Lex Fridman Podcast - #330 – Hikaru Nakamura: Chess, Magnus, Kasparov, and the Psychology of Greatness

Episode Date: October 17, 2022

Hikaru Nakamura is a chess super grandmaster and is currently the #1 ranked blitz chess player in the world. He is also one of the top chess streamers on Twitch and YouTube. Please support this podcast by checking out our sponsors: - Mizzen+Main: https://mizzenandmain.com and use code LEX to get $35 off - InsideTracker: https://insidetracker.com/lex to get 20% off - NetSuite: http://netsuite.com/lex to get free product tour - SimpliSafe: https://simplisafe.com/lex EPISODE LINKS: Hikaru's Twitch: https://twitch.tv/gmhikaru Hikaru's YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/GMHikaru Hikaru's Twitter: https://twitter.com/GMHikaru Hikaru's Instagram: https://instagram.com/gmhikaru Hikaru's Website: https://hikarunakamura.com Macauley Peterson's video: https://youtube.com/watch?v=tGXvcQP6VPo 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 (06:59) - A private game vs Magnus Carlsen (14:47) - Chess openings (30:59) - Mental preparation (39:40) - Chess tactics (50:03) - Solving chess (55:43) - Aggression and ego (1:00:28) - Hans Niemann cheating scandal (1:10:21) - How to cheat in chess (1:24:44) - Greatest chess player of all time (1:35:00) - Hikaru's immortal game (1:47:26) - Paul Morphy (1:49:10) - World Chess Championship (1:51:59) - Magnus Carlsen (1:55:33) - Sergey Karjakin (1:58:00) - Beauty of chess (2:04:55) - Day in the life (2:19:34) - Streaming (2:34:13) - Taking risks (2:39:42) - Depression (2:44:31) - Advice for young people (2:51:51) - Love

The following is a conversation with Hikaro and the Kamora, a chess super-grandmaster. He's one of the greatest chess players in the world, including currently being ranked world number one in Blitz chess. He's also one of the most popular chess streamers on Twitch and YouTube, which you should definitely check out. His channel's name on both is GM Hikaro. And now a quick few second mention of each sponsor. Check them out in the description.

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and many business-related details, all of which I am completely behind on personally because I am in charge of it in my life, and totally mismanaging. Or not rather not mismanaging, but procrastinating. Like, perhaps some of us, maybe a lot of us are doing everything from the finances, the tax organization side, everything is always done last minute. And then just managing things in my life. People I work with, so I guess that's human resources, just managing all the small and the big details. If you

can use good tools for that kind of thing, you should, if you can hire help for that kind of thing, you should, but it's so tricky because it's so difficult to find the right tools and the right people to surround yourself with. And that's what is one such tool that you should definitely integrate if you're a business. Go to netsweet.com slash likes to access their one of a kind financing program. This shows also brought to you by SimplySafe, a home security company designed to be simple and effective. 30 minutes set up and you can customize it to your needs. It was super easy to set

up for me. It's the first layer of physical security in my life. There's many layers of physical security in my life. There's many layers of physical security. There's many layers of cyber security. There's many layers of psychological security. Although, to be honest, the psychological one, that because I make myself vulnerable to the world, it does not have enough layers.

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as the years and decades go on. Anyway, go to simplysafe.com slash luxe, the custom-wide system, and claim your free indoor security camera plus 20% off with interactive monitoring. This is the Lex Reef and podcast. Disappointed. Please check out our sponsors in the description. And now, dear friends, here's your caro Nakamura. You and Magnus played a private game, 40 games of Blitz in 2010 in Moscow at a hotel. This sounds and just feels legendary.

Final score was 24.5 to 15.5 for Magnus. Where did you find out the score? I'm actually curious. I don't think it was publicly set or it was very briefly set, but it wasn't ever like mentioned in a serious way. So I think it's a deep dive based on a few links that started in a subreddit, which is how all grade journey started. Yeah, so this is kind of a crazy story.

This was not pre-planned at all. I remember this quite well. I went out to dinner that final night with someone who was actually very hyped within the internet chess club at that time. I went out for a nice dinner. I think I had a couple of drinks. It was wine beer. I went out for a nice dinner. I think I had like a couple of drinks. It was wine beer.

I don't know what it was. And I think towards the end of the dinner, somehow they got word of this and they relayed the information to me that Mag is wanted to play a private match. Now, I agreed to play this match. Probably I should not have. And actually there's nothing to do with like the state of having been out. I had a few drinks, anything of that nature.

But the reason that I probably should not have agreed to play this match and why I very oftentimes reference it as one of the biggest mistakes in terms of competitive chess that I made is specifically because it gave Magnus a chance to understand my style of chess. And at the time, I actually had pretty good results against Magnus. I think maybe he was up one or two games, but there were many games where I had been pressing close to winning against him prior to that match. And so when I went and played that match, there were a few things that happened.

First of all, Magnus really started to understand my style because we played all sorts of different openings. And so I think he understood that at times, I wasn't so great in the opening and there were many openings where I would play slightly dubious variations as opposed to the main lines. And then secondly, from my standpoint, the problem that I realized, since we were playing with an increment, there are many games where I was close to winning and he would defend end games amazingly well. He would defend what are technically, technically drawn end games, but where I would have like

an extra pawn, it would be like work and bishop versus work and knight. Say I have four pawns, he has three pawns, end games of this nature. Now, if you aren't super into chess, you might not understand what I'm referring to. If you are, you will, but there are end games where one side might have extra material, an extra pond, say extra two ponds, but theoretically, it's a draw. So can you give an example of the set of pieces we're talking about five, six, seven pieces, like, okay, like a very basic one would be working four ponds against working three ponds. So that would be nine total pieces on the board four ponds on one side three ponds on the other side. But it's all on the

same side of the board. Now this is a technical draw. It's been known for probably let's just say 70 years roughly give or take that this is a theoretical draw no matter the position of the ponds. It's just all the ponds are on one side of the board. So like, like where they are. So it's like, let's just say they're four pawns right here. They're just four pawns and black is three pawns. So your pawns are on H6, G6, and F6.

And there are no other pawns on the board, something like this. And you both have rooks and it's a draw. No matter what the next, next like 50 moves to the game are, we know that it's a draw on end game with perfect play. And so it was things like this where Magnus actually saved. I want to say like five or six of these. And I remember it quite well because I think the score was very, very close up until probably the last like 10 games of the match.

And then at the end, he started winning, he started winning in space. But there were a lot of situations where he was up like one game or maybe two games in the match. And I had some end game like this. And I was not able to win the end game. And so for me after that match, it wasn't even so much that I lost the match or the margin I lost by, but it was the fact that I realized how hard it was to beat him even once you got the advantage. And I think for Magnus, he learned that my weakness was the openings. I remember because I actually, I don't remember the game itself, but there was a game we played in Sicilian Nidor

And he played this variation with Bishop G5 on move number six I'm sure you can you can insert a graphic later. I can show you and I think it's a type of opening So Cillian's the opening Nidor for this variation. It was played by Bobby Fisher the former champion Gary Kasparov as well And so we played all sorts of different openings because of course, it's not a series It's it's a series match, but it's not serious where it's going to count for the ranking. So you're just trying to fill out where you're opponent is strong versus weak. And so there was one game I remember this very clearly. He played the Bishop G5 variation in the night or. And I think I played E5 or I played Nipe D7 and E5, which is dubious. It's not the best response. And that's just one example where I was playing things that were a little

bit dubious. And I was not playing the absolute mainline with that's just one example where I was playing things that are a little bit dubious. And I was not playing the absolute mainline with 20 moves of theory. So I was trying to get outside of theory. I think Magnus learned from that that even though it appeared that I was very well prepared in these openings, I wasn't quite at that level. Couldn't you have a different interpretation of you going outside of the mainline that you're willing to experiment, take risks that you're chaotic, and that's actually a strength,

not a weakness, especially when you're sitting in a hotel room at late at night. This is past midnight playing chess. I mean, why do you interpret that that's your weakness? Because Magnus, going forward, was able to figure out the lines where you have to be super precise. You cannot deviate at all, and I got punished by the opening and many games. So it was like, it wasn't about the night or the opening or the variation specifically,

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

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

It was in a room. It was me, Magnus. I think Henrich was there. I think McCauley was there, and that was it. People can go on YouTube and watch its on chest digital strategies, McColley, Peterson channel. For people who just listened to this, there's a dimly lit room with a yellow light emerging out of the darkness of the two faces of the Garou. I mean, and the deep focus here and what time is this? This is most be the night. This is probably

like one in the morning. This was, I believe, the day of day after the final day that the final round occurred and the closing ceremony. So we're playing afterwards. I mean, are you able to appreciate the epicness of this? Many of my favorite memories are actually similar to this. Another memory that I really have, that I recall very fondly was after the US Championship.

It was called the 2005 US Chash Championship was held at the end of 2004 in, I believe it was in La Jolla in San Diego, I won that event. And after that event, I was playing Blitz probably for like four or five hours in the lobby of the hotel. So it's the same kind of situation where you're just playing for the love of the game as opposed to anything else. Of course, nowadays, I think both are magas in myself, just playing a dimly lit room like this would almost certainly not happen.

There would probably have to be certain stakes involved for us to play. both are magas in myself, just playing a dimly lit room like this would almost certainly not happen. There would probably have to be certain stakes involved for us to play, but you know, if you go back in time, these are the sorts of memories and moments that would happen all the time. So is there a party that doesn't regret that this happened? You know, I think it comes back to my general philosophy. I feel like everything happens for a reason.

And so because I have that, that's one of my core beliefs, like I don't really look back on it as mistakes. I feel like everything has happened and things have transpired the way they have for a reason. If I look it in terms of potentially like world championship aspirations, I think certainly it was a big mistake because from a competitive standpoint, Magnus figured out what my weakness is worth of time and he exploited it for many, many years. In fact, I think if you look at the match, I played against him in the meltwater tournament at the, I think that was in June or no it was later.

It's like September of 2020, we played this epic match. It was the finals of the tour and it went all the way to the seventh match, Magnus won in Armageddon. And in that match, my openings were much better. I was able to match him in the openings. I was not worse out of the opening in most of the games,

and that made a huge difference. But for many years, he was able to exploit my openings, and that's why the score, I mean, it's not the only reason, but it's one of the reasons the score is so lopsided the way it is. Is there any of those games that you mentioned, seven games that are interesting to look at to analyze? Yes, and then you remember they're interesting to you. I mean the whole it was actually so to set it up and this probably will come into play in terms of world championship format

It was seven matches of four games. So we played a four game match and after four games say I'm up two and a half one and a half I win match number one then then it's so it's like you've to win four matches of four games. Do you remember how you won? There are a couple of Berlin games in the sixth, sixth match. I believe in the seventh match as well. Where Magna's actually made some mistakes and I won some critical games. You're going to have to explain some basics here. So Berlin is the type of opening. What's that?

The Ruilope is Spanish opening. It actually existed all the way back in the 60s, but it really became popular in 2000 and one I believe it was when Gary Kasparov and Vladimir Kramnik played the world championship match. Kasparov had been the world champion for a very long time. I think it was close. I think it was about 15, 15 years roughly maybe a little bit more than that. And he lost the match because when Gary had the white pieces, Spar was not able to effectively get in advantage. A lot of those games were very quick draws, and in chess, you want to put pressure on your opponent when you have the white pieces. So, because Spar was not able to do anything with the white pieces, and Kramnik was able to beat him when the colors were reversed. Kramnik, when I gave him the green felt, he won a game in one

of the Queen's Gambit, declined slash NymO variations as well. And that was the reason Gary Sparve lost the World Championship title was because of this this variation. Can you teach me the Berlin opening? Absolutely. So the opening starts, let me just move this microphone up a little bit, starts with E4. And then it goes E5, Knight of 3, Knight C6. Yeah, this should be 5. Night of three, night C6.

Yeah, this should be five. And now night to F6. And at which point is this the standard like this is the the Berlin Yeah, this is the Berlin. This is starting position of the Berlin defense and white has many, many options here. Now it's interesting because I did work with Gary at a certain point, and I remember I had access to his database, and he had something like 220 files on the Berlin defense. Because what happened is, is Gary's somebody

who the way that he learned chess, it's very much like there are certain openings that are okay, there are other openings that are not okay. And so this was considered dubious at the time. And so Gary basically decided to go into this end game with Castles, Knight Takes Pond. Why is the castling an end game? So I'll show you Knight Takes Pond.

All these moves are very, very forest. You got pond and defaul. What does it mean they're very forest? That means like those are the optimal things they should be doing. Exactly, these moves are, I think they're almost, at least for black, they're absolutely forest, or else you end up in trouble. You said night takes default. Night to D6. Oh, so this attacks the bishop on B5. Got it. White takes. Black takes back with the pawn in front

of the queen. Uh-huh. Fond takes pawn. Night to F5. And then that goes queen takes queen. What? King takes queen. They're aggressive. Yeah. So you got this position where we're in an end game. But you just ruined all the normal conventions, I guess. Right.

On the other hand, for Kramnik, it was quite brilliant because Gary, what he was known for was opening preparation and getting the advantage. He was a very tactical, very aggressive player. And you're playing an endgame right from the start. Now, Gary basically thought that this was better for White, and he tried to prove it. And he was unable to prove it. I think up until maybe it was game nine or game 11, actually made it out of the order

wrongs. I think he was white in the even number games, but basically he spent four or five games with White Peas' trying to win this endgame. And he was not able to win. In fact, he didn't even come close to proving an advantage. So he kept wasting the white pieces in that match and Kramnik basically took advantage when he had the white pieces and Gary had the black pieces.

He was able to win some games in very nice style and that was the difference. So that's kind of brilliant. So he had, this is a new problem presented in that match and Gary's gut says, white is better. White is better. And so in white, I'm going to push with this position. And I'm going to not change anything from match to match. I'm going to try to find a way that this is better. So it's that kind of stubbornness. And what do you think about that? Like what,

that's, that's the way of chess, right? That's not a mistake, that's the way you should do it. If your gut says this position is better, you should capitalize, right? I think that's an old school way of thinking in chess because before computers, it basically is up to humans. Your intuition, your calculation process, really determined whether a position is better. And so like, in Gary's time of openings or dubious, they're dubious, it means somebody is better. And so like, in Gary's time, if openings are dubious,

they're dubious. It means somebody is better. But as we've learned with computers now, even small advantages, generally that doesn't mean anything. And a position is defundable where you won't lose the game if you play optimal moves. Even if the advantage is like half upon, for example, like 0.50, with optimal play,

a computer will still prove that that position you can hold it and not lose the game. And so for Gary, he learned it where like an opening is not right. He knows it's not correct. He has to prove it. Now, finally towards the end of the match, he tried to switch, but it was already way too late. And he didn't have time to win with the white pieces. He did come close and won the later games, but he spent the whole match trying to prove that this Berlin defense is not playable. So this position, the computer would say that black is better. It would say that white's very slightly better because black has moved the king. You're

unable to cast the king and it's kind of open in the center of the board. Oh, so wait, so Stockfish or the engine would agree with Gary's intuition. Yes, but at the end of the day, when you go like five moves deeper in any number of the sequences, it's going to go to 0.00, which means draw. Yes, correct. And that's a bad thing because white should be winning. Well, you want to put pressure on your opponent when you have the white pieces into any tournament, any match. Got to. So if the engine says zero, zero, that means you're not doing a good job of playing white. Correct. You should be putting pressure. That doesn't mean you're going to win. There are going to be a lot of draws because the game of chess has draw tendencies, but you want to try.

Normally, the general approach these days, because of computers, is you try to put pressure on your opponent when you're white, and when you're black, you try to be solid, make a draw. That's the general approach. Now, when Gary was actually at his peak, it was quite the opposite. Gary was trying to win games with the Black Pieces as well by playing openings like the Sicilian Nidor. But with modern technology, and I did a podcast recently where I also spoke about this,

computers are so good and players can memorize so many lines that nowadays trying to take risks with the Black Pieces, it almost always backfires, or if you're very lucky, you might make the draw but you never get the winning chances. So from a risk-reward standpoint, you have to play almost, you might make the draw, but you never get the winning chances. So from a risk-reward standpoint, you have to play almost perfectly just to make the draw. But you're never gonna have any winning chances, wherein the old days, generally, you might lose the games, but you're gonna have chances to win as well.

But now it's very much one-sided. So a lot of players try to be very solid. This is, by the way, the C-squared podcast? Correct, yes. Yeah, this is an amazing podcast. So shout out to those guys. I'm glad that they started a thing. This seems to be a good thing.

And I hope they keep going with this good thing. That was a great interview that I did with you. In that podcast, I talked about the Scylion Heiter. Very aggressive opening. The problem is, white is the one who has the choices. After the first five to six moves, white has the choices. What do you want to do?

