Going Pro at 57: `GM Alex Fishbein on How New and Challenging Training Methods Fueled an Upset win at the US Senior Invitational At 57 years old, Tennessee-based Grandmaster and Author, Alex Fishbein, has built an impressive chess résumé, with 12 state-championship titles across four states and multiple appearances in U.S. Championship events. But until recently, his chess had always been balanced with a demanding finance career. Last year, for the first time since age 24, Alex stepped away from...
Aug 19, 2025•1 hr 5 min
IM Greg Shahade was the very first guest of Perpetual Chess and has remained a frequent and insightful contributor ever since. A former youth national champion, Greg has subsequently been involved in the chess world in an array of capacities —founder of the US Chess School (which provides free training to top American juniors), creator of the now-defunct Pro Chess League, and a near-2800-rated blitz player on Chess.com who has maintained his level well into his 40s. A former poker pro, Greg has ...
Aug 12, 2025•1 hr 9 min
Nicholas Sloan is a Wisconsin-based Network Engineer, a dad of 4, and an extremely motivated chess improver. Usually. But after an incredible run of gaining 500+ rating points in two years, fueled by consistent hard work and a unique study approach, Nick hit a wall. He gave back 150 rating points, and lost his motivation to work hard on chess. That can happen when you are a family man who is working full-time, studying for multiple hours a day, and creating chess content on top of that. Nick too...
Aug 05, 2025•59 min
Dr. Benjamin (Ben) Balas is an MIT-educated professor of psychology at North Dakota State University, where his research focuses on visual recognition. He’s also a passionate chess player who blogs frequently about the intersection of science and chess. On his popular LiChess blog , Ben (aka NDPatzer ) has explored topics like whether streakiness exists in chess, the science of blunders, and how confirmation bias influences decision-making over the board. In our conversation, we touch on all of ...
Jul 29, 2025•53 min
Opening expert, Twitch streamer, former Team Magnus member, and longtime friend of the pod, GM Jan Gustafsson is back for another fun and far-reaching interview! We talk about the origins of his new Chessable course on the Austrian Defense , how his approach to repertoire building has evolved, and get his take on the recent Freestyle Chess drama in Vegas. Jan also reflects on the legacy of GM Boris Spassky, laments his struggles with memory and motivation, and mourns the end (for now) of FM Donn...
Jul 22, 2025•1 hr 15 min
EP 442- GM Johan Hellsten: Why Defending Is So Difficult — And How to Improve At It GM Johan Hellsten returns to Perpetual Chess for a deep dive into one of the most overlooked yet essential chess skills: defense. Johan is the 2006 Swedish National Champion, and a renowned author and coach, best known for his Mastering Chess series. In this interview, he shares insights from his latest book and Chessable course , Mastering Chess Defense (also available in print,) reflecting on why defending is o...
Jul 15, 2025•1 hr 7 min
In just a few years, 24-year-old Australian Twitch streamer Hannah Sayce went from playing casual online games during lockdown to earning the Woman Candidate Master (WCM) title and competing in international tournaments. Her post-lockdown rise has taken her from below 1000 to a 2300 Chess.com blitz rating. In this conversation, Hannah shares the highs and lows of her chess journey and the strategies behind her rapid improvement. Key turning points included learning to slow down at the board and ...
Jul 01, 2025•43 min
GM Alexandr Fier is a 5 time champion of Brazil and 9 time chess Olympian. He also recently qualified for the FIDE World Cup for the 8th time by finishing tied for first at the American Continental tournament. But aside from all of his impressive accomplishments, what interests me most about GM Fier is how frequently he competes. Last year alone, he played nearly 200 classical games,, and he has now travelled to over 50 countries. In our conversation we discussed: How he maintains his energy and...
Jun 24, 2025•1 hr 7 min
This week’s guest is Samuel Sonning, a Swedish computer scientist, former Google engineer, and founder of NoctieAI —a user-friendly chess platform featuring rating tests and bots designed to play like humans. In our conversation, Samuel discusses his unique improvement philosophy as an adult learner, including how memorizing famous games helped him build intuition and visualization skills. A passionate player himself, many of Sam’s ideas have directly shaped NoctieAI, which offers immediate move...
Jun 17, 2025•51 min
In this memorable episode of Perpetual Chess , we welcome back Tony Ballard, who spent 26 years incarcerated and credits chess with helping him change the course of his life. When we last spoke in Episode 289 (2022), Tony was still in a minimum-security facility. Now fully free, he’s making the most of his second chance. He’s working full-time at the Paul Mitchell Barber School, has founded a nonprofit— Masters and Mentors —to teach chess to at-risk youth, and has released a powerful memoir, Tim...
