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Hikaru Nakamura: Chess, Magnus, Kasparov, and the Psychology of Greatness | Lex Fridman Podcast #330
2 hours 48 minutes 42 seconds
🇬🇧 English
Speaker 1
00:00
You and Magnus played a private game, 40 games of Blitz in 2010 in Moscow at a hotel.
Speaker 2
00:08
This sounds and just feels legendary. The reason that I probably should not have agreed to play this match and why I very oftentimes reference it as 1 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.
Speaker 1
00:24
Are you and Magnus friends, enemies, frenemies? What's the status of the relationship?
Speaker 2
00:33
Yeah, I think with all the rivalries in chess, everybody tries to hype it up like everyone hates each other. But the thing is, at the end of the day, yes, we're very competitive. We want to beat each other, whether it's myself or Magnus or other top players.
Speaker 2
00:46
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.
Speaker 2
00:59
There is a certain level of respect that we have and there is a sort of brotherhood, I would say. So all of us are, I would say, frenemies.
Speaker 1
01:09
The following is a conversation with Hikaru Nakamura, a chess super grandmaster. He's 1 of the greatest chess players in the world, including currently being ranked world number 1 in Blitz chess. He's also 1 of the most popular chess streamers on Twitch and YouTube, which you should definitely check out.
Speaker 1
01:28
His channel's name on both is GMHikaru. This is the Lux Freedom Podcast. To support it, please check out our sponsors in the description. And now, dear friends, here's Hikaru Nakamura.
Speaker 1
01:41
You and Magnus played a private game, 40 games of Blitz in 2010 in Moscow at a hotel. This sounds and just feels legendary. Final score was 24 and a half to 15 and a half from Agnes.
Speaker 2
01:56
Where'd you find out the score? I'm actually curious. I don't think it was publicly said or it was very briefly said, but it wasn't ever mentioned in a serious way.
Speaker 1
02:04
I think it's a deep dive based on a few links that started at a subreddit, which is how all great journeys start.
Speaker 2
02:13
Yeah, so this is kind of a crazy story. This was not pre-planned at all. I remember this quite well.
Speaker 2
02:19
I went out to dinner that final night with someone who was actually very high up within the Internet chess club at that time. I went out for a nice dinner. I think I had like a couple of drinks. Maybe it was wine, beer.
Speaker 2
02:28
I don't know what it was. And I think towards the end of the dinner, somehow they got word of this and they relayed the information to me that Magnus wanted to play a private match. Now I agreed to play this match, probably I should not have, and actually it has nothing to do with like the state of having been out, had a few drinks, anything of that nature. But the reason that I probably should not have agreed to play this match and why I very oftentimes reference it as 1 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.
Speaker 2
02:59
And At the time, I actually had pretty good results against Magnus. I think maybe he was up 1 or 2 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.
Speaker 2
03:18
And so I think he understood that at times I wasn't so great in the opening. And there were many openings where I would play slightly dubious variations as opposed to the main lines. And then secondly, from my standpoint, the problem that I realized is since we were playing with an increment, there are many games where I was close to winning and he would defend end games amazingly well. He would defend what are technically drawn end games, but where I would have like an extra pawn, it would be like rook and bishop versus rook and knight.
Speaker 2
03:45
Say I have 4 pawns, he has 3 pawns, endgames 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 endgames where 1 side might have extra material, an extra pawn, say extra 2 pawns, but theoretically it's a draw.
Speaker 1
03:59
So it's perfectly- Can you Give an example of the set of pieces. We're talking about 567 pieces, like this kind
Speaker 2
04:03
of thing. Okay, like a very basic 1 would be rook and 4 pawns against rook and 3 pawns. So that would be 9 total pieces on the board.
Speaker 2
04:09
4 pawns on 1 side, 3 pawns on the other side. But it's all on the same side of the board. Now this is a technical draw. It's been known for probably, let's just say, 70 years roughly, give or take, that this is a theoretical draw.
Speaker 1
04:22
No matter the position of the pawns.
Speaker 2
04:24
It's just all the pawns are on 1 side of the board.
Speaker 1
04:26
So like, where they are.
Speaker 2
04:28
So it's like, let's just say they're, let's just say they're 4 pawns right here. They're just 4 pawns and black has 3 pawns. So your pawns are on h6, g6 and f6.
Speaker 2
04:36
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 of the game are, we know that it's a drawn endgame with perfect play. And so it was things like this where Magnus actually saved, I want to say like 5 or 6 of these.
Speaker 2
04:52
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 spades. But there were a lot of situations where he was up like 1 game or maybe 2 games in the match and I had some end game like this and I was not able to win the end game. And so for me, after that match, it wasn't even so much that I lost the match or the margin I lost by, But it was the fact that I realized how hard it was to beat him, even once you got the advantage. And I think for Magnus, he learned that my weakness was openings.
Speaker 2
05:22
I remember because I actually, I don't remember the game itself, but there was a game we played in the Sicilian Nidorf. And he played this variation with Bishop g5 on move number 6. I'm sure you can insert a graphic later I can show you.
Speaker 1
05:34
Sicilian is a type of opening.
Speaker 2
05:36
Sicilian is the opening, Night Orf is the variation. It was played by Bobby Fischer, the former world champion, Gary Kasparov as well. And so we played all sorts of different openings because of course it's a serious match, but it's not serious where it's going to count for the ranking.
Speaker 2
05:50
So you're trying to fill out where your opponent is strong versus weak. And so there was 1 game, I remember this very clearly, he played the Bishop g5 variation in the Night Orf, and I think I played e5 or I played Knight bd7 in E5, which is dubious. It's not the best response. And that's just 1 example where I was playing things that were a little bit dubious and I was not playing the absolute main line with 20 moves of theory.
Speaker 2
06:11
So I was trying to get outside of theory. And I think Magnus learned from that, that even though it appeared that I was very well prepared in these openings, I wasn't quite at that level.
Speaker 1
06:21
Couldn't you have a different interpretation of you going outside of the main line, that you're willing to experiment, take risks, that you're chaotic, and that's actually a strength, not a weakness, especially when you're sitting in a hotel room late at night, this is past midnight, playing chess. I mean, why do you interpret that that's your weakness?
