The Joe Rogan Experience - Joe Rogan Experience #2275 - Magnus Carlsen

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00:00:13.000 Magnus Carlson, ladies and gentlemen.

00:00:15.000 You want some coffee?

00:00:16.000 No, oh, this is water.

00:00:17.000 Tell Jeff to bring in the coffee.

00:00:19.000 Forgot to bring in the coffee.

00:00:20.000 No, no, I'm good with water.

00:00:22.000 I need coffee.

00:00:23.000 I'm going to keep up with you, buddy.

00:00:25.000 And, of course, Tony Hagecliffe is here, who's a gigantic chess fan and just creamed his pants yesterday when I told him you were coming in.

00:00:32.000 And then immediately I said, you've got to come with me.

00:00:34.000 And so Tony's here as well.

00:00:36.000 It's an honor to meet you, man.

00:00:38.000 I'm always fascinated by people that are at the top of something that's insanely difficult, like chess.

00:00:45.000 And I'm always wondering, like, how much time is involved.

00:00:49.000 How often do you play and when did you start?

00:00:52.000 How old were you when you first started playing?

00:00:54.000 I think my dad is an avid chess player.

00:00:58.000 So I think he thought that I might have some talent.

00:01:01.000 So he taught me pretty early, around five years old.

00:01:05.000 But at that time, I wasn't that interested.

00:01:08.000 I was mostly into Legos and I was into maths and sports stats.

00:01:15.000 And I had my little flag book with all...

00:01:18.000 All the countries in the world, their flags and their inhabitants and area and everything.

00:01:24.000 And I sort of...

00:01:24.000 That's what I did.

00:01:26.000 Generally just taking in all the stats that I could also with sports, reading the sports section every day.

00:01:33.000 And I didn't find chess that fun.

00:01:36.000 A couple of years later, my older sister is a year and a half older than me.

00:01:41.000 She did a lot of chess with my dad.

00:01:44.000 I started sitting in on them a bit.

00:01:49.000 I started liking it.

00:01:51.000 I really, really wanted to beat my sister as well at generally everything. 0.98

00:01:56.000 And yeah, from there on it really just became my thing and it's, you know, been my main hobby and eventually work as well since.

00:02:07.000 Yeah, obviously.

00:02:09.000 It's so funny though, a spark, a competitive spark with your sister is really what ignited you to get going with it.

00:02:15.000 Yeah, the funny thing is she's not competitive at all.

00:02:19.000 So she hated the fact that I wanted to play, especially when I realized that I could beat her. 0.98

00:02:25.000 And she... 1.00

00:02:26.000 She liked chess, but she stopped for a while and only started when I had become good enough that there wasn't a competition.

00:02:34.000 So it turned out like my dad was right after all.

00:02:37.000 I just needed that extra push.

00:02:41.000 Yeah, what a call.

00:02:43.000 I think you've got some talent.

00:02:44.000 What a call.

00:02:46.000 Grandmaster at 12, was it?

00:02:50.000 13. So actually the record is 12. Most kids these days, honestly, they start so early.

00:02:59.000 I was at a tournament in India a few months ago, and there's this guy who's like a 1600-rated player, and he's three years old.

00:03:08.000 And I'm seeing the games.

00:03:14.000 They're actually decent.

00:03:17.000 And, yeah, now there's this one kid from Argentina, like, they call him the Messi of chess, who's gonna become a Grandmaster soon.

00:03:25.000 I think he's only 10. So they're really, really playing early these days.

00:03:31.000 But it's good to see, though, because, like, information is so easily accessible these days.

00:03:38.000 It takes a lot shorter time to get good at something.

00:03:42.000 Well, it seems like now chess, because of social media, it's like everything else.

00:03:47.000 It's kind of exploding because there's so many fascinating videos out.

00:03:51.000 And then, of course, there was like the big controversy with that young man who you believe is a big old cheater.

00:03:57.000 That guy. 0.99

00:03:58.000 I need to know the anal beads thing. 1.00

00:04:01.000 Is that a legitimate theory?

00:04:04.000 So it actually started in one of...

00:04:07.000 My friend's streamer channel, like one random guy said, made a comment about anal beads and he was like, yeah, maybe.

00:04:19.000 And then I think it became, it started taking the rounds in Reddit and then Elon saw it, tweeted about it and then obviously it blew up.

00:04:31.000 I actually spoke to...

00:04:35.000 I think it was Marc Andreessen who said, like, that would be one way to do it.

00:04:41.000 Yes.

00:04:41.000 But I really, really, really don't believe that that has happened.

00:04:46.000 Like, I think it has no connection to reality, but it just became a thing of its own.

00:04:53.000 So, unfortunately, this young man, we'll explain the anal beads thing, but this young man is a very talented player, but does have a history.

00:05:02.000 Of some shenanigans, correct?

00:05:05.000 And even admitted that he did a little bit of cheating in order to move his rating higher so he could play better players.

00:05:13.000 Yeah, I mean he's not admitted to nearly the extent of his cheating.

00:05:20.000 But if you sort of take what...

00:05:26.000 What Chess.com say, then yeah, he cheated a bunch online in a certain period of time, partly in tournaments, but mostly in casual games, as he just set himself to get himself up the standings and play the best players in the world.

00:05:46.000 But he is a very good player.

00:05:48.000 I think he has become a very good player, yeah.

00:05:52.000 Interesting, okay.

00:05:53.000 So what made you convinced that he was cheating in that particular game?

00:05:57.000 And by what method do you think he could possibly have been doing this?

00:06:00.000 Could you hear something?

00:06:01.000 Was it like...

00:06:06.000 You're hearing vibrations.

00:06:08.000 He sees his seat shift.

00:06:11.000 You're smelling something.

00:06:13.000 There's a whiff of something in the air.

00:06:15.000 Yeah, I mean, that would have been the smoking gun, I suppose.

00:06:22.000 I think there was a combination of things, though, based on the chess level that I... That I thought that he had and that I'd seen from his game, both playing against him, analyzing a little with him and looking at his other games.

00:06:42.000 There were a lot of stories back then.

00:06:48.000 The thing is also there's a Netflix documentary coming in a few months where I'm telling my side of the story.

00:07:00.000 So I cannot go too deep into everything.

00:07:05.000 But what I can say was that there were a lot of factors that made me very, very suspicious.

00:07:16.000 And I think ever since then, he has become better.

00:07:23.000 But there's still something off.

00:07:28.000 Both then and now.

00:07:31.000 That's so fascinating that as an elite chess player, you'd be able to recognize that something is happening that's outside of his capabilities.

00:07:42.000 Again, I'm not ruling out the factor that chess players are becoming more and more paranoid because we do have chess engines that basically have perfect chess, right?

00:07:56.000 Anybody with their phone can, as I think Elon tweeted to Gary once, like, my iPhone can beat you at chess, which is the truth.

00:08:07.000 And this means that anybody having access to information, it's incredibly dangerous.

00:08:15.000 And I think top-level chess has been a lot based on trust.

00:08:20.000 And whenever you have outsiders, Whom there are these stories about, everybody gets a bit jittery.

00:08:30.000 There's, like, people who either, like, they burst onto the scene, then they establish themselves, and people know that they're legit and so on.

00:08:40.000 It's not a problem.

00:08:42.000 With him specifically, I don't know, it was...

00:08:49.000 It's just...

00:08:54.000 He doesn't seem to be playing, or didn't at that point seem to be playing with a particular style.

00:09:02.000 It seemed that he either played kind of eh, or he just more or less played any position very well in certain games.

00:09:11.000 Like, he could just switch from tactical to positional play very easily, and it was...

00:09:22.000 It didn't smell good to me.

00:09:25.000 It still doesn't, but to some extent, he had his lawsuit.

00:09:33.000 We've all kind of moved a little bit on.

00:09:37.000 I think I don't trust him.

00:09:39.000 A lot of other top players still don't trust him.

00:09:43.000 He certainly doesn't trust me or chess.com or Hikaru.

00:09:51.000 Whomever he felt wronged by.

00:09:55.000 The problem is once someone admits that they cheated a game, especially a game that has a lot of trust in it like chess, you're always going to think, is he cheating now?

00:10:05.000 Always.

00:10:06.000 But the question is, what method?

00:10:09.000 What do people do?

00:10:10.000 So if you're sitting there, you have no phone, your pockets are empty, what could you be doing?

00:10:15.000 That could possibly be aiding you?

00:10:18.000 Well, first of all, like an invisible airpiece that people use for exams and so on.

00:10:24.000 But he would have to have a partner.

00:10:26.000 Yeah, he would, yeah.

00:10:29.000 That would not have been detected by the security system that they used at that tournament.

00:10:37.000 They amped up the security.

00:10:40.000 After the whole thing happened.

00:10:42.000 Did they check your ears?

00:10:43.000 Yeah, they started checking our ears.

00:10:46.000 And then, you know, we had a live tournament in Paris last year when I played him, where there was proper security, where all of these things would be picked up.

00:10:56.000 And he didn't play to nearly the same level there.

00:11:03.000 So I think...

00:11:04.000 Well, I'm not an expert in all of that, but that's what I've heard from people.

00:11:08.000 That's the most obvious thing that someone could have done.

00:11:14.000 And it wouldn't be really that hard to pull off, considering the kind of security we have at chess tournaments.

00:11:23.000 And this tournament had a little bit of security.

00:11:26.000 A lot of them are open tournaments.

00:11:28.000 People are wandering in and out of the playing hall.

00:11:31.000 There are people...

00:11:32.000 In the playing hall, spectators with their smartphones on and taking pictures or whatever, going in and out, they could make signals.

00:11:48.000 It's hard.

00:11:51.000 It's a big problem in chess, for sure.

00:11:53.000 Yeah, so the anal beads thing, for people who don't know what we're talking about, Theory was that he had vibrating anal beads that would somehow or another through some sort of code Explain to him the moves and I've thought about this for a lot longer than I care to admit like what? 0.98

00:12:10.000 What kind of code are you getting from inside your butt that you like? 0.99

00:12:13.000 Okay, I got it. 0.99

00:12:14.000 Well, it would be like, you know C4 or whatever like it could tell you but how would it say it in your butt? 0.98

00:12:20.000 Well, I mean it's more I'd have to show you Luckily I brought one. 0.97

00:12:27.000 So I'm in right now.

00:12:29.000 No, it would buzz the letters and then the numbers that would indicate where you would move and there would only be...

00:12:36.000 A piece or two.

00:12:38.000 So like the first three vibrations would be letter C and then, yeah.

00:12:42.000 Okay.

00:12:43.000 Yeah, it's just a sort of technological version of ways people have cheated before.

00:12:49.000 There was a scandal back in 2010 where the captain of the French team was helping one of the French players by cheating.

00:12:59.000 He was basically just standing in certain spots around the table to tell him where to...

00:13:05.000 Wow.

00:13:06.000 Where to move.

00:13:06.000 Oh, wow.

00:13:08.000 That's crazy.

00:13:08.000 Oh, wow.

00:13:10.000 Dirty people out there. 0.99

00:13:12.000 It's wild. 0.98

00:13:13.000 Well, it's such a competitive thing.

00:13:14.000 Whenever you have competitive things, you always have people that just want to win at any cost, right?

00:13:19.000 Yeah, it's also funny that one of his teammates from that tournament worked with me for a long time, and he told me, like, this guy was like...

00:13:28.000 Going out every night, not taking the tournament seriously at all.

00:13:32.000 But yeah, he had a good reason.

00:13:33.000 He knew he was going to win.

00:13:36.000 That's hilarious.

00:13:37.000 So is that the most egregious form of cheating that you've ever seen?

00:13:41.000 Or heard of?

00:13:43.000 No, I actually played an open tournament in Denmark about 20 years ago, where there was a guy who was playing Grandmaster in the first round, like, this was not a very good player, and he came drunk to the table and just literally pulled out his phone and opened a chess program, but of course, he was immediately...

00:14:02.000 So that wasn't, of course, nearly as nefarious, but yeah. 0.99

00:14:08.000 That's just a moron. 1.00

00:14:09.000 Yeah, yeah, he was just... 1.00

00:14:11.000 Probably some other issues there. 1.00

00:14:15.000 It is such a fascinating game because it's impossible to play if you're dumb. 1.00

00:14:22.000 There's games that you could just be a savant, like an idiot savant. 1.00

00:14:26.000 But chess is the most impressive thing for people to be unbelievably good at. 1.00

00:14:33.000 I don't know. 0.99

00:14:34.000 I think you can be dumb and be fairly good at chess. 0.98

00:14:40.000 I think some intelligence certainly helps, but after all, a lot of chess is about learning patterns, right? 0.99

00:14:50.000 And basically anybody can do that.

00:14:53.000 So applying them at a higher level, learning how to evaluate and so on, that sort of is what sets really the best players apart from merely good players.

00:15:06.000 But I feel like anybody could become...

00:15:10.000 Quite decent at the game.

00:15:13.000 But I do love the fact that, you know, there are no coincidences, like, there are no outside factors.

00:15:20.000 Well, if you don't talk other than cheating, of course.

00:15:24.000 But it's just...

00:15:27.000 Yeah, you're either outsmarting your opponent or you're getting outsmarted.

00:15:32.000 So for a guy like you that excels above all, what is the difference in your preparation?

00:15:37.000 Is it just simply who you are as a person, you think?

00:15:42.000 Or is it something about the difference in your preparation without giving away any secrets, obviously?

00:15:49.000 I'm known in the chess world for being a little bit lazy, I think.

00:15:54.000 The thing is that...

00:16:01.000 Can I pause you there?

00:16:02.000 Yeah, yeah.

00:16:03.000 What do you mean, lazy?

00:16:04.000 How is that possible?

00:16:05.000 No, the thing is, I've never been the kind of person who wakes up in the morning, works six, seven hours, and chess like a normal job.

00:16:17.000 Because a lot of them study computers and stuff.

00:16:20.000 Yeah, exactly.

00:16:21.000 I think about the game all the time.

00:16:24.000 I play online.

00:16:26.000 I look at games.

00:16:28.000 I mean, read something.

00:16:29.000 Do you ever play anonymously?

00:16:31.000 I used to do that all the time.

00:16:34.000 What a bloodbath that must be.

00:16:37.000 But I think I got humbled one time by this Russian grandmaster who asked...

00:16:46.000 Somebody else asked me, like, if a certain account on a certain website was me.

00:16:50.000 And I was like...

00:16:51.000 Yeah, I don't know.

00:16:54.000 Like, I don't know who that is.

00:16:55.000 And this guy went like, yes, that is you.

00:16:58.000 And he listed up like five other accounts that I thought nobody knew about.

00:17:03.000 Oh, wow.

00:17:04.000 How did he know?

