Lex Fridman Podcast - #327 – GothamChess: Hans Niemann, Magnus Carlsen, Cheating Scandal & Chess Bots

Episode Date: October 7, 2022

Levy Rozman, also known as GothamChess, is a professional chess player, streamer, and educator. Please support this podcast by checking out our sponsors: - Notion: https://notion.com - Athletic Greens: https://athleticgreens.com/lex to get 1 month of fish oil - ExpressVPN: https://expressvpn.com/lexpod to get 3 months free - InsideTracker: https://insidetracker.com/lex to get 20% off EPISODE LINKS: GothamChess's YouTube: https://youtube.com/gothamchess GothamChess's Twitch: https://twitch.tv/gothamchess GothamChess's Twitter: https://twitter.com/GothamChess GothamChess's Instagram: https://instagram.com/gothamchess GothamChess's Website: https://gotham-chess.com PODCAST INFO: Podcast website: https://lexfridman.com/podcast Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/2lwqZIr Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2nEwCF8 RSS: https://lexfridman.com/feed/podcast/ YouTube Full Episodes: https://youtube.com/lexfridman YouTube Clips: https://youtube.com/lexclips SUPPORT & CONNECT: - Check out the sponsors above, it's the best way to support this podcast - Support on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/lexfridman - Twitter: https://twitter.com/lexfridman - Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lexfridman - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lexfridman - Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lexfridman - Medium: https://medium.com/@lexfridman OUTLINE: Here's the timestamps for the episode. On some podcast players you should be able to click the timestamp to jump to that time. (00:00) - Introduction (06:14) - Elo rating (07:18) - Chess.com vs lichess.org (18:09) - Teaching chess (22:37) - Magnus Carlsen (37:52) - Greatest chess player of all time (42:35) - Hans Niemann cheating scandal (44:04) - Pin of Shame (58:12) - Bullying (1:00:04) - Indonesia incident (1:11:39) - Retiring from chess (1:18:16) - Death (1:21:58) - Streamers (1:35:34) - Hans Niemann cheating scandal continued (2:13:16) - Magnus Carlsen's statement (2:24:37) - Podcasts (2:27:04) - Parasocial interaction (2:30:53) - How to cheat in chess (2:40:39) - Reddit questions (2:47:03) - Chess boxing (2:55:49) - Chess bots (3:01:31) - AlphaZero (3:07:18) - Did Hans Niemann cheat? (3:14:34) - Chess openings (3:19:14) - Magnus Carlsen's poker game (3:21:56) - Chess advice (3:28:17) - Depression

The following is a conversation with Levi Rosman, also known as Gotham Chess. He's a professional chess player and educator. I highly recommend he check out his YouTube channel called Gotham Chess. And now a quick few second mention of each sponsor. Check them out in the description, it's the best way to support this podcast. We got Notion for Team Collaboration, I thought of Greens for Daily Multivitamins ExpressVPN for Internet Security and Inside Tracker for Bio Monitoring. Choose wisely my friends. And now onto the full ad reads. As always, no ads in the middle.

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but collaboration for any kind of task. So we could even start-ups for businesses for I don't know, homework assignments, all of it. They provide a kind of full-on operating system for running every aspect of a company or a team. You can learn more and get started for free at notion.com. This show is also brought to you by Athletic Greens and it's AG1 Drink, which is an all-in-one day drink to support daily health and people's performance. Where was it? Somebody sent me a Reddit in a days. I remember seeing a kind of meme saying like this is like the Lex Friedman podcast in a nutshell or maybe the Lex Friedman experience in a nutshell. I don't know. The point is there was some kind of crappy robot that has in Athletic Green's container and is doing the shaking and the mixing and all that kind of

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as a chocolate tier, is that the right way to say chocolate tier? Like a person who makes chocolate, right? I'm not even gonna check. I can look it up online, but I'm just gonna go with it and then you can Clip the salt to embarrass me as the internet seems to do with all the stupid things essay. I say so many stupid things and they accumulate over time and and they accumulate over time. All I can do is just laugh at myself and appreciate you, sir or madam, for laughing along with me. Anyway, inside track is incredible, because the best health advice, medical advice, all kinds

of advice I think should be grounded based on the data that comes from you. Get special savings for limited time when you go to insidetracker.com slash Lex. This is the Lex Friedman podcast to support it. Please check out our sponsors in the description and now dear friends, here's Levy Rosman. You're known for being able to guess people's elo rating. So what do you think? Just by looking at my face, deep into my eyes, what's my elo rating?

Here I'll help you. I'll do E4 for the listener. I actually read that stock fish prefers E4. Does it really? I actually didn't know that. Because it maximizes the number of tactical options. So that makes sense. The variety answer is 3,400, which is, I believe, stock fish.

You guessed people's elo-loch has rating. What's that take? How hard is it to do that? And like, what do you actually do that? Like, what are telltale signs of red flags about a person at different ratings? Is there something you look for? Yeah, I think you can separate it something like the very first is 0 to about 800 for simplicity sake.

I'm going to use the chest.com rating system because leach S is slightly different. It tends to go to 300 points higher than chest.com. Sometimes even four or five hundred points higher. But then it catches up. They catch up around 22, 2300 I would say. What's chest.com? What's leach S? Can you like? Yeah, so explain what the differences and what they are. There are two chess websites. Good starting point. Yes, chess.com is, it has obviously the free option where you can play games, you get some sort of puzzles

every single day, you get some sort of lessons every single day, but then they have tiered memberships where you can be annually or per month that you can unlock all the other features. And like what, like for training, for like puzzles and all that kind of stuff. Yeah, they have unlimited puzzles, but they also have their biggest selling point for sure

is like a dedicated game review that it's like very flashy and sophisticated and the coach will literally tell you what you did wrong. Every single moment the computer evaluated a mistake, but the most important thing that they have is they offer international masters, grandmasters, the opportunity to make video lesson libraries, which hundreds of hours of anything.

I can even learn some stuff on there probably. I have anal beads that are communicating with stockfish, the Bluetooth, we'll get to that. Yes, we'll get to that. It's epic. It's actually scary how many people think that's a real thing, by the way, which is the danger of the internet. But we will get into that. But I tend to believe that people believing a thing that's hilarious at scale will make that thing a reality. I'm with Elon on this. I think people manifest the meme. The meme becomes real. So that, but that, that's in all walks of life. I think there is something about humor.

Sort of being, well, why did I, I was going to, what was I was going to say is I feel like humor becomes a lubricant for the trajectory of human civilization. And I don't know why the word lubricant went into my head, which beats. I understand. Yeah. But it's very Freudian. Anyway, so, uh, 10, zero to 900, if you're a 1300 player, you were saying, if you're not good at end games, you don't understand how to convert positions that have seven

or eight pieces left on the board. You don't know when you're supposed to activate your king. You don't know how a bishop outplays a knight with just several pawns on the board. Those are all very important things because it's not just about knowing the theoretical end games, like some positions in chess are literally solved. If I showed you a position, I asked what's the evaluation and how do you win it? There's a technique you're supposed to know that technique. And the coach is on chess.com can help or no.

Yeah, so these lesson libraries, it's not like a live lesson, it's pre-recorded training position, walk you through it, and then there's a dynamic factor as well where you can practice. You can practice the theoretical and you can practice a practical game where there's no set format to do something. It's just based on your previous experience. Basically, LeachS is their entire thing. It's an open source website that tries to be as free as possible and operates totally on donations. They don't have any advertisements. They don't

have, which is weird because normally in big competitive settings, it's all capitalistic. You have one big entity and another big entity, and they're both for profit, but in this case, the big argument is, well, they offer a lot of things for free. You can analyze your games for free. You can go into Leach S's lessons library and do things for free.

The comparison that I always make is chest.com is basically like having a good personal trainer and having someone to help you at the gym. Leachist is you have to do all the stuff yourself. So you can combine YouTube with Leachist. No one's going to really point you in the right direction. You've got to go fully explore on your own.

If you want to do it, you can. I also like to say, can I make a controversial joke? Yes. Okay. Art and leisure supporters are like very angry, you know, only vegetarian or vegan folks because they will tear you apart and try to convert you as much as possible. Did you just point a large number of haters

onto this very podcast? Is this what just happened? No. Is there like several people that were very upset at Is this what just happened? No. Is there like several people that were very upset at you right now in throwing things? OK. No, that's always the joke that I've made because if people have chess.com and I love all people,

but I'm just saying chess.com patrons do not try to actively convert folks on leaches. Folks on leaches are like, you know, there's a meme chas.com Chas.c and started at leaches started somewhere in red unredded energy chas kind of a Oh, so leaches is a little bit of an anarchist organization Would you would you go as far as to say there are terrorists terrorists extremist organization? Are we going there for legal reasons that's a I thought Lee Chess has like really good analysis. Like somebody does it have an engine for

analysis of like games or is that there's that an open source thing that like they both do they both use stockfish 15. Okay, and then the rest is the interface around stock stock fish that shows it's tough. It's it's the life. So Chess has a live server where you and I can play a game against each other, we just both see if we have the same rating, we have the same criteria. We'll play a game, but there's also reviewing your own games, there's an opening database so you can see what the most popular trends are. So, Leach S is great. Like I'm sponsored by Chess.com and I will openly say that, but you can't have your deeply biased.

Yes. Okay. But I'm also complimenting the competitor. But can you play games on Liches or is it just for analysis? Yeah, you can. Yeah, that's the same exact thing. So they're like legitimately competitors, not exactly the same thing, but they're trying to match for features, but you're saying

Lee Chess is more chaotic and then chess.com is more like professional. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know if it's chaotic. I just know that it's, you have to, no one's going to hold your hand if you go to Lee Chess. You absolutely can. You can play games. You can analyze your games, but you have to discover it yourself. The whole point of chess.com is to make the journey as

simple as possible. But I also firmly believe you can have any sort of growth in chess without a chess.com or a chess 24. What's that? Oh, what's chess 24? So chess 24 was another live server with some lesson libraries and so on, but they were, I think, the process was they were bought by Play Magnus. So what's Play Magnus? Play Magnus. That's Magnus Carlson's thing. He doesn't own it.

He owns some stake in it, I think, 9 or 10%. They owned a bunch of chess companies, including chess 24, but now it seems like they're either merging or basically getting acquired by chess.com. Got it. And then Play Magnus, it's an app also where you can play different levels, but there's also the educational stuff. Yes. Okay.

The four profit chess companies make the option for grandmasters to make a living to make chess in eSport. At least just as great. It doesn't put on any events, there's no commentary. So you can have both in theory and probably some controversy is good. Does chess.com sponsor you, that help you out in some way? Like what's the connection between your videos

and streams and so on in chess.com? Like are they supporting people in that way or no? My content, they don't necessarily, I just make whatever I want. Like I don't have, I'm not sensitive. They do something stupid, I will call out their leadership. It's not like, but I, to have the logo up, like in my YouTube videos or my, yeah, it's just that kind of stuff.

Yeah. So anyway, back to, I mean, that was really helpful. I was confused about all that. I know. The, guessing people's rating. Mm-hmm. So the thing you mentioned about the end game, if you don't know what the hell you're doing with the end game What does that mean about you raining if you don't know how to finish with just a few pieces on the board?

You could be my rating That's the stuff that's the self-deprecating humor we tuned in for self-deprecating humor we tuned in for. And he's our hard men there. Yeah, you can't have, there's a reason Magnus is the best because seven hours into a game when everybody's given up, he's still squeezing juice out of the fruit. So that's the way I would describe it. So that's not good source of information. No, within the first 15 moves, generally, you can tell.

Because you can tell how well they played the opening, so how well they knew what they were supposed to memorize, what they were supposed to play, and then how they react to peace interactions. So if they are faced with a move that a more advanced player would deal with very swiftly because there's kind of a natural response that gives you information if they move their king when they're in check when they didn't have to that's a massive giveaway some people just think I'm in check so I have to move my king. Okay, so it's like how direct the response of your play is to the danger so like if you're more moving like multiple pieces at a time meaning like

you're moving like the pieces are like tied together in interesting ways and then okay okay like what about like what about the opening can you tell also because a lot of people can memorize openings right yeah but takes two to tango. So you could memorize a bunch of stuff, but if you're 900 and I'm 900, or if your rating is fluctuating all over the place in this podcast, I feel like 12, 13, 900, you can memorize things. I'm going to play some crap and you can't play the way you memorize it. Because I have to respond to you in certain ways.

So you will either respond the way you think you're supposed to respond and that will probably be incorrect. Or now you have to figure out how to deal with the fresh position. Also, the 900 will reflect itself in both cases. Yeah. Yeah. I wonder if actually, so do you know your current rating or no, or your top rating? What was your top?

I know both my current ELo like over the board now is 2320 my peak was 2430. Oh cool. So can you Play like a 900 player like can you Force yourself. Yeah, so you can like given that you've guessed a lot of ELo ratings Can you kind of emulate that? It's kind of an interesting question for you. Yeah, yeah, of course, before I was doing YouTube in Twitch, I was teaching kids. So I had to. Not only did I have to play at their rating, I also had to play and sometimes even behave and explain things in a way that the kid could understand.

So absolutely. Yeah, I think that's what contributed to the growth of the channel, frankly. I kind of understood how beginners thought about the game. So yeah, you did, you taught people chess, you coach people for many years, I guess, in New York. Yeah, New York. What did you learn about the way people learn from that? So like how did people that were successful at getting good at chess

quickly? What were some of the commonalities, some of the patterns that you saw? Obsession. Yeah. What does obsession look like? I would say it's obsession and also, and also love of the game. So if you're bored, you don't want to watch a show, you want to boot up chess.com or Lee chess just for just so I don't get flamed by anyone in the audience. And you just play. So you're saying Lee chess people are the ones that would attack aggressively. They're the kind of people that just 24 people. Oh, that's another. So there's not I didn Chess 24 was part of the Chess.com. Well, now, yes. Uh, a cult or tribe or whatever it turns to one of you. No, I'm sure there's even

more places to play live. There always have been more places to play live, but Chess.com leads, Chess dominating. Well, Chess 24 is rough for live interface. Of course they have good courses and everything but yeah, I got it. I got it. And some are even good people or whatever. Yes, that quote goes. Okay. Like obsession, that means the way they look at the board, when they're bored, how quickly do they return to the chest board? That kind of stuff. How many hours a day they want to spend? Yes.

They spend and want to spend. Some kids definitely have a talent. Of course, there's this eternal debate talent versus hard work. I don't necessarily know if it's a talent for chest specifically, but it's a talent for, I'm sure there's some sort of spatial visualization in your mind, you're, you start picking up what squares are controlled by your pieces and opponents pieces faster, your memory is much stronger. So you don't just learn openings like we discussed, you learn literal patterns such as,

oh, I remember this from two tournaments ago. I remember this from a game I played just yesterday and you just keep playing and playing and playing. But I think the one commonality I think I've seen in all kids it's a obsession you have to play a lot. And I've seen kids who are brilliant kids like if you give them a page of tactics, puzzles, they solve faster than anybody. They can pick things up your super fast. They're a pleasure to teach. They go to a tournament, disaster. They can't handle the anxiousness. They can't handle that silent face to face war with another six year old. They can't

even handle. There's also trash stock. They take one sentence by a kid can throw off your pried student. And I've seen kids just totally disintegrate. I've seen also my students bully other kids who aren't, my student wasn't that strong, but they're verbal warfare, which is not allowed, but goes unnoticed.

It's not even verbal warfare. Like just going like, little like facial expressions you make at the board. I didn't even think about that. That's pretty creepy, the intensity, not creepy. That's not the right word, but there's an intensity in that silence over the board. Like you can probably hear stuff like just like, it's super quiet, it's like a library. Yep. And then there's just attention that builds. You can hear the breathing. Yeah. And at the highest level, both sides are involved in a battle that they both

foresee in 99% of the time. That's the scary part is that you both see the exact same thing. It's very rare. You play a move and I didn't see it. It's that I misvaluated it. I saw the move could be played, but I missed something three or four moves deeper. You play that move and suddenly you're excited

and I'm nervous. But all of a sudden, you make an inaccuracy and now the tide shifts, right? We could be on totally different planes throughout the game, or we could be on the same plane throughout the game. So it's really fascinating. Yeah, so your thought is when you see a move planes throughout the game or we could be on the same plane throughout the game. So it's really fascinating. Yeah.

So your thought is when you see a move that you see in suboptomal, you start to think, what was that? You start to try to make sense of that. Did you miscalculate or did they miscalculate? What is not what Magnus is really good at is taking people away from like making suboptimal moves to take them away from the known openings or is that unfair to say yeah he gets part of his really dominant reputation I think from

not letting people get into ultra theoretical positions he just won this tournament this online tournament and he said he had a not letting people get into ultra theoretical positions. He just won this tournament, this online tournament, and he said he had a young player strategy. He had an anti-... sorry, anti-young player strategy. What's that mean? It means that by move seven or eight, you go to the database, no games.

Kid is on their own, they have to swim on their own. Yeah. And they have to deal with the strategic complexities of the position Which he just he gets and he might get from just an enormous database within his brain of historical games that have similar structures or Just sheer genius like we we won't know. Yeah, it's a mix of the two for sure the younger you are you can't remember a game played in 1951 and some Bar in the Soviet Union, but he does because he read a book once or a magazine once. He just remembers. He remembers the structure, which it's just, it's not fair. It's

crazy, right? What do you think makes some, if you can sort of link on it, what do you think makes him so good? I think it's the memory and I think it's. He just seems to get the game better than anybody else. That's the best way I can describe it in sports. You have reaction time. You have strength. You have, but also as he's now evolving, it's stamina. So there have been games that if you put two other 27, 50 rated players or World top 10 players, they would have drawn the game. The game would have ended. The game nobody would have won it. You put Magnus as one of the aggressors in that

game. Suddenly the chance of victory doubles from 5% to 10%. What's that about? Because what is a game six against Nippon like right isn't stockfish say that's supposed to be a draw so zero point zero zero does mean a draw sometimes but other times it means it's the joke I always make it means that stockfish is out for smoke break it just it can't you explain the joke can you explain zero point zero zero yes so when so stockfish will show 0.00. Yes. So when so stockfish will show an evaluation, which determines whether the position is equal, slightly better for one side, slightly better for the other side or completely winning. You can 0.00 point to minus 0.2. That's all within a balance. You can say, okay, black has a little sprinkle of activity, something white has that. But if it, 0, 0, it could be literally a dead draw, meaning theoretically just impossible to win. But oftentimes what that means is the smoke break joke is, Stifers doesn't know. There is so much complexity within the position,

the combinations of different moves that are acceptable and okay, it cannot evaluate correctly. Wow, so even the end games are tough for stockfish. Which is why Magnus won that game because there was practical value remaining. It wasn't a dead draw. He continued to ask questions over the course of six or seven hours. He would sacrifice a pawn. He would sacrifice another pawn to damage the structure. Fellulations stayed the same because a machine could stop him, but not young. And that was one of my favorite re... That game ruined my whole day, by the way. Destroyed because it's so long. Yeah, I made so many plans that day.

It completely ruined my day, but it was a very worthy recap. You were just all in. You watched that whole game. I watched the whole game. And the World Championship was a crazy time because I wanted to be first with the recap. You were just all in. You watched that whole game. I watched the whole game. And the World Championship was a crazy time because I wanted to be first with the recap video, but I also wanted to be best with the recap video. So I spent all the hours of the games watching all the live broadcasts and getting all the information, all the variations and trying to put that into the recap. It was a lot of fun. It was a huge adrenaline that when it was all over. So just for people who don't know, that's the most recent world championship.

So you had a, I mean, that was a draw after draw after draw after draw. Yeah. And it was kind of boring in that way. Or maybe our draws, is there like non-boring parts within the draw to you when you were like just studying it carefully for me yes For the average viewer know That's the truth especially when the game itself is not that exciting when Magnus plays a Strange move on move 9 or 10 that hasn't ever been played and

Then Jan has to try to exploit it and he fails and no attack builds up and they shuffle their pieces for three hours. My favorite thing is when the commentator is like, I don't know why he did that. I wonder why he did that. When the commentator is confused, that's my, as a person who's just a spectator, it's just like, that's interesting. Because then the most interesting part is about listening to the commentators who I guess themselves might be grandmasters. All. Yeah. They are trying to, I guess just like Neppo and just like Magnus try to figure out what's the idea here.