Can you show me that, that'll, sure. So it's, for example, that would be E4. I'll just set it up. E4. See, five. Now we get knight to F3, pawn to D6. Pond to D4, trade, Knight to F6, Knight to F6. And now Pond to A6. So this is the Knight Orp. Bobby Fisher really popularized it and has run up to becoming the world champion.

Gary played it for probably the last 15 to 20 years of his career. So it's a very solid, solid opening defense. What is it? What are then sorry to interrupt? What's interesting about this? So there's a, for people listening on the white side, there's a couple of nights out and on the black. So black is many options. Black can play for B5 here to develop the bishop to B7 because upon an A6 guards the pawn on B5. You can also play other setups like potentially G6. I'm putting the bishop on G7. Okay, so bringing doing different things and bringing out you can also push the pawn to E5 or push the pawn to E6. Okay, so there are

many different setups and is's very, very flexible. But why does the one who has the choice here in terms of what to play? And there are many moves. There is this move that I mentioned before, Bishop to G5, which Magnus played against me. There's also Bishop to E3, Bishop to C4. And now there also moves like H3, H4, Rg1, even moves like A3 and A4. So there are basically are nine or 10 moves that white can play here. But the move that white plays sort of dictates the direction of the game.

And you have to be extremely precise of your black. So if white plays something like Bishop G5, this is very sharp and aggressive. But you can also play something like Bishop to E3, pawn to E5 and something like knight to F3 here. And it goes in a positional direction. So the, again, this is very advanced. These are very advanced sort of setups. and something like knight to f3 here, and it goes in a positional direction. So, again, this is very advanced. These are very advanced setups, and what I'm explaining is not at a basic level.

But why does it want to choose as a type of game? Is it very aggressive, very sharp, or both sides of chances? Is it something very positional, where, if you're black, you're probably okay, but you have to play the best moves in order to equalize, or you can end up worse. Okay. So you're always responding as black in this situation. Correct. So how different are all those different variations? So like with the bishop, with the different, you said you bring out the bishop to this position,

to this position, to that position, like how, at those fundamentals, different variations, like I just wonder from a AI computational perspective, like a single step. Yeah, well, I'll make it even simpler here. If you put the night here, it's very positional. If you put the night on this square, it's very aggressive, because normally white is going to push this pawn from F2 to either F3 or F4,

and potentially a pawn to G4 later. So even here, based on where you go, it changes whether it's a positional game or it's a very tactical. Just those little, and that those are the choices you're constantly making. Am I going to be standard and basic and positional? Am I going to be aggressive and take it right? And I can actually give you another example. So psychology plays a big role. And in the candidates turn on which I played in June of this past year in Madrid, Spain, I actually, had the white piece against Alie Reza Frouza, who is a rising junior originally from

Iran representing France. And I knew that he wanted very aggressive games, so he doesn't normally play this solanite, and he chose to play it in this one tournament. So I knew that he wanted these very sharp positions where he can lose, but he can also win. And so when I played him, I intentionally played this variation because I knew that he was going to be unhappy. He wanted these sharp, exciting games, and here I am playing something very boring, where if you play it correctly, it's going to be a draw, but he's not going to be happy. And so he actually did something dubious because he wanted to create tension. He wanted to create chaos. So you knew by being boring, you would frustrate him, and then he would make mistakes. Exactly. So that's the the control at the highest level of chess.

You mentioned psychology and then taking us back to the Magnus, even in 2010, the Magnus Games. Reddit said that you've spoken about losing to Magnus being hit on your confidence. Is there some truth to that? So is there some aspect about that 2010 match that's not just about Magnus figuring stuff out, but just to hit on confidence, like how important is confidence at that level

when you're both young and firing at all cylinders? Well, it's not just a problem with me, this is a problem everybody has to play against Magnus because what happens is on a broader level. When you play against somebody, no matter who you're playing against, but when there's somehow able to save positions where they're much worse, almost in miraculous ways, the way that Magnus is done against everybody is done against me, done against Aronion many times, done it against Krammink just about everybody.

When someone's able to save games, it really starts to affect you because you don't know what to do. And the more and more times that happens, it starts adding up, and it just affects you in a way that it's very, very hard to overcome. And I think every top player has that issue, where if they've played against Magnus more than like five times, they've seen things happen in the game that don't happen against anybody else. And then psychologically, it becomes harder and harder to overcome it, which is why I think a lot of the junior players, they don't have this long history, and it does affect them.

As far as myself directly, um, certainly after that match, though, it was not the same playing against Magnus, because I viewed him completely differently, too. After all those games where he was saving these these end games, I started thinking like this guy is super human, but you can't really have those thoughts when you're playing competitively. But in the back of your mind, it's always there. And I think every top player has that issue. Is there a way to overcome that because you have to? I don't know if I'll necessarily do better against Magnus going forward, but I felt

that when I start playing against him more than just a game here, they're in classical chess. During the pandemic, I played him in these online tournaments, seemed like every month. I came very close. I beat him in one event. I think I lost in two others and then the two are final. But when I was playing against him more and more, he didn't feel superhuman. It felt like as I'm playing more and more and learning about his style, that I was doing better.

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

And then you don't have those glimpses of, you don't have those moments where you feel like you're gonna be able to win against them. When you start playing 20 30 games and you get these opportunities, even if you don't convert, you feel like you have the chances. When you play three or four games and there you might lose one draw three, you never have those opportunities until you feel very negative about what's going on when you were able to beat him or not necessarily win the game, but when positionally something, what was the reason? Like, technically speaking, the matchup between the two of you, what, like, where, where are the holes that you were able to find? I mean, the answer, I think, is actually quite simple.

I think it's all psychological, actually, more than anything else, because I didn't, it didn't, I didn't feel like I was doing anything differently, but I was also not making the mistakes that I was making before. So I think it was more psychological than it was. On your part versus this part. It's very weird because when you think about chess, it's a mental game. But we all are capable of beating Magnus, all of us. But we all have very, very bad scores against him. And I think people underestimate how much of a role that plays.

And for me, when I played him in these online events in 2020 specifically, I felt like there was really nothing to lose, which also ties into everything else that happened during the pandemic as well. But I just felt like there was nothing to lose and I felt like I was playing very freely, unlike before now. It's not to say that Magnus isn't a better player that somehow I expect to beat him,

but I felt like I wasn't making the same mistakes that I was making in the previous years. If we dig into the psychological preparation, is there something to your mental preparation that you do that makes you successful? Like what are the lessons over all these years that you learned? What works, what doesn't? Do you drink a bunch of whiskey than I before? Is there some small hacks or major ones about how you approach the game? It's really hard sort of in a way because I feel like I'm two different people. I was one person up until the pandemic as a professional chess player solely

where I earned all my income. Everything was derived from that. And from the pandemic on, I'm sort of a different person because that is not where I'm making my income from. And so the whole psychological profile that I had before is completely different from now. There's this joke about that I literally don't care

for a reason I've used. And in a sense, what that means is not that I don't care. Obviously, I'm competitive. I want to do well. But if I lose a game or I don't do well in a tournament, it's not the end of the world in the same kind of way that I felt it was before, because that pressure of needing to always perform was very, very high. And so I think before before the pandemic, what I would try to do more than anything is just not think about the previous game for the most part. Like say I had a bad game, I'd go out for a walk that evening, just clear my mind, these sorts of things now they aren't really hacks per se, but it's trying essentially to have short-term memory loss.

So I literally don't care is not just the meme, it's a philosophy. In a sense, it is. It's not just the meme. It's a philosophy. In a sense, it's a way of being. I mean, it's basically that, yes, I do want to perform, I'm going to give it my all, but it's not, if I lose a game, it's not the end of the world. That should be the title of your autobiography. And it should be, I know you're probably mortal, but if you do happen to die, that should also be in your tombstone.

Charles Bukowski has don't try in his tombstone. Yes. Which I think emphasizes a similar concept, but slightly different. More in the artistic domain, which is, well, a lot of people have different interpretations of that statement, but I think it means don't take things too seriously. Yeah. I mean, I agree with that completely.

I think that if you look at my career prior to the pandemic, I put huge amounts of pressure on myself because I really wanted to be as good as I could be, but it was the way I was earning a living. And one thing that's very difficult about chess is that only the top 20, maybe 30 players in the world make a living from the game. Now you make a very good living, no way am I diminishing chess,

but the problem with it is it's not secure at all. So if you don't get invitations to the absolute top tournaments, which have prize funds from anywhere, from maybe 100,000 up to potentially half a million dollars. If you don't get those invitations, it's very, very hard to earn a living. You can go from earning maybe 200,000, 300,000 a year to earning like 50,000. So it's very, very unstable. And I think for myself, I really put a lot of pressure on myself in a way that it affected me

and not in a good way, not in a good way. So in part, it was also financial pressure. So like once you're able to make money elsewhere, it makes you more free to take risks, to play the pure game of chess. Yeah, it makes, yeah, exactly. It made me, it took all that pressure off and I kind of, I'm just trying to play as well as I can

and I don't really worry. Like if I lose a game, it's not the end all be all. and maybe that's just like psychological stuff that I should have tried to sort out before I mean I did it some period of time like do certain things along those lines, but I just yeah, I became became free and I think it it definitely it was not about the chess and that's one of those things It's also very hard Because when I look at myself and when I had these periods where it seemed like I played better and proved, one of these periods was in 2008

where I basically, I dropped out of college, I was about 2650 euros, so I was roughly top 100 in the world. And for the first probably half part of 2008, I played very little. Almost not all, I went up to Vancouver, I was living on my own for the first time and I was not studying that much and then after that period I started playing and I actually improved very quickly and I broke 2700 shortly thereafter

So it had nothing to do with chess when you move to Vancouver and weren't doing much What were you doing exactly? Oh, I was enjoying nature. I was going outside, hiking mountains, like going and kayaking. All these things that I was not, that I had not done for many. I'm glad I asked because I was imagining something else. I was imagining you like in a dark home drinking and playing video games and, uh, okay, cool. That, that's good. That, that, that's an interesting break. So dropping out of college and then giving,

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

having been not a naturally talented chess player? Yeah, I think that this applies to actually chess or any number of sort of basic games actually for that matter is that I'm not naturally talented, but if I don't get something, I try to figure out why don't I get it? What am I doing wrong? Over and over and over again. And I mean, there are many games like this. There's this funny game on the phone. I'll just use it as an example. There's a game called Geometry Dash. Now, I'm not like, I'm not world class or anything at it. It's just a silly little game on the phone that you play. It just tap and it goes up and down. People will probably know what that is. But I played that for maybe like an hour or so.

I just randomly placed for one hour and I was terrible at it. And I kind of forgot about it for a week. And then I came back, I saw on my phone, I'm like, okay, what am I doing wrong? Like, why am I not good at this game? So I spent like probably like a hundred hours over the following month, just playing it nonstop,

over and over and over again, to get better at it. And again, I'm not like world class or anything, but I'm pretty good at the game. And so the chest is the same thing. It's like when I started out, it's like why am I not good? What am I doing wrong?

And I basically refused to accept that I couldn't be good at the game. And so, you know, at the start, I actually, I played for a couple of months, I did very poorly. And then my parents stopped me from playing for about six months. They just said, no, you're not playing. Your brother, your brother's quite good. And my brother was one of the top ranked players in his age group in the United States.

So you're not playing. Then after about six months, they relented and they let me play. And the first turn it back, I actually, it was four games. I was playing as other kids. And I won the first three games. So it was really good. And I lost the form of checkmate in the first turn of back. I actually, it was four games. I was playing as other kids. And I won the first three games, so it was really good. And I lost the form of checkmate in the fourth game, which is, of course, quite ironic. How did you...

Yeah, oh, I guess this is... How old were you at this time? I would have been about eight years old, seven or eight. So an eight year old future top rank chess player has... So it's great to know that somebody has lost to that checkmate. Is it possible to lose to that checkmate? I remember that came quite well.

Yeah. I mean, at that time, did you know that that checkmate exists obviously? I mean, I think I probably knew it existed, but I was just playing. Like, it's a completely different world than now. If a kid goes on their computer, they can immediately figure out what are the basic checkmates, all different things at the time that didn't really exist

You'd have to find it in a book. Yeah, so this is just a basic blunder. Yeah, yeah Yeah, so it's like I came back. It was a very good start and then I then I then I lose like this But I stuck with it. I improved very very quickly thereafter um And yeah, it was very straightforward. What was the secret to that fast improvement? So you said, you said like, this very first important step, which is saying, like, what am I doing wrong? Like, I have to figure out what I'm doing wrong. But then you actually have to take the step

for figuring out what you're doing wrong. Yeah, I think it was just, I just, I played as much as I could. Like, it wasn't like I was consciously thinking about, as an eight-year-old You're not really thinking about those sorts of things with a big picture So I just basically kept playing as much as I could whether it was online whether it was guns my brother reading these chess books as much as I could I just devoured as much information as I study in chess books you were I was I mean

I wasn't studying them covered a cover though. It's like you just study certain diagrams certain positions So openings and stuff like that, you were mostly tactics actually. Openings were not other than top level chess openings were not a thing probably. I want to say for players below maybe master level in a serious way until maybe like the early 2000s. So for people who don't know chess, what kind of tactical ideas are interesting and basic to understand that once you understand you take early leaps in improvement. Yeah, so it's things like forks, for example, where you attack two piece at the same time,

discovered attacks like checkmates, and again, winning like a queen or other material. Those are probably two most important ones, batteries or batteries and pens, things of that nature. How many of them? How rich is the world of, and by the way, discovered attacks are when you move a piece and you put a king and check to win like a rook, for example, or other material. And forking pieces is when you're attacking two pieces. So obviously the other person can't move two pieces at a time. They're going to have to lose one of them.

Okay, so how big is the world, the universe of Forks, and discovered attacks? Like, you know, I myself know, so there's like nights attacking like, what is, what is it? They're Forks, and I attack like a queen in a rook, for example, or like a pawn attacking a queen in a rook or like a rook in a Bishop It's innumerable there. I mean, but I will say that I think that with chess the more of these patterns you see the quicker you catch them

And that's how you improve I think the most is by learning these basic tactical themes at the beginner levels Are you when you're discovering those patterns, are you looking at the chessboard, are you looking at some like higher dimensional representation of the relative position of the pieces? So basically something that's disjoint of the particular absolute position of the piece, but like you're seeing patterns,

like this kind of pattern, but elsewhere on the board. Like, are you thinking in patterns or in like absolute positions of the pieces? Both. I think that at the higher levels, you're always thinking about like, you're thinking about the patterns on one side of the board specifically.

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

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

like what are the moves that make a lot of sense and start calculating direct moves? But one of the most basic things that I think, that I do that a lot of people actually should do that they don't do, is looking at the piece placement, trying to figure out what pieces look like they're on good squares versus bad squares.

So, am I, for each piece asking a question, am I my happy place? Am I my, like, optimally happy place? Yeah, I think that's very important. Like, we look at this position on the board, right? How's the good example? Who's not in their happy place on the board right now? I think both sides are actually pretty happy right now,

but the thing is, if you're playing with the black with the black users, what is a move that sticks out to you to like follow basic principles? Basic principles probably bring out the bishop. And then castle looking. And castle looking. Right. Exactly. That's correct. And that's what you should do.

That's the best way to play the position. Now, once you do that, by the way, I have a vibrating device inside of you. I know. So I knew that. And so my rating is 3,400, which is what I believe stockfish is. No higher. It's like 3,800 actually. Is it 38? I think it is. I'm using an earlier version of stockfish. Okay. Anyway, sorry. You were saying. So like that's that's very basic. But then if you move the bishop out and you cast the king, let's just say, bishop is seven, play this, you castle. Okay, so now you've done everything with the piece on the king side.

So what's the next way to try and develop the pieces? So everything here is pretty strong, except maybe this pawn. Okay, but think about the pieces. So by piece, I mean, everything except the this pawn. Okay, but think about the pieces so by piece. I mean everything except the pawns. Okay, except the pawns. Okay probably Either either bishop or night on the other side. Yeah, that and that is correct. You want to bring out the bishop on the night So you go bishop. He's six. Yeah. Yeah, I'll castle Now you can move the night either square it's somewhat irrelevant, but just move the night

All this player night to see six. What was your end of moving? Bring the ship back to the center. Okay. Oh, well, we have what's your unhappy place? Okay, let me move the queen to just fall some basic principles. Okay, cuz I want to bring my works to the center of the board Yes, so like in this position you've pretty much developed all your pieces. There are only two pieces that you haven't brought into the game. The Queen and the rook and the rook. And this you consider to be in the game because of us. I wouldn't say it's in the game, but there isn't really a great square for that rook right now. But in this position, you would probably move your rook to C8, and then the middle game begins after that. Got it.

