Kind: captions
Language: en
I have anal beads that are communicating
with stockfish via Bluetooth we'll get
to that if you cheat
you play God
you decide when the game is over you can
fake bad moves
you can fake everything you can even if
you're cheating quote unquote the right
way you're gonna lose plenty of games
to avoid getting detected what's the
probability that Hans cheated over the
board against Magnus in St Louis I think
day by day
the evidence is slowly starting to show
more and more that
he's cheated it like like how Magnus
said more than he said and more recently
the following is a conversation with
Levy Rosman also known as Gotham chess
he's a professional chess player and
educator I highly recommend you check
out his YouTube channel called Gotham
chess
this is a Lex Friedman podcast to
support it please check out our sponsors
in the description and now dear friends
here's Levy Rosman
you're known for being able to guess
people's ELO rating so what do you think
just by looking at my face deep into my
eyes
uh what's my ELO rating
here I'll help you I'll I'll do E4 for
the listener
I actually read that stockfish prefers
E4 does it really
I actually didn't know that because it
maximizes the number of tactical options
so that makes sense the variety answer
is 3400 which is I believe stockfish
uh you guessed people's ELO chest rating
what what's that take how hard is it to
do that and like how would you actually
do that like what are telltale signs of
red flags about a person at different
ratings
is there something you look for yeah I
think you can separate it something like
the very first the zero to about eight
nine hundred for simplicity's sake I'm
gonna use the trust.com rating system
because leeches is slightly different it
tends to go to 300 points higher than
chess.com sometimes even four or five
hundred points higher but then it
catches up they catch up around 22 2300
I would say what's chess.com what's lead
chess
can you like yeah so explain what the
difference is and what they are they're
two chess websites uh good starting
point yes chess.com is it it has
obviously the free option where you can
play games you get some sort of puzzles
every single day you get some sort of
lessons every single day but then they
have tiered memberships where you can
pay annually or per month that you can
unlock all the other features
and like what like for training for like
for training puzzles and all that kind
of yeah they have unlimited puzzles but
they also have their biggest selling
point for sure is like a dedicated game
review that it's like very flashy and
sophisticated and the coach will
literally tell you what you did wrong
every single moment the computer
evaluated a mistake but the most
important thing that they have is they
offer International masters Grand
Masters the opportunity to make video
Lesson libraries which hundreds of hours
of anything I can even learn some stuff
on there probably I have anal beads that
are communicating with stockfish via
Bluetooth yeah we will get to that yes
we will get to that uh it's epic it's
actually scary how many people think
that's a real thing by the way which is
the danger of the internet but we yeah
we will get into that but I tend to
believe that people believing a thing
that's hilarious
at scale will make that thing a reality
I will deal on on this I think people
manifest the meme the meme becomes real
so that but that that's I in all walks
of life I I think there is something
about humor
sort of uh being uh
why doesn't why did I I was gonna well
was I I was going to say is I feel like
humor becomes a lubricant for the
trajectory of human civilization and I
don't know why the word lubricant went
into my head which means I understand
yeah but it's very Freudian anyway so uh
to zero to 900 if you're a 1300 player
you were saying if you're not good at
end games you don't understand how to
convert positions that have seven or
eight pieces left on the board you don't
know when you're supposed to activate
your king you don't know how a bishop
outplays a knight with just several
pawns on the board those are all very
important things because it's not just
about
knowing the theoretical end games like
some positions in chess are literally
solved if I showed you a position I
asked what's the evaluation and how do
you win it there's a technique you're
supposed to know that technique and the
coaches on chess.com can help or no yeah
so these lesson libraries it's not like
a live lesson it's pre-recorded training
position walk you through it and then
there's a dynamic Factor as well where
you can practice you can practice the
theoretical and you can practice a
practical game where there's no set
format to do something it's just based
on your previous experience basically
leeches is their entire thing is it's an
open source website that tries to be as
free as possible and operates totally on
donations they don't have any
advertisements they don't have which is
weird because normally in big
competitive settings it's all
capitalistic you have one big entity and
another big entity and they're both
for-profit but in this case the big
argument is well they offer a lot of
things for free you can analyze your
games for free you can you can go in
into leeches's lessons library and do
things for free the comparison that I
always make is chess.com is basically
like having a good personal trainer and
having someone to help you at the gym
leeches says you have to do the all the
stuff yourself so you can combine
YouTube with leeches No One's Gonna
really point you in the right direction
you got to go fully explore on your own
if you want to do it you can I also like
to say can I make a controversial joke
yes okay
Ardent Alicia supporters are like very
angry uh you know only a vegetarian or
or vegan folks because they will tear
you apart and try to convert you as much
as possible did you just did you just
point a large number of of uh haters
onto this uh very podcast is this what
just happened no is there like several
people that were very upset at you right
now no and throwing things okay no
that's always the joke that I've made
because if people have chess.com and I
love all people but I'm just saying
chess.com
patrons do not try to actively convert
folks only chess folks on leechas are
like
you know there's a memechess.com
it started at Lee chess started started
somewhere in red on Reddit Anarchy chess
kind of a oh so leeches is a little bit
of an anarchist organization would you
would you go as far as to say there are
terrorist terrorist extremist
organization
are we going there for legal reasons
that's uh I thought leeches has like
really good analysis like somebody
does it have an engine for analysis of
like games or is that is that an open
source thing that like they both do they
both use stockfish 15. okay and then the
rest is the interface around stock
stockfish that shows it's tough It's
it's the life so chess has a live server
where you and I can play a game against
each other we just both seek and if we
have the same rating we have the same
criteria yep we'll play a game but
there's also reviewing your own games
there's an opening database so you can
see what the most popular Trends are so
leeches is great like I'm I'm sponsored
by charles.com and I will openly say
that but you can't have you're deeply
biased yes okay but I'm also
complimenting the competitor okay but uh
can you play games on leeches or is it
just for analysis yeah yeah you can yeah
so it's the same exact thing so they're
like legitimately competitors not
exactly the same thing but they have the
they're trying to match for features but
you're saying lead chest is more chaotic
and then chess.com is more like
professional yeah I don't know I don't
know if it's chaotic I just know that
it's uh you have to No One's Gonna Hold
Your Hand if you
if if you go to to leeches you
absolutely can you can play games you
can analyze your games but you have to
discover yourself the whole point of
shells.com is to make the journey as
simple as possible uh
but I also firmly believe you can't have
any sort of growth in chess without a
chess.com or a chest 24. what time oh
what's chess 24. so just 24 was another
live server with some lesson libraries
and so on but uh they were I think the
process was they were bought by play
Magnus
so let's play Magnus play magnets that's
Magnus Carlson's thing he doesn't own it
he owns some stake in it I think nine or
ten percent they owned a bunch of Chess
companies including chess 24 but now it
seems like they're either merging or
basically getting acquired by chess.com
got it and then play Magnus it's an app
also where you can play Max different
levels but there's also the educational
stuff yes okay the for-profit chess
companies make the option for Grand
Masters to make a living to make chess
and esport yeah leeches is great it
doesn't put on any events there's no
commentary so you you can have both in
theory and probably some controversy is
good does chess.com like sponsor you to
help you out in some way like what's the
connection between your videos and
streams and so on in chess.com like are
they supporting people in that way or no
my content they don't necessarily I just
make whatever I want like I don't have
I'm not sense like if they do something
stupid I will call out their leadership
it's not like but uh I to have the logo
up like in my YouTube videos yeah that's
just that kind of stuff yeah so anyway
back to uh I mean that was really
helpful I was confused about all that
um the
guessing people's rating
so the thing you mentioned about the end
game if you don't know what the hell
you're doing with the end game what does
that mean about you writing if you don't
know how to finish with just a few
pieces on the board you could be my
rating
and game is tough that's the
self-deprecating humor we tuned in for
uh games are hard man yeah you can't
have there's a reason Magnus is the best
it's because seven hours into a game
when everybody's given up he's still
squeezing juice out of the fruit so
that's the way I would describe it so
that's not good source of information if
you no within the first 15 moves
generally you can tell because you can
tell how well they played the opening so
how well they knew
what they were supposed to memorize what
they were supposed to play and then how
they react to peace interactions
so if they are faced with a move that a
more advanced player would deal with
very swiftly because there's kind of a
natural response that gives you
information if they move their King when
they're in check when they didn't have
to that's a massive giveaway
some people just think oh I'm in check
so I have to move my king okay so it's
like how direct the response of your
play is to the danger so like if you're
more moving like multiple pieces at a
time meaning like you're moving like the
pieces are like tied together in
interesting ways and then okay
okay like what about like uh what about
the opening can you tell also because a
lot of people can memorize openings
right yeah but
takes two to tango
so you could memorize a bunch of stuff
but if you're 900 and I'm 900 your
rating is fluctuating all over the place
in the in this podcast I feel yeah Solve
13 900 yeah you can memorize things I'm
gonna play some crap and
you can't play the way you you memorize
them because I have to respond to you in
certain ways so you will either respond
the way you think you're supposed to
respond and that will probably be
incorrect or now you have to figure out
how to deal with the fresh position oh
so the 900 will reflect itself in both
cases yeah yeah I wonder if actually so
uh do you know your current rating or no
or your top rating what was your topic I
know both my current
ELO like over the board now is 23 20 my
Peak was 24 30. oh cool so can you play
like a 900 player like can you
force yourself yeah so you can like
given that you've guessed a lot of Elo
ratings can you kind of emulate that
it's kind of an interesting question
yeah yeah of course before I was doing
YouTube and twitch I was teaching kids
so I had to not only did I have to play
at their rating I also had to play and
sometimes even behave and explain things
in a way that the kid could understand
so absolutely yeah I think that's what
contributed to the growth of the channel
frankly I kind of understood how
beginners thought about the game so yeah
you did
um you taught people chess you coach
people for for many years I guess in New
York yeah New York what did you learn
about the way people learn from that so
like
how how do people that were successful
at getting good at chess quickly
what were the some of the commonalities
some of the patterns that you saw
obsession
yeah what does Obsession look like
I would say it's Obsession and also
and also love of the game so if you're
bored you don't want to watch a show you
want to boot up chess.com or leeches
just for just so I don't get flamed by
any anyone in the audience uh and you
just so you're saying Lee chess people
are the ones that would attack
aggressively they're the kind of
probably the chest 24 people oh that's
another
so there's nothing I didn't know I
thought chest 24 was part of the
chess.com well now yes uh cult or tribe
or whatever terms we want to use no I'm
sure there's even more places to play
live there always have been more places
to play live but uh just like I'm leech
has dominated
no it's just 24 is this is rough for
live interface of course they have good
courses and everything but yeah I got it
I got it and some are even good people
or whatever yeah that quote goes okay
like uh Obsession that means
the way they look at the board when
they're bored
how quickly do they return to the chess
board that kind of stuff just like how
many hours a day they want to spend yes
they spend and wants to spend some kids
definitely have a talent
of course there's this eternal debate
Talent versus hard work
I don't necessarily know if it's a
talent for chess specifically but it's a
talent for
I'm sure there's some sort of spatial
visualization in your mind your
you start picking up what squares are
controlled by your pieces and opponent's
pieces faster your memory is much
stronger so you you don't just learn
openings like we discussed you learn
literal patterns such as oh I remember
this from two tournaments ago I remember
this from a game I played just yesterday
and you just keep playing and playing
and playing but I think the one
commonality I think I've seen in all
kids it's uh Obsession you have to play
a lot and I've seen kids who are
brilliant kids like if you give them a
page of tactics puzzles they saw faster
than anybody they can pick things up
here super fast they're a pleasure to
teach they go to a tournament disaster
they can't handle the anxiousness they
can't handle that silent face-to-face
war with
another six-year-old they can't even
handle there's also trash dog that's
like one sentence by a kid can throw off
your prize student and I've seen kids
just totally disintegrate I've seen also
my students bully other kids corn my
student wasn't that strong
but they're verbal Warfare which is not
allowed but goes unnoticed it's not even
verbal Warfare like just going like like
a little little like like facial
expressions you would make at the board
hey I didn't even think about that
that's pretty creepy
the intensity not creepy that's not the
right word but there's an intensity in
that silence over the board
like you can probably hear stuff like
just like it's super quiet it's like a
library yep and then
there's just a tension that builds
you can hear the breathing yeah and at
the highest level
both sides are involved in a battle that
they both foresee 99 of the time that's
the scary part is that you both see the
exact same thing it's very rare you play
Move It I didn't see it it's that I
misevaluated it I saw the move could be
played but I missed something three or
four moves deeper you play that move and
suddenly you're excited and I'm nervous
but all of a sudden you make an
inaccuracy and now the tide shifts right
we could be on totally different planes
throughout the game or we could be on
the same plane throughout the game so
it's it's really fascinating it yeah so
your thought is when you see a move that
to you seems sub often when you start to
think
what was that
we start to try to make sense of that
did you miscalculate or did they
miscalculate
what isn't that what Magnus is really
good at is taking people away from like
making sub-optimal moves to take him
away from
the known
uh openings or is that unfair to say
yeah he gets
part of his really dominant reputation I
think from
not letting people get into Ultra
theoretical positions
he just won this tournament this online
tournament and he said he had a young
player strategy he had an anti sorry a
anti-young player strategy what's that
mean it means that by move seven or
eight you go to the database no games
the kid is on their own they have to
swim on their own yeah and they have to
deal with the Strategic complexities of
the position which he just he gets and
he might get from just an enormous
database within his brain of historical
games that have similar structures or
just sheer Genius Like We we won't know
yeah it's a mix of the two for sure the
younger you are you can't remember a
game played in 1951 and some bar in the
Soviet Union but he does because he read
a book once or a magazine once and he
just remembers just remembers he
remembers the structure which it's just
it's not fair it's crazy right what do
you think makes them if we can sort of
link on it what do you think makes them
so good I think it's the memory and I
think it's
he just seems to get the game better
than anybody else that's the best way I
I can describe it in sports you have
reaction time you have strength you have
but also as he's now evolving it's
stamina
so there have been games that if you put
two other 2750 rated players or world
top 10 players they would have drawn the
game the game would have ended the game
nobody would have won it
you put Magnus as one of the aggressors
in that game
suddenly the chance of Victory doubles
from five percent to ten percent weird
what's that about because it was a game
six against netball league right uh
isn't stockfish say that it's supposed
to be a draw so 0.00 does mean a draw
sometimes but other times it means since
the joke I always make it means the
stockfish is out for a smoke break it
can you explain the joke and can you
explain 0.00 yes so when so stockfish
will show an evaluation
which determines whether the position is
equal slightly better for one side
slightly better for the other side or
completely winning
you can
0.00.2 minus 0.2 that's all within a
balance you can say okay black has a
little sprinkle of activity something
white has that but if it's zero zero
zero
it could be literally a dead draw
meaning theoretically just impossible to
win but oftentimes what that means is
the smoke break joke is Cypress doesn't
know there is so much complexity within
the position the combinations of
different moves that are acceptable and
okay it cannot evaluate correctly
wow so even the end games are tough for
stockfish which is why Magnus won that
game because there was practical value
remaining it wasn't a dead draw he
continued to ask questions over the
course of six or seven hours he would
sacrifice a pawn he would sacrifice
another Pawn to damage the structure
evaluation stayed the same
because a machine could stop him
but not young and that was one of my
favorite re that that game ruined my
whole day by the way it destroyed
because yeah I made so many plans that
day it completely ruined my day but it
was a very worthy recap you were just
all in you watched that whole game I
watched the whole game and the world
championship was a crazy time because I
wanted to be first with the recap video
but I also wanted to be best with the
recap video so I spent all the hours of
the games watching all the live
broadcasts and getting all the
information all the variations and
trying to put that into the recap it was
it was a lot of fun it was a huge
adrenaline done when it was all over so
just for people who don't know that's
the most recent World Championship
um so you had a I mean that that was a
draw after draw after dry after dry yeah
and it was It was kind of boring in that
way or maybe
our draws
is there like non-boring Parts within
the draw to you when you were like just
studying it carefully for me yes
for the average viewer no
that's the truth especially when the
game itself is not that exciting when
Magnus plays a strange move on move nine
or ten that hasn't ever been played
and then Jan has to try to exploit it
and he fails and no attack builds up and
they Shuffle their pieces for three
hours my favorite thing is when the
commentators like I don't know why he
did that I wonder why he did that like
yeah when the commentators are confused
that's my as a as a person who's just a
spectator just like
that's that's interesting because then
you the most interesting part is about
listening to the commentators who I
guess themselves might be Grandmasters
uh all yeah they are trying to I guess
just like nepo just like Magnus tried to
figure out what's the idea here what are
you thinking that's cool that's that's
that's an interesting part of the game
but other than that
it's it seemed um
yeah I was sure this is just gonna keep
being a draw especially in that
situation so it's almost it seems almost
remarkable that his uh Magnus was able
to put pull out a win in game six and
after that
at least Magnus said that that that ends
it because now Knapp was gonna have to
take more risks and that opens it up to
Pure chest and then
um who was it uh Steve Prefontaine said
like whenever it's whenever there's a
race is down to like pure guts then
that's when I win it there was also a
conversation about eons
first half second half in any tournament
in the first half he's just brilliant on
fire you could even say he was out
playing Magnus but the entire
conversation before the match was young
slows down and at the first sign of a
loss or a setback
the match might fall apart and that was
the worst way to lose there was
literally no worse way and it just got
worse from there and there I mean it was
one move mistakes and
but he's back
won the candidates again he's going to
play for the world championship so who
you got who who you got what is what is
this swing terminology
can we like somehow edit that into a
more sophisticated with the British
accent type of phraseology okay who do
you think will win that match
I think it's 55.45 but I don't know
so it's close it's very close Okay you
can make both cases you could say ding
you could say Jan has been here before
you can say to the world championship
stage he knows what it's like to have a
training camp and so on and so forth his
playing Styles very but you can also say
dingly ran is one of the most
stable
unemotional chess players and ding
oftentimes goes from down to up so in
the candidates he lost to yawn in the
very first game a 14 Round tournament he
got demolished in the first game I'm
sure he was suffering from jet lag the
flight he he came to Spain like two days
before the games began which was crazy
to me and he got second place by the end
there's chances of finishing in the top
two were like two percent after that
first round game people wrote him off
completely so he doesn't go from top
down he goes the opposite way and if he
loses he might come back but the truth
is I don't know the truth is it's it's
going to be an interesting match and
it's also disappointing we're not going
to get Magnus in it yeah what do you
think about him stepping away from uh
the world championship are you a
romantic about the World Championships
no I'm not a romantic about anything I
don't think I I can't imagine what dark
that went dark quickly I don't think I'm
sophisticated enough to be a romantic I
think I uh you know I I taught chess and
now I make YouTube videos I'm not
qualified on the subject of Romanticism
but I you don't think it's a beautiful
game chess yeah no I think I I think it
is a beautiful there you go I got you
yeah is that is that considered being a
romantic yeah I was seeing the beauty in
the you can be like Bach and seeing the
math and the music so you can see the
beauty
the magic I think I see beauty in
certain types of chess for sure not in
all chess so I'll partially romantic
part-time romance yeah yeah so what I
mean what what do you feel about Magnus
stepping away from the world
championships
disappointing but understandable can you
