Joe Rogan podcast. Check it out. The Joe Rogan experience. Train by day. Joe Rogan podcast by night. All day. All right. We're up and rolling. Magnus Carlson, ladies and gentlemen. You want some coffee? No. Oh, this is water. Tell Jeff to bring in the coffee. I forgot to bring in the coffee.
No, no, I'm good with water. I need coffee. I'm going to keep up with you, buddy. And, of course, Tony Hinchcliffe is here, who's a gigantic chess fan and just creamed his pants yesterday when I told him you were coming in. And then immediately I said, you've got to come with me. Tony's here as well. It's an honor to meet you, man. I'm always fascinated by people that are at the top of something that's insanely difficult, like chess. And I'm always wondering how much time is involved.
How often do you play? And when did you start? How old were you when you first started playing? I think my dad is an avid chess player. So I think he... Thought that I might have some talent so he thought he taught me pretty early at around five years old But at that time I wasn't that interested I was mostly into Legos, and I was into maths and sports stats, and I had my little flag book with all...
all the countries in the world, their flags and their inhabitants and area and everything. And I sort of, that's what I did, generally just taking in all the stats that I could also with sports, reading the sports section every day. And I didn't find chess that fun A couple of years later, my older sister is a year and a half older than me. She did a lot of tests with my dad. I started sitting in on them a bit.
i started liking it i really really wanted to beat my sister as well at generally everything and uh yeah from there on it really just became uh became my thing and it's you know been my main hobby and eventually work as well since. Yeah, obviously. It's so funny though, a spark, a competitive spark with your sister is really what ignited you to get going with it. Yeah, the funny thing is she's not competitive at all.
So she hated the fact that I wanted to play, especially when I realized that I could beat her. And she... she she liked chess but she stopped for for a while and only started when i had become like good enough that there wasn't a competition so it turned like like my dad was right after all i just needed I just needed that extra push. Yeah, what a call. I think you've got some talent. What a call. Grandmaster at 12, was it? 13, so actually the record is 12, but...
Most kids these days, honestly, they start so early. 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. And, like, I'm seeing the games. Like, they're actually decent.
And yeah, now there's this one kid from Argentina, like they call him the Messi of chess, who's going to become a grandmaster soon. I think he's only 10. So they're really, really... uh playing early these days but it's it's it's good to see though because like information is so easily accessible these days
takes a lot shorter time to get good at something. Well, it seems like now chess, because of social media, it's like everything else. It's kind of exploding because there's so many fascinating videos out. And then, of course, there was like...
the big controversy with that young man who you believe is a big old cheater. That guy. I need to know the anal beads thing. Is that a legitimate theory? So it actually started in one of... uh my friend's streamer channel that like one random guy said made made a comment about anal beads and he was and he was like yeah maybe and then uh i think it It started taking the rounds in Reddit, and then Elon saw it, tweeted about it, and then obviously it blew up. I actually spoke to...
I think it was Mark Andreessen who said, like, that would be one way to do it. Yes. But I really, really, really don't believe that that has happened. Like, I think it has no connection to...
Reality, but it just became it's a thing of its own so unfortunately this young man We will explain the anal beads thing but this this young man is a very talented player But does has have a history some shenanigans correct and even admitted that he did a little bit of cheating in order to move his rating higher so he could play better players
Yeah, I mean, he's not admitted to nearly the extent of his cheating. But if you sort of take what... 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 sort of get himself up the standings and play the best players in the world. But he is a very good player.
I think he has become a very good player, yeah. Interesting, okay. So what made you convinced that he was cheating in that particular game? And by what method do you think he could possibly have been doing this? Could you hear something? Was it like, brr? you're hearing vibrations he sees his seat shift yeah you're smelling something there's a wave of something in the air Yeah, I mean that would have been the smoking gun, I suppose. I think there was a combination of...
Of things though based on you know 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. There were a lot of... stories back then the thing is also there's there's a Netflix documentary coming in a few months that sort of where I'm telling my side of the story. So I kind of go too deep into everything. But what I can say was that there were a lot of factors.
That made me very, very suspicious. And I think ever since then, he has become better. But there's still something... there's still something off, both then and now. 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. 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?
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. This means that anybody having access to information, it's incredibly dangerous. And I think top-level chess has been a lot based on trust. Whenever you have outsiders whom there are these stories about, everybody gets a bit jittery. There's like...
As people who either like they burst onto the scene, then they establish themselves and people know that they're legit and so on. It's not a problem. With him specifically, I don't know. It was... It's just... It doesn't seem to be playing or it didn't at that point seem to be playing with...
With a particular style, it seemed that he either played kind of eh, or he just more or less played... any position very well in in certain games like he could just switch from tactical to positional play very easily and uh it was
Yeah, it didn't didn't smell good to me. It's still it still doesn't but You know to some extent like he he had his he had his lawsuit with all Kind of moved a little bit on I think I don't trust him a lot of other top players still don't trust him He certainly doesn't doesn't trust me or chess.com or Hikaru or whomever he felt wronged by.
but the problem is like 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 like is he cheating now always but the question is like what method like what what do people do so if you're sitting there you have no phone your pockets are empty like what could you be doing that could possibly be aiding you
well first of all like an invisible air piece um that people use for exams and so on like so but he would have to have a partner uh yeah uh he would yeah yeah um that would
not have been detected by the security system that they used at that tournament. They amped up the security after the whole thing happened. Did they check your ears? Yeah, they start checking their... our ears and then, you know, we had a live tournament in Paris last year where I played him, where there was proper security, where all of these things would be picked up and he didn't, like, he didn't play.
to nearly the same level there. So I think, well, I'm not an expert in all of that, but that's what I've heard from people, that that's like the most obvious thing that it could have, that... someone could have done and it wouldn't be really that hard to pull off considering the kind of um security we have at chess tournaments and this tournament had like a little bit of security a lot of them like open tournaments
People are like wandering in and out of the playing hall. There are people in the playing hall, like spectators with their... um with their smartphones uh on and taking pictures or or whatever like going in and out like they could make signals it's um yeah it's It's hard. It's a big problem in chess for sure. Yeah. So the anal beads thing, for people who don't know what we're talking about, the...
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 kind of code are you getting from inside your butt that you're like, okay, I got it? Well, it would be like, you know, C4 or whatever. Like, it could tell you. How would it say it in your butt, though? Well, I mean, I'd have to show you.
Luckily I brought one. So I'm in right now. No, it would be like, it would buzz, right? It would buzz the letters and then the numbers that would indicate where you would move and there would only be. a piece or two. So like the first three vibrations would be letter C and then, yeah.
Okay. Yeah, it's just a sort of technological version of ways people have cheated before. There was a scandal back in 2010 where the captain of the French team was helping one of his... one of the French players by cheating he was basically just standing in certain spots around the table to tell him where to where to move oh wow that's crazy oh wow
Dirty people out there. It's wild. Well, it's such a competitive thing. Whenever you have competitive things, you always have people that just want to win at any cost. Right. 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...
Going out every night, not taking the tournament seriously at all. But yeah, he had a good reason. He knew he was going to win. That's hilarious. So is that the most egregious form of cheating that you've ever seen or heard of? 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, that was not a very good player. And he was, he came drunk to the table and just literally pulled out his phone and opened. open a chess program but of course like he was immediately um so that that wasn't of course nearly as as nefarious but yeah that's just a moron yeah yeah he was just
Probably some other issues there. It is such a fascinating game because it's impossible to play if you're dumb. There's games that you could just be a savant, like an idiot savant. But chess is the most impressive thing for people to be unbelievably good at. I don't know. I think it can be... can be dumb and be fairly good at chess. I think some intelligence certainly helps, but after all,
A lot of chess is about learning patterns, right? And basically anybody can do that. So like applying them at a higher level, learning how to evaluate and so on, that sort of is what sets the... the really the best players apart from from merely good players, but I feel like anybody could become quite decent at the game, but I do love the fact that There are no coincidences. There are no outside factors. Well, if you don't talk other than cheating, of course. But it's just, yeah.
You're either outsmarting your opponent or you're getting outsmarted. So for a guy like you that excels above all, what is the difference in your preparation? Is it just simply who you are as a person? you think, or is it something about the difference in your preparation without giving away any secrets, obviously? I'm like known in the chess world for being like a little bit lazy, I think. The thing is that...
What do you mean lazy like how's that possible no the thing is like I've never been the kind of person who wakes up in the morning works six, seven hours in chess like a normal job. And then... Because a lot of them study computers and stuff. Yeah, exactly. Like, I've... I think about the game all the time. Like, I play online. I look at games. I mean, read something. Do you ever play anonymously? I used to do that all the time. What a bloodbath that must be.