00:17:05.000 By the way you play?

00:17:06.000 Yeah, I think it's playing strength.

00:17:10.000 Playing style.

00:17:11.000 Because I tried to switch up my openings on different accounts to not make it obvious that it's me.

00:17:17.000 And I have a style where I switch that up a lot, so it makes it a bit easier.

00:17:21.000 But I think you could just tell by the playing style.

00:17:25.000 That is crazy.

00:17:27.000 These days, I play with my own name.

00:17:33.000 I don't really care about that anymore.

00:17:36.000 Yeah.

00:17:37.000 So...

00:17:38.000 Do most professional players study chess all day long?

00:17:43.000 At the highest level?

00:17:45.000 I think quite a few do.

00:17:50.000 I mean, I don't know people's day-to-day activities.

00:17:55.000 You guys don't talk about it?

00:17:56.000 Not that much.

00:17:58.000 The people that I've worked with, they certainly study chess a lot.

00:18:02.000 But others, I'm not quite sure.

00:18:05.000 The thing is that chess is always like...

00:18:08.000 It's still been a bit of a hobby for me that once it starts to feel like work, then it's harder for me.

00:18:18.000 I had a chess coach when I was little.

00:18:21.000 I went to have sessions once a week, which I loved.

00:18:25.000 And then he started giving me homework.

00:18:29.000 I told him quickly, I don't like homework.

00:18:37.000 I would still spend a lot of time reading books, playing online, the things that I still do, but I would do them for fun.

00:18:44.000 And that was the difference between me and the other kids, is that they would go to chess practice, they would maybe even do their homework, but they weren't living and breathing sort of the game that...

00:18:58.000 I think about it all the time.

00:19:00.000 I'm thinking about the game while I'm sitting on this chair.

00:19:04.000 I'm still analyzing a game that I played today.

00:19:07.000 It never goes completely out of my mind.

00:19:11.000 And I think a lot of very good chess players do that, but casual chess players, no, of course.

00:19:16.000 So maybe the thing is discipline versus enthusiasm.

00:19:22.000 Enthusiasm causes obsession and enjoyment, which probably leads to better retention of information.

00:19:30.000 Whereas just pure discipline for the sake of, like, I have to do the work in order to get better, you're missing this enjoyment.

00:19:37.000 You're missing this enthusiasm for it that you have managed to, although absorbing so much information and playing all the time, you've managed to keep it playful and fun.

00:19:47.000 I think so.

00:19:48.000 I think this is definitely the way that works for me.

00:19:51.000 Maybe for others.

00:19:53.000 I think for anybody.

00:19:55.000 If you want to be great at something, you have to be obsessed with it.

00:19:59.000 It has to come from within.

00:20:04.000 Maybe in certain sports, you can get that good purely by very, very targeted practice and a lot of hours.

00:20:20.000 For me, it's just the way that it works.

00:20:26.000 Even though I don't necessarily study, I don't deliberately practice all the time, I still process the information.

00:20:37.000 Whatever the method is, it certainly works.

00:20:41.000 But it's interesting because you've been able to excel above so many.

00:20:46.000 It makes me wonder like what I always am fascinated by some whether it's a Tiger Woods or whether whatever the the athlete is or whatever the game they play What separates the very best from everyone else like I know in martial arts?

00:21:01.000 There's a series of factors that have to do with genetics training coaches Sparring partners and then ultimately discipline and drive but With chess, it's all mental.

00:21:15.000 Physical has nothing to do with it.

00:21:17.000 So do you think it's a genetic thing?

00:21:19.000 Do you think you have a unique mind for chess?

00:21:22.000 Do you think it's this balance that you keep with enthusiasm and obsession?

00:21:28.000 Like, what do you think separates you from everyone else?

00:21:31.000 I think it has to be a variety of factors.

00:21:36.000 I think there's no doubt that I'm incredibly...

00:21:40.000 Naturally gifted at the game, otherwise I wouldn't have come this far.

00:21:44.000 And my dad is incredibly good with numbers.

00:21:50.000 He started playing chess quite late, but became decent.

00:21:56.000 My mother was quite smart and my sisters are very intelligent too.

00:22:01.000 So it's clear that...

00:22:03.000 You know, there are some good genes.

00:22:07.000 And I just, you know, I happened to find also an environment early on where I lived near Oslo, which had probably the best Chester environment there was in Norway, at the very least, where I had access to coaches and I had access to a little training group of other ambitious kids.

00:22:32.000 After that, you know, I think the most important thing that I've done is that I haven't really listened to people who want me to do things like a certain way because that's the way things have always been done, especially with the Soviet chess school that was the dominant one for so many years.

00:22:55.000 So I've always sort of gone my own way, tried to have as much...

00:23:00.000 Fun, everything has to be about enjoyment.

00:23:03.000 And yeah, I cannot tell you why, but I just understand the game better than the others.

00:23:13.000 I don't calculate necessarily as far as the other, but my intuition for short lines, constantly evaluating is just better.

00:23:28.000 It's always just such an interesting thing to analyze, like, high performers, you know, and just to wonder, like, what it is that separates high performers.

00:23:37.000 When you say your father started playing late, how old was he?

00:23:41.000 Oh, I think he started playing about 14, 15, something like that.

00:23:47.000 In chess, that's very...

00:23:49.000 But he never, like, took it seriously enough that he wanted to, like, he pursued it.

00:23:57.000 As a hobby.

00:23:58.000 As a hobby, yeah.

00:24:00.000 When you say take it seriously, you mean like you do.

00:24:02.000 Yeah.

00:24:03.000 This is what makes me think about epigenetics.

00:24:05.000 We still don't exactly know how much information is transferred between parents to children.

00:24:11.000 And it seems like there's a lot of talents, whether it's like singing talent or sports talent, that you have to wonder, like, is that coming from genes?

00:24:20.000 Or is that coming from the environment which this child grows up, which this person?

00:24:24.000 Or is it a combination of all those factors?

00:24:26.000 I wonder if someone gets really, a very intelligent person gets very good at chess early on.

00:24:31.000 I wonder if some information or some proclivity for the game gets transferred.

00:24:37.000 I think the reaction in the chess community, at least with certain people, was more along the lines of how could such a lousy player have such a good son at chess with my dad.

00:24:52.000 And the fact is as well that There are practically no, there are many couples of, you know, like both mother and father are grandmasters in chess, but I don't think any of them have had sons or daughters that are grandmasters.

00:25:15.000 So where is you see anywhere like in the NBA or the NHL or in football or wherever, like it happens all the time.

00:25:25.000 So I cannot say exactly why that is, but it does suggest that, you know, it's not a given, at least with genetics, that your children are going to do the same thing.

00:25:38.000 I have an ultimate theory for that.

00:25:40.000 I wonder if you're a child and your parents are absolutely obsessed with the game if it's annoying. 1.00

00:25:45.000 And you're like, fuck this game. 1.00

00:25:47.000 I want to go play in the park and my parents don't even pay attention to me. 1.00

00:25:50.000 This is bullshit. 1.00

00:25:52.000 There's a lot of children of alcoholics that will not drink. 1.00

00:25:56.000 They won't even try it because they've seen the effects of it.

00:25:58.000 I wonder that.

00:26:00.000 Because chess is an obsessive game.

00:26:03.000 I remember when Howard Stern was playing it.

00:26:05.000 I would listen to him talk about it on the radio and about how he started hiring a coach and he was playing all the time and he's improving his rating.

00:26:13.000 I was like, oh, this is eating up your mind.

00:26:16.000 It's a game that gets in your bones.

00:26:19.000 It really does because the entry is...

00:26:22.000 Not so easy, right?

00:26:24.000 Like, you don't, like, just get it immediately, and you don't necessarily get enjoyment out of it immediately as you start to play.

00:26:30.000 So you have to spend time on it, and then I think when you're trying to do something hard, then it becomes much more rewarding, and it's easier for that to become an obsession when you start to get that reward.

00:26:44.000 So the good thing about that...

00:26:47.000 Controversy with cheating was that I think it elevated the profile of chess because it became mainstream news.

00:26:54.000 It was like a big issue.

00:26:56.000 I think there was a positive aspect of it in terms of the publicity of the game.

00:27:01.000 Do you agree with that?

00:27:02.000 Oh, yeah, for sure.

00:27:05.000 I think for any field that's trying to achieve something with publicity, there's always going to be A little bit of a negative with what exactly we're connected with, right?

00:27:22.000 Because everybody knows chess and cheating.

00:27:27.000 But overall, I think it's been massively positive.

00:27:33.000 Hopefully, the Netflix thing coming up in a year, even though...

00:27:39.000 Can you explain to people what the Netflix thing is?

00:27:40.000 Yeah, it's a Netflix untold documentary.

00:27:43.000 So basically, it's a series of...

00:27:45.000 Sports documentaries and they're doing that.

00:27:49.000 It's not something that I wanted to necessarily be part of.

00:27:53.000 But I do recognize the fact that these things raise the profile of the game.

00:28:00.000 And you see now everywhere people...

00:28:06.000 Chess is showing up in people's algorithms on YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, everywhere.

00:28:11.000 So it's just like much more in the zeitgeist than it used to be.

00:28:15.000 Yeah, it's certainly showing up on mine.

00:28:17.000 It shows up on mine and on yours, right?

00:28:19.000 Oh, yeah.

00:28:19.000 But you've always been a giant chess fan.

00:28:21.000 Well, it's actually a newer thing, but when I got into it, it was just everything.

00:28:26.000 Now it's what I do.

00:28:27.000 Right before bed.

00:28:29.000 I fall asleep.

00:28:30.000 Usually I fall asleep during actual games online on my phone.

00:28:34.000 You're driving him crazy.

00:28:36.000 How could that happen?

00:28:39.000 I'm exhausted.

00:28:40.000 What do you do when you wake up?

00:28:42.000 That's total opposite.

00:28:45.000 You wake up and you lost.

00:28:46.000 I wake up and I look at the board and it said you resigned because I went over my time or whatever.

00:28:52.000 I just ran out of time.

00:28:53.000 How many times have you resigned?

00:28:55.000 It happens in embarrassing a lot amount.

00:28:58.000 It's how I fall asleep now is playing chess.

00:29:01.000 But what you will appreciate is that when I fall asleep playing chess, like when I fall asleep, I'm still playing the game in my dreams sometimes.

00:29:09.000 And sometimes the game will go all night and it'll be like this never-ending game and pieces will pop back up that have already gone.

00:29:16.000 That sounds amazing.

00:29:19.000 Obviously, that would never happen to me.

00:29:21.000 I like to play a game of chess on my phone or my iPad whenever I have some time, especially if I know that I have 15 minutes or whatever.

00:29:33.000 And then if something comes up, like my wife tells me, I have to be somewhere, I have to do something.

00:29:38.000 It's like, can you just finish the game?

00:29:40.000 I'm like, no, I cannot resign the game.

00:29:43.000 What are you talking about?

00:29:46.000 Yeah, obviously that's different though.

00:29:48.000 Yeah, you can't just resign. 1.00

00:29:49.000 You gotta ride that bitch out. 1.00

00:29:51.000 Yeah. 0.99

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00:30:55.000 Yeah, that would be like psychologically torturous, right?

00:31:00.000 Yeah, especially if I'm playing somebody whom I'm...

00:31:05.000 Who is a little bit of a rival, but it's like, yeah, no.

00:31:08.000 That's not going to happen.

00:31:09.000 No chance.

00:31:10.000 Because every time I lose games, it's a little bit of a story, right, in the chess world.

00:31:16.000 So I prefer it to happen as seldom as possible.

00:31:20.000 I played a little bit of chess when I was young, but I never really got into it.

00:31:24.000 But my real introduction where I got fascinated with chess was actually at a pool hall.

00:31:28.000 Because people in the pool hall would play chess sometimes, but there was this one guy who went to jail.

00:31:34.000 And in jail, he learned how to play chess with his head in his mind.

00:31:38.000 And then there was a young kid who was a grandmaster who was like 16, 17 years old, somewhere around then.

00:31:47.000 Really, really good chess player.

00:31:50.000 Who kind of like lost his way and started hanging around in pool halls and gambling and being a weirdo.

00:31:54.000 And I watched these two guys play chess with just words.

00:31:58.000 And I was like, what are you doing?

00:32:02.000 I think I was 22 or 23 at the time.

00:32:04.000 And I was like, what are you doing?

00:32:06.000 And they were explaining to me that they're playing chess, memorizing the board in their head. 0.99

00:32:11.000 And I'm like, that's fucking crazy. 0.97

00:32:13.000 And then I saw a video of you blindfolded. 0.99

00:32:18.000 Playing how many people?

00:32:19.000 How many people did you play?

00:32:20.000 What's the most people you've ever played blindfolded?

00:32:22.000 I think I've played 12, but the world record is something like 50. That's crazy.

00:32:30.000 12?

00:32:31.000 You've played 12 people blindfolded?

00:32:33.000 Yeah.

00:32:36.000 For me, that's...

00:32:37.000 As long as people are...

00:32:39.000 The people I'm playing are kind of decent at chess.

00:32:42.000 That actually kind of makes it easier because it's easier to store the games when I recognize the patterns and so on.

00:32:49.000 When people start making weird moves that I cannot really recognize.

00:32:52.000 So here you are.

00:32:53.000 Oh, so this is another one, actually.

00:32:55.000 This is a blindfold-timed symbol.

00:32:58.000 Like, there are fewer games, but what's difficult about these is that the moves do not come to me in a sequence.

00:33:05.000 So, like...

00:33:06.000 The presenter will tell me on board Oh, so you have to jump back and forth.

00:33:22.000 So in the other games, there's a sequence where the player, even though if they know what move they're going to take, they must wait until their turn.

00:33:29.000 Exactly.

00:33:30.000 That's kind of the normal way of playing a simul.

00:33:33.000 I think the last time that I played a proper blindfold simul was at an event.

00:33:40.000 In Vienna back in, I think, 2015. And then I had some very nice but spicy Chinese food before the game.

00:33:49.000 I sat down and my stomach was acting up.

00:33:53.000 I couldn't think.

00:33:54.000 So I played for 10 minutes.

00:33:57.000 I realized that I cannot do this.

00:33:59.000 I ran away for 15 minutes and then I came back.

00:34:04.000 I finished the game.

00:34:06.000 But ever since that...

00:34:08.000 It feels like I've done it, and now it just seems incredibly hard to do again.

00:34:18.000 Do you prepare when you're doing something like this?

00:34:20.000 When you're getting ready to do a blindfolded multi-game thing?

00:34:24.000 Not really, because if my mind is on, then it's really not that hard, I feel.

00:34:33.000 So, no.

00:34:35.000 The preparation that I do is right there.

