back to indexBotez Sisters: Chess, Streaming, and Fame | Lex Fridman Podcast #319
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I mean, I've definitely experienced moments
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where I didn't want to do anything but chess.
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I'd also say that's pretty universal.
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I think if you want to be the best at anything you do
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or any sport, you have to be that level of obsessed.
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The following is a conversation
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with Alexandra and Andrea Botez.
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They're sisters, professional chess players,
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commentators, educators, entertainers, and streamers.
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Their channel is called Botez Live on Twitch and YouTube.
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I highly recommend you check it out.
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A small side note about the currently ongoing controversy
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in the chess world, where the 19 year old grandmaster,
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Hans Niemann, beat Magnus Carlsen at the Sink Field Cup.
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After this, Magnus, for the first time ever,
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withdrew from the tournament, implying with a tweet
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that there may have been cheating
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or at least something shady going on.
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Folks like the grandmaster, Hikaru Nakamura,
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fanned the flames of cheating accusations,
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and the internet made a bunch of proposals
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on how the cheating could have been done,
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and it ranged from the ridiculous to the hilarious,
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Hans himself came out and said that he has cheated before
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when he was 12 and 16 on random online games
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to jack up his rating.
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But he said that he has never cheated in person
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Danny Wrench from chess.com, who I've spoken with,
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may make a statement in response to Hans's claims soon.
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Folks like grandmaster Jakob Luegge
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spoke to his experience training Hans Niemann
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and has said that his memory and intuition
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were quite brilliant.
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So as you see, there's a lot of perspectives on this.
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ChessBase has a good summary of the saga
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that I'll link in the description.
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Also note that this is so quickly moving
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that new stuff might come out between me recording this
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and publishing the episode,
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but I thought I'd mention this anyway
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since the episode with the Botas sisters
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is a conversation about chess
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and was recorded shortly before the controversy,
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so we didn't talk about it.
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I'm considering having Hans on this podcast
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and also Magnus back on the podcast,
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and maybe others like Hikaru
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or folks from chess.com's anti cheat staff
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to discuss their really interesting
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cheating detection algorithms,
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but I may also just stay out of it.
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I find chess to be a beautiful game
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and the chess community
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full of fascinating, brilliant people,
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and so I'll keep having conversations like these
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My goal with this podcast and in general as a human being
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is to increase the amount of love in the world.
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Sometimes that involves celebrating brilliance and beauty
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in science, in art, in chess.
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Sometimes it involves empathetic conversations
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with controversial figures that seek to understand,
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Sometimes it involves standing against
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the internet lynch mob,
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as the ChessBase article calls it,
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to hear the story of a human being who is under attack,
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even if it means I get attacked in the process as well.
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This is the Lex Friedman podcast.
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To support it, please check out our sponsors
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in the description,
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and now, dear friends,
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here's Alexandra and Andrea Botas.
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You just got back from Italy.
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What's the most memorable thing?
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I was just there recently as well.
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It was very chaotic because we went out on a whim
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and we only had our first hotel booked,
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and then we rented a car and drove around all of the cities
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and went to like five different cities
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in about a week and a bit.
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So I think it was just the variety
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of seeing so many different places
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when we're used to being at home all the time,
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and Andrea, is yours your luggage?
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Yeah, I would say it was the most stressful vacation
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we've been in in our life,
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and it was a valuable learning lesson
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because now I know how to be prepared for trips,
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but we lost our bags and I never got them back.
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And like Alex said,
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we didn't know where we'd be sleeping every night
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and we're just driving through a new city
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with a giant van in the most narrowest streets
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and getting in many, many fights with Italian men.
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So it wasn't really a vacation.
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I saw this motion so many times.
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Wasn't it liberating to lose your baggage?
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Is it still the lining?
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It was liberating.
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My entire life, I've always had the issue of overpacking.
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And I told her before the trip,
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Andrea, you're gonna pack light, right?
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And then I see her stuffing her overweight suitcase.
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But you did the same.
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We both had giant, big extra baggage that we didn't need.
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And I'm actually very glad we lost it
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because for Venice, hauling that around on all the boats
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and through the tiny streets and there's no Ubers.
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And now it's the first time where I can travel
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without checking in a bag, which I've never done before.
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So now I've learned what it means to pack light
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because I saw that I could survive off of just my,
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this sounds very dramatic,
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but it was really a big learning lesson for me.
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The driving must've been crazy
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because driving in Italy is rough.
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The driving was crazy.
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I did most of it and it would be really interesting
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driving through places like Florence
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or even through the beach areas that were super windy
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because there are two way streets
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that should really only be one way.
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So you'd be driving this huge van
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and then another car comes on a cliff
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and you're just waiting for it to slowly pass.
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So it took all of my focus and concentration
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to drive well in Italy,
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but it was actually really relaxing
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because the hardest thing about making a lot of videos online
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is you're always thinking about it, what's coming next.
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And when we were in Italy,
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it was so chaotic that I did not think about work
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for a good week and a bit.
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Oh, cause you're just.
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I was just trying to keep us alive.
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It seemed higher priority.
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And that was kind of fun.
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It was kind of fun.
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No planning, nothing.
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I wouldn't recommend it or ever do that again, but.
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It sounds pretty awesome.
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And we even randomly ran into two friends of ours
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who were in the same city
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and we just traveled with them for about half of the trip.
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Yeah, so you just took on the chaos.
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Exactly, it was an adventure.
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Okay, and I see like,
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cause you were using your hands a lot.
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You picked up some of the Italian hand gestures.
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We did get yelled at by a lot of Italians.
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The old Italian grandmas would come to us after breakfast
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cause we'd leave something on the plate
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and she'd be like,
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you could feed an entire village with that.
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Tell your friends.
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And we'd feel so ashamed.
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Yeah, we got cursed out a lot,
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but it really reminded me of where we grew up and helped.
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Yeah, bring back those mechanisms.
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Where'd you grow up?
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but it was like an immigrant neighborhood.
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So, same if you don't finish your plate,
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that's disrespectful to the people who made the food.
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How was the food in Italy?
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I feel like the carbs thing is too intense.
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Yeah, I think very overrated in my opinion.
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So I'm actually not supposed to eat gluten
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cause I have an allergy,
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but I was in Italy and it's gluten galore.
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So I was actually eating a lot of it
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and it was very interesting
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cause I didn't get sick while I was in Italy,
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but I do while I'm in the US.
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So somehow the food was actually maybe more okay
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for me to digest, which I appreciated,
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but I didn't like it as much as I thought.
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Did you like the food there?
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Yeah, no, I did, I did.
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I love carbs, but it feels like Vegas
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when I go there for the food is like,
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if I stay here too long, I'm gonna do things I regret.
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That's what it feels like with the food.
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I don't know how to moderate
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and everybody is pushing very large portions
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and while kind of eating things on you,
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pasta, pizza and bread, so delicious.
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So yeah, I love it, but I regret everything.
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So it's like, I don't wanna go to a place
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where I'm going to regret everything I do
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for too long of a time.
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Yeah, surprisingly the people there though
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are still very fit and everyone stays in good shape,
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but that's probably because you're walking around all day
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and you're much more active than anyone.
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And they also just know how to moderate food.
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I think I've gotten used to the US way of eating.
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The US portions. What is that?
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Just a lot, always a lot and more.
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And I feel in the US food advertisements
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are also much more in your face
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and you're more often reminded of junk food
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than we were in Italy.
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So even though we were eating less healthy things,
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I think we were getting cravings
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and being pushed towards junk food less often.
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All right, I gotta ask you a hard question.
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So the romance languages.
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So I think French is up there as like number one.
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Number one in terms of?
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Who's ranking them?
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Oh, you guys speak Italian or no?
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Not Italian, but we studied French and Spanish in school.
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I feel like every country calls their language
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a romance language.
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But it's Romanian, French, Spanish, Portuguese.
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And I think there was one more that was like this dialect,
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but those are considered the romance languages.
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Okay, so where would you put Italian?
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I think we got yelled at so much in Italian
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that it's not gonna be a love word.
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So it wasn't working.
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It's on the bottom of the list
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cause people did not use it nicely to us.
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But I always really liked how French sounds.
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I think something about it where maybe Spanish
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actually sounds nicer to the ears,
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but French has more character and it feels more sultry.
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Yeah, that was my answer too.
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I feel like French, in France,
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I feel like I'm always being judged.
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Like they're better than me.
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That's what French.
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They are better than us.
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It's just so true.
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Which is why I long to belong to that.
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I like the British accent.
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The British accent?
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Actually, one thing we did on our Italian trip
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is we just picked up British accents
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for the entire trip for fun.
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And we forgot we were doing them
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to the point where we talked to British people
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and they'd ask us, why are you talking like that?
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We just couldn't stop.
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I did feel much more elegant and mature.
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People like, I don't know if they felt the same way
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about us, but it was more of the confidence.
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You do feel like you're more poised for sure.
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So how'd you guys get into chess?
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When did you first, let's say,
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when did you first fall in love with chess?
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So we both started playing when we were pretty young,
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around six years old.
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That's when our dad taught us.
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And I enjoyed playing chess
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because I had good results early on,
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but a lot of it was being pushed from my dad to play chess.
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And I only really started loving it
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when we moved from Canada and we started moving a lot
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and chess was the one stable thing that I had.
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And it was also where all of my friends were.
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So it was kind of that foundational thing for me.
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And that's when I started studying chess very intensely.
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And when I started putting in the hours out of my own will
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and not because I was being pushed by my dad,
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that's when I started really loving it.
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And I even wanted to take time off college
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to just focus on chess.
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So training and competing?
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Training and competing, yeah.
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It was when I was doing it for myself
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that I started getting my best results.
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And actually enjoying the thing.
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And really enjoying it, yeah.
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I would spend summer vacations studying for tournaments
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and my mom would come and say,
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"'You need to make friends, go leave the house."
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And I'd be like, no, I need to play chess.
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And I remember those moments.
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That you rebelled by playing chess, that's awesome.