What are you thinking? That's cool. That's an interesting part of the game. But other than that, it seemed, yeah, I was sure this is just kind of keep being a draw, especially in that situation. So it seems almost remarkable that his magna was able to put pull out a win in game 6. And after that, at least Magna said that that ends it because now that was going to have to take more risks and that opens it up to pure chess and then it's it was that Steve Prifantane said like whenever it's whenever there's a race is down to like pure guts then that's when I win it.

There was also a conversation about Yann's first half, second half in any tournament. And the first half he's just brilliant on fire. You could even say he was out playing Magnus, but the entire conversation before the match was Jan slows down. And at the first sign of a loss or a setback, the match might fall apart. And that was the worst way to lose. There was literally no worst way. And it just got worse from there and there. I mean, it was one move mistakes. But he's back. He's been, I mean, Yana's won the candidates again. He's going to play for the world championship. So who you got, who you got? What is this sling terminology? Can we like somehow edit that into a more sophisticated with the British accent type of phraseology?

Okay. Who do you think will win that match? I think it's 55, 45, but I don't know. For real. I don't know. So it's close. It's very close. Okay.

You can make both cases. You could say ding. You could say Jan has been here before. You can say to the World Championship stage, he knows what it's like to have a training camp and so on and so forth. His playing style is very, but you can also say Dingley ran as one of the most stable, unemotional chess players and Ding oftentimes goes from down to up. So in the candidates, he lost to Jan in the very first game, 14 round tournament.

He got demolished in the first game. I'm sure he was suffering from jet lag. The flight, he came to Spain like two days before the games began, which was crazy to me. And he got second place by the end. His chances of finishing in the top two were like 2%. After that first round, game people wrote him off completely. So he doesn't go from top down. He goes the opposite way. And if he loses, he might come back. But the truth is, I don't know. The

truth is it's going to be an interesting match. And it's also disappointing. We're not going to get Magnus in it. Yeah. What do you think about him stepping away from the World Championship? Are you a romantic about the World Championship? No, I'm not a romantic about anything. I can't imagine what it was dark. It went dark quickly. I don't think I I can't imagine what dark I went dark quickly I don't think I'm sophisticated enough to be romantic I think I you know I taught chess and now I make YouTube videos I'm not qualified on the subject of romanticism but I you don't think it's a beautiful game chess no I think I think I think it is a beautiful there you go I got you yeah is that is that considered

being a romantic yeah I was seeing the, I got you. Yeah. Is that considered being a romantic? Yeah. I was seeing the beauty in the, you can be like Bach and seeing the math in the music. But you can see the beauty, the magic. I think I see beauty in certain types of chess for sure, not in all chess. So I'll partially romantic. Part-time romantic. Yeah. Yeah.

So what do you feel about Magnus stepping away from the World Championships? Disappointing but understandable. Can you steal Manus' case? What's understandable about it to you? I don't think it's as prestigious as it could be. I don't think the World Championship? Yeah. Yeah. Why does Magnus still sign everything as world champion? That's a good point that he did just put out a statement and he does it. But he does it everywhere else too. Does he really? Yeah, like world champion, right? World champion. I don't know. World champion, world champion. Maybe it's just because he he wanted, but he thinks that the journey to the top once again

to maintain the status quo has lost its appeal. You know what the example that I like to make? I'm a big fan of UFC. So we've never really seen with the exception of George St. Pierre walking and who be, but who be was kind of a different story, walking away from belt at the absolute zenith

Of their career, but also in the UFC champions are extremely well taken care of Champions have some of the best some of the best lives of course You know you're not all champions you can say some of the lower weight divisions, yes. But what I'm saying is, a lot of them get all the sponsors. They get massive, massive paydays, their international celebrities. I don't think chess has that. In fact, the world championship of chess price fund has not changed much in like 40 years. So you could probably make more money on on YouTube. Yes.

Playing randos, not randos, but other having fun and playing challenging, really challenging games, playing other Super Grandmasters like an ad hoc events or maybe a little bit organized events, but not the World Championship. Yeah. And still have a lot of fun, make a lot of money, get everybody excited, all that kind of stuff. Yeah, so for Magnus specifically, and we're using him because he's the world champion, if you tally, if he wins every tournament that he plays in over the course of a year,

which is really not even that crazy even estimate, because that's really how it seems sometimes. Yeah. I don't know how much money that is, I haven't tallyed, but if he dedicated an entire year to being managed on social media and doing various things and growing all his brands and getting sponsor deals. I think he would make five times more than being the world champion, which is crazy. Yeah, but money isn't everything.

I know that's totally fair. The people that dedicate their whole life to winning the Olympics. The Olympics is an interesting one too, because I didn't even watch the Olympics as carefully as I usually do. This year, yeah, yeah. It's really strange. I'm not sure why that is. And during COVID, I'm not sure. That's that was weird. I don't know if it's losing its magic. Part of it is also the people that only Olympics and the way they distribute it, they make it a little bit more difficult to watch. Like, it should, in my opinion, I sure hope it'll be just available on YouTube and easily accessible.

It's like the difference between like SpaceX and some other, like even NASA, just SpaceX is better at streaming their launches and, and commentating them. And they've made NASA better as well. But just like the ability, it sounds ridiculous, but making it more frictionless for people to watch, get excited, to share all that kind of stuff. Yeah, I'm not exactly sure where the magic, like balances between the classic traditional world

championships and the kind of dramatic exciting streamer world and it feels like for the world championships to be relevant they have to find that balance. Yeah, well this recent one had I was it's pretty good commentating yeah. No, I'm not I'm not even necessarily talking about myself But there was a lot of that was the worst part for me No, there was Amazing. Yeah, I appreciate that it was a lot of I was a big arms race. So every Major chess platform tried to get one super grand master which one of them on on Fabiano Karawana

you name it they, they were basically involved. And to go back to that point, yeah, the big question is money, and if Magnus is not motivated by money, if the price went for the next World Championship, it was $10 million would he play it? He says, no, then it must be something else. It must just be a matter of something's not worth it. It's not worth you got to take him in his word and his word is like There's too much stress to the low sample play. Yeah, I want to play many more times. Yeah, he wants to play more He wants to make more interesting. Yeah, exactly. Yeah more shorter games like where you can Increase the possibility of pure chess

Whatever the heck that means? Yeah, but we can't go back to the first carp of Kasparov match, which they had to stop due to health concerns. I mean, the guy went down 5-0, and it was first to 6 wins, and draws the encounter. So draws the mass to the total score. There was no best of system. So what happened there?

The match went something like seven, eight months, Kasparov started making a comeback after being down five, nothing. He was five three. And they called it off. They called it off. They said, both players are in poor health conditions, because far I've stormed down yellow that this is a farce. But the match was 50 games long. I would even more maybe I made a video and I don't even remember how many games it was. It was so long. Can you imagine imagine Bobby Fisher wanted something almost as extreme draws Don't Count. It's first one to 10 wins.

And if it's 9-9, the World Champion retains his title. So you have to beat the World Champion 10-8. That's the only way. You don't like that. What's I? Is this growing? I don't know. Maybe I like it for the YouTube recaps, but do I like it for the players? and do I like it for general public no, sure it's three four hours, right?

You imagine your favorite tennis match was six months long. What are we doing? Yeah, yeah, there's still a magic to the world championship. I wish they could make it some interesting They make it work somehow But Matt I think Magnus is really challenging for you day and everybody else to step up and try to figure that out, which is great ultimately. Who would you say is the greatest of all time? Can you make the case, you mentioned Kasparov,

can you make the case for Kasparov, can you make the case for Magnus Carlson, Bobby Fisher, Tall. In my opinion, you can make a case for Magnus Carlson, Bobby Fisher, tall. In my opinion, you can make a case for Magnus Gary and Bobby Fisher. I'm not one of the folks that's like, I mean, a couple of Blanca was brilliant. You can argue Steinitz was brilliant, but I think it was probably Kasparov and Magnus has a chance to overtake it. So the longevity is really important to you when you're thinking about this? Yes, I think so.

I think Magnus is very, very close. It's extremely close. What would be the magic? You got to get that sixth one. Also the one. I'm just kidding. So the world championships matter. It's kind of like basketball, right?

Rings, it's all, it comes down to how many rings that this person went in. What about what basketball doesn't have this? The number of years and number one, right? Like rating, sorry. Yeah. Like there's a, there is a, which is what Magnus really likes is like there is a nice system of rating of who is ranked number one.

It has to do not with some championships or low sample tournaments. It has to do with general. Game after game after game helps us to meet more accurately that you love rating. He's been role number one for I think 11 years. Which is still less than because he was World No. 1 for 20 years. Yeah, which is, which is quite wild. But still lower rating, I think, than Magnus now. Yeah, I think rating in general has sort of allegedly got inflated. Yeah, I, I, that's true. Is there true to that?

I think so. I don't, I can't speak to how exactly it happened, but it also happens online. If you go back just three or four years, I think some of the best blitz players on the stage shows that come with 27, 2800 and now they're 3,200. I think it's just sort of what happens, but I don't exactly know. I will mention that there was a very strange change, not exactly sure when the year was in Fidey, so over the board chest, where if you were under the age of 16 or 18 years old, one of those two, and you were below 2300,

okay. Your rating change factor was three to four times higher. So just imagine what that means. Magnus has a rating change factor of let's say one. I have a rating change factor also of one. Anybody over the rating 2,400 has the same rating change factor. What is the rating change factor? If you win. Yeah, there's a formula and basically let's say at the very base level, five point change.

If you're a rating change factor is one. You beat somebody you gain five points. Those kids who were under 18 and under 2300, their rating change factor was four. So their ratings were going out four times higher and four times like up and down compared to normal folks. And there was a there was one teenager in the US in particular who in one month played a bunch of tournaments with his rating change factor and became nearly rated 2,640 which is Top 15 the world. He was just a random teenager from the United States

He became a grandmaster ultimately, but he bled like 90 points down because his rating was so inflated. And this K-40 exists now. I mean, you have many kids who out of nowhere, 21 hundred, 21 hundred, 24 hundred after, you know, one good month. It's like, what? So that's interesting. That's like, uh, similar to like how TikTok inflates your virality early on.

Does it? Well, yeah, like I, I, I, I, I, I, well, at least the rumor is like they want you to get engaged. And I thought there was even artificial likes and so on, that they want you to get that dopamine addiction. So maybe they want to throw you, if you're really passionate about chess, they want you to throw you to the sharks by artificially inflating you And flating your rating and maybe that gets you into the game much more intensely Maybe that's up. I

Wonder how many like backdoor feeding meetings there are with cigars and so that that was the factors determined by who does the The elo rating who changes this stuff? Yeah. Who knows? It's probably those Lee Chess anarchists. Yeah, exactly. I think they want to, I think they want to, they want to stay away from that stuff. But so there's a guy named Hans Neeman.

Yep. And he beat Magnus Carlson recently. Yeah, it has been already, what is August? September 4th, yeah. September. So he beat him twice, right recently. Once is the allegations by the internet that Hans Neumann cheated. And then the second time Magnus played a few moves and forfeited

and resigned. So there's three. Okay. Sorry. No, no. Yeah. Can we go through the stuff? Yes. Yes. Yes. So they play a live eSports event in Miami. Miami Beach. Yes. Eat in rock. That's where I actually interviewed Magnus. Yeah. That's where that was. Oh, by weird circumstance, I found myself in Miami unrelated to chest event and yeah, it was a very dramatic event for me for various reasons. One of which the camera stopped working way through the conversation. So that yeah, I saw that. Also, side note, I really respect how you write comments, pin them at the top, you add timestamps, you're like very true professional. I am the complete opposite on YouTube

when I'm off the camera. So I dig in the mud. What do you guys that mean? Dig in the mud. From when I started on YouTube in 2020, I, in June, like May, June, 2020, I had no subscribers. So I got to a million in a year.

I had a lot of people analyzing my every move, all of my small flaws. And I love getting hate comments. Because you pin, you pin, you hit the comment of shame. That's what it was, it's been named over the years by folks. I never called it that, but yeah, it's, it's, it's pin of shame and it's been tough. Because now people pretend to write hate comments just to get attention.

So like anything, the public ruined the good thing. But it started that way. It started with people just shredding me to bits, calling me, spin-offs of this. And I think I'm a human more than I'm a creator, an influencer, an attention seeker, like I'm just a person. So to me, even at the size of 1.6 million subscribers now, September 2022, I don't understand that I've gotten big and that I shouldn't do this stuff and that I should be beyond it

or I shouldn't be checking my social media as much as I do and interacting one on one. I'm still very much a human being and my guilty pleasure, the way of killing time, if I'm not laying on the couch and playing some chess blitz games off stream is just interact with people who say nice things and who say horrible things. And I really like to get into the head of the people who say the terrible things.

Now sometimes you can, sometimes they are truly trolls, but sometimes people just, they just, they just really hate you. What's the successful, what's the successful interaction with the person that's trolling you? Like at the end of that hero journey that you were part taking in, what's like what's the top of the mountain look like? Is the troll conquered and broken mentally? No, not meant to. I don't want to, I don't want to defeat. I honestly sometimes somebody writes a very long comment, I'll just respond with the question mark. Yeah. Oh, so you're, you see each other like a brother and sister,

you're gonna travel together on this journey of deep meaning, like introspection of what does this mean? Yeah, I've had people write, I can't quote now, but something about my persona, my behavior, this and that. And I just like respond to them and I say, hey, it sounds crazy that a large creator might do something like this, but this kind of goes back to you. You speak to folks on a very respectful way. If you make a mistake, you completely own up to it.

So I have this sometimes, these one-on-one interactions where I say, I think you're reading too much into this. I think you're kind of, you don't understand understand maybe some of my humor or sarcasm as such. So you formed this opinion that I'm this kind of a person, this and that, and now you're sort of anything I do you're trying to attach to that reasoning, and here you are writing this lengthy essay of why nobody should watch my content. Sometimes people go, you know what? I think you have a point.

Maybe I should relax a little bit. I would love to sort of interview and understand the lives of the folks that post that kind of stuff. I mean, they're human beings. They have interesting journeys also. I think they often don't realize, I think they don't realize their comment will be read by anybody, especially you.

Maybe they think like, and they also don't realize you're human being. I feel like that's, you know, it's, it's so interesting to watch it. Like some guy, because I posted on Twitter for like a minute, uh, they don't talk into you and asking for questions. I, I deleted that tweet because, yeah, like, because you didn you didn't 95% of the people were talk about cheating, talk about the cheating. All right, I got it. Thank you. This is not going to be helpful at all. So I was like, all right. But in that time, like there's one comment, which I'm, it's hilarious to me that you found that one comment. The one comment says, like,

this seems like a waste of time or something like why lame guest lame guest lame guest and then used Like responded something like with a question mark. Yeah. Yeah. I wrote. Oh, I lame guest. Why am I made a sad face talk about this Yeah, it's like why am I lame guest and he responded he responded even after you deleted this way he said He doesn't know what value I would bring because I just make videos about chess games. And that's true. You've had some absolutely brilliant people on. But I also looked at this gentleman's profile and he was one of the folks that put things about his family and God and his politics in his Twitter bio, and I started thinking maybe I said something in some video and I made a joke about religion or something,

just some offhand five second thing somewhere that someone turns me into just an absolute outcast in the household. They can no longer watch me, and that has happened. That has happened. I'll record a 30 minute video and I'll make a joke about something and some phrasing, and that's it. I'll record a 30 minute video and I'll make a joke about something and some phrasing and that's it. I've lost the viewer forever and they will let me know. They will write me an email and I just don't think people should be that serious.

Yeah, there's some of that because I've seen people say that sometimes about me but I see it more with others. They'll say, you know, I used to be like Joe Rogan guesses. Uh, yeah, I used to be a huge fan of Joe Rogan until he said this. Right. It's like one. Um, first I do wonder if you were ever really a big fan. That's that's one question mark I have. But the other is like, I think we should be more lenient with each other in terms

of how much stupid shit we say. And you know, if you actually, I wish people were able to sort of introspect on their own, on the own, on the stupid shit they say themselves, like to, to put a little bit of empathy. Like I wish there's a way to read all the emails you've ever written. And just to see, or maybe do a search engine for all the stupid shit you've said in emails in the past, and like summarize it. And to reveal it to yourself that like, you have bad days, you have good days, you have emotional days, you have stoic days, you have sometimes, you have

you take very different political views than you do in other days. And it's like, it's all over the place. And if you're a creator, if you're putting stuff out all the time, you're going to have those. And you're still, you're still full, like, complex bag of emotions and thoughts and ideas and contradictions and all of that. Like, you shouldn't judge a person by a single statement and even when you do you should try to infer the best possible interpretation of that statement. I feel like that. That's just a healthier way to interact with the world than with other humans is like I wonder what's the best possible.

Interpretation of the thing they just tweeted or they said like what Let's let's imagine that the person saying those words is actually a really good human being and what did they mean when they said That thing about anal beads So good for so long. Yeah, right Or whatever it is. Like, you know, they didn't mean to be offensive to the sexuality of a certain group. They're just talking about, they're talking shit about it.

It'll be, it's like, they're not, like, sometimes it's humor. Sometimes it's actually genuinely embodying, like, a political viewpoint and and like walking with it, thinking through it for a few days, like, like taking seriously, empathizing not just for a brief moment, but for a time, like walking with an idea and allowing yourself to express it, like playing doubles out, I do that all the time. With yourself? Or with myself.

Yeah, in conversation, I do too. And I find I have to say, I'm playing doubles out. I do that all the time. With myself or with myself. Yeah, in conversation, I do too. And I find I have to say I'm playing doubles advocate. Like you have to be very explicit. But with myself, I'll just do it in my head. Like I have different voices. Like, you know, obviously, it just in I've been getting so much information and so many thoughts in All the complexities of the war in Ukraine for example and all the different voices within Ukraine I just interviewed hundreds of people and they have very different perspectives in Neuon's thues about the war Summer full of hate summer full of love like hate for the other love for their own country, love for family and tradition, all of it.

It's a beautiful mix and I have to walk, I have to like carry those ideas in my head and empathize with them deeply and then I have to listen to people that live elsewhere, that live in India. They have a very different perspective. There's a lot of people in India that have a very different perspective than the people in Ukraine. And so I don't know and some of that will bleed out into the thoughts I express publicly and Like when people judge you harshly for it it it First of all me as a human being is psychologically difficult

but also it makes me less willing to be fragile. I still try to be strong enough to be fragile in front of the camera. I just say, say things that are on my mind, even if I know it's going to create people that are going to be like ruthlessly negative towards me. So I tried to wear my heart and my sleeve and still try to be fragile, but it's harder. You're going to pay a psychological cost. Like, you know, in some sense, I try to be tough, but like I can be a softie in that, in like certain, certain, like a tax can get to me. So I'm surprised that they don't get, I mean, do the some negativity get to you? Or is this the way you deal with it by responding?

Like that, that guy saying, like what value does he talking to? Like you add to the world. Yeah. No, but that was, I mean, that was so good. I was looking at, I was thinking at various moments, you went to jump in and I was, I was kind of letting, letting you speak. One of the things I wanted to mention was it's significantly simpler to talk about chess than it is to talk about some of the things you talk about and you have a big responsibility because you have to absorb information like a sponge, but you also then need to present it in a way where you potentially have an opinion while trying to be fair to everybody. And you're talking about things that will literally never please everybody, which is literally what you're going to talk

about some issues that are going to get out there into the people are going to watch it. I is right, the years of millions of people, and not everybody is going to watch it. I is right, the years of millions of people and not everybody is going to be satisfied and these are issues where people are going to be much more likely to speak up in all sorts of ways. Tremendous support or tremendous hatred, vitriol and God knows what else. Yeah, it's one of the reasons I'm blown away

to even be sitting here, frankly, because up until a few months ago, you weren't talking to, you know, you, I'm not saying you weren't talking to, but you hadn't spoken to chess players. You were speaking to people who are doing much more substantial things in the world. I have to get the humility there. But chess to me is incredible as a beautiful game. But I think the reason comments hurt is not, I mean, they hurt no matter what to me. Like not to me because I'm in a simpler space. So you have to understand it. I even if so if it's chess based criticism, it doesn't hit as hard. No, if you had a podcast about

anal bees, no, I'm just I'm launching this. If you had a podcast about anal beast knowledge, I'm launching this. If you had a podcast about photography, you got to realize it wouldn't be the same way. You talk about potentially existential things. You talk about cyber security or AI or people who are massive heads of companies that are just inherently going to be a bit more controversial so that I can't imagine being in your shoes because you have so many complex emotions about situations where you may not necessarily agree with everything that someone has said publicly, but you still invite them for a conversation because they're a human being. It's totally different likes. I don't know.

