this kind of thing sometimes gets organized.

[00:53:18] [SPEAKER_00]: And, um, there, I think there was more stuff happening.

[00:53:22] [SPEAKER_00]: We were making connections with the NFL.

[00:53:23] [SPEAKER_00]: For example, we had an event in April with the NFL.

[00:53:26] [SPEAKER_00]: There is a, there was a disc golf chess, uh, connection.

[00:53:32] [SPEAKER_00]: Also this golf event where chess players were participating.

[00:53:35] [SPEAKER_00]: Magnus himself, by the way, is seriously into golf these days and he's, he's improving

[00:53:40] [SPEAKER_00]: rapidly.

[00:53:40] [SPEAKER_00]: Of course he is because he's getting good at almost everything he does.

[00:53:43] [SPEAKER_00]: Um, but not on the level of chess, but still, but still, I wouldn't be surprised if that in

[00:53:48] [SPEAKER_00]: the future could, could lead to some kind of a golf cooperation with, with, uh, with chess

[00:53:52] [SPEAKER_00]: in our platform.

[00:53:52] [SPEAKER_00]: So there are so many possibilities.

[00:53:56] [SPEAKER_01]: There's another aspect too, which is kind of the, the subculture aspect, which is like

[00:54:01] [SPEAKER_01]: you, like you've been playing in tournaments since you were a teenager, right?

[00:54:04] [SPEAKER_01]: So you, there's people you probably run into that you've known for decades now because

[00:54:11] [SPEAKER_01]: of the chess world.

[00:54:12] [SPEAKER_01]: Like, and I think this is what Walter Tevis, the guy who wrote the Queen's Gambit captured

[00:54:16] [SPEAKER_01]: so well is there's an interesting subculture once you get into it.

[00:54:21] [SPEAKER_01]: And just like, just like there is with, you know, like Walter Tevis, by the way, he wrote

[00:54:25] [SPEAKER_01]: the book, The Hustler, which is a great movie with, with Paul Newman.

[00:54:28] [SPEAKER_01]: And that has an interesting subculture.

[00:54:30] [SPEAKER_01]: And he also wrote The Color of Money, which is also in the pool subculture.

[00:54:34] [SPEAKER_01]: And it's, it's interesting.

[00:54:35] [SPEAKER_01]: Like poker's got a great subculture as well.

[00:54:38] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:54:39] [SPEAKER_01]: And I bet a lot of people don't know that, that the same guy who wrote Queen's Gambit wrote,

[00:54:42] [SPEAKER_01]: uh, uh, The Hustler, but, uh, he was very good at capturing subcultures and, and,

[00:54:49] [SPEAKER_01]: you know, rounders, which he didn't write.

[00:54:51] [SPEAKER_01]: That was, uh, Brian Koppelman.

[00:54:53] [SPEAKER_01]: But rounders is great movie about the subculture of poker and chess has that feel as well.

[00:54:59] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:54:59] [SPEAKER_01]: There's something nice to me about that.

[00:55:01] [SPEAKER_00]: And, um, more of that we can see it should be done.

[00:55:05] [SPEAKER_00]: I think also, uh, yeah, for me personally, I have a great, uh, group of friends.

[00:55:11] [SPEAKER_00]: Uh, and we, we actually, for example, we get together every year, uh, at the famous Waikans

[00:55:17] [SPEAKER_00]: A tournament in the Netherlands.

[00:55:18] [SPEAKER_00]: And we always play the first three days with, which is what we call the week, the weekend,

[00:55:22] [SPEAKER_00]: uh, weekender with three day event.

[00:55:24] [SPEAKER_00]: And we always book a hotel already in August, uh, for, for January.

[00:55:29] [SPEAKER_00]: And, uh, yeah, it, and it's always so great to get together again.

[00:55:34] [SPEAKER_00]: And it's like sort of a yearly reunion, although now we're also playing a bit more often in other

[00:55:39] [SPEAKER_00]: events sometimes.