But I think I got humbled one time by this Russian grandmaster who asked, somebody else asked me if a certain account on a certain website was me. And I was like... Yeah, I don't know. Like, I don't know who that is. And this guy went like, yes, that is you. And he listed up like five other accounts that I thought nobody knew about. Oh, wow. That were also me. By the way, you play. Yeah, I think it's playing strength.
playing style because I tried to switch up my openings on different accounts to not make it obvious that it's me and I have like a style where I switch that up a lot so it makes it a bit easier but I think you could just tell by by the playing style. That is crazy. These days, I play with my own name. I don't really care about that anymore. Yeah. So do most professional players study chess all day long at the highest level? I think quite a few do.
i i mean i don't know like people's day-to-day activities so you guys don't talk about it not that much um the people that i've worked with they certainly study chess a lot uh but others i'm not quite sure The thing is that chess has always still been a bit of a hobby for me. Once it starts to feel like work, then it's... It's harder for me. I had a chess coach when I was little. I went to have sessions once a week, which I loved. And then he started giving me homework.
Yeah, I told him, like, quickly, like, I don't like homework. But I would still spend a lot of time, like, reading books, playing online. the things that I still do, but I would do them for fun. 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...
in the way that I was. I think about it all the time. I'm thinking about the game while I'm sitting on this chair. I'm still analyzing a game that I played today. It never goes completely out of my mind. And I think a lot of very good chess players do that, but like casual chess players, no, of course. So maybe the thing is discipline versus enthusiasm. enthusiasm causes obsession and enjoyment, which probably leads to better retention of information.
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. You're missing this enthusiasm for it that you have managed to, although absorbing so much information and playing all this.
You've managed to keep it playful and fun. I think so. I think this is definitely the way that works for me maybe for others think for anybody like if you want to be great at something you have to be obsessed with it yes and yeah it has to come from it has to come from within like nobody can
Yeah, maybe in certain sports you can get that good purely by very, very targeted practice and a lot of hours. But yeah, I think... um for me it's just the way that it's just the way that it um that it works and um i do like processing even though like i don't necessarily study like i don't don't deliberately practice all the time i still process the information so it's still whatever whatever the method is it certainly works but it's interesting because you've been able to excel above so many
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 the game they play What separates the very best from everyone else like I know in martial arts? There's a series of factors that have to do with genetics training coaches sparring partners, and then ultimately discipline and drive.
With chess, it's all mental. Physical has nothing to do with it. So do you think it's a genetic thing? Do you think you have a unique mind for chess? Do you think it's this balance that you keep with enthusiasm? obsession? What do you think separates you from everyone else? I think it has to be a variety of factors. I think there's no doubt that I'm incredibly...
Naturally gifted at the game like otherwise I wouldn't have come come this far and my my dad is Incredibly good with with numbers. He started playing chess quite late but became
But but became decent like my mother was quite smart and my my sisters are very Intelligent too. So like it's clear that You know, there are some good genes 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 there were
I had access to coaches and I had access to like a little training group of other ambitious kids. 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.
many years so i've always sort of gone my own way uh tried to have as much um fun everything has to be about enjoyment and yeah I cannot tell you why, but I just understand the game better than the others. I don't calculate necessarily as far as the other, but my intuition for short lines... Constantly evaluating is just better. It's just...
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. When you say your father started playing late, how old was he?
Oh, I think he started playing about 14, 15, something like that. In chess, that's very... But he never, he never, like, took a... took it seriously enough right that he wanted to like he pursued it but um as a hobby as a hobby yeah well you when you say take it seriously you mean like you do
This is what makes me think about epigenetics. We still don't exactly know how much information is transferred between parents to children. 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 or is that coming from the environment, which this child grows up, which this person, or is it a combination of all those factors?
I wonder if someone gets really, a very intelligent person gets very good at chess early on. I wonder if some information or some proclivity for the game. gets transferred. 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. 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 so the Where you where is you see? Anywhere like in the NBA or the NHL or in football or wherever like it happens all the time So I cannot say exactly why that is, but it does suggest that it's not a given, at least with genetics, that your children are going to...
I have an alternate theory for that. I wonder if you're a child and your parents are absolutely obsessed with the game if it's annoying. And you're like, fuck this game. I want to go play in the park and my parents don't even pay attention to me. This is bullshit. There's a lot of children of alcoholics that will not drink. They won't even try it because they've seen the effects of it.
I wonder that. Because chess is an obsessive game. I remember when Howard Stern was playing it. 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 race.
And I was like, oh, this is eating up your mind. Like, it's a game that gets in your bones. It really does because, like, the entry is... not so easy right 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 so you have to spend 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 becomes it's easier for that to become an obsession when when you start to get that reward so the good thing about that controversy with cheating was that i think it elevated the profile of chess because it became mainstream news it was like a big issue I think there was a positive aspect of it in terms of the publicity of the game. Do you agree with that? Oh, yeah, for sure. I think for any field of...
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? Because this is... Everybody knows chess and cheating. But overall, I think it's been massively positive. Hopefully, the Netflix thing coming up.
in a year even though like can you explain it to people yeah it's a not netflix untold documentary so basically it's a series of sports documentaries and they're doing that it's not something that i like wanted to necessarily be be part of but i do recognize the fact that these things raise the profile of of of the game and and you see now like every everywhere people people like it
Chaz is showing up in people's algorithms on YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, everywhere. So it's just like much more in the zeitgeist than it used to be. Yeah, it's certainly showing up on mine. It shows up on mine all along yours, right? Oh, yeah. But you've always been a giant. chess fan well it's actually a newer thing but when i when i got into it it was just everything now it's what i do
Right before bed. I fall asleep. Usually I fall asleep during actual games online on my phone How could that like how could that happen? What do you do when you wake up? Oh, that's total opposite. You wake up and you lost. No, I wake up and I look at the board and it said you resigned because I went over my time or whatever. I just ran out of time. How many times have you resigned?
It happens in embarrassing a lot amount. It's how I fall asleep now is playing chess. 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 dream sometimes. 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.
That sounds amazing. Obviously, that would never happen to me. I like to play a game of chess on my phone or my iPad whenever I have some time, especially if I never... that i have 15 minutes or whatever and then if something comes up like my wife tells me like i have to be somewhere i have to do something it's like can you just finish the game like no i cannot resign the game right what are you talking about yeah
Yeah, obviously that's different, though. Yeah, you can't just resign. You've got to ride that bitch out. Yeah. This episode is brought to you by Zero Day, a new Netflix limited series. This conspiracy thriller is about a devastating cyber attack that downs America's infrastructure. Take a listen. Thousands died on zero day. Congress is authorizing a special zero-day commission. You're just going to grab people off the streets without words. Actually, you are.
I run this investigation, not the White House, not the CIA. If the public finds out how deep this really is, I don't think we survive. Robert De Niro is absolutely legendary in his first TV series. And you don't really know if he's the good guy or the bad guy till the end. Zero Day has an incredible supporting cast, including Angela Bissett, Jesse Plemons. Lizzie Kaplan and Connie Britton Zero Day is now playing only on Netflix. Yeah, that would be like psychologically torturous, right?
Yeah, especially if I'm playing somebody who is a little bit of a rival. It's like, yeah, no, that's not going to happen. No chance. Because every time I lose games, it's... It's a little bit of a story, right, in the chess world, so I prefer it to happen as seldom as possible. I played a little bit of chess when I was young, but I never really got into it. But my real introduction where I got fascinated with chess was actually...
at a pool hall because people in the pool hall would play chess sometimes but there was this one guy who went to jail and uh in jail he learned how to play chess with his head in his in his mind and then there was a young kid who was a great Grandmaster, who was like 16, 17 years old, somewhere around that. Really, really good chess player.
who kind of like lost his way and started hanging around in pool halls and gambling and being a weirdo and i watched these two guys play chess with just words and i was like what are you doing like what i was like i think i was 22 or 23. And I was like, what are you doing? And they're explaining to me that they're playing chess memorizing the board in their head and I'm like that's fucking crazy and then I saw a video of you blindfolded
Playing how many people? How many people did you play? It was the most people you've ever played blindfolded. I think I've played 12, but the world record is something like 50. That's crazy. 12. You've played 12 people blindfolded. Yeah. For me, as long as the people I'm playing are kind of decent at chess, that actually kind of makes...
that makes it easier because it's easier to store the games when I recognize the patterns and so on. When people start making weird moves that I cannot really recognize. So here you are. Oh, so this is another one, actually. This is a blindfold timed. similar like there are fewer games but what's difficult about these is that the moves do not come to me in a sequence so like the presenter will tell me on board
2, E takes D5, and then all of a sudden on board 1, E6, and then on board 2 again, and so on. So that makes it a bit... Oh, so you have to jump back and forth. 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. Exactly. That's kind of the normal way of playing a simul. I think the last time that I played a proper blindfold simul was at an event.
in Vienna back in I think 2015. And then I had some very nice but spicy Chinese food before the game. I sat down and my stomach was acting up. I couldn't think. So I played for 10 minutes. I realized that I cannot do this. I ran away for...
for 15 minutes and then I came back and I finished the game. But ever since that, it feels like I've done it, and now it just seems incredibly... incredibly hard to um to do again but do you prepare when you're doing something like this when you're getting ready to do a blindfolded multi-game thing no not really because it's like if if my mind is on then it's really not That hard I feel So no, I deal the preparation that I do is right there
I see my opponents. So like I assign a certain face to a certain seat, like a certain number and so on. So that's just about what I do. So you assign their... and you think of their face as they're playing. Yeah, yeah. Face, like, number one, it's that position. Right. Yeah, and so on. And are you... What are you seeing in your mind when you're envisioning the table, when you're looking at the board?