still man his case what what's what's
understandable about it to you
I don't think it's as prestigious as it
could be I don't think the world
championship yeah yeah why does Magnus
still sign everything as world champion
then that's a good point that that he
did just put out a statement and he did
but he does it everywhere else too does
he really yeah like world champion right
world champion I don't know World
Championship World chess champion maybe
it's just because he he he wanted but he
thinks that the journey to the top ones
again to maintain the status quo has
lost its appeal well you know what the
example that I like to I like to make I
I'm a big fan of UFC so we've never
really seen with the exception of George
St-Pierre
walking and and could be but khabib was
kind of a different story walking away
from
a belt at the absolute Zenith of their
career but also in the UFC Champions are
extremely well taken care of and the
Champions have some of the best some of
the best lives of course you can argue
not all Champions you can say some of
the lower weight divisions yes but what
I'm saying is a lot of them get all the
sponsors they get massive massive
paydays they're International
celebrities I don't think chess has that
in fact the world championship of Chess
prize fund has not changed much in like
40 years so you could probably make more
money on uh on YouTube yes playing
randos not randos but other having fun
and playing challenging really
challenging games playing other super
Grand Masters like and ad hoc events uh
or maybe a little bit organized events
but not the world championship yeah and
still and still have a lot of fun make a
lot of money
um get everybody excited all that kind
of stuff yeah so for Magna specifically
and we're using him because he's the
world champion if you tally if he wins
every tournament that he plays in over
the course of a year which is really not
even that crazy of an estimate because
that's really how it seems sometimes
yeah I don't know how much money that is
I haven't tallied but if he dedicated an
entire year to being managed on social
media and doing various things and
growing all his Brands and getting
sponsor deals I think he would make five
times more than being the world champion
which is crazy yeah but money isn't
everything I know that's that's totally
available dedicate their whole life to
winning the Olympics the Olympics is a
funny it's an interesting one too
because
like I didn't even watch the the
Olympics as carefully as I usually do
this year yeah yeah neither it's it's
really strange I'm not sure why that is
when during covid
I'm not sure that's that was weird I
don't know if it's losing its magic part
of it is also the people that own the
Olympics and the way they distribute it
they make it a little bit more difficult
to watch like it should in my opinion it
should all be just available on YouTube
and
uh easily accessible it's like the
difference between
like uh SpaceX and and uh some other
organ like even NASA just SpaceX is
better at streaming their launches and
commentating them and it they've made
NASA better as well but just like the
ability it sounds ridiculous but
making it more frictionless for people
to watch get excited to share all that
kind of stuff yeah like I'm not exactly
sure where
the magic
like balances between the The Classy
traditional World Championships and the
kind of
dramatic exciting streamer world
and it feels like for for the World
Championships to be relevant they have
to find that balance
yeah well this recent one had
I was it's pretty good commentating yeah
no I I'm not I'm not even necessarily
talking about myself there was a lot of
that was the worst part for me
you did amazing yeah I appreciate that
it was a lot of uh I was a big arms race
so every
major chess platform try to get one
super Grand Master
you name it they were they were
basically involved and to to go back to
that point yeah I the big question is
money and if if Magnus is not motivated
by money if the price went for the next
World Championship was 10 million
dollars would he play it if he says no
Then it must be something else it must
just be a matter of
something's not worth it it's not worth
you got to take him with his word and
his word is like
there's too much stress to the little
sample play yeah like I want to play
many more times yeah he wants to play
more he wants to kill him yeah exactly
yeah more shorter games like where you
can
um increase the possibility of Pure
Chess
whatever the heck that means if we can't
go back to the first carp of Kasparov
match which they have to stop due to
health concerns I mean the guy went down
five nil and it was first to six wins
and draws didn't count so draws didn't
amass to the total score there was no
best of system so what happened there
the match went something like seven
eight months Kasparov started making a
comeback after being down five nothing
he was five three and they called it off
they called it off they said both
players are in poor health conditions
because far of stormed down yelled that
this is a farce and but the match was 50
games long it would even more maybe I
made a video and I don't even remember
how many games it was it was so long can
you imagine Bobby Fischer wanted
something almost as extreme draw Stone
Calendar's first one to ten wins and if
it's nine nine
the world champion retains his title so
you have to beat the world champion 10-8
that's the only way so you don't like
that
but I it's just grueling I don't know
maybe I like it for the YouTube Recaps
but do I like it for the players do I
like it for general public no sure yes
three four hours right you imagine your
favorite tennis match was six months
long
what are we doing yeah yeah there's
still a magic to the world championship
I wish they could make it some
interesting
they make it work somehow
but Matt I think Magnus is really
challenging fee day and everybody else
to step up and try to figure that out
which is great ultimately
um who would you say is the greatest of
all time
can you can you make the case imagine
casparov can make the case for casparov
can you make the case for Magnus Carlsen
uh Bobby Fischer
tall
in my opinion you can make a case for
Magnus Gary and Bobby Fischer I'm not
one of the folks that's like I mean
capablanca was brilliant you can argue
steinits was brilliant but as
uh I think I think it was it's probably
Kasparov and Magnus has a chance to
overtake it
so the longevity is really important to
you when you're thinking about this yes
I think so I think Magnus is very very
close like it's it's extremely close
what would be the magic
you gotta get that sixth one
I'm just kidding so the World
Championships matter
it's kind of like basketball right Rings
it's all comes down to how many rings
did this person win what about well
basketball doesn't have this the number
of years is number one
right like uh rating sorry yeah uh like
there's a there is a which is what
Magnus really likes is like there is a
nice system of raiding of who is ranked
number one and has to do not with some
championships or low sample tournaments
it has to do with General game after
game after game helps estimate more
accurately the ELO rating so yeah he's
been world number one for I think 11
years right which is still less than
because Gary was world number one for 20
years yeah which is which is quite wild
but still lower rating I think than
Magnus now right yeah I think rating in
general has sort of allegedly it got
inflated yeah is that true is this true
to that I think so I don't I can't speak
to how exactly it happened but it also
happens online if you go back just three
or four years I think some of the best
Blitz players on let's say shows.com
were 27 2800 and now they're 3200 I
think it's just sort of what happens but
I
I don't exactly know uh I will mention
that there was a very strange change not
exactly sure when the year was in fide
so over the board chess where if you
were
under the age of 16 or 18 years old one
of those two
and you were below 2300
okay your rating change Factor was three
to four times higher
so just imagine that means Magnus has a
rating change factor of of let's say one
I have a reading change Factor also of
one anybody over the rating 2400 has the
same rating change Factor uh what is uh
the rating change Factor so if you win
yeah there's a formula and basically
let's say at the very base level five
point change if your rating change
factor is one you beat somebody you gain
five points
those kids who were under 18 and under
2300 the rating change Factor was four
so their ratings were going out four
times higher and four times like up and
down compared to normal folks and there
was a there was one teenager in the US
in particular who in one month
played a bunch of tournaments with his
rating change Factor
and became nearly rated 2640 which is
top 50 in the world it was just a random
teenager from the United States he
became a grand master ultimately but he
bled like 90 points down because his
rating was so inflated and this the k-40
exists now I mean you have many kids who
out of nowhere 2100 2100 2400 after you
know one good month
like what so that's interesting that's
like uh similar to like how Tick Tock
inflates your virality
early on doesn't
well yeah like I I and well at least the
rumor is like they want you to get
engaged and I thought there was even
artificial likes and so on that they
want you to get that dopamine addiction
so maybe they want to throw you if
you're really passionate about Chess
they want you to throw you to the Sharks
by artificially inflating you inflating
your rating and maybe that gets you into
the game much more intensely Maybe
fair I wonder how many like backdoor
feeding meetings there are with cigars
and so that that was uh the factors
determined by who who does the the ELO
rating who changes this stuff yeah
who knows it's probably those Lee chess
anarchists exactly I think they wanna
I think they wanna they wanna stay away
from that stuff but so there's a guy
named Hans Neiman yep
and uh he beat Magnus Carlsen recently
yeah it has been already what is it was
it August September 4th oh it was
September
so he beat him twice right recently once
is the allegations
the by the internet that Hans Neiman
cheated and then the second time
uh Magnus played a few moves and
forfeited
and resigned well there's actually so
there's three okay sorry no no yeah can
we go through this yes yes yes so they
play a live Esports event in Miami
Miami Beach yes Eden Rock that's where I
actually interviewed Magnus yeah that's
where that was
Oh by weird circumstance I found myself
in Miami unrelated to chess event
and uh yeah it was a very dramatic event
for me for various reasons one of which
the camera stopped working halfway
through the conversation so I thought
yeah I saw that I also side note I
really respect how you write comments
pin them at the top you add time stamps
you're like very true professional I am
the complete opposite on YouTube when
I'm off the camera so I dig in the mud
from when I started on YouTube in 2020
I in June like May June 2020 I had no
subscribers so I got to a million in a
year I had a lot of people analyzing my
every move all of my small flaws and I I
love getting hate comments
because you pin you pin is it the comet
of Shame that's what it was it's been
named over the years by by folks I never
called it that but yeah it's it's pin of
Shame and it's a shame yes it's been
tough because now people pretend to
write hate comments just to get
attention so like anything the public
ruin the good thing
but it started that way it started with
people just shredding me to bits calling
me spin-offs of this and that and um
I think I'm I'm a human more than I am a
Creator an influencer an attention
seeker like I'm just a person so to me
even at the size of 1.6 million
subscribers now September 2022 I don't
understand that I've gotten big and that
I shouldn't do this stuff and that I
should be Beyond it or I shouldn't be
checking my social media as much as I do
and interacting one-on-one I'm still
very much a human being and my guilty
pleasure my way of killing time if I'm
not laying on the couch and playing some
jazz Blitz Games off stream is I just
interact with people who say nice things
and who say horrible things and I really
like to get into the head of the people
who say the terrible things now
sometimes you can sometimes they are
truly Trolls but sometimes people just
they just they just really hate you so
what's the successful what's a
successful interaction with the person
that's uh trolling you what's like at
the end of that Hero Journey that you
were uh yeah partaking in what's what's
like what's the top of the mountain look
like is the troll conquered and broken
mentally not no not meant I don't wanna
I don't want to defeat I I honestly
sometimes somebody writes a very long
comment I'll just I'll respond with a
question mark
yeah oh so you're you're you see each
other's like like a brother and sister
you're gonna travel together on this
journey of deep meaning like
introspection what does this mean yeah
I've had people write
I can't quote now but something about my
Persona my behavior this and that and I
just like respond to them and I say hey
it sounds crazy that a large Creator
might do something like this but this
kind of goes back to you you speak to
folks on a very respectful way if you
make a mistake you completely own up to
it so I have this sometimes these
one-on-one interactions where I say I
think you're reading too much into this
I think you're kind of you don't
understand maybe some of my humorous
sarcasm as such so you form this opinion
that I'm this kind of a person this and
that and now you're sort of anything I
do you're trying to attach to that
reasoning and here you are writing this
lengthy essay of why nobody should watch
my content and sometimes people go you
know what I think you have a point maybe
I should relax a little bit yeah I would
love I would love to sort of interview
and understand
the lives of the the folks that post
that kind of stuff I mean they're human
beings they have interesting Journeys
also I think they often don't realize
I think they don't realize their comment
will be read by anybody especially you
maybe they think like they also don't
realize you're a human being I feel like
that's yeah it's it's so interesting to
watch it
like uh some guy because I posted on
Twitter for like a minute uh that I'm
talking to you and asking for questions
I I deleted that tweet because
95 of the people were talk about
cheating talk about the cheating all
right I got it thank you this is not
going to be helpful at all so I was like
all right but in that time like there's
one comment which I'm it's hilarious to
me that you found that one comment the
one comment says like this seems like a
waste of time or something like why lame
guest lame guests yes lame guess and
then used
like responded something like with a
question mark yeah yeah I wrote wow my
lame guests let's talk about this yeah I
was like why am I a lame guest and he
responded he responded even after you
deleted this what do you say he said he
doesn't know what value I would bring
because I just make videos about chess
games yeah and that's true you've had
some absolutely brilliant people on but
I also looked at this gentleman's
profile and he his
he was one of the folks that put things
about his family and God and His
politics in his Twitter bio and I
started thinking
maybe I said something in some video and
I made a joke about
religion or something just some offhand
five second thing somewhere that someone
turns me into just an absolute outcast
in their household they can no longer
watch me and that has happened yeah that
has happened I'll record a 30 minute
video and I'll make a joke about
something and some phrasing and that's
it I've lost the viewer forever and they
will let me know they will write me an
email and I just don't think people
should be that serious
yeah there's some of that because I'll
I've seen people say that sometimes
about me but I see it more with others
they'll say uh you know I used to be
like Joe Rogan guess this uh yeah I used
to be a huge fan of Joe Rogan until he
said this right it's like one is
um first I do wonder if you were ever
really a big fan that's that's one
question mark I have but the other is
like I think when you should be more
lenient with each other
in terms of how much stupid shit we say
and and you know if you actually
I wish people were able to sort of
introspect on their own
on the OWN on the stupid shit they say
themselves like to have a little bit of
empathy like I wish there was a way to
read all the emails you've ever written
and just to see or maybe do a search
engine for all the stupid shit you've
said in emails in the past and like
summarize it and to reveal it to
yourself that like
you have bad days you have good days you
have emotional days
uh you have stoic days you have
sometimes you have like uh you take very
different political views than you do in
other days and it's like it's all over
the place and if you're a Creator if
you're putting stuff out all the time
you're gonna have those and you're
you're still
you're still full like complex bag of
emotions and thoughts and ideas and
contradictions and all that like you
shouldn't judge a person by a single
statement and even if when you do you
should try to infer the best possible
interpretation of that statement I feel
like that
that's just a healthier way to interact
with the world than with other humans
it's like I wonder what's the best
possible
interpretation of the thing they just
tweeted or they said
like what
let's let's imagine that the person
saying those words is actually a really
good human being and what do they mean
when they said
that thing about anal beads
so good for so long yeah right
uh or what whatever it is like you know
they didn't mean to be offensive
to the sexuality of a certain group
they're just talking about they're
talking shit about anal B it's like
they're not uh like sometimes it's humor
sometimes it's actually genuinely
uh embodying like a political viewpoint
and like walking with it thinking
through it for a few days like
like taking it seriously empathizing not
just for a brief moment but for a time
like walking with an idea and allowing
yourself to express it like playing
doubles out I do that all the time with
yourself or with myself yeah in
conversation I do too and I find I have
to say I'm playing Devil's Advocate like
you have to be very explicit but with
myself I'll just do it
in my head like I have different voices
like you know uh obviously it just in
I've been getting so much information so
many thoughts
in all the complexities of the war in
Ukraine for example and all the
different voices within Ukraine I just
interviewed hundreds of people and they
have very different perspectives
in nuanced ways about the War uh some
are full of hate some are full of love
like hate for the other love for their
own country love for family and
tradition all of it it's a beautiful mix
and I have to walk
I have to like carry those ideas in my
head and empathize with them deeply and
then I have to listen to people that
live elsewhere that live in India they
have a very different perspective
there's a lot of people in India that
have a very different perspective the
people in Ukraine and so I don't know
and some of that will bleed out into the
thoughts I expressed publicly and
um
like when people judge you harshly for
it it
first of all me as a human being is
psychologically difficult
uh but also it makes me less
willing to be fragile
I still try to be strong enough to be
fragile in front of the camera just say
like say things that are on my mind even
if I know it's going to
create uh
people that are going to be like
ruthlessly negative towards me so I
tried to wear my heart on my sleeve and
still try to be fragile but it's harder
you're going to pay a psychological cost
like like I'm you know in some sense I
try to be tough but like I could be a
softy in that in like certain certain
like attacks can get to me
so I'm surprised that they don't get I
mean do does some negativity get to you
or is this the way you deal with it by
responding uh like that's that guy's
saying
like what value does talking to let me
add to the world yeah no but that was I
mean that was so good I was looking at I
was thinking at various moments ever you
went to jump in and I was I was kind of
letting letting you speak one of the
things I wanted to mention was it's
significantly simpler to talk about
Chess than it is to talk about some of
the things you talk about and you have a
big responsibility because you have to
absorb information like a sponge
but you also then need to present it in
a way where you potentially have an
opinion while trying to be fair to
everybody and you're talking about
things that will literally never please
everybody just literally what else are
you going to talk about some issues that
are going to get out there into the
and people are going to watch it the
eyes right the years of of millions of
people and not everybody is going to be
satisfied and these are issues where
people are going to be much more likely
to speak up in all sorts of ways
tremendous support or tremendous hatred
vitriol and God knows what else yeah you
you it's one of the reasons I'm I'm
Blown Away to even be sitting here
frankly because up until a few months
ago you weren't talking to you know you
I'm not saying you weren't talking to
but you hadn't spoken to chess players
you were speaking to people who were
doing much more substantial things in
the world I I appreciate the humility
there
just to me is incredible it's a
beautiful game but I think the reason
comments hurt
is not I mean they hurt no matter what
to me like not to me because I'm in a
simpler space
so if it's chess based criticism
it doesn't hit as hard no if you had a
podcast about
anal beads no I'm just I'm launching
this if you had a podcast watching a new
podcast photography you gotta you gotta
realize like it wouldn't it wouldn't be
the same way you talk about potentially
existential things you talk about uh
cyber you know things things in cyber
security or or AI or people who are
massive uh heads of companies that are
just inherently going to be a bit more
controversial so that I can't imagine
being in your shoes because you have so
many complex emotions about situations
where you may not necessarily agree with
everything that someone has said
publicly but you still invite them for a
conversation because they're a human
being it's totally different likes I
don't know I not the way I experience it
to me I think what hurts
is it's not even on my because I'm super
self-critical usually way more than the
internet can be it's that like human
beings can be cruel to each other so
like the reason it hurts for some reason
is like this almost like this
disappointment in people they don't give
each other a chance so in that sense the
negativity doesn't have to be about
Ukraine or geopolitics it could be about
the silliest of things I said and like
to me it's like why why be mean to each
other in a context where the mean
doesn't
like it's out of place because I for
example there is like a gaming culture
where they just talk shit to each other
Non-Stop
I think it's more
acceptable there it seems to fit it
seems to be funnier there in the like uh
when streamers talk shit to each other
I've been listening to several streamers
recently and it's like it somehow Works
a little better even if they're just
like cruel to each other it makes more
sense
um but I think what people are genuinely
trying to educate or to help and so on
and you still get the shitty comments I
don't know it makes me sad
no it doesn't it it doesn't make me
it doesn't make me sad I
think part of that is also the way I was
brought up so I was
I skipped kindergarten so I was always
the smallest kid
and you're picked on
I was picked on and then I did picking
so I had kind of both in my life I kind
of know I went home from summer camp
crying
and I also made a kid cry once in fourth
grade so I had the balance and a
physical or mental abuse
or both verbal verbal no I didn't beat
anybody up I was Tiny I think the kid in
the younger grade was bigger than I was
and he still broke him because I was an
ass yeah I so I had to use my mental
Warfare I had to use my words I had to
be and growing up I my parents blew when
I was super young and I played chess so
all things that make you super
self-trustworthy like you believe your
first instinct you don't listen to what