So here. Because now you've gotten your piece to all the optimal squares, and now you have to look for a specific plan, but you have gotten these pieces developed out of the opening. And that's like a very basic thing that I think a lot of people don't think about

is like, what are the optimal placements for the pieces? So you're constantly thinking about the pieces that are not in their optimal placement as you're doing all the other kind of for the pieces. So you're constantly thinking about the pieces that are not in their optimal placement as you're doing all the other kind of tactics. That's the basic thing that people can fall. Actually doing pure calculations, like moving five or 10 moves in your head, that's not realistic,

but trying to use basic logic to figure out what pieces are on squares that look correct is something anybody can do. What about looking at the other person's pieces and thinking about the optimal placement of them? Like, if you see a bunch of pieces not in their optimal placement for the opponent, what does that tell you? I mean, that's a higher level concept, of course, that like I'm trying to give a beginner

example. Yes. That is something that I do think about as well. Like I try to think about my opponent's pieces, like that is basic logic. I think a lot of people these days at the upper levels of chess, they look at the game something that I do think about as well, I try to think about my opponent's pieces, like that is basic logic. I think a lot of people these days, at the upper levels of chess, they look at the game as something of pure calculation,

and you lose that human element. You're trying to just calculate all these different sequences and moves, and you don't think about the basics. And it's something, it'll be interesting to see what happens with the next generation of kids who become very strong, because that is really how they approach the game. They learn with computers, whereas like I learned with computers at a certain point, but it's I did not start off with computers from the get go. So human element still exists in my

game. Actually, Magnus, I think it said this too, where he did not use the computer. I think until he's maybe like 11 years old, something, something around there. And so we have that human element, tar game that I think the newer generation won't have. Now, it doesn't mean they aren't going to be better than us, but it's going to be a completely different approach. What do you mean by human element? Just basic logic versus raw calculation. So it's like anybody now will use the computer

from the time they start the game. And you use the computer, you look at the evaluations after the game to see how you're doing. But you don't really ever have those moments where you're just, it's you. Or it's just you and your opponent. One thing that was great in the old days before computers simply became too strong is that you would actually do analysis with your opponent after the game. And that's very much this two humans analyzing game is you and your opponent two peers.

And you come up with these human ideas. It's not automatically run back to your room, look with the computer on. Oh, I should have played this move and it's just like winning the game. So that is kind of something that has that no longer exists in the game of chess because, as I said, there's no reason to analyze with your opponent after the game. Other ideas that the engine tells you that you can't reverse engineer with logic, why that makes sense, and you start to just memorize it, that's good. Um, yes, so in the opening, for sure, there are certain positions where moves are playable. And I can even give you an example, actually in this night off, we can just set the position up a few moves earlier.

Yeah, night over on B8, fish on C8, and just move the King back to the center, Vichpon back to F8, and pawn to E7. So the pawn in front of the King just push it back to Squares. So like here's an example. There's a move here that nowadays humans will play, which is this move pawn to H4. And this is a move that 20 years ago, if someone showed this move to Kasparov, he would just laugh at them. No matter who you were, he would basically say, you're an idiot. What is this move? Like, you're pushing a pond on the edge of the board.

It does nothing. And this is something that's it's playable. But even if you were to ask me or any other top-gram master, why it's playable or why it's a move that makes sense, we wouldn't be able to say why it makes sense. Because it doesn't. We just know that it's fine because the computer says it's playable or why it's, why it's a move that makes sense. We wouldn't be able to say why it makes sense. Because it doesn't. We just know that it's fine because the computer says it's fine. It's fine or is it good?

It's just fine. It can, it probably like everything else is equal with perfect play, but it definitely, if you're not careful with black, you can be worse for sure. But if you ask me, I can't say why it's a good move. I can say, okay, maybe I'm going to expand on the king side. I'll push this pawn here and push the pawn forward. Maybe, maybe I can put the why it's a good move. I can say, okay, maybe I'm gonna expand on the Kingside. I'll push this pond here and push the pond forward. Maybe I can put the Bishman G5 in some position

the pond guards the bishop, but I can't give like an actual good explanation for why it's a move that makes sense, because it doesn't make sense. It's fascinating that young people today, kids these days would probably do that move much more nonchalantly. You'll see that a lot more because they know it's safe at least.

Right, because I know the computer says it's fine, but I grew up without computers. And so to me, as you're pushing upon on the edge, it's the opening phase, you don't do things like this. It just, it looks ridiculous. Now, of course, I have worked with computers long enough that I know, like I'm not, I know the computers are, computers

prove that everything is fine. But still, to me, it does feel wrong. Yeah. Well, I think as computers get better, they'll also get better at explaining which they currently don't do, at basically being able to do. So first of all, simple language generation. So, a set of chess moves to language conversion, explaining to us dumb humans of why this is an interesting tactical idea. They currently don't do that. You're supposed to figure that out yourself. Like why?

What's the deep wisdom in this particular pawn coming out in this kind of way? Let me ask you a ridiculous question. Do you think chess will ever get solved from the opening position to where we'll know the optimal optimal level of play? I highly doubt it. Without major advances in quantum computing, I don't think it's realistic to expect chess to be hard solved. I just I don't think it's realistic to expect just to be hard-solved. I just, I don't think that will happen. But I don't know. It could happen 20, 30 years maybe, but I think in the near future, it's not realistic.

Well, then let's go up with a podhead follow-up question. Suppose it does get solved. What opening do you think would be the optimal? Well, everything will be a draw, for sure. After moving. For sure. After moving. Yes, for sure. You're absolutely sure Yes, yes, that's what why are you so sure? I'm so sure because when you look at the computer games and you see these decisive results, it's because they played the openings are set generally they can't they can't for move one

They play set openings like you might play the night or you might play the Berlin defense normally it's set openings as opposed to As opposed computers being able to do whatever they want. I just believe in general In this openings that are symmetrical like e4 e5 d4 d5 The computers will draw and I think the optimal opening I think e4 e5 night f3 night f6 is probably a I think E4 E5, Knight of 3, Knight of 6 is probably a guarantee draw. If there is perfect, if we have perfect information and we know that that just solved E4 E5, Knight of 3, Knight of 6, the Russian or the Petrov defense, that will be the optimal strategy. See, so that's sure of that. Symmetrical play is going to lead to a draw, but what if you can constantly as white maintain asymmetry, constantly keep the

opponent off balance. So yes, E4, then then you're always doing this symmetry. But what if chess, inherently, there's something about the mathematics of the game that allows for like that thin line that you walk that maintains to the end game to asymmetry constantly that there's no move they can bring bring bring back the balance of the game. Yeah, I don't think that exists. I don't think it does. So basically I'm saying E4 E5 I think it's a draw. I think D4 D5 is a draw C4 C5. I think I think basically symmetry that's all of it's a draw. I think that's that's why it's a draw So this need a matter like you're saying what if it's solved Most openings will be a draw. Yes. I think E4 D4 C4 and night F3 for sure will be a draw other openings I'm not sure about but those first four

Possible starting moves. I think chess is a draw night F3, what's the response to Knight F3? Probably a Knight F6 again. Or to make it simple. If I play Knight F3 on move one, black here can also play D5 on move one. And normally at some point, white's going to end up playing D4. So the order of, so it's probably going to lead back. Yeah, all roads kind of lead back there as well there probably are other ways which where there is play but I think that's at the end of the day the symmetry is symmetry is what's going to lead lead to like a forced forced equality or drawn the game of chess. So Demis of Sabas is the CEO of D mind.

the C.O.D.Mine, the D.Mine, the C.O.D.Mine, the C.O.D.Mine, the C.O.D.Mine, the C.O.D.Mine, the C.O.D.Mine, the C.O.D.Mine, the C.O.D.Mine, the C.O.D.Mine, the C.O.D.Mine, the C.O.D.Mine, the C.O.D.Mine, the C.O.D.Mine, the C.O.D.Mine, the C.O.D.Mine, the C.O.D.Mine, the C.O.D.Mine, the C.O.D.Mine, the C.O.D.Mine, the C.O.D.Mine, the C.O.D.Mine, the C.O.D.D.Mine, the C.O.D.Mine, the C.O.D.Mine, the C.O.D.Mine, the C.O.D.Mine, the C.O.D.Mine, the C.O.D.Mine, the C.O.D.Mine, the C.O.D.Mine, the C.O.D.Mine, the C.O.D.Mine, the C.O.D.Mine, the C.O.D.Mine, the C.O.D.Mine, the C.O.D.Mine, the C.O.D.Mine, the C.O.D.Mine, the C.O.D.Mine, the C.O.D.Mine, the C.O.D.Mine, the C.O.D.Mine, the C.O.D.Mine and the night. So like there's so many different dynamics that are created by those two pieces. I think there's truth to that. I mean, some of that is just poetry, but is there truth that I think it's definitely true when you look at the imbalances that are not like crazy attacking physicians like one thing that Bobby Fisher was really, really good at when he's the world champion is playing end games with a Bishop versus the night. Now, traditionally, we think of the night being better than the Bishop even today in end games, but Fisher proves that there are a lot of end games where Bishop is better than a night. So I do agree with that statement.

It's like the imbalances between like, bishops and nights in many positions. You never really know. Like, many positions where a night is better than a bishop or night and bishop are better than two bishops or like, it is all the imb- generally it is the imbalances though between the bishops and the knights or combinations of the two pieces that it lead to the most interesting positions so I- I agree. Interesting positions. What about fun? Is there like aspects that you'll find fun within the game itself? Not all the stuff around it, but just the purity of the game. I think for me these days, when I see some of these moves that computer suggests after

a game that I play and I just go, wow, that is the beauty for me because these are not moves that I would ever consider. And when I then see the move and then like I might make a couple of moves to try and understand why, that is the beauty to me is seeing all these things that just like 10 years ago, I never would have even seen, because computers weren't as leveled as they're at today. And so the depth and creativity of what they're saying, even it was not like in our language,

but in the evaluation, that's where I find a lot of beauty. Oh, that's fun. So like the computer is a source of creative fulfillment for you. Absolutely. I mean, I think also it's very humbling as well. Because when you spend your whole life playing a game and you get pretty good, you think you're pretty good at it. But even for Magnes, I think when we look at it and you see these things that we've spent

20, 30 years playing this game and it doesn't click and then you see it, it's just like it really is beautiful. You're known for being a very aggressive player. What's your approach to being willing to take big risks at the chessboard? Well, I think that's another thing. I was a very aggressive player, probably until I got to about this 2700 elo and then it kind of my style changed a little bit. I think what it is is I like to play attacking chess. I love playing openings like the Kings Indian, the Slyne Nidorf as well when I was a little bit younger, and it's just like why not try to fight with both colors, try to fight in every game and win if you can, try as hard as you can. Now, one of the things is, as you get better

and better, players are also better and better prepared. So you have diminishing returns when you play these very aggressive openings like the Kings Indian or even the Dutch, which I played for a while. You can only, it only takes you so far and then at a point, people figure out what, how to respond to those choices. So I still do play these openings. For example, I played a tournament in St. Louis about three weeks ago and I played a great Kings Indian game, which I won against Jeffrey Zhang and American junior players. So I still do play it here and there.

But when you start playing it every game, there's a point at which when you lose these games, you just can't, it becomes too much. And I spoke about this in the C2 podcast where I played the night or then I played Fabiana Caruana, a very strong American player as well. And he just blew me off the board and like, for sure, I can't, so I'm like, okay, enough. Enough of this, I just can't keep doing it. Because, do you think he prepared for that opening then? Absolutely.

Because you see what has my opponent been playing recently? Where's their ideas? And so I'm going to prepare for those ideas that they've been playing with. Exactly. Yeah, that's what you do. And also, you have to be very self-critical because for Fabiano, the night off was the you do. And also you have to be very self-critical because for Fabiano the

night or was the one opening he did very poorly against, but he worked really hard and he came with a lot of different ideas and he he solved that weakness. What's the role of you're also known of having a bit of an ego? What's the role of ego and chess? Is it helpful or does it get in the way? I think it's a mix. I think there's a fine line. I think you have to be very confident in order to get to the top. I know some players are very expressive, like myself, like a sparrow and others. There are other people like a non-too-don't-express it. But then there was a book that I think was released fairly recently

where he basically said like he was really angry in his room and he was like banging walls or doing some of the chairs. I don't remember the exact story, but like he was able, in public, he kept it very like, very buttoned up, but then in private he wasn't. I think, you know, you have to, you have to have that edge.

If you don't have that edge and you don't get upset when you lose games, because you will lose games along the way, then it's impossible to get anywhere near the top. So I think every top player has that ego or extreme confidence that is necessary. If you don't have that, you'll never, I think, get near the top. So I think every top player has that ego or extreme confidence that is necessary. If you don't have that, you'll never, I think, get to the top,

probably in almost any field, frankly. Do you have to believe you're the best to have the capacity to be the best in the world? Yeah, I think you have to have that. I think for me, it wasn't really ever about thinking I'm the best in the world, it's about like going into that game, that game, whoever I'm playing,

I believe that I can beat them. Or I know that I'm gonna beat them or I'm better than them. That's, for me, it was always about the, that whenever I'm in that moment in the game, just knowing that I can do that. I think that is also another thing that when you start playing more and more in these top tournaments, you kind of lose that sometimes because the positions you have the same opening strategies, you end up with positions that are very draw where you reach end games, things of this nature. And so it can also make you very jaded as well after you've been up there for quite a long time.

Were there times you were an asshole to someone and you regret it at the chess board or beyond? Yeah, so I can't. Asking internet questions. Yeah, I mean, this is definitely true. I'm not going to pretend it isn't. When I was younger, I was very angry when I lose games on the internet. Many of these stories are specifically from the internet, of course. And, you know, I think I look back on it. And of course, I wish that I'd

been able to like channel the anger differently. Basically, I think the simple gist of is I would play Blitz games online. Now I lost. I would get angry at my opponents instead of getting angry at myself. Which of course, it's silly, because they're playing the game. They're trying to win like, why shouldn't they try to beat you? I think for me, like, I'm not happy about that when I was a young teenager getting so angry

over these online games and insulting a lot of people along the way. But maybe that paved the way to your streaming career. I think for me, like, I feel like having that me against the world attitude, though, it really fueled me when I was younger. Feeling like it was me against the world, everyone hating me or me hating the world. That was very important. I was able to channel that anger in a way that really helped me improve. So, like, do I regret it on the one hand? Yes, of course, you don't, I think I think you don't want to be like that. On the other hand,

what I've gotten as good as I am, if it was different, I'm not so sure. So, next. Well, then I'll ask you to empathize with somebody else who currently has a me against the world, attitude and it's helping him, which is Hans Neiman. For several reasons, he has me against the world kind of attitude. Well, let me ask, there's been a chess controversy

about cheating and so on that you've covered. People should subscribe to your channel. Your hilarious, entertaining, brilliant, and it's just fun to learn from you. Do you think, as we stand now, Hans ever cheated in over the board, chess? What as things stand now at the beginning of October. Yeah, that's a very tough question for a couple of reasons. I think first of all,

when people refer to evidence in regards to whether Han Shade over the board, there is not, and I don't think there ever will be, quote-unquote, hard evidence. The only thing that would ever constitute that is if he's caught in the act. Literally he's caught using a phone with an earpiece, whatever it might be. That is the only way that there would ever be heart evidence. So as it stands right now, there's a lot of circumstantial evidence. How much of it is legitimate or not remains to be seen. I know people have questioned the statistics.

Some people think it's very convincing. Some people think it's complete nonsense. I think that right now I'm very undecided, but I do feel that within the next like three to six months, assuming Hans is able to play over the board in more tournaments, the stats will make it very clear one way or the other based on our results, whether it's legitimate or not. I think for me, I would say that regardless of whether whether you, whether like I believe you cheated or not, he is playing it probably a 20 he's probably at least 2650 no matter what regardless of whether he's cheater or not he's already at that level which is very very high. So I think the stats

will will bear it out in the next probably I said I said three to six months probably I would say next six to 12 months, whether something happened, but I really don't know. Do you find compelling or interesting the kind of analysis where you compare the correlation between engines and humans to try to determine if cheating was done in part? So initially I thought that that was actually quite legitimate, but as I found out much more recently, anybody can basically upload this data so that whole theory while it seemed very convincing at the time, is simply isn't any statistical evidence in my opinion now. But there are games from some of those tournaments that definitely considering where it's rating was, look very suspicious in 2020, I would say.

Again, that's not the role of like myself to decide or chess.com. That's obviously going to be up to Fede, whether they think that's compelling evidence or not. I think for me, what I would say from an intuitive standpoint is that I've been in this world for a very, very long time. I've seen mostly juniors as they've risen through the ranks, magnets, and many others. And there's always been something about them that has stood out to me. That's been like a brilliant game that you've played against someone who's much higher rated.