Are you merely thinking of positions? Are you actually thinking of the pieces? How are you breaking it down? No, I just see the chessboard in my head. You just see a completely 3D chessboard in your head? Yeah, so it's... And then when I'm playing a simul, I just really think about one at a time and I kind of store the others.
um away and um but that's so crazy like when you're five six moves in and you're thinking of all these pieces moving around and you've got it remembered you've completely memorized each position of 12 different boards Yeah, so the difficult part of it, where things sometimes go wrong, is that... So generally, I remember all the games that I've played, but I don't remember every move. I remember...
like in broad strokes what happened. And this is what can happen in these blindfold games as well sometimes. Like 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. That's the thing that can be difficult. And I do... We used to have these blindfold professional tournaments, actually. That used to be both fun, but also totally exhausting.
um and then we would play on on a computer so we'd have like a blank like a blank chess board where we would just click from one square to another and then whenever your opponent moved
their move would pop up on the screen. And I've had, and also the software will tell you if you're making an illegal move. So I've had people like, lose track and then you see them just clicking frenetically trying to figure out what the position was 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. So I think he tried every single rook move on that file, hoping that the rook was there. But like, obviously I knew that it wasn't. But yeah. Overall, I feel like, honestly, blindfold chess is a bit of a party trick in the sense that for the very top players, it's not that hard. But obviously, for none... like serious chess players, it seems incredibly hard. But I...
So I'm sure that, for instance, like solving Ruby's cube is really, really easy for those who know how to do it quickly, right? Yeah. But it still looks incredibly impressive for outsiders. Have you seen they used a computer with AI? to do a Rubik's Cube in less than a second. No, I didn't see that. Oh, wow. Yeah, see if you can find it, Jamie. It's crazy. It just goes...
It just spins it. I've never figured that shit out. That's crazy. There is a sequence of moves. If you follow a sequence of moves, you can actually get it to do it automatically. Yeah. Someone explained it to me once and they did it. And I was like, what? I don't remember what it was because I don't give a fuck. Yeah. It was just like eight times this way, eight times that way, eight times this way. You just keep doing it and then eventually it'll be all flattened out at a certain point in time.
Yeah, but this computer does it like you do Rubik's Cube 2 no no no I I'm talking out of my ass like I know I Think the world record is only like three seconds or something like it's it's something absolutely Insane. Imagine the time you could have spent building a business, raising a family. You're the fucking world record Rubik's Cube guy. All the same color. Green, red.
So dumb. Yeah. Well, we all have to spend our time. Watch this. Watch this computer do it. Wow. How crazy is that? Ready? Ready? Go. Yeah. Less than a second. Wow. That is crazy. Show it again in real time. So give up, kids. Give up Give up the computer figured it out. That's that's a dumb game, but do you play other games as well? No, not that not that much my parents sort of
Brainwashed me when when I was young into thinking that computer games are no fun and Really? Yeah, but you're a grown man now. You've realized that's a lie. Yeah Yeah, I have but I could see you a Call of Duty fucking people the thing is like the thing is like I actually got a
I 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. 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. Like I was doing some sports and I was doing a lot of chess. Not so much school, but I kind of found time for everything else. And I think... 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. 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? So I had to spend them really well playing chess. Otherwise, I would just sit there with my board, with my books and, you know, try and figure things out. Yeah, the thing about video games is the narrative was always video games are a huge waste of time. And if you do it, you're not going to get anywhere in life.
The problem with that is now people make a lot of money playing video games. And they've also shown that there's some benefits from video games that leak over into other things. Like, for instance, they found out that surgeons... 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 they would force you
To engage in that whatever it is. It's like whatever whatever particular discipline that was like if you want to be a surgeon You must do this I would say if you want to be a surgeon you should fucking play video games because these people are 37% less
Likely to screw up an operation. That's why I'm not a surgeon But I'm saying is like video games are not necessarily a waste of time and they've also shown there's cognitive benefits that can be gotten from playing video games on a regular basis things that which does make sense but it just it seems like a frivolous pursuit whereas chess is like a noble and very respected pursuit I'm glad you say that. That is what chess has, though, that it is very respected among the general population.
it does have that different standings from from another a lot of other games it's like i'm not here to on video games for sure like i i know like like you do that
There are studies that show that it can be helpful, I think, with anything. If you're obsessed over something, the only thing you will become good at is that particular thing, like I have with... with chess I just think for me specifically for me specifically it was probably a good thing that that made me just sit and focus on chess rather than
rather than do all sorts of other things. Oh, most certainly. Because video games are very, very addictive. I had to stop playing video games. We used to have a whole local area network in our old studio. We'd all play Quake. And it was a real problem. I just wanted to end the podcast so I could go play Quake. And then we'd play for hours. And it eventually got to a point where I was like, okay, I got to quit again. Just cold turkey, never again, leave it alone.
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. I remember when I first moved out, I was technically a chess professional, but I didn't have a lot of time to... I had a lot of time to kill when I was home. And I got myself a PlayStation, played a ton of FIFA back then, and there was a GameStop.
near me that like they made a lot of money on me just buying new controllers all the time because I would throw them into the wall but I have that same personality that i become become obsessed with things and then i i same i just have to quit cold turkey that's the only way that that works
Yeah, I think, I mean, this is why I've avoided golf and like Tony's big on golf and so is Jamie. 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. 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...
I was going to start and now I am obsessed and it's all I want to do. So I can 100% relate. 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. Yeah. Even if you fake being happy so you can keep doing it. No, no, no. They say that's ruining Canelo Alvarez. 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... He's obsessive. He plays every day, even when he's in camp. Yeah, it's a tricky thing. If they do that with him, and I obviously see them do it with Trump, but... You have to golf to understand what... golfing does to you 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 but the touch grass meditative
It truly is. Like he was saying, I'm in such a crazy good mood after golf. Everybody at the comedy club can notice it. It's like an upper... it gives you a massive burst of energy so like the the what am i thinking of the uh You know, just the bad reputation that golf has. Like, I would want my president golfing a couple times a week, knowing the effects that it gives you. A much clearer mind.
Big burst of energy. 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. 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.
For some reason, it's a mind clear and kind of an energy giver. Whereas video games and other things make you depressed. It's almost impossible to be down or depressed after golfing. Well, it's certainly a stimulating game, right? Because it's hand-eye coordination, calculation, managing the lay of the land, the way the rolls of the hills are.
And all those factors, I think like this is something that I think people genuinely need in life. 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. It's like that stimulation.
When someone gets good at a game, I think it's very valuable for you. And I think that can apply to all sorts of things in life. So I agree with you. I would want the president to play golf, too. I'd want him to find something, whatever it is. Find a thing that you can excel at other than just being the president. president yeah
Yeah, even if it was Call of Duty. That would be wild. I wouldn't want that. The president going, fuck yeah! We had that. It was George W. Bush. And there was no video game system. That was dark. Yeah, it is dark. Well, I mean, they literally use PlayStation fucking controllers when they were using drones. I don't know if they still do it now. I think now they have more sophisticated setups, but they...
One of the reasons why they were using them was because so many people were accustomed to those. 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 like not problem at all that's that's horrible it's dark yeah and all of a sudden like these kills that you have in a video game like you
You think of it in the same way? Well, it really haunts those people, apparently. There's a very specific type of PTSD that drone operators get because they see the people sometimes for days in advance.
They're doing surveillance. They're waiting for the moment when they get the green light. They see these people. They see them with their families. They're watching them from above. And then they drop the bombs on them. And then they cease to exist. And this is happening on completely the other side of the world. Yeah, they just press X on the controller. Yeah. But if you want to get good at that, you probably play video games. It's a job for everybody out there, Magnus.
I'm also trying to think, like, could you get surgeons to be drone operators? Probably doesn't work that way. No, probably doesn't work that way. At best, surgeons just...