[00:55:40] [SPEAKER_00]: And yeah, it's a great way of having, of, of sharing friendship and having this common

[00:55:45] [SPEAKER_00]: thing that you do.

[00:55:45] [SPEAKER_00]: And, um, but yeah, there's so much to talk about.

[00:55:50] [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, the way people prepare these days, but also the way people behave in the playing

[00:55:55] [SPEAKER_00]: hall and, and, and what they, what they wear and some tournaments having a dress code and

[00:55:59] [SPEAKER_00]: others don't.

[00:56:00] [SPEAKER_00]: And yeah, well, also to be honest, also how, how we're still struggling, I have to admit

[00:56:05] [SPEAKER_00]: with, with female participation and how we should really improve that because we had

[00:56:10] [SPEAKER_00]: also had, uh, uh, things like sexual, uh, harassment, uh, cases, uh, in recent years.

[00:56:17] [SPEAKER_00]: So, uh, there is a lot that can still be talked about and, um, I would love to see more of

[00:56:22] [SPEAKER_00]: that.

[00:56:22] [SPEAKER_00]: To be honest, there is something new coming out also.

[00:56:25] [SPEAKER_00]: Uh, it's actually already out, uh, which is about the Kasparov Deep Blue matches, which

[00:56:30] [SPEAKER_00]: we haven't talked about.

[00:56:31] [SPEAKER_00]: Uh, yeah, the big part of the book is also about AI and, uh, this Kasparov Deep Blue, IBM's

[00:56:38] [SPEAKER_00]: Deep Blue.

[00:56:39] [SPEAKER_00]: That was always seen as this big moment, of course, for AI and for chess because the

[00:56:43] [SPEAKER_00]: human player lost to the, to the machine.

[00:56:45] [SPEAKER_00]: And there's now this series, this great series.

[00:56:47] [SPEAKER_00]: I've watched all six episodes already.

[00:56:49] [SPEAKER_00]: I've posted a review of, uh, of the series.

[00:56:51] [SPEAKER_00]: It's called Rematch.

[00:56:53] [SPEAKER_00]: Where is it?

[00:56:54] [SPEAKER_00]: Aaron, where can I find it?

[00:56:55] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's, um, well, it's, it is, you can find it on this Art of France website.

[00:57:01] [SPEAKER_00]: Um, but, uh, yeah, it's, the thing is, uh, it's not really available in many countries,

[00:57:07] [SPEAKER_00]: I believe it means basically for French, uh, for a French audience, but it is in English.

[00:57:12] [SPEAKER_00]: Um, and I believe it should be soon on HBO and maybe even Disney plus because it, and especially

[00:57:18] [SPEAKER_00]: Disney plus, because that is actually what it's saying at the start of the, every episode

[00:57:22] [SPEAKER_00]: that there's this cooperation with Disney plus.

[00:57:23] [SPEAKER_00]: So it should be appearing there, but I'm not sure when.

[00:57:26] [SPEAKER_00]: And is it a documentary style?

[00:57:28] [SPEAKER_00]: No, no.

[00:57:29] [SPEAKER_00]: It's actually a drama.

[00:57:30] [SPEAKER_00]: It's, it's like the Queen's Gambit.

[00:57:31] [SPEAKER_00]: It's, it's actors and they play, uh, this whole thing and, uh, they add all kinds of elements

[00:57:36] [SPEAKER_00]: that actually never happened, but make it even more exciting.

[00:57:38] [SPEAKER_00]: To be honest, I, I was very positive about the series.

[00:57:41] [SPEAKER_00]: I really loved it.

[00:57:42] [SPEAKER_00]: And, uh, and so, yeah, again, an example of that, this, this, this, uh, event that was

[00:57:49] [SPEAKER_00]: happening in 97, it became so much bigger than just the chess event.