I've just seen it from all of those players. I never really saw that with Hans Nieman. So it's very difficult for me to sort of, with my own twice, being in this chess world so long, see things a certain way. And then like something that's never happened before is happening, but at the end of the day, it is still possible. It is completely possible. But Hans, something clicked at a certain age and he started improving, in spite of the fact that, you know, the

statistics look weird in terms of his rating improvement. So I don't know. I sort of, I think that in six or 12 months, I'll probably be able to say one way or the other with very certain confidence, like, you know, whether, whether you should be there or not. Speaking of statistics, I should ask, I'm not sure about this. Are you a data scientist? Right. That's a good one. No, of course I'm not.

You know, but it's, that's the thing. You see, you see all these stats are thrown out there and you, you try to try to understand what's being said. But it's, it's also very scary because when you see these things that look very legitimate and then they're disproven or people say like you're cherry picking like the dates and all these other things, it almost feels like you can come to any conclusion that you want to. And that's why I think this is such a serious issue for the world of chess because going forward, if we don't take it seriously now, I think at some point there is the potential for a much, much larger scandal. Do you agree that, like, with Magnus, I think said that it is an existential threat to

chess, like this is a very serious problem that's only going to get bigger because you're basically from a spectator perspective, from a competitor perspective, or not sure that you can trust any of the results? Yeah, I think that's for sure true. When I think back to the last like five to 10 years, there are plenty of top level tournaments that I played in where there was no security at all. Yeah. You would just, you would just go into the auditorium and play your games and that was that. So I do think it's a big issue.

I think it has been a big issue, but the reason it's only coming to light now is because it features a very strong junior player who's very close to the world elite. There have been many cheating scandals before. There was this French player Sebastian Feller. There was this player Egor's Rouses from Latvia. There was this, I think it's from Belarus or maybe I have that wrong. There was Bulgaria, Boroslav Ivanov as well. Those are three big cheating scandals, but they were not at the absolute top levels of chess, which I think is why it never became the huge news story that this is, or it wasn't

viewed in the same kind of way, is why I think organizers were perhaps a little bit too lax in terms of security. So you said 2650, is it possible that Hans is in fact a kind of Bobby Fisher level of genius and he's capable at times of genius at the chess board. Oh, absolutely. A hundred percent that is absolutely possible. I think that's why I think for everybody in the situation, we want to see what happens in the next six to 12 months, because I think it will be very clear. Also, it's very interesting to me because there are other stats from that

72 page report that chest.com compiled, which in essence say certain other junior players basically have peaked that they're not likely to improve further. So it's also going to be very interesting when you look at those like, I think it was like 50 pages of graphs, because there are graphs that say like some of the other junior players are done. So when we look forward like in a year or two, if those players don't improve, it will also say something about their methods as well that they've used to sort of compile this data. Yeah, I wonder what those junior players do if they look at that data. So there's a point where you should look at yourself like practically, like what

what is the actual empirical data over the past year of how much I've improved at a particular thing Like it's one thing to kind of tell yourself that these are the ways they need to improve And it's another to actually look at the data and face the reality of it. Right. I think also that could have a psychological effect That is the other thing that makes the whole Han situation so tough because if you think that he's cheated or you're unsure about what's going on, that is another psychological factor whenever you play against it. In his favor or against the favor, definitely in his favor. Because for example, if I go online and play against the computer, let's just say I go

play against the office tomorrow, I'm going to play a very certain type of opening strategy, try to keep the board closed and maybe hope to get lucky. Now computers have gotten so good that generally even that doesn't, I don't even have a chance even with such strategies, but you play differently than you normally would. And so if you're playing a game against him and there's a move that looks really weird,

it doesn't seem logical at all. That can also start to affect you where you immediately make a mistake. You start questioning yourself, you start thinking, well, what's going on here? Is there something, something unbecoming? Like you start worrying about what is happening? And so it definitely is, it is,

it's a very tough situation. Do you agree with Magnus' decision to forfeit the match, his most recent match with Hans? Oh, tough question. I don't, in my heart of hearts, I feel like there had to be a better way to handle it than what Magnus did. On the other hand, sort of being in this world

of top-grandmasters, having heard these rumors for two years, I think that the fact that it was blown off and it wasn't treated seriously, I'm not sure if there was a better option. So in my heart of hearts, I feel like there had to be a better way to handle it. But in practicality, like in the practical world, I don't, I think he might have made the only decision where it became a big issue. Yeah, I mean, I guess I would have loved to see just where

100% it's certain that there's no cheating involved that they have played a bunch of games. Yeah, I think there was actually an article that was released today by Ken Rogoff, who is a grandmaster at chess, where he wrote this article in the Boston Globe and he essentially games. Yeah, I think there was action article that was released today by Ken Rogoff, who is a grandmaster at chess, where he wrote this article in the Boston Globe and he essentially said that, like, have haunts in Magnes play a match and see what his score is because statistically, if it's above a certain percentage, that means he's legitimate because, of course, you have security. If it's below, that might mean that probably means that he's not at the level that he's at. So I don't know if that's a real way to settle it necessarily,

because also for Magnus, to ask me to play against someone who's too cheated, I think for him, he would never entertain the idea, because it's like, why am I going to play against someone who cheated? So yeah, I don't know. It's very tough. And the one other thing I would say on the topic that's really important to note is this sort of came from left field for most people who are in the general public are very casual chess players, but this is not something that wasn't known wasn't even on the radar.

I think this has not been said before, but there's there's one of these things where they talk about how Hans has he's played better during a period of time when games were broadcast versus not broadcast. I actually heard this rumor two years ago during one of the terms he's playing specifically. So that is the thing is that this has been out there for a very long time. And so it's hard because you do believe

that Magus could have handled better, but if it was two years of these rumors and nothing was done about it, I don't know. And for people who don't understand when his broadcast is easy to cheat because you can have, it removes one of the challenges of cheating, which is the one-way communication from the board to the engine. Here the engine can just watch the broadcast and then all you have to do is then signals

right back. I mean, that's really, I woken up to this fact, actually programmed, so setting all the Cilles sex toys aside, I have a bunch of these devices, so like of this, it's a size of a coin and it has a high resolution vibration that you can send. So you can just have this in your pocket. It's basically your smartphone has a high resolution vibration that you can send. So you just have this in your pocket. It's basically your smartphone has ability to

vibrate and can do programmatic communication through anything, Bluetooth is the easiest. So like this made me wonder like, wait a minute, how often does this happen? Like at every level of play. And you said this only became a huge concern For at the highest level of play, but then how much cheating is going on at like the middle level of play Especially when more money is involved so in the game of poker when like it's it really It really made me think like the future will have devices like this much easier to, like you will engineer smaller, smaller, smaller devices that have onboard compute.

Like this is the future. I mean, it makes me, I think probably with all kinds of cyber security, that means the defense will just have to get start to get better. Even with chess, it seems like the security is very clumsy. Just looking at the scanning of the recent tournament. One thing you'll see is that a lot of people are talking about whether Hans is cheater or not. The one thing that almost nobody is doing is actually trying to show how it can be done.

Everyone's basically avoiding that. I think the single biggest reason for that is simply because it can be done very easily at like a weekend turn. If you play a weekend tournament where the top prize is $100 and the players may be master level, somebody could already do this because even in St. Louis now where they have a security, my understanding is the non-linear junction device they bought cost about $11,000. And organizers, if you have a weekend tournament at the local club, you don't have $11,000 to spend on such a device. And so that is why a lot of people have been talking about

it, but I think it is very, very serious. And that's why it is good, even if, you know, aside from Hans, even, it is a very important question or debate to be having at the present moment. Well, I think it's good to talk about it, right? To make it so that the defenses will really step up. I think you could do pretty cheap, like the security pretty cheaply. But you have to take it seriously. Right, right, of course. And again, we'll see what happens.

I think that's gonna end up being on Fede more than anyone else. To try and do that, I don't think asking the organizers to do it. I mean, I feel like Fidey, they are the governing body. It will be on them at the end of the day to figure it out. But it's going to be interesting to see what happens in the next couple of months. Will you play Hans if the opportunity arises?

Well, right now that's not in the near future for me. I think fortunately, why not? Why not? Well, because there's maybe only one tournament that I'm playing in that he could be playing in Potentially and it's not even set to be happening at the end of the year. There might be like a world-blitz and rapid chess championship. So I don't think I'm going to have to make that decision for at least six months. Challenge match. You're one of your the most famous super-gram master in terms of online.

So it makes sense in terms of chess is going through a kind of like a serious controversy. Since it's not just like the drama or something like this. This is in part an existential threat to the game in terms of how the public perceives the game. So if the story that lingers from this is chess is full of cheaters, like you never know who is cheating and not that's not a good, that's not good for the game. So it makes sense for a high profile person to go has head to head. How do you think you do against Hans? I mean, I think I would probably beat him in Blitz and Rapid.

Classical is a whole different question altogether. I think in Blitz and Rapid, I would. I mean, one thing actually that was very telling in both the report and also Hans's interview for all the other stuff it was said is the one thing he did say and seemed very adamant about was the fact that he had never cheated against me. Which, so that was the one thing he did say that at least according to the report was truthful.

So it's something possibly down the road to consider. But I do want to see what happens with everything else first with Fidey and their whatever they choose to do in regards to Hans and Magnus. And then see where see where the smoke stands. But I think also one other thing that is potentially very dangerous about the whole situation is that I'm not convinced that Fide actually is the ultimate say in this

in that the top players, if they feel that he has cheated over the board, even if there's a report that says he had that Hans has not cheated, top players can still decide not to play him and sort of override whatever ultimate decision Fede comes to. So that's also why it's very unclear. You know, this term that you have

a championship Hans qualified, he's playing the tournament, but beyond this, there are no turns where he's automatically qualified to. And so it also is on the top players to sort of have to reach some conclusion on their own separate of F feeding. So to flip that, is there some part of you that regrets that the chess community and you included implied that Hans cheated early on? And I

think without having evidence and that kind of thing, as we learn now, can stick. And it kind of divided the chess community apart, but like... I mean, I guess I do want to empathize. From your position, can you empathize with Hans that his reputation is essentially in part or in whole destroyed at this point? Yes, I absolutely can. Again, I think it comes down to the specifics of how it was handled. Now, as far as I go, I was covering the news. This is what makes it so difficult for me versus, say, some of the other content creators

is that I do in a sense have that insight knowledge. Again, this is probably, this is also not really public knowledge, but when I went to St. Louis to play this rap and in Blitz tournament Before the sink full cup happened where Magnus and Hans were playing there were people who told me very Specifically that they thought he was cheating other other players in the event They even gave me like actual theories about like things in his shoes things of this nature. Yeah, so I'm in a very awkward spot There as well because I know why I mean I was like 99% sure why Magnus dropped out. It would have come out regardless though.

It would have come out no matter what because Magnus was not going to back down on a stance about Hans and others would have brought it up anyway. So it's very tough. I think if you want to look for blame, I think probably it would be on chest.com ultimately because they were the ones who probably could have nipped all this in the bud at a much earlier stage and it wouldn't have gotten to where it got to. Because they could have released the online cheating and that would have... I think, yeah, I think they could have released that. I think also they could have probably

not let him play after it happened the second time as well because it seems like it happened. not let him play after it happened the second time as well because it seems like it happened like I don't I think it was like at least like four or five different times. I haven't looked very very closely at that, but it wasn't just an isolated incident. And so I think if there is blame for that, it's definitely on chest.com, which should stop people from thinking that like my that I'm in some way influenced by by Yeah, you buy us because I use supported in part by chest.com. Yes, I am. So is that a factor bias?

No, it doesn't. I'm actually quite independent of them. One thing that's interesting to note is that a lot of people are under the assumption that when I do broadcast of tournaments or things of this nature, that chest.com is actively helping me, they are not helping me. I'm an independent contractor. And so my opinions are my own. And there are no lists given to me about like cheaters, anything of this nature.

That has always been completely separate. Do they have compromising video of you that forces you to, if you don't follow the main narrative that they will release that video publicly? No, they definitely don't. But yeah, I think when I look at it all, I feel like if people are looking for someone to blame, I don't think it's actually Magnus. The other day, I think it is on chest.com

very squarely for not handling it sooner. So you're okay with Magnus being being silent for long periods of time? Well, I don't know why magnets is still silent because my read of the situation was that there was some sort of NDA or there was some information that chess.com had that was they could not release. And so my read of it was magnets was essentially saying the same thing chess.com said where like I can't say anything about it because of whatever or what not, but then chest.com releases what I perceive to be the stuff

that they could not talk about anyway. And Magnus still isn't saying anything. So I don't really understand why Magnus has not said anything further on. There could be legal implications of accusing somebody of cheating over the board. That could be like lawsuits that he just doesn't want the headaches. He just wants to focus on the game and have fun playing the game and not get bogged down into lawyers and all that kind of. Yeah, it's definitely possible.

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

hasn't said anything further. At the same time, it's also kind of peculiar because Magnus' reputation is also kind of in tatters in a sense. Like a lot of people are not happy with him for what he's done. But still, he goes and plays this tournament in this European club cup tournament,

and he's just gaining like 10 points as though nothing has happened. So, I mean, I don't really know where Magnus is head is at because like if I was in that situation and everyone's coming after me for making such an accusation, I don't think there's any way I would be able to play chess anywhere near the level that Magnus is playing at. So, the whole situation is,

yeah, it's very strange. Yeah. I wonder where his mind is at that he's able to play at that level. Before I forget, let me ask you a technical question about cheating at your level, like I'm not your level, but at a very high-grandmaster level. How much information do you need? This is a technical question. It's like, so for me, in terms of Morse code and all those kinds of things, I would need the full information. So I would need probably in order to make a move just let's think about a very simple representation. I would need two squares the first to designate which piece and the second where the piece is moving. That's probably the easiest.

What's the smallest of modern information you need to help you? Basically, like a buzz in a critical position. That would be good. And what would the buzz say? It would, it basically would be something like one buzz means the position is great, and two buzz means the position is completely equal. There's nothing special in the position. Oh, that's simple. Just to know that it's great. We'll tell you what.

It will tell me that like my my my in with my intuition like there are many times I've played Blitz online I'll say something I'll say something along lines of I can feel like there's something here like intuitively I feel like there has to be a good mover I'm probably winning. There's something there. But I don't know that. And most of the time I'm actually right about it like what after the game when I look with the computer usually it's like, Oh, I should have played

this, this move, and it would have given me a big advantage or I would have outright won the game. So if I just know whether there's something there, that's good enough. That means it's worth worth it to calculate here. Yes. And I can follow that intuition probably to because what what normally is going to happen in such a situation is there probably are two moves or three moves max that you're going to happen in such a situation is there probably are two moves or three moves max that you're going to consider in a really critical position. Like if I feel like there's something there, there are two to three moves.

So if I know something is there, I will be able to figure it out if I know that the position is very good. Okay. One buzz for a good position. For the current position. So I just need to know whether, whether like there's something really good, the position is really good, or it's just like an equal position there's something really good.

The position is really good, or it's just like an equal position or it's just normal. That's all I need to know. Current position, not even future moves, just the current position. There is a lot of problems here. Yes. Okay.

What about the reverse, something's bad? So you're saying if I'm in trouble in a game, and I'm in the same situation, so if I'm in trouble in a game, and I'm in the same situation. So if I'm in trouble in a game, it's probably a little bit more. It's probably like, I would say two to three times where I would need to know. The source of the trouble. Yeah, I would need to know. Yeah, I would need to know that if there's like one move that's good or there's more than one move, then how you extrapolate that.

Well, wouldn't it be useful to know the information that you're now in a position where the other person could create a lot of trouble for you. So find that like it's out there. Find it. Like if you look at Magnus' games, there are a lot of situations where the position is equal, but there's or it's equal with one move, but only one move. If you don't find that one move, you're significantly worse. A lot of times that's the case. So like if I if I can somehow know there's like only one move. If you don't find that one move, you're significantly worse. A lot of times that's the case. So like, if I can somehow know there's like only one move

where I'm okay, I could figure it out. Yeah. Yeah. So that's one move is significantly better than the rest. I mean, I could give you like a perfect example as I play the game in the Canada's tournament last round against Dingler-Un from China, there were many times where it was completely fine for me, but it started drifting. I started making some mistakes and I was worse, but there was one last moment where I think I had one move where I would have been able to draw the game quite easily, and every other move I was significantly worse. And I did not find that move and I lost the game.

But if I had known, it would have been nice to have a buzz. Right. Yes, I would have known. Who do you think is the greatest player of all time? You've talked in from different angles on this. Magnus Carlson, Gary Kasparo, Bobby Fisher, many others. Can you make the case for each? Can you make the case for you?