other people tell you and if people give
you advice say okay I'm gonna think
about that I'm not going to go in and do
that I wasn't impressionable you
couldn't convince me to do something
that stuck to this day my wife has had
to deconstruct some of my stubbornness I
didn't even realize was incredible
stubbornness it's just something that
you you brought up with so to me that
stuff doesn't bother me and it's it's so
the voices of others don't shake you
quite they can't mentally
um shake your like psychological
stability no they they haven't I I think
when it got probably at its worst point
was in combination with being unable to
perform well in over the board play but
that was also self-driven I wasn't
performing poorly because I was getting
comments
but because I was performing poorly the
comments got to me more
the cycle was sort of in the opposite
direction and that that was probably the
most frustrating out people have said
some vile things to me you know about my
whole Indonesia thing oh this is good I
was just gonna give the anarchist and
Lee chess all right let's go what's the
Indonesian things yeah the way you said
okay maybe we don't want to talk about
it no no but let's let's talk no it's
it's it's totally fine I who did you
kill I didn't I I was gonna say I wish
but I'm not even sure I can make a joke
like that I
uh so the Indonesia thing was I was
streaming
chess on chess.com I might add
uh and I got booted up a 10 minute game
just a random account from Indonesia
that was the flag now mind you on
these websites you can pick your flag
can be from wherever you don't it's not
geotracing you can change it I was like
okay I come from Indonesia and as always
I looked at the account because it was a
Untitled high rated account
and look through the games
win rate was suspiciously High average
accuracy was suspiciously High
okay I think this is a cheater I said it
out loud it's not the first time I
played cheaters on stream
and I saw okay I'm still going to play
Let's see what happens
it was not crazy suspicious but
definitely suspicious a few critical
moments where I just clearly thought I
had a good position and then the person
or the bot played some move that just
killed my hopes and I lost
it's like okay I lost and uh I wrote to
the chess.com Fairplay team like behind
the scenes I wasn't even saying anything
publicly on stream and uh guy got banned
it was cheater
so that night
oh right before I'm going to sleep
because Indonesia is 12 hours ahead of
New York
go my Twitter
what the hell is going on I see hundreds
of responses to my recent tweets Levy
you gotta check Facebook man you gotta
check Facebook like so you got here's a
link
so
allegedly that account belonged to an
older gentleman
and his son made a Facebook post that
said
my dad played a big streamer in chess
Gotham chess and Gotham got mad he lost
to my dad so his community Mass reported
my dad and he was banned for cheating
oh it went viral oh no did you know that
in Indonesia has the fourth largest
population
in the world I didn't know I learned it
the hard way interesting tens of
thousands of DMS every second Wow
Instagram DMS because I had my DMs open
I was never afraid of that stuff uh my
YouTube videos went from 99 of vote down
vote
50 50. oh wow they swarmed myself all
negative oh no all play him again you I
I mean I don't know how much swearing
there is on this podcast but I mean it
was just all sorts of all the fucking
swearing uh they
just everything ruthless The Vicious
they were gonna kill me they were going
to rape my family they were going to
they were contacting people I followed
on Instagram they were contacting them
and telling them crazy things it was I'm
not joking it was tens of thousands of
people every minute it was unbelievable
and I didn't know what to do because the
guy cheated I was in the right yeah
people how certain were you that he
cheated 100 okay 100 I'm okay I don't
know if you can say 100 but suggest.com
had also had a suspicion they what if
they have like good they have like good
detection algorithms yes Danny wrench
would be able to I legitimately know
nothing about the behind the scenes
because it's only kind of tech people
but uh what one thing I did not realize
was that this account whether it was the
sun playing or the father playing we
will not know we don't know who played
it could have been the sun it could have
been the dad covering for him whatever
but
at some point that account won 27 games
in a row at 95 accuracy I mean even
Magnus can't do that even
you know uh
this took a month this story took one
month from start to finish first I had
to work with a like a media company to
geo-block my content in Indonesia on
YouTube so Indonesians could not see my
channel oh so you you didn't want to
like lean into it Go full Donald Trump
no no let's let's uh because you're in
the right you feel like you're in the
right you as far as you know you're in
the right yeah and I hated watching all
my work burn to the ground like oh you
felt it was being yeah and I'm one thing
I'm learning about myself is I'm not a
good crisis actor I need someone to like
slap me so I don't do something
emotional in the moment when crisis is
ongoing what would be the emotional act
that's not productive there
of partnering with an MCN that makes you
give away a bunch of your revenue and
then when you break with them I wasn't
monetized for a week it was a very big
decision to plug in I think they're
called mcns but what are they sorry I
don't what are they they're like we
there's there's specialized agencies
that work behind the scenes with YouTube
yeah that if you connect your account
they say they can give you certain ad
benefits they can Geo block your content
they which you can't do normally they
have certain perks that only YouTube
allows behind the scenes you pay them
ten percent of your monthly ad Revenue
but they claim to do a handful of things
for you I just needed them to Geo block
my content I I just didn't I didn't care
how much money I was uh going to give
away per month but so why geo block it
you just didn't like the
the downboarding
yeah I didn't want you wanted positivity
more like you're being educational
you're I mean they're like you do a bit
of shit talking but it's more like fun
and easy going you didn't want this kind
of viciousness yeah my comment section
was just being completely flooded like
they were destroying my channel and to
be honest maybe all of the views and the
downvotes out of would have actually
been beneficial maybe I mean my videos
would have actually started getting
recommended to more people yeah but I'm
a person this is Hill goes back to the
same oh so this got to you yeah this was
like I was just watching it and I'm like
this is not fair this is I don't I don't
know what to do so I'm gonna stop this
as much as I can they still got through
their VPN and they were like you asshole
you don't think we have VPN in Indonesia
it was this whole you know it was this
whole thing
um
this father and son got invited to every
major News Network I'm not joking they
got invited to the major podcast they
like to say The Joe Rogan of Indonesia
yeah Daddy corbosier is this Mentalist
he's a bald guy very fun guy he had them
and that's when the Indonesian Chess
Federation stepped in the thing is
nobody who was harassing me knows
anything about Chess they just saw the
story
and long story short they brought in a
sponsor the guy played a strong uh one
of the strongest chess players in the
country who also happens to be a woman
Irene sukhandar she's like 2400
International Master she crushed him
because his actual playing strength is
thirteen hundred fourteen hundred you
something like that he still got paid
because there was a winning price point
a losing price fund and we never heard
from him again
and that was the whole search that was
that was why I had to shut down all of
my social media to DMS and DM requests
and even notifications like I don't get
notifications unless it's someone I
follow but see stuff like that doesn't
often get resolved in this kind of clear
way no it doesn't it could have been so
you got lucky there that there's um
a conclusion to this yeah somebody got
views somebody got money
uh and
I never got I never got many apologies
what did you learn from that experience
about yourself about about the internet
I think first and foremost I learned
that
every moment
you are live or broadcasting can be
completely blown out of proportion you
have to be real careful and
I can't actively think about that
unfortunately even when I'm streaming
I've had other instances
where things come back to bite I've even
had these moments live on stream I feel
like I said something too sarcastically
to somebody and I don't know how their
day is going in my ruin their whole day
you know God God knows what you have
these moments of regret where you want
your personality to shine through and
you want to entertain
at least you're thinking at what cost
if I make a joke to a viewer that
suddenly the whole chat is laughing at
them
what if that puts them in a deep dark
place and again so it all comes back to
this one-on-one thing for me because I'm
a human I would hate to put another
person into that situation if I would
much rather get a drink with somebody
than then but it's all kind of part of
this act and you want to make jokes and
I also learned I'm a horrible crisis
actor so I have no patience but I think
that's normal in 2022 everything is
immediate we can barely sit
think let time go by
it makes me sad because I think that
kind of stuff can destroy good people
that's what makes you sad yeah well one
of the things we discussed just here
before recording which I'm also I've
talked about this on stream I'm very
open with this type of stuff is over the
I think for me a lot of that comes down
to just a lack of control of the of the
narrative that's that phrase is kind of
messy it can be used for political stuff
but I I hate when I say things and they
get completely misconstrued or they
are completely misinterpreted and I
can't imagine being in your shoes
because again I do chess you cannot
really you can clip me
saying something about a chess game out
of context and it's hilarious you know
it it's it's dumb it's it's nothing
it's not an attack on on me or or
something that I said it's not an attack
on
kind of more similarly to to what you
were describing uh and you don't say you
don't say stuff like that like
ridiculous you don't say ridiculous shit
about yourself oh I do that I do I do
and you don't feel like that could be
made isn't this the same guy that said X
maybe maybe I I either haven't said
enough of those things or there's no
moments in I don't have three four hour
open conversations with other humans and
I'm pretty sure if I did there would be
more of that that stuff out there but uh
that's probably what it is just the lack
of
it's a lack of being able to kind of
control what is actually reality and and
that that is very frustrating and uh
yeah you're right I mean there is a
sense that there's not enough motivation
for people to attack you you're
ultimately adding a lot of positive
stuff to the world and when you get into
more political topics there's people
there who are hurting who have a lot of
anger in their hearts and they want to
direct it towards you so then they need
ammunition and ammunition comes in the
way of like clips from the past so I'm
sure that you I'm pretty sure you
already have Clips like that it's just
there's not people that really have
anger to direct towards you ultimately
you're adding a lot of good stuff to the
world and so yeah but it's man the
the viciousness of human beings
under the veil of anonymity at scale can
be really painful so that that's I guess
that's the curse the challenge of being
a Creator on YouTube and so on on Twitch
yeah um when you talked about retiring
you I think you tweeted about retiring
from chess give me the video Yeah and
tweeted
um it's my values of the world
the Tweet or the video it's just the
both yeah
um I'm retiring from all competitive
chess events my preparation has
outmatched my calculation skills are too
flawed and most importantly my anxiety
is beyond repair I physically and
emotionally cannot do it anymore what
was the hardest thing uh what was the
hardest thing about competing like can
you can you elaborate on that
yeah I think it's separated into faces
of my life so after being a Creator and
coming back and playing over the board
and making Recaps of all my games
I think
the
constant feeling that I had at the board
was a kid who hadn't studied enough for
a test
which is a very unique type of anxiety
and
during the game it was just self-hatred
like good moves did not feel as good as
how bad bad moves felt and bad moments
and and underneath that you're saying
there's a sense that I did not prepare
well enough
one unquestionably so
my I'm an international Master but
there's International Masters now who
are 11. I got the title when I was
22 which is late that might not sound
like it's late but it's really late and
I quit just multiple times when I was a
teenager if I hadn't one of my parents
was like sit down this is the only thing
that you're good at focus on it yeah
maybe I would have been a grand master
but that's that's life right and I would
come back to Chess at various points in
my life when I felt more mature I felt
more ready and I felt more motivated I
was all me I never I had one coach when
I was maybe about 10 I never listened to
the guy great guy like he emailed me
even recently just wanting to catch up
which I thought was adorable because I'm
like I don't even know if he knows that
YouTube chess exists he's in his 70s
he's just he's just like a nice older
guy yeah um and he would come to my
house we would have dinner my grandma
would make us food
and he would tell her that I'm brilliant
but I never work
and I have so much potential if only I
ever worked at all one minute on
anything I just played Speed games
online and
and what did he did he speak the truth
there like could you have worked more I
could have worked more for sure yeah
absolutely when you listen to Magnus who
doesn't he seems like he doesn't work
either he works uh he might work in
different ways but I think for him it's
also uh Obsession again love it's it's
everything it's he might read a book he
doesn't consider it work it's work he's
getting information in and he's learning
something it might just be easier for
him to learn than
for me for example or for anybody just
everybody learns and absorbs things
differently so I I would come back to
chess and the best run of my life that I
had was in 2016 where I basically while
teaching a chess program Scholastic
chess program I told all the parents hey
so for these four months I want to stop
doing private lessons and I'm gonna go
travel and play tournaments because I
want to become an international Master
finally I'm 20 years old this is in
2016. like can can you help me raise
some money these are all managing
directors these are lawyers these are
seven figure eight figure households and
they contributed and I kept the blog and
then I worked just six hours seven hours
every day like studying all the opening
Trends uh all of the new ideas reading
the books analyzing my own games playing
my own speed games and analyzing them
training every day and that year I went
from 20 to 40 over the board to 2404
with two of the three Norms as they call
them which are basically tournament
performances like you perform at a
certain level not too complicated so I
got almost everything I needed to be an
IM
but I just slipped up at the very end
and 2017 I didn't play chess but in 2018
I came back once again with the
Vengeance I started playing in the
summer once again and I went up up to my
Peak
but then something interesting happened
my life mission was accomplished
I never wanted or thought I could be a
grand master yeah I wanted to be an
international master
and the adrenaline dump of hitting the I
am title
I just stopped working completely which
is completely stopped working I I
couldn't and the second I started
falling
I couldn't stop
and I spent the rest of the summer just
tanking and I said Fuck this I'm I made
my made my I am I'm gonna I'm gonna fuck
off someplace and whatever I'll be I am
it doesn't matter
uh but when I play games online I mean I
destroy Grandmasters all the time
like dynamically Dynamics and chess were
just complex positions with all sorts of
calculation attacking defending like
very forcing lines
I think it's my best strength I think
I'm easily Grand Master Level so that
you have the capacity to be Grandmaster
100 like if I if if the work was put in
if the work was put in and I I was not
doing my current career if I just
train full-time
I think I could do it do you have a
desire to be Grandmaster
did you have a desire you said I didn't
really want like the main goal was in
international Master which by the way is
really interesting just I've talked to
Olympic athletes the crash after the
gold medal
is fascinating I didn't get gold but for
me that was my goal that was your goal I
mean it doesn't matter it's the goal yep
uh it takes a very very special person
to not be destroyed by the gold and
continue the dominance yeah it's to
continue growing to continue I mean it's
hard to that's why they talk about it's
hard to be a champion and defending
championships or whatever the goal is to
achieve the goal and stick to like
um
yeah who broke me he broke you yep so
you have the capacity to be a
Grandmaster have you ever
thought by the way is there still
possible for you or you have fully
dedicated now
to the love of creating and analyzing
this game I don't think I'm going to do
what I do right now forever
so we're gonna die one day right just a
heads up yes yes yes yes
I once cried when I realized that it was
at a funeral it was very sad that's
another entirely separate Rabbit Hole to
go down which is when when did this
happen yeah just a couple years ago
yeah it was right so you really were
able to like like that their realization
really hit you like fuck this this ends
yeah I'm the kind of person who I have
my active thoughts on my brain of things
I have to get done and the more of those
the better because I'll my brain will
walk me off a cliff not the physical
body the brain itself will walk off a
cliff
uh spinning in circles
so I try to keep myself as active as
possible on tasks I have to do it's good
and I'm busy it's good I'm at the scale
I am because you can't really rest a
whole lot but
yes that was I have these moments in my
life where I have realizations of past
fuck ups or things I have like I really
have to do that I've been like really
doing poorly or things like this massive
existential things that
just hit me like a just like a bus
there's several things tricky about it
so because I meditate on death a lot
like in this conversation I imagine this
is the last thing both you and I do just
and we're gonna die after this so you
meditate on that
but then you also have to I think what
hits people really hard is the
realization that life moves on
not only does it just end for you but
most people would be like
um they'll you know in your case they'll
tweet it's like oh he's so great
after they'll be so much they'll be
outpouring of love and so on for a day
and then it moves on yeah and the you
know the new trees grow new uh bridges
are built and then eventually human
civilization ends or moves over to Mars
and so on and you'll be forgotten
completely and but that that for most
people will come right away like you you
get a cancer diagnosis or something like
that and it's like doesn't anyone else
know that I'm going to die Does anyone
else care
like nobody gives a shit I mean they do
I mean there's love there but like not
in in a dramatic way that you would
somehow deep inside hope for that the
world would stop because your life is
facing this catastrophic event so yeah
but
I think ultimately what you could
channel that realization into
appreciation of the current moment it's
just the people you love and
sharing love with them as intensely as
possible experiencing every moment as
intensely as possible because eventually
there'll be a last moment and after that
there'll be no more moments that's sort
of what I do yeah might try to Channel
all of that into
sorry I don't use these fancy
microphones uh in in my own you look
uncomfortable it's not useful it's not
your fault like with this microphone no
with this ques with this line of
conversation oh uh
I'm playing therapist I don't know if
I'm uncomfortable I just
I don't know if I have a lot to say I'm
sometimes I just listen yeah like
sometimes I'm intimidated like if you
say a lot of good things and I'm like
shit what am I gonna say like at the end
yeah
on this on this subject especially I'm
like that's sort of what there's nothing
I what do you think happens after we die
oh man no that's a rhetorical question
what were we talking about Grandmaster
Grandmaster so
uh how hard is it to reach what are the
what are the requirements for
Grandmaster by the way because yeah and
what are the requirements for
international Mastery you mentioned a
few requirements and so on yes so the
first one is you have to know how to use
a sure mic and an arm
um slowly you were impressed by this
your microphone by the way for the for
people listening we're using this as I'm
sure sm7b that a lot of podcasters use
I don't know why and Michael uh Jackson
on Thriller which Grimes told me really
that's why I think it looked a little
different but it's the same wow
underneath it a few musicians used it in
studio I don't know where it became
popular as a as a podcast and microphone
because I think most broadcasters use
condenser mics that look like really
fancy yeah this looks a little I know
this one's great it sounds really really
good and I told you before that I wanted
to use it but it requires a external
dashboard of some sort and I'm
way too lazy to learn how to do it and
my microphone doesn't sound that bad for
YouTube and for for twitch but this is a
long term I still have to figure out how
to stream stuff I'm not I haven't
figured that out because you want to go
down into the world of twitch no I don't
okay I don't you just want to learn how
to do it uh uh no for uh
do you know what we have over there so
first of all yes it is it's like uh
I feel like The Hobbit going into like
mortar like I I yeah twitch is a very
intense world but the there is the
useful cases when you should have your
microphone
work with like
the different the processing chain work
in real time so you can do like
interviews
and also I play video I try to play a
video game once a month so
um I've done that like three times
already
uh so stream that kind of stuff for like
like an hour
um like play Skyrim I like I love
playing Skyrim I actually love the idea
I haven't done that yet but apparently
in Skyrim you can turn off the monsters
you could just walk around
so I love the idea of just walking
around Skyrim for a couple hours and
just like because it's beautiful nature
I see have you do you know anything
about those uh I know I I know I know a
little about Skyrim uh but so it's kind
of like chat no
sure yeah it's just beautiful world so
um
there's games that are able to create
this sense of you know the way you feel
when you go hiking a sense of nature
yeah there it's not that they're ultra
realistic but they capture some Majestic
aspect of nature I think some of it is
also music something peaceful it's like
old-timey uh medieval type of music
and just the trees like the wind like
you could and then there's in in the
distance there's the mountains and you
can like you have a sense of history
that the nature gives you you have a
sense of space like this you're like
this tiny little creature and there's
this big world all around you I don't
know how it that's like an art for a
video game to create that it's not just
about the monsters in front of you yeah
it's about this world and this feeling
of a world so I can just walk around and
enjoy it I get asked this question a lot
why don't why don't I stream more video
games yes and
I didn't know that such video games
first of all existed I thought it was
mostly just
various sci-fi-ish characters and
shooting and uh objective yeah yeah I've
played OverWatch on stream it's the it's
the only video game I actually played a
lot and got decent at and I couldn't
play it on stream anymore because my
teammates would use racial slurs in the
voice chat yeah so that is
one of the because I've been thinking of
talking to a few uh streamers and they