Jun 10, 2025•1 hr 6 min
This two-part episode of Perpetual Chess features two of the most impactful figures in American chess education: Coach Jay Stallings and Adam Weissbarth . First up, Coach Jay shares insights from his decades of experience teaching over 30,000 students,and also discusses his recent work consulting on the chess scenes in the new Hollywood blockbuster The Accountant 2 . Additionally, Jay reviews some of the teaching tools he currently relies on—including a fun new one that he recently created himse...
Jun 03, 2025•1 hr 26 min
EP 436- Adult Improver Torkil Jara Bårdsgjerde on How Workplace Trash Talk Sparked a Lifelong Passion for Chess In this inspiring and relatable installment of the Adult Improver Series, we meet Torkil Jara Bårdsgjerde , a 39-year-old father of two, from Norway who discovered competitive chess after a bit of playful banter with a workplace rival. That exchange sparked a fascination with the game—and when the pandemic hit shortly after, Torkil suddenly had the time to dive in. Five years later, he...
May 27, 2025•1 hr 17 min
IM Alex Ostrovskiy is a former Scholastic National Champion, New York State Champion, and accomplished coach who has earned one GM norm, and reached a peak USCF rating of 2560. In addition to his coaching work, Alex is a regular commentator on GM Hikaru Nakamura's Twitch channel, and a tournament organizer who runs frequent invitational tournaments in New York City (where he has lived since the age of 5.) Alex and I discussed the following: Alex’s three main tenets of chess improvement- tactics,...
May 20, 2025•1 hr 3 min
GM Mauricio Flores Rios ' first book, Chess Structures , is a modern classic which is seemingly recommended on a weekly basis on Perpetual Chess. After nine years of work, Mauricio has recently released its follow-up, Chess Imbalances: A GM Guide . Like Chess Structures , it is a highly instructive book with a beautiful selection of games and useful guidelines to aid one's chess decision-making. We discussed the following: His opinion on the value of the bishop pair, as well as bishop vs. knight...
May 13, 2025•57 min
Dr. Kenneth Rogoff has undoubtedly had one of the highest-profile and most interesting careers of any Grandmaster working outside of chess. He is an author and Harvard professor who was once singled-out by none other than Bobby Fischer, as a player who had shown remarkable chess improvement. As a young chess star, Dr. Rogoff actually dropped out of high school to move to Europe and pursue chess professionally, but by age 18 he had returned to the U.S. and enrolled at Yale. He would remain active...
May 06, 2025•1 hr 9 min
NM Dana Mackenzie is a former math professor turned science writer who has maintained a passion for chess throughout his life and career changes.He is a USCF Life Master and was the 2 time state champion of North Carolina. Dana had a long running and popular chess blog which has now been turned into a book Did You Come Here to Play Chess or Have Fun? The book features plenty of chess improvement advice, with a particular emphasis on what Dana thinks is required to become a master level player. D...
Apr 29, 2025•1 hr 8 min
GM Mihail Marin is a prolific and popular author, trainer, and 3-time Romanian national champion. He has made numerous contributions to the chess canon but is probably best known for the book Learn from the Legends , published in 2005, which received high praise from GM Daniel Naroditsky, IM Jeremy Silman, and many others. In 2025, its much-anticipated sequel, Learn from the Legends 2: Chess Heroes at Their Best has finally been released. GM Marin joined me to discuss: The different format chose...
Apr 22, 2025•1 hr 13 min
GM Susan Polgar is a World Chess Hall of Famer and former Women’s World Champion. She is also the holder of numerous records, including being the first female “triple crown winner” and the first woman to earn the Grandmaster title by norms and rating. She is also an author, and Chessable author . Her latest book, Rebel Queen: The Cold War, Misogyny and the Making of Grandmaster is a candid and fascinating memoir which looks back at her unusual upbringing, her extraordinary playing career, her li...
Apr 15, 2025•1 hr 6 min
The Adult Improver series returns to Perpetual Chess to welcome Omar Mills (aka ChessvonDoom) to the podcast. Omar fell in love with chess during the pandemic and has learned some unexpected lessons through the thousands of games he has played in subsequent years. He learned that chess improvement and maintaining a disciplined study routine is much harder than he ever could have guessed, but that you can learn a lot about yourself through the game nonetheless. In a new Chessable course, Chess De...
Apr 08, 2025•1 hr 3 min
IM Danny Rensch is a former child prodigy turned Chief Chess Officer of Chess.com, the largest chess website in the world. Danny rejoined me 8 years after his first visit to the podcast ( Episode 18 ) to discuss all that is new with Chess.com. Inevitably, this means a detailed discussion of online cheat detection, and whether Chess.com thinks that their increased deterrence methods are working. But there is a lot more to discuss including: What goes into decisions of choosing commentators for an...