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How did you get into it?
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Yeah, my experience with loving in high school
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is very opposite from Alex's, but right,
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my sister was playing and my dad taught me
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when I was also six. Andrea was cool
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in high school, unlike me.
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I wouldn't say cool, I'd say more balanced
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and I was interested in other hobbies.
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In my childhood, if I ever really did love chess,
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there's certainly moments about traveling
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and being together with my family
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and spending those moments together,
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but those are more the social and the experiences.
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But funny enough, I think my happiest moment
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where I really played the game for my own enjoyment
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was probably my most recent tournament.
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Because this was after, obviously, we've been streaming
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and I'm no longer in high school,
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but when I was in school, I was always playing for college
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and for the results, trying to build a resume.
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So I was too stressed out about the pressure
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to really enjoy the game.
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Whereas when I just played my first tournament,
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so it was after a two year break because of the pandemic
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and it was also all live on Twitch,
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so there was some pressure, but it was the first time
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that I was really eager to study for the game,
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sitting and focusing since we've been streaming
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and not getting distracted by something else.
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In years, like I said.
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And the tournament experience, I hit my highest rating
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and it was my best tournament ever.
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And I think most of that is because it came
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from my own enjoyment.
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So you didn't enjoy the domination?
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Because I think you did really well, right?
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This is like a couple months ago?
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Oh yeah, yeah, the tournament.
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Well, of course, I think the results came
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from enjoying the tournament.
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Because I would be in high school studying triple
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the amount of time, like six hours every day
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compared to this tournament, I didn't even prepare for it.
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And for three years, I wouldn't be able
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to pass one rating, whereas in this one tournament,
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I passed it by like 70 points without even any preparation.
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So it was, I think, as soon as you stopped worrying
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about the competitions, when the games get much better.
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What does it mean to pass a rating?
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So I was stuck at 1900.
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1900 is 100 points off of expert.
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Usually when you reach 2000, you're considered an expert,
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which is the rating Andrea was going for.
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Okay, expert, that's a technical term
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or that's like a talk and trash term?
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It's more of a colloquial term
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where if somebody is around a 2000
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and you're playing them in a tournament,
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they won't have the actual title next to their name,
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but you always say, I'm playing an expert.
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What about like the more official things like master?
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Does that have to do with the rating or something else?
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Yeah, so national master in the US is when you're 2200.
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Okay, and what's international master?
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International master is based off of a different system,
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the FIDE system, which is international.
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To be an international master, it's 2400
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and you have to have three international master norms.
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Yeah, I think Magnus said he's a 28, six something.
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And then he said, that's pretty decent.
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Well, he always talks a lot about that.
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But see the thing is, I think what he meant
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is that's a decent rating
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because it accurately captures his actual level.
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So it's not overinflated or underinflated and so on.
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And so the discussion there was how do you get to,
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can a human being get to 2900?
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And then he says, because my current rating
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is pretty decent at representing my skill level,
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it's gonna be a long road to actually get there.
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Because it's like, so you have to beat people
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at your same level, that's how the number increases.
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And you beat a bunch of people in the tournament, right?
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That are higher than your luck.
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I did, I got very lucky.
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I was playing, I was really nervous
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because my category was like 200 points above my rating.
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And of course, I was very rusty
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and I didn't play in a tournament in a while,
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but it went pretty well.
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Do you feel the pressure when you're actually recording it,
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like the streaming?
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It was definitely, so before every round I was vlogging
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and I was doing meet and greets
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and doing other things for the livestream.
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Yeah, I saw you do a meet and greet.
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You didn't know what the hell you were doing, it's great.
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Like what am I, how do I do this?
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It was actually really wholesome.
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The beginning was very silly
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because I was just not expecting
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that it was gonna be more of a seminar.
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I thought it was like, oh, you pose and take pictures,
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but they actually asked really nice, meaningful questions,
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but unfortunately it's bad for YouTube retention
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and we cut them all out, so.
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The good long form conversation.
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So it was like questions, Q and A type of thing.
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Exactly, you have to have very fast paced for YouTube
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and that seminar was not fast paced.
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Okay, well, not everything in life
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needs to be on YouTube, right?
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There's like two parallel things,
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stuff that's fun for YouTube.
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Yes, one day we'll post that Q and A.
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Yeah, when you guys like, when you become like ultra famous,
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you're currently just regular famous.
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And then they'll appreciate the long, slow content, yes.
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And that, the YouTube aspect, the creation aspect,
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does that add to the fun, ultimately,
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of the chess, of like your love of chess?
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Oh, for the love of chess in general
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or just for competing in that one tournament?
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No, love of chess in general.
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I think you said that for competing for that tournament
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is adding pressure.
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Yeah, but actually I would say like a good pressure,
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but yeah, this is where I differed to Alex
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because when I was just competitive and I was younger,
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I don't think I loved chess as much
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as when I started doing it for content
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because unlike her, who a lot of her friends
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and social circle were other chess players,
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I never really traveled
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and built really solid friendships through chess
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until I started streaming and meeting other chess streamers
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and actually playing and talking to people for fun
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rather than just always being alone in the game
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and never really meeting other people my age
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or people with similar interests.
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So I would say Twitch was the thing
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that really changed how I approached the game.
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I think with some YouTubers,
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there's a pressure to be almost somebody else.
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You create a persona and you're stuck in that persona.
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I think I'm too much of a boomer
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to know what the hell Twitch is anyway,
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but it feels like when you're actually live streaming,
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you can't help but be who you really are.
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I think it's, oh, well, I think when you're live streaming
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and I've talked to a lot of other streamers about this,
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you kind of just over exaggerate
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one side of your personality.
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And of course, it's kind of like being like on all the time.
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Like you're trying to be more entertaining
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and sometimes you're being silly at moments or more,
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you take what character traits like people know you for.
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And for me, one is being like ADHD
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and the younger sibling who's very energetic
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and causes trouble,
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even though sometimes it's a little switch.
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Yeah, I'm sure you cause trouble just for the camera.
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I think, yeah, I think,
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and of course, once you're live streaming
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for like four or five hours,
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there's gonna be moments in the stream where it's more chill,
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but especially when you're like editing that content
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or you're doing bigger streams that are shorter,
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you are kind of playing up a side of yourself
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because of course, there's a lot of parts of me
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that I don't show to the camera
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because they're not as entertaining to watch,
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like the more serious part.
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And also there's things that you are really interested in
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about what you do.
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Like I love competitive chess
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where I could sit and really think about it,
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but I know that that is not gonna be as entertaining
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I know that's not gonna be as entertaining for YouTube.
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So you kind of have to take what you like,
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but then really adapt it for whatever the format is.
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And sometimes that feels inauthentic,
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but other times it just feels like repackaging
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what you love for people
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in a more general audience to enjoy.
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Do you feel like it's a trap a little bit as you evolve?
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Like you're trapped in?
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Oh, I think social media, oh, sorry, go ahead.
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Social media in general is a trap of that kind?
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Well, so we've been trying to switch
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to learn how to make YouTube videos recently.
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And so much of learning YouTube school
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is kind of the beastification of content
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where you try to get to the point of the video
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within like the first 10 seconds to not lose people.
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The beastificate, you mean like Mr. Beast?
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Yeah, where it's so fast paced,
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there's a reason to wait, there's high stakes.
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And everything is created to keep people watching the video
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and keep people on the platform.
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And in some ways it is a trap
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because it's harder to do the kind of content you like
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because you really have to squeeze it to be like,
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okay, well, do we have a good thumbnail for this?
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Do we have a good title for this?
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And that's something that we're trying to figure out
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how to keep true to what we wanna do.
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Yeah, see, the way I think about it is,
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yeah, there's a lot of stuff you can create
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and yeah, the Mr. Beastification process.
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But also I think about what are the videos,
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conversations or things I will create in this life
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that will be the best thing I do.
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And I try not to do things in my life
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that will prevent me from getting there.
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I feel like if you're always focusing on doing kind of,
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optimizing the thumbnail in the 10 seconds and so on,
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you'll never do the thing that's truly you're known for
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and remembered for.
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So finding that balance is tricky.
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I get that, but at the same time,
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this might be my own copium,
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which I know is a word you know now.
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Yeah, I'm slowly learning the full complexity
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But the other way I think about it is,
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it is a skill to learn how to communicate
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with large audiences.
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And first I started streaming chess,
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which is something I just did and really loved,
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but now I have to learn how to translate that format.
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And if that's a skillset we could build,
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then we could use it to do really important things.
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And I've seen a lot of YouTubers
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who have done interviews about how,
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they didn't love the kind of content they did at first,
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but what they're doing right now is really meaningful.
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So I like to think of it, maybe like skill development,
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cause not everybody hits off podcasts
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where they can talk to super interesting people
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right off the bat.
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Yeah, you can be slow and boring in a podcast.
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You don't have to worry about the first 10 seconds.
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I mean, people like keep pushing me for,
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cause the first 10 seconds of the videos I do is,
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well, I know it's most important for YouTube,
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but I don't give a damn.
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I wrote a Chrome extension that hides
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all the views and likes.
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I don't look at the click through.
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I don't look at Twitch views, Andrea does.
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So we also can relate.
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I love numbers too, but that's why I don't look at it.