00:34:38.000 I see my opponents, so I assign a certain face to a certain seat, like a certain number, and so on.

00:34:48.000 So that's just about what I do.

00:34:51.000 So you assign their face and you think of their face as they're playing?

00:34:56.000 Yeah, yeah.

00:34:57.000 Face, like number one, it's that position.

00:35:00.000 Right.

00:35:01.000 Yeah, and so on.

00:35:02.000 And are you...

00:35:04.000 What are you seeing in your mind when you're envisioning the table?

00:35:08.000 When you're looking at the board, are you merely thinking of positions?

00:35:15.000 Are you actually thinking of the pieces?

00:35:17.000 How are you breaking it down?

00:35:19.000 No, I just see the chessboard in my head.

00:35:21.000 You just see a completely 3D chessboard in your head?

00:35:24.000 Yeah, so it's...

00:35:25.000 And then when I'm playing a simul, I just...

00:35:29.000 Really think about one at a time, and I kind of store the others away.

00:35:34.000 But that's so crazy, like, when your five, six moves in, and you're thinking of all these pieces moving around, and you've got it remembered.

00:35:41.000 You've completely memorized each position of 12 different boards.

00:35:46.000 Yeah, so, like, the difficult part of it, where things sometimes go wrong, is that...

00:35:56.000 So generally, I remember all the games that I've played, but I don't remember every move.

00:36:02.000 I remember in broad strokes what happened.

00:36:06.000 And this is what can happen in these blindfold games as well sometimes.

00:36:09.000 I can remember everything that's going on, but maybe there's a pawn on the side that I cannot remember if it moved one square or not.

00:36:18.000 That's the thing that can be difficult.

00:36:22.000 And I do...

00:36:24.000 We used to have these blindfold professional tournaments, actually.

00:36:29.000 That used to be both fun, but also totally exhausting.

00:36:34.000 And then we would play on a computer, so we'd have a blank chessboard where we would just click from one square to another, and then whenever your opponent moved, their move would pop up on the screen.

00:36:51.000 And I've had...

00:36:52.000 And also the software will tell you if you're making an illegal move.

00:36:56.000 So I've had people like lose track and then you see them just clicking phonetically.

00:37:03.000 Trying to figure out what the position was.

00:37:06.000 Like, there was one guy whom I played, like, he thought his rook was on a certain file, and if it was on that file, he would be able to save a draw.

00:37:14.000 So I think he tried every single rook move on that file, hoping that the rook was there.

00:37:20.000 But, like, obviously I knew that it wasn't.

00:37:25.000 But, yeah.

00:37:27.000 Overall, I feel like, honestly, like, blindfold chess is...

00:37:31.000 Is a bit of a party trick in the sense that for the very top players, it's not that hard.

00:37:38.000 But obviously for non-serious chess players, it seems incredibly hard.

00:37:49.000 I'm sure that, for instance, solving Rubik's Cube is really, really easy for those who know how to do it quickly, right?

00:37:56.000 Yeah.

00:37:56.000 But it still looks incredibly impressive for outsiders.

00:38:00.000 Have you seen they used a computer with AI to do a Rubik's Cube in less than a second?

00:38:04.000 No, I didn't see that.

00:38:06.000 Oh, wow.

00:38:06.000 Yeah.

00:38:06.000 See if you can find it, Jamie.

00:38:08.000 It's crazy.

00:38:08.000 It just goes...

00:38:10.000 It just spins it. 0.99

00:38:11.000 I've never figured that shit out. 0.99

00:38:12.000 That's crazy. 0.99

00:38:13.000 There is a sequence of moves.

00:38:15.000 If you follow a sequence of moves, you can actually get it to do it automatically.

00:38:19.000 Yeah.

00:38:20.000 Someone explained it to me once and they did it and I was like, what? 0.99

00:38:23.000 I don't remember what it was because I don't give a fuck. 0.99

00:38:25.000 Yeah. 0.99

00:38:25.000 It was just like eight times this way, eight times that way, eight times this way. 0.99

00:38:29.000 You just keep doing it and then eventually it'll be all flattened out at a certain point in time.

00:38:34.000 Wow.

00:38:34.000 Yeah.

00:38:35.000 But this computer does it like...

00:38:36.000 You do Rubik's Cube too?

00:38:38.000 No, no, no, no. 1.00

00:38:39.000 I'm talking out of my ass. 1.00

00:38:42.000 I think the world record is only like three seconds or something. 1.00

00:38:45.000 It's something absolutely insane.

00:38:49.000 Imagine the time you could have spent building a business, raising a family. 0.99

00:38:55.000 I feel like you're the fucking world record Rubik's Cube guy. 0.99

00:38:58.000 All the same color. 1.00

00:39:00.000 Green, red. 1.00

00:39:02.000 It's so dumb. 0.99

00:39:03.000 Yeah. 1.00

00:39:03.000 Well, we all have to spend our time watching this. 1.00

00:39:05.000 Watch this computer do it.

00:39:07.000 Wow.

00:39:09.000 How crazy is that?

00:39:10.000 Ready?

00:39:11.000 Ready?

00:39:11.000 Go.

00:39:15.000 Yeah, less than a second.

00:39:16.000 Wow.

00:39:17.000 That is crazy.

00:39:18.000 Show it again in real time.

00:39:19.000 So give up, kids.

00:39:30.000 Give up.

00:39:31.000 Give up the computer for figuring it out. 0.99

00:39:33.000 That's a dumb game. 0.95

00:39:35.000 But do you play other games as well? 0.99

00:39:38.000 No, not that much.

00:39:41.000 My parents sort of brainwashed me when I was young into thinking that computer games are no fun.

00:39:48.000 Really?

00:39:49.000 Yeah, yeah.

00:39:49.000 But you're a grown man now.

00:39:51.000 You've realized that's a lie.

00:39:52.000 Yeah, I have, but it's still... 0.98

00:39:56.000 I can see you Call of Duty fucking people up with headphones on.

00:40:01.000 The thing is, I actually got a PlayStation recently, but my wife is playing GTA and all of these FPS games, and I'm playing some chill FIFA or something.

00:40:14.000 But the thing about that is that I didn't really spend that much time on those things when I was little, which I think was a good thing.

00:40:26.000 I was doing some sports and I was doing a lot of chess.

00:40:31.000 Not so much school, but I kind of found time for everything else.

00:40:39.000 I think it was an important part of my chess education as well that I think some of the kids today are missing, that I actually learned chess on a physical board.

00:40:48.000 I was able to practice from a fairly young age playing online, but I wasn't allowed to use the computer for more than a couple of hours a week, right?

00:40:58.000 So I had to spend that really well playing chess.

00:41:01.000 Otherwise, I would just sit there with my board, with my books, and, you know, try and figure things out.

00:41:09.000 Yeah.

00:41:10.000 The thing about video games is the narrative was always video games are a huge waste of time.

00:41:15.000 And if you do it, you're not going to get anywhere in life.

00:41:18.000 The problem with that is now people make a lot of money playing video games.

00:41:23.000 And they've also shown that there's some benefits from video games that leak over into other things.

00:41:29.000 Like, for instance, they found out that surgeons...

00:41:32.000 Who play video games regularly make was like 25% less errors 37% 37% less errors That's a bit like I would feel like if there was a factor in medical school and they said well if you do not Do this you will make 37% more mistakes.

00:41:50.000 They would force you To engage in that, whatever it is.

00:41:55.000 It's like whatever particular discipline that was.

00:41:57.000 Like, if you want to be a surgeon, you must do this. 0.99

00:41:59.000 I would say, if you want to be a surgeon, you should fucking play video games. 0.98

00:42:02.000 Because these people are 37% less likely to screw up an operation. 0.99

00:42:09.000 That's why I'm not a surgeon.

00:42:12.000 But I'm saying, like, video games are not necessarily a waste of time.

00:42:16.000 And they've also shown there's cognitive benefits that can be gotten from...

00:42:21.000 Playing video games on a regular basis.

00:42:23.000 Which does make sense, but it seems like a frivolous pursuit, whereas chess is like a noble and very respected pursuit.

00:42:34.000 I'm glad you say that.

00:42:36.000 That is what chess has, though, that it is very respected among the general population.

00:42:44.000 It does have that different standing from a lot of other games. 0.97

00:42:48.000 I'm not here to shit on video games, for sure.

00:42:51.000 I know, like you do, that there are studies that show that it can be helpful, I think, with anything. 0.93

00:43:00.000 If you obsess over something, the only thing you will become good at is that particular thing, like I have with chess.

00:43:08.000 I just think, for me specifically...

00:43:11.000 For me specifically, it was probably a good thing that that made me just sit and focus on chess rather than...

00:43:21.000 Rather than do all sorts of other things.

00:43:23.000 Oh, most certainly.

00:43:25.000 Because video games are very, very addictive.

00:43:28.000 I had to stop playing video games.

00:43:30.000 We used to have a whole local area network at our old studio where we'd all play Quake.

00:43:34.000 And it was a real problem.

00:43:35.000 I just wanted to end the podcast so I could go play Quake.

00:43:39.000 And then we'd play for hours.

00:43:40.000 And it eventually got to a point where I was like, okay, I gotta quit again.

00:43:45.000 Just cold turkey, never again, leave it alone.

00:43:49.000 Because they're just too fun, and if you have other things, you have obligations, like chess, like you're an actual professional chess player, Call of Duty or whatever you're playing, Quake, it's going to eat your time.

00:44:01.000 I remember when I first moved out, I was technically a chess professional, but I didn't have a lot of time to...

00:44:12.000 I had a lot of time to kill when I was home.

00:44:15.000 And I got myself a PlayStation, played a ton of FIFA back then.

00:44:18.000 And there was a GameStop near me that they made a lot of money on me just buying new controllers all the time because I would throw them into the wall.

00:44:30.000 But I have that same personality that I become obsessed with things.

00:44:36.000 I just have to quit cold turkey.

00:44:39.000 That's the only way that works.

00:44:41.000 Yeah, I think, I mean, this is why I've avoided golf, and like, Tony's big on golf, and so is Jamie.

00:44:46.000 It's like, I see what it is, I'm sure I would love it, but I don't have that time, the time during the day.

00:44:54.000 Well, I can tell you that I always thought, well, I wouldn't say that, but I always thought that I would get into golf later in life, and then I decided more or less a year ago that...

00:45:06.000 I was going to start and now I am obsessed and it's all I want to do.

00:45:10.000 I can 100% relate.

00:45:14.000 But my wife knows that I'm so happy when I come back from golf that it's better if I get to do it quite often.

00:45:24.000 Even if you fake being happy, so you can keep doing it.

00:45:28.000 No, no, no.

00:45:30.000 They say that's ruining Canelo Alvarez.

00:45:33.000 There's been a lot of criticism in the boxing world, and particularly in some of his promoters and things along those lines, where they've criticized his...

00:45:42.000 He's obsessive.

00:45:44.000 He plays every day, even when he's in camp.

00:45:46.000 Yeah, it's a tricky thing.

00:45:48.000 If they do that with him, and I obviously see them do it with Trump, but...

00:45:54.000 You have to golf to understand what golfing does to you.

00:45:59.000 It appears from the outside that people are drinking and smoking pot and having a good old time out there and giggling around, farting around with their friends.

00:46:07.000 But the touch grass meditative element, it truly is.

00:46:12.000 Like he was saying, I'm in such a crazy good mood after golf.

00:46:16.000 Everybody at the comedy club can notice it.

00:46:19.000 It's like an upper...

00:46:21.000 It gives you a massive burst of energy.

00:46:26.000 What am I thinking of?

00:46:30.000 Just the bad reputation that golf has.

00:46:32.000 I would want my president golfing a couple times a week, knowing the effects that it gives you.

00:46:38.000 A much clearer mind, a big burst of energy.

00:46:41.000 You would think it would be exhausting walking around the woods or grass for four hours, but for some reason it's totally the opposite.

00:46:50.000 Whether it's the sun, the grass, the this, the that, the differential, going from a powerful thing to a mid-range thing to the delicate touch and accuracy of putting, these repetitive things.

00:47:03.000 For some reason, it's a mind clearer and kind of an energy giver.

00:47:09.000 Whereas video games and other things make you depressed.

00:47:11.000 It's almost impossible to be down or depressed after golfing.

00:47:18.000 Well, it's certainly a stimulating game, right?

00:47:21.000 Because it's hand-eye coordination, calculation, managing the lay of the land, the way the rolls of the hills are.

00:47:31.000 And all those factors, I think like this is something that I think people genuinely need in life.

00:47:37.000 And I think it's one of the reasons why people respect chess so much is because they know how difficult it is and they know that all this is going on and that they see you two just staring at the board, looking at these pieces and calculating this insane number of possibilities that could emit from each individual move.

00:47:57.000 It's like that stimulation.

00:48:00.000 When someone gets good at a game, I think it's very valuable for you.

00:48:04.000 And I think that can apply to all sorts of things in life.

00:48:07.000 So I agree with you.

00:48:07.000 I'd want the president to play golf, too.

00:48:09.000 I'd want him to find something, whatever it is.

00:48:11.000 Find a thing that you can excel at other than just being the president.

00:48:15.000 Yeah, even if it was Call of Duty.

00:48:18.000 That would be wild.

00:48:19.000 I wouldn't want that. 1.00

00:48:20.000 The president going, fuck yeah! 1.00

00:48:22.000 We had that. 1.00

00:48:23.000 It was George W. Bush.

00:48:25.000 And there was no video game system.

00:48:28.000 That was dark.

00:48:30.000 Yeah, it is dark. 0.99

00:48:31.000 Well, I mean, they literally used PlayStation fucking controllers when they were using drones. 0.94

00:48:37.000 I don't know if they still do it now. 0.97

00:48:38.000 I think now they have more sophisticated setups.

00:48:41.000 One of the reasons why they were using them was because so many people were accustomed to those. 0.99

00:48:45.000 You get kids that have been playing Madden 10 hours a day for 15 fucking years, and then you give them the same controller, and they're like, oh yeah, I could fucking drop some bombs on people. 0.97

00:48:56.000 Like, not a problem at all. 1.00

00:48:58.000 That's horrible.

00:48:59.000 It's dark.

00:48:59.000 Yeah, and all of a sudden, these kills that you have in a video game, like you...

00:49:04.000 You think of it in the same way?

00:49:06.000 Well, it really haunts those people, apparently.

00:49:08.000 There's a very specific type of PTSD that drone operators get.

00:49:13.000 It's because they see the people sometimes for days in advance.

00:49:17.000 So they're doing surveillance.

00:49:19.000 They're waiting for the moment when they get the green light.

00:49:22.000 They see these people.

00:49:22.000 They see them with their families.

00:49:23.000 They're watching them from above. 0.97

00:49:25.000 And then they drop the bombs on them.