Speaker 2
06:41
Because Magnus going forward was able to figure out the lines where you have to be super precise. You cannot deviate at all. And I got punished out of the opening in many games.
Speaker 2
06:50
So it was like, it wasn't about the night or if the opening or the variation specifically, but he knew what my repertoire was. And we would pick lines where I had to play the absolute best lines in order to equalize or I would be much worse. And he was very effective at doing that.
Speaker 1
07:04
But nevertheless, it's pretty legendary that the 2 of you, you're 1 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, there is a little, here, there is a little video of it.
Speaker 1
07:27
Sure. I mean, this is like epic, right? How did this video exist, by the way?
Speaker 2
07:32
I think there was 1 journalist, Macaulay Peterson, who was able to film parts of it. So it was in a room, it was me and Magnus, I think Henrik was there, I think Macaulay was there and that was it.
Speaker 1
07:44
People can go on YouTube and watch, it's on Chess Digital Strategies, Macaulay Peterson channel. For people just listening to this, there's a dimly lit room with a yellow light emerging out of the darkness of the 2 faces of Macaulay Peterson. I mean, and the deep focus here, and what time is this?
Speaker 1
08:02
This is must be like.
Speaker 2
08:03
This is probably like 1 in the morning. This was, I believe, the day after the final, this was the day that the final round occurred and the closing ceremony, so we're playing afterwards.
Speaker 1
08:11
I mean, are you able to appreciate the epicness of this?
Speaker 2
08:15
Many of my favorite memories are actually similar to this. Another memory that I really have, that I recall very fondly was after the US Championship. It was called the 2005 US Chess Championship was held at the end of 2004 in, I believe it was in La Jolla in San Diego.
Speaker 2
08:28
I won that event. And after that, that event, I was playing Blitz probably for like 4 or 5 hours in the lobby of the hotel. So it's the same kind of situation where you're just playing for the love of the game as opposed to anything else. Of course, nowadays, I think both for Magnus and myself, just playing a dimly lit room like this would almost certainly not happen.
Speaker 2
08:47
There would probably have to be certain stakes involved for us to play, but if you go back in time, these are the sorts of memories and moments that would happen all the time.
Speaker 1
08:58
So is there a part of you that doesn't regret that this happened?
Speaker 2
09:01
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 1 of my core beliefs, like I don't really look back on it as mistakes.
Speaker 2
09:12
I feel like everything has happened and things have transpired the way they have for a reason. If I look at it in terms of potentially like world championship aspirations, I think certainly it was a big mistake because from a competitive standpoint, Magnus figured out what my weaknesses were at the time and he exploited it for many, many years. In fact, I think if you look at the match I played against him in the Meltwater tournament at the, I think that was in June or no, it was later. It's like September of 2020.
Speaker 2
09:38
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.
Speaker 2
09:49
I was not worse out of the opening in most of the games. And that made a huge difference. But for many years, he was able to exploit my openings. And I mean, that's why the score, I mean, it's not the only reason, but it's 1 of the reasons the score is so lopsided the way it is.
Speaker 1
10:03
Is there any of those games that you mentioned, 7 games that are interesting to look at, to analyze, ideas that you remember that are interesting to you?
Speaker 2
10:11
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 7 matches of 4 games. So we played a 4 game match.
Speaker 2
10:22
And after 4 games, say I'm up 2 and a half, 1 and a half, I win match number 1. Then it's so it's like you have to win 4 matches of 4 games.
Speaker 1
10:29
Do you remember how you won? There were a
Speaker 2
10:31
couple of Berlin games in the sixth, sixth match, I believe in the seventh match as well, where Magnus actually made some mistakes and I won some critical games.
Speaker 1
10:39
You're gonna have to explain some basics here. So Berlin is the type of opening, what's that?
Speaker 2
10:43
The Ruy Lopez or the Spanish opening. It actually existed all the way back in the 60s, but it really became popular in 2001, I believe it was, when Garry Kasparov and Vladimir Kramnik played their world championship match. Kasparov had been the world champion for a very long time.
Speaker 2
10:58
I think it was close, I think it was about 15 years roughly, maybe a little bit more than that. And he lost the match because when Gary had the white pieces, Kasparov was not able to effectively get an advantage. A lot of those games were very quick draws, and in chess you want to put pressure on your opponent when you have the white pieces. So Kasparov was not able to do anything with the white pieces and Kramnik was able to beat him when the colors were reversed.
Speaker 2
11:20
Kramnik won a game in the Grunfeld, he won a game in 1 of the Queens Gambit declined slash Nimzo variations as well. And that was the reason Garry Kasparov lost the World championship title was because of this variation.
Speaker 1
11:32
Can you teach me the Berlin opening?
Speaker 2
11:34
Absolutely. So the opening starts, let me just move this microphone up a little bit, starts with E4, and then it goes E5, Knight F3, Knight C6. Yeah, Bishop b5, and now knight to f6.
Speaker 1
11:55
And at which point is this the standard, like this is the Berlin?
Speaker 2
11:59
Yeah, this is the Berlin, this is the starting position of the Berlin defense, and white has many, many options here. Now it's interesting because I did work with 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 somebody who the way that he learned chess, it's very much like there are certain openings that are OK. There are other openings that are not OK.
Speaker 2
12:24
And so this was considered dubious at the time. And so Gary basically decided to go into this end game with castles. Night takes pawn.
Speaker 1
12:31
Why is the castling an endgame?
Speaker 2
12:33
I'll show you. Knight takes pawn. All these moves are very, very forced.
Speaker 2
12:38
You've got pawn to d4.
Speaker 1
12:39
What does it mean, they're very forced? That means those are the optimal things that you should be doing?
Speaker 2
12:43
Exactly. These moves are... I think they're almost, at least for black, they're absolutely forced or else you end up in trouble.
Speaker 1
12:49
You said knight takes d4?
Speaker 2
12:50
Knight to d6. Oh, sorry. So this attacks the bishop on b5.
Speaker 2
12:54
Got it. White takes. Black takes back with the pawn in front of the queen. Pawn takes pawn.
Speaker 2
13:02
Knight to F5. And then it goes queen takes queen. What? King takes queen.
Speaker 1
13:09
It's very aggressive.
Speaker 2
13:11
Yeah, so you get this position where we're in an end game by the 10.
Speaker 1
13:15
You just ruined all the normal conventions, I guess.