I'm not the way I experienced it. To me, I think what hurts is it's not even on my, because I'm super self-critical, usually way more than that internet can be. It's that like human beings can be cruel to each other. So like the reason it hurts for some reason is like this almost like the disappointment in people. They don't give each other a chance. So in that sense, the negativity doesn't have to be about Ukraine or geopolitics. It could be about the silliest of things. I see. And like, to me, it's like, why, why be mean to

each other? In a context where the mean doesn't like, it's out of place. Because, for example, there is like a gaming culture where they just talk shit to each other and I'll stop. I think it's more acceptable there. It seems to fit. It seems to be funnier there. And like, when streamers talk shit to each other, I've been listening to several streamers recently. And it's like, it somehow works a little better, even if they're just cruel to each other.

It makes more sense. But I think what people are genuinely trying to educate or to help and so on, and you still get the shitty comments, I don't know, makes me sad. No, it doesn't, it doesn't make me, it doesn't make me sad. I think part of that is also the way I was brought up. So I was, I skipped kindergarten, so I was always the smallest kid. You picked on? I was picked on and then I did picking.

So I had kind of both in my life. I kind of know I went home from summer camp crying and I also made a kid cry once in fourth grade. So I had the balance and I physical or mental abuse or both. Verbal. Verbal. No, I didn't beat anybody up. I was tiny. I think the kid in the younger grade was bigger than I was. And you still broke them. Because I was. So I had to use my... Mental warfare. I had to use my words. I had to be...

And growing up, my parents blew when I was super young and I played chess. So all things that make you super... Self-trustworthy. Like, you believe your first instinct. You don't listen to what other people tell you. And if people give you advice, say, okay, I'm going to think about that. I'm not going to go and do that.

I wasn't impressionable. You couldn't convince me to do something. That stuck to this day, my wife has had to deconstruct some of my stubbornness. I didn't even realize was incredible stubbornness. It's just something that you brought up with. So to me, that stuff doesn't bother me. And it's so the voices of others don't shake you quite they can't mentally shake your

like psychological stability. No, they they haven't I I think when it got Probably that it's worst point was But probably at its worst point was in combination with being unable to perform well in over the board play. But that was also self-driven. I wasn't performing poorly because I was getting comments, but because I was performing poorly, the comments got to me more. The cycle was sort of in the opposite direction.

And that was probably the most frustrating out. But people have sent some vile things to me. You know about my whole Indonesia thing. Oh, this is good. I'm just going to give the anarchist an elite chest. Let's go change it. What's the Indonesia thing? Yeah. The way you said, okay, maybe we don't want to talk about it. No, no, no, let's let's talk. No, it's totally fine. I who did you kill? I don't, I was going to say I wish, but I'm not even sure I can make a joke like that. I So the Indonesia thing was I was streaming chest on chest.com I might add And I got booted up a 10 minute game

Just a random account from Indonesia. That was the flag. Now, mind you on these websites, you can pick your flag. It can be from wherever. It's not geotracing, you can change it. I was like, okay, account from Indonesia. And as always, I looked at the account because it was an untitled, high rated account. And I looked through the games.

Win rate was suspiciously high. Average accuracy was suspiciously high. Okay, I think this is a cheater. I said that it allowed. It's not the first time I played cheaters on stream. And I said, okay, I'm still going to play. Let's see what happens. The game was not crazy suspicious, but definitely suspicious. A few critical moments where I just clearly thought I had a good position. And then the person or the bot played some move that just killed my hopes and I lost. I was like, okay, I lost. And I wrote to the Chas.com fair play team, like behind the scenes, I wasn't even saying anything publicly on stream and the guy got banned.

It was cheater. So that night, right before I'm going to sleep, because in the ninjas, 12 hours ahead of New York, go on my Twitter, the hell is going on? I see hundreds of responses to my recent tweets. Levy, you gotta check Facebook, man, you gotta check Facebook. Like, so, here's a link. So allegedly, that account belonged to an older gentleman and his son made a Facebook post that said my dad played a big streamer in chess got them chess and got them got mad he lost to my dad

so his community mass reported my dad and he was banned for cheating oh wait when viral oh no did you you know that Indonesia has the fourth largest population in the world? I didn't know. I learned the hard way. Interesting. 10s of thousands of DMs every second. Instagram DMs, because I had my DMs open.

I was never afraid of that stuff. My YouTube videos went from 99% of vote down vote to 50 50 50. Oh, wow. They swarmed my All negative all all all play him again. You I mean, I don't know how much swearing there is on this podcast But I mean, it was just all sorts of all the fucking swarrying They just everything ruthless the, the vicious. They were going to kill me. They were going to rape my family. They were going to, they were contacting people I followed on Instagram. They were contacting them and telling them crazy things. It was, I'm not joking. It was tens of thousands of people every minute. It was unbelievable. And I didn't know what

to do because the guy cheated. I was in the right people. How certain were you there, he cheated? 100%. 100%. I'm okay. I don't know if you can say 100%. But it's just.com also had a suspicion.

They have good detection algorithms. Yes. Danny Rensch would be able to, I legitimately know nothing about the behind the scenes because it's only kind of tech people, but one thing I did not realize was that this account, whether it was the sun playing or the father playing, we will not know. We don't know who played. It could have been the sun. It could have been the dad covering for him, whatever.

But at some point that account won 27 games in a row at 95% acres. I mean, even Magnus can't do that. Even, you know, this took a month. This story took one month from start to finish. First, I had to work with a, like, a media company to geoblock my content in Indonesia on YouTube. So Indonesians could not see my channel. Oh, so you didn't want to like lean into it. Go full Donald Trump. No, no, let's let's cause you're in the right. You feel like you're in the right. You as far as you know, you're in the right. Yeah, and I had been watching all my work burn to the ground. Oh, you felt it was being Yeah, and I'm one thing I'm learning about myself is I'm not a good crisis actor. I need someone to like slap me so I don't do something emotional in the moment when crisis is ongoing.

What would be the emotional act that's not productive there? Partnering with an MCN that makes you give away a bunch of your revenue and then when you break with them, I wasn't monetized for a week. It was a very big decision to plug in, I think they're called MCNs, but... What are they, sorry, I don't know. They're like, there's specialized agencies that work behind the scenes with YouTube that if you connect your account,

they say they can give you certain ad benefits, they can geoblock your content, they, which you can't do normally. They have certain perks that only you two have been behind the scenes. You pay them 10% of your monthly ad revenue, but they claim to do a handful of things for you. I just needed them to geoblock my content.

I just didn't care how much money I was going to give away for month, but what's the wide geoblocking? You just didn't like the download. voting. Yeah, I didn't want you want a positivity like you're being educational. You're I mean, they're like you do a bit of shit talking, but it's more like fun and easygoing. You didn't want this kind of viciousness. Yeah, my comment section was just being completely flooded. Like they were destroying my channel. And to be honest, maybe all of the views and the downvotes out of would have actually been beneficial. Maybe my videos would have actually started

getting recommended to more people. But I'm a person. This is who goes back to the same thing. Oh, so this got to you. Yeah, this was like, I was just watching it and I'm like, this is not fair. This is, I don't know what to do. So I'm gonna stop this as much as I can. They still got through the VPN.

And they were like, you ask whole, you don't think we have VPN and Indonesia? It was this whole, you know, it was this whole thing. This father and son got invited to every major news network. I'm not joking. They got invited to the major podcast. They like to say the Joe Rogan of Indonesia. Yeah, Daddy Corbusier is this mentalist. He's a bald guy, very fun guy. He had them. And that's when the Indonesian chest federation stepped in.

The thing is, nobody who was harassing me knows anything about chest. They just saw the story. And long story short, they brought in a sponsor. The guy played a strong, one of the strongest chest players in the country who also happens to be a woman. Irene Sukhandar, she's like 2400 international master. She crushed him because his actual playing strength is 1300, 1400. Something like that, he still got paid. Because there was a winning prize fund, a losing prize fund, and we never heard from him again. And that was the whole story. That was why I had to shut down all of my social media to DMs and DM

requests and even notifications. Like I don't get notifications unless someone I follow. But see stuff like that doesn't often get resolved in this kind of clear way. No, it doesn't. It could have been so you got lucky there that there's a conclusion to this. Yeah, somebody got views, somebody got money. And I never got many apologies. What did you learn from that experience about yourself, about the internet? I think first and foremost, I learned that every moment you are live or broadcasting can be completely blown out of proportion.

You have to be real careful. And I can't actively think about that, unfortunately, even when I'm streaming. I've had other instances where things come back to bite. I've even had these moments live on stream. I feel like I said something too sarcastically to somebody and I don't know, their day is going in my room and their whole day, you know, God knows what, you have these moments of regret where you want your

personality to shine through and you wanna entertain. These things are thinking at what cost if I make a joke to a viewer that suddenly the whole chat is laughing at them, what if that puts them in a deep dark place? And again, so it all comes back to this one them. What if that puts them in a deep, dark place? And again, it all comes back to this one on one thing for me because I'm a human. I would hate to put another person into that situation

if I would much rather get a drink with somebody than but it's all kind of part of this act and you wanna make jokes. And I also learned I'm a horrible crisis actor. So I have no patience, but I think that's normal in 2022. Everything is immediate. We can barely sit, think, let time go by. It makes me sad because I think that kind of stuff can destroy good people. That's what makes you sad. Yeah, well, one of the things we discuss just here before recording, which I'm also, I've talked about this on

stream. I'm very open with this type of stuff is over though I think for me a lot of that comes down to just a lack of control of the of the narrative That's that phrase is kind of messy. It can be used for political stuff But I I hate when I say things and they get completely misconstrued or they Are completely misinterpreted and I can't imagine being in your shoes because again, I do chest. You cannot really, you can clip me saying something about a chest game out of context and it's hilarious. You know, it's dumb.

It's nothing. It's not an attack on me or something that I said. It's not an attack on kind of more similarly to what you were describing. And you don't say stuff like that, like ridiculous, you don't say ridiculous shit about yourself. Like that, I do, I do. And you don't feel like that could be made. Isn't this the same guy that said X?

Maybe, maybe I either haven't said enough of those things or there's no moments in, I don't't have three four hour open conversations with other humans and I'm pretty sure if I did there would be more of that stuff out there. But it's probably what it is just a lack of. It's a lack of being able to kind of control what is actually reality and that is very frustrating and. actually reality and that is very frustrating. And yeah, you're right. I mean, there is a sense that there's not enough motivation for people to attack you. You're ultimately adding a lot of positive stuff

to the world. And when you get into more political topics, there's people who are hurting, who have a lot of anger in their hearts, and they want to direct it towards you. So then they need ammunition. And ammunition comes in the way of like clips from the past So I'm sure that you I'm pretty sure you already have clips like that. It's just there's not people that

Really have anger to direct towards you. Ultimately. You're adding a lot of good stuff to the world. And so yeah, but it's man the viciousness of human beings Under the veil of anonymity at scale can be really painful. So that I guess that's the curse the challenge of being a creator on YouTube and so on and on Twitch When you talked about retiring you I think you tweeted about retiring from chess. Give me a video, yeah, tweeted. That's my value to the world.

The tweet or the video? I'm just the both. I'm retiring from all competitive chess events. My preparation is outmatched. My calculation skills are too flawed. And most importantly, my anxiety is beyond repair. I physically and emotionally cannot do it anymore. What was the hardest thing? What was the hardest thing about competing? Can you elaborate on that?

Yeah. I think it's separated into faces of my life. So after being a creator and coming back and playing over the board and making recaps of all my games, I think the constant feeling that I had at the board was a kid who hadn't studied enough for a test, which is a very unique type of anxiety. And during the game, it was just self-hatred. Like, good moves did not feel as good as how bad bad moves felt and bad moments. And in the underneath that you're saying there was a sense that I did not prepare well enough. Oh, one unquestionably. So my, I'm an international master, but there is international masters now who are 11. I got the title when I was 22, which is late.

I might not sound like it's late, but it's really late, and I quit chest multiple times when I was a teenager. If I hadn't, one of my parents was like, sit down. This is the only thing that you're good at. Focus on it, yeah. Maybe I would have been a grandmaster, but that's life, right? And I would come back to chess at various points in my life

when I felt more mature, I felt more ready, and I felt more motivated. It was all me. I never, I had one coach when I was maybe about 10. I never listened to the guy. Great guy. He emailed me even recently, just wanting to catch catch up which I thought was adorable because I'm like I don't even know if he knows that YouTube chess exists

He's in his 70s. He's just he's just like a nice older guy. Yeah And he would come to my house. We would have dinner and my grandma would make us food and He would tell her that I'm brilliant, but I never work And I have so much potential. If only I ever worked at all, one minute on anything. I just played speed games online and I... Did he speak the truth there? Like, could you have worked more?

I could have worked more for sure, yeah, absolutely. When you listen to Magnus, he seems like he doesn't work either. He works. He might work in different ways, but I think for him it's also obsession, again love, it's everything. He might read a book, he doesn't consider it work. It's work. He's getting information in and he's learning something. It might just be easier for him to learn than for me, for example, or for anybody just everybody learns and absorbs things differently. So I would come back to chess and the best run of my life that I had was in 2016.

Where I basically while teaching a chess program, it's a classic chess program, I told all the parents, hey. So for these four months, I want to stop doing private lessons and I'm going to go travel and play tournaments because I want to become an international master finally. 20 years old, this is in 2016, like can you help me raise some money? These are all managing directors, these are lawyers, these are seven figure, eight figure households, and they contributed, and I kept the blog, and then I worked just six hours,

seven hours every day, like studying all the opening trends, all of the new ideas, reading the books, analyzing my own games, playing my own speed games, and analyzing them, training every day. And that year I went from 2240 over the board to 2404, with two of the three norms as they call them, which are basically tournament performances. Like you perform at a certain level, not too complicated.

So I got almost everything I needed to be an I.M. But I just slipped up at the very end and 2017 I didn't play jazz, but in 2018, I came back once again with the vengeance. I started playing in the summer once again and I went up up up to my peak. But then something interesting happened. My life mission was accomplished. I never wanted or thought I could be a grandmaster. I wanted to be an international master and the adrenaline dump of hitting the IAM title. I just stopped working completely. I couldn't. and the second I started falling,

I couldn't stop. And I spent the rest of the summer just tanking, and I said, fuck this, I'm, I made my, my made my, I am, I'm gonna, I'm gonna fuck off some place and whatever. I'll be I am, it doesn't matter. But when I play games online, I mean, I destroy grandmasters all the time.

Like dynamically, dynamics and chess are just complex positions with all sorts of calculation, attacking, defending, like, very forcing lines. I think it's my best strength. I think I'm easily grandmaster level. So that you have the capacity to be grandmaster? 100%. Like, if the work was put in, if the work was put in and I was not doing my current career, if I

just train full time, I think I could do it. Do you have a desire to be grand master? Did you have a desire? You said, I didn't really want like the main goal was international master, which by the way is a really interesting just of talk to Olympic athletes, the crash after the gold medal is fascinating. I didn't get gold, but for me that was my goal. That was your goal. That was my goal. That was my goal.

That was my goal. That was my goal. That was my goal. That was my goal. That was my goal. That was my goal. That was my goal. That was my goal.

That was my goal. That was my goal. That was my goal. That was my goal. That was my goal. special person to not be destroyed by the gold and continue the dominance. Yeah. It's to continue growing, to continue. I mean, it's hard to, that's why they talk about it's hard to be a champion and defend your championships. Or whatever the goal is to achieve the goal and stick to like, yeah, it broke me. It broke you.

Yeah. So you have the capacity to be a grandmaster. Have you ever thought, by the way, is there still possible for you or you have fully dedicated now to the love of creating and analyzing this game? I don't think I'm going to do what I do right now forever. So are you going to die one day? Right. So yes, yes, yes. I once cried when I realized that it was at a funeral.

It was very sad. That's another entirely separate rabbit hole to go down. Which is when, when did this happen? Yeah, just a couple of years ago. Yeah, it was rough. You really were able to like, like that, the realization really hit you. Like, fuck, this ends.

Yeah, I'm the kind of person who I have my active thoughts on my brain of things I have to get done. And the more of those, the better, because my brain will walk me off a cliff, not the physical body, the brain itself will walk off a cliff, spinning in circles. So I try to keep myself as active as possible on tasks I have to do.

It's good and I'm busy. It's good. I'm at the scale. I am because you can't really rest the whole lot, but yes, that was I have these moments in my life where I have realizations of past fuck ups or things I have like I really have to do that I've been like really doing poorly or things like this. Massive existential things that just hit me like a bus. There's so many things tricky about it. So because I meditate on death a lot, in this conversation, I imagine this is the last thing both you and I do, just we're going to die after this. So you meditate on that. But then you also have to, I think what hits people really hard But then you also have to, I think what hits people really hard is the realization that life moves on.

Not only does it just end for you, but most people will be like, in your case, they'll tweet. There's like, oh, he's so great. There'll be so much outpouring. There'll be outpouring of love and so on for a day and then it moves on. And the, you know, the new trees grow, new bridges are built, and then eventually human civilization ends or moves over to Mars and so on. And you'll be forgotten completely. But that, that, for most people come right away like you get a cancer diagnosis or something like that. And it's like, doesn't anyone else know

that I'm going to die? Does anyone else care? Like nobody gives a shit. I mean, they do. I mean, there's love there, but like not in a dramatic way that you would somehow deep inside hope for, that the world would stop because your life is facing this

catastrophic event. But I think ultimately you could channel that realization into appreciation of the current moment, just the people you love and sharing love with them as intensely as possible experiencing every moment as intensely as possible. Because eventually there'll be a last moment, and after that there'll be no more moments. That's sort of what I do. Yeah, I try to channel all of that into, sorry.

I don't use these fancy microphones in my own. You're uncomfortable. It's not your fault. It's not your fault, right? With this microphone? No, with this line of conversation. Oh, I'm playing therapist. I don't know if I'm uncomfortable.

I just, I don't know if I have a lot to say. I'm sometimes I just listen. Yeah. Like sometimes I'm intimidated. You say a lot of good things and I'm like, shit, what am I going to say? Like at the end? Yeah.

Yeah. On this subject especially, I'm like, that's sort of what I... There's nothing. What do you think happens after we die? Oh, man. No, that's a rhetorical question. What were we talking about? Grandmaster.

Grandmaster. So, how hard is it to reach? What are the requirements for Grandmaster, by the way? Yeah, and what are the requirements for international master or by the way because yeah and what are the requirements for international master you mentioned a few requirements and so on yes so the first one is you have to know how to use a sure mic and an arm um slowly press by the share microphone by the way for the for people listening we're using this sms sure sm7b there a lot of podcastes use S.M. Sure, S.M.7B, a lot of podcast users use.

I don't know why. And Michael Jackson on Thriller, which Grimes told me. Really? That's what I think it looked a little different, but it's the same. Wow. Underneath it, a few musicians used it in studio. I don't know where it became popular as a podcast and microphone, because I think most broadcasters use condenser mics that look like really fancy.