do
they're a little bit I don't know as far
as they the the that Community broadly
does use racial slurs and seem to make
them okay
um but for the ones I would talk to are
a little bit they're just harsh in
general in in the intensity of language
and I don't know what to feel like I
don't want to be the guy who says like
kids these days with their with their
mean language on the internet like you
want to kind of adapt to the different
communities but at the same time
there is there's lines that you can
cross right like if you make everything
into a joke
because that's what they kind of do
everything ends in LOL everything is
funny yeah and that becomes
uh once again a lubricant that uh it's
like a slippery slope that takes you to
a place where you actually make
pretty
um mean ideas even evil ideas okay
because it started as a joke
and so I mean you start getting into the
territory of
I mean because I've been reading a lot
on Hitler and and Stalin and so on and
you'll see those kinds of topics come up
in that community and it's like oof they
have a very different perspective on
that stuff to them it's just a fun fun
joke fun time and I I and I see that the
contrast of that with Call of Duty where
you're where you're shooting and I I
love shooting and killing things in
video games but there's a slippery slope
there too because then just having
visited the front in Ukraine you get to
see the real killing of people
and you see how one can lead to another
it it's not an obvious but
there's a
there's something that happens in video
games where you're like well this is not
reality
the same kind of things happens in war
well the people on the other side aren't
really human it does become a kind of
video game and that that same mechanism
I feel like I want to be cautious about
our brain going down that road
so yeah I
I do worry about that Community
um
but there are video games that don't
have such communities around them I
think Skyrim I don't think Skyrim is an
online component of people Minecraft I
think is relatively civil
from what I've seen interesting a good
Community I think it's a lot of a lot of
right now it's booming it's a lot of
young creators who are all seemingly
quite close
and
but I think the community then extends
to social media some of them are intense
but who isn't
and I think I think they Foster a more
or less kind of good group of folks but
no I I completely agree I think a lot of
that stuff and combined with the
anonymity stuff that we mentioned
earlier totally dehumanizes the way
people interact with each other and it's
it's scary I don't
I don't know
combine that with two years of some
people barely going outside
yeah yeah it's not a good mix it's not a
good mix at all I mean you'd like to
think that folks it's like in their
teenage years kind of go through those
and they mature out of it and stuff so
like they they they they start to
realize the weight of their words like
that's my hope but we're all trying to
figure that out how the internet has
changed youth
like easy access to porn easy access to
like some dark communities yeah where
dark ideas uh breed
I don't know
but then again I trust in the goodness
and the intelligence of people at the
end of the day and I think kids will
not sound like an old man but it's it's
good for kids to play with different
ideas and then they grow out of it
hopefully but then you have to have
parents in good school and like good
friends that kind of call them out and
they're bullshit you need that if you're
stuck inside
under anonymity maybe you don't have
some of those signals
kids these days with their internet I
had to go through this it's kind of what
I what I mentioned so I I didn't have
two divorced my parents were divorced I
didn't have uh two households I had
three
so I had was the third one so I went to
school most of my childhood in a town
where my grandmother lived and she was
kind of like the Switzerland
so I would be with her and my mom would
come with me there uh half the week dad
would take me to his place for the other
half of the school week and then my
parents was split weekends my mom's
weekends were in New York where she my
stepdad was and that that family sold
three houses
so Grandma your dad mom and dad and then
yeah Mom so step siblings yeah there and
there new people there and there
extended family there and there and also
at Grandma's where I would come anytime
I had a conflict and when I was 12 and
13 and being just a total lunatic
emotional manipulator of all folks in my
family or just teenager rebelling and
also having to deal with three different
households and I mean I carried a
backpack the same backpack literally
that I not the physical one but what's
inside of it that I carried uh like when
I came here to record the episode and
have my stuff in the hotel a backpack
with a laptop a bunch of clothes a bunch
of other things that I need throughout
the week deodorant things like that I
mean of course you start getting that
stuff and all all the houses but the
that was the way I lived for some of the
most important developmental years of my
life and
who knows if I had too much of what
we're describing one sprinkle of this
too much one sprinkle of this too much
if I had someone influence me in a
negative way luckily I managed to steer
clear a lot of a lot of it and
yeah how did you not get into trouble
with the internet
meaning like how did you oh what was
your experience with the internet so I I
was looking to move a lot having to have
multiple households just psychologically
different and difficult upbringing I
yeah it was it was extremely tough I
it's hard to speak about it now because
I'm in a completely different mental
state I don't even remember some of like
those moments but it's almost like a
different person yeah that's exactly how
it feels but I I remember I had a big
video game addiction just like most
teenagers I want to say teenagers but
probably teenage boys but I'm not I
don't know I I don't know how addicted
teenage girls are to to video games yeah
I didn't date on that I definitely look
back on things that I did
in certain instances like
while I was a teenager that was stupid
oh I scammed somebody in some video game
oh that was you know I was oh that's
hilarious like and just uh was it it's
just an idiot teenager like I didn't do
anything unforgivable luckily and
for the most part just kind of went
about my life
and I
somehow got older and started getting
more independent and stopped playing
video games and to be honest with you I
I would love to sit here and say I have
some sort of logical explanation of why
I am the person I am today
but I think you need elements of the
right upbringing and support system as
you said and you also need luck you just
I've been in some situations as a
teenager where I almost got I almost got
killed by some gang members that's a
very
exaggerated story but I was in a park in
New York City and I got into it with a
kid whose brother was in a notorious
gang of that neighborhood and he told me
his brother was gonna come and kill me
basically over a stolen basketball and I
was I was gonna fight this kid because I
was 14. you know he stole my basketball
of course I'm gonna fight this kid this
kid was like 12 he had a pierced tongue
yeah like this wasn't a joke yeah this
kid was from a totally different way of
life and his brother did show up but his
brother was like oh my God what's this
kiss like that was I was a little
teenager I wasn't a big now 14 year olds
or six feet tall maybe something would
have happened to me but I was a little
kid and it was like probably but looking
back at that is crazy because I
definitely had some of these moments in
New York City more than anywhere else
because it's such a big place but luck
you need some you need some luck yeah
it's kind of funny that there's certain
moments in life on which the entire
trajectory of your life can turn yeah
and then they're all like in that case
nothing happened but you know I I most
intensely feel this when I get almost
run over by a car kind of thing how many
times have you almost got run away I
don't know maybe it happened like twice
in my life okay that kind of stuff like
when uh somebody runs a red light yeah
that happened to me here in Austin uh
you realize oh shit that was
like your life flashes before your eyes
and those moments can turn and then
there's more meeting certain people
where you meet them and for the positive
they're like
while this um
this moment of inspiration like wow this
is possible wow this this kind of person
can exist maybe I could be that kind of
person too so yeah those things can like
change the direction but maybe not maybe
they just reveal something that was
already there and the momentum is always
carrying you forward into a thing that
you are always going to end up in yeah I
wonder about that
um speaking of teens doing stupid things
yeah uh how did it start who is Hans
Neiman who's Magnus Carlson how did it
start there's three games it started
Miami yeah a good a good background
story is Magnus Carlsen is the arguable
greatest player of all time very close I
would say to to Gary Kasparov world
number one for now over 10 years with
the top of this game you think like
close to the top of his game right now
after the most recent thing yes
I think he has The Uncanny ability of
top athletes to absorb the bullshit and
show oh yeah Dad's home now yeah you
know yeah run I was only trying 70
before that you know and and I think
that's what he I think I really think
that's what he sure I was in awe I I if
Magnus is playing in a tournament yes
it's good for views to put him in my
YouTube thumbnails and make the video
title about him if he does something
brilliant but I was legitimately just
blown away it wasn't even wasn't farming
him for Content it was this is
unbelievable what he's doing to people
uh and he has a point to prove
Hans is a I believe he's 19 years old
right now he's an American
I don't know if Prodigy is necessarily
the right word prodigies you you know
their prodigies from very very young you
don't in chess you don't become a
prodigy at 18.
but he was always a good Junior player
he was always a very unique character
like I met Hans when he was 11 12 years
old this little kid just trash talking
Folks at the Marshall chess club and he
already had a reputation literally like
he had a reputation with with counselors
with like and the truth is I was similar
I was kicked out of Chess Camp by one of
the best chess Grandmasters of all time
Arturo Yusuf I was in a chess Camp when
I was nine years old what did you do I
was just an asshole yeah I was too
strong so I helped other people with
other work you let your ego shine that
was a kid I mean I wouldn't well you
know not every kid let's say you go
shine but some do oh yes you did uh Hans
does I think there's interviews when
he's young yeah or like he's kind of yes
talking shit but it's entertaining yes
when I try to stay away from is just
yes I let my ego shine but I don't think
I even knew what any of that was when I
was younger yeah so it's just sort of I
was just that was just a loud boisterous
kid from a household where I wasn't paid
attention to because I had three of them
yeah
so I just was like here's where I'm
gonna show up and get my attention and
arturia superv he's a great great man I
drove that man crazy he was like top
five in the world at some point in the
80s and 90s he said it's either me or
this kid oh wow that's what you really
got to yes he said I'm not gonna come
back and teach camps unless it's mere
and I remember like going through this I
have very vague Distant Memories of this
my dad calling apologizing yeah and to
make you feel good that you got to a
Grandmaster no I feel horrible I felt
guilty I feel guilty my whole life about
I very rarely feel proud of bad things
or I showed them even things it gets to
the point you feel guilty about things
you didn't do that's what that's when
your brain really goes crazy yeah I'm
with you on that
so okay so you can relate
yes to Young Hans and he
was like in and out of Chess this is
what I remember he was around the rating
of 2300 and I remember looking at some
of his games in a tournament in
Philadelphia
and I was like
there was some game that he played and
he didn't know the opening it was like a
London which is a very popular opening
some theoretical and I looked at him
like
whoa he didn't know that okay that's
crazy and then I just kind of walked by
and I saw him in a tournament a few
months later and he did something very
rare where in an open tournament not a
tournament of 10 players where everybody
plays everybody open tournament
randomized pairings depending on how
many points you have he played nine
grand Masters which is crazy that means
he was performing so well so
consistently that was where he got his
first I am Norm it's like oh here it is
here comes that like boom of a young
player where he gets mature he gets back
into the game and he gets stronger
I don't follow a whole lot pandemic
happens and he starts streaming a bit
and he's he's boisterous he's he's kind
of like loud he's talking trash and he's
gaining rating constantly he's just but
so are a lot of people so you don't
think much of it and then now you can go
play over the board again live
tournaments face to face as opposed to
online events and he's like I'm gonna go
to this tournament I'm gonna win it I'm
gonna get my last gem Norm
many does
and then he's like all right my goal is
this rating by the end of this year he
gets it he just demolishes absolutely
everybody and you're like over the board
over the board like this guy's for real
there's a lot of people like that if you
look at the top Juniors of the world
it's crazy Ali has a faruga 2 800.
Vincent kymer 2700 a bunch of kids from
India 27 other age you're younger
usually one or two years younger maybe
maybe a little older by a year but it's
just this wave and you're just hyped for
the guy yeah like this is fucking
awesome like we got we got a young
American guy who shit talks every time
he's on camera and he beats everybody he
plays
but then you start hearing sprinkles
here and there maybe in some stream I
think he he doesn't he doesn't get to
play on chess.com anymore yeah like
chess.com doesn't put that badge there
on the account sometimes sometimes they
just tell the player listen we know and
the player's like all right you got me
and that's it there's no conversation so
there's like these sprinkles but
people cheat online especially when
they're young it's very you know it's
very captivating it's a very nice thing
to do just to be clear I mean just make
explicit that the accusation and I think
it's proven but they're still being
shady about it to the degree is done is
that he cheated on chess.com when he was
12. 12 and 16.
that's what he says but he admitted to
but right now chess.com put out a
statement and now Magnus put out a
statement as well saying
we think it's more than that and yeah
I've talked to Danny because he wants to
come on the podcast which I'm actually
kind of interested in I think he's a
cool person
um and they're also doing some really
interesting anti-teaching stuff which to
me from an algorithmic perspective is
interesting but he is also
the man like there's always in every
field there's the institution
so he represents the institution because
Chester calms institution it's like in
the Olympics it's the ioc it's like I'm
I'm you don't have to be I have to be
careful
um you know and just feed a is the
institution okay yeah budgets.com
they've outgrown way more people
actually know chess.com way more people
know me way more people know Hikaru it's
one of the reasons it's actually where
the power lays who has the most power
interesting yeah chess.com has the most
power which I don't know maybe you and
her car would do no um the stair public
opinion you know
it's a very good question I have to
think with my evil cap now what would
happen if I'd rather you have the evil
cup than Hikaru because I feel like he
would really you know the power
absolutely if the two of you ruled the
world it'd be a problem
you mean side by side or uh yeah it
would be like yeah as Rivals there would
definitely be a war it's one of the
reasons I would I would I would not just
box him
do you guys how much do you like each
other I mean do you admire each other as
fellow
um I'll tell you how I feel it's so
entertaining
um well we should finish magnatons yes
yes I know it's I feel like just inside
we don't want to talk about it because
it feels like it's been talked about so
much I'm trying to give up for you just
remember I for me it's even it's much
less yeah and for them listener zero
yeah yeah so like a like Rogan asked me
like so what what's this I know I heard
him even talking what's this chess you
know Joe talked about the Indonesia
thing yeah in some super random small
thing and that was a very funny moment I
told them about this drama a few weeks
ago and then he's like yeah this is
interesting this is the anal beads is
that possible is that good yeah I think
it's possible
um I don't remember how drunk you were
but so even you know he's curious he
doesn't really know but anyway cheating
when he was 12 when he was 16. as he
said he admitted yes to cheating online
line when he was 12 and 16. yes but for
timeline's sake let's just let's just do
it this way he has a lot of
over-the-board success but nobody really
talks about the online cheating stuff
it's sort of
kind of kept low-key a couple hundred
people maybe a couple thousand people
which sounds like a lot but it's not
because there's millions of viewers know
about this it's generally kept kind of
low-key because historically
if you cheated online as a teenager
you're not cheating over the board it's
not possible you will get caught nobody
has ever attempted it we've had over the
board cheaters but not at the ultra
Elite level
and so what happens is
they play this tournament in Miami
and the first day Hans loses three
nothing
this is important because on the very
next day it's not like Hans was
destroying every Everything the second
day of the tournament he sits down game
one versus Magnus in their best of four
and destroys him
like he destroyed him
made it look like I was playing in
magnus's shoes you know the level
difference it wouldn't have even leaky
it wasn't close
of course we can argue it might be
because of the maybe Magnus knew
something ahead of time there's
obviously the psychological element not
not important Hans leaves they say
interviewer says
Hans Yesterday by the way horribly
phrased interview question he goes he
goes Hans
yesterday was a terrible for you
and today you start with a masterpiece
what do you have to say
just speaks for itself walks away yeah
argue you can argue it's cringe you can
argue I thought it was cool and then the
guy then keeps asking a question of his
arm extended because he's so shocked he
doesn't know what to do like he didn't
even occur to him how ridiculous it
looked to be asking and then
not only does Hans come back and loses
the best of four he loses like two more
games or maybe three I think he loves
the next three games
he then proceeds to lose every single
best of four match for the rest of the
tournament he ends with zero points and
a prize money of zero dollars they put
up the graphic
and he put Neiman zero I think he got
some minimum right
so
it's like wow this is like insane this
guy comes out with this crazy interview
and in my recap videos I was like the
next time Hans has success he has to
stay away from the cameras don't let him
talk just don't let him talk it's gonna
be bad luck and I'm joking around like
next time he plays it's crazy he's gonna
that was that was their kind of first
interaction there they also
there were some photos they were having
fun playing on the beach I don't know
where they had a chessboard on the beach
chess players or something yeah so they
were still getting along I guess so yeah
it's interesting because I talked to him
at that time would he have mentioned
something right I wonder what he would
would have said if I asked him about
Hans because that was clueless did
anyone care no no no no no nobody no no
Hans is not a super known entity right
he became much more known he became
probably a top five all-time popular
chess player in the last three weeks
yeah so it's it's not it wasn't it
wouldn't even be a worthy question no
I'm not you you don't know maybe Magnus
already kind of knew a lot of the top
players it seems are coming out now and
saying we are ready we're suspicious it
seems like magnets might have known but
maybe not enough to address it uh he
still might not be willing to dress it
yes yeah but anyway so like so so yeah
so totally horrible tournament
performance after correct uh after Han's
then the annual tradition of the St
Louis tournament happens which is a
strong field of players first for a fast
tournament rapid and Blitz and a
classical tournament
and the classical tournament is the
singfield cup it's the it's named after
rexingfield billionaire chest
philanthropist
uh and it's like Saint Louis chess club
it's like a prestigious place it's this
whole host of a prestigious tournament
Hall of Fame is there for chess I don't
know if it's U.S hall of fame or
worldwide Hall of Fame but yeah it's
it's the two countries play chess I
didn't they do but you know we will I I
don't know who determines where the Hall
of Fame gets to be if we say it's the
Hall of Fame okay
one day some other part of the world's
gonna be like actually it's over here so
basically what happens is we have a
field set for the sync field cup
set it's the top 10 players in the world
some can't make it so okay you get
number 11 in there or something
one of them can't come because of
something related to coronavirus it's
not it's not
now we're going to get little asterisks
on Spotify because it was mentioned uh
get more info about coven 19. uh so I
don't know why he couldn't come but he
couldn't come okay something happens he
can't make it Hans Neiman is the
replacement yeah
at the time we didn't know this but now
weeks later we knew Magnus wanted to not
play
this is very important back then we
didn't know
apparently some other top players also
didn't want to play
they also were suspicious they also
wanted increased anti-che cheating
measures which by the way in chess are
dog shit like do you give this little
metal wand and you put it on the little
the ears the body and there's apparently
an argument a micro earpiece would not
be caught something in the armpit
vibrating would not be caught something
in the shoe they don't make the players
take their shoes off because it's too
elitist how you're gonna make players
take their shoes off that's oh my God
but if these things are out there
or if anything was inside any other
orifice correct yes I have to bring that
I mean I mean to be honest yes that that
is very truthful uh so if nothing else
this podcast is about honesty and truth
so I have to be complete and
transparency so what ends up happening
in the same field cup is Magnus ends up
still playing but the anti-cheap
measures are not introduced
so the first few games Hans has a very
very impressive first round game against
levonne aronian one of the best players
in the world
okay draw he was pushing draw second
game demolishes like a like a top player
Mommy dear crushes him dominant opening
but not like a perfect game you
understand like it was it was uh he made
some inaccuracies here and there and he
ended up winning in a complex game
because game three happens versus uh
versus Magnus
and not only does he beat Magnus with
the black pieces
he dominates him from start to finish
so in the opening Magnus played
something with white that he had maybe
played once or twice before there was
some big debate about it I'm not going
to get into it basically a very Niche
small thing that
just he had never played in maybe a long
game before
with some sprinkled in venom that might
get Hans off guard Hans proceeds to play
like the first 15 20 moves absolutely
perfectly
and then converts the game into a
slightly better end game
and squeezes magnets to death basically
beats Magnus with black which nobody had
done in years the same way Magnus would
have beaten other players
then he goes and gives this interview
which
where he claims that he had looked at
those first 15 20 moves right before the
game basically he got lucky didn't he
say he looked at something some very
similar no he it was it was either
similar or or literally that exact
variation which is possible I've done
that before one of my best ones of my