[00:57:53] [SPEAKER_00]: It's, it's part of our common culture where, where, where AI and chess, uh, came together

[00:57:58] [SPEAKER_00]: and, uh, yeah, famous enough and important enough to now be put into, uh, into cinema.

[00:58:05] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, and the reason is, is because people thought that was the goal of AI, that if AI could

[00:58:10] [SPEAKER_01]: somehow beat humans at chess, then it was, uh, it was thinking like a human.

[00:58:15] [SPEAKER_01]: Like that was supposed to be intelligent.

[00:58:18] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[00:58:18] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:58:18] [SPEAKER_01]: That, that was considered the goal of AI initially.

[00:58:22] [SPEAKER_01]: And I, I look, I, before deep blue was deep blue at IBM, it was called deep thought.

[00:58:28] [SPEAKER_01]: It was at Carnegie Mellon university.

[00:58:29] [SPEAKER_01]: And before that it was called chip test.

[00:58:31] [SPEAKER_01]: So even when it was chip test, I was deep chip test slash deep blue was my office mate

[00:58:37] [SPEAKER_01]: when I was in graduate school.

[00:58:38] [SPEAKER_01]: Like all those guys were, we were office mates and I was the chess player among them.

[00:58:42] [SPEAKER_01]: And I would just play chip test all day long.

[00:58:45] [SPEAKER_01]: And then when ICC or ICS was around, I actually did use chip test once to cheat against somebody.

[00:58:54] [SPEAKER_01]: I didn't like very much who I was playing and I just wanted to crush them.

[00:58:58] [SPEAKER_01]: But, uh, so I, I think I'm the very first online chess cheater and that's the one and only time I'll do it.

[00:59:05] [SPEAKER_01]: I did it.

[00:59:05] [SPEAKER_01]: But, uh, and then Danny Slater, who, you know, who, who, you know, was the real founder of ICS.

[00:59:11] [SPEAKER_01]: He, um, he basically said, don't do that anymore.

[00:59:15] [SPEAKER_00]: So let's stop doing it.

[00:59:17] [SPEAKER_00]: That's good stuff.

[00:59:17] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[00:59:17] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:59:18] [SPEAKER_01]: But, but yeah, it was the, the, the, and now it's so interesting that AI has crushed humans.

[00:59:26] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[00:59:26] [SPEAKER_00]: And, uh, of course now we're, uh, what is it?

[00:59:29] [SPEAKER_00]: Uh, 27 years after, uh, after this match.

[00:59:32] [SPEAKER_00]: And it's also very interesting how, uh, AI continued to develop and also how we now look back at this

[00:59:38] [SPEAKER_00]: match and think very differently about it.

[00:59:40] [SPEAKER_00]: Uh, Kasparov himself as I'm describing, uh, right very soon after this match, there was not coming a rematch coming.

[00:59:47] [SPEAKER_00]: It didn't make any sense for IBM to, to do another third match.

[00:59:50] [SPEAKER_00]: We have to, I want to say, and Gary always says himself, I did win the first match.

[00:59:56] [SPEAKER_00]: So he, so in a way you could say there were two sets and it's one, one, and there should have been a third set, but okay.

[01:00:01] [SPEAKER_00]: Um, but yeah, uh, after that, Gary really started to embrace this concept of, uh, why don't we cooperate with AI?

[01:00:09] [SPEAKER_00]: Instead of a fight against it.

[01:00:11] [SPEAKER_00]: So he actually played chess matches where it was actually allowed to, to have a computer next to you and use it.

[01:00:17] [SPEAKER_00]: He called it advanced chess.

[01:00:18] [SPEAKER_00]: It only took a few years, but it was interesting experiment.

[01:00:21] [SPEAKER_00]: And, uh, yeah, and there were more human machine matches.

[01:00:24] [SPEAKER_00]: And I'm, I'm sort of explaining that the real moments where, where computers became too strong, uh, for, for humans, uh, actually was, uh, was a few years later.