Whatever hand-eye coordination that they have is probably so intricate that they could probably excel at anything They'd probably get good at video games like a very good surgeon who's never played video games probably get really good at video games really quickly because the the communication between your hands there's also probably a
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? Yes. Right, right, right. Yeah, that's a good point. It's interesting that chess is uniquely the game that's respected. Even if you play golf, people can think, oh, you're a fuck-up. You say you play chess.
Oh, there must be an intelligent man. It's probably the most uniquely rewarded game in terms of the way people respect it in society. Yeah. We're very lucky that it has this unique position. Whether that's deserved, I don't know. But there's just something about the fact that it's a very, very simple game. But it's still so infinitely...
difficult. 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. has gone so far that the thought of like sitting down at the board and just thinking on your own from the very get-go, it's not there anymore. Anybody who's really good at chess, anybody can learn the best openings very quickly. Even if you go like 10, 20 years ago.
You could play, for instance, in the Chess Olympiad, which is the biggest team nation tournament in the world. And you could play against the best player from... From, let's say, Colombia. And, you know, you would know that they have certain skills, but they might not have the same set of openings, right? Now, all of these, like, there are kids everywhere. and they just know their stuff so well. So now we're testing out new formats.
One that we call freestyle, which is basically there are 960 possible starting positions if you shuffle the pieces on the first rank. And basically, like, you start out... You just draw the position 10 minutes before the game, no preparation whatsoever. And you basically start with, like in gaming, a new map every single game. So that's sort of for the traditionalists.
that's not like the same the same game so like there are some people who don't like it but for the professionals it's an it's a chance like to um to use um to use their their skills because Otherwise, chess is moving. It's becoming faster. Chess used to be an art, science, everything. With the way things are now, it's just very fast and it's all game sports and so on. Like, I feel like with...
Thinking from the very first move, you're bringing some of the other factors back as well. I think it'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 so many great games instantaneously anytime you want. This is what's so unique about today.
And I think it applies to all sports. I think it applies to all games. I think it applies to stand-up comedy as well. I think it's one of the reasons why the younger guys are so good. It's like you get to see very high-level stuff which gets into your mind. This is how to play at a very early age. And you can be obsessed and just absorb so much more.
Yeah, and you see there are such different approaches as well, even with the kids. Like, I had a training camp a few years ago with a kid called Alireza Firuza from... He plays for France now, but he's from Iran originally. I think he was about 14 then. And my chess coach has had...
recommended that we bring him in because he said that this is the most talented kid out there. So we have this camper. Typically, everybody has their laptop, and there's a chessboard in the middle where you sort of...
And 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. And this kid, he would... have his laptop where he would analyze a certain position, and then he would... play games like for money on that same site at the same time so that he could buy cloud cloud engine times because like the very best engines
They're stronger if they're in the cloud than from your own laptop, generally. So he would buy time for that by playing games, like one-minute games on that server. He would play... five-minute games on another server and he would analyze with us on the board and he was still like following everything like he had no problems whatsoever just being there. so like it's just um yeah that's that's one way of doing it like he basically became one of the best players in the world by just
constantly playing chess all the time and mostly like really quick games. And then you have the current classical world champion from India, Gukesh. Like, he doesn't play... casual games at all he just studies his ass off all the time um and he's also like he's not good at at rabbit chess. He's not good at blitz. He's not good at other forms. But he has made all his studies about classical chess. He didn't even own...
like chess software on his computer before he was like 13. Wow. And he was a grandmaster. Wow. At that time. But it's interesting to see that there are such different ways. to develop even these days. I just think it's fascinating. 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 you know what I mean it's like when
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. But if you've got one fucking psychopath in the group that's online and is playing and is reading books and is... That guy's gonna pass everybody and then everybody else realizes like oh that's possible you I could have gotten as good as him I better really bear down yeah because
You could also see that in these guys playing style. The guy who has been playing like... constantly all the time from when he was little he has fantastic instincts especially with with little time he just knows where the pieces go and like he's the only one of the kids who has that kind of feeling
um the indian guy on the other hand from the way he studies he's like during games like he's meticulous he calculates like he sees every position as a problem he has to solve more than oh what does my intuition tell me oh i'll do i'll do this uh it's like for him it's more well this is possible this is possible let me like try and uh see this all all the way all the way through so it's just yeah it's just very very different than
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. Right. So in... So there's different types of tournaments, and there's some tournaments that have no time limit for moves? There's always a time limit. What's a traditional time limit?
What it used to be in chess was you'd have two hours for 40 moves, then you would have an hour for the next 20 moves, and then half an hour for the rest of the game. So a maximum of seven hours. And that form is still being played. 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. Did you ever, before you were known, did you ever go to Washington Square Park and play those hustlers?
No, I actually went there in 2010, but I think some people recognized me back then as well. I think it's a bit of a myth, though, how good... They are like, they're like, okay, but they're not like... Your level. No, they're not Grandmaster level. There was one guy, though, I don't remember, I don't remember what was... What's the name of like it's up by, you know, Columbia University. There's a park up there where they're playing chess as well. There I played against the guy.
uh who played like a very strange opening as white like he put like just a couple of pawns one square forward and then he started developing his pieces very slowly. So at first, I thought this guy has no idea what he's doing. Then it turned out like he actually had a system. So after like 10, 15 moves, I was in a lot of trouble. And then the game became super concrete and tactical and I won. But it struck me that this guy had...
I think he just played in the park all his life. So he had developed a certain system that was actually kind of effective if you don't know what you're doing against it. So that was kind of interesting. 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. He just had, yeah, he was doing his own thing. That's fascinating. Can you ever learn something from people that have an...
unorthodox approach like that? Oh yeah, for sure. It's happened several times. There was... Like, my dad used to play a ton of chess at home. Like, he used to have a home office, and then certain times he'd appear to be, um... focused on his in his work but i knew like a certain look in his eye which told me that he was actually playing chess so i would go over and and watch and then at some point where i was already a lot better than him
he played a certain opening as White. And I told him, like, what is this opening like? Where did you learn this? And he said, well... You taught me the very same opening, but with the black pieces. So I thought I was going to play it as white, like with one tempo more, right? Because you're playing, you're moving first.
I'm one of the best players in the world, and I never thought of that. So I actually took up that line, and I used it with success against some of the best players in the world. Wow. I don't know if that variation has a name. I've seen some other players play it afterwards as well. But I just call it the Henry Carlson variation. That's really interesting.
Your dad must be pretty proud of that. He is very proud. It's funny, though, that my dad and my sisters, two of my sisters, they... played a bit of competitive chess as well um i think at some point in time like i 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. 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. How do you decide what opening to choose? And do you ever decide an opening and go, fuck, I shouldn't have done that one? Yeah, yeah, sometimes. Honestly, sometimes I don't know what to do. So I just randomize. 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. But then maybe...
I feel good about my tournament standings. I don't want to mess that up. So it's easy to go for a safer approach when the optimal approach would be a bit more aggressive. And then if you randomize it, then you will occasionally go for the... for the more aggressive approach so that's what i sometimes do it's just i randomize it and then i just sort of accept the the outcome and it makes me more um more unpredictable it makes me harder to
to prepare against as well. So that's what I sometimes do. It's not like, it's not going to be... out there but it's going to be between like two or three options that i i think are roughly equivalent they're just stylistically different so when you say randomized like how many openings do you have that you pursue on a regular basis It's it's hard to that's hard to say Probably probably with white I have like
five or six options that I can go to, but only like two or three that I feel really good about. And I think similarly with Black. 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. No, I just like have an app on my phone. Oh, really? It's a roll of the dice. Yeah. Oh, wow.
wow wow and i i think honestly a lot of people could could benefit from that because you you agonize over these minute decisions like you spend a lot of mental energy before a certain game agonizing over what opening you're going to play and if you know that you you're going to make a decent choice but you leave all the agonizing to There's nothing because it's left to chance. It makes it a lot easier.
That makes sense. Now, you were saying mental energy. You were talking about the spicy Chinese food incident. But do you normally have a method of like when you eat? vitamins you take is there certain things that you do to optimize your your your clarity yeah like if i'm playing if i'm playing an early early afternoon game for instance like starting at one i tried to eat like one big meal uh before that which is generally uh like a big omelet with some some kind of salad and um
But you eat pretty clean before a big... Yeah, I usually do. Sometimes after games, I will eat... something like even some desserts and so on uh but before the games i try and keep it keep it fairly fairly clean and i actually learned that when i was When I was little, like sometimes like my parents, they were generally quite strict about sweets and so on. But sometimes I would eat sweets during tournament. Then, you know, my my blood sugar would drop like crazy and I would start making.
making mistakes. And so that's something that I learned quite quickly that I shouldn't do. Do you ever mess around with vitamins or nootropics or anything like that? Things, nutrients that help memory? No, I think I think it's a little bit about the way that I was raised like I'd never take medicine unless I I kind of have to. I don't really take supplements or anything like that. So I probably...