00:49:28.000 And then they cease to exist.

00:49:28.000 And this is happening on completely the other side of the world.

00:49:32.000 Yeah, they just press X on the controller.

00:49:35.000 But if you want to get good at that, you should probably play video games.

00:49:39.000 It's a job for everybody out there, Magnus.

00:49:44.000 I'm also trying to think, like, could you get surgeons to be drone operators?

00:49:48.000 Probably doesn't work that way.

00:49:49.000 No, probably doesn't work that way.

00:49:50.000 At best, surgeons, just whatever hand-eye coordination that they have is probably so intricate that they could probably excel at anything.

00:49:59.000 They'd probably get good at video games.

00:50:00.000 Like, a very good surgeon who's never played video games would probably get really good at video games really quickly because the communication between your hands and your mind.

00:50:10.000 Tricky part of that stat where the younger people are the ones playing the video games that probably wouldn't slip up with their hands as easily as an older surgeon that has never played video games, right?

00:50:22.000 Yes.

00:50:22.000 Right, right, right.

00:50:24.000 Yeah, that's a good point.

00:50:25.000 It's interesting that chess is uniquely the game that's respected. 0.99

00:50:32.000 Even if you play golf, people can think, oh, you're a fuck-up. 0.98

00:50:36.000 You say you play chess, like, oh, that must be an intelligent man. 0.99

00:50:39.000 It's probably the most uniquely rewarded game in terms of the way the people respect it in society.

00:50:49.000 Yeah, we're very lucky that it has this unique position.

00:50:53.000 Whether that's deserved, I don't know.

00:50:57.000 But there's just something about the fact that it's a very, very simple game.

00:51:02.000 But it's still so infinitely difficult.

00:51:07.000 The thing now, though, is that we're trying to actually make it a bit more difficult for a classical form of chess because now computers are so strong.

00:51:19.000 Preparation has gone so far that...

00:51:25.000 The thought of sitting down at the board and just thinking on your own from the very get-go, it's not there anymore.

00:51:33.000 Anybody who's really good at chess, anybody can learn the best openings very quickly.

00:51:43.000 Even if you go 10, 20 years ago, you could play...

00:51:50.000 You could play, for instance, in the Chess Olympiad, which is the biggest team nation tournament in the world.

00:51:57.000 And you could play against the best player from, let's say, Colombia.

00:52:03.000 And, you know, you would know that they have certain skills, but they might not have the same set of openings, right?

00:52:10.000 Now, all of these, like, there are kids everywhere.

00:52:15.000 And they just, like, they know their stuff so well.

00:52:19.000 So now we're, like, testing out new formats.

00:52:22.000 One that we call freestyle, which is basically, there are 960 starting, possible starting positions if you shuffle the pieces on the first rank.

00:52:31.000 And basically, like, you start out, you just draw the position 10 minutes before the game, no preparation whatsoever.

00:52:39.000 And you basically start with, like, in gaming, a new map every single game.

00:52:45.000 So that's sort of for the traditionalists.

00:52:49.000 That's not the same game.

00:52:53.000 So there are some people who don't like it.

00:52:55.000 But for the professionals, it's a chance to use their skills.

00:53:04.000 Because otherwise, chess is moving.

00:53:06.000 It's becoming faster.

00:53:08.000 Chess used to be an art, science, everything.

00:53:12.000 With the way things are now, it's just very fast and it's all games, sports and so on.

00:53:19.000 I feel like with thinking from the very first move, you're bringing some of the other factors back as well.

00:53:27.000 I think what's really unique about today is that kids today who are coming up are not just studying from books and from coaching, but you can watch.

00:53:37.000 So many great games, instantaneously, anytime you want.

00:53:42.000 This is what's so unique about today.

00:53:44.000 And I think it applies to all sports.

00:53:46.000 I think it applies to all games.

00:53:48.000 I think it applies to stand-up comedy as well.

00:53:51.000 I think it's one of the reasons why the younger guys are so good.

00:53:53.000 It's like you get to see very high-level stuff, which gets into your mind that this is how to play at a very early age.

00:54:01.000 And you can be obsessed and just absorb so much more.

00:54:06.000 Yeah, and you see there are such different approaches as well, even with the kids.

00:54:11.000 I had a training camp a few years ago with a kid called Alireza Firouza.

00:54:17.000 He plays for France now, but he's from Iran originally.

00:54:20.000 I think he was about 14 then.

00:54:23.000 My chess coach had recommended that we bring him in because he said that this is the most talented kid out there.

00:54:33.000 So we have this camper.

00:54:34.000 Typically, everybody has their laptop and there's a chessboard in the middle where you sort of look at your own thing and then some things together on the board and you throw out ideas, mostly for openings, but also sometimes other little exercises and so on.

00:54:53.000 And this kid, he would have his laptop where he would analyze a certain position and then he would...

00:55:03.000 Play games, like, for money on that same site at the same time so that he could buy cloud engine times because, like, the very best engines, they're stronger, like, if they're in the cloud than from your own laptop, generally.

00:55:24.000 So he would buy time for that by playing games, like, one-minute games on that server.

00:55:30.000 He would play...

00:55:31.000 Five-minute games on another server, and he would analyze with us on the board, and he was still following everything.

00:55:40.000 He had no problems whatsoever just being there.

00:55:48.000 That's one way of doing it.

00:55:50.000 He basically became one of the best players in the world by just...

00:55:58.000 He's not good at Rabbid Chess.

00:56:15.000 He's not good at Blitz.

00:56:16.000 He's not good at other forms.

00:56:18.000 But he has made all his studies about Classical chess.

00:56:25.000 He didn't even own chess software on his computer before he was like 13. Wow.

00:56:31.000 And he was a grandmaster.

00:56:33.000 Wow.

00:56:33.000 At that time.

00:56:35.000 But it's interesting to see that there are such different ways to develop even these days.

00:56:45.000 I just think it's fascinating.

00:56:48.000 Human beings' capacity to excel at things and that you really only know when someone pushes it a little bit further, like this guy playing all these games simultaneously.

00:56:59.000 You know what I mean?

00:57:02.000 If everybody's doing it one way, if everybody's only playing a few games a day and hanging out, you'll probably all stay at the same level. 0.97

00:57:10.000 But if you've got one fucking psychopath in the group that's online and is playing and is reading books, that guy's going to pass everybody. 0.93

00:57:18.000 And then everybody else realizes, oh, that's possible. 0.99

00:57:21.000 I could have gotten as good as him.

00:57:23.000 I better really bear down.

00:57:25.000 Yeah, because you could also see that in these guys' playing style.

00:57:31.000 He has been playing constantly all the time from when he was little.

00:57:36.000 He has fantastic instincts, especially with little time.

00:57:40.000 He just knows where the pieces go.

00:57:43.000 And he's the only one of the kids who has that kind of feeling.

00:57:46.000 The Indian guy, on the other hand, from the way he studies, he's like... 1.00

00:57:52.000 During games, he's meticulous.

00:57:54.000 He calculates.

00:57:55.000 He sees every position as a problem he has to solve more than, oh, what does my intuition tell me?

00:58:04.000 Oh, I'll do this.

00:58:06.000 It's like, for him, it's more, well, this is possible, this is possible.

00:58:10.000 Let me try and see this all the way through.

00:58:15.000 So it's just very, very different.

00:58:19.000 They call it like the tortoise and the hare sometimes and then in certain situations the tortoise will win and other situations the hare will win.

00:58:30.000 Right.

00:58:31.000 So there's different types of tournaments and there's some tournaments that have no time limit for moves?

00:58:40.000 There's always a time limit.

00:58:42.000 What's a traditional time limit?

00:58:44.000 What it used to be in chess was...

00:58:47.000 You'd have two hours for 40 moves, then you'd have an hour for the next 20 moves, and then half an hour for the rest of the game.

00:58:55.000 So a maximum of seven hours.

00:58:59.000 And that form is still being played.

00:59:05.000 And then you have faster forms of chess, which is blitz chess, which is usually five or three minutes, and rapid chess, which is somewhere from 10 to 30 minutes.

00:59:17.000 Before you were known, did you ever go to Washington Square Park and play those hustlers?

00:59:22.000 No, I actually went there in 2010, but I think some people recognized me back then as well.

00:59:30.000 I think it's a bit of a myth, though.

00:59:33.000 How good they are.

00:59:35.000 They're like, okay, but they're not like...

00:59:38.000 Your level.

00:59:38.000 No, they're not Grandmaster level.

00:59:40.000 There was one guy, though.

00:59:41.000 I don't remember what was...

00:59:45.000 What's the name of...

00:59:48.000 It's up by Columbia University.

00:59:51.000 There's a park up there where they're playing chess as well.

00:59:54.000 There I played against the guy.

00:59:56.000 Who played like a very strange opening as well.

00:59:59.000 Like he put like just a couple of pawns one square forward and then he started developing his pieces very slowly.

01:00:07.000 So at first I thought this guy has no idea what he's doing.

01:00:10.000 Then it turned out like he actually had a system.

01:00:13.000 So after like 10-15 moves I was in a lot of trouble.

01:00:18.000 And then like the game became super concrete and tactical.

01:00:23.000 And I won.

01:00:26.000 But it struck me that this guy had...

01:00:30.000 I think he just played in a park all his life.

01:00:34.000 So he had developed a certain system that was actually kind of effective if you don't know what you're doing against it.

01:00:41.000 So that was kind of interesting.

01:00:44.000 He was fairly old, so I'm sure he'd played chess his whole life without ever learning any kind of opening theory or something like that.

01:00:52.000 He just had, yeah, he was doing his own thing.

01:00:55.000 That's fascinating.

01:00:56.000 Can you ever learn something from people that have an unorthodox approach like that?

01:01:00.000 Oh yeah, for sure.

01:01:02.000 It's happened several times.

01:01:05.000 There was, like my dad used to play...

01:01:11.000 And then at some point where I was already a lot better than him, he played a certain opening as White.

01:01:33.000 And I told him, like, what is this opening like?

01:01:36.000 Where did you learn this?

01:01:38.000 He said, well, you taught me the very same opening, but with the black pieces.

01:01:44.000 So I thought I was going to play it as white, like with one tempo more, right? 0.63

01:01:50.000 Because you're moving first.

01:01:52.000 I was like, I'm one of the best players in the world, and I never thought of that.

01:01:58.000 So I actually took up that line, and I used it with success against some of the best players in the world.

01:02:05.000 Wow.

01:02:08.000 I don't know if that variation has a name.

01:02:10.000 I've seen some other players play it afterwards as well.

01:02:13.000 But I just call it the Henry Carlson variation.

01:02:18.000 That's really interesting.

01:02:19.000 Your dad must be pretty proud of that.

01:02:21.000 He is very proud.

01:02:23.000 It's funny though that my dad and my sisters, two of my sisters, they played a bit of competitive chess as well.

01:02:34.000 I think at some point in time, They wanted to learn a couple of openings, so I taught them a couple of openings, and I think all of them just never played anything else, basically.

01:02:46.000 So they certainly didn't have the same kind of passion to study, but I'm glad I was able to push them into some decent lines.

01:02:56.000 How do you decide what opening to choose?

01:03:02.000 And do you ever decide an opening? 1.00

01:03:04.000 No, fuck. 1.00

01:03:05.000 I shouldn't have done that one. 1.00

01:03:06.000 Yeah, sometimes.

01:03:08.000 Honestly, sometimes I don't know what to do.

01:03:13.000 So I just randomize.

01:03:16.000 Because I think at a certain time, you might think that against this opponent, you should play a little bit more of an aggressive opening.

01:03:28.000 But then maybe I feel good about my tournament standings.

01:03:33.000 I don't want to mess that up.

01:03:35.000 Easy to go for a safer approach when the optimal approach would be a bit more aggressive.

01:03:41.000 And then if you randomize it, then you will occasionally go for the more aggressive approach.

01:03:47.000 So that's what I sometimes do.

01:03:49.000 It's just I randomize it and then I just sort of accept the outcome.

01:03:53.000 And it makes me more unpredictable.

01:03:56.000 It makes me harder to prepare against as well.

01:04:00.000 So that's what I sometimes do.

01:04:01.000 It's not going to be...

01:04:03.000 But it's going to be between two or three options that I think are roughly equivalent.

01:04:09.000 They're just stylistically different.

01:04:12.000 So when you say randomized, how many openings do you have that you pursue on a regular basis?

01:04:18.000 Oh, it's hard to say.

01:04:23.000 Probably with White, I have like...

01:04:27.000 Five or six options that I can go to, but only like two or three that I feel really good about.

01:04:34.000 And I think similarly with Black. 0.79

01:04:38.000 So, and then when you randomize, you just go in your head and one of them stands out for you and you say, okay, this is it.

01:04:45.000 No, I just like have an app on my phone.

01:04:47.000 Oh, really?

01:04:48.000 I just roll the dice.

01:04:49.000 Oh, wow.

01:04:51.000 Wow.

01:04:52.000 Wow.

01:04:54.000 And I think...

01:04:56.000 Honestly, a lot of people could benefit from that because you agonize over these minute decisions.

01:05:03.000 Like, you spend a lot of mental energy before a certain game agonizing over what opening you're going to play.

01:05:09.000 And if you know that you're going to make a decent choice, but you leave all the agonizing to...

01:05:15.000 Like, there's nothing because it's left to chance.

01:05:19.000 It makes it a lot easier.

01:05:23.000 That makes sense.

01:05:23.000 You were saying mental energy.

01:05:26.000 You were talking about the spicy Chinese food incident.

01:05:29.000 But do you normally have a method of when you eat, vitamins you take?

01:05:37.000 Is there certain things that you do to optimize your clarity?

01:05:42.000 Yeah.

01:05:43.000 If I'm playing an early afternoon game, for instance, starting at 1, I try to eat one big meal.

01:05:52.000 Before that, it was just generally like a big omelette with some kind of salad.

01:06:01.000 But you eat pretty clean before a big...

01:06:03.000 Yeah, I usually do.

01:06:06.000 Sometimes after games, I will eat something, even some desserts and so on.

01:06:12.000 But before the games, I try and keep it fairly clean.

01:06:17.000 I actually learned that when I was...

01:06:20.000 When I was little, sometimes my parents, they were generally quite strict about sweets and so on, but sometimes I would eat sweets during tournament.

01:06:28.000 Then my blood sugar would drop like crazy and I would start making mistakes.

01:06:37.000 So that's something that I learned quite quickly that I shouldn't do.

01:06:41.000 Do you ever mess around with vitamins or nootropics or anything like that?

01:06:46.000 Nutrients that help memory?

01:06:48.000 No, I think...

01:06:51.000 I think it's a little bit about the way that I was raised.