life that morning I went you know I'm
not prepared what if my opponent plays
this Queen's Gambit accepted variation
and I literally learned the first 12
moves he didn't know move 12 I killed
him okay like it just happens yeah
unfortunately when you combine that with
other small elements of the interview
and now there's body language experts
going all on this
it was odd he gave an interview
afterwards explaining his uh explaining
the various details of the game but not
really explaining them that's the thing
the standard chess player interview is
you sit down you go
something about the opening something
about not oh yeah I looked at this right
before the game and then you
explain various Symphonies and and
compositions of variations things that
went through your head things you were
evaluating but hans's interviews were
different so everything about him as the
chess player already is different and
his interviews are extremely strange and
also different yeah that's fine
but not when you combine it then with
the world champion withdrawing right
after you beat him
and ghosting the entire Chess World
yeah so there's a for people who haven't
listened to it there's a kind of
sloppiness
to the way he analyzes
the game
like he's like oh yeah yeah like it's
very um because it's very obvious like
what do you mean yeah just completely
winning here yeah I'm completely winning
here and it's like uh I uh yeah I just
played perfect I play Perfect like
there's a sense of like
but it also doesn't for me again a very
outside spectator it doesn't raise any
red flags that's just his personality he
seems to really like to talk this way
and plus this could be crazy uh but do
you have a sense that he's more of an
intuitive player versus like he's just
not the kind of person that analyzes
really well is it or is that a
ridiculous notion well let's put it this
way
to succeed legitimately because
obviously this is a cheating scandal at
the end of the day at the 2750 82800
level the upper echelon of chess
you cannot be an intuitive player
you can be a little bit more intuitive
than a calculator and a concrete
evaluator of positions meaning if I give
you five seconds to play a move
you're going to choose the best move
quickly those people are generally
better at fast time controls but you
have to be good at everything
and what raised red flags in this
interview
was the fact that it was different than
every other interview any human being
ever gave at that level of trust
particularly after beating Magnus for
the first time as a teenager which is a
very small group of people and so that's
where it got
weird and the very next day Magnus
withdraws from the event
Chess World lights completely on fire
for multiple weeks and he also tweets
right now yes that's the resignation no
resignation the sweet was I'm
withdrawing for the tournament in St
Louis I've always enjoyed playing here
and I will in the future and then it's a
clip of Jose Mourinho I cannot speak I
choose not to speak if I speak I'm in
big trouble I don't want to be in big
trouble yeah and that one that's some
people
nuts but people said it's not even a
cheating insinuation which was one of
the theories another theory was someone
in team Magnus told Hans what Magnus was
looking at and that's why Hans learned
those first 15 moves which is so fucking
stupid because Magnus knows like five
people
not in not in his life but his team is
fine that's very close in that group
right but to The Outsider that sounds
like a very legitimate Theory how could
how else can you explain Han said he
knew before the game what was going to
happen Magnus senses a mole he's not no
by the way just uh just so uh I know
like if that was forget the cheating
aside if you knew doesn't matter how the
opening your opponent is going to do
they prepared is that a significant help
to you
if that opening is ultra sharp and
requires basically the game to be on the
knife's edge yeah yes meaning one
mistake from can be fatal
because then you can look up what the
engine says you can know everything you
can know all the possibilities so even
if your opponent goes off that engine
path you will know how to punish it in
this case
what happened basically was Magnus
played a line that if completely
optimally punished would have given Hans
a slightly better position and that's
what happened but then he also
demolished him in that later phase of
the game
yes and then okay so uh Magnus designs
go silent the Chess World goes crazy uh
what else is interesting in that period
of time hans's fourth round game of that
tournament
right after beating Magnus was also just
absolutely genius
just an absolutely brilliant game which
he failed to win
but then after that game he also gives
once again another interview
where he's like this game was absolutely
Genius Like This was I was just killing
him from start to finish and like there
was a moment he
literally says oh yeah I just gave him a
piece like a full piece which is a
substantial advantage to the other side
and he starts explaining
why
the position is winning but in words not
in chess moves not in specific concrete
chess moves which is the way you're
supposed to if you understand the
position right so now there's this new
Theory that's being cultivated if it's
the interviews are going to be used as
the evidence
and Beyond round four
he just played like a a good Grandmaster
and he lost two or three games maybe
maybe two games and he drew the rest so
he didn't win again
and he beat in the first two out of his
first three games he beat mamazara if he
beat Carlson
and
he also went on the attack himself he
that was when he publicly admitted to
cheating in an interview that he gave to
the St Louis chess club that's when he
said he has never cheated over the board
then he said
chess.com has banned me from the global
Championship which is what I was invited
to to play privately they banned me they
didn't even ban me publicly and then he
said and Hikaru is uh is is is on Twitch
every day you know saying things about
me this and that
and since then
nothing tournament finishes somehow I
don't know how we got to the end of the
tournament I really thought that it was
going to get called off
but tournament ends Hans hasn't said
anything since then so has he still said
when's the last time that was the last
text tweet that he sent September 7th
says Hikaru wants to play the victim
something like this they face each other
again recently when was it what was that
they played in the online event of this
uh meltwater Champions chess tour
which is a 16 player tournament where
everybody plays everybody first
and after 15 games
the top eight make a knockout bracket
and Magnus played the game there was
obviously a lot of hype prior
for what was going to happen in this
game Magnus plays one move
and resigns
actually I imagine he didn't want to
play one move I imagine he would have
resigned the game as it was starting but
I think some websites don't let you
resign before you make one move because
then the game isn't counted yeah so I
think he didn't want to play at all but
he played one move and that made it even
more epic I suppose
and he resigned and that was that was
that like so you still you you lose that
game counts right you lose the rating
all these online events unfortunately
don't count for any sort of rating uh
but on the tournament yeah you play one
move yeah so he resigns and then how
does the tournament still work out is it
determined already over so he made the
eight as Magnus still made the the top
eight it was round five
or like round six or something so it was
halfway through the preliminary stage
yeah it affected his standings
but then after resigning that game
Magnus finished first uh in the bracket
in the preliminaries and then he won the
entire event there was a chance that
they were going to meet in the final
but Hans lost in the first round
against the Vietnamese strong player Le
Quang Liam
and then Magnus gave a short interview
to the live broadcast
where he said he would give a statement
at the end of the tournament and then he
did he gave a statement at the end of
the tournament
and now here we are the only other thing
missing from this is the
very intense scrutinization of all those
over the board games that I mentioned
earlier
that Hans dominated in so people are now
going through all of his games that he
played in tournaments
and they're analyzing them with engines
and they're saying he played
exceptionally well and the debate is was
he cheating or was he way too good
already but underrated
because he could have had incubated
knowledge so he could have not played
for a couple years was 2700 level but
was playing people who were 24 2500. ah
well well over the I see so not just
over the board with the top level people
like Magnus but over the board in
general uh yes before he got a chance to
play in these super tournaments against
the best players in the world he had to
go to Europe he was the most active
chess player in 2021 and he was quite
dominant yes I think he played more over
the board games than any player in 2021
or 2022 I think it's 2021
and yes I think his rise was steeper
than everybody maybe with the exception
of well there was a faruga who got the
2800. see I'd like to believe because he
he talks about being very
he just became obsessed with chess
and I like stories like that I like
stories of um the underdog especially
with the Scarlet Letter of having been a
cheater in the past
I like the idea of somebody who is
flawed
psychologically and ethically and just
just the full fascinating personality
and this somehow just becomes obsessed I
mean similar to Bobby Fischer is also a
tortured Soul also flawed also just
chaotic all over the place you could see
Bobby Fischer being somebody that might
cheat when he was 12. right on the
online chess right like if it existed
yeah actually I think in some podcasts
like small Jazz podcast I don't wanna
I I like Ben Johnson so I I'm
apologizing for calling it small but
compared to like let's say Lex Friedman
podcast uh it's uh oh what's what's it
what's this podcast it's it's perpetual
chess it's kind of like oh I love
Perpetual Jazz are you joke really dare
you cop yeah all right
um I'll show you because it does a lot
of it talks
it makes me feel special let me see
where is it Perpetual chess
um he does like improver series yes yeah
yeah yes yes yeah he's great Ben I
forgot I'm so horrible with names his
name is Ben Ben Johnson yeah it is Ben
Johnson that's right
yeah the Perpetual chess podcast that's
amazing see legs when even individuals
like myself who might have a large
audience when I look at you you're at a
you're you're just at a different level
I don't expect you to be listening to
chess podcast during the day just
imagine you're generally doing something
to change the world or
talking to some Visionary people well I
should say it you know I've been running
a lot and I listened to podcasts a lot
because they're such
I love human beings excited about stuff
that really energizes me and
um I've listened to a bunch of Chess
podcasts I I'm really energized by your
love of Chess
um I really like yeah sorry I did forgot
his name but Ben Johnson I love it when
he talks to Grandmasters I love this
when he talks to the the the the the
regular
folks for the improvers like to see how
they balance life and chess and all that
kind of stuff he's just pretty good at
it he's like super excited and they talk
about books yeah and they get excited
about different books yes I mean it it
also gives me a sense
of uh
where the Chess World is from a
different perspective is like people
studying chess
like what they get excited about how
difficult it is
um yeah it's nice to get a sense of the
community the language that's used
because I did want to have a bunch of
conversations
um
with folks about Chess because I think
it's a beautiful game and I I think it's
a beautiful community so that's that's
one of the podcasts I listen to so yeah
anyway he's it's great anyway you were
saying why why'd you bring him up yes
great podcast great podcast I only
reason I thought of it uh and I used the
word small no disrespect Ben is because
even that episode which he did with Hans
like it was a small episode it wasn't
seen by mass audience of Chess and you
did an episode of Hans recently or no
some time ago yeah and in that episode
Hans very openly is like Bobby Fischer
was misunderstood and he was my idol
oh I said a couple of things like that
and strong Hans isn't intense guy like I
when I listen to Hans I get a little
anxious I just he brings out some sort
of disturbance in my ecosystem yeah it's
just I I can't really pin him down to
like what what's going on there yes as a
person who's trying to read people yeah
um it's difficult like I can I can this
is the dark aspect he could be both the
genius of Bobby Fischer and a genius
cheater and you could see like there's
something chaotic about him which makes
him very appealing in that way yes so
right now late September 2022 the
current
environment is such that Hans hasn't
said anything in weeks
and
people are sort of
dissecting every bit of circumstantial
evidence that they can and they're
trying to present the case
I don't even know to who ultimately
I guess it would be the feed a cheating
anti-sheating commission or whatever it
might be to you essentially I mean to
people with the platform it could be to
present convincing evidence to where the
the people
the people are convinced of one way or
the other because you're for people who
don't know and you should definitely
follow Gotham chess you've been on this
you've covered it a lot and I'm sure if
anything comes out you'll cover it more
but you've been quite balanced and
thoughtful and kind of objective about
the whole thing yeah so the reason for
that is
I understand the power that I wield with
anything and if I say one sentence the
wrong way I might be sending 10 000
people or more to go do something yeah
and I hate that I want to present the
evidence and I want the video to end and
people go okay
I understand not I'm gonna go I'm gonna
go fuck someone up yeah you know what I
mean like because that's and I also
believe that even if Han's even if Hans
is guilty
this goes all the way back
he's a human being yeah
and
you can argue that cheater's got to be
punished and you can argue that people
who do things wrong you shouldn't feel
any sort of compassion
but I would hate to have the whole world
pointing at their fingers at me the
entire world that I've known my entire
life and even if I if I messed up
there's still a world after chess there
might still even be a world in chess I
don't know but
that stuff it doesn't make me it doesn't
make me feel good to present all of the
circumstantial evidence in my videos and
start being like yeah it looks you know
so but at the same time you deeply care
about Chess and the chess community and
there's some sense where
was it you as a Magnus that said that
cheating poses an existential threat
I mean there is some aspect of Truth to
that which is like
you know we the chess is in a state
where Bots uh chess engines are much
better than humans yeah and we're living
in a world where technology becomes
easier and easier to integrate with with
human beings whether you put in some
orifice or elsewhere and that that does
pose a threat to um to our ability to
trust that a world champion is indeed a
world champion that somebody we think is
good is indeed good and so there is some
aspect to the ecosystem
that should punish cheating and perhaps
over punished cheating and the other
thing is
in sport you can take PDS and have
bigger muscles bigger better reaction
time but you still have to perform the
action in a successful way there is
still a chance you can lose
if you take Peds
maybe in some sports the gap between
non-ped and ped user is significantly
more noticeable but
in chess
if you cheat
you play God
yeah you decide when the game is over
you can fake bad moves
you can fake everything you can even if
you're cheating quote unquote the right
way you're gonna lose plenty of games
to avoid getting detected so you can
create Bots that are 2800 like you can
also just not listen if you know all the
best moves but choose to play on your
own oh I made a mistake not a big deal
you could yes Bots are all at a
different level but if you were to cheat
that you you play God you can decide
when you make your move and when the
engine makes its movement if you know
the top four lines of the engine you
choose the fourth one so in hindsight
people will analyze your game and they
will go oh it wasn't perfect well no
shit only the stupid cheaters play the
top Engine line the whole game by the
way I'm not saying that this is what's
happening here because
but there's uh there's probably an
excitement to Playing God
to to and get in the way with it like I
know people I know adults grown
adults who are successful in their
fields
and they they cheat they cheat in
lessons they cheat and like I've
I don't want to say I've taught any may
I may or may not have uh for some reason
one of them watches this and they know
they're guilty uh and it happens it
happens uh not just teenagers not just
young adults but full-grown adults will
cheat when they play because it they
think it helps them learn oh uh well
that's exactly just that's justification
but I just meant like I'm it might not
be just about winning
it might also just feel good to have
that power
like I bet you it's a drug oh yeah I
mean like with a lot of criminals
with a lot of criminals I feel like part
of like the ma like Mass murderers would
be serial killers I feel like a lot of
it is they can get away with it the the
fact that they
like they like everyone else is a sucker
and they figured out how to do this evil
thing
and uh obviously cheating is nowhere
close to that but the but there's still
a feeling of getting away with it yeah I
wonder
and you're pretty objective on the whole
thing like where if you were
um a betting man what would you say is
the probability
and are you changing day by day in your
head what's the probability that Hans
cheated
over the board against Magnus in the in
St Louis that's a tough one man
have you even allowed yourself to to put
a probability on it no not on that
specific game because I think a lot of
that game was affected by magnus's own
psyche that was one of his worst games
ever so he played poorly to a Magnus
played which doesn't help his case yeah
Hans might have cheated then that game
but we'll never know I
I think day by day
the evidence is slowly starting to show
more and more that
he's cheated it like like how Magnus
said more than he said and more recently
it's undeniable like right a lot of the
statistics are there the problem is
you can't prove you're not cheating
yeah unless you strip naked like that
site offered him a million bucks to like
everything about the which site of a
headline that said Hans Neiman bucks
and where I struggle to comprehend is
how on Earth he could pull it off
and
like I'm a guilty that my brain goes to
guilt first and resent yeah resentment
remorse guilt that kind of that Trio uh
Magnus put out a statement as we speak
yesterday saying dear Chess World at the
2022 sinkfield cup I made the
unprecedented professional decision to
withdraw from the tournament after my
round three game against Hans Neiman
a week later during the Champions chess
tour I resigned against Holland's Neiman
after playing only one move I know that
my actions have frustrated many in the
chess Community I'm frustrated I want to
play chess I want to continue to play
Chess at the highest level in the best
events I believe that cheating in chess
is a big deal and an existential threat
to the game I also believe that chess
organizers and all those who care about
the sanctity of the game we love should
seriously consider increasing security
measures and methods of cheat detection
for over-the-board chess when Neiman was
invited last minute to the 2022
sinkfield cup I strongly considered
withdrawing prior to the event I
ultimately chose to play that's the
thing you're referring to is that he can
like now we know he was torn about the
whole thing I believe that Neiman has
cheated more and more recently than he
has publicly admitted
his over-the-board progress has been
unusual and throughout our game in
singfield cup I had the impression that
he wasn't tense or even fully
concentrating on the game in critical
positions while outplaying me as black
in a way I think only a handful of
players can do this game contributed to
changing my perspective
he must do we must do something about
cheating and for my part going forward I
don't want to play against people that
have cheated repeatedly in the past
because I don't know what they're
capable of doing in the future there's
more than I would like to say
unfortunately at this time I'm limited
in what I can say without explicit
permission from Neiman to speak openly
so
far I've only been able to speak with my
actions and those actions have stated
clearly that I am not willing to play
chess with Neiman I hope that the truth
in this matter comes out whatever it may
be sincerely Magnus Carlson
World Jazz Champion
um I was useful enough your statements
if I was a world yet no just say
whatever Lex Friedman what would be the
title yeah I don't know I think I would
not
even if I was a world champion I would
just say Lex
or make up a title
and I feel like I really fucked up in
life if I have to tweet a statement as
an image that's like when you get
you've you're a politician you got
caught cheating on your wife
like for many years in a row yes then I
tweet an image I'm sorry for all the
people I have hurt and the people that
believed in me
and what whatever else and then I would
sign World chess champion you know the
most like the the modern way to give a
statement what I thought Magnus was
going to do yeah I thought he was gonna
write
on the recent
Scandal or my statement on the past few
weeks twit longer
what do you mean so you put a URL oh
yeah so that's for tweets but it's
unlimited characters it's not a hundred
I didn't know what that is can you
explain that to me yeah so generally
when a celebrity has a giant audience on
Twitter they will make their statement
on social media and say what it is in a
sentence yeah one line and then there's
a link where's the link take you it's a
website called twit longer
twit longer yeah and that is where they
write their statements that is what I
was expecting when I did this I haven't
seen this before oh this this is I don't
have one off the top of my head but it's
just that Kanye Kim Kardashian breaking
up that would use that streamers
musicians yeah I don't think politicians
use it because that it's just feeling
yeah I use the image use my yeah Myspace
and Facebook right uh yeah
I'll probably go see I I like um
I mean I'm not just being biased here
just because I'm a podcast I'm a huge
fan of podcasts I feel like I would go
on a podcast to talk about it with
somebody I trust so like long form and
discuss it I thought he was going to do
that too in fact I wanted to write him a
message and be like I can be that that
guy for you
I have a very strange relationship with
Magnus because
good bad I I don't we've never
interacted
I
very openly
I don't want to say use him for views
because that is a very crude way of
saying it yeah but if you wanted to
insult my YouTube channel that is what
you would say
so Magnus is in a lot of videos
thumbnails or or videos not clickbaity
but if he's playing in a tournament and
he plays a great game he's going on that
fucking thumbnail
because because uh let's see he's the
number one chess player very likely the
greatest chess player of all time right
plus he's exciting uh and YouTube
algorithm loves his name and people
click on it the best
yeah but I don't know what the chicken
or the egg is but
the reason it loves it the reason people
click on it is because he is an exciting
personality he's an exciting chess
player is there's something compelling
about him yeah he's also he can he knows
how to in a subtle dry wood humor way
talk shit
with the silences and all of that yes he
knows he knows it he knows it he knows
the whole game of it specifically to
Magnus my relationship with him we've
never interacted and throughout the last
couple of years
he generally has interacted with Hikaru
as a competitor he has done some collabs
with the bodesza's he obviously has
talked to Ludwig who's a very very big
streamer
and part of me regrets the fact that
when I was smaller as a YouTuber in a
twitch streamer
I'm sure I used to make jokes or some
tweets at Magnus like when Magnus would