Hey, come on. No, I mean, I can't make the case for me. It'd be serious. I know there are a lot of people who want that kind of like me to give awesome kind of ego like that, but no, obviously I'm nowhere near the conversation I actually on that note. I would say also I know people Wanted to know if I'm the greatest player to never have played for the world championship or to have not got not become world champion

I don't think that I'm actually anywhere near the top of that conversation I actually think Levant Aronian tops that conversation by a big margin Simply because he was number two in the world for a very, very long time, and he never even got to the match. So as far as world champions and who's the goat, I think, I think Magnus is the goat simply because he's playing the best chess by a by a big or margin as the highest elo of all time. On the other hand, chess is a game where you know,

you build upon, you build upon the giants of the past. We learn, we learn from them. And so you can definitely make the case for Gary as well. I'm used a number one player in the world for 20 plus years, lot of opening strategies he came up with and our people still play them today. Bobby, I'm not so sure you can really make that case because he was, he shot up really quickly, but he was the world champion for a very short window of time. And then

he quit the game as soon as he became world champion. So I don't really feel like you can put Fisher in that, uh, in that conversation simply because he didn't have that longevity at all. He was, he was up there for a couple of years. So I would say it's probably Magnus, but I understand people can also say Gary's the best player ever. Remains to be seen, but I think at Magnus is number one for probably another, let's say another three to four years, I don't think there's any debate at all. Can you break down what makes him so good? We've already talked about different angles of this,

and then I would also try to get the same from you because we talked about early, Hacaru. Like I'd like to talk about that for the first Magnus. What makes Magnus so good? What are the various aspects of his game that make him so good? I think for Magnus, you know that in the end game, in the end games, if you get there,

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

Well, unlike steak as far, like as far on the other hand, there are very clear weaknesses in his game, like Kramnik exploited them. First of all, very, I don't want to say like, he goes the right word, but like very stubborn believing that his openings were infallible, that he could just win, he could just prove an advantage and win the game out of the opening, like against Kramnik when he ultimately lost. Also generally not a great defender, either very strong tactically, but if he was in positions that were defensive, he would make mistakes and lose in end games like he did in one of those games in the world championship against Kramniks.

So there were very clear defined weaknesses in Ksarov's game, whereas like Magnus, there are no clearly defined weaknesses. Maybe it doesn't like being attacked. Maybe that's the one thing. He likes King's safety and he doesn't like being attacked, but that's not something that you can easily do, whereas say if someone's very tactical and they're not as strong positionally,

that is something you can deft that will happen quite frequently in games. You can steer games a certain way. Doesn't mean you'll always get there, but that is something tangible, whereas King's safety, that's not something tangible at all. It's very, very hard to attack someone based on unless they play certain style of openings. Do you think, Garekis, probably reflecting in your comment would agree. Like, what is it about his relationship with Kramnik that was so challenging? I mean, I think this is Kramnik understood him. Actually, one thing that's funny speaking of Kasparov

is that I think it got under skin. Like, when I worked with him, Kramnik actually played a certain style, very like very aggressive, very sort of risky opening play during the time when I was working with Gary. And I know that he annoyed Gary because he's like, why couldn't Kramnik play like this against me? Because I think Gary felt of Kramnik to that against him.

He would have just blown him off the board and had had had many great victories. So I think it's Kramnik understood Gary. They had worked together. I think during the late 90s, I think Gary actually was very useful or very helpful in terms of Kramnik getting a spot on one of the Russian Chess Olympiad teams in the mid 90s. So I think it's just Kramnik understood him very well and Gary just could not. He just he couldn't figure it out. I think also another thing coming back to Psychological part is that Kramnik actually beat Kasparov in many games in the King's Indian defense. Kasparov played the King's Indian defense for many years and they started losing like

four or five games in a row in it to crammy, very similar to what I mentioned about the Scylain Eidorf and Fabiano. And Gary gave it up. He started switching to playing the Grunfeld defense. And so I think that also instilled some psychological fear as well because Gary was, he was the boss. In openings, no one could compare to him. What makes you so good? What's the breakdown of the strengths and weaknesses of the caro Nakamura?

So that's, I think probably my biggest strength is that I'm a universal player. I can play pretty much any opening strategy. Doesn't really matter. Beyond that, I think it's mainly that I don't really make many blunders. I don't make blunders unless I'm under a lot of pressure generally. So I mean, I know I'm oversimplifying. It's not as simple as that. Does this apply to blitz as well? I think it's much more applicable to blitz in particular,

because my intuition is very good. So when I'm making less blunders with limited time on the clock, my opponents actually make a lot more blunders. That's why I think it's much more pronounced in Blitz than it is in classical chess because in Blitz, when you're down to like 10 seconds in the game, both players have 10 seconds, my intuition is just better than theirs. I mean, mag is maybe not so clear, but like if you look at other players say Fabio and Icaro on a very strong clear, when he gets down to 10 seconds or in these situations, he almost always makes a blender, almost always. So I'm just more precise, I make less blenders. And that really the effect is much more dramatic.

What do you think that intuition is like, sorry for the kind of, like almost philosophical question. What is that? Is that calculation or is it some kind of weird memory recall? What is that? Like being able to do that short line prediction? I think that's just playing so many games online and there's some kind of subconscious field that I have. Because when you're that low on time, you can't calculate. It's just you have to look, you just have to figure out what the movie want to play is, no calculation and just go with it. And

I think just playing so many games probably, I mean, I'm guessing I've played over 300,000 games online and I think just playing all those games, it's a feel. There's no tangible way that I can't put that really into words. It's just a feel. What do you wish? And we should say that you're, I think currently the number one ranked bliss player in the world. You have been for a while. You're unquestionably one of the greatest. So the classical rapid and bliss. You're one of the best people for many years in the world. Okay, but you're currently number one blitz So I'd love to kind of for you to dig into the secret to your success in blitz is it As you're saying that intuition being able to when the time is short

To not make blunders and then to make a close optimal move. I think it's generally that I'm sure to not make blunders and then to make a close to optimal move. I think it's generally that I'm able to keep the games going no matter what until we're low on time. I'm always able to do that. Yeah. Like if we play a game with three minutes, like there are games that I will just win, win very quickly, but a lot of games between top players, players have to think you have to use time and in those final critical stages, I just don't blunder, I just don't blunder really at the end of the day. That's really the only difference because everybody's very, very strong, but it's sort

like who is the better like brain, who is the better like CPU or for lack of a better way of putting it. It's like who makes a split to split second decisions the best. And I do think that I'm extremely good at that in a way that almost nobody else is that that really is the only difference is that the split second decisions because you can get a worse position. But again, if you keep the game going players have to use the time when you get down to those final 10, 15 seconds, I almost always end up winning in those situations.

What are you visualizing? Like what in those when you're doing the fast, fast calculations? What is it? It's basically you look at a move and you see, like when it's like five seconds or ten seconds, you play a move and you just make sure that it's not a blender. You just look, make sure it's not a blender and you just go with it. And the first part, those to feel, so it's like, I see this move and it looks right. I don't know why it's right. I can't put that into words, but it looks like the right move.

And then I look very for like a split second, see as long as it's not some kind of blender and you just play that move. Is there a bit of a tunnel vision? Are you able to understand the positions of all the other pieces on the board? Or are you just focusing in a very specific interaction? It's just feel it's really just feel it's like this move feels right And so I play it when you're at that stage of the game It's it's like as long as it's not a blender and it just that it's just that feel there's There is no way for me to put that in and that feel Like empirically does result in low probability of blender for you. Yeah, like you don't blunder Yeah, even though there could be like you don't forget like a random piece that was like there

I mean it does happen of course, but very rarely I mean, I've done it on stream many times. Like, you go with the move that for whatever reason, like it just intuitively, whether it's for playing hundreds of thousands of games on the internet, or just that experience, like you just intuitively can feel like the move is right. And so over those 300,000 games played over the board online, all kinds of variations. What's the game that stands out to you as particularly one year proud over, or maybe

what's the Hikaru Mortal game, or a strong candidate for that? Yeah, so there are two games. There's a game that I won against Boris Gelfand in 2010 where I offered a Queen Sack, I think on five consecutive moves. Sacrifices. Sacrifices. The Queen, yeah. So coming through with the Lingo, you can't take me to that game. There's one sequence in the late middle game where it's funny because I actually, I think

I, because I remember I tried to show this game to Peter actually, Peter Till and I confused the move order in the late middle game. So I don't want to do that again. 2010. Yeah, 2010. It was, yeah. What kind of openings this is the King's Indian defense. So the nights are out. What's with the bringing the night back? You want to push the bond. I have the black pieces and you want to push the pond. The make room for the pond. Yeah, normally the king's in you try to sort of like storm in with the pawns on the king side where the white king is. So you see now I push and I start pushing all my pawns forward. Are you happy with this position with all the pawns and diagonal like this with a nice behind it?

This looks great. This is no, this is, this nowadays This is very well known as a standard theory. But at the time, I, the reason that I was aware of this is because I played a tournament, I think, in Montreal. I think it was Montreal, like the year, the summer before. And one of my friends had actually played this variation with the black pieces. So I was, I was aware of it. And it seemed very dangerous.

But I, from the black perspective, I feel like it's, it's very hard for white to play. I'm very hard for white to play. It felt, feels like you're getting attacked. You're king. You see the black ponds are coming down towards the king. And it's very hard to defend. And also a lot of players don't like being attacked. Generally, you try to avoid positions where your king is under fire, which comes back to what I said about Magnus as well. Like he doesn't like it

when his king is under fire. And so therefore, you can't always get that. You see, white had to play a long to get to this point as well. If White didn't want something, this double edge and this complicated, he could have avoided it. So is the Black Bishop also threat? Are you like the light square bishop and the king's Indian is vital to any attacking possible? You're always like, you don't want to lose that bishop

if you can help it. Got it. So, bringing out the Knights, is there a particular moment that's interesting to you here? So, keep going. Yeah, there's, so I play Rook F7. This is all standard. I don't know.

So, I take, take. Now, this is actually, this is an exception to the rule. Normally, the king's Indian, you don't want to break this pawn chain from the, at least the four pawns in a row that connect four. Why'd you break it? Because it's an exception where you can do that. There are almost no variations in the King's Indian where you do that. You almost always retreat the bishop to guard the pawn, the bishop to F A. You break the

pawn chain because it's an exception to the rule because you're not actually worried about the, about white being able to push the pawn to D6 here. It was probably the best game I ever played, so it keeps going. A5, G4. Yep. No, no, no, the diagonals there again. That's, that, that looks threatening. Right.

Like, white basically is trying to guard the king. He's going to retreat this bishop from C5 to G1, as you'll see in a, see in a second. Actually, not quite yet. Yeah, he goes, now he goes here. And so he's trying to guard his king with the bishop on G1, but I'm able to keep attacking here in the next. Is there any case to be made for you to take the pawn here? No, that actually would be a mistake. I mean, it's very high level, but it's a mistake because white will actually not recapture the pawn. And. I mean, it's very high level, but it's a mistake because white will actually not recapture the pawn. And yeah, this is very high level.

Oh, so the pawn is, your pawn will be... And it's in front of the king. Yeah, it stops white from being the white king from being attacked basically. Oh, interesting. So your pawn is stopping the their king from being attacked. Cool.

So yeah, so the pressure continues from you. Right, and nice sack. Is that is that off? Wait, wait, what's the sack? Oh, the night takes pawn. Yeah. Is this What are the strengths of weaknesses of you? Throwing the night. Well, basically, I'm gonna get this. I'm destroying the protection in front of the white king The white pawns there and willing to take risks But basically I basically want to open up the king and try to check me if I don't check me And I'm probably gonna lose the game here at the center of the board. So yeah, and now there's some very nice moves after Pontics pawn I take this because now it takes the queen. I push the pawn forward and it's checkmate

So give me a second. So Your night is take you're losing pieces left and right. Right. And you're pushing the pawn forward, check. He takes the pawn, the rook check. So just check, check now, stop. Yeah, now, same theme, like keep going for this checkmate with a pawn or a bishop on the square in front of the king. You see, the queen is still hanging.

In fact, I actually sack the queen again. He never took the queen. He couldn't take the queen so he'd be checkmate. Got it. So constantly, and that's when you meet with sacrifice, you didn't actually do it. Yeah, he couldn't take it. We've gotten checkmate it. But anyway, the smoke clears and I'm up material here on and I win this game

So this is the game that I would say is my why why did it stand out? I mean, it's beautiful, but just the fact that It's mainly that I was able to offer the Queen sacrifice so many moves in a row You almost never have that opportunity And actually again normally the games you're gonna consider your best involve sacrifices and you can sacrifice the queen that makes it Very memorable. It's just this constant theme of this this one checkmate idea. How often do you Play with the sacrifice of a major piece like how often you find yourself in that position? Pretty rare because players tend to avoid these sorts of situations players don't like

Games that can go either way. So when like both players have to sort of cooperate, you have to want that kind of game in order for that situation to arise. And a lot of games at the top neither player wants to go into that situation for the most part. So you don't really have those opportunities. Nevertheless, stock fish loves those opportunities. Yeah, the less stock fish loves those opportunities, the sacrifices. Well, that's one thing also that we're starting to learn more and more is that stock fish and the other programs, they don't care about ponds. You can sacrifice one pond, two ponds, three ponds, and a lot of cases if the rest of your

pieces are very active. And that's something that we kind of knew on a basic level about the initiative is what we call it in chess where like you'll give up material, but your pieces are very well placed. But we didn't realize just how important that is and computers will do that all the time now, all the time. And even actually like they're in this variant, Fisher random is another, another variant where you range a piece on the back row. They will gladly sack works for bishops or for knights all the time, all the time.

And so you take from that? Material imbalance, or the material you give up doesn't matter as much as having this attack or having this piece on certain squares. Well, as long as you can hold on to the attack. Right, and computers can't. But it's also very tricky, because when we as humans sometimes,

you'll look at an opening variation, and you'll see something like this, and you wanna do it in a game. But the problem is is we don't know how we're supposed to follow it up afterwards. And so if you do that and you don't know how to fall up afterwards very often times, we'll make mistakes, we'll try to look at it in a human way.

And then of course, you end up losing a long term because you've given up too much material. So it's a very double-edged sword. But that's why it's dramatic and what people love those kinds of sacrifices You're putting it all in the line. What's the what's the other game? It was a game also with a queen sacrifice. It was a game against this Polish player Michael Krasnkow It was played in Barcelona in

2007 I believe it was I also sat I sacrificed a queen for one pawn to just bring the king out into the middle of the board And you actually sacrificed it. Yeah, so I did sacrifice I took a pawn I want to go to that pawn to just bring the king out into the middle of the board. You actually sacrificed it? Yes, I did sacrifice. I took a pawn. I sacrificed it. I got to go through that game. Oh, yeah, absolutely. And you're again, black.

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

Yeah, and now here I sack the queen for the pond. Or no, sorry, take the night for a sorry, night, see, keep going. So, by the way, the pond structure here is a mess, or is missing. Yeah, but I take the night. I take the night with a rook. Yeah.

What's the discovery? My queen's under attack now. So when he takes the night, the rook on B1 is attacking my queen. Got it. So they just get got it. No. Yeah. You throw your queen into the middle.

Check. Check the king. Wait a minute. That's not right. Yeah, it's one pawn. It's a queen for a pawn. For a pawn. Yeah. And the king takes your queen.

What was the thinking here? Well, the king is king has to go up the board. And the king is very vulnerable in this position. See, but you're going to have to keep checking here then. Yes. Bishop checks king. Rook checks. Knight checks.

Did you see all this ahead? Yeah, I mean, I had not all of it, but I figured there had to be some way to win here with the king. Too many attacking pieces in your end that could do it. Well, it's just basically the king, the only piece that can sort of guard the king as the queen on D1. That's the only piece. If I can just keep checking, I'm going to be able to win here.

So it goes there. And now I think I've played, yeah, I've played this move. Oh, no check. Because I'm threatening to move the rook over one square and make a checkmate. Got it. And then the rook takes your knight and then you take it right back with the check. Now I still want to scoot the rook over to check on the age 6 square, the dark square. I think the design here, the make-up.

Oh, you're resigned. Yeah. Hey, you did resign here. Yeah, because I just moved the Rookover to that dark square in front of the pond and that would be Chuck Mate. Dark square in front of the pond. So, A6, yeah. Because now the bishop covers the light square. Is there something he can do to, to, to mess with him?

Um, not really. There, I don't think there's any way to stop it. Nothing with a queen, Chuck Mate. Nothing with a queen. I guess he's going to lose the queen. Yeah, I, I think it's just to actually force checkmate here on a couple of moves I don't think there's any way to stop it even if he loses his queens. Mm-hmm. Yeah, it's it's a force checkmate Facing and so like that you you can't purely calculate but you can have some intuition

Also, I think what it is is in such such situations you know that there is at least a draw I could always just check him with my rook if I wanted to to make a draw. So that also gives me some margin where if I calculate after I play the move and I calculate, it doesn't work out, I can still make the draw. Are you, I mean, for fun, do you do the sacrifices of this sort? When it's not the serious competitive online events or over the board, I do actually do this quite frequently, and I wish there were more opportunities,

but top level chess, it's become harder and harder because due to computers, everybody's very, very well prepared in the opening, they know the first like 15 to 20 move sequences, and no matter what you do. So it's very, the room for creativity is less and less, which means you have less of those types of games. I think you played, uh, levy, uh, Gotham chess with the, with, uh, without a queen. Was that a thing?