[01:00:34] [SPEAKER_00]: Uh, I would say around 2005, uh, but, um, and then the whole, uh, development of computers becoming this big tool because they were too strong to play against.

[01:00:44] [SPEAKER_00]: They became this big tool for helping, uh, and analyzing, analyzing games, analyzing chess openings.

[01:00:49] [SPEAKER_00]: And then of course the, the next step, uh, Alpha Zero by, by Google DeepMind.

[01:00:55] [SPEAKER_00]: Well, we all know, uh, Demis Hassabis, uh, founder of Google DeepMind, got a Nobel prize a few weeks ago for, uh, for chemistry.

[01:01:04] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. And, uh, it was, uh, it was about the pro, the protein folding, uh, uh, discoveries that they made and they use algorithms that, that had before been used to, to, to, to, to, to play chess and to play go.

[01:01:17] [SPEAKER_00]: So again, we see this, uh, that our game was sort of the early laboratory, the small, the, the, the smaller, uh, limited area to test things out.

[01:01:27] [SPEAKER_00]: And it, it later became this, this, uh, very important, uh, algorithm that, uh, brought us further in, in, in chemistry.

[01:01:35] [SPEAKER_00]: So, um, yeah, what I want to say is basically what Kasparov said is he looks now back at it and, and basically says it was a very strong computer, but it was, it was limited intelligence.

[01:01:47] [SPEAKER_00]: It was, it was, uh, he was good at playing chess and, uh, he, he said, uh, it was like losing to an alarm clock.

[01:01:55] [SPEAKER_01]: Uh, well, well, it's interesting because deep blue, then it was all hardware.

[01:02:00] [SPEAKER_01]: Like they, they, their, their insight when they made deep blue was to get rid of as much of the software as possible, make it as dumb a chess player as possible.

[01:02:09] [SPEAKER_01]: But that, and then code that into the circuitry itself.

[01:02:12] [SPEAKER_01]: So there wouldn't be software, but actually it was in the chip.

[01:02:14] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[01:02:15] [SPEAKER_01]: And that made it 10 times faster or a hundred times faster than any other chess computer.

[01:02:20] [SPEAKER_01]: And basically Gary was beaten by speed.

[01:02:23] [SPEAKER_01]: Whereas the reverse is alpha zero, uh, made by, you know, deep mind and then Google where alpha zero is, is really quote unquote intelligent.

[01:02:34] [SPEAKER_01]: It has chess intelligence.

[01:02:36] [SPEAKER_01]: Like even if it only looks one move ahead, it's supposedly like a 2400 rated player at just one move ahead.

[01:02:42] [SPEAKER_00]: No, deep blue was able to calculate at the peak performance, I believe 200 million moves per second.

[01:02:48] [SPEAKER_00]: And I think the alpha zero only got to like 30,000 million, uh, 30,000, uh, what is it?

[01:02:55] [SPEAKER_00]: I think much so.

[01:02:57] [SPEAKER_00]: It was much less.

[01:02:58] [SPEAKER_00]: It doesn't really matter the numbers, but alpha zero much less than that.

[01:03:01] [SPEAKER_00]: And which means, which automatically means that the way it's thinking about the moves was much smarter.

[01:03:06] [SPEAKER_00]: And, uh, of course it's, uh, it's all based on, uh, similar techniques as, uh, for example, chat GPT or, or in this case, Google Gemini.

[01:03:14] [SPEAKER_00]: We're talking about large learning, uh, models and, and self learning mechanisms playing millions of times against itself, uh, making it, improving it, uh, that way instead of, instead of, uh, putting code into it and telling it what is good and what is bad.

[01:03:30] [SPEAKER_01]: And it's interesting, the strategies that alpha zero has developed using this completely different, more AI like approach is very almost human approach, but just better.

[01:03:42] [SPEAKER_01]: It's like a superior human race, you know, improve the strategies of chess.

[01:03:47] [SPEAKER_01]: And so you guys like Magnus Carlsen, the best in the world learn from studying alpha zeros games.