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Cause you become like, oh,
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you'll start to think that a conversation
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or I think you did sucks because it doesn't get views,
link |
but that's just not the case.
link |
YouTube algorithm is this monster that figures stuff out.
link |
And if you let it control your mind,
link |
I feel like it's going to destroy you creatively.
link |
So you have to find a nice balance.
link |
I have to say, I was laughing a little bit
link |
when I was listening to the Magnus episode
link |
and the first 10 minutes,
link |
you guys are talking about soccer, football.
link |
Two robots seem human in the conversation.
link |
I was like, let's have some fun,
link |
make conversation about non chess related topics.
link |
Yeah, talk about sports.
link |
Yeah, it was kind of hilarious.
link |
I was surprised that even at his level,
link |
I wasn't sure, but I was surprised how much he loves chess.
link |
It sounds cliche to say,
link |
but like the way he looked at a chess board,
link |
you know those memes like,
link |
I wish somebody looked at me the way he still like
link |
the way he glanced down and he reached for the pieces
link |
with excitement to show me something.
link |
There was, there wasn't like, okay, I'll show you.
link |
It was like, like there was still that fire.
link |
That's something that always shocks me
link |
about some of like super grandmasters.
link |
Like one of my coaches was a person who also,
link |
his name's GM Hammer of Norway.
link |
He also coached Magnus.
link |
He was his second and he was helping me train
link |
for my tournament.
link |
And I was kind of putting off doing the homework.
link |
He's like, if you're putting it off,
link |
that means you're studying the wrong thing.
link |
Like you should be enjoying even when you're practicing,
link |
which when I grew up, I thought to get to the top level,
link |
like practicing has to be hard and unpleasant.
link |
And when I was listening to Magnus episode,
link |
he was like, I didn't read books very much.
link |
Or there was one thing that you said
link |
that's like very normal for studying classical chess
link |
that he didn't do just because it didn't interest him.
link |
He says, I suck at puzzles.
link |
I don't like puzzles.
link |
Yeah, and he doesn't do what he doesn't enjoy.
link |
And that's because it's like purely driven out of passion.
link |
I think the internet was like, I suck at puzzles too.
link |
Yeah, they like that.
link |
They're grandmasters.
link |
I don't have to study at all.
link |
It's just, it's fun.
link |
And, but I think the lesson there that's really powerful
link |
is he spends most of the day thinking about chess
link |
because he wants to.
link |
So do whatever, if you're into getting better at chess,
link |
do whatever it takes to actually just the number of hours
link |
you spend a day thinking about chess, maximize that.
link |
If you're like super serious about it.
link |
I actually get very addicted
link |
whenever I start studying chess,
link |
which is why I don't do it as seriously
link |
when I'm focused on content.
link |
Cause I go through these rabbit holes
link |
where if I'm focusing on chess,
link |
I wanna be as good as I possibly can at the game.
link |
Otherwise it's hard for me to enjoy it
link |
cause it's such a competitive thing.
link |
And I remember training for tournaments
link |
and when you're training for tournaments,
link |
you even start dreaming about chess
link |
and you can stop thinking about it.
link |
And it's as if you're flipped
link |
into this completely different world,
link |
which is also what I like best about the game
link |
that it's a completely different living experience.
link |
And then you take some drugs
link |
and now you start to see things on the ceiling.
link |
Is there some factual hallucination
link |
like to the Queen's Gambit, like those scenes?
link |
Is that based on your life story?
link |
Well, I can't say that on camera.
link |
Actually chess players are very careful to not take drugs.
link |
They drink so much.
link |
It's actually crazy for how good they're able
link |
to play chess when they do.
link |
But when it comes to things like psychedelics
link |
or other things, they usually stay away from those
link |
cause they don't wanna mess anything up in their brain.
link |
So this is actually intervention.
link |
I saw that you mentioned somewhere,
link |
I think it was the lie detector test
link |
where you have a drinking problem.
link |
Is that an actual...
link |
I think that's actually a meme
link |
that we like to joke about on stream
link |
because occasionally we'd have like a white claw on stream
link |
or something like that.
link |
And then people meme about it.
link |
It goes back to Andrea's point
link |
of amplifying a part of your personality
link |
to make yourself a little bit more entertaining.
link |
I'm gonna use that as an excuse from now on.
link |
This podcast is just amplifying a part of that personality.
link |
I'm not really like this, but have you played drunk?
link |
Like Magnus has played drunk.
link |
He says it helps someone with the creativity.
link |
Is there any truth to that?
link |
Well, Andrea is under 21,
link |
so she's obviously would never do that.
link |
But I have played while drinking.
link |
Actually, I enjoy playing chess and drinking
link |
more than pre gaming or going out to a club and drinking,
link |
which sounds really silly.
link |
And I'll usually play against opponents
link |
who are also having some beer.
link |
And it does make you feel like you're seeing the game
link |
from a fresher perspective
link |
where it can sometimes make you feel more confident,
link |
liquid confidence, and it does help with creativity.
link |
You just feel like you could pull things off,
link |
but there's also a limit.
link |
It's more like you've had one drink or two drink,
link |
but then it goes beyond that.
link |
And then you just start missing tactics
link |
and it's not worth it.
link |
Yeah, I think it only helps players
link |
in very short time controls.
link |
One time I was challenging this grandmaster on stream
link |
and we were playing bullet chess,
link |
which is one minute chess.
link |
And I was giving him handicaps.
link |
And I said, okay, you have to take four shots
link |
before the next game.
link |
And he just got like 10 times stronger
link |
and transformed into like the Hulk
link |
and destroyed me more than the last game.
link |
But of course, if you're playing like a three hour game,
link |
it's gonna get old.
link |
But I think in short time controls, it's amazing.
link |
Yeah, definitely has to be blitz.
link |
It has to be where it's more intuition
link |
rather than sitting and calculating.
link |
This is probably like negatively affecting
link |
your ability to calculate.
link |
How much when you guys play,
link |
when you look at the chess board,
link |
how much of it is calculation?
link |
How much of it is intuition?
link |
How much of it is memorized openings?
link |
It really depends between short form chess.
link |
So five minutes, three minutes, one minute
link |
and classical chess.
link |
What's your favorite to play?
link |
I love playing blitz now because that's most of what I do.
link |
And that's actually how I got into chess streaming
link |
because I couldn't spend entire weekends
link |
or weeks playing tournaments.
link |
I would just, while I was in college, log on
link |
and play these long blitz or bullet sessions.
link |
And it's very fast.
link |
So you don't have time to go calculate as deeply.
link |
You basically have to calculate short lines pretty quickly.
link |
And a lot of it is pattern recognition and intuition.
link |
As three minutes, you said?
link |
Three minutes, yeah.
link |
And so for that, it's just basically intuition.
link |
A lot of it is intuition, yeah.
link |
See, I saw on streams you actually keep talking
link |
while playing chess.
link |
It seems really difficult.
link |
Yeah, that helps my result.
link |
That doesn't help my result.
link |
It doesn't, it hurts.
link |
It helps content, not the game.
link |
But you can still do it.
link |
Because it feels like how can you possibly concentrate
link |
It's because so much of it is intuition.
link |
You're not, while you're talking,
link |
you're thinking about that topic,
link |
but then you just come to the board
link |
and you just understand what you should be doing here.
link |
And then sometimes you get in trouble
link |
because you're talking and you have now lost
link |
half of your time.
link |
You have a minute and a half, your opponent has three,
link |
and you're kind of at a disadvantage.
link |
But that kind of goes to show
link |
that that's how blitz chess usually works,
link |
whereas classical is very different.
link |
Which of you is better at chess?
link |
I mean, let's do it this way.
link |
Can you, Andrea, can you say what,
link |
in which way is Alex stronger than you?
link |
Which way is she weaker than you?
link |
Not physically in terms of chess.
link |
Well, yes, of course she is higher rated.
link |
But when we do play, I think her strengths against me
link |
where she really gets me is the end game.
link |
She has stronger end game, so she can,
link |
and I actually have a stronger opening,
link |
but as soon as she's able to simplify.
link |
Andrea, I'm supposed to say what is good about you,
link |
You know, I'm getting there.
link |
Well, see, this is what I'm saying,
link |
because don't worry, it's related, okay?
link |
Because if I can get an advantage
link |
in the beginning of the game,
link |
but as soon as she starts trading pieces down,
link |
like my confidence drops,
link |
because I know that the end game
link |
is the hardest part of the game and the longest,
link |
and that's where she ends up beating me.
link |
So her end game is I think really what makes the difference.
link |
It sounds like her psychological warfare is better too,
link |
because if you're getting nervous.
link |
But it's harder to play against higher rated players,
link |
same how Magnus and former world champions
link |
have that psychological edge.
link |
So I think it's always going to be different for Andrea,
link |
because she knows statistically
link |
she should be winning something like one in four games,
link |
but she usually does better than that,
link |
because she's very distracting and talks a lot.
link |
What does it feel like to play a higher rated player?
link |
What's the experience of that?
link |
Playing somebody like Magnus.
link |
So it depends on how much higher rated than you they are.
link |
If it's someone who's like between me and Andrea,
link |
let's say it's a 200 point difference,
link |
you know they should win,
link |
but at least you still feel like you have a chance.
link |
I was playing in a title Tuesday,
link |
which is this tournament chess.com has every Tuesday.
link |
And I got really lucky, beat a GM,
link |
drew an international master,
link |
and then I got paired against Hikaru Nakamura.
link |
And my brain just went blank,
link |
because I just know that I'm so unlikely to win
link |
that I couldn't even play the game properly
link |
when it's that much of a difference
link |
where they should be winning like 99% of the time.
link |
But that's like psychological.
link |
So you're saying that's the biggest experience
link |
is like actually knowing the numbers
link |
and statistically thinking there's no way I can win.
link |
But I meant like, is there a suffocating feeling
link |
like positionally you feel like
link |
you're constantly under attack?
link |
You just feel like you're slowly getting outsmarted.
link |
And the worst is when you don't even know
link |
what you're doing wrong.
link |
You come out of that and you're like,
link |
I thought I was doing great and I got slowly squeezed.
link |
I didn't understand what was going on.
link |
And you're just kind of baffled.
link |
It's kind of like watching AlphaZero beat up Stockfish.
link |
And you don't really understand why it's making certain moves
link |
or how it thought of the plan.
link |
You just see it slowly getting the position better.
link |
And that's what it feels like.
link |
I would add it's kind of different for me
link |
if they're someone who's significantly higher rated.
link |
So let's say more than like 300 points
link |
or you're playing Magnus.
link |
What I notice is I just feel lost straight
link |
as soon as I don't know my preparation
link |
because they know so many opening lines
link |
that they're gonna know the best line to beat you
link |
that you haven't studied.