tweet something I would try to respond
so I could be the top reply because that
was my social media I literally think I
once responded to a magnum Sweden saying
responding for engagement because it was
some like it wasn't some controversial
tweet yes it was just something funny
and I went haha responding for
engagement because I was just being a
little bit of an idiot and I knew that
if it got enough likes it would be at
the top and people would see me my brand
and just get to know me this is the type
please don't use the word brand but yes
yes
uh but yeah no and your worries that he
wouldn't take you seriously because he
wouldn't take me seriously and
it was one of the best of all time and I
saw some dude on YouTube just kind of
being a moron and I'm all over his
thumbnails I can imagine he has a very
legitimate case I appreciate your
humility and self-critical nature but
one of the
um the realities with people like him
is he does
he wouldn't hold a grudge or not treat
you seriously
um I'm pretty sure he's a he's a fan and
he's a big support he doesn't watch
YouTube videos
I barely watch YouTube videos I think of
Chess like yes he might watch like more
fun on Chess at Jason stuff but he just
doesn't it's not for him so uh I'm
pretty sure he knows of you and likes
you and you're commenting on stuff has
zero effect on his belief which is funny
that's something you think about now
you're perfect but you're well respected
like you're a lot of people mention you
as a person who was like okay this
person is legit which is an important
thing it's not just an Entertainer it's
not just a shit talker and so on this
person does is a great educator great
fan and student of Chess uh a great
player himself so all those components
and so yeah you're definitely a good
person and on this particular aspect
have been very objective effective I
understand that I'm nowhere near perfect
I don't I'm not a different person on
camera off camera I will say it like it
is maybe on Twitch
you gotta you gotta dig in the mud there
a little bit more a lot more sarcastic a
lot more Brash and whatnot but you meet
me in a taco place
and I'll talk with you the same way I
might if it was a video just that you
may not you may not consider me just a
random guy at a taco place and that's
why I think about the stuff with
specific to Magnus and it's one of the
reasons I don't reach out to him
directly ever I never have never dm'd
him on Instagram hoping for a response
never I've never even reached out to
anyone on his team trying to get a
conversation very candid with him which
I think it would be
I even barely reached out to guys in the
top ten like top 15 only recently
started pushing myself more to do that
and I even in my intro messages to them
preemptively say something like you
might think I'm some idiot you might not
be totally wrong
yes but like I think this would be a
good conversation and give it a shot and
I've been surprised that I've been
ignored by a few but some said oh yeah
I've seen your stuff generally a fan
like no problem I was actually really
blown away this YouTube channel uh
levito of Chess it's a Russian chess
Channel and I think the last name of the
guy is the name of the channel is named
after Ilya levitov who has some sort of
managerial role in the Russian Chess
Federation
and this channel has interviewed some of
the greatest players of all time they
have interviews with the modern best
Russian players and kaspara of carp of
kramnik you name these guys from Russian
Genesis history it's unbelievable I just
thought this was a Channel of just
unbelievably well respected
chess players and Legion of fans that
were long-time chess fans and I
mentioned them very briefly in a YouTube
video
and that little clip went into their
next Community event and the founder of
the channel went on this two minute
beautiful
description of why he liked me and how
he only watched my channel as a beginner
and how I have a natural voice and how
if I talked about cards I would have a
Millions 100 million subscribers just
all this really kind stuff that in my
mind
I thought was either undeserved or I
just never fathomed that yeah I mean you
you said you certainly should not feel
as deserved as you should have
a humility about that kind of stuff but
I think that is the thing that works
over time it's like reputation spreads
which is like if if one person likes you
and they tell you to other people and it
kind of spreads and over time
you have one conversation with the top
ten uh like a like a super Grand Master
and they they say nice things about you
and it just kind of spreads because I've
been very surprised in all walks of life
like
um you know this this really gets me
this makes me happy honestly because
um like people ask me like how I get
guests and so on and it just seems
honestly just be a good person
and
like a real person an honest and just
kind of spreads the word word of mouth
you know even coming here I almost
didn't reach out
what do you mean I had seen you I'd
never talked to a a chess person and
I've watched a lot of I've watched some
of the things start to finish especially
if the guest I'm really interested in
like Jersey St Pierre I'll watch that
guy do whatever yeah exactly I'll watch
him do basically anything yeah make an
omelette or something yeah I I love
listening to him some of the other
things I I I've listened to as well and
I noticed that neither well to me you
you obviously and Joe are the two
biggest podcasters I don't know if
that's like factual I don't know if some
influencer has some podcasts but you
guys interview folks that I listen to
more
more often than anybody else and when
Magnus came on I was like oh this is
that's amazing you know I I don't even
know how I would reach out to Someone
Like You it just seems like a a limp
like climbing a mountain and then a
couple days later and I even in that
episode wanted to write but I didn't
know how like do I make a YouTube
comment I don't want that I'm like I'm
clout chasing on the Magnus episode but
then you talk to the bethesis and I said
oh what's this I shouldn't overthink it
yeah like you know I so I just said all
right fuck it I'll just write a comment
and you're like yeah I'd love to have
you on I was shocked I didn't even you
responded just within a couple hours or
something yeah yeah I loved it man I
mean it was an honor this is a good way
to connect I also like on live streams
I'll watch I'll try to resist commenting
but um
you know I'll watch some some even
smaller channels like I'll get super
excited by by them and connect in that
way there's an intimacy to that man
YouTube is beautiful I don't know
anything about twitch
um maybe it's similar to know anything
about it but YouTube has ruined you
there is an intimacy like especially if
it's live I don't know what that is but
if it's live they're like right there
you can just like reach out and say
hello yes cool it's like really uh I
don't know
I'm just happy to live in this time when
you could connect with people in that
way there is an intimacy that's why I
love podcasts too I I listen to people
and I feel like they're my friend
it's cool it's a cool it's a cool
feeling it makes you feel less lonely
um in this world like you have a
lifelong companion especially like
people that do a podcast for many many
years I'm like we've been you've gone
through all the ups and downs of life
together with a creator with uh with a
podcaster with anything it's cool I
don't know it makes it um it's
surprisingly intimate a one-way
friendships
there's some negatives that people
Definitely describe the word that gets
used a lot as parasocial you think you
you like the viewer will think that the
the streamer or the YouTuber knows them
or owes them something or has some they
have a bigger connection than they do
but yeah you know what actually because
I had to interrupt I have to look maybe
you can explain to me I've heard this
term parasocial a lot I've been meaning
to look it up might as well look it up
while in live yeah I guess sure sure
there's social interaction PSI refers is
this a new term because I have just
started listening hearing it like the
last yeah I think it's years yeah
parasocial interaction PSI refers to
kind of psychological relationship
experienced by an audience in their
mediated encounters with performance in
the mass media particularly on
television and on online platforms
viewers or listeners come to consider
media personalities as friends despite
having no or limited interaction with oh
shit that's a term for a thing of
been referring to interesting the term
was coined by Donald Horton and Richard
wall in 1956. wow when there was like a
very limited media huh wow I guess TV
and radio and stuff yeah yeah parasocial
interaction and exposure The Gamers
interested in the Persona become a
parasocial relationship after repeated
exposure to the media yeah okay what's
the downside bro what's what's okay oh
well I can tell you the downside the
downside is is people thinking they're
in relationships with streamers and
stalking them that's or the Stalking
Part but the relationship is like
I mean okay you mean like actual
relationship like
like waking up and saying how are you
doing like in your head to them yeah no
but that might be an extension more like
yeah getting mad they don't respond to
you in
anytime you're in the Stream or that
convincing yourself the other person
wants you and
you need to go to them so you need to
find where they are like this has
happened some of the biggest female
streamers have reported that
they get stalked in harassed for months
and that's born out of this
this on a very small scale is
you come into a stream every so often
and give an update about your academic
career that's not so bad I I was going
to mention I've streamed on Twitch for
years and I watched people have kids
like people will come in over the course
of months and say hey man you know I
just finished I just took the bar exam
yo man like I'm having my first kid and
that's crazy that's that's amazing yeah
but if they do it in a healthy way
that's one thing
but there's always gonna be downsized
but most of it is beautiful man yes I
have uh very uh I have I guess
parasocial relationships uh of people
that take it a little too far
but it's all love you also have a
fundamental belief and hope in people to
be good yeah yeah yeah and I've been you
know I haven't gotten in trouble with it
yet that's that's a good thing me too
I've interacted with plenty people in
person and no one's been negative so yes
and I've even gone to a war zone uh
there I can't there's no there hasn't
been uh people have been very
I don't know uh people have
only surprised me in the positive
direction in the depth of the the
capacity they have for compassion
uh do we okay so now we're in this weird
place with the cheating can ask you a
question about
how it's possible to cheat like if you
and I
you know the conversation you're gonna
have with Magnus we're gonna have we're
gonna play chess if we're we're trying
to figure out how can you beat them
what are the different ways do you think
over the board chess what are the ways
yeah
that's where I lose the thread because I
don't know
that's what I immediately went to it's
like the engineering challenge of
cheating right well that's because
that's
like how good I mean you're not good at
creating cheating in over the world
situation I'm just saying you your brain
works differently I just choose to not
even like I can't entertain that I can
come up with some bullshit but it's not
going to be anywhere oh your mind is not
like immediately attracted to pulling at
that thread of like how would you fuck
with the system yeah my mind stops at ah
that would have to be a really
sophisticated thing and that's it it
doesn't go any further my brain every
day thinks about the best way to
compartmentalize chess into a digestible
format and put it out into content chess
that's what I think on the board chess
not
cheating yeah I just think about
the YouTube I just think about that
that's currently where my mind is fully
focused I'm also working on like a book
so that's what you think yes see for me
because I've built chess engines that
without understanding chess much
as like you know as anyone does who's
interested in AI you build all kinds of
systems that do all kinds of stuff in
chess is just an easy game like it
starts with Othello goes up the chest
and go there's it's just a great uh
Benchmark a great place to explore
different AI algorithms
um from search to machine learning and
so on but to me cheating is like it's
it's a similar kind of ideas well if I
make it a board instead of eight by
eight to ten by ten I caught us to
change things and with cheating it's
almost like expanding the engineering
challenge or chess out into the the real
world to me okay so just allow me I know
cheating is horrible and everything
but
stockfish
AI engine and human working together in
interesting ways it forgets us just
machine and human working together to
expand the capability of the human is
really fascinating and that's like a
beautiful thing to me of course the
purely for the chess game it ruins the
game yeah but
foreign
I just like thinking of how AI can
interact with the human
uh in in ways that doesn't that it's
frictionless like uh
you know like neural link brain computer
interfaces dream of directly connecting
the human brain to AI system the problem
in this case is I don't think the human
and the AI are interacting together the
AI dominates the human is just the
mechanism that makes the moves I
actually played if I may I I don't maybe
I need your advice on this I thought and
I told myself I won't do it and then a
friend of mine said uh and the a couple
of friends and
both of them are previous guests in this
podcast so I definitely need to do it
which is
um
you know connect
so I already have for the chess arm that
I built
um this computer vision on the
chessboard is able to to uh extract from
vision
um
the way you do optical character
recognition extract the board so I was
gonna just build that cheating system to
demonstrate it with the reason I thought
it was interesting so something we
didn't mention is I don't know who
started this rumor but the rumor started
there it might have been like anal beads
that yeah I don't know who started this
but I do know that Elon magnified it my
username was dead center and that thing
that he retweeted which was hilarious to
me uh you're using uh what do you mean
he retweeted the clip but also the copy
pasta like the the paragraph that was
like describing the whole anal beads
Theory and dead center in the middle of
that paragraph is as Gotham chess says
and the worst part about it was I was
literally Tagged so it was as user slash
Gotham chess says so every time that
paragraph gets posted on Reddit I get
tagged
so it's getting posted a lot so yes but
yes he tweeted and then there's also the
funny thing which I really love the the
weirdest most entertaining thing
uh was that part of the same thing where
uh
like uh plot twist Magnus has been using
anal bees this whole time that's how he
got it yes yes
uh I love that so much okay but anyway
uh there's a
I will I quickly realized that there is
I I have to admit that I know not much
about sex toys
and then I quickly realized that there's
a lot of sex stories that have bluetooth
capability that you can interact with
so you can it's very easy to connect
stockfish to a sex toys
actually actually yes so uh apparently
that's a popular thing like a lot of sex
toys
are Bluetooth enabled so you can
communicate with them so this is
actually pretty trivial to do not
trivial but but then and then in fact
there is a um
there's several libraries one of them is
really active called now this is on
GitHub friends it's in Rust but I think
there's python wrappers it's called butt
plug is the name of the library
that communicates with it supports a
bunch of different devices uh a bunch of
different like vibrators and all that
kind of stuff but then I looked at the
kind of vibrators it supports and
they're all like creepy looking I mean
like it doesn't
it it doesn't have
um I don't know it felt too dirty you
know like there's a line I was like uh
is this not gonna because the reason I
like that kind of stuff is I like the
joke of it that ultimately is somehow
educational
because to me I really care about Ai and
this is a cool little project to do it's
pretty easy to share
um
yeah but I was thinking about doing it I
was thinking about doing it at first I
said no it's just kind of feels dirty
but then the the aforementioned uh
friend said no you should definitely do
it
I'm sure that people will sign up right
I just went on the table like show the
vibration like like this is you're
basically converting uh now it's not I'm
not obviously a grand master so you have
to say everything I feel like no you
don't
you could say the square you don't have
to say the piece the human will fill in
the Gap no a good human chess player I
can't oh that's what that's the point I
wanted to make is like for me I would
like to know the actual move I need to
make yeah so I need the full information
right so I have to convert the bishop C5
whatever to more to Morse code which is
a lot of vibration I that yes exactly uh
but it still works it's hilarious and
fun so I was thinking about doing it but
uh because it's pretty easy to do
um it would be just like a fun exercise
I love a mix of technical rigor and
humor
well this is the perfect project for
that right exactly yeah this was born I
think out of uh user comment in a twitch
stream
so I thought it was born on Reddit this
Theory but I think uh Eric Hansen was
streaming Chas brah and someone in his
chat made that joke and he read it out
loud that was the first time it was read
out loud
and then somebody clipped it and it
became
international news
like I don't have you followed how big
the traction got on this anal beads
thing no it was covered by every major
News Network late night talk show Trevor
Noah Stephen Colbert no international
news international news in countries
like China where I would have never
thought that they would report about
anal beads yeah did they what was the
tonality of it was it seen as a joke or
did they say there's a cheating scandal
I think too much
literally anal beads like just you know
just accused uh accused denies uh denies
cheating with anal beads which he never
did he never denied cheating with anal
beings it was a joke internet theory if
that was him I would lean into it
yeah I can't imagine men like that's I I
don't know what the right thing for him
to do is but it's you're not touching
this one damn oh I I I've talked about
it I don't say the words anal beads in
my YouTube videos but I'll say pizza
yeah I'll uh okay the thing is you think
I should do the the code thing it's like
a tutorial
sure yeah I think it would be hilarious
if you find a way to do it yeah yeah you
can show that it is possible to
theoretically vibrate via Bluetooth
chess moves and if someone
shoves it up their ass what that was
another joke okay they offered you to
play naked they're gonna make you spread
your cheeks yeah I didn't understand why
naked soft problem I think there's so it
doesn't have to be naked I don't think
naked is enough yeah
um
okay some questions from Reddit
ask him ask Levy if he deep down hates
his audience I saw that yeah I saw I saw
that was someone I have a I have a
love-hate relationship with the chess
subreddit yeah so that's why some of
those questions were going to be tough
I have a love-hate relationship do you
think that's a tough question or is that
come from a place of Love ah very very
tough to say very tough to say uh love
and hate like they're basically next
door neighbors on Reddit I feel like
correct they oscillate very quickly
between each other yes so Reddit chess
specifically I think is mostly folks who
are around before the chess boom
so the chest is the chest subreddit
sorry yeah yeah so a lot of them have
been around for five years seven years
ten years even more and I think the
average age on Reddit is lower than the
average age on these chess subreddit I
think that the chess subreddit is beyond
the age of 20 maybe even 25 like a lot
of folks that are ancient ancient people
and they're amazing yeah I mean not 15
or 16 uh Anarchy chess is younger so
Anarchy chess is basically chess memes
this is great A lot of stupid memes on
there do they like you or no or is it
they did until my crypto sponsorship
um which is a separate convo that I'm
more than happy to have uh but uh yeah
so my relationship with the Reddit chess
subreddit is tough because my content on
YouTube
stops at a certain point with them they
can't learn from me because I'm
tailoring to 95 of my audience which is
about 16 1700 and below and I have a lot
of content where I
jokingly make fun of low rated players
and everyone's in on it and we all have
fun and I laugh at myself a ton the life
as you can even see in this conversation
I but just like you mentioned in with
with clips and out of context things
folks have already formed the perception
of my personality
there's nothing I can do to win them
back and I think the dominant percentage
of the loudest group of folks on the
chess subreddit they just they have a
certain perception of me it's not going
to change
and you add something like
cryptocurrency sponsorship which
people on Reddit just in general are
relatively negative on the subject
is going to start you know snowballing
more and more so if you ever look up a
thread of should I buy a Gotham course
and it's on Reddit chess it's gonna say
no everyone's calling it a scam over
price
interesting I got I I heard a lot of
really positive stuff I don't know where
I was on Reddit in general about me yeah
you might have you might have been
looking for it you might have not been
looking for for negative things and I
know I was looking for like best
Educators online like that kind of stuff
I don't I'll it might have not been read
to chess I'll be totally honest with you
if you ever go there and look for
something like best Recaps or best
educational content for intermediates
I'm not mentioned I might not be
mentioned because I'm already expected
to be on the list so they just kind of
want to generally shout out smaller
creators totally fine with that and I'm
not even going on this whole explanation
because I want to win folks back it's
just sort of the reality of the
situation a lot of my stuff is really
click-baity and I'm playing the YouTube
game yeah they don't want that do you
ever feel like a limit
or tension between
your creativity and the YouTube
algorithm like do you feel like it has
negative yeah effects yeah yeah I want
to cover more in-depth stuff in a 30
minute video that I think is super
useful to people it's only going to get
60 000 views and you feel why is that a
bad thing is is it good is it good to
mix it up yes it's good to mix it up but
I make a video a day I make one bad
video the other videos suffer
and then if I make two videos that
underperform the rest of the videos
don't get pushed out as much your
earnings can go down 40 day to day which
doesn't happen in other careers and if I
ever want to supplement if I ever want
to make a very instructional video I try
to do it in a very fun way so something
like eight of Magnus Carlson's best end
games you can still learn a ton but the
concept of the video is going to be
different like I try to still teach
things but in more interesting and
exciting ways like
the
the guy who was scammed for a million
dollars
Alexa shirov who has basically promised
the world championship if he won his
match he won his match he didn't get a
world championship
so there's still stuff in there you can
learn and you can my goal is just you
click on the video you learn something
and you enjoy yourself that's it get
people to click on it
by any means necessary but once they're
there have quality stuff they can learn
and yeah
yeah man I wish so I I have zero those
pressures but I also really really uh
like I turn off views and all that kind
of stuff I don't pay attention to any of
that
uh but I wish YouTube would like
the algorithm would include how good the
video is
like beneficial for people's long-term
well-being
in in the calculation yeah I actually
really hate the fact that they turned
off dislikes
yeah I didn't get that at all because
like and now I don't know the difference
between like for tutorials specifically
like I don't know what's a good chess
video or not or what's a good review or
not but I mean it emphasizes following
certain people more like if you trust