Apr 01, 2025•1 hr 11 min
GM Noël Studer is a two time Swiss National Champion turned blogger, course creator and chess trainer. Noël is also a regular guest on the podcast, and as an avid reader of his blog, I always have plenty of questions for him. This particular interview tackles questions like the following: What has training for a marathon taught Noël about chess? Do Grandmasters like Noël make it sound easier than it is to “fix blunders?” What are the traits of Noël’s most successful students? We also discuss an ...
Mar 25, 2025•58 min
The Perpetual Chess Book Review series, Chess Books Recaptured is back, to discuss a new tactics primer that has been getting a lot of buzz, 100 Tactical Patterns You Must Know by FM Frank Erwich. My guest co-host is Kevin Scull, the host of the Chess Journeys podcast, and a dedicated student of the game. Kevin wanted to discuss this book because he felt it filled a glaring void in the marketplace and that it helped his game a lot. Nonetheless, Kevin also had a few quibbles with the book, so he ...
Mar 20, 2025•25 min
Oleksandr Prokhorov is a Lviv, Ukraine-based chess organizer, trainer, FIDE arbiter and Twitch streamer. Ukraine has a rich chess history and has a vibrant grass roots scene in addition to famous natives such as Vasyl Ivanchuk, the Muzychuk sisters, and GM Ruslan Ponomariov. In recent years, I have marvelled at the persistent passion for chess in Ukraine as I follow Facebook groups like the Love Chess Ukraine Facebook Group . Oleksandr and I discussed: Is interest in Ukrainian chess as strong as...
Mar 18, 2025•51 min
IM Willy Hendriks is an award-winning chess author, historian and chess trainer. He has just released his fourth book, The Philosopher and the Housewife : Tarrasch, Nimzowitsch and the Evolution of Chess. This book is the completion of a trilogy which casts a new light on chess history and looks at the evolution of chess ideas. Willy’s newest book focuses on the early 20th century, with a particular emphasis on Aron Nimzowitsch and Siegbert Tarrasch. We tackle questions such as: Was Aron Nimzowi...
Mar 11, 2025•58 min
GM Wojciech Moranda is a high-level trainer, author and 2600+ rated player who has worked with the Polish youth national team and IM Levy Rozman among many other students. I often recommend his books for ambitious advanced players, so I was excited to welcome him back to discuss his new Chessable Course, The Moranda Method: How to Calculate Like a Beast . In the course, and in our discussion, Wojciech lays out his core beliefs and fundamental framework for how to calculate in chess. His course i...
Mar 04, 2025•1 hr 3 min•Ep. 424
FM Nate Solon is a data scientist, Chessable author , New in Chess Magazine columnist and the creator of the popular and insightful newsletter, Zwischenzug . Nate joined me shortly after we played in a tournament together to share his latest chess-improvement related thoughts and to reflect on recent lessons he has absorbed. We focused on a few themes in particular: Why Nate thinks the challenge of learning new openings is often overstated, and the way in which he thinks chess openings “resemble...
Feb 25, 2025•1 hr 1 min
WGM Dina Belenkaya is a Russian-born and schooled chess champion who is now based in Charlotte, North Carolina. In recent years, Dina has built a massive Twitch, YouTube and Instagram following, while maintaining a busy competitive schedule. In this interview, we caught up with Dina's recent OTB results, including her impressions of the FIDE World Rapid & Blitz in New York City. Dina discusses the challenges she is currently encountering in her game as well as her current chess goals. Dina a...
Feb 18, 2025•57 min•Ep. 422
This week’s podcast is a discussion among friends. FM Donny Ariel is an NYC based former scholastic champion who has attained 3 IM Norms. These days he is a working dad, who has recently decided to pursue not only the IM title, but the Grandmaster title as well. (Donny is chronicling this journey on his YouTube channel, The Road to Chess Grandmaster ). GM Jan Gustafsson, as many of you know, is a renowned commentator, Chessable author, trainer, and frequent guest on Perpetual Chess. Jan and I ar...
Feb 11, 2025•1 hr 4 min
Nikolaos Ntirlis is a Correspondence chess champion, and computer engineer who has become well known in the chess world for his vast opening expertise. Nikolaos is quite skilled at finding original opening ideas, and has grown popular through his books, and by highlighting new opening ideas on his Twitter/X account . The ideas Nikos suggests have often seen quick adoption by Grandmasters, and he has even seen moves he highlighted subsequently appear in the games of Hikaru Nakamura and Anish Girl...
Feb 04, 2025•1 hr 4 min•Ep. 420
Dr. Joel Sneed is a professor, a practicing clinical psychologist and a highly-regarded chess author. And despite a busy professional and family life, Joel has achieved the rare feat of reaching a 2000+ USCF after starting tournament chess in his 30s. But, like many of us, Joel struggles to moderate his relationship with chess. He has long held a goal of reaching USCF Master, and puts a lot of pressure on himself to make it happen quickly. This has led to a repetitive cycle of despondency and qu...
Jan 28, 2025•1 hr 11 min