link |
So then on move 10, you're like,
link |
he already has a maybe plus 0.5 advantage
link |
which is really small.
link |
But for someone with such a significant skill level
link |
you know you already lost at that point.
link |
And it's like a third of the game.
link |
What are the strengths and weaknesses of Andrea?
link |
Andrea is very good at opening preparation.
link |
As she said, she likes bringing that up.
link |
I mean, she's very meticulous about it
link |
where she'll really go in and learn her lines.
link |
And having that initial starting confidence
link |
isn't just helpful for the opening
link |
but it helps develop your plans for the middle game.
link |
So I think she's very good at that.
link |
I think she's actually pretty good
link |
at tactical combinations.
link |
Tactics is like solving puzzles
link |
or basically finding lines that are forced
link |
where if you find them, you're going to win.
link |
So that's like puzzles within a position.
link |
Whereas strategic chess is making slow moves
link |
and over the process of like 20 moves
link |
you get a slightly better position based on
link |
an understanding of the overall strategy.
link |
So in my extensive research review on Wikipedia,
link |
it says your most played opening
link |
is the King's Indian defense.
link |
In which, quote, black allows white
link |
to advance their pawns to the center of the board
link |
in the first two moves.
link |
Is there any truth to this?
link |
So the King's Indian.
link |
Probably is my most played opening.
link |
And it's one where even when my coach
link |
who was a grandmaster taught me,
link |
he was like, so you know,
link |
I've been playing the King's Indian for 10 years
link |
and I still don't understand it.
link |
And it's one of those openings that computers
link |
really don't like because you do,
link |
or at least Stockfish doesn't like it.
link |
Maybe AlphaZero would change their mind.
link |
I forgot to look at what.
link |
Can you show me, by the way, what it is?
link |
Is it white's opening or black's opening?
link |
Black responds to the D4 Queen's pawn push.
link |
And you take your knight out to F6.
link |
I'll just put in the stereotypical,
link |
classical King's Indian more so to say.
link |
We actually have a very famous King's Indian game
link |
in the notes that we prepared.
link |
For the record, I asked you guys for some games
link |
that you find pretty cool
link |
and maybe to get a chance to talk about some.
link |
So this is the King's Indian.
link |
As you can see, white has much more control
link |
White has three pawns in the center
link |
while black has none past the fifth rank.
link |
And you just have this pawn on D6.
link |
And one of the ideas in chess is
link |
if you're not taking the center,
link |
then your plan revolves around
link |
trying to continually challenge it.
link |
But what is really fun about the King's Indian
link |
is that black sometimes gets these crazy King side attacks
link |
while white gets Queen side attacks.
link |
And even though it's a little bit suspicious for black
link |
and the computer could usually break it,
link |
it's hard to defend as a human when you're being attacked.
link |
But if you don't pull off the attack as black,
link |
then you're just gonna end up being lost in the end game.
link |
So it's like a very asymmetrical position.
link |
It's very asymmetrical,
link |
although a lot of people now stop playing
link |
into the classical King's Indian,
link |
even though computers give it a big advantage.
link |
And they play these slower lines in the King's Indian,
link |
which are less fun to play.
link |
What's slower mean?
link |
It takes a longer time to do something interesting with?
link |
They basically don't let you get as much
link |
of a King side attack
link |
because they try opening up the center
link |
and then you have no weaknesses,
link |
but you're just slowly improving the position of your pieces
link |
instead of being able to go for that King side attack.
link |
So for people just listening,
link |
there is the white pawns are all on the fourth row
link |
in a row together.
link |
That feels like a bad position.
link |
Oh, you don't like taking the center?
link |
No, I like taking the center.
link |
Now you're talking trash already.
link |
But it's just like they're like feel vulnerable
link |
there in a row together.
link |
Like it's like, you know,
link |
cause they're like, who's gonna defend them?
link |
I guess the Knights defend and the Queen defends it.
link |
You're actually talking about a theme
link |
that you do see sometimes, which is called hanging pawns.
link |
And when you have two pawns right next to each other
link |
with no other pawns to defend them.
link |
Yeah, so it is a valid point.
link |
And actually as black,
link |
you're trying to break apart these pawns
link |
or get them to push and create some holes into the position,
link |
but it's a trade off.
link |
And that's a lot of what chess openings are about.
link |
You get more space,
link |
but you'll also end up having to protect your pawns
link |
potentially or move them forward to the point
link |
where they're overextended.
link |
And plus pawns being vulnerable, it's kind of fun.
link |
It's like, there's more stuff in danger.
link |
They're not, cause if it's like this,
link |
everything's like trapped, like you can't do anything.
link |
Everything's blocked, yeah.
link |
And blocked off, yeah.
link |
It's like you can't have fun.
link |
Yeah, one of the most,
link |
one of the opening principles for white
link |
is get your pawns in the center.
link |
So I'd say like this is actually preferable for white.
link |
Let's go over some opening principles.
link |
Cause this is a very good learning lesson
link |
for any chess beginners in the audience.
link |
Okay, so first thing you wanna do is control the center.
link |
There we go, E4, the more aggressive one.
link |
Isn't that like the basic vanilla move?
link |
I didn't, somebody told me that's the most popular
link |
opening move in chess.
link |
Why is that considered aggressive?
link |
So it's E4 and D4 and the king's pawn is known
link |
as being for more tactical players,
link |
whereas D4 is known for more positional players.
link |
So that's why it's considered more aggressive.
link |
More gambits with E4, I think.
link |
So tactical means I'm gonna try to attack you.
link |
You're gonna try to go for puzzles
link |
and rely more on your combination abilities.
link |
Whereas if it's something positional,
link |
you usually have like three to four moves
link |
that are all good in the position,
link |
whereas tactics, you need to see this one line.
link |
So it's more precise.
link |
So this one's cool cause he can like,
link |
the queen can come out, the bishop can come out.
link |
Yeah, and that's one of the most popular checkmates
link |
and usually what you teach new students
link |
to try to cheese their friends
link |
cause then they feel really excited
link |
that they know this new trap
link |
where you bring the bishop and the queen out
link |
and you try to checkmate on F7.
link |
It's the trap that queen's gambit, Beth Harmon,
link |
falls for in their first game versus the janitor.
link |
She gets all mad cause she gets checkmated very early.
link |
Oh, that's the one she gets checkmated with?
link |
I love how you guys were actually paying attention
link |
to the games carefully,
link |
which is pretty cool that they did a good job
link |
of improving, evolving her game throughout the show
link |
to actually represent an actual growth of a chess player.
link |
They really took every detail into consideration,
link |
That's, I brought stuff into the center.
link |
We'll do the same.
link |
So then you want to develop your pieces.
link |
So in the beginning of the game,
link |
you want to take out the bishops and knights first
link |
because you don't want to start
link |
with the most valuable piece like the queen
link |
cause then it'll become a vulnerability
link |
and it'll get attacked very early on.
link |
And the reason you're taking out these two pieces first
link |
is cause you want to castle your king.
link |
So you can move a knight move or a bishop move
link |
and that's considered developing.
link |
So at this stage, not like even before
link |
getting a few pawns out.
link |
You usually want to start with getting a pawn
link |
because you want to get space in the center,
link |
but also when you push pawns,
link |
it helps free up some of your pieces.
link |
So usually start with one pawn first
link |
and then you could start taking out your minor pieces,
link |
which is the bishop and the knight.
link |
I have anxiety about a pawn just floating out there.
link |
But it's not attacked yet.
link |
See, those are what you call ghost threats.
link |
So you're scared of something that hasn't happened yet.
link |
So if I were to attack it.
link |
Feel like there's a deeper thing going on here.
link |
Actually, let's say.
link |
Yeah, so you're attacking the pawn in the center here
link |
and it is vulnerable, but as soon as you do that,
link |
I can develop my own knight and defend it as well.
link |
And now for people just listening,
link |
there's two pawns that just came out to meet each other
link |
and a couple of knights.
link |
You love the chess commentary.
link |
The pawns met after midnight.
link |
Well, I'm going to romanticize the game a bit.
link |
So like there's, if you bring out the bishops
link |
with the knights, you're matching that with the other.
link |
Black is going to match it.
link |
Whatever you're attacking with.
link |
Yep, he's developing.
link |
It's going to defend it.
link |
Now you could develop your bishop
link |
or your knight, whatever you'd like.
link |
Oh no, now you give him options.
link |
Yeah, there you go.
link |
Now I am attacking the pawn in the center,
link |
which is what you were afraid about before,
link |
but let's see how you defend it here.
link |
By doing this symmetrical thing,
link |
bringing out the knight on the other side.
link |
And actually your other move was good as well,
link |
defending with the pawn,
link |
because then you're freeing up space for your bishop.
link |
So you're basically trying to develop your pieces
link |
as quickly as possible, put your pawns in the center,
link |
and then get your king to safety.
link |
And that's usually the basic opening tips that you get.
link |
And it is kind of counterintuitive
link |
that safety is in the corner of the board for a king.
link |
That was always confusing to me, but you know.
link |
Three pawns in front,
link |
though you typically don't push those.
link |
Maybe like one, maybe I'll go one square,
link |
but these will be like the wall of defense
link |
that keep him safe.
link |
But another way to also think about it
link |
is your pieces usually wanna point towards the center.
link |
If you have a knight closer to the center
link |
than closer to the side,
link |
it actually has more squares it can go to.
link |
So a huge part of it is just wanting to have flexibility
link |
for where your pieces go.
link |
So more pieces are going to be able to make threats
link |
in the center or even open up the position.
link |
So since that's where it's most likely to open,
link |
you want your king somewhere
link |
where the position will stay closed
link |
so that you have the pawns to defend.
link |
You know, there's like rules like this,
link |
but I always wonder,
link |
cause I've built chess engines,
link |
but then you start to wonder like,
link |
why is it that positionally these things are good?
link |
Like you've built up an intuition about it,
link |
but I wish, and that's the thing that would be amazing
link |
if engines could explain,
link |
why is this kind of thing better than this kind of thing?