01:06:55.000 I never take medicine unless I kind of have to.

01:06:59.000 I don't really take supplements or anything like that.

01:07:05.000 I probably should.

01:07:10.000 It's not a bad idea.

01:07:13.000 My wife is half American.

01:07:14.000 She's completely different.

01:07:15.000 She takes five... 1.00

01:07:18.000 Kinds of vitamins every single day.

01:07:21.000 She's very meticulous about it.

01:07:22.000 But yeah, I don't know.

01:07:24.000 I've never...

01:07:25.000 Just get her to make you up some little packets. 0.98

01:07:27.000 Yeah, maybe.

01:07:28.000 I think it'll probably have an impact on you.

01:07:30.000 I mean, it's extraordinary if you think about how good you are without it.

01:07:33.000 Like any little thing that could give you a very slight edge.

01:07:37.000 And I think that vitamins for sure give you a slight edge.

01:07:40.000 Particularly in nootropics.

01:07:42.000 There's a bunch of different vitamins that have been shown through clinical trials to improve cognitive performance.

01:07:49.000 You know, theanine, there's acetylcholine, a bunch of different things that enhance memory that are essentially just nutrients.

01:07:58.000 What's the new thing that people are doing, like carotene or something like that?

01:08:03.000 Ketamine?

01:08:03.000 No, no, no, not ketamine.

01:08:06.000 No, no, no, it's not ketamine.

01:08:09.000 Creatine?

01:08:09.000 Creatine.

01:08:10.000 Creatine.

01:08:10.000 Creatine, yes.

01:08:12.000 Creatine was a bodybuilding supplement that was almost akin to steroids in the 1990s.

01:08:18.000 People would think it was cheating and then they realized it was just a component of food.

01:08:21.000 But one of the things that creatine does that's very extraordinary is it aids in performance when you're sleep deprived.

01:08:30.000 So if you ever find yourself sleep deprived and you have to do something where you have to use your mind, creatine is a fantastic supplement for that.

01:08:38.000 Well, I mean, I woke up today, and I think my watch said that my sleep was...

01:08:44.000 I slept for five hours, but I got 15 minutes of REM sleep.

01:08:49.000 It was really, really bad, so that's what I could have...

01:08:51.000 I could have used that, because I was playing a chess tournament earlier today, so I could have used that, but...

01:08:58.000 Yeah, creatine is something that everybody should take.

01:09:01.000 Men, women, children, everybody should take creatine.

01:09:03.000 It's a really good supplement, super safe, and it aids in strength and muscle recovery and stuff like that, but it also has a lot of cognitive benefits, which is generally just like a very good, safe supplement to take.

01:09:16.000 What does it say here, Jane?

01:09:17.000 Cognitive function.

01:09:18.000 Studies suggest that creatine supplementation may improve cognitive function, including memory, attention, and reasoning.

01:09:22.000 It may increase brain energy levels by boosting endosine triphosphate production, ATP, which is essential for brain function.

01:09:31.000 Creatine has antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties that may protect brain cells from damage caused by oxidative stress and neurotoxins.

01:09:38.000 It does a lot of different things.

01:09:41.000 If you Google it, there's a ton of different benefits.

01:09:43.000 I take it in gummy form.

01:09:45.000 I take creatine gummies every day.

01:09:47.000 They're delicious.

01:09:47.000 It's easy.

01:09:48.000 I just pop a bunch.

01:09:49.000 Five milligrams?

01:09:50.000 I don't know.

01:09:51.000 Do we have any of those Tri-Creates here? 1.00

01:09:53.000 I don't think so.

01:09:54.000 Yeah, I think I have them out there.

01:09:56.000 But they're great.

01:09:57.000 It's easy.

01:09:58.000 I put a bag in my car, take them all the time.

01:10:00.000 I've noticed a difference. 0.99

01:10:02.000 I just think with a guy like you, where your brain is everything, but you're kicking ass, so why listen to me? 1.00

01:10:08.000 Eat cheeseburgers and fuck around and see what happens. 1.00

01:10:10.000 It is the thing, though. 1.00

01:10:13.000 On certain days, I sort of just accept that...

01:10:17.000 You know, my brain is not going to work as good.

01:10:20.000 And it's frustrating, especially if you've got a big game and you know that you're starting down to zero because your brain is not working the way it's supposed to be.

01:10:30.000 Yeah, I feel that with podcasting all the time.

01:10:32.000 And the real danger is if I do that, if my brain's not on full tilt and I'm talking to a scientist, and I'm like, oh, we have to talk about quantum physics.

01:10:42.000 Have good questions.

01:10:44.000 You have to be able to follow what you're saying because it's so esoteric.

01:10:48.000 You know, it's weird that the brain just doesn't always work exactly how you want it to.

01:10:54.000 And honestly, chess is one of the worst things to do, sleep deprived, because I think creativity usually...

01:11:02.000 It's enhanced when you're not feeling well, when you're sleep-deprived, but that's generally not what you need in chess.

01:11:09.000 You need to minimize mistakes.

01:11:11.000 You need precision.

01:11:12.000 And all of my intuition, all of that, is just so much worse when I'm not feeling on top of my game.

01:11:22.000 Do you have a specific thing you do when you're feeling not on top of your game?

01:11:27.000 Do you double-check things in your mind?

01:11:29.000 Do you have a process?

01:11:32.000 I just try to play a simpler game where it's not as complicated, really.

01:11:39.000 And when you're feeling good, then you go for it?

01:11:42.000 No, honestly, when I feel good, I don't think about these things.

01:11:45.000 It's just a state of flow where I know how much risk to take.

01:11:55.000 So what is the mindset?

01:11:57.000 If you're in a world championship...

01:12:03.000 What is the state of mind like when you're in the middle of it?

01:12:09.000 Honestly, when I'm at my best, I'm just pure laser focused.

01:12:17.000 I'm just calm and not thinking about anything other than...

01:12:21.000 Just in the moment?

01:12:22.000 Just in the moment, yeah.

01:12:23.000 The work is already done, you already know the game, so now it's just reacting and moving and calculating.

01:12:28.000 Yeah, I mean, I had a game last Classical World Championship I played in 2021 where the first five games were drawn.

01:12:38.000 Honestly, I could have probably been down at that point as well.

01:12:42.000 Sixth game was a super, super long game.

01:12:45.000 Almost eight hours.

01:12:47.000 And I think for the last hour and a half, two hours, I was pretty short on time.

01:12:53.000 But I remember I was just so focused and so calm.

01:12:59.000 And afterwards, I was just like, yeah, I could have kept going forever.

01:13:04.000 I was just there.

01:13:07.000 And it was exactly what I needed.

01:13:09.000 I ended up grinding out a win.

01:13:12.000 And in those classical games, once you get a lead, that is so big because it's so hard to actually win games at that level of preparation.

01:13:24.000 So that was really big.

01:13:27.000 I've only had, I feel like, a few days where I feel like...

01:13:33.000 I'm just completely in the moment.

01:13:36.000 Usually, it's a bit more messy than that, but when it happens, it's just the best feeling.

01:13:43.000 That's amazing that it's only been a few days where you've been fully in the moment.

01:13:48.000 I'm rarely happy after I play.

01:13:51.000 I'm happier now.

01:13:54.000 Honestly, my standards for myself are a little bit lower.

01:13:58.000 I have gone down a little bit the older I've gotten.

01:14:02.000 Because I sort of accept that I don't have...

01:14:09.000 My brain is not as fast as it used to be.

01:14:11.000 So I'm going to have occasional letdowns.

01:14:15.000 So my top level is, I think, as good as it's ever been, or at least very, very close to.

01:14:24.000 But the average level is just too hard when your brain is not that fast anymore.

01:14:32.000 But yeah, generally, I'm always thinking, well, yeah, I could have always done something better.

01:14:40.000 You always miss some things, but I always feel like, yeah, there are avoidable mistakes that I'm still making.

01:14:46.000 So this, as you've gotten older, this lowering expectations, is that a recognition of the fact that being hard on yourself...

01:14:55.000 Over minute details doesn't benefit you?

01:14:59.000 And that you've just had a more healthy approach?

01:15:02.000 Yeah, I think so.

01:15:04.000 It just makes everything a bit easier.

01:15:09.000 Also, honestly, the randomizing opening choices has made things easier.

01:15:16.000 As well, everything just to sort of lower the pressure a bit.

01:15:20.000 Have you ever consulted a mental coach or, you know, someone who works with people on mindsets to try to capture what is happening when you are in that complete total flow state of laser-focusedness and try to recreate that?

01:15:40.000 Because there's a bunch of different mind coaches that will tell you for a bunch of different pursuits that...

01:15:45.000 What you have to do is when you get to that state, whatever that state is, recognize that you're there and then try to get a map of the territory and try to will yourself back into that thing.

01:16:04.000 But then there's another school of thought that says, no, it just has to happen organically.

01:16:09.000 And that you just need to be obsessed and focused and take care of yourself and meditate.

01:16:15.000 When it comes, it's going to come, but you have to accept that it's a gift and it's just not always going to be there.

01:16:21.000 Yeah, I'm definitely in the latter camp.

01:16:25.000 I've talked to people who have suggested mental coaches plenty of times, both in the past and more recently as well.

01:16:34.000 I've just always been worried that Somebody's going to mess something up in my head.

01:16:42.000 Paralysis by analysis.

01:16:43.000 Yeah, that's really what it is for me.

01:16:46.000 So I feel at some point I'm just more or less content with the way things are.

01:16:54.000 That most days that I'm playing, I'm going to be fairly good.

01:16:59.000 On some days I'm going to be at my very best.

01:17:02.000 Other days I'm going to be very far from my best.

01:17:07.000 Yeah, it's sort of the way it is.

01:17:10.000 I'm definitely much more open to doing things to prevent me from having those very worst days because those are the ones that really hurt you, especially now that we're playing a lot of faster tournaments where there are knockouts where basically if you have one bad day, you're out and it doesn't matter.

01:17:35.000 Back in the days with classical tournaments, you could have a really bad day, but then you can always bounce back.

01:17:42.000 But nowadays, it's not that easy.

01:17:44.000 Do you ever try to map out what are the factors that lead you to hit that state, that flow state?

01:17:50.000 Do you ever try to think about your day?

01:17:52.000 What did I do?

01:17:52.000 What did I eat?

01:17:53.000 How did I sleep?

01:17:54.000 Did I avoid toxic people around me?

01:17:57.000 Did I stay offline?

01:17:58.000 What did I do that allowed me to get to that spot?

01:18:01.000 Yeah, I mean, doing everything sort of right before the game definitely helps.

01:18:06.000 Like getting good sleep, like reading a book instead of being on some sort of device before I go to sleep.

01:18:17.000 Then just focusing as little as possible on chess before.

01:18:23.000 Before the game, definitely.

01:18:25.000 Really?

01:18:25.000 Little is possible?

01:18:26.000 Yeah.

01:18:26.000 Because you want it to be fresh in your mind?

01:18:28.000 You want it to be something exciting?

01:18:30.000 Yeah, I just want to have two or three ideas of what I'm going to play and not...

01:18:36.000 I just don't want to use mental energy that I could have used on the game before.

01:18:47.000 Right, right, right.

01:18:47.000 So, I think...

01:18:51.000 One of my better tournaments that I've played, I used to play every year at this seaside resort in the Netherlands, and it's in the middle of winter, so it's not very resort-like.

01:19:03.000 It's just rainy and windy, and there's basically nothing there except this big tournament that's been there for 80 years, and it's for three weeks every January.

01:19:14.000 So for me, there's not a lot to do.

01:19:18.000 So what I would do, like, Every day I'd wake up, I'd go for a walk, and then I would watch like 30 to 45 minutes of NBA highlights from the day before,

01:19:40.000 look at chess for 15 minutes, whatever my coach has sent me of preparation that we discussed the day before, eat, and then And then go play.

01:19:51.000 And that worked really, really well.

01:19:54.000 It's just keeping it as simple as possible, honestly.

01:19:57.000 So get inspired a little bit, a little bit of energy from watching NBA highlights, right?

01:20:02.000 Yeah.

01:20:02.000 Just a tiny amount of information from the coach.

01:20:05.000 Just, like, get your brain locked in, but not too much energy.

01:20:08.000 Don't focus too much on it.

01:20:10.000 Yeah, a lot of people, like, they do, they will spend three, four hours preparing on a game.

01:20:18.000 On that very day.

01:20:20.000 And it can be beneficial if your opponent goes into specifically the lines that you've prepared and so on.

01:20:28.000 But overall, I think having a fresh mind is so important.

01:20:38.000 And I'm also like, even if I haven't had the perfect preparation...

01:20:43.000 I'm really good at just blocking everything out, forgetting everything that's happened, and just focusing there and then.

01:20:50.000 But it's still not as good, of course, as just being in a good state of mind.

01:20:56.000 Do you ever get to the point where you feel burnout, where you want to just take days off, a week off, and not think about chess, not touch a chessboard?

01:21:05.000 Or is it just constantly playing in the background no matter what you do?

01:21:09.000 But I really love it, so...

01:21:12.000 Why take time off?

01:21:13.000 Yeah, why take...

01:21:14.000 No, no, no.

01:21:16.000 I'm fine with taking breaks from tournaments and so on.

01:21:21.000 But having, like, at least days, several days in a row without, like, looking at a chess game or...

01:21:32.000 I mean, I don't have to play every day, but having a...

01:21:36.000 Not looking at anything, not reading some chess stuff.

01:21:40.000 It's my favorite hobby.

01:21:42.000 I don't see why I would want to do that.

01:21:49.000 That's probably why you're one of the best of all time, if not the best.

01:21:52.000 That's a beautiful approach, right?

01:21:54.000 If you can find a thing that you love so much, that even though you do it all the time and you've done it since you were a child, you're still obsessing and loving it.

01:22:01.000 Yeah, I do have those moments where I just...

01:22:04.000 I just take a breath and think about how lucky that I am.

01:22:09.000 And there are just moments where I just sort of, I wouldn't say rediscover my love for the game, but where I just think like, I'm obsessed with this game and I'm completely fine with that.

01:22:24.000 Well, that's a beautiful way to live your life.

01:22:26.000 If people can find a thing like that in their life, that really is the key to an enjoyable life.

01:22:32.000 If the thing that you do all the time you're obsessed with, and we talk about it all the time at our comedy club, we're all in the green room, we're like, we are so lucky that this is actually what we do for a job.

01:22:44.000 And pretty much everybody who's good at it is obsessed with it, and they think about it all the time.

01:22:49.000 It's kind of the only way.

01:22:50.000 But I'd need time off sometimes.

01:22:52.000 Because I think that's different because it's always different ideas and different things you're working on.