Speaker 2
13:18
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 end game right from the start.
Speaker 2
13:29
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 9 or game 11, actually maybe I had the order wrong because I think he was white in the even number games, basically he spent 4 or 5 games with the white pieces trying to win this endgame And he was not able to win. In fact, he didn't even come close to proving an advantage. So he kept wasting the white pieces in that match.
Speaker 2
13:53
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.
Speaker 1
14:01
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.
Speaker 1
14:09
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.
Speaker 1
14:22
And what do you think about that? Like what, that's the way of chess, right? That's not a mistake. That's the way you should do it.
Speaker 1
14:28
If your gut says this position is better, you should capitalize, right?
Speaker 2
14:33
I think that's an old school way of thinking in chess, because before computers, basically it was up to humans. Your intuition, your calculation process really determined whether a position is better. And so like, in Gary's time, if openings were dubious, they're dubious, It means somebody is better.
Speaker 2
14:50
But as we've learned with computers now, even small advantages, generally that doesn't mean anything. And a position is defendable where you won't lose the game if you play optimal moves, even if the advantage is like half a pawn, for example, like 0.50. With optimal play, a computer will still prove that that position, you can hold it and not lose the game. And so for Gary, he learned it where like if an opening is not right, like he knows it's not correct.
Speaker 2
15:16
He has to prove it. Now, finally, towards the end of the match, he tried to switch, but it was already way too late and he didn't have time to win with the white pieces. He did come close in 1 of the later games but he spent the whole match trying to prove that this Berlin defense is not playable.
Speaker 1
15:29
So this position the computer would say that black is better?
Speaker 2
15:32
It would say that white's very slightly better because black has moved the king. You're unable to castle the king and it's kind of open in the center of the board.
Speaker 1
15:39
Oh, so wait, so Stockfish or the engine would agree with Gary's intuition?
Speaker 2
15:43
Yes, but at the end of the day, when you go like 5 moves deeper in any number of the sequences, it's gonna go to 0.00. Which means draw. Yes, correct.
Speaker 1
15:52
And that's a bad thing because white should be winning.
Speaker 2
15:54
Well, you want to put pressure on your opponent when you have the white pieces in any tournament, any match.
Speaker 1
15:59
Got it. So if the engine says 0-0, That means you're not doing a good job of playing white.
Speaker 2
16:04
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 drawish tendencies, but you want to try.
Speaker 2
16:12
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.
Speaker 2
16:25
Gary was trying to win games with the black pieces as well by playing openings like the Sicilian Night Orth. But with modern technology, and I did a podcast recently where I also spoke about this, computers are so good and players can memorize so many lines that nowadays trying to take risks with the black pieces, it almost always backfires. Or if you're very lucky, you might make the draw, but you never get the winning chances. So from a risk reward standpoint, you have to play almost perfectly just to make the draw, but you're never gonna have any winning chances.
Speaker 2
16:53
Where in the old days, generally you might lose the games, but you're gonna have chances to win as well. But now it's very much 1 sided. So a lot of players try to be very solid.
Speaker 1
17:02
This is, by the way, the C Squared podcast? Correct, yes. Yeah, this is an amazing podcast, so shout out to those guys.
Speaker 1
17:07
I'm glad that they started a thing that seems to be a good thing, and I hope they keep going with this good thing. That was a great interview that I did with you.
Speaker 2
17:14
In that podcast, I talked about the Sicilian Night Orf. Very aggressive opening. The problem is White is the 1 who has the choices.
Speaker 2
17:23
After the first 5 to 6 moves, White has the choices. What do you want to
Speaker 1
17:26
do? Can you show
Speaker 2
17:27
me that? Sure. So it's, for example, that
Speaker 1
17:30
would be e4.
Speaker 2
17:30
That would be e4. Now we get knight to F3, pawn to D6, pawn to D4, trade, knight to F6, and now pawn to A6. So this is a Nidorf.
Speaker 2
17:58
Bobby Fischer really popularized it in his run up to becoming the world champion. Gary played it for probably the last 15 to 20 years of his career, so it's a very solid opening defense.
Speaker 1
18:10
What is it, what are the, sorry to interrupt, what's interesting about this? So there's a, for people listening, on the white side there's a couple of knights out, and on the black side...
Speaker 2
18:20
So black has many options. Black can play for b5 here to develop the bishop to b7, because the pawn on a6 guards the pawn on b5. You can also play other setups, like potentially g6 and putting the bishop on g7.
Speaker 1
18:36
Okay, so bringing, doing different things and bringing out the...
Speaker 2
18:39
You can also push the pawn to e5 or push the pawn to e6. Okay. So there are many different setups and it's very, very flexible.
Speaker 2
18:47
But White is the 1 who has the choice here in terms of what to play. And there are many moves. There's this move that I mentioned before, Bishop to g5, which Magnus played against me. There's also Bishop to e3, Bishop to c4, and now there are also moves like h3, h4, Rg1, even moves like a3 and a4.
Speaker 2
19:06
So there basically are 9 or 10 moves that white can play here. But the move that white plays sort of dictates the direction of the game, and you have to be extremely precise if you're black. So if white plays something like Bishop g5, this is very sharp and aggressive. But you can also play something like Bishop to e3, pawn to e5, and something like Knight to f3 here.
Speaker 2
19:24
And it goes in a positional direction. So again, this is very advanced. These are very advanced sort of setups and what I'm explaining is not at a basic level. But why is the 1 who chooses a type of game?
Speaker 2
19:37
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.
Speaker 1
19:48
Okay, so you're always responding as black in this situation. Correct. So how different are all those different variations?
Speaker 1
19:55
So like with the bishop, with the different, you said you bring out the bishop to this position, to this position, or to that position. Like how, are those fundamentally different variations? Like, I just wonder from a AI computational perspective, like a single step.
Speaker 2
20:10
Yeah, well, I'll make it even simpler here. If you put the knight here, it's very positional. If you put the knight on this square, it's very aggressive because normally white is going to push this pawn from F2 to either F3 or F4 and potentially a pawn to G4 later.
Speaker 2
20:24
So even here, based on where you go, it changes whether it's a positional game or it's a very tactical.
Speaker 1
20:29
Just those little, and that, those are the choices you're constantly making. Am I going to be standard and basic and positional or am I going to be aggressive and take risks?