link |
You start to build up an intuition,
link |
but if I'm just like knowing nothing about chess,
link |
it feels confusing that cornering your king,
link |
like getting him like trapped here.
link |
Like it feels like you could get checkmated easier there
link |
if I was just using like dumb intuition,
link |
but it seems like that's not the case.
link |
I imagine maybe, cause AlphaZero learned
link |
by playing games against itself, right?
link |
And I imagine if you have a lot of games
link |
and you do build an intuition,
link |
because if you were to keep your king in the center,
link |
you just see that in those games,
link |
you're dealing with threats a lot more often.
link |
But yeah, there's shortcut rules
link |
and this doesn't even mean it's the best way to play chess
link |
as we've seen with AlphaZero
link |
kind of changing the rules of the game a little bit.
link |
But as a human, to learn it from scratch
link |
is a lot more difficult than to start with principles.
link |
So that's why beginners usually learn chess this way.
link |
Yeah, because you're playing other humans
link |
and the other humans have also operated
link |
on a different principles.
link |
And that's why people that come up now
link |
that are training with engines
link |
are just going to be much better
link |
than the people of the past
link |
because they're gonna try out weirder ideas
link |
that go against the principles of old.
link |
And they're gonna do like weird stuff,
link |
including sacrifices and stuff like that.
link |
Yeah, and I also think that's why AlphaZero was so shocking
link |
because Stockfish was using an opening database.
link |
So it was already based off of knowledge
link |
that humans have from playing chess for years
link |
that we just thought is how you're supposed to play.
link |
Whereas AlphaZero just learned
link |
from playing the game so many times
link |
and came up with very novel opening ideas.
link |
Were you impressed by AlphaZero?
link |
Have you seen some of the games?
link |
I have seen some of the games.
link |
I think impressed, bewildered, and motivated
link |
were the three things I experienced.
link |
I think Magnus said he was also impressed
link |
that it could easily be mistaken for creativity.
link |
That's his trash talk towards the AI.
link |
That was a beautiful sentence.
link |
I was listening to the podcast.
link |
I mean, as a human, I agree with him
link |
because you don't wanna give the machine
link |
the power of creativity,
link |
but if it looks creative, give it a compliment.
link |
I know that you're being nice to the machines
link |
in case they are ever looking back through this.
link |
What else is there?
link |
What other principles are there for the opening?
link |
You can go a little bit more forward, let's say.
link |
Yeah, we can finish full development.
link |
Positions like this, let's just say
link |
you developed all of your pieces.
link |
So that's like a really nice,
link |
like nobody took any pieces
link |
and we're just in a nice positional thing.
link |
Yeah, so it's not actually a very accurate one.
link |
So I'm actually, I could put a different one on the board,
link |
but usually after you've developed all of your pieces,
link |
you wanna get your queen out a little bit
link |
to connect your rooks,
link |
and you also start thinking about certain pawn pushes
link |
and getting more space.
link |
But another good tip is just can you improve
link |
the position of your pieces?
link |
Think about timing.
link |
So if you've already moved a piece once
link |
and there's a piece that hasn't moved at all,
link |
then you wanna focus on the piece that hasn't moved at all
link |
to be able to have it more likely to jump into the game.
link |
Right, so don't move pieces multiple times.
link |
Like try to move it to the most optimal position.
link |
Yeah, that makes sense.
link |
What, so what's the Indian,
link |
I think we kind of went over it,
link |
but did you ever say why you like it so much?
link |
Because it's weird?
link |
Because it's king size?
link |
I liked it because it's a very fun, aggressive defense
link |
where you're just throwing your pieces towards white,
link |
and there's so many sacrificing opportunities.
link |
And for some reason,
link |
tactical games always feel like the most beautiful,
link |
the most satisfying,
link |
and that's what I liked about the King's Indian.
link |
But I also suffered a lot from this love
link |
because I would play things
link |
that are not necessarily correct,
link |
then my attack wouldn't pan out,
link |
and then I would just struggle the rest of the game
link |
having no play and just trying to defend.
link |
So if you're always attacking,
link |
Wikipedia also says that,
link |
that you're known for your attacking play.
link |
It's also known for losses according to Stanford.
link |
Okay, let's not bring that up.
link |
See Wikipedia doesn't talk trash,
link |
it just says nice things.
link |
Yeah, Wikipedia's a lot nicer.
link |
I actually played a lot of positional chess in classic
link |
because I really like the slow squeeze,
link |
but when I transitioned to playing a lot of online chess,
link |
it's almost as if I was looking
link |
for more instant gratification
link |
because it feels so much better
link |
to beat someone with an attack.
link |
And even if sometimes it doesn't pan out,
link |
I was okay with it because you get so many games in.
link |
So I think my style in online chess
link |
really changed from my classical chess.
link |
What about you Andrea?
link |
Do you have a style?
link |
Are you attacking?
link |
Are you a more like conservative defensive player?
link |
Opening wise, I like to play more positionally.
link |
Like I like to push T4 and just slowly improve my pieces
link |
and slowly get an attack.
link |
But like Alex said, if you're playing bullet chess
link |
or blitz against viewers,
link |
you often like wanna play riskier moves
link |
that may not be as good.
link |
And then that's kind of when I would play more aggressive.
link |
But I do enjoy tournaments for that reason
link |
because then like once you're 15 moves in,
link |
which as soon as you're out of your prep,
link |
I like sitting and thinking in more positional,
link |
yeah, positional middle games.
link |
One of the games you found to be pretty cool
link |
was the Hakara Nakamura versus Galfan in 2009.
link |
And that one I think includes the King's Indian defense.
link |
Why is that an interesting one to you?
link |
I also play the King's Indian as black
link |
and I love this model game.
link |
But as Alex was saying,
link |
like all these advantages for the King's Indian.
link |
But now there's this one line
link |
that like every higher rated player
link |
just destroys my King's Indian.
link |
And you see these beautiful games and like,
link |
ah, yes, I wanna play for these ideas.
link |
But now no one plays into it anymore
link |
and you just get demolished.
link |
So this is why I don't play the King's Indian anymore,
link |
but not to ruin the fun.
link |
It's a love hate relationship, truly.
link |
But that's like the higher level players do
link |
or does everybody?
link |
Yeah, if you're studying openings
link |
and you know this line as white,
link |
you just, you automatically get the upper edge.
link |
And that's kind of how openings develop.
link |
You start having players trying new lines
link |
and then you see ones and then everybody adopts it
link |
if they think it's the best one.
link |
But yeah, so Hikaru is really known
link |
for his aggressive style of play.
link |
Is Hikaru black here or what?
link |
Yeah, Hikaru is black here.
link |
So he's playing the King's Indian.
link |
And as you can see in this position,
link |
white already has a lot, a huge center advantage.
link |
But what Hikaru is gonna start doing
link |
even with the next move is bringing all of his pieces
link |
towards the white King side,
link |
because his plan is to start pushing his pawns
link |
towards the white King and ignore the attack
link |
that goes on in the Queen side.
link |
It's all of the dream attack with the King's Indian.
link |
So there's a complete asymmetry towards the King side
link |
and the left side of the board is a ton of pieces.
link |
Wow, he moved the knight like three times in a row.
link |
Yep, and that's what you need to do
link |
because you have to move the knight
link |
in order to make space for your pawn.
link |
So again, this is why it's so counterintuitive
link |
and Stockfish doesn't like it.
link |
You're putting almost most of your pieces on the back rank
link |
and you're pushing your King side pawns
link |
and you're blocking your own dark squared Bishop.
link |
So none of it makes sense.
link |
You're mimicking it, that's awesome.
link |
Okay, so yeah, here you see white going
link |
for a Queen side attack,
link |
black going for the King side attack
link |
and you can keep going a little bit
link |
and I'll wait to where he starts with the pretty sacrifices.
link |
It's more fun to analyze games in person
link |
than on the computer, I think.
link |
Okay, so here Hikaru is preparing the attack
link |
and what I really like about this game
link |
is that he finds these tactics
link |
that are not necessarily what a computer would go for
link |
but it's very hard to face as a human
link |
and that's why a lot of people play the King's Indian
link |
because in practice it's hard to defend against.
link |
So we can keep moving a little bit forward.
link |
Yep, so white is just continuing the King side plan.
link |
No, is that like the first piece
link |
I think that's taken in the game?
link |
Yep, that's the first trade.
link |
Exactly, Hikaru had to pause his attack for a little bit
link |
to just make sure that white didn't have
link |
two dire threats on the Queen side.
link |
So cool to see the asymmetry of this thing.
link |
Exactly, that's what's beautiful about the King's Indian.
link |
And just one thing to highlight
link |
because his rook move here is very bizarre
link |
and typically like a computer probably didn't like this
link |
but the ideas are interesting
link |
because this is a major weakness for black
link |
that they're coming to attack
link |
and he's also making room for his Bishop
link |
to come backwards and challenge.
link |
So this is like a human like maneuver
link |
that computers would like.
link |
I think computers would like this though
link |
because you'd have to move it regardless
link |
because he takes the pawn here
link |
and his rook would be under attack.
link |
Yeah, well having looked at it,
link |
when I actually studied this as a line
link |
and this right away isn't the best move cutting computer.
link |
So actually that's such a good question.
link |
So do you guys when you study games use your mind
link |
but do you also use computers to build up your intuition
link |
of like looking at a position like this
link |
and what would a computer do
link |
and then try to understand why it wants to do that?
link |
When I was studying seriously
link |
I would try to use my own mind
link |
because you're never gonna get the exact same position
link |
so you really need to notice trends
link |
and often computers will give you moves
link |
that are only specific to that position
link |
because of a certain tactic.
link |
But I do use computers to check what I did
link |
and make sure I didn't make any obvious blunder
link |
that I might have missed.
link |
What does a computer tell you?
link |
Just like what is the best move
link |
or does it give you any kind of explanation of why?