01:22:56.000 Sometimes you need time just to refresh your perspective.

01:23:00.000 But with a game like chess, I guess you don't really need time off.

01:23:05.000 No, I think, again, it's different for different people, but I don't know.

01:23:12.000 I don't feel like it...

01:23:14.000 It takes away energy.

01:23:16.000 It just gives me joy and energy when I do that.

01:23:23.000 On a certain day, I will just log into chess.com and observe random people play.

01:23:29.000 That is something I can do and be very happy about it.

01:23:34.000 It's just the way I am.

01:23:35.000 Well, you're just very fortunate.

01:23:37.000 You found a thing that you really locked into.

01:23:41.000 That perspective is very important for people to recognize, like the perspective of gratitude, of appreciation that you're so fortunate to have found something.

01:23:51.000 People go their whole lives and never find a thing that they're truly, absolutely passionate about.

01:23:57.000 And for a guy like you...

01:23:59.000 I mean, it's a shiny example for people, I think.

01:24:02.000 I think that's one of the things that I enjoy the most about super high performers is that they provide an insane amount of inspiration to other people.

01:24:12.000 When someone sees you play chess at the highest level or sees, you know, Michael Jordan play basketball or whatever it is, you get this feeling of what human beings can do and it elevates your own expectations of yourself and of people around you.

01:24:28.000 Yeah, I think I've thought about it many times.

01:24:32.000 Like, what am I actually doing with my life that's useful to other people?

01:24:36.000 And it always comes back to that every time that I hear that people are inspired by what I do.

01:24:45.000 Maybe it helped them through a difficult time to watch my games and to get in to rediscover or find the love for the game.

01:24:55.000 That's really nice.

01:24:58.000 Again, in the process, I'm just doing what I love, right?

01:25:03.000 And that's really what people want to see from me.

01:25:07.000 It's just competing and doing well at chess.

01:25:10.000 So that's also what I'm giving as often as possible.

01:25:15.000 Well, that's what people want out of life.

01:25:17.000 It's something that they love that they do.

01:25:21.000 They're very good at and they get recognized for it and when a person like you does it and does it publicly and it's inspiring It's a great gift for other people.

01:25:31.000 I mean it truly is who's been like Are there particular players that you really enjoy watching play and particular styles that you enjoy?

01:25:43.000 I think my favorite probably player of all time is It's sort of the young Kasparov before he became world champion.

01:25:57.000 The thing is, what I find fascinating about that is that he played with a style that was so unique and so dynamic that I know that I could never replicate it.

01:26:13.000 It's just not the way that I play.

01:26:16.000 So that's something I admire a lot.

01:26:19.000 Usually, whatever I'm into, be it soccer or golf or basketball or whatever, I admire what people do, not necessarily like it's about the people themselves.

01:26:32.000 So that's the way it has been for me in chess as well, that I try to learn from people's games and what they do and when I talk to them.

01:26:46.000 About that, being able to study with Gary back in the day.

01:26:51.000 And Anand, who was the world champion before me.

01:26:55.000 Because it's only then when you study, you talk to them, you understand how good they really are and how much they understand.

01:27:05.000 For instance, with Anand, I had a training session in 2008 where we had both played a tournament where...

01:27:15.000 I'd done reasonably well, and he had sort of, towards the end, he had mailed it in, but he was preparing for the Classical World Championship.

01:27:24.000 So, I think I had two days off, and he was living outside Madrid.

01:27:29.000 And so I went to Madrid for a couple of days, because the other tournament was in the north of Spain.

01:27:33.000 Then I went to his house, and as soon as that training camp started, it's like something just switched with him, and he was...

01:27:43.000 He was just so focused.

01:27:46.000 We played a bunch of training games, and from being this guy who seemed completely disinterested in this other tournament, all of a sudden he was crushing me.

01:27:56.000 He had a massive plus score in our games, and it felt like everything we analyzed, he just had a much deeper understanding of the game.

01:28:07.000 It seemed that he was faster tactically and everything, and it made me appreciate how good...

01:28:14.000 How good he actually was, yeah. 0.97

01:28:17.000 When you are playing someone like that and you're getting your ass kicked, does this inspire you and enact change in your game?

01:28:27.000 Or does it not change your game, you just do the same game but more focused? 0.95

01:28:32.000 Yeah, I think it's more of the latter.

01:28:35.000 It was just a reality check for me because I thought at that point that I was...

01:28:42.000 I was ranked, I think, third in the world.

01:28:44.000 I had very briefly been ranked number one already at that point, like for a week.

01:28:50.000 And I thought before that, I thought I was maybe one of the best two, three players in the world.

01:28:56.000 And it made me realize that I wasn't.

01:29:01.000 That maybe I was able to have better results than my actual level because of youth energy and optimism, right?

01:29:09.000 And that made me just, yeah, it just made me realize that I have a lot to learn and that I should be patient and not expect everything to sort of come that fast.

01:29:23.000 Because at that point I'd had a year of more or less constant rise.

01:29:30.000 Yeah, it's just winning tournaments.

01:29:33.000 Every time I would lose a game, I would just believe that I could strive back immediately.

01:29:41.000 And I realize now that I was delusional.

01:29:47.000 I thought I was a lot better than what I was.

01:29:51.000 And that was probably why I was having...

01:29:55.000 Such good results.

01:29:56.000 Because you're so confident.

01:29:57.000 Because I was so confident.

01:29:59.000 But having a little bit of a reality check I think helped me later to actually understand the game a bit better.

01:30:08.000 But I've still taken away that I think in chess the optimal state when you're playing a game is somewhere between optimistic and delusionally optimistic.

01:30:23.000 Because If you're realistic, you're just never going to be opportunistic enough to sort of exploit your opponent's mistakes.

01:30:33.000 I think another factor is the way you analyze things, that you were able to say, I was a little delusional, and even though I'm doing very well, I got to trust in this process of growth and development, and that it is a very, very long process.

01:30:50.000 Yeah, exactly.

01:30:53.000 Very soon after that, I started working with Garry Kasparov as well, and that made me realize that I know even less.

01:31:02.000 What can a guy like Garry Kasparov tell you that makes you know even less?

01:31:08.000 Back then, it was really like...

01:31:12.000 My style has become a bit more dynamic over time, but back then, I... I really, really lacked understanding of more dynamic positions in chess.

01:31:27.000 You can have more static or more dynamic pawn structures.

01:31:34.000 If there are a lot of possible pawn breaks for both sides and both kings are under attack, then it's sort of more...

01:31:42.000 More dynamic and tactical, or it could be more about gaining some minute positional advantages.

01:31:50.000 And that's sort of what I was excelling at, the latter.

01:31:53.000 And working with him, it just improved sort of the more dynamic part of my game a lot.

01:32:01.000 And that helped me very much short term.

01:32:08.000 Also, it's helped me later because it improved my understanding of the game.

01:32:13.000 My main strength is still more in the more static structures, but that work made me so much more versatile, and I still definitely profit from that.

01:32:30.000 What is a coach for you today?

01:32:34.000 What benefit is a coach today?

01:32:37.000 A couple of things.

01:32:39.000 The main benefits that I have from my chess coach is opening work.

01:32:46.000 That's like the low-hanging fruit.

01:32:49.000 That's really what you can get the most out of from game to game.

01:32:59.000 A couple of other things.

01:33:00.000 My coach is also an old friend of mine.

01:33:05.000 He's Danish, so we can communicate in the same language.

01:33:09.000 And he's also just as obsessed with golf as I am.

01:33:15.000 Every time we have a chess training camp, there's also a lot of golf being played.

01:33:22.000 So, yeah, those are a few things.

01:33:26.000 Chess-wise, it's mainly about the opening work.

01:33:30.000 And so it's essentially...

01:33:31.000 He's obviously very good at chess as well, but it's essentially bouncing things off of each other and going over positions.

01:33:38.000 Yeah, and then he's very good at using chess engines to get slightly different...

01:33:47.000 Different results than maybe others do.

01:33:51.000 Do you occasionally, or do you at all, analyze other people's games and break them down together?

01:33:58.000 Not really.

01:34:00.000 When it comes to analyzing other games, it's more useful for me to look at what the engine is saying.

01:34:09.000 Because the engines are just smarter.

01:34:11.000 Yeah, they are.

01:34:14.000 I'm good enough that I can interpret what the engine is saying to understand why a certain thing happens.

01:34:23.000 So it's still interesting to analyze together as humans, but we always want to double-check what we're saying with the engines.

01:34:33.000 Isn't it fascinating that that's a gigantic factor now ever since Deep Blue, right?

01:34:39.000 Yeah, so the thing about...

01:34:40.000 I know, like...

01:34:41.000 I don't know if you talked to Gary, but he has this whole thing with Deep Blue.

01:34:47.000 I'm not sure if Deep Blue was actually better than Gary, but it started the downfall of us humans when it comes to chess.

01:35:00.000 And it's now been a long time where we've just accepted that our computer overlords are just a lot better.

01:35:09.000 And there are serious benefits for improving players.

01:35:15.000 For kids, the engines help people improve a lot faster.

01:35:18.000 So that's a great thing.

01:35:21.000 Additionally, people watching chess games.

01:35:24.000 One problem is that you cannot easily tell.

01:35:28.000 It's not like one guy is being punched and the other guy is punching.

01:35:34.000 It takes some skill to...

01:35:37.000 To see what's going on.

01:35:39.000 But with the help of the engines, you could actually have a real-time score all the time because it tells you who is winning and who is not.

01:35:49.000 So it becomes a lot easier to...

01:35:53.000 To follow as well.

01:35:54.000 Because honestly, like most people, when they consume sports, they're mostly interested about who is going to win and who is going to lose.

01:36:01.000 So now at least you can have that factor in chess that you can see that.

01:36:07.000 And it's very interesting for me to read what people were writing about computer chess.

01:36:15.000 30, not 30, but like 50, 60 years ago and so on, when there was an actual discussion whether computers could ever beat a grandmaster at chess.

01:36:24.000 And now it's very much settled, of course.

01:36:29.000 Well, they have that same discussion about Go, right?

01:36:33.000 Well, Go is much more complicated than chess.

01:36:38.000 But I don't know what has happened since AlphaGo.

01:36:45.000 If, like, the best masters are still a little bit better or where the state is at?

01:36:50.000 I think Go is better than everybody, the computer is.

01:36:54.000 But I think a new factor is that the computer has devised creative moves that were never used before, that have now been implemented.

01:37:04.000 They're part of, like, general strategy, which I think they thought was very shocking.

01:37:10.000 See if you can find anything about that.

01:37:11.000 Is that kind of bluffing moves?

01:37:13.000 I do not know because I don't understand Go.

01:37:15.000 I was just reading an article about the extraordinary leaps that AI has taken and that one of the more shocking things was that it was able to beat the best players at Go, which they thought was like a long time coming.

01:37:28.000 Yeah, I mean, I did watch the movie AlphaGo.

01:37:33.000 How long ago was that?

01:37:34.000 That's like five, no, maybe like six, seven years ago.

01:37:38.000 See, in AI time, that's like Stone Ages, which is so crazy.

01:37:42.000 And I think like a year or two later, there was AlphaZero in chess.

01:37:47.000 So chess engines, they were always like kind of built by humans and instructed by humans.

01:37:53.000 And then AlphaZero came along and...

01:37:56.000 Which is a neural network that just learned chess on its own.

01:38:01.000 And it became more or less as good or maybe slightly, slightly worse than the best traditional chess engines.

01:38:14.000 What's interesting is that the neural networks played chess a lot more like humans.

01:38:22.000 They were much less concerned about material factors.

01:38:26.000 They were more about positional play and long-term thinking and so on because it was not based on brute force in the way that...

01:38:38.000 That traditional engines would.

01:38:40.000 And you would see funny, like, they have computer tournaments as well with the best engine in the world.

01:38:46.000 And you will still see, like, Leela Zero, that's sort of the clone of Alpha Zero because they discontinued the Alpha Zero project after a while.

01:38:58.000 It will make, like, elementary tactical blunders, almost.

01:39:03.000 That's crazy.

01:39:05.000 Because it...

01:39:06.000 I don't know.

01:39:07.000 It doesn't have...

01:39:08.000 It just...

01:39:09.000 Things about chess differently than traditional engines, but it will also do things that just confounds the very best chess engines in the world still.

01:39:22.000 So that's very interesting to see.

01:39:25.000 And all the best coaches and players now, when you work with chess computers, you always have...

01:39:33.000 Both like a neural net and a traditional chess engine running as well as some others who are now like hybrid who have a little bit of both.

01:39:44.000 It's just fascinating that it would make blunders.

01:39:47.000 Yeah, well, I don't know if it's something about its search.

01:39:55.000 I really don't know.

01:39:59.000 But it would also make some fascinating decisions like When you promote a pawn, you usually promote to a queen because that's almost always the best unless you sometimes want to promote a knight specifically to give a check or sometimes to avoid stalemate, but that's less frequent.

01:40:20.000 But then what Lila and AlphaZero would sometimes do is that they would promote to a different piece because...

01:40:31.000 If it's a piece that's anyway going to be captured, just to give your opponent a slight chance of making a mistake by making another move, which is something a human would never ever do.

01:40:45.000 But it's really funny.

01:40:48.000 A little bit of a parallel to what's going on in Go, I think, with this gamesmanship that is going on with the new neural nets.

01:40:57.000 That's crazy that it would just trick you.

01:41:00.000 Yeah, it would try and trick it.

01:41:02.000 Like, it probably wouldn't trick a human because a human would be like, that's weird.

01:41:07.000 Okay, I'll just take it, whatever.

01:41:09.000 But another engine...

01:41:10.000 Oh, okay.

01:41:12.000 Well, I have another alternative that seems equivalent, more or less.

01:41:17.000 Maybe I'll go for that.

01:41:20.000 Wow.

01:41:21.000 It's very strange.

01:41:23.000 So what are the best programs that people play on?

01:41:26.000 There are a few.

01:41:29.000 There's one that was originally developed by Norwegian called Stockfish that's still considered the best.

01:41:36.000 So I think the best now is Stockfish, like Stockfish hybrid.

01:41:42.000 That's part neural and part traditional engine.

01:41:46.000 Do you have to be connected online to use that?

01:41:50.000 Yeah, I mean, most people use either.

01:41:53.000 Most people use remote.

01:41:56.000 Engines like some kind of cloud service to have as much computing power as possible. 0.98

01:41:59.000 So the kind of computing power that's on your phone, like, can you beat your phone at the highest level?

01:42:05.000 No.

01:42:05.000 No chance.

01:42:06.000 Isn't that crazy?

01:42:08.000 No chance.

01:42:10.000 That's so crazy because Deep Blue, wasn't it like as big as a room?