Yeah, this looks a little, and you know, it's once great. It sounds really, really good. And I told you before that I wanted to use it, but it requires an external dashboard of some sort, and I'm way too lazy to learn how to do it. And my microphone doesn't sound that bad for YouTube and for Twitch, but this is a long term. I still have to figure out how to stream stuff. I haven't

figured that out because you want to go down into the world of Twitch. No, I don't. Okay, I don't. You just want to learn how to do it. Uh, uh, no, for, uh, no, not Twitch. Do you know what we have over there? It's, so first of all, yes, it is, it's like, uh, Do you know what we have over there? So first of all, yes, it is like, I feel like the hobbit going into like mortar, like I, yeah, twitches is a very intense world. But there is useful cases when you should have your microphone work with like the different processing chain work

in real time. So you can do like interviews. And also I tried to play a video game once a month. So I've done that like three times already. So stream that kind of stuff for like an hour. Like play Skyrim. I like I love playing Skyrim. I actually love the idea. I haven't done that yet, but apparently in Skyrim you can turn off the monsters and you can just walk around So I love the idea of just walking around Skyrim for a couple hours It's just like because it's beautiful nature. I see have you do you know anything about those I know very I know I know a little about Skyrim But so it's it's kind of like Chet know Sure, yeah, it's just beautiful worlds. So

There's games they're able to create this sense of you know, do we feel when you go hiking sense of nature? Yeah There it's not that they're ultra realistic, but they capture some majestic aspect of nature I think some of it is also music something peaceful. Mm-hmm. Like old timey But they're ultra realistic, but they capture some majestic aspect of nature. I think some of it is also music, something peaceful, like old-timey medieval type of music, and just the trees, like the wind, like, and then in the distance there's the mountains. You can like, you have a sense of history that the nature gives you, you have a sense of space, like this tiny little creature and there's this big world all around you. I don't know how big, that's like an art for a video game to create that.

It's not just about the monsters in front of you. It's about this world and this feeling of a world so I can just walk around and enjoy it. I get asked this question a lot. Why don't I stream more video games? Yes. And I didn't know that such video games, first of all, existed. I thought it was mostly just various sci-fi-ish characters and shooting and objective.

Oh, a comedy duty. Yeah, yeah. I've played Overwatch on stream. It's the only video game I actually played a lot and got decent at. and I couldn't play it on stream anymore because my teammates would use racial slurs in the voice chat. Yeah. So that is one of the, because I've been thinking of talking to a few streamers and they do. They're a little bit, I don't know as far as, that community broadly does use racial slurs and seem to make them okay. But for the ones I would talk to are a little bit, they're just harsh in general in the

intensity of language. And I don't know what to do. Like I don't want to be the guy who says like kids these days with their mean language on the internet, like you want to kind of adapt to the different communities. But at the same time, there is lines that you can cross, right? Like, if you make everything at your joke, because that's what they kind of do, everything ends in LOL, everything is funny.

Yeah. And that becomes once again a lubricant that it's like a slippery slope that takes you to a place where you actually make pretty mean ideas, even evil ideas, okay, because it starts a joke. And so, I mean, you start getting into the territory of, I mean, because I've been reading a lot on Hitler and Stalin and so on, and you'll see those kinds of topics come up in that community and it's like,

oh, they have a very different perspective on that stuff. To them, it's just a fun joke, fun time. And I see that the contrast of that would call a duty where you're shooting. And I love shooting and killing things in video games. But there's a slippery slope there too, because then just having visited the front in Ukraine, you get to see the real killing of people. And you see how one can lead to another. It's not obvious, but there's something that happens in video games where you're like, well, this is not reality. The same kind

of things happens in war. Well, the people on the other side aren't really human. It does become a kind of video game. And that same mechanism. I feel like I want to be cautious about our brain Going on that road So yeah, I I do worry about that community But there are video games that don't have such communities around them. I think Skyrim I don't think Skyrim is an online component of people Minecraft I think is relatively civil from what I've seen. Interesting.

Good community. I think it's a lot of right now it's booming. It's a lot of young creators who are all seemingly quite close. Yeah. But I think the community then extends to social media. some of them are intense, but who isn't and I think I think they foster a more or less kind of good group of folks, but no, I completely agree I think a lot of that stuff and combined with the anonymity stuff that we mentioned earlier Totally dehumanizes the way people interact with each other and it's Hey, it's scary. I don't know.

Combined that with two years of some people barely going outside. Yeah, it's not a good mix at all. I mean, you'd like to think that folks, it's like in their teenage years, kind of go through those and they mature out of it and stuff. So like, they start to realize the weight of their words. Like, that's my hope

But we're all trying to figure that out how the internet has changed youth Like easy access to porn easy access to like some dark communities. Yeah, we're dark ideas breed I don't know But then again, I trust in the goodness and the intelligence of people at the end of the day. And I think kids will, now it's something an old man. But it's good for kids to play with different ideas and then they grow out of it, hopefully. But then you have to have parents in good school and like good friends that kind of calm out in their bullshit.

And you need that. If you're stuck inside, under anonymity, maybe you don't have some of those signals. Kiss these days with their internet. I had to go through this. It's kind of what I mentioned. So I didn't have two divorced, my parents were divorced. I didn't have two households.

I had three. So I had, was the third one. So I went to school most of my childhood in a town where my grandmother lived. And she was kind of like the Switzerland. So I would be with her and my mom would come with me there, half the week. Dad would take me to his place for the other half of the school week.

And my parents would split weekends. My mom's weekends were in New York, where she, my stepdad was, and that family, so three houses. So grandma, your dad, mom and then, so step siblings, they're in there, new people, they're in there, extended family, they're in there,

and also at grandma's where I would come and anytime I had a conflict, and when I was 12 and 13, and being just a total lunatic, emotional manipulator of all folks in my family, I was just teenager Rebellion and also having to deal with three different households and I mean I carried a backpack the same backpack literally that I Not the physical one, but what's inside of it that I carried

Like when I came here to record the episode and have my stuff in the hotel, a backpack with a laptop, a bunch of clothes, a bunch of other things that I need throughout the week, the other and things like that. I mean, of course you start getting that stuff in all the houses, but that was the way I lived for some of the most important developmental years of my life. And who knows if I had too much of what we're describing, one sprinkle of this too much, one sprinkle of this too much, if I had someone influence me in a negative way. Luckily I managed to steer clear a lot of it.

And yeah, how did you not get into trouble with the internet? Meaning like, how did you, what was your experience with the internet? So I was having to move a lot lot having to have multiple households just psychologically different difficult upbringing. I was it was extremely tough. I It's hard to speak about it now because I'm in a completely different mental state I don't even remember some of like those moments, but it sounds like a different person. That's exactly how it feels. But I remember I had a big video game addiction, just like most teenagers, I want to say teenagers,

but probably teenage boys, but I'm not, I don't know, I don't know how addicted teenage girls are to video games. Yeah. I didn't get on that. I definitely look back on things that I did in certain instances like, well, I was a teenager, that was stupid. Oh, I scam somebody in some video game. Oh, that was, you know, I was, oh, that's hilarious. And just, I was, it's just an idiot teenager. I didn't do anything unforgivable, and for the most part just kind of went about my life. And I somehow got older and started getting

more independent and stop playing video games. And to be honest with you, I would love to sit here and say I have some sort of logical explanation of why I am the person I am today. But I think you need elements of the right upbringing and support system. As you said, and you also need luck, you just, I've been in some situations as a teenager where I almost got, I almost got killed by some gang members. That's a very exaggerated story, but I was in a park in New York City and I got into it

with a kid whose brother was in a notorious gang of that neighborhood and he told me he brothers in common and killed me basically over a stolen basketball and I was I was gonna fight this kid because I was 14 you know he stole my basketball of course I'm gonna fight this kid. He was like 12 he had a pierced tongue yeah like this wasn't a joke yeah he was from a totally different way of life and his brother did show up But his brother was like I'm gonna look at this kiss like that was a little teenager I wasn't a big now 14 year olds or six feet tall. Maybe something would happen to me But I was a little kid and it's like early but looking back at that is crazy because I definitely had some of these moments in New York City more than anywhere else because it's such a big place but

Luck you need some You need some luck. Yeah, it's kind of funny that there's certain moments in life on which the entire trajectory of your life can turn. Yeah. And then there are, like, in that case, nothing happened. But, you know, I most intensely feel this when I get almost run over by a car kind of thing. How many times have you almost get run over by? I don't know, maybe you happen like twice in my life.

No, okay. But that kind of stuff, like when somebody runs a red light, yeah, that happened to me here in Austin. You realize, oh shit, that was, like your life flashes before your eyes. And those moments can turn. And then there's more meeting certain people

where you meet them and for the positive they're like wow this Just moment of inspiration like wow this is possible Wow, this this kind of person can exist. Maybe I can be that kind of person too So yeah, those things can like change the direction, but maybe not Maybe they just reveal something that was already there and the momentum is always carrying you forward into a thing that you are always gonna end up in Yeah, I wonder about that Speaking of teens doing stupid things

Let's return to the max this Han Saga. Yeah How did it start? Who is Hans Neiman? Who is Magnus Carlson? How did it start? There's three games. It started in Miami. Yeah. A good background story is Magnus Carlson is the arguable greatest player of all time. Very close, I would say, to Gary Kasparov, world number one for now over 10 years.

At the top of his game, you think? Like, close to the top of his game right now? After the most recent thing, yes. I think he has the uncanny ability of top athletes to absorb the bullshit and show, oh yeah, dad's home now, you know. Run, I was only trying 70% before that, you know. And I think that's what he, I think I really think that's what he's show.

I wasn't aw. If Magnus is playing an internment, yes, it's good for views to put him in my YouTube thumbnails and make the video title about him if he does something brilliant, but I was legitimately just blown away. It wasn't even, it was informing him for content. It was, this is unbelievable what he's doing to people. And he has a point to prove. Hans is a, I believe he's 19 years old right now. He's an American. I don't know if prodigy is necessarily the right word. Prodigy's, you know,

their prodigies from very, very young. You don't, in chess, you don't become a prodigy at 18. But he was always a good junior player. He was always a very unique character. Like, I met Hans when he was 11, 12 years old, this little kid, just trash talking folks at the Marshall Chess Club, and he already had a reputation. Literally, he had a reputation with counselors, and the truth is, I was similar.

I was kicked out of Chess Camp by one of the best Chess grandmasters of all time, Artur Yusupov. I was in a Chess camp when I was nine years old. What'd you do? I was just an asshole. I was too strong. So I Helped other people with other work. I was you let your ego shine. That was a kid. I mean, I wouldn't wait It's not every kid let's do you go shine, but some do oh, yes, you did a Hans does like there's interviews on

He's young. Yeah, we're like he's kind of yes talking shit, but it's entertaining. Yes, what I try to stay away from is just Yes, I let my ego shine, but I don't think I even knew what any of that was when I was young Yeah, so it's just sort of I was just that was just a loud boisterous kid from a household where I wasn't paid attention to because I had three of them So I just was like years around when I show up and get my attention and our three you soup of I mean he's a great great man I drove that man crazy. He was like top five in the world at some point in the 80s and 90s. He said, it's either me or this kid.

Oh, wow. So you really got to. Yes, he said, I'm not gonna come back and teach camps unless it's me and I remember like going through this. I have very vague distant memories of this. My dad calling, apologizing. Yeah. And make you feel good to you you got to a grab after.

No, I feel horrible. I feel guilty. I feel guilty my whole life about it. I very, very feel proud of bad things or I showed them. Even things, it's good. It gets to the point you feel guilty about things you didn't do. That's what that's when your brain really goes crazy. Yeah. I'm with you on that. So okay. So you can relate to the cons. To Hans, yes. To young Hans, and he was like, in and out of chess,

this is what I remember, he was around the rating of 2,300, and I remember looking at some of his games in a tournament in Philadelphia, and I was like, there was some game that he played, and he didn't know the opening. It was like a London, which is a very popular opening. Some theoretical line. I looked at it and like, oh, he didn't know that. Okay, that's crazy. And then I just kind of walked by.

And I saw him in a tournament a few months later. And he did something very rare where in an open tournament, not a tournament of 10 players or everybody plays everybody, open tournament, randomized pairings depending on how many points you have he played nine grandmasters Which is crazy. That means he was performing so well so consistently that was where he got his first. I am norm It's like oh here it is. Here comes that like boom of a young player where he gets mature He gets back into the game and he gets stronger I don't follow a whole lot pandemic happens and

I don't follow a whole lot pandemic happens and he started streaming a bit and he's these boisterous. He's kind of like loud. He's talking trash and he's gaining rating constantly. He's just, but so are a lot of people. So you don't think much of it. And then now you can go play over the board again, life tournaments face to face as opposed to online events. And he's like, I'm going

to go to this tournament. I'm going to win it. I'm going to get my last GM norm. Man, he does. And then he's like, all right, my goal is this rating by the end of this year. He gets it. He just demolishes absolutely everybody. And you're like, I'm just going to get over the board over the board. I like this guy's for real. There's a lot of people like that. If you look at the top juniors of the world, it's crazy. Alli Reza Faruja, 2800. Vincent Kymber, 2700. A bunch of kids from India, 2700. Ager, younger, younger.

You wonder two years younger, maybe a little older by a year, but it's just this wave and you're just hype for the guy. This is fucking awesome. We got a young American guy who shit talks every time he's on camera and he beats everybody he plays But then you start hearing sprinkles here and there maybe in some stream I think you he doesn't he doesn't get to play on chest.com anymore Like chest.com doesn't put that badge there on the account

Sometimes sometimes he just hit a player listen we know and the players are like all right you got me and That's it. There's no conversation. So there's like these sprinkles, but people cheat online, especially when they're young. It's very, you know, it's very captivating. It's a very nice thing to do. Just to be clear, I mean, just make explicit that the accusation and I think it's proven, but they're still being shady about it. The degree is done as that he cheated on chest.com and he was 12 and 16 and 16. That's what he said. He admitted to, but right now chest.com put out a statement and now Magnus put out a statement as well saying, we think it's more than that. Yeah.

I've talked to Daniel because he wants to come on the podcast, which I'm actually kind of interested in. I think he's a cool person. And they're also doing some really interesting anti-tidying stuff, which to me from an algorithmic perspective is interesting, but he is also the man. Like, there's always in every field, there's the institution. So you represent the institution because chest.com is the institution. It's like in the Olympic, it's the IOC, it's like, I'm, you don't have to be careful. And chest feeday is the institution. Feeday, okay. Yeah, chest.com.

They've outgrown way more people actually know chest.com. Way more people know me. Way more people know Hikas.com way more people know me way more people know he caro It's one of the reasons that you were the power lays. Yeah, what is the most power? Interesting. Yeah chas.com has the most power Which I don't know maybe you and her car would do no The steer public opinion, you know That's a very good question. I have to think with my evil cap now What would happen if I'd rather you have the evil cap than Hikaru, because I feel like he would really, you

know, the power absolute, if the two of you ruled the world would be a problem. You mean side by side or rivals? Yeah, it would be like, yeah, as rivals, there would definitely be a war. One of the reasons I would not chest box him. Do you guys, how much do you like each other? I mean, do you admire each other as fellow, as to how I feel, as to how I'm entertaining? Well, we should finish Magnus Hansen. Yes, that's good.

Yes, that's good. Yes. I feel like just inside we don't wanna talk about it, because it feels like it's been talked about so much. I'm trying to give it very, No, for you, just remember, for me, it's even, it's much less. Yeah, and for the listener zero.

The listener zero, yeah. So like a, like a Rogen asked me like, so what was this? I know I heard him even talking. What was this chest? You know, Joe talked about the Indonesia thing. Oh, he said, in some super random, small thing. And that was a very funny moment.

I told him about this drama a few weeks ago. And then he was like, yeah, this is interesting. Does the anal beads is that possible? Is that good? Yeah, I think it's possible. I don't remember how drunk you were. But so even, you know, he's curious. He doesn't really know.

But anyway, cheating when he was 12, when he was 16. As he said, he admitted to cheating online when he was 12 and 16. But for timeline sake, let's just do it this way. He has a lot of over the board success, but nobody really talks about the online cheating stuff. It's sort of kind of kept low key, a couple hundred people, maybe a couple thousand people, which sounds like a lot, but it's not,

because there's millions of viewers know about this. It's generally kept kind of low key, couple thousand people, which sounds like a lot, but it's not because there's millions of viewers know about this. It's generally kept kind of low key because historically, if you cheated online as a teenager, you're not cheating over the board. It's not possible. You will get caught. Nobody has ever attempted it. We've had over the board cheaters, but not at the ultra elite level.

And so what happens is they play this tournament in Miami and the first day Hans loses three nothing. This is important because on the very next day, it's not like Hans was destroying every the second day of the tournament. He sits down game one versus Magnus in their best of four and destroys him. Like he destroyed him. Made it look like I was playing in Magnus to shoes, you know, the level difference. It went of even like he wasn't close. Of course, we can argue it might be because of the maybe Magnus knew something ahead of time. There's

obviously this psychological element, not, not important. Hans leaves, they say interviewer says, Hans, yesterday, by the way, horrible leaf phrased interview question, he goes, he goes, Hans, yesterday was a terrible for you. And today you start with a masterpiece. What do you have to say? Chesapeaks for itself, walks away. Argue, you can argue, it's cringe, you can argue. I thought it was cool. And then the guy then keeps asking a question with his arm extended because he's so shocked, he doesn't know what to do. Like he didn't even occur to him how ridiculous it looked

with the B.S. game. And then not only does Hans come back and loses the best of four, he loses like two more games or maybe three, he had the thing, he loses the next three games. He then proceeds to lose every single best of format for the rest of the tournament. He ends with zero points and a prize money of zero dollars. They put up the graphic and he put Neeman zero.

I think he got some minimum, right? So it's like, wow, this is like insane. This guy comes out with this crazy interview and my recap videos. I was like, the next time Hans has success, yes, to stay away from the cameras. Don't let him talk. Don't let him talk. It's going to be bad luck.

And I'm joking around. Like next time he plays, it's crazy. He's going to, so that was the, that was their kind of first interaction there. They also, there was some photos. They were having fun playing on the beach. I don't know where they had a chessboard on the beach. Chess players are such the ones. Yeah.

They were still getting along. I guess so. Yeah. It's interesting because I talked to him at that time. Would he have mentioned something? Right. I wonder what he would have said if I asked him about Hans, because that was coolest.

Did anyone care about that? No, nobody. No, no, no. Hans is not a super known entity, right? He became much more known. He became probably a top five all-time popular chess player in the last three weeks. Yeah, so it's not There wasn't it wouldn't even be a worthy question. No, I'm not

You don't know maybe Magnus already kind of knew a lot of the top players It seems they're coming out now and saying we already were suspicious. Yeah, it seems like Magnus might have known but maybe not enough to address it He still might not be willing to address it. Yes, but anyway, so yeah, so totally horrible tournament performance after, correct. After Hans piece. Yes, then the annual tradition of the St. Louis tournament happens, which is a strong field of players first for a fast tournament, rapid and blitz, and a classical tournament. And the classical tournament is the Singfield Cup. It's the it's named after Rex Singfield, billionaire, chess philanthropist. And it's like St. Louis chess club is a prestigious place.

This is whole in the host of a prestigious tournament. Hall of Fame is there for chess. I don't know if it's the US Hall of Fame or World Wide Hall of Fame, but yeah, it's the other countries play chess. They do, but you know, we will do, I don't know whose term is where the Hall of Fame gets to be. Which is the Hall of Fame. Okay. One day, some other part of the world's gonna be like,

actually, it's over here. So basically what happens is we have a field set for the Sync field cup. Set, it's the top 10 players in the world. Some can't make it, so okay, you get number 11 in there or something. One of them can't come because of something related to coronavirus. It's not, it's not, now we're going to get a little asterisk on Spotify because it was mentioned. We get more info about COVID-19.

So I don't know why he couldn't come, but he couldn't come. Okay, something happens, he can't make it. Hans Neiman is the replacement. Yeah. At the time, we didn't know this, but now weeks later, we knew Magnus wanted to not play.