[01:03:54] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that's true.

[01:03:55] [SPEAKER_00]: Um, it was, uh, immediately when the first games of alpha zero came out, uh, it really felt like it was playing in, in, in Kasparov style or Michael tall style with a lot of, uh, beautiful peace sacrifices.

[01:04:07] [SPEAKER_00]: And, uh, but there were all, there were also these very specific positional themes, uh, running, uh, with the root pawns up the board.

[01:04:16] [SPEAKER_00]: It's a famous one or a very different evaluation of King safety, where you can actually do much more with an open King.

[01:04:23] [SPEAKER_00]: Then we thought before it was possible.

[01:04:25] [SPEAKER_00]: And there's other examples and, and clearly the year after it came out.

[01:04:29] [SPEAKER_00]: So we're talking about 2018.

[01:04:31] [SPEAKER_00]: Um, yeah, uh, there's several examples where, where Carlsen, uh, really adopts some of those ideas in his own games.

[01:04:39] [SPEAKER_00]: So we had this direct, direct influence of AI on, on the style of the best player, the human best human player.

[01:04:45] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[01:04:46] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[01:04:47] [SPEAKER_01]: Like he was able to continue learning after being the best player in the world because he relied on, on the computers to teach him.

[01:04:53] [SPEAKER_01]: So it's, it's very interesting.

[01:04:54] [SPEAKER_01]: Again, it's all part of the cultural history.

[01:04:57] [SPEAKER_01]: And, and, you know, you take a guy like Kasparov who, who famously lost to Deep Blue in 1997, that ultimately through history will be what he will be known for is like this pivotal AI chess moment.

[01:05:10] [SPEAKER_01]: Uh, and, and even though Kasparov was such a great player and, and such great player in chess history, that's where he stands out.

[01:05:17] [SPEAKER_00]: By the way, it's literally what he says.

[01:05:18] [SPEAKER_00]: Perfectly.

[01:05:18] [SPEAKER_00]: Uh, I don't want to give too many spoilers, but it's literally what the actor says in this, in the sixth episode of Rematch.

[01:05:23] [SPEAKER_00]: He says, I will, I will be remembered for two things that I was a world champion and that I lost to Deep Blue.

[01:05:29] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[01:05:30] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[01:05:31] [SPEAKER_01]: And, and look, even though he might be the greatest of all time, there's always the, there's always the, just like in basketball or tennis, there's always the question, like who's the greatest of all time.

[01:05:38] [SPEAKER_01]: And, and, and, you know, Gary Magnus and Bobby Fischer are the leading contenders.

[01:05:43] [SPEAKER_01]: I would still say put in Capablanca into that, but, you know, it's hard to think.

[01:05:48] [SPEAKER_00]: No, and someone else told me that I should have mentioned, uh, uh, Morphy as well in terms of how much he, uh, dominated his peers in the 19th century.

[01:05:57] [SPEAKER_00]: And I would argue that.

[01:05:58] [SPEAKER_00]: Oh yeah, I was curious.

[01:05:59] [SPEAKER_00]: Yes.

[01:06:00] [SPEAKER_01]: You, you, you, you measured them in, in the book you used, you quoted people who measured based on how, how high quality the computer ranked their moves on average.

[01:06:10] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[01:06:10] [SPEAKER_01]: But what about in terms of, in terms of who dominated their number, numbers two through 10 and during their time, who, who, who, who's the biggest, who had the biggest gap, uh, between themselves and their competitors?

[01:06:24] [SPEAKER_01]: Right.

[01:06:25] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[01:06:25] [SPEAKER_00]: No.

[01:06:26] [SPEAKER_00]: And then, and then I think we, we actually have to.

[01:06:28] [SPEAKER_00]: To put, uh, both Morphy and Fischer, uh, somewhere number one, number two, I guess Fischer, Fischer might be one number one there.