Speaker 2
20:38
And I can actually give you another example. So psychology plays a big role and in the candidates tournament which I played in June of this past year in Madrid, Spain. I actually, I had the white piece against Ali Reza Farouzia, who is a rising junior, originally from Iran, representing France.
Speaker 2
20:53
And I knew that he wanted very aggressive games. He doesn't normally play the Sicilian Eindhoff, and he chose to play it in this 1 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.
Speaker 2
21:09
He wanted these sharp, exciting games. And here I am playing something very boring where if he plays it correctly, it's going to be a draw, but he's not going to be happy. And so he actually did something dubious because he wanted to create tension. He wanted to create chaos.
Speaker 2
21:22
So you knew by being boring, you would frustrate him and then he would make mistakes. Exactly, yes, yes. So that's the big role. That's the ultimate
Speaker 1
21:29
troll 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 a hit on your confidence.
Speaker 1
21:42
Is there some truth to that? So is there some aspect about that 2010 match that's not just about Magnus figuring stuff out, but just a hit on confidence? Like how important is confidence at that level when you're both young and like firing out all cylinders?
Speaker 2
22:00
Well, it's not just a problem with me. This is the problem everybody has when they play against Magnus because what happens is, is on a broader level, when you play against somebody, no matter who you're playing against, but when they're somehow able to save positions where they're much worse, almost in miraculous ways, the way that Magnus has done against everybody. He's done it against me, done it against Aronian many times, done it against Kramnik, just about everybody.
Speaker 2
22:24
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 5 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.
Speaker 2
22:54
As far as myself directly, certainly after that match, though, it was not the same playing as Magnus because I viewed him completely differently too. After all those games where he was saving these end games, I started thinking like, this guy is superhuman. But you can't really have those thoughts when you're playing competitively. But in the back of your mind, it's always there.
Speaker 2
23:14
And I think every Toppler has that issue.
Speaker 1
23:15
Is there a way to overcome that? Because you have to.
Speaker 2
23:18
I don't know if I'll necessarily do better against Magnus going forward, but I felt that when I started playing against him more than just a game here or there in classical chess during the pandemic, I played in these online tournaments seemed like every month I came very close. I beat him in 1 event, I think I lost in 2 others, and then the 2 are final. But when I was playing against him more and more, if 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.
Speaker 2
23:44
So I think for me, the weird thing is that I just wasn't playing against him that many games. But when I start playing against like 20, 30 games during the course of a year, I actually started feeling more confident because I feel like I can compete. Whereas when I was only playing him like 3 or 4 times in classical chess in the previous couple of years, It was I wasn't doing great. And then you don't have you don't have those glimpses of you don't have those moments where you feel like you're going to be able to win against them.
Speaker 2
24:10
But when you start playing 20, 30 games and you get these opportunities, even if you don't convert, you feel like you have the chances When you play 3 or 4 games and you might lose 1, draw 3, you never have those opportunities and so you feel very negative about what's going on.
Speaker 1
24:23
When you were able to beat them or not necessarily win the game but win positionally something, what was the reason? Like Technically speaking, the matchup between the 2 of you, what were the holes that you were able to find?
Speaker 2
24:39
I mean, the answer I think is actually quite simple. I think it's all psychological, actually, more than anything else, because I didn't feel like I was doing anything differently, but I was also not making the mistakes that I was making before. So I think it was more psychological than anything else.
Speaker 1
24:57
On your part versus his part.
Speaker 2
24:59
It's very weird because when you think about chess, it's a mental game. You know, but we all are capable of beating Magnus, all of us. But we all have very, very bad scores against him.
Speaker 2
25:11
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.
Speaker 2
25:33
Now that's not to say that Magnus isn't a better player, that like somehow I expect to beat him, but I felt like I wasn't making the same mistakes that I was making in the previous years.
Speaker 1
25:42
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?
Speaker 1
25:52
Do you drink a bunch of whiskey the night before? Is there some small hacks or major ones about how you approach the game?
Speaker 2
26:00
It's really hard sort of in a way because I feel like I'm 2 different people. I was 1 person up until the pandemic as a professional chess player solely where I earned all my income. Everything was derived from that.
Speaker 2
26:13
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 the I literally don't care phrase that I've used. And in a sense, What that means is not that I don't care.
Speaker 2
26:31
Obviously I'm competitive. I want to do well, but if I lose a game or I don't do well in a tournament, it's not the end of the world in the same kind of way that I felt it was before, because that pressure of needing to always perform was very, very high. And so I think before the pandemic, what I would try to do more than anything is just not think about the previous game for the most part. Like say I had a bad game, I'd go out for a walk that evening, just clear my mind, these sorts of things.
Speaker 2
26:58
Now they aren't really hacks per se, but it's trying essentially to have short-term memory loss.
Speaker 1
27:04
So I literally don't care, it's not just a meme, it's a philosophy.
Speaker 2
27:08
In a sense,
Speaker 1
27:08
it is. It's a way of being.
Speaker 2
27:09
I mean, it's basically that, yes, like I do want to perform well, I'm gonna give it my all, but it's not, like If I lose a game, it's not the end of the world.
Speaker 1
27:17
That should be the title of your autobiography. And it should be, I know you're probably immortal, but if you do happen to die, that should also be in your tombstone. Charles Bukowski has Don't Try in his tombstone.
Speaker 1
27:33
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.
Speaker 2
27:51
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.
Speaker 2
28:07
And 1 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.
Speaker 2
28:19
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 and in a way that it affected me and not in a good way.
Speaker 1
28:46
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.
Speaker 2
28:58
Yeah, it makes, yeah, exactly. It makes, 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.
Speaker 2
29:07
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 definitely, it was not about the chess.
Speaker 2
29:23
And that's 1 of those things that's also very hard because when I look at myself and when I had these periods where it seemed like I played better or improved, 1 of these periods was in 2008 where I basically I dropped out of college. I was about 2650 Elo, so I was roughly top 100 in the world. And for the first probably half part of 2008, I played very little, almost not all. I went up to Vancouver.
Speaker 2
29:46
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 2,700 shortly thereafter. So it had nothing to do with chess.
Speaker 1
29:58
When you moved to Vancouver and weren't doing much, what were you doing exactly?