01:42:14.000 Yeah.

01:42:15.000 Deep Blue wasn't like a stack of computers, right?

01:42:18.000 But I'm sure it's still less powerful than the computer on your phone is today, right?

01:42:22.000 Yeah, I know.

01:42:22.000 It's just shocking.

01:42:24.000 No, no, I have no chance against my phone.

01:42:29.000 That's so crazy.

01:42:31.000 There was actually one time where I played corporate simul, and there was this guy who said, I built a chess program in my university class.

01:42:44.000 Can I let that play against you instead of myself?

01:42:47.000 And I was like, yeah, sure, why not?

01:42:48.000 And I actually, like, beat it fairly handily because I played some kind of, like...

01:42:53.000 Anti-computer chess where I just close up the position as much as possible and just let it have as few possibilities as possible to out-calculate me so that it's a purely strategical game.

01:43:07.000 That doesn't work against very good engines, but it can work against weaker ones.

01:43:13.000 But no, humans, we don't have any...

01:43:16.000 There was a Grandmaster who played a match recently against Lila, which is the best A neural network engine now.

01:43:26.000 They were playing classical chess and he started with a night more.

01:43:32.000 And they played a 10 game match and he won 5.5 to 4.5.

01:43:37.000 Wow.

01:43:38.000 Which is crazy.

01:43:42.000 Like, it's a night more.

01:43:43.000 Like, that's...

01:43:43.000 It should not be possible for any...

01:43:47.000 Like, if God was playing chess, you shouldn't be able to beat a Grandmaster in any game like that.

01:43:53.000 So the Grandmaster was still able to win. 0.99

01:43:57.000 But, yeah, for me, I rarely play against engines at all because they just make me feel so stupid and useless. 0.95

01:44:10.000 I think about it more as a tool. 0.97

01:44:15.000 More than anything else.

01:44:18.000 And often, when you play against them, the moves that they make, they are not necessarily relevant as to what a human would do in that situation.

01:44:27.000 Because we just think differently.

01:44:30.000 Do you ever try to think like the computer?

01:44:33.000 Yeah, well, specifically the neural nets have improved our understanding of the game immensely.

01:44:41.000 The AvoZero paper came out very late 2018. And actually, I played a World Championship match late 2018 as well against an American, Fabiano Caruana.

01:44:53.000 That was the best match, I think, that I've ever played.

01:44:56.000 We played 12 draws, actually, and then I won in a tiebreak.

01:45:01.000 But the games were super high quality, and he was very evenly matched.

01:45:06.000 And then he was actually using...

01:45:09.000 Lila, the AlphaZero clone, which we didn't have access to.

01:45:12.000 We didn't even know that was a thing.

01:45:13.000 But the thing is, after AlphaZero came out in late 2018, there was a period, half a year maybe, early 2019, where you could very clearly see which players have been using these neural networks or knew how to use them and which players didn't.

01:45:32.000 And my coach, he got into it very quickly.

01:45:36.000 And we got an advantage of basically everybody but that guy who had been using it during the match.

01:45:46.000 And it just made us understand the game a lot better.

01:45:51.000 There were, as I said, a couple of things about long-term king safety.

01:45:56.000 Pushing pawns on the side of the board was maybe the biggest takeaway.

01:46:01.000 That often you would push pawns.

01:46:06.000 And not as an attacking tool, which used to be the way that you would push upon, like trying to break open your king.

01:46:15.000 What you would do is that you would have a little hook on the side of the board that you could use 20 or 30 moves later to make the opponent's king less safe then.

01:46:31.000 And this is something that...

01:46:33.000 Humans didn't really do.

01:46:34.000 And I still see some people allowing these pawn advances.

01:46:39.000 And I wonder if they didn't learn their lesson from 2019. But it was very clear to see at a certain time before everybody sort of caught up with the new information.

01:46:55.000 And that's also when I had maybe my best stretch of chess.

01:46:59.000 Ever.

01:47:00.000 Because I just understood these new things better than others. 1.00

01:47:06.000 It's almost counterintuitive that you wouldn't want to play the computer because the computer makes you look stupid. 0.97

01:47:13.000 Because the idea in my mind would be like, well, you should play the best thing that you could possibly play. 0.98

01:47:18.000 And if that's a computer, great.

01:47:20.000 If that's another human being, then play the human being. 0.98

01:47:23.000 I would imagine that playing something that makes you feel stupid would at the very least teach you something about the game. 0.96

01:47:31.000 Yeah, it does. 0.96

01:47:34.000 But at the same time, you know that these are usually things that humans cannot replicate.

01:47:41.000 And to be fair, the kids these days, a lot of them play a more concrete brand of chess that...

01:47:52.000 It's more similar to engines than we have seen in the past.

01:47:58.000 Because they've had so much exposure to it.

01:48:00.000 Yeah.

01:48:01.000 Like they're less dogmatic, more concrete in their thinking.

01:48:05.000 But then I know that there are usually other things that are lacking.

01:48:10.000 So I could sort of steer the game there as well.

01:48:14.000 So I don't know.

01:48:17.000 I haven't found it.

01:48:21.000 Particularly useful, but maybe I'm just...

01:48:25.000 Is it partly because you just don't want to lose?

01:48:28.000 Yeah, of course.

01:48:31.000 And it's also because, as you said, chess is a very lonely game.

01:48:36.000 When you lose, it's because you're worse than your opponent. 1.00

01:48:39.000 And imagine losing to somebody who you know is completely stupid, which traditional... 1.00

01:48:48.000 Chess computers aren't. 1.00

01:48:49.000 They're stupid. 1.00

01:48:50.000 They just have much more computing power than you do. 1.00

01:48:53.000 So losing over and over again to something that's so stupid, that's not a good feeling. 0.99

01:48:59.000 Could you help explain to me what are the factors? 0.99

01:49:02.000 What is it doing that you can't do in terms of calculating positions and moves and strategies?

01:49:10.000 Well, first of all, it's infinitely faster.

01:49:15.000 So there will be certain Possibilities that I will rule out because of my intuition, but it is able to calculate in a very short time that it's possible.

01:49:26.000 It will never make blunders, like simple tactical mistakes.

01:49:33.000 The neural networks sometimes do, but traditional engines don't.

01:49:41.000 I can keep...

01:49:45.000 Most of the moves that I make will be the same as they do, but they don't make any real blunders at all.

01:49:56.000 They may make slight positional mistakes, but honestly, most of the time that I think an engine makes a positional mistake is because I don't understand it well enough.

01:50:07.000 So it's not really a mistake.

01:50:09.000 And it might look like one, but it's long-term.

01:50:12.000 Yeah, it's just that my understanding is not good enough.

01:50:16.000 And that is useful.

01:50:17.000 That does help me learn.

01:50:19.000 What is the difference between the approach that the neural network takes versus a traditional engine?

01:50:26.000 Why is one of them approaching the game differently?

01:50:30.000 Because one of them is constantly calculating based on sort of what humans have taught them.

01:50:43.000 What is the value of a pawn?

01:50:45.000 What's the value of a knight?

01:50:47.000 And what is the value of a far advanced pawn?

01:50:52.000 And all of this.

01:50:54.000 It calculates based on that.

01:50:55.000 A neural network, you just show the rules of chess and play against yourself a lot of times and get better.

01:51:08.000 It just has a different approach.

01:51:11.000 What it does is just based on the games that it's played against itself.

01:51:16.000 It will have completely different ideas at times.

01:51:27.000 Imagine in 2019, because of these neural networks, every opening that had been played for 100 years...

01:51:34.000 Hundreds of years had to be rechecked by coaches because there could be a difference in evaluation because there is this new neural network that just thinks in a completely different way.

01:51:47.000 Wow.

01:51:48.000 So these neural networks could go back and look at, you know, a classic game from like 1963 and say, well, you know what?

01:51:58.000 I would have fucked that dude up because I would have done this, that, and the other thing.

01:52:01.000 Yeah, exactly. 0.95

01:52:04.000 It just, I think a lot of it was based on, it just emphasizes different factors than traditional engines do, and that ultimately just leads to different results, really.

01:52:22.000 But it's, yeah, it was extremely fascinating for a while, but now...

01:52:29.000 It's just led to really more parity in the world of chess because everybody just has access to that information.

01:52:42.000 It used to be a thing back in the time that some people would really be ahead of others, not only in 2019, but also other times like they had more computing power, better cloud engines like they had.

01:52:57.000 Started to use different engines and so on.

01:53:00.000 But now you could prepare for a world championship, honestly, in two weeks and you'd be completely with just a regular laptop that's connected to cloud.

01:53:18.000 It's very different and so much easier today.

01:53:25.000 That is so fascinating that it's changed the game so much.

01:53:28.000 Could you get a computer, whether it is a traditional engine or whether it's a neural network, could you get one to imitate a specific style?

01:53:37.000 Like, could you get one to say, I want you to play like Garry Kasparov when he was younger?

01:53:42.000 So we actually did this back in the day.

01:53:46.000 We actually started an app called Play Magnus where you could play against myself at different ages.

01:53:57.000 And the style, it was based on...

01:54:03.000 The guy who built Stockfish built this engine as well.

01:54:05.000 So it was based on an old version of that, but it would have my openings and try to emulate my style at certain ages.

01:54:14.000 Obviously, it wasn't perfect, but it was a start.

01:54:20.000 I think it's still...

01:54:23.000 Difficult to build a very good clone because essentially, at least with traditional engines, it's not possible.

01:54:31.000 Maybe with AI you can get there, but I still think we fundamentally think differently about chess.

01:54:42.000 The interesting thing would be to take you, because there's so many games that can be observed and put into the calculations, and then...

01:54:50.000 I would really be fascinated to watch you play you.

01:54:54.000 You know?

01:54:55.000 I mean, like, what would that be like?

01:54:57.000 Like, you play you when you were 20. No, so the thing about it is that you would have...

01:55:02.000 Also, what you would have to calibrate is that it would make occasional, like, tactical blenders, right?

01:55:10.000 Right.

01:55:10.000 And which engines...

01:55:11.000 How would you factor those in?

01:55:12.000 Yeah.

01:55:13.000 Right, they wouldn't want to.

01:55:13.000 And so what we would do...

01:55:15.000 What would happen in the Play Minus app is that it would make...

01:55:18.000 Occasional blunders.

01:55:20.000 But those would be a little bit too outrageous.

01:55:24.000 Because it's really hard to emulate the kinds of mistakes a human would make by the engines.

01:55:35.000 So I think that would probably still be the most difficult part.

01:55:41.000 The main issue in order to make such a thing.

01:55:44.000 If the Play Magnus thing was dialed in 100%.

01:55:48.000 What would be, do you think now would be the scariest age to play you?

01:55:54.000 Does that question make sense?

01:55:56.000 Yeah, are you better now than ever before?

01:55:58.000 No, I think my peak level is close to the best because chess level or proficiency at anything, it's about making use of the knowledge and making it into skill, right?

01:56:14.000 And I definitely have more knowledge now than I've ever had.

01:56:18.000 But I think probably the best combination I had of knowledge and energy that translated the best into skill was probably in 2019, like first half of the year when I was 28. And when I was...

01:56:43.000 More like a young Kasparov than I'd ever been before.

01:56:47.000 Very dynamic.

01:56:50.000 What is the difference between you and 2019 and you today?

01:56:53.000 A few things.

01:56:55.000 First, I couldn't play the same openings as I played then because they have been worked out to a point where they're basically...

01:57:07.000 Yeah, they're just too analyzed and unplayable.

01:57:11.000 So that's one thing.

01:57:16.000 Apart from that, I think I could do...

01:57:18.000 My average level would probably be a little bit lower because I'm a little bit older and my brain is not quite as fast.

01:57:29.000 I could do, I think, most of those things.

01:57:31.000 What I don't think I could do is, like, the other sort of best version of me, which was 2013, 2014, when I was in the best shape of my life, and I was just a relentless beast at the board, grinding down my...

01:57:54.000 Opponents in very long endgames, never giving them any respite whatsoever.

01:58:01.000 Like, purely skill-wise, that was far from the best version.

01:58:06.000 Sorry, knowledge-wise, that was far from the best version of me.

01:58:12.000 But I was just...

01:58:15.000 Yeah, it was just like...

01:58:19.000 The average level of my game definitely was higher than because I barely played really bad games at all because I was always sort of on.

01:58:30.000 I had so much willpower and energy.

01:58:34.000 Well, you're saying you were in the best shape of your life.

01:58:37.000 Do you mean physically?

01:58:38.000 Yeah, physically.

01:58:40.000 There's two factors you're talking about, like physical fitness and nutrition and exercise.

01:58:48.000 These things you don't really take too much into consideration, but they obviously played a huge factor in the most successful period of your life.

01:58:57.000 Yeah, it did, but then...

01:58:59.000 Because you're only 34. No, no, no.

01:59:02.000 That's true, but I just feel it with these kids.

01:59:08.000 Their brains are just so much faster than mine.

01:59:12.000 I mean, I've felt it for years as well that...

01:59:16.000 No, I'm not old, but I can never be at that level of pure computing power.

01:59:27.000 Is that generally accepted with chess, that there's a certain age where it just drops off?

01:59:31.000 Who has won the world championships at the oldest age?

01:59:35.000 No, well, back in the days when you couldn't get information that quickly, it took people a lot longer to...

01:59:43.000 To develop.

01:59:44.000 And then it was considered that the best age was like late 30s, early 40s.

01:59:51.000 Obviously, the drop-off is not nearly as steep as it would be in physical sports.

01:59:57.000 That goes without saying.

01:59:59.000 But I think the peak years are pretty much the same for most people, like mid-20s to early 30s.

02:00:12.000 I think I could still be very, very close to my peak if I focused fully on all the things that I can control.

02:00:31.000 Physical fitness, nutrition, vitamins.

02:00:33.000 All of those things, yeah.

02:00:35.000 And yet you don't do that?

02:00:36.000 I don't understand.

02:00:37.000 If you're so obsessed with chess, that seems to have a primary factor.

02:00:41.000 Yeah, it's a good thing.

02:00:43.000 I feel like I generally do the right things when I'm at tournaments, but then in between, I don't know, I want to enjoy life as well.

02:00:57.000 So I'm generally obsessed with chess, but I'm not always obsessed with compagnies.

02:01:06.000 Like, certain times, there will be certain days, certain tournaments, where I know that I'm not going to be at my best, and I can feel it, and then I'm not able to take it as seriously.

02:01:25.000 I feel like I cannot...

02:01:27.000 I'm not a Michael Jordan type who has to go all out in every...

02:01:33.000 In every game.

02:01:34.000 I used to, but now I don't think I have that in me because my main motivation for playing chess is that I love to play.

02:01:45.000 I don't have concrete goals of what I wanted to do.