[01:06:37] [SPEAKER_00]: And I'm also mentioning that, that we're, if we're, uh, this is what I'm doing in chapter four, where, where I'm discussing these three players, uh, Fischer, Kasparov and Carlsen.

[01:06:45] [SPEAKER_00]: And then, then I'm giving this whole discussion of who was the greatest of all time.

[01:06:49] [SPEAKER_00]: Um, and, um, yeah, so the, the sort of the conclusion is that you can sort of argue between Kasparov and Carlsen,

[01:06:57] [SPEAKER_00]: but because, uh, Kasparov has been, uh, at the top longer than Carlsen has, uh, we still have to consider that he was the best.

[01:07:04] [SPEAKER_00]: And Carlsen himself considers Kasparov the best of all time.

[01:07:07] [SPEAKER_00]: But, but yeah.

[01:07:08] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, I think he's being polite.

[01:07:10] [SPEAKER_01]: Like, he's not going to say, well, I'm the best of all time.

[01:07:12] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm not sure.

[01:07:12] [SPEAKER_00]: Because he recently repeated it.

[01:07:14] [SPEAKER_00]: But let's say if he continues for a few more years and he will always remain the number one in the rating list, then at some point I think he might change his mind.

[01:07:22] [SPEAKER_00]: I think, so Carlsen is extremely honest about these things.

[01:07:25] [SPEAKER_00]: So about himself, always very self-critical.

[01:07:27] [SPEAKER_00]: So, uh, but anyway, um, what I do make the point is that, um, I'm comparing, I'm basically comparing Fisher to Bob Beeman, who had this incredible, uh, world record in the long jump, uh, at the Mexico, I think Mexico 68, uh, Olympics.

[01:07:44] [SPEAKER_00]: It was.

[01:07:44] [SPEAKER_00]: And then only in 91, uh, it was broken.

[01:07:47] [SPEAKER_00]: So it was a very long time.

[01:07:49] [SPEAKER_00]: You were, we were talking about athletes getting, getting stronger and bigger, uh, just about every five years.

[01:07:54] [SPEAKER_00]: But this was a record that stood very long.

[01:07:57] [SPEAKER_00]: And I can, and that is a comparison I make with, uh, you can also talk about, uh, uh, Jones Griffiths in, uh, in, uh, in the speed in 100 meters, of course she's, she was, she was maybe even a better example of being ahead of her time.

[01:08:10] [SPEAKER_00]: And, and that is where I put Fisher, uh, you're right.

[01:08:13] [SPEAKER_00]: Uh, as we talk about dominating his peers the most, uh, and being the most ahead of their time, it was probably Fisher.

[01:08:20] [SPEAKER_00]: Because if you look at his performance of 1971 and 1972, he was basically playing on 20, 2800 level.

[01:08:28] [SPEAKER_00]: And that is, uh, who are we talking about these days?

[01:08:31] [SPEAKER_00]: We have, we have one player above 2800 and, and, uh, or two actually, I think now Karuana and Magnus and Arjun, this talent from India, Arjun Eric Ise.

[01:08:40] [SPEAKER_00]: He is on the verge of breaking 2800 as well.

[01:08:43] [SPEAKER_00]: So we're talking about a level of the absolute best players in the world of today.

[01:08:47] [SPEAKER_00]: And Fisher was doing that in the seventies.

[01:08:49] [SPEAKER_00]: So really by himself, which makes it really, yeah, without the computer, exactly without, without the help of the computer also.

[01:08:56] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[01:08:57] [SPEAKER_01]: The way the rating system works in order to maintain that 2800 level, you have to dominate really heavily.

[01:09:04] [SPEAKER_01]: Like you have, like you have to do what Fisher did, which is win matches six to zero, no draws.

[01:09:08] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, exactly.

[01:09:09] [SPEAKER_01]: And it's hard to imagine any two players, Magnus and, and any other player in the top 100 where it being like a six, zero, six, zero.

[01:09:16] [SPEAKER_01]: No.