Speaker 2
30:05
Oh, I was enjoying nature. I was going outside, hiking mountains, like going and kayaking, all these things that I was not, that I had not done for many years.
Speaker 1
30:15
I'm glad I asked, because I was imagining something else. I was imagining you like in a dark room, drinking and playing video games. And okay, cool.
Speaker 1
30:23
That's good. That's an interesting break. So dropping out of college and then giving, taking a break and then giving everything to chess in terms of preparation and so on. Maybe actually if we can rewind back to the beginning, you've said about yourself that you're not a naturally talented chess player.
Speaker 1
30:43
Your brother was, but that's really fascinating because what would you say was the reason you're able to break through and become 1 of the best chess players in the world having been not a naturally talented chess player?
Speaker 2
30:57
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'm 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.
Speaker 2
31:15
There's this funny game on the phone, I'll just use that as an example. There's a game called Geometry Dash. Now I'm not world class or anything at it, it's just a silly little game on the phone that you play, you just tap and it goes up and down. People will probably know what that is.
Speaker 2
31:29
But I played that for maybe an hour or so, I just randomly placed for 1 hour. And I was terrible at it. And I kind of forgot about it, about it for a week. And then I'm, then I came back, I saw on my phone, I'm like, okay, what am I doing wrong?
Speaker 2
31:39
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 to get better at it. And again, I'm not like world class or anything, but I'm pretty good at the game. And so with chess is the same thing.
Speaker 2
31:55
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.
Speaker 2
32:09
And then my parents stopped me from playing for about 6 months. They just said, no, you're not playing, your brother's quite good. And my brother was 1 of the top ranked players in his age group in the United States, so you're not playing. Then after about 6 months, they relented and they let me play, and the first term of back, I actually, it was 4 games.
Speaker 2
32:26
I was playing against other kids, and I won the first 3 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
Speaker 1
32:36
guess this is, how old were you at this time?
Speaker 2
32:38
I would have been about 8 years old, 7 or 8.
Speaker 1
32:41
So an 8 year old future top ranked chess player has, so it's great to know that somebody has lost to that checkmate. So it's possible to lose to that checkmate.
Speaker 2
32:52
I remember that game quite well.
Speaker 1
32:54
Was it, I mean, at that time, did you know that that checkmate exists, obviously?
Speaker 2
32:59
I mean, I think I probably knew it existed, but I didn't, I was just playing. It's a completely different world than now. If a kid goes on their computer, they can immediately figure out what are the basic checkmates, all these different things.
Speaker 2
33:10
At the time, that didn't really exist. You'd have to find it in a book.
Speaker 1
33:13
Yeah, so this is just a basic blunder.
Speaker 2
33:15
Yeah, exactly. Cool. Yeah, so it's like I came back, it was a very good start, and then I lose like this.
Speaker 2
33:20
But I stuck with it, I improved very, very quickly thereafter. And yeah, it was very straightforward.
Speaker 1
33:26
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.
Speaker 2
33:40
Yeah, I think it was just, I just, I played as much as I could. Like it wasn't like I was consciously thinking about it. As an 8 year old, you're not really thinking about those sorts of things or the big picture.
Speaker 2
33:50
So I just basically kept playing as much as I could, whether it was online, whether it was against my brother, reading these chess books as much as I could. I just devoured as much information as I could. So you
Speaker 1
34:00
were studying chess books? You were studying
Speaker 2
34:01
chess books? I was, I mean, I wasn't studying them cover to cover though. It's like you just study certain diagrams, certain positions.
Speaker 1
34:06
So openings and stuff like that, you were?
Speaker 2
34:08
Mostly tactics, actually. Openings were not, other than top level chess, openings were not a thing, probably. I wanna say for players below maybe master level in a serious way until maybe like the early 2000s.
Speaker 1
34:21
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?
Speaker 2
34:32
Yeah, so it's things like forks for example where you attack 2 pieces at the same time, discovered attacks like checkmates, and again, winning like a queen or other material. Those are probably the 2 most important ones, batteries, or batteries and pins, things of that nature.
Speaker 1
34:49
How many, how rich is the world of, and by the way, discovered attacks are when you move a piece And
Speaker 2
34:56
you put a king in check to win like a rook, for example, or other material.
Speaker 1
35:01
And forking pieces is when you're attacking 2 pieces. So obviously the other person can't move 2 pieces at a time, they're gonna have to lose 1 of them. Okay, so how big is the world, the universe of forks and discovered attacks?
Speaker 1
35:16
Like, You know, I myself know, so there's like knights attacking like a, what is it? There are
Speaker 2
35:24
forks, knight attacking like a queen and a rook, for example, or like a pawn attacking a queen and a rook, or like a rook and a bishop. It's innumerable. There, I mean, but I will say that I think that with chess, the more of these patterns you see, the quicker you catch them.
Speaker 2
35:39
And that's how you improve, I think, the most, is by learning these basic tactical themes at the beginner levels.
Speaker 1
35:46
Are you, when you're discovering those patterns, are you looking at the chessboard or are you looking at some like higher dimensional representation of the relative position of the pieces? So basically something that's disjoint of the particular absolute position of the piece, but like you're seeing patterns like this kind of pattern, but elsewhere on the board, like, are you thinking in patterns or in like absolute positions of the pieces?
Speaker 2
36:12
Both. I think that at the higher levels, you're always thinking about like you're thinking about the patterns on 1 side of the board specifically. But then also, what happens is you play more and more. If you're a very strong player, you will be able to remember, say, pawn structures where the pawns are on certain squares from games that you've played like 15, 20 years ago, even potentially.
Speaker 2
36:31
So it's a mix. I think a lot of it is more subconscious than actively thinking about it and like figuring it out like that. The only thing for me that I definitely am doing very frequently when I when I play is is trying to look at my pieces. Are they placed on the optimal squares?
Speaker 2
36:47
Are there better squares? And then once I get past that, like using the basic logic, I start to think about, OK, what pure calculations, like what are the moves that make a lot of sense and start calculating direct moves? But 1 of the most basic things that I think that I do that a lot of people actually should do that they don't do is looking at the piece placement and trying to figure out what pieces look like they're on good squares versus bad squares.
Speaker 1
37:09
So am I, for each piece asking a question, am I in my happy place? Am I in my optimally happy place?