I think that was a bowl of game. You have the one minute game. I think so. Yeah. Is that an actual thing that you can pull off? Like, would you be, yeah, I guess somebody like levy and bullet. Maybe I can win like 50%. It'll probably be what's bullet.

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

maybe 10%, maybe one out of 10, I can win, maybe. One out of 10. Yeah. On the topic of goat, I can win me. One out of 10. Yeah. On the topic of Go, let me ask about Paul Morphe. How good was he? Reddit asked me to ask you about this. And why is he a tragic figure in chess? Yeah, so Paul Morphe was the best player in the world

by a bigger margin, probably than anyone else, in recent modern history. I would say roughly using today's ratings around like 2,400 in my opinion, and the other best players were maybe around 2,100 at best. So it's the best player by a bigger margin. Fisher, for example, I think it was about 170-ish points, better than Boris Basky, but more if it was 300 plus at least. Now, my modern standards, he would probably be a very strong I am, which, you know, isn't saying a whole lot, but at the time, no one was even close. So I don't think you can put him in that category of like best ever, simply because he was not the best player for a long enough period of time.

As far as why it's tragic, it's very tragic because he essentially quit chess. There was no competition for him. If you think about like Magnus talking about the world championship and feeling like it's not competitive enough, for more of you, there was no one who could even beat him probably in individual games. So he ended up quitting chess. I think he was sort of like a lawyer kind of, but he spent probably the last 15, I think last 15, 20 years of his life just doing nothing.

Now I have actually seen his grave in New Orleans. I have been to where he lived. I think it's now Brennan's if I'm not mistaken or it's something like that. So it's very tragic that there was no one who was competitive with him at the time. As far as best ever, I don't even say is the goat, but I still think he's in the top 10 of reusing a criteria of players who were better than their peers by a big, big margin. So what do you think about the world championship? And what do you think about Magnus stepping down? Do you still see it as the height of chess? I still think that there is merit in having the world championship the way it is. At the

same time, the game is always evolving. And one of the things that has changed a lot in recent times is you now have a lot more blitz tournaments and also rapid tournaments. In the past, classical chess was the golden standard. That was the only thing that mattered. But in the last probably 10 years, slowly but surely, there are probably as many rapid flash blitz tournaments as there are classical tournaments now. Maybe it's not quite 50-50, but at the top level, at least, it feels like it's getting very close to 50-50. And in terms of the world championship, I feel that the biggest issue is you have too many draws. The games can be exciting, but the games inevitably end in a draw.

And the single biggest reason is because players have about six months of more to prepare for the match. So for example, the Candid's turn, which I just played, it was in June and July. It ended I think around July 5th. The World Championship match will probably be in February of March. That's nine months. And when players have that much time to prepare, they are not going to have any weaknesses in the opening phase of the game. And so both players are likely going to be very solid.

You have a lot of draws. And in many cases, it might come down to tie breaks, Magnus, in fact, in two of the matches both against Karyak and Antigas Karawana, he had to win in rapid tie breaks. So I think for Magnus, he just doesn't feel like the format is right. I think he feels that there's just, it's too long, too many draws. He doesn't get to play creative or exciting chess. And that's why I think he pushed so hard for a change in the format. I don't know what the right change would be, but I do think that the format is becoming

a little bit antiquated with all these classical games. If you don't want to change the format, the one suggestion that I've mentioned before and I think is probably still valid is that the match should be held maybe one month after the Canada's tournament to determine the challenger. It's held one month after that event. That's probably the only way to keep the format as it is, where I think both players have time to repair, but it's not something crazy.

Because when you compare the candidates to other classical tournaments, let's just say St. Louis, I played the recently, there was the, I played the Rapunzel Bliss, but there was the Syncfield Cup. This was, I think, September September 10th, something like that. Point is, players probably came in and had a week or two to prepare for that tournament. Now there's a US Championship.

Players had a little bit of time to prepare. You play the event. Normally, players don't have these long breaks where they can prepare for very long periods of time. So they are very well prepared, but you still have a lot of exciting games because that window of preparation is so much smaller. But you had a a lot of exciting games because that window of preparation is so much smaller. But you had a pretty close, given how things rolled out to have been having the opportunity to compete for the World Championship.

Hence the copian meme, which I still don't quite understand. Are you in Magnus, friends, enemies, what was the status of the relationship? Yeah, I think with all the rivalries and chests, everybody tries to hype it up like everyone hates each other, but the thing is at the end of the day, yes, we're very competitive. We want to beat each other, whether it's myself or magnets or other top players. But we also realize that it's a very small world. Like a lot of us are able to make a living playing the game as professionals. And as I alluded to earlier, the top 20 to 30 players can make a living. So even though we're competitive against each other, we want to beat each other,

there is a certain level of respect that we have. And there is a sort of brotherhood, I would say. So all of us are, I would say, front of me. So I think that's the simplest way of putting it. What do you love most about Magnus Carlson as a human being? As a human being, I think it's very similar actually to use a comparison to tennis and Roger Federer in that it feels like with Magnus, everything comes very easily. It's, for example, we've seen a situation with Hans Neiman,

somehow it's rolled right off his back and he's playing amazing chess in his latest event. So it's, it's really how easy he seems to make it look. And I know like, because tennis is a sport that I played a lot, I followed it very closely. I remember hearing Andy Roddick say this about federal words, like somehow he handles it all, like there's no pressure, he makes it look easy and how does he do all of that. And I feel the same way about Magnus

where it seems too easy. Because I know for myself when I play these games, like they're stressed, the pressure, and for Magnus, you don't ever see that. Now I'm sure it's probably there, but we don't witness it. So that's what I would say is just how easy it is. It was sad to see Federer retire.

I don't know why. Yeah. Just greatness, you know, when Lionel Messi will retire, it would also be sad. Yeah, there's certain people there are just singular right in the history of a sport. I don't know if there's going to be another messy. I don't know if there's going to be another Federer. Yeah, not for a long time. Is he greatest ever? Would you say he's up there? He's definitely up there. I mean, I grew up as like more of an adult man, just because actually, like, I felt like an adult never looked easy.

It was exact opposite. Like for an adult, it feels like he's always he's running after every ball. He's exerting himself. It looked really, really hard. And like for me, since nothing really came easily for me in chess, like I kind of, I can relate to that more. Um, but at the same time, like, you know, especially when the fedora started losing more and he seems more human, I started really liking him more as

well. But I think Federer, he changed the game. I don't know if you say the greatest ever, but the game changed forever because of him. Yeah, there's certain people, which is a lasting impact. Sampress, Agassi, everybody. Okay. Uh, who was in a chess boxing match between you and Magnus? Probably Magnus just because he's he's taller than me. I think he's taller is more reach. Yeah, but I think he I think he would win. Question from Reddit. In what sport do you think you can beat Magnus 10 out of 10 times? I think I could beat Magnus 10 out of 10 times in tennis. I mean, I took lessons for eight years. I try to go out and hit two or three times every week. I think I could beat him in tennis.

Backhand, forehand, what's your style of tennis play? I wish I was taller because I really like trying to come into the net. I like falling a lot, but I am no Rob, Rob Lavor. I'm Rob Lavor was very short, but he was able to make it work like 50, 60 years ago. I really like falling, but I'm a little bit too short. So I kind of have to stay back. And I mean, I normally hit like I try to hit hard for hands and I try to slice slice or two hand backhand. You mentioned Magnus and karaoke. And I just wonder if you have ideas, thoughts about the fact that he was originally a qualifier for the candidates' tournament.

It was disqualified by Fide for breaching his code of ethics about related to his support for the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Does that ever seep into the games that you play over the board, the geopolitics, the actual military conflict of it all, do you feel the pressure of that? Because there's battles between nations, NEPOs, Russian, there's America, there's, I mean, every nation is in some profound way represented on the chess board. Right. I've never really felt that. I think actually for me, it's very eye-opening to realize how difficult it is for a lot of the Russian chess players right now to play because of the situation.

Even NEPO for that matter. I remember when we were in St. Louis, he essentially has to bring cash because obviously Russia's cut off from Swift. No credit cards work. So if these Russians don't have cash, they can't play. And I know a lot of them have fled the country just to try and keep their chess career going. So it's a very, very, very tough situation. For them, obviously, for the Ukrainians who are suffering, it's really, really bad. Do you know if Netbo has he talked, haven't seen,

has he talked about the politics, the geopolitics of it all? I don't think he really has. I mean, I feel like most players try to avoid talking about it. I think it's very difficult. I remember when I was in the St. Louis, there was another Russian player, Peter Savidler, and I basically asked him, he's like, don't get me started because I can't, I just can't talk about it. So I think most of them are probably on the other side of the spectrum.

I don't think they're probably supportive of what is going on right now. So it's very, it's a very, very, very difficult situation. But I don't really feel like that manifests itself in actual, like, tensions when I play against like the Russian players. I mean, maybe when I was younger playing certain events, the one country I felt like maybe it actually, I felt some tension. I really wanted to go out of my way to win against what was against the Chinese perhaps. That is maybe the one time I felt something along those lines. But generally, I feel like we treat the players as individuals. It's not about the country they represent. Yeah. Let's go back to the philosophical of chess.

What do you find most beautiful about the game of chess? Looking back over your whole career. I think looking back, it's really, it's both over the board and also just like the memories that I've created. I think for me, the fact that I've been able to travel because of chess to meet so many people who are playing this great game from all different nationalities, all different backgrounds is probably the thing that I really like the most Chuss is one of the, maybe the only thing I can think of where you can have people different backgrounds, different ages, honestly, you can have someone

who's a billionaire talking to someone who's like a nine year old kid from the inner city and when they're talking about the game of of chess, they're on the same level. And I don't think that is really applicable to anything else in this world. You don't have that level of respect that is communicated through a game. So for me, that's probably the single most beautiful thing about about sort of chess in the chess world itself, is that you have that. In terms of the game itself, the creativity, the possibility of different positions, learning something new even after I've played the game for 30 years, it's very inspiring to me knowing that I've spent all this time. There's still new things that I can learn. Those

are probably two biggest, biggest things that I would refer to. Are there memories big or small, like weird, surprising anecdotes from all those years of going to all the different places that stand out to you. Some of the darker times, weirder times, like weird places you've played, weird people you've played, weird people you hung out with, anything that jumps to memory. You know, I think this is probably a little bit more like political, but I think one of the things that's great is whenever you go and play these tournaments, you have a certain impression of what a country is like or what the people are like. And probably the best example for me was in 2004, actually in 2003, I think it was, I played in the Fede World Cup and it was held in Tripoli, the capital of Libya at the time when Gdafi was still running the country.

And you know, you hear a lot of these things, but then when you go there and you see the people are so friendly, it's very eye-opening and sort of you look at it without just believing things you go to these places, you see how things truly are. And generally, I find that it's very different than how the media will portray it. One of my great regrets is as someone who loves history, not going to see Magnus Leopdo, which were the greatest ruins in Africa from the Roman times, and of course no longer exists. So I really do regret that. I think another thing that's very unique about chess is that all of us, even when we compete as children, there are a lot of people like NEPO and others who have known for a very, very long time. There are a lot of people who no longer

play chess competitively, but inevitably you end up talking these people many years down the road. And so you never truly lose touch with the game or the people that you grew up playing it with. And there's so many of these people that like I connected with in the last couple of years who I knew when I was a kid and then they went off did something else, but they still end up, you still end up talking to them and having, being able to share these, these old memories. So you said you're a bit of a student, a fan of history, even ancient history. Are there cultures, periods of time, people from human history that you draw wisdom from about human nature that you're particularly drawn to? A lot.

I mean, I probably study mostly like it'd be like ancient Roman history, pre-Roman empire and of course, ancient Persia is another subject that I've studied a lot on. If you ask me, I would say, I mean, there's, it depends. You're talking like military generals, you're talking like philosophers. I mean, there's so yeah, so both right. So philosophers is how people thought about the world. Of course, military has to do with how the, how the, how people sort of conquered lands, both are interesting because in part,

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

I mean, basically consider the father of history. And I mean, I really love reading, reading about these things like Thermopile or Marathon, these, these great ancient battles. I don't know if there's like a specific like quote or wording or something like that that I can come up with, but that is one of my favorite, favorite books on history by, by far. So those books are written a long time ago. Yeah, it's like 400, I think I was like 400 BC.

Because that was written. So what's that? What it's like 400. I think I was like 400 BC. Because when that was written. So what's that, what's that like, what's that like reading that? It's just, this is, does it seem ancient? It does seem ancient. Like it's sort of, I feel like for myself one of the things I really like doing is getting away from technology

when I have the opportunity, trying to disconnect these sorts of things. And so when I read books like that, besides just having a general interest, it sort of reminds you like, there is really a life without all this stuff, or there was at least at some point. And so it's something that I can kind of relate to. Like humanity flourishes without all the stuff we take, we think is fundamental to our current culture. Like all of the, all that we find beautiful about humanity can still exist without any of other technology.

Yes, definitely. That's really a good reminder, given the contrast, of course, is beautiful because you're in the midst of the technology of streaming. To me, streaming somehow feels because of how large of a percentage of the young of young people are interested like consumes Streams it feels to represent like the future Because so many people kind of develop their mind By watching twitch and YouTube right. I mean, that's definitely true for like for for myself I remember when I was a little bit younger and I was like 17 18 around then I would actually try one one day a week on the weekend to try not to look at like my computer

Or my phone now phones weren't weren't where they are today obviously, but I was able to do that pretty easily Now it's very hard like when I try to go one day recently I tried to do that like I actually just pulled some books out of my garage and I started reading and it was a very foreign concept So I do read a lot but it's, but it's always on an iPad. So, or Kindle, yeah, both of those actually. So, it's very, very weird. But I do try when I can't to get away from it all. I mean, another thing, like I said, I really like going out in a nature

when I have the opportunity. I've spent a lot of time in Colorado, for example, hiking some of the 14ers. That is one of those life goals that I have to go and get to the top of every single one of them. So I try to disconnect one I can, but of course it's very hard. So whether it's disconnecting or not, can you take me through a perfect day in the life of Ficar and the Camaro on a day of a big chess match? Well, sure, you can be on multiple days, right? We'll take one where it's a big chess match and one that's just like your representative average day.

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

that would be the perfect day. When are you doing everything except the preparation? Are you thinking about chess at all? You're trying not to think about chess? Trying not to think about chess, definitely not. And what do you do? Is there any tricks to that? Well, I find that like if I go outside,

I just try to try to hear like the birds. I try to listen. It's one of those like meditation kind of things. It's like, you know, they always say when you meditate, you try to try to hear yourself breathing. It's like when you close your eyes, try to hear yourself breathing and just focus on that. So I do try to do things like that

from time to time as well. So in terms of getting that out of the sleep, that that that come difficult to you? That almost never happens. I mean, there have been a couple times where it has happened like in Norway specifically, but generally it just, I don't sleep while during chest terms. I wish I did, but.

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

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

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

I think it really depends on the type of the game that you're playing. I think if it's a game that's very, very calm and very slow, or not a lot happens at the start, it's a lot easier because you're not having to be super focused. Like your mind can drift and whatnot, and then at the critical moment you have to sort of zone in. So those are the easiest ones. I think generally when games are very complicated from the start, what you're doing is you're just you're trying to not let your mind wander at all. Because when games are complicated like that, one of the things that I've never been very good at is my mind does wander and you're always like I'm always worrying about the next move is like is this a blunder? What's what's going on? Like what what am I going to do? So you're trying I think

very much to block out the noise. I think that's actually the hardest thing is also because like I can say this when I've played Magnus before there have been times when I've gotten winning positions against him. And in that moment when I have the winning position very often times on mine wanders like, okay, you're about to win this game. You're like, okay, what happens after the game? You win this game game, the rating points, all these different things, but you haven't actually won the game yet. And I think for a lot of players, that's the hardest thing is when you get a winning position,

your mind does drift. It drifts to like what happens after you've won the game or what the outcome is. So the drifting into the future and you should stay in the moment. You really should like hold on. And also what is it? Uh, yeah, probably getting excited about the win. Mm-hmm. What is that?

What is it about that that makes you worse at playing? So interesting. Like getting a... Well, I think it's like nervous, it's nervous, but it's like you're too excited, I think. You just, you, it's like, you're waiting for a tan, you expect a tan, and then your opponent keeps, keeps defending and you can make mistakes.

What about the flip side of that where you start getting frustrated? Like, how do you try to recover from that kind of thing? It's very difficult. I think for myself, I just try to basically focus on it every single move. I just try, again, you try to block out the noise no matter which direction it's going in. So I try as best I can.