link |
It doesn't tell you why
link |
but it gives you the different valuations of the position
link |
like black is down a half pawn here or something like that
link |
but it hints you towards what the right move is
link |
and then it's on you to figure out why
link |
and you can usually figure out why if not right away
link |
then just by going through a few moves
link |
and being like, oh, okay, that makes sense.
link |
I feel like a computer will take you down
link |
with some weird lines potentially like sacrifice.
link |
Like why the hell am I sacrificing this?
link |
Well, we'll get to the pretty sacrifice soon.
link |
So we could just keep playing.
link |
The pawns are being pushed forward.
link |
Yeah, and Hikaru is kind of ignoring
link |
the queen side attack here.
link |
They basically both only reply to each other's plan
link |
when they have to.
link |
This is where you convert all the podcast viewers
link |
They have no idea what we're talking about right now.
link |
There is a Zen like experience
link |
of just like listening and imagining.
link |
Just imagine the pieces on the ceiling.
link |
Yeah, we should be calling them out
link |
and then people will be freaking out even more.
link |
Am I supposed to keep track of what the position is?
link |
It's too late now.
link |
How hard is blindfold chess?
link |
Like are you able to keep the mind?
link |
I've played blindfold chess before.
link |
For me, it's pretty hard.
link |
It's not a muscle that I've trained as much
link |
and I'm very visual when it comes to chess.
link |
But it is one as a top player
link |
that starts becoming very second nature for you.
link |
Actually, this is what, I talked to Magnus about this.
link |
Maybe I was, again, influenced by Queen's Gambit.
link |
What do you actually visualize when it's in your head?
link |
So for Magnus, it was a boring 2D board.
link |
Do you have some kind of?
link |
That's every chess player, no.
link |
You don't have like,
link |
cause you know some chess like computer games,
link |
you can do all kinds of skins and like fancy stuff.
link |
You don't have any fancy stuff?
link |
Sadly, I don't have like a cool 3D warrior mode on.
link |
It's just the basic.
link |
I just have the default chess base board in my head.
link |
Cause you don't, yeah, you can't use your brain power
link |
for adding colors to it
link |
cause you already have to keep track of the pieces.
link |
And it's one board at a time?
link |
The current position.
link |
Yeah, I bet every chess.
link |
I wonder if there's any who hit it differently.
link |
There's certain players who are really good
link |
and they can even play blindfold chess
link |
and play multiple games at the same time.
link |
So I would be curious how they do it.
link |
But usually when you're thinking of one game,
link |
that's the only one in your mind.
link |
Yeah, but you have to do this operation
link |
where you move one piece.
link |
You're doing like the branch analysis.
link |
Like, and so you still have to somehow visualize
link |
the branching process and not forget stuff.
link |
Maybe that's like constant memory recall or something.
link |
You're always looking at one board at a time, but.
link |
And you're also, oh, cause you're also looking in the future.
link |
Cause then you have to back track.
link |
Calculating variations and coming back.
link |
I guess you're keeping the position in your memory.
link |
So you're remembering where all the pieces are
link |
and then you're playing it out on one board
link |
and then you can come back to the initial one
link |
that you started with that you kind of just keep
link |
in your brain and it's also easier to come back to it
link |
once you've played a position from it.
link |
I feel like it's that memory recall
link |
that gets you to blunder.
link |
So I'll like see that I'm being attacked by certain things,
link |
but then because I get so exhausted thinking
link |
about a different thing, I forget,
link |
I actually forget about an entire branch of things
link |
that I was supposed to be worried about.
link |
It happens very often.
link |
If you spend a bunch of time calculating in a position,
link |
let's say like when you're really in trouble
link |
and you're spending 15, 20 minutes calculating,
link |
you'll forget about something that you spotted like,
link |
oh, if I do these two, three moves, I'll walk into a trap
link |
cause you've looked at so many lines and then you play it
link |
and then you see it and you're like, oh, I looked at it
link |
and I saw it, but I forgot about it.
link |
It's often called tunneling where you're just looking
link |
so deeply on one thing you forget about the rest
link |
And it's the worst when, at least in a beginner level,
link |
there's like a, I don't know, a Bishop just sitting there,
link |
obviously attacking your like queen or something.
link |
And then you just forget that Bishop exists.
link |
Cause if they just sit there for a few moves
link |
and don't move, you just forget their existence.
link |
And then it's just, yeah, that's definitely very embarrassing.
link |
Well, it happens to everyone, so.
link |
Okay, so we see a few trades happening on the queen side
link |
where he had to go for those, otherwise he's in trouble.
link |
And this is where the game, oh, sorry.
link |
This is where it gets exciting.
link |
Yeah, so Knight H4 is really when the sacrifice starts.
link |
And here the two important pawns are the ones in front
link |
of the King, cause they're helping with the entire defense
link |
and Hikaru is actually preparing to sacrifice his Knight
link |
for a pawn just so that he can continue his attack
link |
and open up the position.
link |
Because if you don't do that here as black
link |
and don't get some kind of attack,
link |
you are completely lost on the queen side.
link |
And also you've pushed all of your own king side pawns,
link |
so you're gonna be in danger.
link |
So it's one of those do or die moments.
link |
Oh, okay, so that's what makes it all in,
link |
cause the King is wide open.
link |
Yeah, yeah, the King is wide open
link |
and all of White's pieces are pointed
link |
towards the queen side too, where you're also cramped.
link |
So is the attack primarily by black done
link |
by the two pawns and the Knight?
link |
And the light squared Bishop is always extremely important.
link |
So you don't wanna trade this in the King's Indian
link |
because it's very helpful for a lot of attacks.
link |
Even though it's on the other side of the board,
link |
I guess it can go all the way across in,
link |
like I'm not sure what it's doing here,
link |
but probably threatening.
link |
Like for example, if it was another move black
link |
could have played would be something like Bishop H3,
link |
where if you take the Bishop,
link |
you actually get mated on G2.
link |
So let's say you take here
link |
and then you could push the pawn
link |
and then it would be checkmate.
link |
So you're kind of using your Bishop to sacrifice
link |
against White's King side pawns.
link |
Yeah, I'll be freaking out if their Bishop did that.
link |
What are they up to?
link |
Right, and that's the thing,
link |
this position looks very scary as White
link |
because all of Black's pawns are starting
link |
to come towards you.
link |
And it's one of those things where humans
link |
do start to worry in these positions,
link |
whereas computers obviously can just calculate
link |
the best line and maybe the attack doesn't go through.
link |
So you're saying the computer might say
link |
that the White is actually a slight favorite here?
link |
Yeah, potentially.
link |
Okay, so then White makes a little bit of room
link |
by moving the Rook.
link |
And the attack begins.
link |
I like the commentary here.
link |
The Knight is hugging the King.
link |
And actually White can't even take the King here
link |
because then H4 and H3 is coming in.
link |
White can't take the Knight.
link |
Yeah, oh did I say King?
link |
Yes, thank you, the Knight.
link |
White can't take the Knight because why?
link |
So if White takes the Knight here,
link |
then Black starts pushing his pawn to H4
link |
with H3 incoming and the idea of trying
link |
to defend against this is, it looks very difficult.
link |
So White just chooses.
link |
It'd be cool to watch a chess game,
link |
to experience watching it without understanding it
link |
Feel like I could use that to make better content.
link |
I mean, that's what getting drunk does.
link |
Unfortunately for chess players,
link |
it never leaves your brain.
link |
Doesn't matter how.
link |
But this is actually a very cute move
link |
because Black's Queen is under attack,
link |
but the King is so cramped that he can't actually take it
link |
or he's gonna get checkmated by a pawn,
link |
which is a sad way to go cruelly.
link |
Yeah, those pawns are doing a lot of work here.
link |
That is the King's Indian.
link |
This is the King's Indian player's dream.
link |
The attack of the King side pawns.
link |
Yeah, these pawns are like, right,
link |
so they're the ones that are doing a lot
link |
of the threatening.
link |
Right, and they're also opening up the position
link |
to bring more of the pieces in.
link |
But the pawns kind of help break open the King side,
link |
but they can't checkmate by themselves.
link |
So after the pawns come in,
link |
that's when you need to start bringing in pieces as well,
link |
which you will see Ahi Kar do here.
link |
Okay. There you go.
link |
He puts. One more sacrifice.
link |
This was actually another beautiful sacrifice in the game.
link |
But then puts the King in check with a pawn.
link |
Right, and the pawn is going to be given here for free,
link |
but the idea is you're giving your own piece
link |
because you want to have more space and open up the King,
link |
which is what you're always trying to do
link |
when you have a King side.
link |
You're trying to remove as many of the King's defenders
link |
as you can without giving up too much.
link |
And then you have a ton of pieces on the King side
link |
for black, just waiting to.
link |
And notice how every single move,
link |
white is getting attacked.
link |
Like they're just never getting a break.
link |
Black just keeps throwing all their pieces.
link |
So it's funny that black's Queen has been hanging
link |
for like three moves now
link |
and white still can't do anything about it.
link |
So rook puts the King in check.
link |
And then again, we leave the Queen hanging
link |
and you develop a piece,
link |
this light squared Bishop that's so important,
link |
and you're once again threatening checkmate on G2.
link |
And then Bishops coming to the game.
link |
Once again, the Queen hanging.
link |
I mean, the game is just so beautiful.
link |
The amount of calculation Hikaru put into this position.
link |
It feels like so much is in danger.
link |
It's so interesting.
link |
And Knight takes what?
link |
So now his Queen is attacked twice
link |
and he doesn't care.
link |
He takes the Bishop
link |
and he's still threatening the checkmate on G2.
link |
And then the Queen takes the Bishop.
link |
So now he's defending against G2
link |
and black just goes and grabs some material back here.
link |
So here, black is already is winning.
link |
Well, he ends up winning a Knight here
link |
because black had to be so much on the defensive.
link |
He's just taking pieces.
link |
Yeah, I mean at this point,
link |
you're up two whole pieces.
link |
So you knew it was in here.