Speaker 2
37:16
I think that's very important. If we look at this position on the board right now, this is a good example.
Speaker 1
37:20
Who is not in their happy place on the board right now?
Speaker 2
37:22
I think both sides are actually pretty happy right now. But the thing is, if you're playing with the Black, because there's, what is a move that sticks out to you to follow basic principles?
Speaker 1
37:33
Basic principles probably bring out the bishop.
Speaker 2
37:36
And then castle the king.
Speaker 1
37:37
And castle the king.
Speaker 2
37:38
Right, exactly, that's correct. And that's what you should do. That's the best way to play the position.
Speaker 2
37:44
Now once you do that though.
Speaker 1
37:45
By the way, I have a vibrating device inside me right now, so I knew that. So my rating is 3400, which is what I believe Stockfish is.
Speaker 2
37:54
No, it's higher. It's like 3800, actually.
Speaker 1
37:56
Is it 38? I think it is. I'm using an earlier version of Stockfish.
Speaker 1
38:00
Okay. Anyway, sorry, you were saying?
Speaker 2
38:02
So, like, that's very basic. But then, if you move the bishop out, and you castle a king, let's just say, bishop e7, play this, you castle. Okay, so now you've done everything with the pieces on the king side.
Speaker 2
38:15
So what would be the next set of... What's the next way to try and develop the pieces?
Speaker 1
38:20
So everything here is pretty strong, except maybe this pawn?
Speaker 2
38:25
I don't know. Okay, but think about the pieces. So by pieces, I mean everything except the pawns.
Speaker 2
38:29
Except the pawns, okay.
Speaker 1
38:34
Probably either bishop or knight on the other side.
Speaker 2
38:38
Yeah, and that is correct. You want to bring out the bishop and the knight. Let's say you go bishop e6.
Speaker 2
38:43
Yeah. I'll castle. Now you can move the knight to either square, it's somewhat irrelevant, but just move the knight. I'll just play
Speaker 1
38:50
knight to c6. What was your random move? Bringing the bishop up?
Speaker 2
38:54
I just moved my rook to
Speaker 1
38:55
the center. Oh, well, what's your unhappy place right now?
Speaker 2
38:58
Okay, so let me move the queen to just follow some basic principles. Okay, Because I want to bring my rooks to the center of the board.
Speaker 1
39:03
Yes.
Speaker 2
39:04
So like in this position, you've pretty much developed all your pieces. There are only 2 pieces that you haven't brought into the game.
Speaker 1
39:10
The queen and the rook. And this you consider to be in the game because of.
Speaker 2
39:16
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 work to see a. And then the middle game begins after that.
Speaker 1
39:27
Got it. So here,
Speaker 2
39:30
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?
Speaker 1
39:44
So you're constantly thinking about the pieces that are not in their optimal placement as you're doing all the other kind of tactics and stuff
Speaker 2
39:50
like that. But that's a basic thing that people can follow. Actually doing pure calculations, like moving 5 or 10 moves in your head, that's not realistic.
Speaker 2
39:58
But trying to use basic logic to figure out what pieces are on squares that look correct is something anybody can do.
Speaker 1
40:05
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?
Speaker 2
40:16
I mean, that's a higher level concept, of course. Like, I'm trying to give a beginner example. That is something that I do think about as well.
Speaker 2
40:24
Like, I try to think about my opponent's pieces. Like, that is basic logic. I think a lot of people these days, at the upper levels of chess, they look at the game as something of pure calculation, and you lose that human element. You're trying to just calculate all these different sequences of moves, and you don't think about the basics.
Speaker 2
40:40
And it's something, it'll be interesting to see what happens with the next generation of kids who become very strong, because that is really how they approach the game. They learn with computers. Whereas like I learned with computers at a certain point, but I did not start off with computers from the get go. So human element still exists in my game.
Speaker 2
40:57
Actually, Magnus, I think, has 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 to our 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.
Speaker 1
41:12
What do you mean by human elements, just basic logic versus raw calculation.
Speaker 2
41:16
So it's like, anybody now will use a computer from the time they start the game. And you use a computer, you look at the evaluations after the game to see how you're doing. But you don't really ever have those moments where you're just, it's you.
Speaker 1
41:30
Or it's
Speaker 2
41:31
just you and your opponent. 1 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 2 humans analyzing a game.
Speaker 2
41:42
It's you and your opponent, 2 peers, and you come up with these human ideas. It's not automatically run back to your room, look with a computer, and oh, I should have played this move, and it's just like winning the game. So that is kind of something that no longer exists in the game of chess, because as I said, there's no reason to analyze with your opponent after the game.
Speaker 1
42:01
Are there ideas that the engine tells you that you can't reverse engineer with logic, why that makes sense, and you start to just memorize it, that's good?
Speaker 2
42:12
Yes. So in the opening, for sure, there's certain positions where moves are playable. And I can even give you an example actually in this Nidorf. We can just set the position up a few moves earlier.
Speaker 2
42:23
You have Knight over on b8, Bishop on c8, and just move the king back to the center, push it back to f8, and pawn to e7. So the pawn in front of the king just pushes back 2 squares. So like here's an example. There's a move here that nowadays humans will play, which is this move pawn to h4.
Speaker 2
42:47
And this is a move that 20 years ago, if someone showed this move to Kasparov, he would just laugh at them. No matter who you were, he would basically say, you're an idiot. What is this move? You're pushing a pawn on the edge of the board.
Speaker 2
42:57
It does nothing. And this is something that's playable, But even if you were to ask me or any other top grandmaster why it's playable or why it's 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
Speaker 1
43:11
It's fine. Or is it good? It's just fine
Speaker 2
43:14
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.
Speaker 2
43:26
I'll push this pawn here and push the pawn forward. Maybe I can put the bishop on G5 and in some situations the pawn guard's a bishop, but I can't give an actual good explanation for why it's a move that makes sense, because it doesn't make sense.
Speaker 1
43:39
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.
Speaker 2
43:50
Right, because they know the computer says it's fine. But I grew up without computers, and so to me, it's you're pushing upon on the edge, it's the opening phase, you don't do things like this, it's just, it looks ridiculous. Now, of course, I have worked with computers long enough that I know, like, I'm not, I know that computers are, computers prove that everything is fine, but still, to me, it does feel wrong.