I probably should. It's not a bad idea. My wife is half American. She's completely different. She takes five... kinds of vitamins every every single day she's very meticulous about it but Yeah, I don't know. I've never... Just get her to make you up some little packets. Yeah, maybe. I think it'll probably have an impact on you. I mean, it's extraordinary if you think about how good you are without it. Like any little thing that could give you a very slight edge. And I think that...
Vitamins for sure give you a slight edge, particularly in nootropics. There's a bunch of different vitamins that have been shown through clinical trials to improve cognitive performance. You know, theanine, there's acetylcholine, a bunch of different things that enhance memory that are essentially just nutrients.
What's the new thing that people are doing? Like carotene or something like that? Ketamine? No, no, no. Not ketamine. No, no, no. It's not ketamine. Creatine? Creatine. Creatine. Creatine. Yes. Creatine was a bodybuilding supplement that was almost akin to steroids in the 1990s. People would think it was cheating and then they realized it was just a component of food. But one of the things that creatine does that's very extraordinary is it...
aids in performance when you're sleep deprived. 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. Well, I mean, I woke up today and... Like, I think my watch said it was that my sleep was, like, I slept for five hours, but I got 15 minutes of REM sleep. Like, it was really, really bad. So that's what I could have. I could have used that.
Because I was playing a chess sermon earlier today, so I could have used that, but... Yeah, creatine is something that everybody should take. Men, women, children, everybody should take creatine. 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.
What does it say here, Jane? Cognitive function. Studies suggest that creatine supplementation may improve cognitive function, including memory, attention, and reasoning. It may increase brain energy levels by boosting endosine triphosphate production, ATP, which is essential for brain. brain function.
Creatine has antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties that may protect brain cells from damage caused by oxidative stress and neurotoxins. It does a lot of different things. If you Google it, there's a ton of different benefits. I take it in gummy form. I take creatine. gummies every day. They're delicious. It's easy. I just pop a bunch of them. Five milligrams? I don't know. Do we have any of those Tri-Creates here? I don't think so. Yeah, I think I have them out there. But they're great.
You know, it's easy. I put a bag in my car, take them all the time. I've noticed a difference. I just think with a guy like you, where your brain is everything. But you're kicking ass, so why listen to me? Eat cheeseburgers and fuck around and see what happens. It is the thing, though. On certain days, I sort of just accept that...
You know, my brain is not going to work as good. 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. Yeah, I feel that with podcasting. the time and the real danger is if i do that if my brain's not on full tilt and i'm talking to a scientist like we have to talk about quantum physics like this i have to like
have good questions. You have to be able to follow what you're saying because it's so esoteric. You know, it's weird that the brain just doesn't always work exactly how you want it to. And honestly, chess is one of the worst things to do, sleep deprived, because I think creativity usually... is enhanced when you're not feeling well, when you're sleep deprived, but that's generally not what you need in chess. You need to minimize mistakes. You need precision.
And all of my intuition, all of that, is just so much worse when I'm not feeling on top of my game. Do you have a specific thing you do when you're feeling not on top? your game do you like double check things in your mind do you have a process you follow i just try to play like a simpler game where where it's not as where it's not as complicated really And when you're feeling good, then you go for it.
No, honestly, when I feel like good, I don't think about these things. It's just a state of flow where I know how much risk to take. I just... Yeah. So what is the mindset? Like if you're in a world championship game and it's down to these, like what is the state of mind like when you're in the middle of it? Honestly, when I'm at my best, I'm just pure laser-focused.
I'm just calm and not thinking about anything other than... Just in the moment. Just in the moment, yeah. The work is already done. You already know the game. So now it's just reacting and moving. calculating yeah i mean i i had um i had a game and 20 last classical world championship i played in 2021 where um the first five games were drawn honestly like
I could have probably been down at that point as well. Sixth game was a super, super long game, almost eight hours. And I think for the last hour and a half, two hours, I was pretty short on time. But... I remember like I was just so focused and so calm. And afterwards, I was just like, yeah, I could have kept going forever. Like I was just there.
And it was exactly what I needed. I ended up grinding out a win. And in those classical games, once you get a lead, that is so big because it's so hard to win. actually win games at that level of preparation. So that was really big. But yeah, I've only had, I feel like, a few days where I feel like...
i'm just like completely in the moment usually it's a bit more messy than that but like when it happens it's just um yeah the best feeling that's amazing that it's only been a few days where you've been fully in the moment i'm rarely happy after i play i'm i'm happier now like i'm honestly like my standards for myself like are a little bit lower have gone down a little bit the older i've gotten um
Because I sort of accept that I don't have... My brain is not as fast as it used to be. So I'm going to have occasional letdowns. So my top level is like... i think as good as it's ever been or at least very very close to um but like the average level is it's just it's just too hard when your brain is not that fast anymore But, yeah, generally, I'm always thinking, well, yeah, I could have always done something better.
You always miss some things, but I always feel like there are avoidable mistakes that I'm still making. So this... As you've gotten older, this lowering expectations, is that a recognition of the fact that being hard on yourself? over minute details doesn't benefit you and that you've just had a more healthy approach? Yeah, I think so. It just makes everything a bit easier. Also, honestly, the randomizing opening choices has made things easier.
As well, everything just to sort of lower the pressure a bit. Have you ever consulted a mental coach or 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 focusness and try to recreate that because there's a bunch of different mind coaches that will tell you for a bunch of different pursuits that
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 but then there's another school of thought that says no it just has to happen organically and that you just need to be obsessed and focused and take care of yourself and meditate. 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.
Yeah, I'm definitely in the latter camp. I've talked to people who have suggested mental coaches, like plenty of... plenty of times um both in in the past and and more recently as well i've just like always been worried that somebody's gonna mess something up in in in my head paralysis by analysis yeah that that's really that's really what it is for me so i feel at some point i'm i'm just like
More or less content with the way things things are that most days that I'm playing I'm going to be Fairly good on some days. I'm going to be at my very best that other days i'm going to be very far from from my best and it's it's sort of yeah it's sort of the the way it is i i'm much 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... where there are knockouts where basically if you have one bad day, you're out and it doesn't matter. Back in the days with classical tournaments, you could have a really bad day.
But then you can always bounce back. But nowadays, it's not that easy. Do you ever try to map out what are the factors that lead you to hit that state, that flow state? Do you ever try to think about your day? Like, what did I do? What did I eat? How did I... sleep did i avoid toxic people around me did i stay offline like what did i do that allowed me to get to that spot um yeah i mean doing everything sort of right before the game definitely helps like getting
um getting getting good good sleep like reading reading a book instead of being on on some sort of device before i go to go to sleep um then just focusing as little as possible on chess before Before the game, definitely. Really? Little as possible? Yeah. Because you want it to be fresh in your mind? You want it to be something exciting? Yeah, I just want to have like two or three ideas of what I'm going to play and not like...
I just don't want to like use mental energy that I could have used on the game before so I think one of my better tournaments that i played um it's i used to play every year at this seaside resort in in the netherlands and it's in the middle of winter so it's not very short like it's just rainy and windy and there's basically nothing there except those big tournaments that's been there for 80 years. And it's for three weeks every January. So for me, there's not a lot to do.
So what I would do like every day is 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. Look at chess for 15 minutes, whatever my coach has sent me of preparation that we discussed the day before. Eat and then go play. And that worked really, really well. It's just keeping it as simple as possible, honestly. So get inspired a little bit, a little bit of energy from watching NBA highlights, right? Yeah.
Just a tiny amount of information from the coach. Just, like, get your brain locked in, but not too much energy. Don't focus too much on it. Yeah, a lot of people, like, they do... They will spend three, four hours preparing on a game on that very day. And it can be beneficial if your opponent goes into specifically the lines that you prepared and so on. But overall, I think... Yeah, having a fresh mind is so important. And I'm also like, even if I haven't had the perfect preparation, like...
I'm really good at just blocking everything out, forgetting everything that's happened and just focusing there and then. But it's still not as good, of course, as just being... in a good state of mind. 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? Or is it just constantly playing in the background no matter what you do?
But I really love it. Why take time off? No, no, no. I'm fine with taking breaks from tournaments and so on. But having like... at least days several days in a row without like looking at a chess game um or i mean i don't have to play every day but not having a having a yeah not looking at anything like not reading some chess stuff or like yeah I mean it's my favorite hobby so I don't
Yeah, I don't see why I would want to do that. That's probably why you're one of the best of all time, if not the best. I mean, that's a beautiful approach, right? 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.
Yeah, I do have those moments where I just take a breath and think about how lucky that I am. And there are just moments where I just... sort of, I wouldn't say rediscover my love for the game, but I just think like, I'm obsessed with this game and I'm completely fine with that. Well, that's a beautiful way to live your life. If people can find a thing like that in their life, that really is the key to an enjoyable life. If the thing that you do all the time you're obsessed with.