This is very important. Back then, we didn't know. Apparently some others have players also didn't want to play. They also were suspicious. They also wanted increased anti-cheating measures, which by the way in chess are dog shit. Like you give this little metal wand and you put it on the little ears body and there's apparently an argument a micro earpiece would not be caught something in the armpit vibrating would not be caught something in the shoe. vibrating would not be caught something in the shoe they don't make the player stick their shoes off because it's to elitist

you how you're going to make players take their shoes off that's oh my god but if these things are out there or if anything was inside any other orifice correct yes I have to bring that out I mean that it's true yes that that that is very truthful. So if nothing else, this podcast is about honesty and truth. So I have to be complete. And transparency. So what ends up happening in this thing field cup is Magnus ends up still playing, but the anti-cheap measures are not introduced. So the first few games Hans has a very, very impressive first round game against Lavon

Aronian, one of the best players in the world. Okay, draw. He was pushing draw. Second game, demolishes like a top player. My mediar, crushes him, dominant opening, but not like a perfect game. You understand? Like, it was, he made some inaccuracies here and there, and he ended up winning in a complex game. This game three happens versus Magnus. And not only does he beat Magnus with the black pieces, he dominates him from start to finish. So in the opening, Magnus played something with white

that he had maybe played once or twice before. There was some big debate about it. I'm not going to get into it. Basically a very niche, small thing that just he had never played in maybe a long game before with some sprinkled in venom that might get Hans Offguard. Hans proceeds to play like the first 1520 moves absolutely perfectly and then converts the game into a slightly better end game and squeezes Magnus to death. Basically beats Magnus with black which nobody had done in years. The same way Magnus would have beaten other players. Then he goes and gives this interview which where he claims that he had looked at those first 15, 20 moves

right before the game, basically. He got lucky. Didn't he say he looked at something very similar? No, he was either similar or literally that exact variation, which is possible. I've done that before, one of my best ones of my life. That morning I went, you know, I'm not prepared. What if my opponent plays this Queen's Gambit

accepted variation? And I literally learned the first 12 moves. He didn know move 12 I killed him okay like this just happens yeah unfortunately when you combine that with other small elements of the interview and now there's body language experts going all on this it was odd he gave an interview afterwards explaining his explaining the various details of the game, but not really explaining them. That's the thing. The standard chess player interview is you sit down,

you go, something about the opening, something about not, oh yeah, I looked at this right before the game. And then you explain various symphonies and compositions of variations, things that went through your head, things you were evaluating, but Hans's interviews are different. So everything about him as a chess player already is different and his interviews are extremely

strange and also different. That's fine. But not when you combine it then with the world champion, with drawing right after you beat him and ghosting the entire chess world. Yeah, so there's a, for people who haven't listened to it, there's a kind of sloppiness to the way he analyzes the game. Like he's like, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, like it's very um, it's very obvious. Like what do you mean?

Yeah, just completely winning here. Yeah, I'm completely winning here and it's like uh, I yeah, I just played perfect. I played perfect. Like there's a sense of like, but it also doesn't, for me, again, a very outside spectator, it doesn't raise any red flags. That's just his personality. He seems to really like to talk this way. And plus, this could be crazy. But do you have a sense that he's more of an intuitive player

versus like he's just not the kind of person that analyzes really well? Or is that ridiculous notion? Well, let's put it this way. To succeed legitimately, because obviously this is a cheating scandal at the end of the day, at the 2750, 82800 level, the operational NFCES, you cannot be an intuitive player. the operational on of chess, you cannot be an intuitive player. You can be a little bit more intuitive than a calculator and a concrete evaluator of positions, meaning if I give you five seconds to play a move, you're going to choose the best move quickly. Those people are generally better at fast time controls, but you have to be good at everything. And what raised red flags in

this interview was the fact that it was different than every other interview any human being ever gave at that level of chess, particularly after beating Magnus for the first time as a teenager, which is a very small group of people. And so that's where it got weird and the very next day Magnus was draws from the event. Chasworld lights completely on fire for multiple weeks and he also tweets. Right. That's the resignation. No. Resonation. It's sweet was I'm withdrawing from the tournament in St. Louis. I've always enjoyed playing here and I will in the future and then it's a clip of Jose Morrino. I cannot speak. I choose not to speak. If I speak, I'm in big trouble. I don't want to be in big trouble. Yeah. And that's what that's some people nuts. People said it's not

even a cheating insinuation, which was one of the theories. Another theory was someone in team Magnus told Hans what Magnus was looking at. And that's why Hans learned those first 15 moves, which is so fucking stupid because Magnus knows like five people. Not in his life, but his team is very close to that group. But to the outsider, that sounds like a very legitimate theory. How else can you explain? Hans said he knew before the game what was gonna happen. Magnus senses a mole. He's not, no, by the way, just to, just so I know, like if that was, forget the cheating aside, if you knew,

doesn't matter how the opening, your opponent is going to do, they prepared. Is that a significant help to you? If that opening is ultra sharp and requires basically the game to be on a knife's edge, yes, meaning one mistake can be fatal, because then you can look up what the engine says and you can know everything. You can know all the possibilities. So even if your opponent goes off that engine path, you will know how to punish it. In this case, what happened

basically was Magnus played a line that if completely optimally punished would have given Hans a slightly better position, and that's what happened, but then he also demolished him in that later phase of the game. Yes, and then, okay, so Magnus resigns, goes silent, the chess world goes crazy. What else is interesting in that period of time? Hans's fourth round game of that tournament right after beating Magnus was also just absolutely genius, just an absolutely brilliant game, which he failed to win. But then after that game, he also gives once again another interview

where he's like, this game was absolutely genius. I was just killing him from start to finish. And there was a moment, he literally says, oh yeah, just gave him a piece, like a full piece, which is a substantial advantage to the other side.

And he starts explaining why the position is winning, but in words, not in chest moves, not in specific concrete chest moves, which is the way you're supposed to if you understand the position, right? So now there's this new theory that's being cultivated. If it's the interviews are going to be used as the evidence. And beyond round four, he just played like a good grandmaster. And he lost two or three games, maybe two games, and he drew the rest. So he didn't win again. And he beat the first two out of his first three games. He beat my mid-yard, if he beat Carlson. And he also went on the attack himself.

He that was when he publicly admitted to cheating in an interview that he gave to the St. Louis chess club. That's when he said he has never cheated over the board. Then he said, chess that comes as ban me from the global championship, which is what I was invited to play privately. They ban me. They didn't even ban me publicly. And then he said, and Hikaru is on Twitch every day, saying things about me, this and that. And since then, nothing. Tournament finishes somehow. I don't know how we got to the end of the tournament.

I really thought that it was gonna get called off. But Tournament ends, Hans hasn't said anything since then. So. Has he still said, was the last time you said that was the last That's the tweet that he sent September 7th said he car wants to play The victim something like this they face each other again recently when was what was that? They played in the online event of this Meltwater champions chess tour And event of this Meltwater Champions Chess Tour, which is a 16 player tournament where everybody plays everybody first.

And after 15 games, the top 8 make a knockout bracket. And Magnus played the game. There was obviously a lot of hype prior for what was going to happen in this game. Magnus plays one move and resigns. Actually, I imagine he didn't want to play one move. I imagine he would have resigned the game as it was starting, but I think some websites don't let you resign before you make one move, because then the game is encountered. So I think he didn't want to play at all, but he played one move and that made it

even more epic, I suppose. And he resigned. And that was that. So you still, you lose that game counts, right? Game counts. You lose the rating. These online events unfortunately don't count for any sort of rating. But on the tournament, yeah, he played one move.

Yeah. So he resigns. And then how does the tournament still work out? Is it the terminally over? So he made the eight as Magnus still made the top eight. It was round five or like round six or something. So it was halfway through the preliminary stage. Yeah, it affected his standings. But then after resigning that game Magnus finished first in the bracket and the preliminaries and then he won the entire event. There was a chance that they were going to meet in the final, but Hans lost in the first round against the Vietnamese strong player, Le Quang Li-am. And then Magnus gave a short interview

to the live broadcast where he said he would give a statement at the end of the tournament. And then he did, he gave a statement at the end of the tournament. And now here we are. The only other thing missing from this is the very intense scrutinization of all those over the board games that I mentioned earlier that Hans dominated in. So people are now going through all of his games that he played in tournaments, and they're analyzing them with engines, and they're saying he played exceptionally well,

and the debate is, was he cheating, or was he way too good already, but underrated? Because he could have had incubated knowledge, so he could have not played for a couple of years, was 2700 level, but was playing people who were 24, 2500? Ah, well, well, over the board, I see. So not just over the board with the top level people like Magnus, but over the board in general.

Yes, before he got a chance to play in the super tournaments against the best players in the world, he had to go to Europe. He was the most active chess player in 2021. And he was quite dominant. Yes, I think he played more over the board games than any player in 2021 or 2022. I think it's 2021.

And yes, I think his rise was steeper than everybody. Maybe with the exception of all the rest of Farooja who got the 2800. See, I'd like to believe, because he talks about being very, he just became obsessed with chess. I like stories like that. I like stories of the underdog, especially with the scarlet letter of having been a cheater in the past.

I like the idea of somebody who is flawed, psychologically and ethically and just just a full fascinating personality and this somehow just becomes obsessed. I mean, similar to Bobby Fisher is also a tortured soul, also flawed, also just chaotic all over the place. You could see Bobby Fisher being somebody that might cheat when he was 12, on my chest, right? If it exists, yeah, actually, I think in some podcast, like Small Trust podcast, I don't wanna, I like Ben Johnson, so I am apologizing

for calling it small, but compared to, like, let's say, like, Friedman podcast. What's his podcast? It's perpetual chess, It's kind of like, I love perpetual chest. Are you joke? Really? There you go. Yeah. The wait. I'll show you because it does a lot of it talks. It makes me feel special. Let me see. Where's it perpetual chest? He does like improve or series. Yes. Yeah, he's great. Ben, I don't forget.

I'm so horrible named. His name is Ben Ben Johnson. Yeah, it is Ben Johnson. That's right. Yeah, the perpetual chess podcast. That's amazing. See, legs, when even individuals like myself who might have a large audience, when I look at you, you're at a, you're just at a different level.

I don't expect you to be listening to chess podcasts during the, just imagine you're doing something to change the world or talking to some visionary people. Well, I should say it, you know, I've been running a lot and I listen to podcasts a lot because they're such. I love human beings excited about stuff that really energizes me. And I've listened to a bunch of chess podcasts. I'm really energized by your love of chess.

I really like, yeah, sorry, I did forgot his name, but Ben Johnson, I love it when he talks to Grandmaster, I love when he talks to the regular folks for the approvers like to see how they balance life and chest and all that kind of stuff. He's just pretty good at it. He's like super excited and they talk about books. Yeah. And they get excited about different books. Yes. I mean, it also gives me a sense of where the chest world is from a different perspective is like people studying chest. the chess world is from a different perspective is like people studying chess.

Like what they get excited about, how difficult it is. Yeah, it's nice to get a sense of the community. The language that's used because I did want to have a bunch of conversations with folks about chess because I think it's a beautiful game and I think it's a beautiful community. So that's one of the podcasts I listened to. So yeah, anyway, it's great. Anyway, you were saying, why did you bring them up? Yes, great podcast.

Great podcast. I only reason I thought of it and I use the word small no disrespect Ben is because even that episode, which he did with Hans, like it was a small episode, it wasn't seen by mass audience of chess. He did an episode of Hans recently. I know. Some time ago, yeah.

And in that episode, Hans very openly is like, Bobby Fisher was misunderstood and he was my idol. Oh wow. He set a couple of things like that and Hans isn't a tons guy. Like, when I listen to Hans, I get a little anxious. I just, he brings out some sort of disturbance in my ecosystem. Yeah. Yeah, I can't really pin him down to like what's going on there.

Yeah. As a person who's trying to read people. Yeah. And it's difficult. Like I can, this is the dark aspect. He could be both the genius of Bobby Fisher and a genius cheater. And you could see like there's something chaotic about him which makes him very appealing in that way.

Yes. So, right now, late September 2022, the current environment is such that Hans doesn't say anything in weeks and people are sort of dissecting every bit of circumstantial evidence that they can and they're trying to present the case, I don't even know to who, ultimately. I guess it would be the Fidey cheating, anti-sheeting commission or whatever.

It might be to you, essentially. I mean, to people with a platform. It could be. To present convincing evidence to where the people are convinced and where are the other. Because for people who don't know, and they should definitely follow Gotham Chess, you've been on this, you've covered it a lot. I'm sure if anything comes out, you'll cover it more.

But you've been quite balanced and thoughtful and kind of objective about the whole thing. Yeah. So the reason for that is I understand the power that I wield with anything, and if I say one sentence the wrong way, I might be sending 10,000 people or more to go do something. Yeah. And I hate that. I want to present the evidence and I want the video to end and people go, okay, I understand. Not, oh my God, fuck someone up. You know what I mean?

Like, because that's, and I also believe that even if Hans, even if Hans is guilty, this goes all the way back. He's a human being. Yeah. And you can argue that cheaters gotta be punished, then you can argue that people who do things wrong,

you shouldn't feel any sort of compassion, but I would hate to have the whole world pointing at their fingers at me, the entire world that I've known my entire life. And even if I messed up, there's still a world after chest, there might still even be a world in chest. I don't know, but that stuff, it doesn't make me, it doesn't make me feel good to present all of the circumstantial evidence in my videos and start being like,

yeah, it looks, you know, so. But at the same time, you deeply care about chess and the chess community and there's some sense where was it you or the Magnus that said that cheating poses an existential threat? It is. Magnus of it. I mean, there is some aspect of truth to that, which is like, you know, the chess is in a state where bots, chess engines are much better than humans.

And we're living in a world where technology becomes easier and easier to integrate with human beings, whether you put it in some orifice or elsewhere. And that does pose a threat to our ability to trust that a world champion is indeed a world champion, that somebody we think is good is indeed good. And so there is some aspect to the ecosystem that should punish cheating and perhaps over punish cheating. And the other thing is, in sport, you can take PEDs and have bigger muscles, bigger better reaction time,

but you still have to perform the action in a successful way. There is still a chance you can lose. If you take PEDs, maybe in some sports, the gap between non-PED and PED user is significantly more noticeable, but in chess, if you cheat, you play God. Yeah. You decide when the game is over. You can fake bad moves. You can fake everything. You can even, if you're cheating, quote unquote, the right way, you're going to lose plenty of games to avoid getting detected. So you can create bots that are 2,800.

Like you can also just not listen. If you know all the best moves moves but choose to play on your own I made a mistake not a big deal you could yes bots are all at a different level but if you were to cheat That You you play god you can decide when you make your move and when the engine makes its move and if you know the top four lines of the engine You choose the fourth one so In hindsight people will analyze your game

and they will go, oh, wasn't perfect. Well, no shit. Only the stupid cheaters play the top engine line the whole game. By the way, I'm not saying that this is what's happening here, but there's probably an excitement to play God, to end getting way with it. Like, I know adults, grown adults who are successful in their fields,

and they cheat, they cheat in lessons, they cheat in, like I don't wanna say I've taught any. May or may not have, for some reason one of them watches this and they know they're guilty. And it happens. It happens. Not just teenagers, not just young adults, but full grown adults will cheat when they play because it I think it helps them learn. Oh, well, that's correct. We just did justification, but I just meant like I might not be just about winning. It might also just feel good to have that power. Power. Like I bait you as a drug.

Oh yeah. I mean like with a lot of criminals, with a lot of criminals, I feel like part of like the mass murderers would be serial killers. I feel like a lot of is that can get away with the the fact that they like they like everyone else is a sucker and they figured out how to do this evil thing. And obviously cheating is nowhere close to that, but they're still feeling of getting away with it. Yeah, I wonder. I mean, you're pretty objective on the whole thing. Where, if you were a betting man, what would you say is the probability? Are you changing day by day in your head? What's the probability that Hans cheated?

Over the boarding against Magnus in St. Louis. That's a tough one, man. Do you even allow yourself to put a probability on it? No, not on that specific game because I think a lot of that game was affected by Magnus' own psyche. That was one of those worst games ever. So he played poorly too, Magnus played, which doesn't help his case. Hans might have cheated in that game, but we'll never know. I think day by day, the evidence is slowly starting to show more and more that he's cheated. It's like how Magnus said, more than he said, and more recently.

It's undeniable. Right. A lot of the statistics are there. The problem is, you can't prove you're not cheating. Yeah. Unless you strip naked, like that site offered him a million bucks to like everything about the site. Some are the most of a headline that said Hans Neiman is offered a million bucks. And where and where I struggled to comprehend is how on earth he could pull it off. And like, I'm a guilty, my brain goes to guilt first. And resentment, resentment, remorse, guilt, that kind of, that trio.

Magnus put out a statement as we speak yesterday saying, dear chess world, at the 2022 sinkfieldfield cup I made the unprecedented professional decision to withdraw from the tournament after my round three game against Hans Neeman A week later during the Champions Chess tour I resigned against Hans Neeman after playing only one move I know that my actions have frustrated many in the chess community. I'm frustrated I want to play chess. I want to continue to play chess at the highest level in the best events. I believe that cheating in chess is a big deal and an existential threat to the game. I also believe that chess organizers and all those who care about the sanctity of the game, we love to seriously consider increasing security measures and methods of cheat detection for over-the-board When Neiman was invited last minute to the 2022 sinkfield cup, I strongly considered

with drawing prior to the event I ultimately chose to play. That's the thing you're referring to is that he can like now we know he was torn about the whole thing. I believe that Neiman has cheated more and more recently than he has publicly admitted. His over-the-board progress has been unusual and throughout our game in Sinkfield Cup, I had the impression that he wasn't tense or even fully concentrating on the game in critical positions, while outplaying me as black in a way I think only a handful of players can do. This game contributed to changing my perspective.

He must do, we must do something about cheating. And for my part going forward, I don't want to play against people that have cheated repeatedly in the past because I don't know what they're capable of doing in the future. There's more than I would like to say, unfortunately, at this time, I'm limited in what I can say without explicit permission from Neeman to speak openly so far I have only been able to speak with my actions and those actions have stated clearly that I'm not willing to play chess with Neeman I hope that the truth in this matter comes out whatever it may be sincerely Magnus Carlson world-chance champion I would just say, I know if you're statements. If I was a world, no, just say whatever.

Lex Friedman would be the title. Yeah, I don't know. I think I would not, even if I was a world champion, I would just say Lex or make up a title. And I feel like I really fucked up in life if I have to tweet a statement as an image. That's like when you get your politician, you got caught cheating on your wife. Like for many years in a row. Yes.

Then I tweet an image. I'm sorry for all the people I have hurt and the people that believed in me and whatever else. And then I would sign World Chess Champion. You know, the most like the modern way to give a statement, what I thought Magnus was going to do. I thought he was going to write on the recent scandal or my statement on the past few weeks

to it longer. What do you mean? So you put a URL. Oh, yeah. So that's for tweets, but it's unlimited characters. It's not 100. I didn't know what that is. Can you explain that to me?

Yeah. So generally, when a celebrity has a giant audience on Twitter, they will make their statement on social media and say what it is in a sentence. Yeah. One line and then there's a link. What's the link take you? It's a thread called twit longer. Oh, there's a national web twit longer. Yeah.

And that is where they write their statements. That is what I was expecting. When I said, we did this. I haven't seen this before. Oh, this is a second. I don't have one off the top of my head. But it's like Kanye came Kardashian breaking up. They would use that.

Streamers, musicians. Yeah. I don't think politicians use it because it's just Kanye came Kardashian breaking up that would use that streamers musicians. Yeah. I don't think politicians use it because it's just feel like the pop music. The image used my, yeah, my space and Facebook. Yeah. I would probably go to I like. I mean, I'm not just being biased here just because I'm a podcast. I'm a huge fan of podcasts.

I feel like I would go on a podcast to talk about it. Well, it's somebody I trust. So like long form and discuss it. I thought it was gonna do that too. In fact, I wanted to write him a message and be like, I can be that guy for you. I have a very strange relationship with Magnus because good bad.

I don't, we've never interacted. I very openly, I don't want to say use him for views because that is a very crude way of saying it. But if you wanted to insult my YouTube channel, that is what you would say. So Magnus isn't a lot of videos. Thumbnails or videos. Not click baity, but if he's playing in a tournament of videos thumbnails or videos not click baitie

But if he's playing an internment and he plays a great game. He's going on that fucking thumbnail because Let's see he's the number one chess player Very likely the greatest chess player of all time right plus he's exciting And YouTube algorithm loves his name and people click on it. Oh, yeah, the best Yeah, but I don't know what the chicken or the egg is, but the reason it loves it, the reason people click on it is because he is an exciting personality. He's an exciting chess player. There's something compelling about him.