the Creator but like man
um I really don't know what's a good
video or not essentially and then you
have to trust more the title then then
the click baitiness comes in and it's
it's no good you have to use your own
gut instinct as opposed to data sucks
yeah there's videos that have almost no
views that are still great incredible
yeah and some of some of the best ones
some people who are just focused on like
the quality yeah and don't want to play
the game or don't even know how to play
and they don't really want to play the
game of the YouTube algorithm
yeah it sucks it sucks especially given
how dominant YouTube is in the
in defining the sort of
the Creative Energy of our whole
civilization of the youth not just us
not just chess uh when are you going to
chess box against Eric Rosen this is a
question from Reddit chessbox you uh you
said your your hands are all messed up
yeah yeah you're training for something
or a regular like so I also just
remembered we never talked about Hikaru
so I can talk about Rosen and Hikaru in
the same chess boxing oh shit is this
your McGregor like
uh Eric Rosen is actually a close friend
of mine I probably have five of those
and he just so happens to be
uh not just the chess streamer but uh we
we talked about buying homes we've
talked about he's stayed at my place he
took my wedding photos
I flew him to New York and paid for all
his stuff just so he could hang out with
my wife and I and you know take some 6
a.m photos in the sun uh in in the park
so oh he looks familiar yeah
so he's uh yeah he's a good friend of
mine now in terms of Chess boxing
sales boxing is this really fascinating
sport where you have boxing but you also
have chess and you have rounds
so you start a chess game with a clock
that segment itself lasts for a couple
of minutes they put the board away and
pause the clock whatever the time
situation is then you box for a minute
and that keeps going on I don't know how
it works in terms of the time expiring
meaning in fighting there's judges that
just tell you how the fight was going
right here I don't know who wins and how
like do you win by you can win by
knockout you can win by Checkmate or
their clock can run out on the
chessboard but it's the judges who is
there a round limit does this just go on
and on and on and on you know what I
mean yeah I thought it's like 12 rounds
right isn't this a thing in in Russia
it's a big thing in the UK UK yeah UK I
don't I don't know why and there's a lot
of YouTuber events just for boxing so
YouTubers just learn to box and then
they just box no chess they just
straight up box each other like Jake
Paul for example you ever gonna get Jake
Paul in here yeah yeah I'm sure okay I'm
sure I feel like there's so many
different guests have been mentioned uh
yeah Jake but Jake Paul would be it
would be a fun guess but he's obviously
the biggest scouter he's legitimately
boxing people he's not yeah uh but okay
chess players is never going to learn to
box to that level and all of us are
starting basically from zero and and
Ludwig talked to me behind the scenes
hey how would you feel about being in a
chess boxing match
I said okay yeah maybe when is it going
to be he said five months from now I've
always wanted to train combat I've
weight lifted I've done cardio I've
played here UFC fan too yeah but do you
admire fighting yeah I would enjoy it I
just have a really bad lower back
and that makes a lot of different combat
difficult
but I said you know what screw this I'm
going to contact a few local gyms yeah
and one of them the guy emailing me back
and forth had actually watched my
YouTube videos
so he was the first to respond and he
said yeah like come in do a couple
classes like see how you feel so first I
did conditioning which killed me because
fighting conditioning as you know it
kills you it's a completely different
type of conditioning but I felt good and
I really wanted to come back and since
July I've been training three four days
a week nice yeah I feel pretty good I
love it lower back feels good lower
everything the whole body got stronger
so what you're saying is you're gonna
fuck up your car it's UTC training I'm
not I'm not fighting so I talked to Eric
about it and the truth is we're both
concerned about head trauma I haven't
actually sparred I like sparring Shadow
Boxing but I go there I do personal
training I don't do
a group class I'm not fighting I'm
fighting the bag I'm doing Shadow Boxing
my form is improving but I haven't been
punched I get hit in the stomach you
know I get hit in the side with kicks
nobody's punched me in the face yet so I
think we both were adequately concerned
about that and there was not some
ridiculous amount of money on the table
so we decided it's just not worth
pursuing how does hakara come into the
picture
because he's a possible competitor
ask me all the time who would you fight
would you yeah people are like ah Andrea
botes would kick your ass that's a tough
one because I can't what am I going to
say I'm gonna fight a woman who I'm
larger than you know so I just have to
take the L against any time a woman is
mentioned that's fine like Owen's still
winning that one right exactly so I've
lost to both boat houses Anna Rudolph
Anna kremling they're all chess creators
they're not like hypothetically yeah I
get a hypothetical fight yeah yeah
um there's been training uh I think
Andrea has been training that's because
an event got announced this this event
that I was hypothetically going to be
the main event against Eric Rosen yeah
it was not announced yeah and then you
kind of like thought like maybe let's
not do this no I I knew once I declined
to fight Eric that I would not be
participating and I even knew you know I
knew who was going to be the main event
um because I was kind of offered both of
those guys so I'm on Hamilton so is this
still going on the chessboxing event
will happen in December in Los Angeles
yeah who is the main event it's Aman
Hamilton who's also chess bra so they
have a couple of guys as part of the
chatbra channel and Lauren strand Lauren
strand is a international master from
England he's a
I think he's done some boxing a little
bit he's a commentator Brash guy nice
controversial guy yeah uh it's funny
because they started Lawrence put out
some videos and I went damn I should
have done this yeah I think it
but uh I mean you're right first of all
there's so many things to say one of
which is
if you're if you want to take it
seriously you know it does pull you in
like you know if you train a lot
it's going to affect the rest of your
life and then
and then there's it it changes you I
think taking Combat Sports seriously
changes you and good
and there's negative cost to it I think
because it's a whole nother thing man
it's like uh it's like doing Marathon
running or something it really pulls you
in and the other thing is the
is the head trauma like you have to take
that kind of stuff seriously especially
if you're doing sparring and all that
kind of stuff yeah
um still some of the celebrities I don't
know why but it's pretty exciting right
I don't know why it'd be fun to watch a
car like there's something I always said
if Hikaru and Magnus did a boxing event
and I was the co-main event against I
don't know who that would that be that'd
be has Magnus said anything about it
like about doing chat box uh well first
of all he's gonna commentate the Ludwig
event nice which he which he said he he
kind of said oh there's been people in
the past that are my level in chess not
my his level in chess and uh have wanted
to get physical with him I think he's
talking about Hikaru it's it's I don't
think anybody else is that'd be that'd
be a good one man that'd be a good one I
think Magnus who do you think wins that
one I think Magnus is in better physical
shape he's also a little bit bigger I
think than Hikaru a lot of reach I think
he carves a dog though I think I think
he'll I don't think he's gonna he's
gonna get out of there like I I don't
think he's gonna quit in in the ring I
would think Hikaru just goes nuts in the
beginning and Burns himself out so if
matters can survive that
I feel like a car would just go crazy
and then just get exhausted would not be
able to Pace himself correctly maybe
chasing that first round knockout yeah
yeah just swing like crazy honestly I
just love to see that which is like the
effect of physical exertion on the on
the game I think it's I'm sure they're
strong enough to
yes but I think we definitely
underestimate the effect of being
punched maybe bleeding out of your nose
or something like that it's it's no joke
I can't
I can't say I'm anticipating the first
day I actually do some sparring and get
seriously hit because
I know it's not going to feel good even
now I take a hard jab to the stomach or
the ribs and I'm just like man this is
this is rough I mean I
I had to do three minutes on heavy bag
and when I finished
my I had I had been like slacking on my
form because my arms were tired and I
hit with my fingers instead of my
Knuckles and my hands are like you can
see the the red skin like completely
pink meaty skin under I didn't realize
when I was hitting and only today it's
the pain is unbearable so I can't
imagine head this must be no I mean it
gets I mean it's a different thing I
mean of course your skin gets tougher
everything gets tougher so it gets used
to it the head the head is a weird one
because it's not going to send you those
kinds of signals you're not going to get
this the skin type of signals
the brain is a weird thing because it
doesn't hurt yeah
it just does the damage and the damage
can materialize itself manifest itself
only years later yeah it's a weird one
but then we all die
is there's that Braveheart speech
um I gotta ask you about Bots because it
to me it's like super interesting and
you've played a lot of bots at different
levels
uh you have a video called the advanced
chess Bots are terrifying uh so what's
the difference between playing humans
and Bots like you mentioned this Nelson
bot yeah that brings this queen out I
think rated 16. over 1400 okay at 12 40.
I think so like there's a style to those
what uh what's the difference between
the way Bots play and the way humans
play a lot of people prefer playing Bots
because they have anxiety playing other
humans it's a very legitimate thing
interesting a lot of beginners they
don't like live chess they get nervous
yellow anxiety you get close to your
highest ever rating you panic happens to
me too yeah happens to me even now
so definitely Bots they're somehow more
reliable or something yeah they're I
don't know but that's it's a big thing
it's a big thing and the popularity of
that video shows that people enjoy
watching
you play chess bots so
uh I'm gonna demystify this this might
be shocking
those Bots are all the same but for the
most part you could just program a bot
to make mistakes at a certain moment
you could program a bot to spend less
time on certain moves and it's gotten
sophisticated enough that you can
basically program it to play at whatever
more or less level
that a human plays at you say I'll play
it at 1800 level
so it's programmed to throw in mistakes
the problem is
and this is why it's all beginners to
not play Bots
because Bots are programmed in the
following way
beginner Bots or like literal toddlers
they have no understanding whatsoever
they will literally lose all their
pieces but they won't lose all their
pieces and make mistakes they'll be
beginners the beginners actually know
how to start a game they just struggle
the first eight moves nine moves their
mistakes are very different than Bob
plays completely outlandish types of
mistakes that you cannot pick up in
terms of a pattern standpoint because no
actual humans play like that they should
move their Queen to the opposite side of
the board for no reason you can take it
yeah it's not even a blunder it's almost
like Randomness it's completely random
and this problem extends further because
Advanced Bots will play an opening
completely reasonably
and let's just hang a rook
which okay maybe happens but that's not
exactly how you get to 1800 at 1800
that's a very strong level of the game
you know your openings very well you
start navigating the middle game based
on already things that you remember and
then basically once I chooses a bad plan
and the other side chooses a better plan
and one thing leads to another nobody's
just recreationally hangs all their
pieces which is the way Bots are kind of
programmed to play but some of those
bots in that video were I remember
playing them
and uh they were they yeah they were
nuts uh they were out calculating me
every time I thought I had a trick in
two three second moment of thought it
would just play the best move and
sometimes that also happens it gets into
a dead Loop where it just starts
bulldozing you and it can't stop so it
made its mistakes already yeah it's
programmed to make only a few
and then it just bulldozes you the rest
of the way interesting I mean that's
that's why I I played with stockfish a
bunch
so I got um
I built for myself a bunch of different
chess experiments recently I had to do
with the chest plane bot
um but I also built the infinite
chessboard where it was stockfish was
playing like an infinite number of chess
games
and one of the parameters that was
interesting to play with is how long it
gets to think about a move
and how that affects the rating of the
thing oh I've I did that a little bit so
that's a tricky one I'm sure people know
how to do that well but it's trick it's
not trivial to to understand like what
there must be a good formula for it but
it's also interesting to think about
like a controlled number of blunders
but it's probably better
the control number of blunders is not a
good way to build the bot yeah it's yeah
for training purposes at least the time
the time per move is probably better but
the craziest thing is I did that a
couple of my of my devs were helping me
with the build like uh I'm scaling my
courses into a better chess learning
platform essentially we've done a lot of
different experiments with stockfish
which I'm even happy to get into here
um and uh stockfish making moves in 0.1
millisecond plays better than a human
which is disgusting and disturbing
frankly because that's crazy like you
can't react to a car stopping in front
of you anywhere near that fast and yeah
so the reason I was interested in that
is because when you have an a very large
chessboard you have
tens of thousands hundreds of thousands
of game going on at the same time
you have to the like think of the
minimum amount of thinking per move that
you can uh allow for and it does it does
seem it's damn good uh at least to my
eye basically at the lowest possible
setting you can give it so yeah it's
incredible it's incredible what boss
you're able to do now it's
as far as I know as primarily machine
learning based stockfish so stockfish
move to machine learning completely it's
not doing search
as far as I know yeah this is where you
you lose me a bit but the move Discovery
and evaluation is what's been changing
in in the way starfish works so it's
discovering of moves and then the way it
looks forward and then evaluates
positions that has changed but Matthew
Sadler who wrote the book Game Changer
about Alpha zero yeah that that he
explains it significantly better but
that's the way I think it it works
what did that make you feel when you
first saw Alpha zero play I was excited
I I didn't have any any sort of
existential thoughts I enjoyed watching
it completely destroy openings that
people thought were good
uh and it
it that experiment though has does have
some caveat in the sense that
I think Alpha zero was playing with a
full tank of servers and I think
stockfish wasn't which I think is what
one of the things people point out they
weren't playing since then they were
able to demonstrate much less yeah
uh
but also Alpha zero stopped developing
um they stopped developing it yes
which which sucks but again from their
perspective From deepmind's perspective
it's like all right well we took on this
really tricky game did something
honestly incredible they won
they won I mean well not just one I mean
they did it without any human
supervision so like uh without any
training on human expert games so only
through self-play which
I mean that's what learning is about
it's like it's what you think of as a
child a human child a toddler learning
from
you know somewhat nothing and becoming a
capable human that's that's what we
think of when we think about
intelligence so the fact that it's able
to play itself and become the best
player in the world at the game of Go
and all kinds of games it's just
incredible and obviously that inspired
the modern stockfish yeah now to do the
same all the same kind of self-play
methods uh somebody on Reddit asked a
pretty interesting question I don't know
if you have an interesting answer to it
what makes a chess move quote unquote
human
as you are someone oh this is to me but
it's matching you in third person as you
are someone working in AI this idea of
humanness would seem incredibly
interesting yes sir it is especially
since most cheat detection relies on
humanness as a way to detect cheaters I
think since children being born right
now will have the advantage of engine
training their whole life they will
start to see the game the way an engine
does will a person be considered a
cheater if they play like an engine
there also seem to be a discrepancy
especially with Levy about who can play
What appears to be a non-human move he
often says things like quote if you were
a normal player
normally in quotes if you were a normal
player I would think you were cheating
but since it's Magnus
I don't doubt Magnus is great but if
human this is our Benchmark what is the
ELO rating where your moves can start to
look like an engine without critique
there's a bunch of questions in there
they combine two of my quotes yes and
into one so one thing that I like to say
is sometimes in a chess game moves look
or an opening looks so ridiculous that
if a viewer played it I would make fun
of them or slap them that's always the
joke if I was your chess coach I'd smack
you but yeah when Magnus plays it which
oh wow you know it's a very different so
they mixed up this quote with another
quote which is uh
you know if if ice if
I'll be explaining something and I'll
say oh and here the engine says you
should play like this yeah if one of
your opponents plays like this report
them for cheating they say they fuse two
quotes they said oh human can't play
like that but because it's an engine
move but because Magnus is playing so
they they mixed kind of two things but
there's interesting
levels of humor and uh insight there on
both of those yeah the difference
between human move and engine and like
what an engine move is
is I think two things number one a
computer move
is outlandish in its in its concept and
it's
um and its idea
so the best example that I can give of
that is if you gave a hundred grand
Masters a position and told them you
know what what do you think the best
move here is for black not in this
position right here we have nothing but
an overwhelming amount of them would
look at the position evaluate everything
they know about the game of chess which
is relatively similar but obviously
slightly imbalanced based on their skill
level and they would come up with a
sample size of two or three moves and in
comes the computer with a fucking
Haymaker
and suddenly everybody goes
oh everything we know about Chess has
gone out the window so they all start
looking at that move and they know it's
the best move so now they start adding
the evidence behind
the verdict as opposed to getting to the
verdict while first looking at at the
evidence
so the concept of it and the idea of it
is so outlandish based on a certain type
of position that you can't fully grasp
it you have to continue to beg the
engine to tell you what the variation is
a move is only good if its extension is
good that's the way chess works so if
like a move is good it's because the
computer has seen that the various
branches of things going forward are
also good so you bring all that back and
no human could have even conceptualized
that initial thing but the second thing
about computer moves is they they look
counter-intuitive so
that's a if you might be in a position
where it looks like the demands of the
position are ABC and then the computer
is like nope it's not because I've seen
the future way more than you possibly
could have and I don't have emotions
so like dumb moves and Brilliant moves
can look similar yes and oftentimes do
and this is actually back to the Hans
thing a lot of people now dissecting
these games they're playing
and there are they're basically saying
like even Fabiano Corona one of the best
players in the world was on some on his
podcast yesterday basically saying okay
this is beyond my level saying out of my
league yeah what's that what's out of
your league you played for the world
championship kind of we get what we can
read between the lines right it's is it
possible that Hans is that level of
Genius is there like different
different kinds of Genius
like where one you could be out of each
other's League kind of thing maybe in
the case of Magnus it's understanding of
end games
it's just somehow he understands the
that last phase of the game and the
complexities and the problems he
composed better than anybody else so you
can see Magnus do
uh poor looking Moves In the End Game
or like moves that don't fit what seem
your gut says is would be the optimal
yes but also
so it's not that you even think they're
right you you just might not even
consider them yeah because of over
Reliance on your own information or even
the computer that was what was going on
in game six she kept doing things and
kept playing and kept finding play and
posing those questions that humans and
computers could not understand so he
beat the engine basically he could he
wouldn't have beaten the engine because
they would have defended Yan lost that
game in the 90s move psychologically he
thought the game was over so that
contributed computer would have defended
so by the by the time this podcast comes
out which I don't know would be in a
week or something like that I feel like
more will happen
let's say you're predicting engine how
does this Hans drama end wow look let's
look in um in three months
by the time we get to the next World
Championship let's say
what what uh this what are the options
what are the possible let's imagine
let's not say like what the probability
is what are the options
uh chess.com is forced to or agrees to
or whatever to come up with a huge
amount of evidence of cheating in the
past
uh or Hans comes out
what are the what can Hans do with this
so I'm uncomfortable with the general
make sure you can maybe update me on
this but there was a little bit of an
attack on him not a lot of an attack
that he's a cheater right without
evidence without clear conclusive
evidence physical evidence physical
evidence so all of those all right
that's the tricky thing yeah so like
that stuff we're talking about is beyond
my level
that starts being
um kind of intuitive circumstantial
evidence there's
the statistical evidence behind the
over-the-board games that he's played in
2020 2021 where the games match what's
called engine correlation more than
Magnus and many other top Grand Masters
combined
but that can be argued is because he was
very strong in playing weaker
oppositions so there's always kind of
this argument against statistics right
there's the fact that the guy who Magnus
name dropped Maxim bloogie loogie is a
chess Grand Master and he's even been I
think president of the US Chess
Federation I've played him in some Blitz
Games it turns out I wasn't even fully
aware of the extent of this he has been
banned from chess.com for cheating for
cheating have they actually have has him
and Hans actually worked yes so that was
why he named dropped that right that's
also not good you see where this is
getting
you still don't have the physical proof
but you have
smoke
so I don't know how this ends I don't
know if this if if
he denies it to the death and he ends up
filing some sort of legal action some
sort of Ethics complaint yeah or he
admits everything
I don't know boy well no matter what I
hope despite chess or not that he's
mentally strong enough for whatever is
to come that's what I keep saying
because he's been under Fire right yeah
I can't I can't imagine right like I
just I really can't imagine and maybe we
just have too much compassion but I