link |
And then you take,
link |
and then the rook takes
link |
and there's not as much of an attack on the King anymore,
link |
but Hikaru is up a Knight here,
link |
Yeah, what's the correct way of saying that?
link |
Because I played Demis Hassabis.
link |
I played him in chess.
link |
And then I quickly realized like from his facial expressions
link |
that I should have like stopped playing.
link |
It was like, it's already set.
link |
And then he's like, like, this is the good time to like,
link |
You're not gonna get to checkmate where like this,
link |
you know, he could see like,
link |
the checkmate is like five or seven moves away or something.
link |
And what's the play?
link |
Usually you have to resign if you're in a position
link |
or you should through chess etiquette resign
link |
when you're in a position where your opponent
link |
is definitely gonna win out of respect.
link |
Like if you're a piece down.
link |
And obviously all top grandmasters do that.
link |
The only people who don't do that is kids
link |
because their coaches.
link |
They love to play till the checkmate.
link |
Their coaches always tell them never resign
link |
and they'll be in hopelessly lost positions
link |
playing against like two rooks, a king,
link |
and they only have their sole king,
link |
but they're still playing on.
link |
So that's a position where it's obvious they can't win.
link |
Because the kids might make errors.
link |
And so it might as well.
link |
That was the interesting thing about,
link |
I think game six of the previous world championship
link |
Was it the one where he beat Nap?
link |
Yeah, the first time he beat him,
link |
where it was like, he said that,
link |
I don't know how often you come across
link |
this kind of situation.
link |
He said, the engines predict a draw,
link |
but that doesn't mean that it's going to be a draw.
link |
So you play on hoping that you take a person into,
link |
I mean, this is, I guess, an end game thing.
link |
You take them to deep water
link |
and they make a positional mistake or something.
link |
I don't know when, like he from his gut knows
link |
that this is supposed to be a draw,
link |
but he still plays on.
link |
Yeah, I mean, that is one where
link |
it could theoretically be a draw,
link |
but it could be very hard to defend
link |
because it's a hard technique to know as a human.
link |
And especially in that game,
link |
I know that Nepo was also in time pressure,
link |
which makes it even harder.
link |
So in situations like that, you should always continue.
link |
It's more where an engine would give you something
link |
like plus 10 or something where it's not just clearly a win,
link |
but anybody would know how to win.
link |
And that's where you're usually supposed to resign.
link |
So what do you find beautiful about this game?
link |
Is it the attacking chess and just the asymmetry of it?
link |
It's the asymmetry.
link |
And it's the fact that this is the dream
link |
for the King's Indian,
link |
where you're able to get a beautiful attack.
link |
And there was also those two really nice sacrifices
link |
where Black just continuously kept putting pressure
link |
on White's King to the point where he was able
link |
And the best part of it is that if the attack didn't work
link |
out, Black would have been completely lost.
link |
How often does that happen, by the way?
link |
Like as an attacking player,
link |
how often do you put yourself in the position of like,
link |
I'm screwed unless this works out?
link |
In online chess more than I should.
link |
And it's usually when I sacrifice,
link |
I know it's either gonna work or I'm lost.
link |
And those are the most fun positions to play usually.
link |
But in tournaments, if you're doing a sacrifice,
link |
you're playing it with 100% confidence
link |
because you're taking the time to calculate it.
link |
But yeah, when you have three minutes,
link |
you don't have time.
link |
So you take a whim and you follow your intuition
link |
and you find out later.
link |
Or you're very confident it'll work
link |
and you haven't calculated all the way until the end,
link |
but you've calculated to the point where you have enough
link |
in exchange for the sack
link |
and you think you could play that position.
link |
How do you train chess these days?
link |
What's, do you practice?
link |
Do you do deliberate practice?
link |
I mean, you're in this tough position
link |
because you're also a creator and educator and entertainer.
link |
So do you try to put in time of like daily practice?
link |
I don't train chess anymore when I'm focusing on creating.
link |
I do if I'm preparing for a tournament.
link |
But back in the day,
link |
I would train very seriously for tournaments.
link |
And the way it would work is I do opening preparation
link |
for a specific tournament
link |
because that's when you really need to have
link |
those lines memorized
link |
and you could also prepare for specific opponents.
link |
And I would do tactics to make sure I stay sharp.
link |
So those were the two things I would do every single day
link |
for a tournament and then mix up the rest
link |
with like maybe some end games,
link |
maybe some positional chess.
link |
So what does tactics preparation looks like?
link |
Do you do like a puzzle, like a random puzzle thing?
link |
Yeah, I would just train puzzles
link |
for at least like 30 to 60 minutes or books.
link |
And sometimes you were,
link |
and there's different kinds of puzzles.
link |
One you could train for pattern recognition
link |
where you're supposed to go through them very quickly.
link |
And that's just so that when you're playing the game,
link |
if your mind is tired,
link |
it's still keeping track of things
link |
a little bit more easily.
link |
And then there's where you're practicing your combination
link |
and those sometimes take like 20 minutes to find
link |
because you have to just calculate a lot.
link |
And it's more like making sure
link |
that you've trained with that muscle.
link |
But Andrea is actually very good at finding ways
link |
to balance and still study while also doing content.
link |
Yeah, so what, you're able to do both?
link |
That's the hard thing.
link |
I was getting very irritated with content
link |
because I'm very competitive.
link |
I don't like playing chess if I'm losing.
link |
And if you're talking and entertaining,
link |
you're gonna be losing more games than winning.
link |
So then I started doing more training streams
link |
where I'd bring on my coach.
link |
And one of the things that I wanted to add
link |
to Alex's training repertoire.
link |
So I would do daily puzzles every time I'm streaming,
link |
which helped me a lot, even if it's like,
link |
there's this thing on chess.com called Puzzle Rush,
link |
where you have three minutes
link |
and you just do puzzle after puzzle
link |
where they get incrementally harder.
link |
And it's just a really good way
link |
to build your pattern recognition,
link |
especially when you're rusty.
link |
So I would do that till I hit a high score
link |
and I wouldn't play any blitz
link |
until I hit the score that I want.
link |
But that's kind of more like the fun part of chess studying.
link |
The very important one is actually analyzing your losses
link |
in your tournament games.
link |
And first you sit and you look through your mistake yourself
link |
and try to see if you can find the better moves.
link |
And then that's when you would check over with a computer
link |
to see if you're right.
link |
So game analysis is also very important, which I try to do.
link |
I remember to give a shout out,
link |
I listened to a couple of episodes
link |
of the Perpetual Chess Podcast, which is pretty good.
link |
But whatever I listened to, I remember the,
link |
it's, I think they really focus on like teaching people.
link |
Yeah, how to play, how to train, all that kind of stuff.
link |
They do like, yeah, I'm looking now, adult improver.
link |
So basically like how do regular noobs get better at chess?
link |
One of the things that, one of the person that said,
link |
I think he was the grandmaster, but he said,
link |
to maximize the amount of time you spend every day of like,
link |
basically as you were saying, like suffering.
link |
So like you, it's not about the,
link |
like you should be thinking.
link |
You should be doing calculating.
link |
So it's the opposite of what Magnus said.
link |
Like you should be doing a lot of time.
link |
It doesn't matter what the puzzle is
link |
or whatever the hell you're doing,
link |
but you should be like doing that difficult calculation.
link |
That's how you get better.
link |
Yeah, it really depends what you're training.
link |
Cause I used to think the same,
link |
but it depends what you're weaker at.
link |
Cause if you're doing the really difficult puzzles,
link |
you're training for like visualization
link |
and calculating more moves ahead than you typically would,
link |
which maybe you wouldn't get into that as often
link |
in a regular game because typically you run into like
link |
three to four tactics, which are actually the easier
link |
and more fun ones to solve.
link |
So it really depends.
link |
And on top of that, as a hobbyist,
link |
your motivation is very different
link |
than when you're playing from a young age
link |
and have pretty high competitive ambition.
link |
And a lot of people who are new to chess,
link |
you could basically work on anything and still improve.
link |
So if you're focusing on something you like,
link |
you're probably gonna stick to it more
link |
and be more consistent,
link |
which I think is more helpful longterm.
link |
What was the most embarrassing loss of your career?
link |
I had so many flashbacks,
link |
but I'm so glad it's a question for Andrea.
link |
I like that you specified.
link |
You know, it's funny.
link |
I mean, because you said you're so competitive and like.
link |
I could tell just even from the way you said it,
link |
that like you hate losing.
link |
Yeah, I mean, that was the reason I hated chess
link |
in high school, cause it'd always be like,
link |
but okay, there's many traumatizing losses
link |
where it's like your top three, you're running for first.
link |
And then you throw a game you shouldn't,
link |
and this shouldn't hurt my ego as much as it does,
link |
but it's always kids.
link |
Or when I was a high school girl,
link |
it's the younger boys who are really cocky.
link |
And when they win, they start rubbing it in your face
link |
and they're yawning and looking around
link |
when like 90% of the game you were destroying them
link |
and you had this one tiny mistake
link |
and now their ego's huge.
link |
But I'll never forget I was playing like
link |
for a chess scholarship.
link |
And it was tiebreaker for first,
link |
and I think I lost to a 12 year old girl
link |
who couldn't even use the scholarship,
link |
but she beat me in one first place
link |
and she got some other prize.
link |
So yeah, I was losing to that little girl
link |
who's literally like 2300 now, so makes sense.
link |
Right, you keep telling yourself that.
link |
What do you think, do you think Gasparro was feeling that
link |
when he was playing 13 year old Magnus?
link |
As much as it's a beauty of the sport
link |
that any age can be brilliant, any demographic, anything,
link |
I feel like when you're adults
link |
and you're paired against the kid,
link |
it's just hard not to let it get to you.
link |
And it depends, maybe if they're a really sweet kid,
link |
but most of the times I play kids,
link |
they're just really arrogant.
link |
And I don't think they do it intentionally
link |
because they're kids.
link |
I mean, there is a certain etiquette thing
link |
where like you said, yawning, and in general,
link |
If they're kids, there's no etiquette.