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. And pretty much everybody who's good at it is obsessed with it, and they think about it all the time. It's kind of the only way.
But I'd need time off sometimes because I think that's different because it's always different ideas and different things you're working on. Sometimes you need time just to refresh your perspective. But with a game like chess, I guess you don't really need time off. No, I think, again, it's different for different people, but... I don't know. I don't feel like it takes away energy. It just gives me joy and energy when I do that. Like, I will just...
On a certain day, I will just log in to chess.com and observe random people play, and that is something I can do and be very happy about it. Yeah, it's just the way I am. Well, you're just very fortunate. You found a thing that you really locked into. 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.
People go their whole lives and never find a thing that they're truly, absolutely passionate about. And for a guy like you...
I mean, it's a shiny example for people, I think. 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. When someone sees you play chess... at the highest level or sees 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.
Yeah, I think I've thought about it many times. Like, what am I actually doing with my life that's useful to other people? And it always comes back to that every time that I hear that people... um people are inspired by what i do maybe it helped them through like um a difficult time to watch to watch my games and to get in to rediscover or find the love for the game that's really
um that's really nice and again in the process i'm just doing doing what i what i love right and that's that's really what people want to want to see from me it's just competing and doing well at chess so that's that's also what i'm giving us as often as possible well that's what people want out of life it's something that they love that they do that they're very good at and they get recognized for it
When a person like you does it and does it publicly and it's inspiring It's a great gift for other people. 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? I think my favorite probably player of all time is... is sort of the young Kasparov before he became world champion. The thing is like... 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. It's just not the way that I play. So that's something I admire a lot. Usually I'm... Whatever I'm into, like be it soccer or golf or basketball or whatever, like I admire like what people do, not necessarily like it's about the people themselves.
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. And I've been very fortunate about... about that being able to study with with Gary back in the day and Anand who was the world champion before me because it's only then when like when you
when you study like you talk to them like you understand like how good they really are and how much they they understand um for instance with anna and i had a training session um in 2008 where we had both played tournament where 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 so we
I think I had two days off and he was living outside Madrid. And so I went to Madrid for a couple of days because the other tournament was in the north of Spain. Then I went to his house and as soon as... like that training camp started it's like something just switched with him and he was he was just so focused we played a bunch of training games and
from being this guy who seemed completely disinterested in this other tournament all of a sudden like he was crushing me like he had a massive plus score in our games and it felt like everything we analyzed he was just
He just had a much deeper understanding of the game. It seemed that he was faster tactically and everything. And it made me appreciate how good... uh how good he actually um actually was yeah when you are playing someone like that you're getting your ass kicked um does this inspire you and enact change in your game or does it does it not change your game you just do the same game but more focused yeah I think it's more of more of the latter it was just a reality check for me
because i thought at that point that i was um i was ranked i think third in the world i had very briefly been ranked number one um already at that point like for for a week and i thought Before that, I thought I was maybe one of the best two, three players in the world. And it made me realize that I wasn't.
that maybe i was able to have better results than my actual level because of because of youth energy and and optimism right and that made me just yeah it just made me realize that i have a lot lot to learn and that i should
I should be patient and not expect everything to sort of come that fast. Because at that point, I'd had a year of more or less constant rise. I was... yeah it's just winning uh winning tournaments every time i would lose a game i would just believe that i could strive back immediately and um i i and i like i realize now that i was just i was delusional i thought i was a lot better than than what i was and that was probably why i was having
So such good results. Because you're so confident. Because I was so confident. But having a little bit of a reality check, I think, helped me later to actually understand the game a bit better. But I still... 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. Because...
If you're realistic, you're just never going to be opportunistic enough to sort of exploit your opponent's mistakes. It's 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. Yeah, exactly. And like.
Very soon after that, I started working with Garry Kasparov as well, and that made me realize that I know even less. What can a guy like Garry Kasparov tell you that makes you know that you know even less? Back then, it was really like my style has become a bit more dynamic over time. But back then, I like...
I really, really lacked understanding of more dynamic positions in chess. You can have more static or more dynamic pawn structures if there are a lot of... possible pawn breaks for both sides and both kings are under attack then it's sort of more
more dynamic and tactical, or it could be more about gaining some minute positional advantages. And that's sort of what I was excelling at, the latter. And working with him... um it just improved sort of the more dynamic part of my game a lot and that helped me very much um short term And also it's helped me later because it improved my understanding of the game. 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. What is a coach for you today? What benefit is a coach today? uh a couple of things um the main benefits that i have from my chess coach is opening work that's like the the low-hanging fruit that's That's really what, you know, you can get the most out of from game to game. A couple of other things, like my coach is also an old friend of mine. He's Danish, so we can communicate in the same language.
And he's also just as obsessed with golf as I am. Every time we have a chess training camp, there's also a lot of golf being played. Yeah, those are a few things. But chess-wise, it's mainly about the opening work. And so it's essentially, he's obviously very good at chess as well, but it's essentially bouncing things off of each other and going over positions. Yeah, and then he's very good at using chess engines to get slightly different...
different results than maybe others do. Do you occasionally, or do you at all, analyze other people's games and break them down together? Not really. When it comes to analyzing other games, it's... It's more useful for me to look at what the engine is saying. Because the engines are just smarter. Yeah, they are. And I'm...
I'm good enough that I can interpret what the engine is is saying to like understand why a certain thing a certain thing happen happen so it's still interesting to analyze together as as humans but we always want to double check what we're what we're saying with um with the engines isn't it fascinating that that's that's a gigantic factor now ever since deep blue right yeah so the thing about i know like i don't know if you if you talk to gary but he has this
whole thing with Deep Blue. I'm not sure if Deep Blue was actually better than Gary, but it, yeah, it started... it started the the downfall of us of us humans when it when it comes to chess and it's now been a long time where we just accepted that our computer overlords are are just a lot better and there are serious benefits for improving players for kids like the engines help people improve a lot faster so that's a great thing.
uh additionally people watching chess games like one problem is that you cannot easily tell like it's not like one guy is being punched and the other guy is um is punching like It takes some skill to see what's going on. 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. So it becomes a lot easier to...
to follow as well. 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. So now at least you can have that factor in chess that you can see that. And it's very interesting for me to read what people were writing about computer chess. 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. And now it's...
It's very much settled, of course. Well, they have that same discussion about Go, right? Well, Go is much more complicated than chess. I don't know what has happened since AlphaGo. If the best masters are still a little bit better or where the state is at. I think Go is better than everybody. The computer is.
I think a new factor is that the computer has devised creative moves that were never used before, that have now been implemented. They're part of a general strategy, which I think they thought was very shocking. See if you can find anything about that. Is that kind of bluffing moves? I do not know because I don't understand Go. 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.
Go, which they thought was like a long time coming. Yeah. I mean, I did watch the movie Alpha Go and... How long ago was that? That's like five, no, maybe like six, seven years ago. See, in AI time, that's like stone ages, which is so crazy. And I think like a year or two later, there was AlphaZero in chess. So chess engines, they were always kind of built by humans and instructed by humans. And then AlphaZero came along, which is a neural network that just learned chess.
on its own and it became more or less as good or maybe slightly slightly worse than the best traditional chess engines. What's interesting is that the neural networks played chess a lot more like humans. They were much less concerned about material factors. 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 traditional engines would. And you would see funny, like...
They have computer tournaments as well with the best engine in the world. 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. um it will make like elementary tactical blunders almost um that's crazy because it i don't know it doesn't have it just 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.
um that that's very interesting to to see and like all the best coaches and and players now now when when you work with chess computers like you always have both like a neural net and a traditional chess engine running as well as some others who are now like hybrid who are who have a little bit of both. It's just fascinating that it would make blunders. Yeah, well, I don't know if it's something about its...
It's search. I really don't know. But it would also make some fascinating decisions. Like when you promote a pawn, like... 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. But then what...
What Lila and AlphaZero would sometimes do is that they would promote to a different piece. Because if it's a piece that's anyway going to be captured, just to give your opponent like... a slight chance of making a mistake by making another move which is something like a human would never ever do uh but it's like it's really funny
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. That's crazy that it would just trick you. Yeah, it would try and trick it. Like, it probably wouldn't trick a human, because a human would be like... That's weird. Okay, I'll just take it, whatever. But another engine... Oh, okay. Well, I have another alternative that seems...
Wow. Equivalent more or less. Maybe I'll go for that. Wow. It's very strange. So what are the best programs that people play on? There are a few. There's one that was originally developed by Norwegian called Stockfish that's still considered the best. So I think like... I think the best now is Stockfish, like Stockfish hybrid. That's part neural and part traditional engine. So do you have to be connected online to use that?