Speaker 1
44:13
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.
Speaker 1
44:36
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?
Speaker 2
44:57
I highly doubt it. Without major advances in quantum computing, I don't think it's realistic to expect chess to be hard solved. I just, I don't think that will happen.
Speaker 2
45:09
But I don't know. It could happen 20, 30 years maybe, but I think in the near future it's not realistic.
Speaker 1
45:15
Well then let's go up with a pod head follow-up question. Suppose it does get solved, what opening do you think will be the optimal?
Speaker 2
45:23
Well, everything will be a draw for sure. After move 1. For sure.
Speaker 2
45:27
After move 1, yes.
Speaker 1
45:28
For sure. You're absolutely sure of that?
Speaker 2
45:30
Yes, yes.
Speaker 1
45:31
That's, why are you so sure?
Speaker 2
45:33
I'm so sure because when you look at the computer games, you see these decisive results. It's because they played the openings are set. Generally, they can't.
Speaker 2
45:42
They can't for move 1. 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 to computers being able to do whatever they want. I just believe in general, in the openings that are symmetrical, like E4, E5, D4, D5, the computers will draw.
Speaker 2
46:01
And I think the optimal opening, I think e4, e5, knight f3, knight f6, is probably a guaranteed draw. If we have perfect information and we know that chess is solved, e4, e5, knight f3, knight f6, the Russian or the Petrov defense, that will be the optimal strategy.
Speaker 1
46:18
I'm sure of that. So 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 you're always doing this symmetry.
Speaker 1
46:35
But what if chess inherently, there's something about the mathematics of the game that allows for like that thin line that you walk that maintains to the end game, the asymmetry constantly, that there's no move that can bring back the balance of the game. You don't think that exists?
Speaker 2
46:57
I don't think it does. So basically I'm saying E4, E5 I think is a draw. I think D4, D5 is a draw.
Speaker 2
47:02
C4, C5, I think basically it's symmetry. That's-
Speaker 1
47:05
All of it's a draw.
Speaker 2
47:06
I think that's why it's a draw.
Speaker 1
47:08
So it doesn't even matter. Like you're saying if it's solved, most openings will be a draw.
Speaker 2
47:15
Yes. I think e4, d4, c4, and knight f3 for sure will be a draw. Other openings I'm not sure about, but those first 4 possible starting moves, I think chess is a draw.
Speaker 1
47:26
Knight f3, what's the response to knight f3?
Speaker 2
47:29
Probably knight f6 again. Or to make it simple, if I play Knight f3 on move 1, black here can also play d5 on move 1. And normally at some point, white's going to end up playing d4.
Speaker 2
47:44
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 gonna lead to like a forced, forced equality or draw in the game of chess.
Speaker 1
48:01
So Demis Hassabis is the CEO of DeepMind. DeepMind helped create or created AlphaZero. He says that he's also a chess player and he's a fan of chess.
Speaker 1
48:13
And he says the reason, his hypothesis is that the reason chess is interesting as a game is the creative, quote unquote, tension between the bishop and the knight. So like there's so many different dynamics that are created by those 2 pieces. You think there's truth to that? I mean, some of that is just poetry, but is there truth to that?
Speaker 1
48:36
I
Speaker 2
48:36
think it's definitely true when you look at the imbalances that are not like crazy attacking positions. Like 1 thing that Bobby Fischer was really, really good at when he was the world champion is playing end games with a bishop versus a knight. Now, traditionally, we think of the knight being better than the bishop even today in end games, but Fisher proved that there are a lot of end games where a bishop is better than a knight.
Speaker 2
48:55
So I do agree with that statement. It's like the imbalances between like bishops and knights in many positions, you never really know. Like there are many positions where a knight is better than a bishop or knight and bishop are better than 2 bishops or like, it is all the, generally it is the imbalances though, between the bishops and the knights or combinations of the 2 pieces that lead to the most interesting positions. So I agree with that.
Speaker 1
49:18
Interesting positions. What about fun? Is there like aspects that you find fun within the game itself?
Speaker 1
49:23
Not all the stuff around it, but just the purity of the game.
Speaker 2
49:29
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 at the level they're at today. And so the depth and creativity of what they're saying, even, even if it's not like in our language, but in the, in the evaluation, that's where I find a lot of beauty.
Speaker 1
49:59
Oh, that's, that's fun. So like the, the computer is a source, it's a source of creative fulfillment for you.
Speaker 2
50:06
Absolutely. I mean, I think also it's very humbling as well. Because like, you know, when you spend your whole life playing a game and you get pretty good, you think you're pretty good at it. But even like, even for Magnus, I think when we look at it and you see 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.
Speaker 1
50:27
You're known for being a very aggressive player. What's your approach to being willing to take big risks at the chessboard?
Speaker 2
50:35
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.
Speaker 2
50:47
I loved playing openings like the Kings Indian, the Sicilian Eidorff as well when I was a little bit younger. And it's just like, why not try to fight with both colors? Try to fight in every game and win if you can try as hard as you can. Now, 1 of the things is, as you get better and better, players are also better and better prepared.
Speaker 2
51:05
So you have diminished diminishing returns when you play these very aggressive openings like the Kings in here, even even the Dutch, which I played for a while, you can only it only takes you so far and that have been at a point people figure out how to respond to those choices. So I still do play these openings. For example, I played a tournament in St. Louis about 3 weeks ago and I played a great Kings Indian game which I won against Jeffrey Zhang, an American junior player.
Speaker 2
51:29
So I still do play it here and there. But when you start playing it every game, there's a point at which when you lose these games, you just can't, it becomes too much. And I spoke about this in the C-squared podcast where I played the Night Orf and then I played Fabiano Caruana, a very strong American player as well. And he just blew me off the board in like 4 straight games.
Speaker 2
51:47
I'm like, okay, enough, enough of this. I just can't, I can't keep doing it.
Speaker 1
51:50
Because the heat, do you think he prepared for that opening then? Absolutely. Because you see what have, what has my opponent been playing recently?
Speaker 1
51:59
Where's their ideas? And so I'm going to prepare for those ideas that they've been playing with.