Yeah. He knows how to, in a subtle dry, wit humor humor way talk shit with the silences and all of that. Yes, he knows it. He knows it. He knows the whole game of it. Specifically to Magnus, my relationship with him, we've never interacted and throughout the last couple of years, he generally has interacted with Hikaru as a competitor. He has done some collabs with the Botezes. He obviously has talked to Ludwig, who's a very, very big streamer.

And part of me regrets the fact that when I was smaller as a YouTuber in a Twitch streamer, I'm sure I used to make jokes or some tweets at Magnus. Like when Magnus. Like, when Magnus would tweet something, I would try to respond so I could be the top reply because that was my social media. I literally think I once responded to a Magnus tweet and saying, responding for engagement.

Because it was some like, it wasn't some controversial tweet. It was just something funny. And I went, ha ha, responding for engagement because I was just being a little bit of an idiot and I knew that if it got enough likes, it would be at the top and people would see me my brand and just get to know me. This was the type of... Please don't use the word brand, but yes. Yes.

But yeah, no. Any of your worries that he wouldn't take you seriously because... He would take me seriously and if I was one of the best of all time and I saw some dude on YouTube just kind of being a moron and I'm all over his thumbnails. I can imagine he has a very legitimate face. I appreciate your humility and self-curricle nature, but one of the realities with people like him is he wouldn't hold a grudge or not treat you seriously. I'm pretty sure he's a fan. He's a big support. He doesn't watch YouTube videos like that kind. I barely watch YouTube videos. I think

of chess. Yes, he might watch more fun on chess at Jason's stuff, but he just doesn't, it's not for him. So I'm pretty sure he knows of you and likes you and you're commenting on stuff has zero effect on his belief, which is funny that's something you think about. Now, you're well respected. Like, you're a lot of people mentioned you as a person who is like, okay, this person is legit, which is an important thing.

It's not just an entertainer. It's not just a shit talker and so on. This person does, is a great educator, great fan and student of chess, a great player himself so all of those components. So yeah, you're definitely a good person. And on this particular aspect have been very objective. I understand that I'm nowhere near perfect. I'm not a different person on camera or off camera. I will say it like it is, maybe on Twitch. You got to dig in the mud there a little bit more, a lot more sarcastic, a lot more brush and whatnot.

But you meet me in a taco place and I'll talk with you the same way I might if it was a video, just that you may not consider me just a random guy at a taco place. And that's why I think about this stuff with specific to Magnus. And it's one of the reasons I don't reach out to him directly ever. I've never have, never DMed him on Instagram hoping for a response never. I've never even reached out to anyone on his team trying to get a conversation very candid with him, which I think it would be. I even barely reached out to guys in the top 10, like top 15,

only recently started pushing myself more to do that. And I, even in my intro messages to them, preemptively say something like, you might think I'm some idiot, you might not be totally wrong. Yes. But like, I think this would be a good conversation and give it a shot. And I've been surprised, I think this would be a good conversation and give it a shot.

And I've been surprised that I've been ignored by a few, but some said, oh, you have seen your stuff. Generally a fan, like, no problem. I was actually really blown away. This YouTube channel, Levitov Chess, it's a Russian Chess channel. And I think the last name of the guy is, the name of the channel is named after Ilya Levitov, who has some sort of managerial role in the Russian chess federation.

And this channel has interviewed some of the greatest players of all time. They have interviews with the modern best Russian players and Kasparov, Kramnik, you name these guys from Russian chess. History, it's unbelievable. I just thought this was a channel of just unbelievably well respected

chess players and Legion of fans that were long time chess fans and I mentioned them very briefly in a YouTube video and That little clip went into their next community event and the founder of the channel went on this two-minute beautiful And the founder of the channel went on this two-minute, beautiful description of why he liked me, and how he only watched my channel as a beginner, and how I have a natural voice, and how if I talked about cards,

I would have a million, 100 million subscribers, just all this really kind stuff that in my mind, I thought was either undeserved, or I just never fathomed that. Yeah, I mean, you said he certainly should not feel as deserved as you should have. He knew you about that kind of stuff, but I think that is the thing that works over time. It's like reputation spreads, which is like if one person likes you and they tell you to other people and they kind of spreads and over time, you have one conversation with

a top 10, like a super grandmaster, and they say nice things about you, and it's just kind of spreads. It's not been very surprised in all walks of life. This really gets me, this makes me happy, honestly, because like people ask me like, how I get guests and so on.

And it just seems honestly just be a good person and Like a real person and honest and just kind of spreads the word word of mouth It you know you've been coming here. I almost didn't reach out What do you mean? I had seen you had never talked to a aess person and I've watched a lot of I've watched some of the things start to finish Especially if the guest I'm really interested in like Jers St. Pierre. I'll watch that guy do whatever. Yeah, exactly I'll watch him do basically anything. Yeah, make an omelette or something Yeah, I love listening to him some of the other things I I've listened to as well and I noticed that neither well to me you

You obviously and Joe are the two biggest podcasters. I don't know if that's like factual. I don't know if some influencer has some podcast, but you guys interview folks that I listen to more often than anybody else. And when Magnus came on, I was like, oh, this is, that's amazing.

You know, I don't even know how I would reach out to someone like you. It just seems like a lim, like climbing a mountain and then a couple days later and I even in that episode wanted to write But I didn't know how like do I make a YouTube comment? I don't want that I'm like I'm cloud chasing on the Magnus episode when you talk to the Boteses and I said oh What's this I shouldn't overthink it? Yeah, like you know, I so I just said all right fucking I'll just write a comment and you're like, yeah, I'd love to have you on. I was shocked.

I didn't even, you responded just within a couple hours or something. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I loved it, man. I mean, it was an honor. It's a good way to connect. I also like on live streams. I'll watch, I try to resist commenting, but, you know, I'll watch some, some, even smaller

channels, like I'll get super excited by them and connecting that way. There's an intimacy to that. My YouTube is beautiful. I don't know anything about Twitch. Maybe it's similar to no one. But YouTube has... Ruin you.

There's an intimacy, like, especially if it's live. I don't know what that is, but if it's live, they're like right there You can just like reach out and say hello. Yes, cool. It's like really I don't know I'm just happy to live in this time when you can connect with people in that way. There isn't intimacy That's why I love podcasts too. I listen to people and I feel like they're my friend It's cool. It's a cool feeling. It makes you feel less lonely in this world. Like you have a lifelong companion, especially like people that do podcasts for many, many years. I'm like, we've been, you've gone through all the ups and downs of life together with a creator, with a, with a podcast or with anything.

It's cool. I don't know. It's a cool, it makes it the podcast or with anything, it's cool. I don't know, it's a cool, it makes it, it's surprisingly intimate, one way friendships. Of course, maybe for an introvert, I don't know. There's, there's, there's some negatives that people definitely describe. Where they get used to a lot of Paris social, you think you, you, like, the viewer will think that the streamer or the YouTuber knows them or owes them something or has some, they have a bigger connection than they do. But, you know what?

Actually, it's time to interrupt. I have to look, maybe you can explain to me. I've heard this term pair of social a lot. I'm meaning to look it up, but as we'll look it up, well, in live podcast, pair of social interaction, PSI refers, is this a new term? term because I have just started listening hearing it like the last Yeah, I think it's here. Yeah, yeah Peres social interaction PSI refers to a kind of psychological relationship experienced by an audience in their mediated encounters with performance in the mass media particularly on television and on online platforms

Viewers or listeners come to consider media personalities as friends, despite having no limited interaction with, oh shit, that's a term for the thing I've been referring to, interesting. The term was coined by Donald Horton and Richard Wall in 1956. Wow. When there was like a very limited media, huh? Well, I guess TV and radio and stuff. Yeah, yeah, pair social interaction and exposure that gamers interest in the persona become a pair social relationship after repeated exposure to the media. Yeah, okay. What's the downside? Bro, what's what's okay? Oh, well, I can tell you the downside. The downside is is people thinking their

in relationships with streamers and stalking them. That's, or the stalking part, but the relationship is like, I mean, okay, you mean like actual relationship, like waking up and saying, how are you doing? Like in your head to them? Yeah, no, but that might be an extension. More like, yeah, getting mad, they don't respond to you in any time you're in the stream

or that convincing yourself the other person wants you and you need to go to them. So you need to find where they are. Like this has happened. Some of the biggest female streamers have reported that they get stalked and harassed for months and that's born out of this This on a very small scale is You come into a stream every so often and given update about your academic career

That's not so bad. I was gonna mention I've streamed on Twitch for years and I watched people have kids Like people will come in over the course of months and say, hey man, you know, I just finished, I just took the bar exam. Yo man, like I'm having my first kid and that's crazy. That's, that's amazing. Yeah. But if they do it in a healthy way, that's one thing. But I, there's always gonna be downsides,

but most of it is beautiful, man. I have, I have, I have, I guess, pair social relationships of people that take it a little too far, but it's all love. You also have a fundamental belief and hope in people to be good. Yeah. Yeah. And I, I've been, you know, I haven't gotten in trouble with it yet That's that's a good thing me too. I've interacted with plenty of people in person and no one's been negative So yeah, and I've even gone to a war zone

There I can't there's no there hasn't been people have been very I don't know people have Only surprised me in the positive direction in the depth of the capacity they have for compassion. Okay, so now we're in this weird place with the cheating. Can you ask you a question about how it's possible to cheat? Like if you and I, you know, the conversation you're going to have with Magus, we're going to play chess.

If we try to figure out how can you beat them? What are the different ways, do you think? Over the board, chess, what are the ways? Eugene. Yeah. That's where I lose the thread because I don't know. That's what I immediately want to. It's like the engineering challenge of cheating.

Right. Well, that's because that's like how you're good at that. I mean, you're not good at creating cheating in over the word situation. I'm just saying you your brain works differently. I just choose to not even like, I can't entertain that. I can come up with some bullshit, but it's not going to be anywhere. Oh, your mind is not like immediately attracted to pulling at that threat of like, how would you fuck with the system?

Yeah. My mind stops at, that would you fuck with the system? Yeah, my mind stopped, I thought that would have to be a really sophisticated thing. And that's it. It doesn't go any further. My brain everyday thinks about the best way to compartmentalize chess into a digestible format and put it out into content. Chess, that's what I think.

On the board, chess, not cheating. Yeah, I just think about the YouTube, I just think about that. That's currently where my mind is fully focused. I'm also working on like a book. So that's what you're thinking. Yes, for me, because I've built chest engines without understanding chest much.

As like, you know, as anyone does, who's interested in AI, you build all kinds of systems that do all kinds of stuff and chest is just an easy game. Like it starts with a fellow, goes up the chess and go. There's just a great benchmark, a great place to explore different AI algorithms from search, to machine learning and so on. But to me, cheating is like, it's a similar kind of ideas. Well, if I make it a board instead of eight by eight to 10 by 10, I caught as to change things.

And with cheating, it's almost like expanding the engineering challenge or chest out into the real world. To me, okay, so just allow me, I know cheating is horrible and everything. But stock fish, AI engine and human working together in interesting ways, it forget chess. Just machine and human working together to expand the capability of the human is really fascinating. And that's like a beautiful thing to me. Of course, purely for the chess game, it ruins the game. Yeah. But I just like thinking of how AI can interact with the human in ways that it's frictionless,

like neural brain, computer interfaces, dream of directly connecting the human brain to AI system. The problem in this case is I don't think the human and the AI are interacting together. The AI dominates. The human is just the mechanism that makes the moves. I actually played, if I may, I don't maybe I need your advice on this. I thought, and I told myself, I won't do it. And then a friend of mine said, and a couple of friends and

both of them are previous guests in this podcast. So I'm definitely need to do it, which is, you know, connect. So I already have for the chest arm that I built this computer vision on the chess board is able to extract from vision. The way you do optical character recognition extract the board. So I was going to just build that cheating system to demonstrate it with the reason I thought it was interesting. So something we didn't mention is I don't know who started this rumor, but the rumor started that it might have been like anal beads that I don't know who started this rumor, but the rumor started there. It might have been like anal beads that yeah, I don't know who started this But I do know that Elon magnified it. My username was dead center in that thing that he retweeted which was hilarious to me You're using what I mean?

He retweeted the clip but also the copy pasta like the the paragraph that was like describing the whole G. A. N. L. Beads theory and dead center in the middle of that paragraph is as Gotham Chess says, and the worst part about it was I was literally tagged. So it was as user slash Gotham Chess says, so every time that paragraph gets posted on Reddit, I get tagged. That's all I'm just getting posted a lot. So, yes, but yes, he tweeted, and there's also the funny thing which I really love. The weirdest, most entertaining thing.

Was that part of the same thing where like plot twist, Magnus has been using anal bees. It's whole time. That's how you got. Yes. Yes. I love that so much. Okay. But anyway, there's a, I will, I quickly realized that there is, I have to admit that I know not much about sex toys. And then I quickly realized that there's a lot of sex toys that have Bluetooth capability that you can interact with. So you get it's very easy to connect stock fish to a sex toys. Actually, actually, yes. So apparently that's a popular thing. Like a lot of sex toys are Bluetooth enabled, so you can communicate with them. So this is actually pretty trivial to do, not trivial,

but then, and then in fact, there are several libraries. One of them is really active, called, now this is on GitHub friends. It's in Rust, but I think there's Python Rappers, it's called Buttplug, is the name of the library. That communicates with, it's called Buttplug. It's the name of the library. That communicates with, it supports a bunch of different devices, a bunch of different like vibrators and all that kind of stuff.

But then I looked at the kind of vibrators that supports and they're all like creepy looking. I mean, like it doesn't have, I don't know, it felt too dirty, you know? Like there's a line, I was like, I know, it's this not gonna, because the reason I like that kind of stuff is I like the joke of it that ultimately is somehow educational. Because to me, I really care about AI

and this is a cool little project to do. It's super easy to share. Yeah, but I was thinking about doing it. I was thinking about doing it. At first I said no, it kind of feels dirty. But then the aforementioned friend said, no, you should definitely do it. I like the huge, who's your test subject? No, we wouldn't test it. You should, I'm ticked. Well, I'm sure that people would sign up, right? I just went on the table, like show the vibration, like you're basically converting, now I'm not obviously a grandmaster,

so you have to say everything. I feel like, no, you don't. You could say the square, you don't have to say the piece, the human will fill in the gap. No, a good human chess player, I can't. Oh, that's the point I wanted to make is like, for me, I would like to know the actual move I need to make. Yeah. So I need the full information. Right. So I have to convert the Bishop C5, whatever to more to more code, which is a lot of my

pressure. Yes, exactly. But it still works. It's hilarious and fun. So I was thinking about doing it, but Because it's pretty easy to do It would be just like a fun exercise. I love a mix of technical rigor and humor Well, this is the perfect project for that. Yeah, this was more than I think out of a user comment in a Twitch stream. So I thought it was more than Reddit this theory, but I think Eric Hansen was streaming. Chaz Bra. And someone in his chat made that joke and he read it out loud. That was the first time it was read out loud.

And then somebody clipped it and it became international news. Like, I don't have you followed how big the traction got on this analbeads thing? No. It was covered by every major news network, late-night talk show, Trevor Noah, Stephen Colbert. No. International news, international news in countries like China, where I would have never thought that they would report about anal beads. Yeah. What was the tonality of it? Was it seen as a joke? Or did they say there's a cheating scandal? I think two people are just mentioning anal beads.

I think literally anal beads. Like just, just accused. I accused the... Denies, denies cheating with anal beads, which he never did. He never denied cheating with anal beads. It was a joke internet theory. I was him, I would lean into it.

Yeah, I can't imagine, man. I don't know what the right thing for him to do is, but it's not touching this one. Damn. I've talked about it. I don't say the words anal beads in my YouTube videos, but I'll say beads though. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Okay, the thing is. Do you think I should do the code thing? It's a good tutorial. Sure. Yeah, I think it would be hilarious. If you find a way to do it, yeah, you can show that it is possible to theoretically vibrate via Bluetooth, chest moves, and if someone shoves it up their ass, what what it was another joke. Okay, they offered you to play naked. They're gonna make you spread your cheeks Yeah, I did it. Why naked saw problem. I think there's it doesn't have to be naked. I don't think naked is enough. Yeah Okay, some questions from Reddit Ask him ask levy if he deep down hates his audience. I saw that. Yeah, I saw that was the comment.

I have a, I have a love hate relationship with the chest subreddit. Yeah, so that's why some of those questions were going to be tough. I have a love hate relationship. Do you think that's a tough question or is that come from a place of love? Very tough to say. Very tough to say. It's love and hate, like they're basically next door neighbors on Reddit. I feel like.

Correct. They ask really very quickly between each other. Yes. So Reddit chess specifically, I think is mostly folks who are around before the chess boom. So the chess is the chess subreddit. Sorry, I didn't know. Yeah.

Yeah. So a lot of them have been around for five years, seven years, 10 years, even more. And I think the average age on Reddit is lower than the average age on these chest subreddit. I think that the chest subreddit is beyond the age of 20, maybe even 25. Like a lot of folks, they're ancient ancient people. They're basic. Yeah. I mean, not 15 or 16. Anarchy chest is younger. So anarchy chest is basically chest memes. That's a subreddit. Yeah. You got anarchy Yeah, energy chest is great. A lot of stupid memes on their good day. Like you or no, or is it love? They did until my crypto sponsorship, which is a separate convo that I'm more than happy to have. Uh, but, uh, yeah, so my relationship with the Reddit chess subreddit is tough because my content on YouTube

Stopps at a certain point with them They can't learn from me because I'm tailoring to 95% of my audience Which is about 16 1700 and below and I have a lot of content where I Joakingly make fun of low rate of players. And everyone's in on it. And we all have fun. And I laugh at myself a ton, the laugh at this. You can even see in this conversation.

I, but just like you mentioned in with, with clips and out of context things, folks have already formed the perception of my personality. There's nothing I can do to win them back. And I think the dominant percentage of the loudest group of folks on the chest subreddit, they just, they have a certain perception of me. It's not going to change. And you add something like cryptocurrency sponsorship, which people on Reddit, just in general, are relatively negative on the subject. It's going to start, you know, snowballing more and more. So if you ever look up a thread of,

should I buy a Gotham course? And it's on Reddit, chest? So just say no. Everyone's calling it a scam over price. Interesting. I heard a lot of really positive stuff. I don't know where. Unread it in general.

Of me? Yeah. You might have been looking for it. You might have not been looking for negative things. And I do. So I was looking for like best educators online, like that kind of stuff. I don't, I might have not been read to chess.

I'll be totally honest with you. If you ever go there and look for something like bests, recaps or bests, educational content for intermediates, I'm not mentioned. I might not be mentioned because I'm already expected to be on the list. So they just kind of want to generally shout out smaller creators, totally fine with that. And I'm not even going on this whole explanation because I want to win folks back.

It's just sort of the reality of the situation. A lot of myself is really click baity and I'm playing the YouTube game. Yeah. They don't want that. Do you ever feel like a limit or attention between your creativity and the YouTube album. Like do you feel like it has negative effects on it? Yeah, yeah, I want to cover more in depth stuff in a 30 minute video that I think is super useful to people. It's only going to get 60,000 views. And you feel why is that a bad thing? Is it good?

It's good to mix it up. Yes, it's good to mix it up, but I make a video a day. I make one bad thing. Is it is a good it's good to mix it up? Yes, it's good to mix it up, but I make a video a day. I make one bad video. The other videos suffer. And then if I make two videos that underperform the rest of the videos don't get pushed out as much. Your earnings can go down 40% day to day, which doesn't happen in other careers. And if I ever want to supplement, if I ever want to make a very instructional video, I try to do it in a very fun way.

So something like eight of Magnus Carlson's best end games. You can still learn a ton, but the concept of the video is going to be different. Like I tried to still teach things, but in more interesting and exciting ways. Like the guy who was sc scam for a million dollars, Alex the sheriff who was basically promised the world championship.