Yeah, I mean, most people use either, most people use remote engines, like some kind of cloud service to have as much computing power as possible. So the kind of computing power that's on your phone, like... Can you beat your phone at the highest level? No. No chance. Is that crazy?
No chance. That's so crazy because Deep Blue, wasn't it like as big as a room? Yeah. Deep Blue wasn't like a stack of computers, right? But I'm sure it's still less powerful than the computer on your phone is today, right? Shocking. No, no, I have no chance against my phone. That's so crazy. 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.
Can I let that play against you again instead of myself? And I was like, yeah, sure. Why not? And I actually like beat it fairly handily because I played some kind of like... 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 to out-calculate me so that it's a purely strategical game. That doesn't work against very good engines, but it can work against weaker ones. But no, humans, we don't have any...
There was a grandmaster who played a match recently against Lila, which is like the best neural network engine now. They were playing classical chess, and he started with a knight more. And they played a 10 game match and he won five and a half to four and a half. Wow. Which is crazy. Like it's a nightmare. Like that's, it should not be possible.
For any, like if God was playing chess, that shouldn't be, you shouldn't be able to beat a Grandmaster in any game like that. So the Grandmaster was still able to win. But yeah, for me... I rarely play against engines at all because they just make me feel so stupid and useless. I think about it more as a tool.
more than anything else. 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. Because we just think... We just think differently. Do you ever try to think like the computer? Yeah, well, specifically the neural nets have improved our understanding of the game immensely. And... 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. That was the best match I think that I've ever played. We played... 12 draws actually and then i won in a tie break but like the games were super high quality and and he was he was very evenly matched and then he was actually using
Leela, the AlphaZero clone, which we didn't have access to. We didn't even know that was a thing. 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. And my coach... He got into it very quickly and we got an advantage of basically everybody but that guy who had been using it during the match.
And it just made us understand the game a lot better. There were, as I said, like a couple of things about long-term king safety. Pushing pawns on the side of the board was maybe the biggest. takeaway that often you would push pawns and not as an attacking tool. which used to be the way that you would push upon, like trying to break open your king. 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. And this is something that... humans didn't really do and i still see some people like allowing these porn advances and and i don't like i wonder if they didn't didn't learn their lesson from from 2019 but it was very clear to see at a certain time before everybody sort of caught up with the new information. And that's also when I had maybe my best stretch of chess ever because I just understood these new things.
better better than others it's almost counterintuitive that you wouldn't want to play the computer because the computer makes you look stupid because the idea in my mind would be like well you should play the best thing that you could possibly play and if that's a computer great if that's another human being then play the human being but i would imagine that playing something that makes you feel stupid would at the very least teach you something about the game
Yeah, it does. But at the same time, you know that these are usually things that humans cannot replicate. And to be fair, the kids these days... A lot of them play like a more concrete brand of chess that is more similar to engines than... than we have seen in the past. Because they've had so much exposure to it. Like they're less dogmatic, more concrete in their thinking. But then I know that there are usually other things that are lacking. So I could sort of steer the game there as well. So...
I don't know. I haven't found it particularly useful, but maybe I'm just... Yeah, I don't want to... Is it partly because you just don't want to lose?
Yeah, of course. And it's also because, as you said, chess is a very lonely game. When you lose, it's because you're worse than your opponent. And imagine losing to somebody who you know is... like completely stupid which which like traditional chess computers aren't they're stupid they just have much more computing power than you do so losing over and over again to
something that's so stupid like that's not a good feeling could you help explain to me what are the factors like how can what is it doing that you can't do in terms of calculating positions and moves and strategies Well, first of all, it's infinitely faster. 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. It will never make blunders like... simple tactical mistakes the neural networks sometimes do but traditional engines traditional engines don't um and like i can i can keep Most of the moves that I make will be the same as they do, but they don't make any... real blunders at all like they may may make slight positional mistakes but honestly most of the time that i think a
an engine makes a positional mistake is because I don't understand it well enough. So it's not really a mistake. And it might look like one, but it's long-term. Yeah, it's just that my understanding is not good enough. And that is useful. Then that does help me learn. What is the difference between the approach that the neural network takes versus a traditional engine?
Why is one of them approaching the game differently? Because one of them is constantly calculating based on sort of what humans have taught them. like the value of like the value what is the value of pawn what's the value of a knight and what is the value of um you know, a far advanced pawn and all of this. Like, it calculates based on that. A neural network, just, you teach, you just show it the rules of chess and, you know, play against yourself.
a lot of times and get better and it's it just has uh it has a different approach like what it does is just based on the game games that it's that it's played against itself right so it's it's just It will have completely different ideas at times. Imagine in 2019, because of these neural networks, every opening... that have been played for 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 things in a completely different way. Wow. So these neural networks could go back and look at... you know a classic game from like 1963 and say well you know what I would have fucked that dude up because I would have done this that and the other thing yeah exactly and 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. It was extremely fascinating for a while, but now it's just led to really more parody.
in the world of world of chess because yeah everybody just has access to um to that information 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.
started to use different engines and so on but now now you could prepare for a world championship honestly and in two weeks and you'd be completely with like just a regular um regular like laptop that's connected to to cloud like it's it's very different And so much easier today. That is so fascinating that it's changed the game so much. 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?
Like, could you get one and say, I want you to play like Garry Kasparov when he was younger? So we actually did this back in the day. We actually started an app called Play Magnus. You could play against myself at different ages. And the style, it was based on... The guy who built Stockfish built this engine as well. So it was based like an old version of that, but it would have my openings and try to emulate my style at certain ages. Obviously, it wasn't perfect, but it was...
It was a start. I think it's still difficult to build a very good clone because essentially... At least with traditional engines, it's not possible. Maybe with AI, you can get there, but I still think we fundamentally think differently about chess. Well, 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 I would really be fascinated to watch you play you.
You know? I mean, like, what would that be like? Like, you play you when you were 20. No, so the thing about it is that you would have to calibrate is that it would make...
occasional tactical blunders, right? Right. And which engines... How would you factor those in? Yeah. Right, they wouldn't want to. And so what we would do, what would happen in the Play Minus app is that it would make occasional blunders, but those would be like... a little bit too outrageous because it's like really hard to emulate the kinds of mistakes a human would make by the engines.
So I think that would probably still be like the most difficult part, like the main issue in order to make such a thing. If the Play Magnus thing was dialed in like 100%, what would be... Do you think now would be the scariest age to play you? Does that question make sense? Yeah. Are you better now than ever before? No. I think my peak level is... 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?
And I definitely have more knowledge now than I've ever had. But I think probably the best combination I had of knowledge and energy. that translated the best into scale was probably um in 2019 like first half of the year when i was when i was 28 and when i was
More like a young Kasparov than I'd ever been before. Very dynamic. What is the difference between you and 2019 and you today? A few things. 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 just too analyzed and unplayable. So that's one thing. Apart from that, I think I could do, like, 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. But I could do, I think, most of those things. 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 opponents in very long endgames, never giving them any respite whatsoever. Like, purely skill-wise, that was far from the best version.
Sorry, knowledge-wise, it was far from the best version of me. But I was just... Yeah, it was just like... 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. I had so much...
Willpower and energy. Well, you're saying you were in the best shape of your life. Do you mean physically or do you mean physically? Physically, yeah. Well, there's two factors you're talking about, like physical fitness and nutrition and exercise. 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.
Yeah, it did, but then... Because you're only 34. It's not like you're an old man. No, no, no. That's true, but I just feel it with these kids. Their brains are just so much faster than mine.
I mean, I felt it for years as well that, no, I'm not old, but I can never be at that level of pure, like... computing power but is that generally accepted with chess that there's a certain age where it just drops off like who has won the world championships at like the oldest age no well uh back in the days when you couldn't get information that quickly, it took people a lot longer to develop. And then it was considered that the best age was like late 30s, early 40s.
Obviously, the drop-off is not nearly as steep as it would be in physical sports. That goes without saying. But I think the peak years are pretty much the same. For most people, like mid-20s to early 30s. I think I could still... I could be... I could still be very, very close to my peak if I focused fully on... on, yeah, all the things that I can control. Physical fitness, nutrition, vitamins. Yeah, all of those things, yeah. And yet you don't do that?
I don't understand. If you're so obsessed with chess, that seems to have a primary factor. Yeah, it's a good thing. 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. I'm generally obsessed with chess, but I'm not always obsessed with... competing like certain times there will be certain days certain tournaments where i i know that i'm not going to be at my best and i i can i can sort of i can feel it and then i i'm not able to to take it as seriously. I feel like I cannot... I'm not a Michael Jordan type who has to go all out in every...
in every game. 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 um i don't have concrete goals of what i wanted what i wanted to things I want to achieve. Does that sort of relaxed attitude that you have, does that drive other people crazy that you're still able to beat them? That would drive me fucking nuts. If I was just fully obsessed and studying moves all day and just...
taking my vitamins and drinking only purified water. It's kind of a thing that you're known for, right? 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 isn't that what you're yeah and also the thing is like I was known for um
for like 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. I think the reason why I got that reputation is that I really like... I did a lot of sports when I was little and I've always done them for fun. So I think that was why you don't see a lot of chess players playing.
playing soccer or tennis or whatever. Not that I'm great at any of those things, but I was usually better than a lot of other chess players. Yeah, I guess I do have... I don't know what a reputation I have for the others. I don't really care.