[01:09:16] [SPEAKER_01]: But Fisher did two and a half matches.

[01:09:19] [SPEAKER_00]: By the way, one of the reasons for that is important to mention is that the computer has helped today's top players to become better defenders.

[01:09:28] [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, Fisher's opponents were not defending well in, in, in, in bad positions in these matches and in other tournaments.

[01:09:34] [SPEAKER_00]: But these days, all these top players, uh, have, have learned from the computer that, that bad positions can often still be defended to a draw.

[01:09:43] [SPEAKER_00]: Uh, and they've learned that, that the evaluation, uh, they feel might, uh, it might not be the biggest problem.

[01:09:49] [SPEAKER_00]: And also they have learned the techniques, uh, of the computer of how, how, how to do that.

[01:09:54] [SPEAKER_00]: And, uh, and so more bad positions are defended to a draw these days than, uh, than in those days.

[01:09:59] [SPEAKER_00]: Uh, so that's a part of it, I think.

[01:10:01] [SPEAKER_01]: What, just, just as a last thing, and, and, um, I'm just curious, what are your favorite chess novels?

[01:10:08] [SPEAKER_01]: So obviously the Queen's Gambit was a great novel by Walter Tevis.

[01:10:11] [SPEAKER_01]: Uh, is there any others that, that, that, that you, you read or, or grew fond of?

[01:10:19] [SPEAKER_00]: Uh, yeah, well, uh, I, I do like, uh, uh, Nabokov's novel a lot, Luzhin's Defense or This Defense.

[01:10:27] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[01:10:28] [SPEAKER_00]: Uh, Defense.

[01:10:28] [SPEAKER_00]: And I'm also quite fond of the movie, by the way, uh, with John Torturo and, uh, what's her name?

[01:10:33] [SPEAKER_00]: Was it Emily Watson?

[01:10:34] [SPEAKER_00]: Oh my God.

[01:10:35] [SPEAKER_01]: I never saw that.

[01:10:36] [SPEAKER_00]: There's a, there's a, there's a, there's a movie of the defense.

[01:10:38] [SPEAKER_00]: Yes, definitely.

[01:10:39] [SPEAKER_00]: And, uh, it's actually directed by a Dutch, uh, uh, director.

[01:10:43] [SPEAKER_00]: So, uh, yeah, you should see it.

[01:10:44] [SPEAKER_00]: It's already, well, it's already 20 years old or something.

[01:10:46] [SPEAKER_00]: It's quite a, quite a while ago.

[01:10:48] [SPEAKER_00]: Wow, I never even heard of it.

[01:10:49] [SPEAKER_00]: I kind of liked it too.

[01:10:50] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[01:10:50] [SPEAKER_00]: It's not, it's not a spectacular movie, but, uh, I like it.

[01:10:53] [SPEAKER_00]: I like, I mean, John Torturo was pretty good in it.

[01:10:55] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[01:10:57] [SPEAKER_01]: Um, and, um, you should see the movie Fresh.

[01:11:00] [SPEAKER_01]: I noticed you didn't mention the movie Fresh.

[01:11:02] [SPEAKER_01]: When you listed some movies, you didn't mention the movie Fresh, which is really great.

[01:11:05] [SPEAKER_01]: A Washington Square Park chess movie.

[01:11:07] [SPEAKER_01]: Okay.

[01:11:08] [SPEAKER_01]: Okay.

[01:11:09] [SPEAKER_01]: I won't make a note.

[01:11:09] [SPEAKER_01]: It like had a thriller aspect to it as well.

[01:11:12] [SPEAKER_00]: Ah, yeah, yeah.

[01:11:13] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[01:11:13] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[01:11:13] [SPEAKER_00]: To be honest, yeah, we're talking about movies now, but I remember seeing Night Moves for

[01:11:17] [SPEAKER_00]: the first time with Christopher Lambert.

[01:11:18] [SPEAKER_00]: I also actually, I also really loved that at the time.