If he won his match, he won his match, he didn't get a world championship. So there's still stuff in there you can learn. And you can, my goal is just you click on the video, you learn something and you enjoy yourself. That's it. Get people to click on it by any means necessary. But once they're there, have quality stuff they can learn

and be realistic. Yeah, man, I wish, so I have zero of those pressures, but I also really, really, like I turn off views and all that kind of stuff. I don't pay attention to any of that. But I wish YouTube would like, you that, but I wish YouTube would like the algorithm would include how good the video is, like beneficial for people's long-term well-being in the calculation. I actually really hate the fact that they turned off this likes.

Yeah, I didn't get that at all. Because like, I know I don't know the difference between like, the tutorials specifically, like, I don't know what's a good chest video or not, or what's a good review or not. Yeah. I mean, it emphasizes following certain people more than like, if you trust the creator, but like, man, I really don't know what's a good video or not, essentially.

And then you have to trust more the title, and then the clickbaitingness comes in, and it's no good if to use your own gut instinct as opposed to data. Sucks. Yeah, there's videos that have almost no views that are still great. Incredible. And some of the best ones,

some people who are just focused on the quality. Yeah. And don't want to play the game, or don't even know how to play, and they don't really want to play the game of the YouTube algorithm. Yeah, and don't want to play the game or don't even know how to play it. And they don't really want to play the game of the YouTube algorithm. Yeah, it sucks. It sucks, especially given how dominant YouTube is in the in defining the sort of the creative energy of our whole civilization. Yeah, not just chess, not just chess. youth. Not just chess. Not just chess. When you're going to chess box against Eric Rosen, this is a question from Reddit, chess box, you said your hands are all messed up.

Yeah, yeah, are you training for something or regular like, so I also just remembered we never talked about Hikaru so I can talk about Rosen and Hikaru in the same chess boxing. So I can talk about Rosen and Hikaro in the same chess boxing. Oh, shit. Is this your MacGregor like? Shed Talk segment. No, no, no, no. Eric Rosen is actually a close friend of mine. I probably have five of those and he just so happens to be not just the chess streamer,

but we've talked about buying homes. We've talked about he's stayed at my place. He took my wedding photos. I flew him to New York and paid for all his stuff just so he could hang out with my wife and I, you know, take some 6-A-M photos in the sun in the park. So he looks familiar. Yeah. So he's a good friend of mine.

Now, in terms of chess boxing, chess boxing is this really fascinating sport where you've boxing, but you also have chest and you have rounds. So you start a chest game with a clock. That segment itself lasts for a couple of minutes. They put the board away and pause the clock, whatever the time situation is, and you box for a minute. And that keeps going on. I don't know how it works in terms of the time expiring, meaning in fighting, there's judges that just tell you how the fight was going, right? Here, I don't know who wins and how. Like, do you win by, you can win by knockout, you can win by checkmate, or their clock can run out on the chessboard, but is there a judges? Who, who, is there a round limit? Does this just go on and on and on and on?

You know what I mean? Yeah, I thought it's like 12 rounds, right? Isn't this a thing in, in, in, in Russia? It's a big thing in the UK. UK? Yeah, I thought it's like 12 rounds, right? Isn't this the thing in Russia? It's the big thing in the UK. UK? Yeah, UK, I don't know why. And there's a lot of YouTuber events just for boxing. So YouTubers just learn to box, and then they just box. No chest, they just straight up box each other.

Like Jake Paul, for example, you ever gonna get Jake Paul in here? Yeah, I'm sure. Okay, I'm sure. I feel like we just, so many, you ever gonna get Jake Paul in here? Yeah, I'm sure. Okay. I feel like we just so many different guests have been mentioned. Uh, Jake, but Jake Paul would be, it would be a fun guest. But he's obviously the biggest scorer. He's legitimately boxing people. He's not, uh, but, okay, chess players is never going to learn to box to that level.

And all of us are starting basically from zero. And Ludwig talked to me behind the scenes and say, Hey, how would you feel about being in a chess boxing match? I said, okay, yeah, maybe when is it gonna be said five months from now? I've always wanted to train combat. I've wait lifted. I've done cardio flip back. And you say you have CFAN too? Yeah, but you admire fighting. Yeah, I would enjoy it. I just have a really bad lower back and that makes a lot of different combat difficult But I said, you know, let's screw this. I'm going to contact a few local gyms Yeah, and one of them the guy emailing me back and forth had actually watched my YouTube videos

So he was the first to respond and he said yeah, like come in two a couple classes like see how you feel So first I did conditioning which killed me because fighting conditioning is, you know, it kills you. It's completely different type of conditioning. But I felt good and I really wanted to come back. And since July, I've been training three, four days a week. Nice. I feel pretty good.

I love it. Lower back feels good. Lower everything. Whole body got stronger. So what you're saying is you're going to fuck up a car. It's easy training. I'm not fighting. So I talk to Eric about it and the truth is we're both concerned about head trauma. I have an actually spard.

I light sparring shadow boxing, but I go there. I do personal training. I don't do a group class. I'm not fighting. I'm fighting the bag. I'm doing shadow boxing. My form is improving, but I haven't been punched. I get hit in the stomach. You know, I get hit in the side with kicks.

Nobody's punched me in the face yet. So I think we both were adequately concerned about that. And there was not some ridiculous amount of money on the table. So we decided it's just not worth pursuing. How does the car come into the picture? Because he's a possible competitor. People ask me all the time, who would you fight? Would you, people I was like,

Ah, Andrea Boates with Kick Your Ass. That's a tough one, because I can't, what am I gonna say? I'm gonna fight a woman who I'm larger than, you know, so I just have to take the L against any time a woman is mentioned. That's why I'm like, oh, it's- It's no winning that one.

Right, exactly. So I've lost to both Boates's, Anna Rudolph, Anna Cremling, They're all chess creators. You're like hypothetically. Yeah, I get a hypothetical fight. Yeah, yeah. There's been training. I think, yeah, Drea has been training.

That's because an event got announced. This this event that I was hypothetically going to be the main event against Eric Rosen. Yeah. It was announced. Yeah. And you kind of like thought, like maybe that's not do this. No, I knew once I declined to fight Eric that I would not be participating. And I even knew, you know, I knew who was going to be the main event.

Because I was kind of offered both of those guys. So I'm on handball. Is this still going on? The chest boxing event will happen in December in Los Angeles, yeah. Nice. So who is the main event? It's I'm on handball Hamilton, who's also chess bra. So they have a couple of guys this part of the chess

bro channel in Lawrence Trent. Lawrence Trent is an international master from England. He's a... I think he's done some boxing a little bit. He's a commentator, brash guy. Nice. Controversial guy. Yeah. It's funny because they started. Lawrence put out some videos and I went damn I should have done this

Yeah, I think it But I mean you're right first of all there's so many things to say one of which is If you're if you want to take it seriously, you know, it does pull you in like, you know if you train a lot It's gonna affect the rest of your life. It changes you. I think taking combat sports seriously changes you in good and there's negative costs to it, I think, because it's a whole other thing, man. It's like doing a marathon running or something. It really pulls you in. The other thing is the head trauma. You have to take that kind of stuff seriously,

especially if you're doing sparring and all that kind of stuff. Yeah. Still some of the celebrities, I don't know why, but it's pretty exciting. I don't know why it'd be fun to watch a car. Like, there's something. Why, I always said, if he caro and Magnus did a boxing event, and I was the combing event against, I don't know who,

that would be, that would be, that would be as Magnus said anything about it, like a bod doing chess box. Well, first of all, he's going to commentate the Ludwig event, which he, which he said, he kind of said, oh, there's been people in the past that are my level in chess, not my, his level in chess, and have wanted to get physical with him. I think he's talking about he caroids. It's, I don't think anybody else is. That'd be a good one, man.

That'd be a good one. I think Magnus. What do you think? What is that one? I think Magnus is in better physical shape. He's also a little bit bigger, I think, than Hikaru. A lot more reach. I think Hikaru is a dog, though.

I think he'll, I don't think he's gonna, he's gonna get out of there. Like, I don't think he's gonna quit in the ring. I would think Kikar would just go nuts in the beginning and burn himself out. So if Maddie is gonna survive that, I feel like Kikar would just go crazy and then just get exhausted, would not be able to pace himself correctly. Maybe.

Chasing that first round knockout. Yeah. Yeah. Just swing like crazy. Honestly, I just love to see that, which is like the effect of physical exertion on the, on the game. I think it's sure they're strong enough to. Yes, but I think we definitely underestimate the effect of being punched, maybe bleeding out of your nose or something like that. It's, it's no joke.

I can't, I can't say I'm anticipating the first day day I actually do some sparring and get seriously hit because I know it's not going to feel good even now. I take a hard jab to the stomach or the ribs and I'm just like, man, this is this is rough. I mean, I I had to do three minutes on heavy bag and when I finished, I had been like slacking on my form because my arms were tired and I hit with my fingers instead of my knuckles and my hands are like you can see the red skin, completely pink, meaty skin under. I didn't realize when I was hitting and only today the pain is unbearable. So I can't imagine head.

It must be. No, I mean it gets a different thing. I mean, of course your skin gets tough, Everything gets tougher. So you guess used to it the head The head is a weird one because it's not gonna send you those kinds of signals You're not gonna get this the skin type of signals The brain is a weird thing because it doesn't hurt. Yeah It just does the damage and the damage can materialize itself manifest itself only years later. Yeah. It's a weird one. But then we all die.

There's that Brave Heart speech. Um, I got to ask you about bots because it means that super interesting. And you've played a lot of bots at different levels. Uh, you have a video called the advanced chess bots are terrifying. Uh, so what's the difference you can play in humans and bots? Like you mentioned this Nelson bot that brings this queen out, I think rated 16. 12 or 14 hundred, okay 1240.

So like there's a style to those. What's the difference between the way bots play and the way humans play? A lot of people prefer playing bots because they have anxiety playing other humans. It's a very legitimate thing. Interesting. A lot of beginners, they bots because they have anxiety playing other humans. It's a very legitimate thing. Interesting. A lot of beginners, they don't like live chess. They get nervous, yellow anxiety, you get close to your highest ever rating, you panic. Happens to me too.

Yeah. Happens to me even now. So they play bots. There's somehow more reliable or something. Yeah, they're, I don't know, but it's a big thing. It's a big thing. It's a big thing. And the popularity of that video shows that people enjoy watching. You play chess bots. So, uh, I'm going to demystify this. This might be shocking. Those bots are all the same bot for the most part. You could just program a bot to make mistakes at a certain moment.

You could program a bot to spend less time on certain moves. And it's gotten sophisticated enough that you can basically program it to play at whatever more or less level that a human plays at. You say, I'll play at an 1800 level. So it's programmed to throw in mistakes. The problem is, and this is why it's all beginners to not play bots, because bots are programmed in the following way.

Beginner bots are like literal toddlers. They have no understanding whatsoever. They will literally lose all their pieces, but they won't lose all their pieces and make mistakes that we beginners do. Beginners actually know how to start a game. They just struggle the first eight moves, nine moves. Their mistakes are very different than Bobbott plays, completely

outlandish types of mistakes that you cannot pick up in terms of a pattern standpoint, because no actual humans play like that. They should move their queen to the opposite side of the board, if there's no reason, you can take it. Yeah, it's not even a blunder. It's almost like randomness. It's completely random. And this problem extends further because Advanced bots will play an opening completely reasonably and they just hang a rook Which okay maybe happens, but that's not exactly how you get to 1800 at 1800 That's a very strong level of the game you know your openings very well

You start navigating the middle game based on already things that you remember And then basically once I choose as a bad plan and the other side chooses a better plan one thing leads to another nobody just recreationally hangs all their pieces. Just the way bots are kind of programmed to play but some of those bots in that video were. I remember playing them. And they were they were not so they were out calculating me every time I thought I had a trick in two, three second moment of thought. It would just play the best move. And sometimes that also happens. It gets into a dead loop where it just starts bulldozing you and it can't stop.

So it made its mistakes already. It's programmed to make only a few. And then it just bulldozes you the rest of the way. Interesting. I mean, that's why I played with stock fish a bunch. So I got, I built up for myself a bunch of different chess experiments recently. I had to do with the chess playing bot, but I also built an infinite chess board where was stock fish was playing like an infinite number of chess games. board, where was stock face was playing like an infinite number of chess games. And one of the parameters I was interested to play with is how long it gets to think about a move, and how that

affects the rating of the thing. Oh, I did that a little bit. So that's a tricky one. I'm sure people know how to do that well, but it's not trivial to understand what, there must be a good formula for it, but it's also interesting to think about like a controlled number of blunders. But it's probably better, the controlled number of blunders is not a good way to build a bot. Yeah, it's for training purposes at least. The time, the time for move is probably better, but the craziest thing is I did that, a couple of my of my devs who are helping me with the build like I'm scaling my courses

into a better just learning platform essentially. We've done a lot of different experiments with stockfish, which I'm even happy to get into here. And stockfish making moves in point one millisecond plays better than a human, which is disgusting. And disturbing, frankly, because that's crazy. Like you can't react to a car stopping in front of you anywhere near that fast. And yeah, so the reason I was interested in that is because when you have a very large

chess board, you have tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of games going on at the same time, you have to think of the minimum amount of thinking, promote that you can allow for. And it does, it does, it's damn good. At least to my eye, basically, at the lowest possible setting, you can give it. So yeah, it's incredible, it's incredible, it's a boss, you're able to with doing now. It's as far as I know, as primarily machine learning based stock fish, so stock fish moved to machine learning. Complete. It's not doing search as far as I know. Yeah, this is where you lose me a bit, but the move discovery and evaluation is what's been changing in the way Slotfish works. So it's discovering of moves and then the way it looks forward and then evaluates positions,

that has changed. But Matthew Sadler, who wrote the book Game Changer about Alpha Zero. Alpha Zero, yeah. Yeah, that he explains that significantly better. But that's the way I think it works. What did that make you feel when you first saw Alpha Zero play? I was excited. I didn't have any sort of existential thoughts.

I enjoyed watching it completely destroy openings that people thought were good. And it, that experiment though, does have some caveat in the sense that I think Alpha Zero was playing with a full tank of servers and I think Stockfish wasn't, which I think is one of the things people point out they weren't playing since then they were able to demonstrate much less. Yeah, but also Alpha 0 stopped developing. They stopped developing it. Yes, which sucks, but again, from their perspective, from deep minus perspective, it's like, all right,

well, we took on this really tricky game. There's something honestly incredible. They won. They won, I mean. Well, not just won. I mean, they did it without any human supervision. So like without any training on human expert games. So only through self play, which, which I mean that's what learning is

about. It's like it's what you think of as a child, a human child, a toddler learning from, you know, somewhat nothing and becoming a capable human. That's that's what we think of when we think about intelligence. So the fact that it's able to play itself and become the best player in the world at the game of Go and all kinds of games is just incredible. And obviously that inspired the modern stockfish. Yeah. Now to do the same, all the same kind of self-play methods. Somebody I'm read it asked a pretty interesting question. I don't know if you have an interesting answer to it. What makes it just move, quote unquote, human? As you are someone, oh, this is to me, but it's mentioning you in third person, as you are someone working in AI, this idea of humanness would seem incredibly interesting. Yes, sir, it is, especially since most cheat detection

relies on humanness as a way to detect cheaters. I think since children being born right now will have the advantage of engine training their whole life, they will start to see the game the way an engine does. Will a person be considered a cheater if they play like an engine? There also seem to be a discrepancy, especially with Levy about who can play what appears to be a non-human move. He often says things like, well, if you were a normal player, normally, in quotes, if you were a normal player, I would think you were cheating. But since it's Magnus, I don't doubt Magnus is great, but if humanist is our benchmark,

what is the elo rating where your moves can start to look like an engine without critique? There's a bunch of questions in there. They combine two of my quotes into one. So, one thing that I like to say is sometimes in a chess game, moves look or an opening look so ridiculous that if a viewer played it, I would make fun of them or slap them. That's always the job. If I was your chess coach, I smack you, but when Magnus plays it, which is whole, wow, you know, it's a very different. So they mixed up this quote with another quote, which is, uh, you know, if,

if I, if I'll be explaining something and I'll say, oh, and hear the engine says you should play like this. Yeah. If one of your opponents plays like this, report them for cheating. So they, they fuse two quotes, they said, oh, human can't play like that, but because it's an engine move, but because Magnus is playing, so they mixed kind of two things. But there's interesting levels of humor

and insight there on both of those. Yeah, the difference between human move and engine and like what an engine move is, is I think two things. Number one, a computer move is outlandish in its concept and its idea. So the best example that I can give of that is if you gave 100 grandmasters a position and told them, you know, what do you think the best move here is for black, not in this position? Right here, we have nothing, but an overwhelming amount of them would look at the position, evaluate everything they

know about the game of chess, which is relatively similar, but obviously slightly imbalanced based on their skill level, and they would come up with a sample size of two or three moves. And incomes the computer with a fucking haymaker, and suddenly everybody goes, oh, everything we know about chess has gone out the window. So they all start looking at that move, and they know it's the best moves. Now they start adding the evidence behind the verdict, as opposed to getting to the verdict

while first looking at the evidence. So the concept of it and the idea of it is so outlandish based on a certain type of position that you can't fully grasp it, you have to continue to beg the engine to tell you what the variation is. A move is only good if its extension is good. That's the way chess works. So, it's like a move is good, it's because the computer has seen that the various branches of things going forward are also good. You bring all that back. No human could have even conceptualized that initial thing.

The second thing about computer moves is they look counterintuitive. If you might be in a position where it looks like the demands of the position are ABC. The computer is like, nope, it's not because I've seen the future way more than you possibly could have and I don't have emotions. So like, dumb moves and brilliant moves can look similar. Yes, and oftentimes do.

And this is actually back to the Hans thing. A lot of people narrowed dissecting these games they're playing and they're basically saying, like even Fabiano Corrana, one of the best players in the world was on his podcast yesterday basically saying, okay, this is beyond my level. Saying, out of my league. What's that, what's out of your league? You played for the World Championship,

kind of we get what we can read between the lines, right? It's possible that Hans is that level of genius. Is there like different kinds of genius? Is there like different different kinds of genius like where one You could be out of each other's league kind of thing Maybe in the case of Magnus. It's understanding of end games It's just somehow he understands the that last phase of the game and the complexities and the problems he can pose better than anybody else so you can see Magnus do poor looking moves in the end game. Or like moves that don't fit what you your gut says is it would be the optimal.

Yes, but also so it's not that you even think the right, you just might not even consider them because of overreliance on your own information or even the computer. That was what was going on in game six. It kept doing things and kept playing and kept finding play and posing those questions that humans and computers could not understand. So he beat the engine basically. He wouldn't have beaten the engine because it would have defended. Jan lost that game in the 90s move psychologically he thought the game was over so that contributed.

Computer would have defended. So by the time this podcast comes out, which I don't know, it would be in a week or something like that, I feel like more will happen. Let's see, you're predicting engine. How does this Hans drama end? Oh, saga. Let's look in three months. By the time we get to the next world championship, let's say, what are the options? What are the possible, let's imagine, let's not say like what the probabilities are, what are the options? Chess.com is forced to or agrees to or whatever to come up with a huge amount of evidence of cheating in the past. Or Hans comes out, what can Hans do with this? So I'm uncomfortable with the general, actually you can maybe update me on this, but there

was a little bit of an attack on him, not a lot of an attack that he's a cheater, right, without evidence, without clear, conclusive evidence. Physical evidence. Physical evidence. So all of those, that's the tricky thing. Yeah. So like that stuff we're talking about is beyond my level. That starts being kind of intuitive circumstantial evidence.

There's the statistical evidence behind the over-the-board games that he's played in 2020-2021, where the games match what's called engine correlation more than Magnus and many other top-grid masters combined. But that can be argued is because he was very strong in playing weaker opposition. So there's always kind of his argument against the statistics, right? There is the fact that the guy who Magnus named dropped, Maxim Blugi. Blugi is a chess grand master, and he's even been, I think, president of the US chess federation. I've played him in some Blitz games.

It turns out I wasn't even fully aware of the extent of this He has been banned from chess.com Proceeding for cheating have they actually have has him in Hans actually worked. Yes So that was why he named dropped that right. That's also not good You see where this is getting you still don't have the physical proof, but you have Smoke So I don't know how this ends. I don't know if this, if he denies it to the death and he ends up filing some sort of legal action, some sort of ethics complaint, or he admits everything.