don't think so I really just feel like
at the end of the day chess is just a
game
but it is a game played by millions of
people throughout history
and Nations have basically fought Wars
over the chessboard
so like there's there's a lot it's like
Olympics Olympics is just a little oh
this dude running and so on the hockey
is just the thing with for the puck and
but you know
um
it's it's also much more than that it's
also it's also Nations
um
sort of
figuring out their conflict in a way
that doesn't involve violence
yeah it's a serious thing and it's a
thing that inspires
millions of people and it's a testing
ground for intelligent systems that
eventually uh take over human
civilization
yeah I mean the Bots Bots are really
interesting I I don't know if there's
other lessons like you you played a
clone of yourself that's you watched
stockfish versus stockfish
you have a video
um people should check out each other
you have a lot of Awesome videos you
have video titles Stockbridge versus
stockfish and that was the experiment I
made them play each other
so I made the two person what did you
learn from that experiment
uh I enjoyed first of all they will
always make a draw so engines don't get
to play each other from a beginning
position because they will always draw
especially if they're the same engine so
stockfish 15 slackfish 15 I don't think
one side will ever beat the other
basically
but if you program them to play a
certain opening position according to
chess Theory you get to see interesting
ways into how they evaluate one of the
things one of the ways that it played
against the London opening was absurd
like it just it was completely
ridiculous black sacrificed two pawns as
early as move six which is a borderline
completely lost position
and then both sides foresaw that the
only way white was going to be able to
use those that material advantage was to
give it back
and stabilize their own position like
black just got a crazy attack
Jesus Christ because this is crazy yeah
but they drew I mean they ended up
drawing so I I'm also gonna make them
play against each other in
either bad openings or like some of the
most popular gambits
looking looking at something like that
um and the way I'm going to do this is
basically say
which chess gambits are the best
and the way I'm going to do that is
theoretically the engine should be able
to beat the Gambit because the Gambit is
very rarely blessed by the computer
so if the computer cannot beat that
Gambit that means it's good
that means it's not losing if it's a
completely lost Gambit it will beat it
but if it draws despite getting that
early disadvantage
then that means the Gambit is very
reliable and you can play it so that's a
good way to evaluate opening games yeah
what's what's the best what's your
favorite opening
or what what openings do you like there
was an opening that
got me back into chess when I was 15. I
had quit for like three years and I went
to my friend's house and he had a book
by Lars gandorf a Danish Grandmaster
called the Karo Khan defense which is
C6 do you want white do you want black
do you want to show them the opening
this is the opening the carcon defense
so you play E4 I play C6 I have I have
to play Black that's it yeah absolutely
and we develop from here
what counts as a opening okay but the
development does the development matter
yeah so from here the development goes
into the variations of the Karo Khan so
this is the Karo Khan like you can be in
a city but then you can be in
neighborhoods so that's a very
non-dramatic okay uh
two Pawns in the center so that's called
The Briar variation so which what's a
good thing for me two two squares yeah
if you can put two Pawns in the center
yeah you should and then um so that's a
good thing yes and then I will go here
and now you have to decide what you're
gonna do with
your center point you can push take or
defend it
and uh push take or defend right yeah uh
what would you suggest take is the the
worst take is just stable so we just
trade but pushing is considered the best
advancing and taking my space away from
me
so I think Alpha zero or stockfish would
probably always push push and now
there's something called like the main
line or the sideline main line is what's
the most popular played at all levels
which is moving the bishop here I've
played this a lot but for beginners this
is an intermediate player's uh this is
why I love this opening so much on move
three black already has a plus score
which is
crazy like it's not supposed to happen
and there's this very tricky second most
popular move which is undermining your
Center trying to get you to take my free
Pawn but destabilize and leave both of
them kind of hanging and uh is that why
the the plus score
is because you're susceptible to the
destabil destabilization yes because
people at 99 of the rating ladder do not
understand how to deal with what's
coming basically they don't know how to
deal with a structural attack
so would uh would stockfish try to
defend the pawn here and keep no it
would take the pawn and tell you to go
fuck yourself oh
I knew that because I am 3400 right that
would take the pawn and be like all
right win it back and even if you did
you would suffer it would make you win
it back in the most annoying way it
would make you tie your shoes together
and
so I uh like as stockfish I would taste
yes
that's the best move but not at 99 of
the rating ladder which is funny
interesting
um but you like to play this
I play this against GMS I play both I
move my Bishop I push it and you know
what are the different ways it evolves
like then the rest doesn't matter so
this is just like a pawn structure thing
uh yeah and I mean it how deep are most
openings
so it's anywhere from like two moves to
like 10 moves kind of thing yeah you can
be out of theory very very quickly to
move two move three like basically on
your own you have a general idea but you
don't remember games I mean I I know
Karo Khan games from start to finish
because I've played it since 2011. so
you know all the different branches that
goes without down yeah I I think I know
every opening in chess basically I think
most most title players know every
opening but we don't know we can't play
it competitively because we would be but
what are some of the weirder openings
that um foreign
but might be explored
like Magnus might play them just to fuck
with the opponent he played something
recently actually uh against this German
Prodigy Vincent kymer which was um a
specific move order in a very popular
opening so it was basically a position
that had been reached thousands of times
but the move order Magnus chose with
white was played maybe
0.05 percent of the time which is crazy
thousands of games and it's supposed to
be not good meaning it allows black to
equalize because that's what black is
going for
it's not winning the game but equalizing
because you go second says I don't care
about equalizing I just want a position
I don't want my opponent to know the
answers to the test
and that's so interesting yeah because
also fucks you psychologically it throws
you off and just always keep you on your
toes he's in a weird position but he
also has the advantage of being able to
intimidate
I wonder how many people
um
how much is that a roll of it like being
scared of the other person that's usual
I think I think some of the top guys
would deny it but
you know when you're in the seventh hour
and you're playing Magnus it's a very
different feeling than some of the other
when Magnus is messing around in the
opening it's very different than another
person messing around in the opening
you're just kind of like
expect to for something to be there
we'll see if it translates to poker for
him but I think he got he gets a little
bit maybe less respect in the poker
world in the Chess World he's sort of
alpha he gets a lot of respect I just
talked to Daniel negrono he gives gets
the only person that doesn't respect
Magnus Carlson
honestly either in chess or poker is
Magnus Carlos
[Laughter]
sure but like bang is just hilarious I
mean when he talks about his rating he's
like that's pretty good when he talks
about how good he's this Pokemon I suck
but you know I think that self-critical
view that he I think he honestly
believes uh to a degree is is probably
part of the the uh the engine that fuels
him to get better and better and better
and better yeah but what I'm saying is
if you if you're face to face with
Magnus out of chessboard it's not the
same as being in a nine-handed poker
table with him you kind of keep an eye
on him maybe and then he's a mysterious
guy but just different because you're
like this is the man
yeah there's very few people yeah so in
uh in poker they talk about Phil Ivey
that way yeah yeah it's like this super
intimidating I think that's that's
probably harder to intimidate in poker
actually I don't know I don't know
there's something intimidating about
like excellence in a deterministic game
that's just terrifying like
you're fuck I mean it's like playing
stockfish like
you're fucked this thing will suffocate
you
and especially when you do makes moves
that you don't understand
this I to me the most beautiful thing
honestly is the sacrifices
that the um the engines do
just the it's such a fuck you yep like I
could sacrifice pieces and I'll get them
back and I'll get them back more and I
could I don't even I don't even have to
get them back your position is so bad I
Gave You full material and there's
nothing you can do about it yeah that's
terrifying yeah that's terrifying that's
like and that transfers to AI systems in
general like
Like A system that plays weak
just to to fool you
for people
who uh are trying to get better at chess
beginners or um at any stage of their
development what advice would you give
about getting better
Except watch did you of course watch my
videos check out chastity.com that's
where we're going to scale the courses
too
uh but no on a serious note you have to
be prepared to lose way more than win
my mom gave me advice when I was
maybe 13 or 14 and I just discovered
that I I liked girls
she said you're gonna get a lot more
no's in life than yeses
uh that even happened with with my wife
actually our whole journey is is quite
quite fascinating it's paved with
rejection okay paved with yes various uh
ghostings uh over the course of years
but then we got married and we love each
other very much so
um it's a it's a it's a wonderful Tale
But it's the it's the same in chess
You're Gonna Lose a lot and you have to
be for adults I noticed kids and adults
learn chess very differently kids yell
out in class and they're very excited
and they don't realize how many times
they get something wrong adults never
want to talk during lessons because
they're afraid of being wrong adults
will preface correct answers with this
is probably wrong but like shut up
you're paying for a for a private lesson
this is the place to be wrong you know
so adults especially think that being
dominant in a career
where they've dedicated a lot of their
brain power a lot of their work ethic
and a lot of their study time it's going
to translate to chess they do it to keep
their own kids they helicopter their own
kids because they try to apply a lot of
the same stuff
studying chess is different than
studying anything else anything else
same could be argued for martial arts I
guess but yeah 100 you have to have a
beginner's mind and what that actually
means is
sucking in every aspect of the game and
and studying all the interesting ways in
which you suck and you will realize you
get better without actually trying to
get better I show up to the boxing gym
one day I move my hips better yeah and
my I would do Shadow Boxing uh Sensei
goes you're moving your feed better
today you got better I'm like I didn't
practice footwork it's just your brain
just starts putting it all together
randomly you might study a shitload and
still lose 100 points if you're gonna
study chess oh and for fuck's sake this
is the only activity where people go in
going how much do I have to work to be a
Grandmaster nowhere else in my life have
I ever seen someone try to pick up a
hobby and want to be the the top ranking
level only in chess
you're right but like for example when I
like grappling Sports I'll see people
come to a gym and basically ask like how
long before I can get into the UFC right
but UFC champion is different I mean no
Grandmaster is equivalent to be getting
into the UFC
um I guess yeah so but people quickly
realize when like the 110 pound girl
Taps them out over and over and they're
a 230 pound like
um ripped dude they realize like okay
this is an art this is a journey yeah
and I think if you resist the lessons
that failure teaches you that's when you
don't grow so like just relax and one of
the things you have to learn probably
place the chest to is to know how to
relax your body your mind
and just like
there's something about just like you
said like
if you don't resist it if you relax
then your body your mind will learn the
way of this game
and probably add to that is just put a
lot of hours in of having fun
but then then I I on that Perpetual
chess podcast I listened to somebody
that say like it doesn't like Puzzles
none of that what matters is the number
of hours you spend kind of suffering
meaning like thinking deeply like count
like like straining like thinking with
your mind like really working hard so uh
and then you know you have the Magnus
who says no what matters is the number
of hours you spend having fun
yeah it's a mix it's a mix he's right I
don't quite agree with suffering but I
think people do a lot of fake learning
they play Speed games they
just go through tactics so okay I have
to do 20 tactics okay Boop wrong next
one I used to tell my students you need
to do
10 puzzles and you need to get 100
correct I don't care how long it takes
so I suppose that kind of is like the
suffering Theory
but if you do 30 puzzles and you get
eight correct
what even is that that's
so laughable and the correct amount of
you know it was 29 I don't know but 26
it's you can't do that you have to get
things right and that's the only way
you're actually and that requires like
thinking deeply like really struggling
like especially if you're doing the
puzzles at the level that that's your
level I've done a puzzle for an hour
before because I was so stubborn yeah I
didn't want to just put in a wrong
answer yeah the the the guy was
listening to said like that's good you
should you should do that maybe for me
and the same with blindfold just I have
to say like my blindfold skills I never
practice I just I can visualize the
board quite well I've played than most
I've played four games blindfolded at
the same time that sucks that just feels
horrible in the brain afterward but like
I can play Four simultaneous games apply
for it yeah what's that take to do that
I don't know and I get asked that all
the time how do I practice why the fuck
we should do that to your social media
good party trick it is yes I it is the
video of Magnus doing it in Columbus
Circle on YouTube has like I don't know
how many views I did it live with an
announcer I can't imagine how chaotic
that was but he yeah it's a great party
trick yeah oh there is a Reddit thing I
I forgot to ask Magnus that they asked
me to ask him because they moved the
wrong piece yes
and then somehow he remembered I don't
know how that happened I have to tell
you I
I was I kind of presumed that he figured
out
from the way the other person was moving
that they moved the wrong piece yeah
yeah I forgot to ask him that yeah why
did I forget I didn't remember me sucks
uh you said
you know
ups and downs in your childhood a little
rough sometimes
um also you get attacked by the
beautiful wonderful people on the
internet so sometimes it's difficult
what's uh what's been the lowest point
that you've ever gone to in your mind
in my career in my life in your life in
your career and everything your mind so
have you uh ever been depressed
for sure yes how how did you like if you
can remember moments how did you
overcome that
well I I will share two anecdotes uh one
when I was
uh May 2012 so I was uh 16 and a half
and I was living
in a household situation where
I thought nobody knew what was going on
basically without sharing obviously
extremely personal details like what was
going on except me
and
I confided in my grandmother
I
was imagine living in a house where you
basically feel like a prisoner you don't
want to interact with anybody in the
house you don't know how you're supposed
to bring these things up
of course this sounds extremely vague
and I just don't I don't feel like
exposing all of my entire family drama
to the audience but I live this way for
probably something like
eight months I don't know something
ridiculous it was the junior year of
high school so I was supposed to take my
SATs that was the year I was supposed to
finish up my portfolio for college
because you only get really a few months
of senior year to start applying it was
a fuck it was a nightmare a complete
Nightmare and
I I don't know how I got through it time
went by I listened to sad music and
tried to spend as little time as home as
possible I would pretend to fall asleep
at my friend's houses so that my mom was
like you coming for dinner and I'll just
pretend to be asleep
it was just a grind yeah yeah it was it
was a grind I I don't remember a whole
lot from from that period just sort of
finding what made me happy and trying to
focus on it and I was a teenager in the
house I wasn't going to run away I still
had a roof over my head so I'm not not
saying I had a better or worse than
others I just had a different
uh and actually recently this is much
more on my memory
uh I
more or less tore up a very happy life
my wife and I had and I've talked about
this in bursts on stream
but essentially what happened was
uh we we had just been living in
that's actually funny the way we got
into this apartment was was also very
bad but we were living in just a very
like nice little apartment like
high-rise apartment safe and the reason
we moved into a high-rise was because we
had lived in a house for two weeks that
got broken into
not because of who I am but because we
suspect we had people moving in
mattresses and they went oh shit these
two people live here that's it and
basically there was three Apartments my
upstairs neighbor let in somebody that
they didn't expect and the guy cracked
our door open with a crowbar thank God
that was the first day in two years my
wife went to work
did they know did they not know I don't
know everything happens for a reason
so everybody got hurt nobody nobody got
hurt yeah they stole they they stole
them some couple of important things but
nobody was hurt uh and the cops did
nothing
yeah in New York for for safety and
we're away from things and we have our
own nice little Nook
and somewhere some months into it I
started hearing noises from above our
neighbors
and it started in the morning 7 A.M it
started in the afternoon and
I picked up on it and I expected it
every day
for weeks
then it was driving me crazy and I was
like okay we're gonna go have a civil
conversation with who's ever up there
sounds like kids
so we go knock lady Gaslight the shit
out of us I've never been gaslighted
that hard in my life she went noise what
noise it's probably our other neighbor
who's a boxer
lady you have kids we can hear you
through the vents hear you talking to
your kids went to the front desk of the
building they did nothing went to the
leasing office they did nothing and
basically over time I just let this
drive me nuts this was been back to the
stubbornness thing I I decided we were
leaving we were going to live somewhere
there was no noise because we can't beat
these people there's there's nothing we
can do right and
my wife I dragged her around to a bunch
of different viewings that was dead set
I was I was decided I was completely
miserable
and
I we found a house to rent like a nice
house family had just moved away house
Standalone house not gonna have
neighbors
but wife decided that
wife decided we decided that the it's
too big it's too big for so we're gonna
get a dog we always wanted an animal so
we're gonna get a dog
so we get an absolute lunatic puppy who
just doesn't let us sleep at all this is
on top of everything else the Mental
Health crisis that's going on and the
day we are moving to this house
I realize I fuck up like I realized that
this whole thing
was in my head and I don't want to leave
I don't want to leave this could have
all been avoided
and the guilt and res I didn't want to
exist like it's not that I it wasn't
suicide but you know the feeling of just
you want to just observe yourself from a
distance yeah and I couldn't sleep I
thought my wife was gonna leave me like
this is my and that's what anxiety does
it also takes everything you feel to an
absolute dread and that I experienced
for a good chunk of two weeks
and then we kind of settle down and
decided like we're gonna live you tell
her about it like were you able to talk
through it yeah yeah I yeah that you
know the levels of Madness that could be
inside your mind I don't know if she'll
ever know but I tried to tell her that
and uh give glimpses yes I'm not I'm not
sure you'll ever know I got a good point
yeah I try to that's why I try to keep
busy but that was that was the darkest
that got and yet through all of that I
went on stream every day I made YouTube
videos every day like I understood that
I had a job to do and and I did it and I
talked about it here and there but that
was that was the worst that I ever got
because
I'm learning that the emotions I
experience are guilt remorse and your
brain just goes in circles basically
about things that you've done or haven't
done it's funny because noise can do
that also so no the noise was real but
it was building in your head yeah
so I I try to I actually
it's kind of funny because I like to
focus deeply and I'll have like sources
of noise I've tried to teach myself over
time I'll go to like coffee shops and
stuff to like I like I almost try to put
myself next to annoying situations so I
get like trained really maybe I should
do that but it's at a certain point at
the same time I've gotten to hang out
with certain people especially in La
they're like in the middle of nowhere
like a Malibu or something and it's like
that quiet and can you hear your ears
ringing it's so quiet basically yeah and
it's like holy shit this is a good place
this is a good way if you want to write
something or create something this is
like super quiet so my mom does my mom's
a science journalist science author she
just published her first her first book
actually on the poop of all things yeah
fecal the waste management is actually
very fascinating concept and look
through history and she would do that
she goes to complete Solitude yeah and
she writes yeah it's beautiful no Sirens
I mean New York is the opposite of that
so you know it's you you've you've
brought it uh
you brought on yourself I I've lived
there for 20 years it has it been tough
like going on stream to put on the face
of Happiness through that yeah
yes but I find my ways to have moments
where I can talk about it if it's on a
stream I don't get 10 000 live viewers
so it's very different it's if I stream
late night I get a 1500 2 000 viewers I
used to care a lot more about viewers on
on stream but I've basically invested
fully in YouTube so that's kind of the
way I and I think I don't know maybe you
can correct me but I think people
appreciate
the human being behind the chess
streamer I think so I think so I think a
lot of people
not in the Chess World but just a lot of
people they put on a Persona and just in
general social media is the highlights
of your life or the low lies just as
long as they're dramatic
but I I've tried I try to be very open
and honest when I'm tired I'm tired it's
what makes my recaps of my tournaments I
think so real
yeah man you're an incredible person
I've been a fan for a long time it's
kind of funny that we connected with God
and she has to talk uh please please
keep creating keep teaching people for
now I'm not going anywhere well
it could end at any moment
as we talked about so yeah uh thank you
so much for talking today man thank you
for everything you do it was an honor it
was great thanks for having me on
thanks for listening to this
conversation with Levy Osmond to support
this podcast please check out our
sponsors in the description and now let
me leave you with some words from Irving
chair Neff
every chess master was once a beginner
thank you for listening and hope to see
you next time