Yeah, there's not much you can do about your reputation. 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
Do you have, are there special things you do kind of like more like a poker player or anything to intimidate your opponents ever? Like I've seen you like show up late to big tournaments where they're like waiting for you and stuff. That's really cool. That's a Miyamoto Musashi.
move no samurai yeah yeah honestly like that's um me being late is down to a couple of things first i hate waiting uh but also i just i'm terrible at planning so that's why i keep showing up you are terrible at planning you know how funny that is it's literally what you do better than anybody Like my planning is always based on everything going perfectly and like making a time plan based on that. And if something goes a little bit wrong, then I'm going to be late and like something usually goes.
goes wrong or often enough that it becomes becomes a thing like like as you talked about in chess like there's this video that a lot of people are talking about where I come There's a Blitz game, right? And that's three minutes and I come like two and a half minutes late because I've been skiing in the mountains and there was an accident on the road that...
that delayed me like half an hour. Like 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. 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. I just thought I was so late that I should be. And I saw that everybody was there. And then...
randomly turned out that I had half a minute left when I got to the board. So that's kind of more... How did you play the game? Did you have a different approach because you knew you only had 30 seconds? No, the thing is there you have... A two-second increment for move.
So I'm not going to lose on time automatically. I just had to play a little bit faster. But it was okay. But as I said, I don't do those things to intimidate my opponents. I'm just bad at playing. That would be such a mindfuck. Guy shows up two and a half minutes late and still stomps you. Yeah, I don't think many people know about the skiing delay or anything. I think it was thought of as like a... I'm a badass. I'm coming in late. No, honestly, that was...
Like the world championships in chess, like they're being held in the weirdest places. So this was in Almaty, Kazakhstan, which is this like really...
during winter at least, pretty polluted, not very nice city. And then just half an hour out of the city, you have basically the ops. You have beautiful mountains that goes up to... um to three and a half thousand meters where it's just fantastic and you can you can like get um yeah from the city it's like an hour and you're at the top of the mountain and having a beautiful ski vacation uh and i just like was so miserable being down in the city that i thought
for this day like if i'm going to perform at all today like i need some fresh air i like i need to get out of here And so that's why I took the risk. And it was, yeah, definitely not to play mind games because I... Bobby Fischer said about chess that I don't believe in psychology. I believe in good moves. Like I believe in like a little bit of both, but I'm more in his school that I just, I think I'm going to make better moves that I don't need.
Did you ever have an opponent that was doing something psychological that kind of messed you up or threw you off? Like back when I was a wrestler in high school, some guys wouldn't shower. And it would be disgusting, right? Is there anything like that in chess? Yeah, that specific thing has happened for sure. I'm not sure if it's been... If it's been a conscious choice by my opponents, I'm sure I've been guilty of it as well. That's true. I don't know really.
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. It's just weird that you can cheat and do it for so long and yet still play in the best tournaments. You would think that like in the UFC, like say if you get caught with steroids, you get a long ban.
And if you get caught again, you get an even longer ban. And I think it's like a three-strike thing. If you get caught a third time, you're out of the sport forever. No, it's... The thing is that... But you think harsher penalties would discourage people? Oh, yeah, for sure. Especially for online, because there's been this thinking that cheating over the board and over online is very different. But the thing is, once people...
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. So, yeah, there definitely needs to be harsher penalties. One thing that chess.com used to do is that they would let people sort of... confess privately and then get their account back. But now they're moving to more naming and shaming sort of thing and banning people for longer, which I think is...
Yeah, it's a lot better. But a lot of it is about incentives as well, right? Like if you think that you can get away with cheating... And there are monetary incentives to cheat. People are going to cheat. It's as simple as that. Yeah. Well, I guess that's just with every pursuit. There's always going to be people that look for shortcuts.
There's always going to be someone who looks to skirt around the difficult path. No, that's true. But the thing is, there's so little you need in chess. And the engines are so powerful. If I started cheating, you would never know. The thing is, I would get a move here and there. That's all I need. Or maybe...
Imagine I'm playing a tournament. I just find a system where I get somebody to signal me when there's a critical moment. Like if there's a moment where a certain move is much better than the others. That's really all I would need. to go from being the best to being practically unbeatable, right? So it really is a scary situation. There have been... these cases of so many cases of people who are acting suspiciously and who are making suspicious
having suspicious results based on the data. But they're very, like, if you're not cheating in a dumb way, there rarely is going to be a smoking gun. And without that smoking gun, it's really hard to catch. Catch people. How would you eliminate that other than security? Would you have it so there's no audience members at all and have them only in a room?
So that has been done in World Championships, for instance. We've basically been playing in a glass box where you can see... um where like you cannot see the audience and you cannot hear anything so it's a glass proof glass proof box um i kind of that's like you kind of don't want that you want there to be like I really like having just more like an esports setting where people can be as loud as they want. It's just...
You have players sit down like boxers with headsets. But don't headsets open up the possibility of cheating? But then, like, the headsets would be... all provided by the organizers. And you'd have to have like both... We have had that in tournament, like tournaments that you have to have white noise and some kind of sound from like Spotify or if you want to listen to classical music or whatever. You can do that.
Yeah, yeah. So you can listen to Wu-Tang Clan while you play chess? Yeah, I mean, honestly, playing Blitz chess, listening to music usually helps me because doing tasks that are more intuition-based... then that helps with the flow. With longer games, you probably don't want that disturbance, but I've definitely played some of my best Blizz Chests.
Yeah, listening to music. What do you listen to? Sitting there bopping. Bopping. Yeah, I think. Some wild Norwegian music? Yeah. Rammstein or something? That's actually German, but they have some good songs. No, I think my best chess has probably been Norwegian rap. Norwegian rap, really? What's a good Norwegian rap band that you could...
A rap group that you could recommend? There's a guy called Mr. Pimp Lotion and Oral-B. Mr. Pimp Lotion. And Oral-B. They're kind of... It's like a little bit ironic, but they're like doing like... American West Coast rap in Norwegian. Oh, that sounds badass. This is a bit of a different one. But I actually did a song with Mr. Pimp Lotion. I actually did a song with those guys. What a great name, Mr. Pimp Lotion. That's incredible.
Yeah, my verse is like right at the end. I like it too because I don't have any idea what the words are saying. Yours is at the end? No, basically there's... Yeah, the thing about the what happened was that they did a show and they have this This thing called Spenur, which is like a moisturizer mostly used for for animals. But like this Mr. People Ocean, like he's obsessed with that one. And somebody apparently stole.
that from backstage at their concert. And so they didn't know who it was, but they eventually found out and they made a song about it. And so they had a bunch of people like send in their verses. incredible the difference between america and norway though what the rappers are rapping about there's gang wars and shootings and in norway somebody's like who stole my lotion yeah There actually was a popular song about 20 years ago.
reference specifically that in Norwegian that there was nothing to rap about because nothing bad ever happens. That's what he's saying in English. Don't make people out the gun. It's best that someone speak out who stole this bean off. who stole my lotion yeah basically there's a bunch of verses like people accusing each other and then i randomly come in at the very end and solve the mystery. Was it you? It wasn't me. I was not at that particular show. I think the best online chess...
that I've ever played was probably listening to their music. Wow. Do you mix it up? Do you ever listen to, like, Led Zeppelin? No, I listen to a lot of... A lot of older stuff as well. So yeah, I have no idea what's on the chart these days in general, but... I find out through Tony.
I find out through the young guys at the club. I'm like, what are you listening to? What is this? And I'll do Shazam on it and put it on my Spotify playlist. That sometimes happens to me as well, maybe like once a year or something. Otherwise, it's... I remember like I asked my sister probably like 10 years ago, like I saw a playlist and I was like, do you have anything from before 2000? And so I was like, yeah, of course. Britney Spears, baby one more time, 1999.
So I'm kind of the opposite of that. Well, that's awesome. Well, listen, man, it's been awesome having you in here. I really appreciate you doing this. And tell everybody when the Netflix show is out. I don't know, but it's within a few months for sure. Jamie, do you know? Didn't say when it's coming out. Well, we will put it up on the Instagram when it's out. And it's been awesome talking to you, man. I really appreciate it.
Thank you. Thanks for coming in. All right, Tony. Fun times. Fun times. All right. Goodbye, everybody.