Speaker 2
52:02
Exactly, yeah, that's what you do. And also, you have to be very self-critical because for Fabiano, the Nidorf was the 1 opening he did very poorly against, but he worked really hard and he came up with a lot of different ideas and he solved that weakness. What's the role of, you're also known of having
Speaker 1
52:18
a bit of an ego. What's the role of ego in chess? Is it helpful or does it get in the way?
Speaker 2
52:24
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.
Speaker 2
52:30
I know some players are very expressive like myself, like Kasparov and others. There are other people like Anand who don't express it. But then there was a book that I think was released fairly recently where he basically said like he was really angry in his room. He was like banging walls or doing something with chairs.
Speaker 2
52:46
I don't remember the exact story, but he was able to, in public he kept it very buttoned up, but then in private he wasn't. I think you have to have that edge. If you don't have that edge and you don't get upset when you lose games, because you will lose games along the way, then it's impossible to get anywhere near the top. So I think every top player has that ego or extreme confidence that is necessary.
Speaker 2
53:08
If you don't have that, you'll never, I think, get to the top, probably in almost any field, frankly.
Speaker 1
53:12
Do you have to believe you're the best to have the capacity to be the best in the world?
Speaker 2
53:17
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 going into that game.
Speaker 2
53:24
That game, whoever I'm playing, I believe that I can beat them, or I know that I'm gonna beat them, or I'm better than them. For me, it was always about that, whenever I'm in that moment in the game, just knowing that 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 have the same opening strategies. You end up with positions that are very drawish where you reach end games, things of this nature.
Speaker 2
53:49
And so it can also make you very jaded as well after you've been up there for quite a long time.
Speaker 1
53:54
Were there times you were an asshole to someone and you regret it at the chess board or beyond? Yeah, so I think- asking internet questions.
Speaker 2
54:03
Yeah, I mean, this is definitely true. I'm not gonna pretend it isn't. When I was younger, I was very angry when I would lose games on the internet.
Speaker 2
54:10
Many of these stories are specifically from the internet, of course. And I think I look back on it and of course I wish that I had been able to like channel the anger differently. Basically, I think the simple gist of it is I would play Blitz games online and when I lost, I would get angry at my opponents instead of getting angry at myself. Which of course, it's silly because they're playing the game, they're trying to win.
Speaker 2
54:31
Like, why shouldn't they try to beat you? I think for me, like, I'm not happy about that. When I was, when I was a young teenager, getting so angry over these online games and insulting a lot of people along the way,
Speaker 1
54:41
but maybe that paved the way to your streaming career.
Speaker 2
54:43
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.
Speaker 2
54:55
I was able to channel that anger in a way that really helped me improve. So, Do I regret it? On the 1 hand, yes. Of course, I think you don't wanna be like that.
Speaker 2
55:05
On the other hand, where I've gotten as good as I am, if it was different, I'm not so sure. So, mix.
Speaker 1
55:10
Well, then I'll ask you to empathize with somebody else who currently has a me against the world attitude and is helping him, which is Hans Niemann. For several reasons, he has a me against the world attitude and it's helping him, which is Hans Nieman. For several reasons, he has me against the world kind of attitude.
Speaker 1
55:23
Well, let me ask, there's been a chess controversy about cheating and so on that you've covered. People should subscribe to your channel. You're hilarious, entertaining, brilliant, and it's just fun to learn from you. Do you think, as we stand now, Hans ever cheated in over-the-board chess?
Speaker 1
55:44
As things stand now at the beginning of October?
Speaker 2
55:48
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 sheet over the board, there is not, 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.
Speaker 2
56:04
Literally he's caught like using a phone with an earpiece, whatever it might be. That is the only way that there would ever be hard evidence. So as it stands right now, there's a lot of circumstantial evidence. How much of it is legitimate or not remains to be seen.
Speaker 2
56:17
I know people have questioned the statistics. Some people think it's very convincing. Some people think it's complete nonsense. I think I think that right now I'm I'm very undecided.
Speaker 2
56:28
But I do feel that within the next like 3 to 6 months, assuming Hans is able to play over the board and more tournaments, the stats will make it very clear 1 way or the other based on our results, whether it's legitimate or not. I think I think for me, I would say that regardless of whether whether you whether like I believe you cheated or not, he is playing at probably a 20, he's probably at least 2,650, no matter what. Regardless of whether he's cheating or not, he's already at that level, which is very, very high. So I think the stats will bear it out in the next probably, I said 3 to 6 months, probably I would say next 6 to 12 months, whether something happened, but I really don't know.
Speaker 1
57:05
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?
Speaker 2
57:17
So initially I thought that that was actually quite legitimate, but as I found out much more recently, anybody can basically upload this data. So that whole theory, while it seemed very convincing at the time, it simply isn't any statistical evidence in my opinion now. But there are games from some of those tournaments that definitely considering where his rating was look very suspicious in 2020, I would say.
Speaker 2
57:42
Again, that's not the role of like myself to decide or chess.com that's obviously going to be up to FIDE, whether they think that's compelling evidence or not. I think for me, what I would say from an intuitive standpoint is that I've been in this world for a very, very long time. I've seen most of the juniors as they've risen through the ranks, Magnus and many others. And there's always been something about them that has stood out to me.
Speaker 2
58:08
That's been like a brilliant game. They played against someone who's much higher rated. I've just seen it from all the all those players. I never really saw that with Hans Niemann.
Speaker 2
58:17
So it's very difficult for me to sort of, with my own 2 eyes, being in this chess world so long, see things a certain way. And then something that's never happened before is happening. But at the end of the day, it is still possible. It is completely possible that Hans, something clicked at a certain age and he started improving in spite of the fact that the statistics look weird in terms of his rating improvement.
Speaker 2
58:37
So I don't know, I sort of, I think that in 6 to 12 months I'll probably be able to say 1 way or the other with very certain confidence, like whether he should be there or not.
Speaker 1
58:48
Speaking of statistics, I should ask, I'm not sure about this, are you a data scientist?
Speaker 2
58:53
Right, that's a good 1. 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 try to understand what's being said.
Speaker 2
59:04
But 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.
Speaker 1
59:16
And
Speaker 2
59:16
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
Speaker 1
59:28
agree that, like what Magnus I think said, that it is an existential threat to chess. Like this is a very serious problem that's only going to get bigger because it's, you're basically, from a spectator perspective, from a competitor perspective, are not sure that you can trust any of the results.
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