I mean, sometimes I'm very poor at it. Like I just don't do a good job blocking out the noise at all. But I think generally I try to think, okay, just make this next move. Make your opponent have to find the best moves and just keep the game going no matter what. Just keep it going. By the way, what's the long of day of classical chess?

What's that look like? It's pretty brutal. It would be something like, okay, so the game starts at two o'clock, so you've done all this other stuff. The game probably goes from like two to seven for example, or maybe two to eight, five, six hours. Probably you eat dinner for an hour. So maybe clear, like I'll go clear my head for 30 minutes. And

then immediately it's right back to studying for a couple of hours. Are you reviewing previous games? Are you already generally you're just moving on to the next game? That's what you're trying to, no matter what happened, put that behind you. Win or lose or draw. Okay, so that's also why there's another question a lot of people wonder, which is why don't I play more of these classical tournaments? And sort of, it gets back to the, you know, the literally don't care for a stuff, but when I'm going to play in tournaments, I want to be able to give it my best shot. And if I don't feel that I can, I'm not going to play, which is why,

like I play here and there, but I do balance my schedule very carefully, because I'm not just gonna go and play a tournament simply because if I don't feel that I can put in the work, it's not the right thing to do. Also because I'm taking away a spot from somebody else who probably will be putting in the work who will want to compete in that event.

And so when I look at the candidates, or a lot of people say, well, why is he playing there? Like, okay, qualified, but he's not gonna take it seriously. But I did give it everything I had in that tournament. And I always will as much as I can. If I can't do that, then I'm just not gonna play. So what about a perfect day in the life of a car

when you're not doing a perfect day? A perfect day would be something along the lines of I get it very early like three, four o'clock in the morning, drive an hour away and go climb mountains. That's the perfect day. Out of the mountains. Oh, do you mean a normal non? Yeah, a perfectly productive normal day. Oh, perfectly productive. Okay, so perfectly productive would be along the lines that I wake up at like 7, 38 o'clock. Probably I watch either Bloomberg or CNBC for 30 minutes to an hour. And then watch the markets for maybe a maybe an hour to look at certain things that are going on. You really care about investing. I do follow quite closely. Yeah. I can follow the markets very closely closer than I should, but yes. For personal reasons, do you comment on it?

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

I'm also quite interested as well, because when you see the policy that's being dictated, like you look in the last six months specifically, you see the Fed policy around things like interest rates, unemployment, things of this nature, it is something that interests me also, because I do invest in real estate, aside from the stock market. So, therefore, I'm always keeping an eye on these sorts of things and always looking. And as a better example, I'm looking for trends. So if we go back to, I think it was 20, I could have the year wrong, it was 2015 or 2016. There was a pattern that I found that on the Fed minutes that came out, I believe, 2 to 15, I think it's on the Wednesday of

every, well, third Wednesday of every month, that gold would actually, the gold ETFs and ETFs would actually go up. Not every single Wednesday of the month that the minutes came out. So I would follow things like that. Now, of course, I wasn't like trading huge volume, but I found a trend there. Of course, it stopped working at a certain point,

but those are the sorts of things that they just interest me. Even if it's not something that I'm doing to make a living, trying to spot those trends, it's always been something that has that has fascinated me. One Reddit said that you shorted Tesla some time ago. Do you regret doing so? Well, when I when I did those plays, I was only that was small amounts of money and that was only via via puts that was where I would buy puts or put spreads on it. So it wasn't something where I straight shorting. I would never actually do that because it's just, it's not worth the risk.

And I don't want ever being a situation where I have to think about those sorts of things. And I think a better example is there was a period in 2016, actually, shortly before the candidates when I actually was in oil. I had a long position in oil. And this is when oil completely crashed. It went very, I don't think it went below, the global of 30 even, it went very low. And of course, the Saudis were not cutting,

they were not, I think they were like cutting or not cutting production. But anyway, there was a period in 2016 where I had big long position in one of the 3X oil ETFs. And I kept going down day after day after day. And then of course, right near the bottom, I finally couldn't take it anymore. I took a loss. And that really sort of, it was very difficult dealing with that, the stress every day,

looking, seeing those losses. And after that, I kind of decided I would never put myself in such a situation again. And so that's why I don't do shorting. And then separately, I think I posted a reply to this comment, but in 2021, as Tesla started going up, I actually started selling puts, and I did quite well off of that. So it's sort of play both sides, never become hard set with your conviction, like where you refuse.

Like this is just like, it has to go down or it has to go up. Are you sure you have to be willing to adapt? Do you think shorting should be legal? Do you think it's ethical? Like to me, I don't know much about investing, but I feel like it feels wrong. Now, I know if something is overinflated, it's good for there to be an opposing force to, like, balance it or something like that, but it just feels like in our current

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

Well, I actually try not to do that. I almost only take long positions specifically because I feel like you're betting like on world collapsing. I feel like more like I don't want to be in that. I don't want to have that viewpoint. I think that's sort of is another thing that I've noticed.

I've been very lucky. I've traveled a lot. I've met a lot of famous people. And the one thing that I've noticed. Like, I've been very lucky. I've traveled a lot. I've met a lot of, a lot of famous people. And the one thing that I've noticed is like, a lot of the, a lot of the people who are the most successful, they're the ones who are very optimistic. No matter what is happening day to day, they remain very optimistic about the future

of where things are going. So, so I try not to end up in that situation. I think as far as like shorting specifically, the real danger to me is that anybody can now invest. And I feel like actually some of these apps like Robinhood, they go out of their way to try and make it seem like it's this fun game. Like I've seen people where you place a trade and it gives you like these stickers or these pop-ups of confetti and it's like wait a second. What's going on here with the whole with the whole game? Like people are sort of, they're going

after the wrong thing. So I don't think shorting, like, will be banned, but I think it's very dangerous that everybody has access to being able to do things like that. So according to Reddit on the topic of Tesla, you have trouble admitting when you make a mistake. Is that true? No, that's generally not true. Actually, I think that we've read it, is not 100% accurate and truthful in his representation of a character. That's fascinating. No, I think the thing that I've learned is I'm obviously very good at chess,

but that doesn't automatically mean that I'm, I'm a genius in everything else. And I feel like that's another thing actually I really, really admire about Magnus is that he is the world champion is the best player, but he does not automatically believe that translate to translates to every area of life. I feel like with some other world champions, they think that they're great no matter what they do. And that's not not like intentionally trying to be like, be like rude,

I do feel like there's certain people who feel like that. Like anything they say is right and they are the authority. When in reality, like we are the authorities when it comes to chess, like we know chess the best, we are the experts, but that doesn't automatically mean where genius isn't everything else. That said, I think you said somewhere could have been on the C-squared podcast

that if you get, if it's chess or streaming that taught you to generalize to various, you feel like you're able to do other things though, was that streaming? I don't know if that's specifically streaming, but I think streaming has taught me a lot about sort of life and also how to run a business honestly. Like I have read a lot of business books and one of the things with streaming is that when you start out, it's like this very small thing.

It's just you, maybe, have a couple of people who help you along the way, but as it becomes bigger, bigger, if there's a boom, you suddenly start having to hire employees, you're basically running this business. And for me, I've learned a lot about that because there was this book that I read some years back. I think it was by Mary Buffett. It was on Warren Buffett and how he tries to be hands-off when he buys these companies, his hands-off management stays the same.

You don't do anything. And I actually try to do things kind of the same way where I try to be hands-off. There are a couple of people around me. I leave a lot of the general day-to-day decisions up to them. And then things that are really important obviously I'm involved in, but I try to do things like that. So streaming is, you learn a lot along the way. And I think now having done that, there are probably several other potential careers

that I could have if I really wanted to. Almost about that generalizing terms is what it takes to build a business from the ground up. From the process of becoming a successful streamer, you have learned what it takes to build a business from the ground up. From the process of becoming a successful streamer, you have learned what it takes to start from the ground up with a single person and to build the business as multiple people and a successful. What do you attribute your success as a streamer to?

I mean, many things. I think being a very strong chess player and having had a following was incredibly important at the start. I think anybody, whether it's chess or whatever field, if you have that following to begin with from your career or whatever activity or video game you do, that's already a big step up if you have that to begin with. So that definitely played a big role.

I think more than that, though, for me, it's about the fans. It's about hearing from people how they feel. I mean, there are trolls, obviously, but the positive messages you hear when you hear about people who are struggling in life, whether it's say, I've heard people talk about having cancer, you hear about someone going through a divorce, or they're just trying to make it through day to day. When you hear about things like that, I think it really puts it all into perspective about what it all means at the end of the day. And so for me, it really is the fans

that they give me that motivation. They are the reason I do it. And when I meet some of these fans in person, like I have it a couple of events, like just talking to them, hearing their story, just knowing that I can bring them some joy is, again, at the end of the day,

it's why are you doing it? That's what it's about. If I can bring people joy, if someone working, working in a factory all day, someone in the middle of the country, if I bring them joy through my chest, that means a lot. If it's a kid, for example, if I can inspire them to take up chest

in a more serious way, or even honestly, if they just learn from chest certain skills, like critical thinking and that leads to them becoming a great scientist or something down the road. That is what I'm ultimately hoping. That's what I hope will come out of it. I mean, what gave you strength through have to turn on, I mean, I don't know how much you stream, but it's a lot.

So day after day after day, to be able to put that content out there, is there some, can you comment on the challenge of that and maybe the low points and how you're able to overcome that? I actually don't fill the lows and I think the main reason I don't fill the lows is because at the end of the day, I've been very fortunate, even as a chuss player, very, very fortunate, travel the world, meet people. I've lived a great life. So for me to see myself as a streamer doing so well and and bringing joy to people,

I don't feel like I'm in a position. Maybe this is wrong to say this because mental health is very important, but for myself, I feel like I'm very lucky. I don't really have any right to complain. So I don't really feel those lows in the same weather times when there's certain things like Reddit or otherwise it will get on my nerves a little bit,

but I'm able to realize that I'm so fortunate. So I don't generally struggle, struggle with the lows that much. Speaking of Reddit and trolls, Reddit asked me to ask you to tell me the story of Chesape, the Reddit moderator who pitted you against Eric Hansen, also known as Chesape. I'm just saying things. I don't know, I don't know much about Eric Hans. I also known as Chesper. I'm just saying things I don't know, I don't know much about Eric Hansen. I guess Eric is another grandmaster. You guys had some drama and tension between each other.

So we'll also ask you to tell me what you like best about Eric Hansen as a human being. Here's what I was like. The whole stream streamers and the whole boom of chess, there are certain people, certain entities that are very, very important to what happened. You know, there are a lot of people

in the right place at the right time. Myself, Bo Tez, the Chess bras, Levy as well. We were all kind of in the right place at the right time. But just having the personalities alone is not enough. You need people who push things. And there are a lot of things that have been said about Chesapey about what she did. At the end of the day, the way that I view it is pretty straightforward. You don't have to agree with what she did, the manner in which she did things, but it pushed the, it pushed the directory and Chesa on Twitch

forward in a way that would not have been possible with anybody else at the time. Chesa.com, for example, they were not directly pushing it. So you needed someone who's pushing it. And that, so to me, when I look at the whole boom actually of what happened on Twitch, in many ways, I think she is just as responsible as I was, levy was, boat as was, and the bras were. All of us were extremely fortunate because you didn't have someone pushing it forward. And Chess.com was not really that involved at the time. It never would have gotten to where it was. So you can sort of look at it time. It never would have gotten to where it was. So you can sort of look at it and say, okay, you don't agree with what happened,

but you needed someone like that who's going to push, push really hard to get Chess to where it is today. Can you comment on what happened for people who have no clue what you were talking about? Is that not useful? I don't think it's specifically useful to get into it. I think there are a lot of layers. People felt there are things like abuses of power, things of that nature. There are a lot of things that were said You know, I don't want to be super negative about about what happened specifically But one thing people will note is that prior to what did happen in April of 20 I think that was 2021 now There are a lot more collaborations the chess world was much more together as a whole. A lot of streamers did things together. After what happened in April, there was a big sort of separation. A lot of streamers went off in their own directions because of what happened.

So that is, I mean, that's not the whole story. There's a lot more to it, of course, but I think it's fair to say that. If I can just comment on the few times I've tuned into the streaming world, I do hate to see the silos that were created. One of the reasons I've been a fan and now a good friend of Joe Rogan, you call it collaborations, but basically everybody's supporting each other, gets excited for each other, promotes each other, and there's not that competitive feeling. With streamers sometimes, I've just noticed that there's a natural siloing effect. I don't know why that is exactly Maybe because drama is somehow good for

Views and clicks and that kind of stuff. I don't know what that is, but I hate to see it because I love seeing kind of friendship and collaboration. I think this also goes like again, try not to be super negative, but this also goes to the chess world as a whole. One of the things that I've been in this chess world for a very long time, not talking about online, but just like the chess world itself. I've been very fortunate because I've seen a couple of booms and busts. In the late, actually, it wasn't late 90s.

It was in the mid 90s. There was a period of time when Intel and IBM and all these tech companies were very big on chess. There was this PCA Grand Prix World Championship held in New York. There were also, I think there was like the deep blue stuff later on in the late 90s with Gary Kasparov.

And you had a lot of interest at the time. And then it sort of went up in flames for a couple of different reasons. Also in the late 2000s, or maybe mid 2000s, there was a group in Seattle that was very big on Chess. They hosted the US Championship, all these different things. There have been a lot of booms and busts. Of course, if you go way back,

there was the Fisher boom as well. But it never really what leads to these busts. And the thing that leads to it is at the end of the day, people in the Chess world have this natural tendency to leads to these buss. The thing that leads to it is at the end of the day, people in the chess world have this natural tendency to want to not work together. You want to hang on to whatever piece of the chess world you have as opposed to thinking about it

from the standpoint of what's good for one is good for all. So it's one of those things that now that I'm in this situation and having seen these booms of buss, I remember when I was younger, I would very often times think, like, why is the chest isn't bigger? Why do we struggle so much to grow the game? And I think, you know, we see the reason. So now when I'm in this position,

it's also very tough, because like, I know what's happened, you try to learn from the past, but you still, it still feels very hard to break out from that. It feels very tough. And it's also difficult, because another thing

that people kind of misunderstand is from time to time, I'll talk about myself. I'll actually talk about levy and incomes or how well we're doing. And the main reason I talk about this is that I want it to inspire like, feed the governing bodies. And others feel like, wow, these people, they're having such success.

Like we surely, we can do something different, we can change things. And somehow it has not happened, which is in a way very, very disheartening to me, because I want to see more interest in chess, so you know, you want to see more sponsors, more, more of the general public getting excited by the game. So it is one of those things that's very, very difficult. Yeah, so you want to see innovation on the parts of everybody, but also the organizations like feedinches.com to how to inspire a large number of people,

which is what this is what streamers are doing. They're constantly innovating, I guess, of how to reach a very large audience. Before we forget just to put a little love out there, what do you like best about Eric Hansen as a human being? A little love out there. What do you like best about Eric Hansen as a human being? Um, I think he's, it's mainly he's just, he's very, he's very charismatic. He's very charismatic. He knows the brand that he has and he doesn't like, he doesn't pretend to fake it. Like he knows what his brand is and he owns it. So he's just for people who don't know and I don't know. He's a grandmaster. He's a strong grandmaster, but he's also like a creator.

Yeah, one of the one of the earliest major chest content creators on Twitch, like educational stuff too. Oh, a mix, mix, mix of educational, mix of high level, mix of everything. Yeah, okay. Awesome. Uh, what historical chest figure do you think would have the best streams?

Historical chest figure. I would say probably Michele Tau, he was the former world champion. Now he lived a very, very exciting life. Let's put it that he was somebody who drank, he was from Lapia. He's called the magician from Riga. So he drank a lot, he smoked a lot, a lot of other stuff as well. Oh, like with women. With strongs and rock and roll.

Kind of, yeah. He was, I think if you look at like actually not even just top-grandmasters, but like, or not even World Chance with Top-grandmasters, he probably had the most most interesting life by far, by far. And even like as an example of how much he loved Chess and how by far. And even like as an example of how much he loved Chess and how, how, what a character he was, I think when he was dying in like 19, I think it was 1989 or maybe it was 91. When he was dying, he actually left the hospital to go play a blitz tournament in Moscow, and he actually beat Gary Kasparov in that blitz tournament in one of the games. Well, what age? Probably like late 50s, mid 50s, late 50s. I mean, he drank too much, so he died young.