I don't know. But, no matter what, I hope, despite chess or not, that he's mentally strong enough for whatever is to come That's what I keep saying because I can't I can't imagine right like I just I really can't imagine and maybe Well, we just have too much compassion, but I don't think so I really just feel like at the end of the day chess is just a game But it is a game played by millions of people throughout history and Nations have basically fought wars over the chess board. So like there's a lot it's like Olympics. Olympics is just a little dude running and so on. The hockey is just the thing with the puck. But you know, it's it's also much more than that. It's also nations sort of figuring out their conflict in a way that doesn't involve violence.

It's a serious thing. And it's a thing that inspires millions of people. And it's a testing ground for intelligent systems that eventually take over human civilization. Yeah, I mean, the bots are really interesting. I don't know if there's other lessons. Like you play to clone of yourself. No. You watch stockfish versus stockfish.

You have a video, people should check out each other. You have a lot of awesome videos. You have video titles, stockfish versus it out. You have a lot of awesome videos. You have video titles, stockfishes, it's stockfish. That was the experiment. I made them play each other. So I made them play. Would you listen, what did you learn from that experiment? I enjoy it.

First of all, they will always make a draw. So engines don't get to play each other from a beginning position because they will always draw, especially if they're the same engine. So stockfish 15, stockfish 15, I don't think one side will ever beat the other, basically. But if you program them to play a certain opening position, according to chess theory, you get to see interesting ways into how they evaluate. One of the things, one of the ways that it played against the London opening was absurd.

Like, it just, it was completely ridiculous. Black sacrifice two pawns as early as move six, which is a borderline completely lost position. And then both sides foresaw that the only way white was gonna be able to use that material advantage was to give it back and stabilize their own position. Like, Black just got a crazy attack. Jesus Christ, that's crazy. But they drew them and they ended up drawing.

So I'm also gonna make them play against each other in either bad openings or like some of the most popular gambits. Looking at something like that. And the way I'm gonna do this is basically say, which chess gambits are the best? And the way I'm gonna do that is theoretically, the engine should be able to beat a gambit, because a gambit is very rarely blessed by the computer.

So if the computer cannot beat that gambit, that means it's good. That means it's not losing. If it's a completely lost gambit, it will beat it. But if it draws, despite getting that early disadvantage, then that means the gambit is very reliable and it will beat it. But if it draws, despite getting that early disadvantage, then that means the gambit is very reliable and you can play it. So that's a good way to evaluate opening games.

Yeah. What's the best, what's your favorite opening? Or what, what, what openings do you like? There was an opening that got me back into chess when I was 15. I quit for like three years and I went to my friend's house and he had a book by Lars Schender of a Danish Grand Master called the Karl Kahn defense, which is C6. You want white to do you want black to show them the opening? This is the opening. The Karl Kahn defense. So you play E4, E4, C6.

I have to play black. That's it. Yeah, and we developed from here. I put my D-Pons. What counts as opening? Okay, but the development, does the development matter? Yeah, so from here, the development goes into the variations of the Carocon. So this is the Carocon.

Like, you can be in a city, but then you can be in neighborhoods. So this is a very non-dramatic, okay. Yeah. Two ponds in the center. So that's called the briar variation. So which, what's a good thing for me? Two, two squares. Yeah.

If you can put two ponds in the center, yeah, you should. And then, um, that's a good thing. Yes. And then I will go here. And now you have to decide what you're going to do with your center point. You can push, take or defend it. You can push take or defend it. And push, take or defend. Right. Yeah. What would you suggest? Take the worst take is just stable. So we just trade, but pushing is considered the best advancing and taking my space away

from me. So I think alpha zero or stockfish would probably always push, push. And now there's something called like the main line or the side line. Main line is what's the most popular. Plated all levels, which is moving the bishop here. I've played this a lot. But for beginners, this is an intermediate players. This is why I love this opening so much. On move three, black already has a plus score, which is crazy. Like, it's not supposed to happen.

And there's this very tricky second, most popular move, which is undermining your center, trying to get you to take my free pond, but destabilize and leave both of them kind of hanging. And is that why the plus score is because you're susceptible to destabilization? Yes, because people at 99% of the rating ladder do not understand how to deal with what's coming basically. They don't know how to deal with a structural attack. So would stock fish try to defend the pond here and keep it straight?

No, it would take the pond and tell you to go fuck yourself. Oh. I knew that. Because I am 3,400. Right. It would take the pond and be like, I win it back. And even if you did, you would suffer, it would make you win it back in the most annoying way.

It would make you tie your shoes together and block it. So I like as stock fish, I would taste. Yes. That's the best move. That's the best move. But not at 99% of the rating ladder, which is funny. Interesting. Well, you like funny. Interesting.

But you like to play this. I play this against GMs. I play both. I move my bishop. I push. And what are the different ways it evolves? Like then the rest doesn't matter. So this is just like a pawn structure thing. Yeah. And I mean, again, Deep are most openings. So it's anywhere from like two moves to like 10 moves kind of thing. Yeah, you can be out of theory Very very quickly to move to move three like basically on your own you have a general idea

But you don't remember games. I mean, I know karaoke on games from start to finish because I've played it since 2011 so you know all the different branches that goes that down. Yeah, I think I know every opening in chess basically I think most most title players know every opening, but we don't know we can't play it competitively because we would be. But what are some of the weirder openings that like slightly suboptimal, but might be explored like magnets might play them just to fuck with the opponent. He played something recently actually against this German prodigy Vincent Kimer which was a specific move order in a very popular opening. So it was basically a position that had been reached thousands of times,

but the move order Magnus chose with white was played maybe 0.05% of the time, which is crazy, thousands of games, and it's supposed to be not good, meaning it allows Black to equalize, because that's what Black is going for, not winning the game, but equalizing, because you go second. Magnus says, I don't care about equalizing. I just want a position. I don't want my opponent to know them answers to the test. And that's so interesting to do to because also fucks you psychologically. It throws you off and just always keep you on your toes. He's in a weird position, but he also has the advantage of being able to intimidate. Mm-hmm. I wonder how many people... How much is that a role of it like being scared of the other person?

It's huge rule, I think. I think some of the top guys would deny it, but you know when you're in the seventh hour and you're playing Magnus, it's a very different feeling than some of the other. When Magnus is messing around in the opening, it's very different than another person messing around in the opening. You just kind of like expect to, for something to be there. We'll see if it translates to poker for him, but I think he gets a little bit,

maybe less respect in the poker world, in the chess world, he sort of alphas. He gets a lot of respect. I just talked to Daniel Nagrod, and he gets the only person that doesn't respect manness Carlson. Honestly, either in chess or poker is man is Carlson. I was going to say Hans Nees.

That's true. But like, man is hilarious. I mean, when he talks about his rating, he's like, it was pretty good. When he talks about how good he's this poker, and I suck. But I think that self-critical view that he, I think he honestly believes to a degree is probably part of the engine that fuels him to get better and better and better and better. Yeah, well, what I'm saying is if you face the face

with Magnus at a chess board, it's not the same as being a nine handed poker table with him. You kind of keep an eye on him, maybe in a key to the mysterious guy, but chess is different because you're like this is the man. Yeah, there's very few people, yeah, so in poker, they talk about Phil Ivy that way.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like the super intimidating. I think that's, that's, it's probably harder to intimidate in poker. I actually, I don't know, I don't know. There's something intimidating about like excellence and deterministic game that's just terrifying. Like your fuck, I mean, it's like playing stockfish, like your fucked. This thing will suffocate you. And especially when you do, it makes moves that you don't understand this. I, to me, the most beautiful thing honestly is the sacrifices that the engines do. Just the, it's such a fuck you. Yeah. Like I could sacrifice pieces, and I'll get them back

and I'll get them back more, and I could look. I don't even, I don't even have to get them back. Your position is so bad, I give you full material, and there's nothing you can do about it, yeah. That's terrifying. Yeah. That's terrifying. And that transfers to AI systems in general like

like a system that plays weak just to fool you. For people who are trying to get better at chess, beginners or at any stage of their development. What advice would you give about getting better? Except watch your channel. You have of course watched my videos. Check out chestly.com. Let's we're going to scale the courses too. But no, on a serious note, you have to be prepared to lose way more than win. My mom gave me advice when I was maybe 13 or 14 and I just discovered that I liked girls. She said, you're going to get a lot more nose and life than yeses. That even happened with my wife actually. Our whole journey is quite fascinating. It's paved with rejection. It's paved with, yes, various ghostings over the course of years, but we got married and

we love each other very much. So it's a wonderful tale, but it's the same in chess. You're going to lose a lot and you have to be, for adults, I noticed, kids in adults learn chess very differently. Kids yell out in class and they're very excited. They don't realize how many times they get something wrong. Adults never want to talk during lessons because they're afraid of being wrong. Adults will preface correct answers with this is probably wrong but like, shut up, you're paying for a private lesson. This is the place to be wrong. So adults especially think that being dominant in a career Where they've dedicated a lot of their brain power a lot of their work ethic and a lot of their study time It's gonna translate to chess. They do to keep their own kids They helicopter their own kids because they try to apply a lot of the same stuff

Chess studying chess is different than studying anything else anything else Same could be argued for martial arts, I guess, but yeah, 100%. He had to have a beginner's mind and what that actually means is sucking in every aspect of the game and studying all the interesting ways in which he's suck. And you will realize you get better without actually trying to get better. I show up to the boxing gym one day, I move my hips better. Yeah. And I do shadow boxing. Sensei goes, you're moving your feet better today. You got better. I'm And I would do shadow boxing. Sensei goes, you moving your feet better today, you got better. I'm like, I didn't practice footwork. It just your brain just starts putting it all together randomly. You might study a shit load and still lose a hundred points. If you're going to

study chess, Owen, for fuck's sake, this is the only activity where people go in going, how much do I have to work to be a grandmaster? No, where else in my life have I ever seen someone try to pick up a hobby and want to be the top ranking level, only in chess. You're right. But like, for example, when I, like grappling sports, I'll see people come to a gym and basically ask like, how long before I can get into the UFC, right? But you'll see champion is different. I mean, no, grandmasterters equivalent to getting into the UFC. Yes, yeah, so but people quickly realize when like the 110 pound girl taps them out over and over and they're at a 230 pound like

Rip dude, they realize like okay, this is an art. This is a journey. Yeah, and I think if you resist is like, okay, this is an art, this is a journey. And I think if you resist the lessons that failure teaches you, that's when you don't grow. So like just relax. And one of the things you have to learn probably a place to just to know how to relax, your body, your mind, and just like, there's something about, just like you said,

like if you don't resist if you relax Then your body your mind will learn the way of this game And probably add to that is just put a lot of hours in of having fun But then then I on that perpetual chess pocket. I listen to somebody that say like it doesn't like puzzles None of that what matters is the number of hours you spend kind of suffering, meaning like thinking deeply, like, like, like, straining, like, thinking with your mind, like, really working hard. So, and then, you know, you have the Magnus who says, no, what matters is the number of hours you spend having fun.

have the Magnus who says no, what matters is the number of already spent having fun. Yeah, it's a mix, it's a mix. He's right. I don't quite agree with suffering, but I think people do a lot of fake learning. They play speed games, they just go through tactics. Okay, I have to do 20 tactics. Okay, boop, wrong next one. I used to tell my students, you need to do 10 puzzles and you need to get 100% correct. I don't care how long it takes. So I suppose that kind of is like the suffering theory. But if you do 30 puzzles and you get 8 correct, what even is that? That's laughable. The correct amount of, you know, it was 29% I don't know but 26% it's you can't do that

You have to get things right and that's the only way you're actually that requires like thinking deep like really struggling I guess especially if you're doing the puzzles at the level that that's your level. I've Done the puzzle for an hour before because I was so stubborn. Yeah. I didn't want to just put in a wrong answer. Yeah. The guy was listening to you said, like, that's good. You should do the whole thing. Maybe for me, and the same with blindfold chess, I have to say. Like, my blindfold skills, I never practice.

I just, I can visualize the board quite well. I've played, and most I've played four games blindfolded at the same time. That sucks. That just feels horrible in the brain afterward. But like, I can play four simultaneous games blindfolded at the same time. That sucks. That just feels horrible in the brain afterward But like I can play for simultaneous games blindfolded. Yeah, what's that take to do that? I don't know and I get asked that all this time. How do I practice? Why don't you do that? So it's not me. It's a good party trick It is yes

I it is the video of Magnus doing it in Columbus Circle on YouTube has like I don't know how many views Did it live with an announcer? I can't know how many views I did it live. Well, now I'm sorry. I can't imagine how chaotic that was, but he, yeah, it's a great party trick. Yeah. Oh, there is a reddit thing. I forgot to ask Magnus that they asked me to ask him because they moved the wrong piece. Yes.

And then somehow he remembered, I don't know how that happened. I have to tell you I Was I kind of presume that he figured out From the way the other person was moving that they moved the wrong piece. Yeah, I forgot that I remember me sucks You said You know Ups and downs in your childhood a little rough sometimes You know, ups and downs in your childhood, a little rough sometimes. Also, you get attacked by the beautiful, wonderful people on the internet.

So sometimes it's difficult. What's been the lowest point that you've ever gone to in your mind? In my career, in my life. In your life, in your career and everything, in your mind. So have you ever been depressed? For sure. Yes. How did you, like if you can remember moments, how did you overcome that? Well, I will share two anecdotes. One, when I was May 2012, so I was 16 and a half and I was living in a household situation where I thought nobody knew what was going on basically without sharing, obviously extremely personal details, like what was going on except me.

And I confided in my grandmother. I was, imagine living in a house where you basically feel like a prisoner, you don't wanna interact with anybody in the house, you don't know how you're supposed to bring these things up. Of course, this sounds extremely vague and I just don't feel I don't feel like exposing all of my entire family drama to the audience, but I live this way for probably something

like eight months, I don't, I don't know, something ridiculous. It was the junior year of high school. So I was supposed to take my SATs. That was the year I was supposed to finish up my portfolio for college because you only get really a few months of senior years to sort of playing. It was a fuck, it was a nightmare, a complete nightmare. And I don't know how I got through it. Time went by. I listened to sad music and tried to spend as little time as almost possible.

I would pretend to fall asleep at my friend's houses so that my mom was like, you coming for dinner and I would just pretend to be asleep. It was just a grind. Yeah, yeah, it was a grind. I don't remember a whole lot from that period just sort of finding what made me happy and trying to focus on it. And I was a teenager in the house. I wasn't going to run away. I still had a roof over my head. So I'm not saying I had it better or worse than others. I just had it different.

And actually recently, this is much more on my memory. I more or less tore up a very happy life my wife and I had. And I've talked about this in bursts on stream. But essentially what happened was we had just been living in, it's actually funny, the way we got into this apartment was also very bad. But we were living in just a very nice little apartment, like high-rise apartment safe. And the reason we moved into a high-rise was because we had lived in a house for two weeks that got broken into. Not because of who I am, but because we suspect we had people moving in mattresses and they went, oh, shit, these two people live here. That's it. And basically, there was three apartments. My ups, there's neighbor let in somebody that they didn't expect. And

the guy cracked our door open with a crowbar. Thank God that was the first day in two years my wife went to work. Did they know? Did they not know? I don't know. Everything happens for a reason. So nobody got hurt. Hmm? Nobody got hurt. Yeah, they stole, they stole and some couple of important things, but nobody was hurt. And cops did nothing.

So you moved into a high rise. I moved into a high rise in New York. Yeah, in New York. For safety and we're away from things, and we have our own nice little nook. And somewhere, some months into it, I started hearing noises from above, our neighbors. And it started in the morning, 7 a.m. It started in the afternoon,

and I picked up on it and I expected it every day for weeks. And then it was driving me crazy. And I was like, okay, we're gonna go have a civil conversation with whosever up there. Sounds like kids. We go knock.

Lady Gaslid, the shit out of us. I've never been Gaslid that hard in my life. She went, no, he's what noise. It's probably our other neighbor who's a boxer. It's like, lady, you have kids. We can hear you through the vents. You're talking to your kids to went to the front desk of the building, they did nothing, went to the leasing office, they did nothing. And basically over time, I just let this drive me nuts. There was been back to the stubbornness thing. I decided we were leaving. We were going to live somewhere, there was no noise.

Because we can't beat these people. There's nothing we can do, right? And my wife, I dragged her around to a bunch of different viewings, because I was dead set. I was, I was, I was, I decided I was completely miserable. And we found a house to rent, like a nice house, family head just moved away, house, standalone house, not gonna have neighbors, but wife decided that,

not wife decided, we decided that the, it's too big, it's too big for, so we're gonna get a dog, we always wanted an animal, so we're gonna get a dog. So we get an absolute lunatic puppy who just doesn't let us sleep at all. This is on top of everything else in the mental health crisis that's going on,

and the day we are moving to this house, I realize I fuck up. Like I realized that this whole thing was in my head and I don't want to leave. I don't want to leave. This could have all been avoided. And the guilt and resentment, I didn't want to exist. Like it's not that I, it wasn't suicide, but you know the feeling of just, you want to just observe yourself from a distance. And I couldn't sleep. I thought my wife was going to leave me like, and that's what anxiety does. It also takes everything you feel to an absolute dread.

And that I experienced for a good chunk of two weeks. And then we kind of settled down and decided like, we're going to live. You tell her about it, like, we're able to talk through it? Yeah, yeah. I, yeah. Does she know the levels of madness that could be inside your mind? I don't know if she'll ever know, but I tried to tell her that and give glimpses. Yes. I'm not sure you'll ever know. I kind of the point. Yeah, I tried to, that's why I try to keep busy. But that was, that was the darkest that got.

And yet through all of that, I went on stream every day, made YouTube videos every day. Like I understood that I had a job to do and I did it. And I talked about it here and there. But that was the worst that ever got because I'm learning that the emotions I experience are guilt, remorseorse and your brain just goes encircled basically about things that you've done or haven't done. It's funny

because noise can do that also. So noise the noise was real but it was building in your head. Yeah. So I try to actually it's kind of funny because I like to focus deeply now. I'll have like sources of noise. I've tried to teach myself over time. I'll go to like coffee shops and stuff to like, I like, I almost try to put myself next to annoying situations so I get like trained. Really? Maybe I should do that.

But at a certain point, at the same time, I've gotten to hang out with the certain people, especially in L.A. They're like in the middle of nowhere, like a Malibu or something, and it's like that quiet. Can you hear your ears ringing at so quiet? Basically. And it's like, holy shit, it's a good way. If you want to write something or create something, this is like super quiet. So my mom is a journalist, a science author.

She just published her first book actually on poop of all things, yeah, fecal, the waste management. It's actually very fascinating concept and looked through history. And she would do that. She goes to complete solitude. And she writes, yeah. It's beautiful. No sirens.

I mean, New York is the opposite of that. So, you know, you've brought it. You brought it on yourself. I've lived there for 20 years. Has it been tough, like, going on stream to put on the face of happiness through that? Yeah. Yes. But I find my ways to have moments where I can talk about it. If it's on a stream, I don't get 10,000

live viewers, so it's very different. If I stream late night, I get 1,500, 2,000 viewers. I used to care a lot more about viewers on stream, but I've basically invested fully in YouTube, so that's kind of the way I... And I think, I don't know, maybe you can correct me, but I think people appreciate the human being behind the chess streamer. I think so. I think so. I think a lot of people, not in the chess world, but just a lot of people. They put on a persona and just in general, social media is the highlights of your life. Or the lowlights, just as long as they're dramatic. But I've tried to be very open and honest when I'm tired,

I'm tired. It's what makes my recaps of my tournaments, I think, so real. Yeah, man, you're an incredible person. I've been a fan for a long time. It's kind of funny that we connected. We got a chance to talk. Please, please keep creating, keep teaching people. For now, I'm not going anywhere. Well, it could end at any moment as we talked about. So yeah, thank you so much for talking to David and thank you for everything you do. It was an honor. It was great. Thanks for having me on. Thanks for listening to this conversation. We'll leave you Rosman. To support this podcast, please check out our sponsors in the description and now let me leave you some words from Irving Charnath. Every chess master was once a beginner. Thank you for listening and hope to see you next time. you