02:01:50.000 Things I want to achieve.

02:01:51.000 Does that sort of relax attitude that you have?

02:01:54.000 Does that drive other people crazy that you're still able to beat them? 0.99

02:01:58.000 That would drive me fucking nuts. 0.97

02:02:00.000 If I was just fully obsessed and studying moves all day and just taking my vitamins and drinking only purified water. 0.96

02:02:07.000 It's kind of a thing that you're known for, right?

02:02:10.000 Like a lot of other people are known to work all the time and you've kind of always, at least a reputation, played the player, right?

02:02:19.000 Isn't that what you're...

02:02:21.000 Yeah, and also the thing is, I was known for being fit and all of these things, but now I think there are a lot of other players who take these things a lot more seriously than I do.

02:02:37.000 I think the reason why I got that reputation is that I really like doing a lot of...

02:02:45.000 I did a lot of sports when I was little and I've always kind of done them for fun.

02:02:51.000 So I think that was why you don't see a lot of chess players playing soccer or tennis or whatever.

02:02:59.000 Not that I'm great at any of those things, but I was usually better than a lot of other chess players.

02:03:08.000 Yeah, I guess I do have...

02:03:10.000 I don't know.

02:03:13.000 I don't know what a reputation I have for the others.

02:03:15.000 Like, I don't really care.

02:03:17.000 Yeah, there's not much you can do about your reputation.

02:03:19.000 I'm just saying, like, in a game or a sport where it's so computer-involved and analyzed and there's geniuses wearing suits and glasses and things, you're kind of known as a laid-back, intimidating force with a legacy.

02:03:36.000 Are there special things you do more like a poker player or anything to intimidate your opponents ever?

02:03:42.000 I've seen you show up late to big tournaments where they're waiting for you and stuff.

02:03:47.000 That's really cool.

02:03:48.000 That's a Miyamoto Musashi move.

02:03:52.000 Samurai?

02:03:52.000 Yeah.

02:03:54.000 Honestly, me being late is...

02:04:00.000 Down to a couple of things.

02:04:01.000 First, I hate waiting.

02:04:03.000 But also, I'm terrible at planning.

02:04:06.000 So that's why I keep showing up later.

02:04:08.000 You are terrible at planning.

02:04:09.000 You know how funny that is?

02:04:11.000 It's literally what you do.

02:04:12.000 Better than anybody.

02:04:16.000 My planning is always based on everything going perfectly.

02:04:20.000 And making a time plan based on that.

02:04:24.000 And if something goes a little bit wrong, then I'm going to be late.

02:04:28.000 And, like, something usually goes wrong or often enough that it becomes a thing.

02:04:35.000 Like, as you talked about in chess, like, there's this video that a lot of people have talked about where I come...

02:04:43.000 There's a Blitz game, right?

02:04:45.000 And that's three minutes and I come, like, two and a half minutes late because I've been skiing in the mountains and...

02:04:52.000 There was an accident on the road that delayed me like half an hour.

02:05:00.000 Most people would have planned for that, had a little bit of buffer, but I was like, eh, that was probably going to be fine.

02:05:05.000 Suddenly there's an accident and I'm going to be late and I'm just running into the playing hall in my sweatpants and not even realizing that the game has started.

02:05:19.000 Thought I was so late that I should be.

02:05:21.000 And I saw that everybody was there.

02:05:23.000 And then randomly it turned out that I had half a minute left when I got to the board.

02:05:28.000 So that's kind of more...

02:05:30.000 How did you play the game?

02:05:31.000 Did you have a different approach?

02:05:32.000 Because you knew you only had 30 seconds?

02:05:34.000 No, the thing is, there you have a two-second increment per move.

02:05:39.000 So I'm not going to lose on time automatically.

02:05:41.000 I just had to play a little bit faster.

02:05:43.000 But it was okay.

02:05:45.000 But as I said, I don't do those things to intimidate my opponents.

02:05:49.000 I'm just... 0.96

02:05:49.000 That would be such a mindfuck. 0.96

02:05:51.000 A guy shows up two and a half minutes late and still stomps you. 0.99

02:05:54.000 Yeah, I don't think many people know about the skiing delay or anything.

02:05:58.000 I think it was thought of as like a...

02:06:00.000 I'm a badass.

02:06:02.000 I'm coming in late.

02:06:03.000 No, honestly, that was...

02:06:05.000 Like, the world championships in chess, like, they were being held in the weirdest places.

02:06:10.000 So this was in Almaty, Kazakhstan, which is this, like, really, during winter at least, pretty polluted, not very nice city.

02:06:21.000 And then just half an hour out of the city, you have basically the Alps.

02:06:25.000 You have beautiful mountains that goes up to 3,500 meters.

02:06:33.000 Where it's just fantastic and you can get from the city it's like an hour and you're at the top of the mountain and having a beautiful ski vacation.

02:06:48.000 And I just was so miserable being down in the city that I thought for this day if I'm going to perform at all today I need some fresh air.

02:06:57.000 I need to get out of here.

02:06:59.000 And so that's why I took the risk.

02:07:02.000 And it was, yeah, definitely not to play mind games.

02:07:09.000 Because Bobby Fischer said about chess that I don't believe in psychology.

02:07:13.000 I believe in good moves.

02:07:15.000 I believe in a little bit of both, but I'm more in his school that I just...

02:07:20.000 I think I'm going to make better moves than I don't need.

02:07:26.000 Did you ever have an opponent that was doing something psychological that kind of messed you up or threw you off?

02:07:32.000 Back when I was a wrestler in high school, some guys wouldn't shower and it would be disgusting.

02:07:37.000 Was there anything like that in chess?

02:07:39.000 Yeah, that specific thing has happened for sure.

02:07:42.000 I'm not sure if it's been a conscious choice by my opponents.

02:07:47.000 I'm sure I've been guilty of it as well.

02:07:51.000 That's true.

02:07:54.000 I don't know, really.

02:07:57.000 I think the only thing is not to bring that up again, but I think when I think that my opponent might be cheating, that's the only time that I'm really off.

02:08:11.000 It's just weird that you can cheat and do it for so long and yet still play in the best tournaments.

02:08:17.000 You would think that, like in the UFC, say if you get caught with steroids, you get a long ban.

02:08:23.000 And if you get caught again, you get an even longer ban.

02:08:27.000 And I think it's like a three-strike thing.

02:08:28.000 If you get caught a third time, you're out of the sport forever.

02:08:32.000 No, it's...

02:08:33.000 The thing is that...

02:08:36.000 Do you think harsher penalties would discourage people?

02:08:38.000 Oh, yeah, for sure.

02:08:38.000 Especially for online.

02:08:40.000 Because there's been this thinking that cheating over the board and over online is very different.

02:08:47.000 But the thing is, once people...

02:08:50.000 Once people are cheating online, then having these meteoric rises over the board as well, it makes you think, hmm, that's a bit strange.

02:08:59.000 So yeah, there definitely needs to be harsher penalties.

02:09:04.000 One thing that chess.com used to do is that they would let people sort of...

02:09:10.000 Confess privately and then get their account back.

02:09:13.000 But now they're moving to more naming and shaming sort of thing and banning people for longer, which I think is a lot better.

02:09:27.000 But a lot of it is about incentives as well, right?

02:09:33.000 If you think that you can get away with cheating...

02:09:40.000 And there are monetary incentives to cheat.

02:09:43.000 People are going to cheat.

02:09:44.000 It's as simple as that.

02:09:46.000 Well, I guess that's just with every pursuit.

02:09:49.000 There's always going to be people that look for shortcuts.

02:09:51.000 There's always going to be someone who looks to skirt around the difficult path.

02:09:56.000 No, that's true.

02:09:57.000 But the thing is, there's so little you need in chess.

02:10:00.000 And the engines are so powerful.

02:10:04.000 If I started cheating, you would never know.

02:10:09.000 The thing is, I would get a move here and there.

02:10:15.000 That's all I need.

02:10:16.000 Or maybe, imagine I'm playing a tournament.

02:10:19.000 I just find a system where I get somebody to signal me when there's a critical moment.

02:10:26.000 Like, if there's a moment where a certain move is much better than the others.

02:10:30.000 That's really all I would need to go from...

02:10:35.000 Being the best to being practically unbeatable, right?

02:10:40.000 So it really is a scary situation.

02:10:45.000 There have been these cases of...

02:10:48.000 So many cases of people who are acting suspiciously and who are making suspicious...

02:10:57.000 having suspicious results based on the data, but... 0.77

02:11:03.000 If you're not cheating in a dumb way, there rarely is going to be a smoking gun.

02:11:08.000 Without that smoking gun, it's really hard to catch people. 0.68

02:11:11.000 How would you eliminate that other than security?

02:11:14.000 Would you have it so there's no audience members at all and have them only in a room together?

02:11:21.000 That has been done in World Championships, for instance.

02:11:25.000 We've basically been playing in a glass box where you can see Where you cannot see the audience and you cannot hear anything.

02:11:37.000 So it's a glass-proof box.

02:11:40.000 I kind of...

02:11:42.000 You kind of don't want that.

02:11:45.000 You want there to be...

02:11:46.000 I really like having chess more like an esports setting where people can be as loud as they want.

02:11:53.000 It's just you have players sit down like boxers with headsets and...

02:11:58.000 But don't headsets open up the possibility of cheating?

02:12:00.000 But then, like, the headsets would be...

02:12:03.000 All provided by the organizers.

02:12:05.000 Right, so some sort of sound.

02:12:06.000 And you'd have to have, like, both...

02:12:08.000 We have had that in tournaments, like, tournaments that you have to have white noise and some kind of sound from, like, Spotify or...

02:12:16.000 If you want to listen to classical music or whatever.

02:12:20.000 You can do that?

02:12:21.000 Yeah, yeah.

02:12:22.000 So you can listen to Wu-Tang Clan while you play chess?

02:12:24.000 Yeah, I mean, honestly, playing Blitzchess, listening to music usually helps me because, like...

02:12:32.000 Doing tasks that are more intuition-based, then that helps with the flow.

02:12:39.000 With longer games, you probably don't want that disturbance, but I've definitely played some of my best Blizz Chess, just listening to music and sitting there bopping.

02:12:57.000 Yeah, I think...

02:12:58.000 Some wild Norwegian music?

02:13:02.000 Rammstein or something?

02:13:04.000 That's actually German, but they have some good songs.

02:13:09.000 No, I think my best chess has probably been Norwegian rap.

02:13:14.000 Norwegian rap, really?

02:13:16.000 What's a good Norwegian rap band or rap group that you could recommend?

02:13:21.000 There's a guy called Mr. Pimp Lotion and Oral-B. Mr. Pimp Lotion.

02:13:26.000 And Oral-B. They're kind of...

02:13:28.000 It's a little bit ironic, but they're doing American West Coast rap in Norwegian.

02:13:35.000 Oh, that sounds badass.

02:13:37.000 This is a bit of a different one.

02:13:41.000 I actually did a song with...

02:13:44.000 Mr. Pimp Lotion.

02:13:44.000 I actually did a song with those guys.

02:13:47.000 What a great name, Mr. Pimp Lotion.

02:13:50.000 That's incredible.

02:13:55.000 Yeah, my verse is right at the end.

02:13:59.000 I like it too because I don't have any idea what the words are saying.

02:14:03.000 Yours is at the end?

02:14:05.000 No, basically there's...

02:14:06.000 Yeah, the thing about...

02:14:09.000 What happened was that they did a show and they have this...

02:14:13.000 This thing called Spenur, which is like a moisturizer mostly used for animals.

02:14:20.000 But like this Mississippi Ocean, like he's obsessed with that one.

02:14:23.000 And somebody apparently stole that from backstage at their concert.

02:14:31.000 And so they didn't know who it was, but they eventually found out and they made a song about it.

02:14:38.000 And so they had a bunch of people like send in their verses.

02:14:44.000 Incredible the difference between America and Norway, what the rappers are rapping about.

02:14:50.000 Gang wars and shootings.

02:14:52.000 In Norway, somebody's like, who stole my lotion?

02:14:56.000 Yeah.

02:15:00.000 There actually was a popular song about 20 years ago.

02:15:09.000 That reference, specifically that, in Norwegian, that there was nothing to rap about because nothing bad ever happens.

02:15:16.000 That's what he's saying.

02:15:17.000 Don't make me pull out the gun.

02:15:19.000 It's best that someone speak out who stole this bean off.

02:15:24.000 Who stole my lotion? 0.98

02:15:26.000 Yeah.

02:15:30.000 Basically, there's a bunch of verses, like people accusing each other, and then I randomly come in at the very end.

02:15:38.000 And solve the mystery.

02:15:39.000 Was it you?

02:15:41.000 It wasn't me.

02:15:43.000 I was not at that particular show.

02:15:47.000 I think the best online chess that I've ever played was probably listening to their music.

02:15:55.000 Wow.

02:15:56.000 Do you mix it up?

02:15:57.000 Do you ever listen to Led Zeppelin?

02:15:59.000 No.

02:16:00.000 I listen to a lot of older stuff as well.

02:16:09.000 I have no idea what's on the chart these days in general.

02:16:16.000 I find out through Tony.

02:16:18.000 I find out through the young guys at the club.

02:16:21.000 I'm like, what are you listening to?

02:16:22.000 What is this?

02:16:23.000 And I'll do Shazam on it and put it on my Spotify playlist.

02:16:27.000 That sometimes happens to me as well.

02:16:29.000 Maybe once a year or something.

02:16:31.000 Otherwise, I remember I asked my sister.

02:16:36.000 Probably like 10 years ago.

02:16:37.000 Like I saw a playlist and I was like, do you have anything from before 2000?

02:16:42.000 And so I was like, yeah, of course.

02:16:44.000 Britney Spears, baby one more time, 1999. So I'm kind of the opposite of that.

02:16:52.000 Well, that's awesome.

02:16:53.000 Well, listen, man, it's been awesome having you in here.

02:16:55.000 I really appreciate you doing this.

02:16:57.000 And tell everybody when the Netflix show is out.

02:17:01.000 I don't know, but it's within a few months for sure.

02:17:05.000 Jamie, do you know?

02:17:07.000 Didn't say when it's coming out.

02:17:09.000 Well, we will put it up on the Instagram when it's out.

02:17:12.000 And it's been awesome talking to you, man.

02:17:14.000 I really appreciate it.

02:17:16.000 Thank you.

02:17:16.000 Thanks for coming in.

02:17:18.000 All right, Tony.

02:17:19.000 Fun times.

02:17:20.000 Fun times.

02:17:21.000 All right.

The Joe Rogan Experience - February 20, 2025

Joe Rogan Experience #2275 - Magnus Carlsen

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Summary

Transcript