[01:11:21] [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know if I would still love it today, but when I was young, it was a trailer from

[01:11:26] [SPEAKER_00]: the nineties and also with chess.

[01:11:28] [SPEAKER_00]: And I was like, wow, this is quite funny.

[01:11:30] [SPEAKER_00]: Um, yeah.

[01:11:31] [SPEAKER_00]: Novels.

[01:11:32] [SPEAKER_00]: Well, it's not really a novel, but, but yeah, I mean, just about everyone loved this,

[01:11:37] [SPEAKER_00]: but this, we're talking about, uh, Through the Looking Glass, the sequel to Alice in Wonderland.

[01:11:43] [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, that's just absolutely brilliant.

[01:11:45] [SPEAKER_00]: And, uh, of course also beautiful movies made out of it, but just, yeah, this, this great,

[01:11:51] [SPEAKER_00]: great writer with, with brilliant, uh, feeling for, for English language and, uh, yeah, uh,

[01:11:58] [SPEAKER_00]: making chess such a big theme in what is still one of the most important chess children's

[01:12:03] [SPEAKER_00]: chess, uh, children's books in literature is, is also amazing.

[01:12:07] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[01:12:07] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, now you've, you have entered your own entry into the kind of oeuvre of, uh, of chess

[01:12:14] [SPEAKER_01]: literature with, uh, the chess revolution.

[01:12:18] [SPEAKER_01]: Look, Peter, I always enjoy, uh, talking chess with you.

[01:12:22] [SPEAKER_01]: We we've run into each other now in Norway and in Amsterdam, uh, at, you know, as observers,

[01:12:29] [SPEAKER_01]: simple observers to these mega chess events with all the greatest players.

[01:12:33] [SPEAKER_01]: And those are so much fun for me to go to, but it's, it's, it's, it's hard.

[01:12:37] [SPEAKER_01]: It's hard to do it.

[01:12:38] [SPEAKER_01]: Like you have to really, you know, take, take a break from your life to, to attend those.

[01:12:43] [SPEAKER_01]: Uh-huh.

[01:12:44] [SPEAKER_01]: And, uh, uh, but always a pleasure running into you and talking to you about chess.

[01:12:49] [SPEAKER_01]: Likewise.

[01:12:49] [SPEAKER_01]: And one thing I, I, I remember like in the first time I ran into you in Norway, uh, when

[01:12:53] [SPEAKER_01]: we were at Norway chess and I said, Oh, do you play?

[01:12:56] [SPEAKER_01]: And you're like, nah.

[01:12:57] [SPEAKER_01]: And here you are like a 2,300 player.

[01:12:59] [SPEAKER_01]: Like I've noticed that these big tournaments, everyone who says they don't play chess, it

[01:13:03] [SPEAKER_01]: means they're like 2,400 and, or at least 2,200.

[01:13:06] [SPEAKER_00]: Well, I, I, I'm, I'm, I'm now 20, 2150, but yeah, I, I used to be better even, but yeah,

[01:13:12] [SPEAKER_00]: I'm not, I, I guess I can say I'm not a, I'm not a horrible player.

[01:13:16] [SPEAKER_01]: No, you're, you're a great player.

[01:13:18] [SPEAKER_01]: And, and thank you for, for coming on the podcast.

[01:13:21] [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you.

[01:13:21] [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for having me.

[01:13:22] [SPEAKER_01]: And having this fun discussion about my favorite topic.

[01:13:25] [SPEAKER_01]: You'll have to, you'll have to write another book about chess and come on again.

[01:13:27] [SPEAKER_01]: Talk more about it.

[01:13:29] [SPEAKER_00]: Sure.

[01:13:30] [SPEAKER_00]: Thanks a lot.

[01:13:30] [SPEAKER_00]: Thanks a lot.

[01:13:31] [SPEAKER_00]: Thanks a lot.

[01:13:31] [SPEAKER_00]: It was great.