But yeah, like he left the hospital in Moscow, I want to play a blitz tournament, beat Kasparov. Well, first of all, just to push back, I think we all died too young. And some of the most impactful people, like Churchill did quite a bit of drinking and smoking all that kind of stuff. So you can still do brilliant things, even if you partake in the old whiskey and drugs

and rock and roll and women. Okay. Just about streaming though, there's this quote that I mean, it's that I love, which is the Steve Jobs quote, which is you can you can never connect the dots looking forward. You can only connect them looking backwards. And when I look at how I got into streaming, there were all these things that happened along the way that were so beneficial. So one, first thing would be that when I was young

and I was growing up, I played a lot of Blitzchuss on the internet chess club. It was one of the predecessors to chess.com. And there was no like no cameras or audio or these things, but one thing that people did was you could commit, you would write comments about your games and things of this nature. And so I was actually doing something very similar

where instead of talking, I was writing and chatting during some of the games that I was playing. So that was something that I was doing that was very, very beneficial without that. I don't think that I would have been able to have the success that I've had streaming. I think it would have taken much longer to get used to it and feel comfortable with it But I already had that built in advantage

Additionally when I was younger up until I think I was I was 10 or 11 I don't remember exactly I did not actually have a TV well I had a TV, but I didn't have cable so I did not watch TV growing up So I listened to the radio a lot I listen a lot of baseball games in New York Yankee specifically And so I think by listening to those games like I sort of. I listened a lot of baseball games in New York Yankee specifically. And so I think by listening to those games, like I sort of, I've heard a lot of announcers and I think that's also, it's one of those things where you learn from what you see kind

of when you're growing up, their examples. And so I think that was very, very beneficial. And then a third thing in terms of like having some flares when I was growing up and I was home school, probably about 14, 15, there were, there was this great courses. I think they still, they still do some of these great courses. And there was this, I don't remember who, who the guy was, but he was a professor. And so I watched some of these DVDs of his lectures. And he would always dress up as someone who was, he was like middle ages. So he would dress up and he was sort of like an order. And he would explain like, you know, what happened in 13, 14 hundreds in this sort of style.

And that's also something that, obviously, it's not something that I can consciously like internalize, but I think it's something as well that from having watched those courses and seeing that style of aeration really helped me a lot as a as a streamer to. Yeah. So yeah, all those little experiences contribute to life. That's, that's definitely something I think about because I took a pretty nonlinear path to life. That's that's definitely something I think about because I took a pretty non-linear path to life.

And I think they, they somehow get integrated into the picture. But I do, I do connect to your idea that you being good at chess was a part, was an important part of your success is streaming. I think like that's really good advice for people to to be good like in order to be a creator or a podcast or create videos all that kind of stuff or stream. I feel like it enriches you if you if you pursue with your whole heart something else outside of that. Like you don't have to be obviously at your level of chest, but just you have to be developed in the passion or pursuit something else. You have to know what that passion

is of what it is, I think for sure. I think if you're all only doing streaming, there's something, first of all, I feel like that's going to empty you over time. For some reason I've seen some of the lows that people hit if they don't have this other passion pursuit outside of streaming, but also just make you a better creator, which is interesting. I think again, with podcasting that supplies, with Rogen, I think it's just would not, the reason this podcast is very good is because all of us passion is put into

being a comedian and being a fight commentator. Like the podcast is a is a is a hot is a side hobby. That's the way I feel about it too. So that's your main passion is outside of it. I don't know what that is. I think it puts everything in the proper context. And also it allows you to mentally escape into that place that you find deeply fulfilling. You mentioned offline, you told me that you're interested. You found it interesting that I said that I'm renting this particular place and I always rent because of the sense of freedom it gives. I mean, I tend to actually try to be a minimalist for the most part when it comes things like

clothes or like owning like cars, for example, or watch. I just, I don't own a lot of these material things. They don't really interest me. But at the end of the day, the one thing is, and this might actually play a role in a lot of like the hiccups why I didn't get to maybe being closer to world champion, is that one of the things from the time that I was very young is like I didn't grow up from like a wealthy background. And like I had a single mother for the first six years

of my life. She worked as an elementary teacher to support my brother and myself. So like I saw a lot of these sort of lows in life early on now, even once you're remarried, like all the money that my stepfather made was not all of it, but a lot of it was directed towards like my mom and I like traveling to tournaments,

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

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

And that's a large part with lead to it. That being said, obviously when you start owning things like properties, houses, or condos and whatnot, there are headaches that come along with getting some of these bills in the mail. Or you see, H.O.A. about a tenant, parking their car illegally, $50 that you have to pay and fees, these sorts of things, it is kind of a pain. But I try, I mean, I try to reduce the number of things

that can really bother me in life, and that's really the only thing that I let, you know, not let, but it's one of those things, the only things that kind of ties me down in a way, and I still feel pretty free, for the most part despite owning. But you mentioned security so that meaning like security stability, the ability, yeah, sorry. So that's the thing you chase, you value. When it comes to chess, as I said, if you're a pro player, you can do very well,

make a couple hundred thousand dollars a year. Of course, I'm talking pre-tax. But if you do poorly in one year, that income dries up. And there is a chance you'll never get back there. So I feel like for much of my career, that was always on my mind. And maybe that held me back to some degree. I don't know those sort of those sort of thoughts about things like that as opposed to purely being being focused only, only on the chest, like worrying about the results, worrying about the prizes, things like this. It might have held me back, but that was always something that was all on my mind. For me, I really worked hard to make sure that I'm philosophically intellectually,

spiritually in every way, and okay with having nothing. That's close to nothing as you can get. And the reason I want that is so that I have the freedom to not create stability. Our rather have stability because my bar for stability is so low. And that gives me the freedom to take big risks. And I thought that for me, I felt like the way I could really help the world

is by optimizing the positive I can do. And for that, you have to take big risks. And big risks really does mean potentially losing everything. So you're saying like startups, you mean like that? Yeah, startups in every aspect, meaning pivoting career paths completely when everybody else is telling you not to. Yeah, actually, you know, it's interesting because like when I think about streaming, it's not like, it's not like a star because like I'm not like investing money where I, where I can lose everything. It was not successful, but it was also a big risk for me doing that because at the time,

I was a professional player doing very well. When I, when I, when I kind of started in October 2018, I was still top 10 in the world doing very well. 2019 was actually a very bad year for me. I started playing much worse. Towards the end of 2019, I intended to take a six month break. Last time I played with November 2019 in India, and then I was going to take a break until the US Championship in April of 2020. So I did in a sense actually take a risk because I was potentially risking my career by spending this extra time that I had streaming. So it's not like it's not the risk where like financial aid can lose everything, but it actually was a bit of a risk. Now, now that I think about it in a sense, because if I lose my career as a player, there's no guarantee that streaming is going to be anything,

anything substantial. You didn't think it was a risk at the time? I think at the time, I just, I don't know, I thought it was just something fun to spend my time on. I like, I didn't somehow, I don't know, I wasn't, I figured that after six months break, I would come back and play better chess kind of. But like the string, as far as streaming, I never thought of it as being something that would be a career or something viable. I just thought it's something fun to do. Maybe it gives me, it gives fans some access to me. It broadens the platform.

More people hear about me. And that was about it, really. I did not ever expect it to become what it did. You said growing up with a single mother and just giving your whole life to chess at a certain point. Has there been through that low points? Maybe times when you felt lonely, isolated, maybe even depressed? Oh, absolutely. Chest is very difficult. You're on your own. You can have friends, people

you compete against, who are friends, but at the end of the day, it's a very singular pursuit. It's just you and your results dictate everything. So there have been many moments throughout my life when I've struggled. I think probably the biggest time when that happened would have been about 2005 into 2006, where I stopped playing chess and I went to college. And that was mainly because I had gotten to a level where I was top 100 in the world

But I stagnated for that year about 2005 2006 and so I decided to go to college Primarily because I had stagnated. I didn't feel like I was going anywhere and then also kind of being on your own Just having a few friends here there in the chess world You kind of you wonder what it's like and especially because I was homeschooled as well, like that further added to kind of wanting to be around other people. It really played a very big role in my decision to go to college, but at the end of the day, as I realized, college kind of was a big disappointment

because the strongest or the biggest strength of playing chess is that you mingle with people from all different backgrounds, all different ages. And when I went to college, the whole notion of basically people who are juniors and seniors being more important or more equal than others to do the animal farm line, like when you're in that situation, it didn't really jive with my childhood

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

it really was. That wasn't the only reason, the other reason though, was that towards the end of my first semester, I played a tournament after not studying, actually when I was in college, when I wasn't actually studying for class, I was mainly on poker, starts playing poker all night long. So towards the end of that semester,

I actually went to play a tournament in Philadelphia because I was going to college nearby. And with very little preparation, I won that tournament against other strong grandmasters. And that kind of made me think, well, okay, if I'm ever gonna take a chance, it has to be now. If I stay in college for four years, probably get a major in political studies, It's kind of made me think, well, okay, if I'm ever going to take a chance, it has to be now. If I stay in college for four years, probably get a major in political science, do something

in the political arena. And then I felt like I'm going to probably look back like five, ten years from now, I wonder, what if, what if, like, what if I had played chess? How far could I have gone? And if I had taken those four years, there would have been no opportunity for me to reach my full potential or even see how far I go. So therefore that was also a big reason. So another one, what if question?

If you didn't play chess, you mentioned political. What other possible? That depends, that successful trajectory might have you had. That depends on what point really, if when you ask that question I think if we're talking about the time of college probably I would have done something in political science Maybe a lot a lot of you are something something terrible like that honestly If I was a little bit younger there were you know, I really I loved ancient history archaeology and also languages as well

So probably something along those lines, and if we talk more recently, something in finance, I don't know what exactly, but something in finance. What do you think, like, when we talk again, 30 years, what do you think you're doing? 30 years. I honestly want to believe that I'm just, you know, I'm sitting in like a beach house in Malibu just just relaxing. Yeah, right. So like you and I are in a yacht for some reason. Why are we in a yacht? You paid for it. It's you. I don't ever want to own a yacht. Um, no, okay. I find it. But I mean, that's like the amount of money you waste on docking fees, the gas, like, no way. I was trying to construct an example.

You're being super rich for some reason. It doesn't have to be that. Actually, I don't think that that actually does not appeal to me at all. I think one of the, another great thing about chess is that within the chess world, I'm very prominent and famous, but I can go out to the supermarket and nobody recognized me. And so I am famous, but I'm not famous at the same time. So I don't actually wanna be like, I don't want to be in a situation

where everyone recognizes me or I'm super famous. That's not, that to me sounds like a very miserable life. I do not want TMZJs me on the street. So you're famous in a community you love and that so whenever you plug into that community it's always like there's a deep connection there you can always escape we need to break. What advice would you give to young people about career, about life maybe they're in high school, maybe they're in college, maybe they want to achieve the heights that you have achieved in

chess, they want to do that for something they care about. The main thing is follow your heart, follow your passion. One thing we didn't touch on this, both my parents, my mom was a musician. She was very good. I think she was all-state in California when she was growing up on the violin, but she still was nowhere near good enough

to get into Juilliard or the top music schools and pursue that as a career And there are a lot of starving musicians who never are able to quite make it So like when I see my mom and and and what happened with her, you know her passion the fact she wasn't able to make it or then my stepfather Who who we haven't talked about my stepfather actually he's of Sri Lankan descent? He comes from a family of lawyers. His father was a lawyer, his uncle was a lawyer for the International Court of Justice.

So it's a family of lawyers. And my stepfather, he went to England to study law. He went to Southampton, I think it was the University of Southampton. And at some point, he was going and playing these tournaments on the weekend, and playing the school club, all these things. And his parents actually, they took away his chess board.

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

you have to pursue your passion to whatever end that might be. You might pursue it, you might fail, but I do think you have to pursue it. It's better to have tried and failed than to not try it at all. So I really do believe that's the most important thing is that you do that. And where it takes you, who knows, but the experiences I feel are much more important than the what ifs and possibly missing out on living life. So even if it's, you know, everybody around you and your own judgment says that this is

not going to be financially viable long term still pursue. I think I mean at some point you have to make those tough decisions but absolutely I feel like too many people fall to standard route. It's like you're supposed to, you know, go to college, get that degree, be $200,000 in debt, these sorts of things. But then at the end of the day, are you really living? Are you pursuing what you want to pursue?

It's just because that's what you're supposed to do. That's what society tells us that you're the route you're supposed to go. So I think you just have to pursue it. Of course, at a certain point, if you're not making it, you have to make hard decisions. But I think that just have to pursue it. Of course, at a certain point, if you're not making it, you have to make hard decisions, but I think that, in life, the only thing really, time and sort of experiences,

those are the only things that you really can't put a price on. Yeah, and really pursue it. Even like streaming, I'll see people like, or YouTube, with that kind of stuff. It's a world and it may waste foreign to me. There's levels to this game in that like, there's a way to really pursue it and there's a way to half acid. And I guess the point is not to half acid. Like, don't,

don't just keep it a hobby. Make it a full time. If that's your passion, that could go all out. So sometimes people can think that like These things they love is just a hobby like music or something like that But there's a way to do it seriously to go all out. Yeah That's that's probably my general advice is like whatever it is you pursue it because even with chess Why don't I drop it out of college? There was no guarantee that I was gonna make it as a professional player.

There was no guarantee, but I took that chance and very fortunately for me it worked out. Would you rather fight a horse sized duck or a hundred duck sized horses? Probably a horse sized duck. Just one enemy is better than having to keep an eye on 100. This, the stress or what, the anxiety? You don't, the, why, why, why don't you like,

I mean, they're tiny. Tiny? I don't know, I just feel like if you have, well, I don't know if they're gonna attack you or not, but I feel like having one enemy seeing like the clear objective, I would always, I prefer that. Mm. If you could be someone else for a day, a live or dead, who would you be?

Who would I want to be for a day? If I had to pick someone, actually, I would probably pick Elon. How many years ago is now, when the rockets were blowing up? I'd be very interested to see those processes of how they went through that and they got out on the other side because like I feel like Most of the time when you hear about the startups like okay, you look at Amazon You you have the big investment the start doesn't feel like they're where they're super super low Yeah for like the Amazon as a world maybe not when the three rocks blew up But maybe when that was a fourth or fifth one, actually succeeded.

But somewhere in that timeframe. Yeah, that is probably one of the lowest lows that I've ever publicly ever seen. Yeah, that's, yeah. Those are the moments that make us. If everyone on Earth disappeared through a horrible atrocity, and it was just you left, what would your days look like?

What would you do? Just me, just dead bodies and look. I think this is right. There's many movies like this. Honestly, if I could, I would probably just, but you're saying there's like no life, like no plans, no other stuff. No, this is life.

There's life just not just not. Not a human life. There's like goats and stuff. Is it, what was that? I remember reading a, I mean, it it's slightly, there was a sci-fi book I read many years ago. I think it was rendezvous with Rama, where I think there were people that were just going all over the land, like in this cylinder. And so I think for me, I've just explored, I've just like walked bicycle, maybe plant, plant some, plant some trees, things of this nature.

I wonder how that would experience, change your experience of nature knowing that it truly is, because that's one of the magical things with nature. It's humbling that it's just you out there. That's why I love it. That's why I love going hiking. It's obviously you get the exercise, but honestly, it's a reminder of how small we really are. And here you would realize, like, you, I mean, it's, it's an extra humbling effect of,

like, you really are alone out here. Yeah, that's, I don't know. I probably, I probably spent a lot of time just thinking about, thinking about everything too. Do you hate losing in chess or do you love winning? Do I hate losing or do I love winning? I think I love, I love, I love winning. I mean, maybe because I've, maybe because I'm doing so many different things, like losing doesn't have the same effect on me that it, that it once did.

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

So I find it hard to really have pity, or not have pity, but like feel really bad. I just use those sorts of things as like the way to get over it. It's just knowing how lucky I am. What's the role of love in the human condition? Let me ask if a car about love. Love is love is, I mean, I think it can be the greatest thing in the world. I think when it, you I think when things fall apart, like, I've been through this quite a few times actually. Some really real highs, some really real lows as well. I think love is, it can inspire you to do things you never thought were possible. And without it, though, I think life is very empty.

I think it's probably the most important thing to have in life in one way or another. Which is extra said if you were the last person left on earth. Right, exactly. Yeah. I mean, I think, again, also in terms of chess, I think that it can be as far as chess as like any competition, it can be the greatest thing in the world. It can also be the worst thing in the world when you're in love with a lot of chess players. For many, it does not help them.

It actually makes them play much worse chess because you kind of, you don't have that energy or that drive in the same kind of way. So it's very mixed for chess. As far as me personally though, I think, you know, I would say what I've said before, it's better to have loved and lost and have never loved at all. And I definitely have been through that I thought you don't care. I thought you don't care Turns out you care sometimes a little bit a tiny bit a very very very tiny bit a car

You're an amazing person. I'm a huge fan It's really an honor that you would talk with me today. I can't wait to see what you do next. Thank you. It's good being here Thanks for listening to this conversation with a car in the Camara. To support this podcast, please check out our sponsors in the description. And now, let me leave you with some words from David Bronstie. It is my style to take my opponent and myself onto unknown grounds. A game of chess is not an examination of knowledge. It is the battle of nerves. Thank you for listening and hope to see you next time. you