link |
Yeah, the kids traumatized me too.
link |
I was playing in Vegas and it was not even my opponent.
link |
It was the board next to me.
link |
And the kid was at least 10 years old, 12 max,
link |
and he was playing against an adult
link |
and he takes out his hand and he starts doing a fake phone
link |
to which the kid sitting across diagonally
link |
picks up their banana and starts talking like it's a phone
link |
and they're just mouthing words
link |
while their two adult opponents
link |
are thinking intensely at the game.
link |
And then I see the adult look up, look at the kid,
link |
just making banana phone and the despair in his eyes
link |
And they're not even doing it for trash talk.
link |
They're just bored.
link |
They're just bored kids.
link |
cause you play a bunch of people for your channel.
link |
What was the most like memorable?
link |
What's the most fun, most intense?
link |
There's a bunch of fun ones.
link |
You've played kids before, some trash talking kids.
link |
That sounds great.
link |
They trash talk kids.
link |
Nothing like losing a 12 year old
link |
who then starts doing a Fortnite dance.
link |
So that actually happened?
link |
He is a very young master.
link |
I think he became master
link |
when he was like nine years old or something.
link |
And he's very good at chess and doing a lot of training,
link |
but he's also incredibly good at trash talking.
link |
And he beat me one game and he stood up
link |
and he started doing the Fortnite dance.
link |
So you gotta just swallow your pride in those moments.
link |
What is that culture of like street chess players?
link |
It seems pretty interesting.
link |
Like, I don't know,
link |
that seems to be celebrating the beauty of the game.
link |
It's the trash talking, but also having fun with it,
link |
but also taking it seriously.
link |
And you've done a few of those.
link |
Did you go to New York?
link |
Yeah, in Union Square Park in Washington Square.
link |
What was that like?
link |
It's such a unique place.
link |
I haven't seen it anywhere else in the US
link |
where people are just professional chess hustlers,
link |
even if they're not necessarily a top player,
link |
but they play chess every single day.
link |
And so many of them learn chess by themselves
link |
and never had a professional coach.
link |
So they are quite good at it.
link |
They're also very tight knit.
link |
They all know each other.
link |
And it's a very social thing
link |
where you're not just playing chess.
link |
It's the experience of getting to know this person
link |
who's very much a personality and they talk to you.
link |
They could either give you tips
link |
or they could be really chatty and talk to you during.
link |
So it's a chess experience rather than just playing a game.
link |
Do you tell them like what your rating is
link |
or do you just let people, like both ways,
link |
do you discover how good the person actually is?
link |
Initially, I loved going and not telling people my rating
link |
and just surprising them and winning games.
link |
But now we've gone so many times that they just know us.
link |
So we can't get away with it anymore.
link |
One time, actually, I don't know if I should share this,
link |
but one time we dressed up as grandmothers
link |
and we had prosthetics on our face.
link |
And I think they still recognized us.
link |
Yeah, it's probably the, there's other components,
link |
like probably the trash talk and all that kind of stuff.
link |
Actually, no, it was funny.
link |
We were talking like grandmothers,
link |
but it was the way I held, it was the way I held them.
link |
Grandmother talk like, back of my day.
link |
No, no, no, no, no, no, we're not bringing this back.
link |
We're not bringing this back.
link |
Okay, what were your names, what were the code names?
link |
I think it was Edna, Edna, and I had a really,
link |
I can't remember the other one.
link |
But it was embarrassing because we were walking so slowly
link |
and Andrea dropped her cane or something at one point
link |
and then people in the park came to help her.
link |
We felt so embarrassed.
link |
But yeah, it was funny.
link |
Cause they didn't know it was us
link |
until he saw the way I reached for my pawn.
link |
And he said, the way you held your pawn, I knew it was you.
link |
It was like such a niche thing.
link |
That was what blew the grandma cover.
link |
Yeah, do you have a style of how you play physically?
link |
Is that recognizable?
link |
I didn't think we did until grandma went to play chess, but.
link |
Yeah, I've never thought about that.
link |
Yeah, I think our style is just trash talking now.
link |
Style is very, if you're talking about style
link |
on YouTube and Twitch, we definitely have a distinctive style.
link |
What's your distinctive, just talking shit?
link |
But not going too far.
link |
No, no, definitely that's, definitely going to.
link |
If it's us two against each other.
link |
Oh, we trash talk each other so hard.
link |
And I love looking at Andrea
link |
and watching her little nose scrunch up
link |
as she's annoyed and the satisfaction
link |
I get when that happens.
link |
How many times do you play against each other
link |
on online publicly?
link |
I think I've seen a couple of games.
link |
We played a lot of times.
link |
We try not to do it too often cause it's repetitive,
link |
but every now and then when we haven't done it for a while,
link |
we'll go at it again.
link |
What do you mean repetitive?
link |
Is that implied trash talk right there?
link |
No, it just, we play similar openings.
link |
So you just start seeing the same position too often.
link |
It's the same opening against each other every time.
link |
Andrea's really good at opening.
link |
So I just start playing bad openings
link |
to get her out of her preparation.
link |
Cause I don't like opening theory very much.
link |
I just like playing the game
link |
and getting into middle games and end games.
link |
But yeah, typically the only time we're playing each other
link |
is when we're setting up in the park
link |
and we don't have opponents yet and we need content.
link |
So we just play each other until people show up.
link |
But we always put stakes on the line,
link |
which makes it very interesting.
link |
Cause otherwise it wouldn't be fun to play each other
link |
if there's no stakes.
link |
Where's the most fun place you've played?
link |
And it was actually when we set up in Times Square one night,
link |
we just brought a table with us and chess.
link |
And it's not even where people usually play chess,
link |
but it was so lively.
link |
There were all of the lights out
link |
and so many people just kept stopping by to play chess.
link |
And it was really one of my favorite streams.
link |
It's just the opposite of like the classical chess world.
link |
There's music, there's cars,
link |
there's street dancers,
link |
even some naked people walking around
link |
who we had to be careful not to get banned.
link |
But I honestly really liked the chaotic environments
link |
Cause I think it's a good way
link |
to break more into the mainstream culture
link |
and make it entertaining and appealing
link |
to anyone who doesn't know anything about chess.
link |
So that's the way.
link |
And also in an authentic way,
link |
because it's what we really like about chess
link |
when you're just enjoying the game,
link |
but also the atmosphere
link |
and the people who you're playing with.
link |
And that's one of the things that I think you see less
link |
when you're just thinking of chess as a competitive thing.
link |
You've mentioned a few other games,
link |
like the Bobby Fischer games,
link |
the Candidates match,
link |
the game of the century,
link |
which I feel like is a weird game
link |
to call the game of the century
link |
when there's still like a few decades left in the century.
link |
I mean, it wasn't an official thing.
link |
It was just the chess journalist.
link |
It's just like made on a chess article.
link |
But it's stuck if you look on.
link |
Yeah, no, it did stick.
link |
This is all I do research wise.
link |
so that particular one was a 13 year old Fischer
link |
and he did a queen sacrifice.
link |
I wonder, there's that movie searching for Bobby Fischer.
link |
Cause didn't they have a young somebody
link |
who's supposed to be kind of like Bobby Fischer
link |
played by Josh Waitzkin.
link |
Yeah, I think he ended up being an international master.
link |
It wasn't based on Bobby Fischer.
link |
It was based on another player,
link |
but I liked how they told it through the lens
link |
of being inspired by Bobby Fischer.
link |
Do you remember that game?
link |
Like why do you think it was dubbed the game of the century?
link |
It was just journalists being like.
link |
I think part of it was the atmosphere
link |
where you have the US junior champion
link |
who's this 13 year old nobody.
link |
And it's the first time he's playing
link |
in a very competitive landscape
link |
against some of the top American players.
link |
And he goes up against an international master.
link |
So somebody who's a lot stronger than he is
link |
who's played in Olympiads for the American team.
link |
He's having a bad tournament,
link |
but then he has this one game
link |
where he just shows off his tactical prowess
link |
and plays incredibly well.
link |
And I don't know if this is true,
link |
but in the paper clippings of it,
link |
they'd say things like grandmasters were by the board
link |
and they would say things like,
link |
oh, Bobby is lost in this position.
link |
But there's this 13 year old kid
link |
who's just playing incredibly well.
link |
And then that also happened
link |
before Bobby's started really rapidly improving at chess.
link |
Not that people knew that,
link |
but he kind of seemed like a rising star.
link |
So I think the game was beautiful,
link |
but I also think the idea of a 13 year old kid
link |
coming out from nowhere
link |
and beating a top American player was very fascinating.
link |
And there was aggressive chess
link |
and it was interesting ideas.
link |
Yeah, taking big risks.
link |
It's cool to see a 13 year old do that.
link |
you mentioned that his match against Mark Taimano
link |
from their 71 candidates match
link |
was interesting in some way.
link |
Why is it interesting to you?
link |
Move 45, I'm looking at some notes.
link |
This is with the Bishop E3.
link |
I think I know which one you're talking about.
link |
It's, I wouldn't say,
link |
a lot of these games on these lists
link |
I think are really great combinations
link |
that when tactics come into play,
link |
which is what we're talking about.
link |
But they're very good at exemplifying lessons.
link |
This is why you study famous games.
link |
So you can apply these lessons to your own games.
link |
And I think the main takeaway for this one
link |
was they're punishing their opponent
link |
from steering away from opening principles,
link |
which is something that we learned a little earlier
link |
where he delayed the development of his King
link |
and put his Queen out a little bit too exposed.
link |
So Bobby Fisher immediately punished that.
link |
And then there was just like a beautiful combination
link |
where it was like a 12 in a row perfect moves,
link |
which was a tactic, just winning the game.
link |
But it only came from punishing those mistakes.
link |
The mistake being bringing the Queen out?
link |
Bringing the Queen out
link |
and yeah, not castling your King right away.
link |
And these were just like opening principles
link |
that now they're written in books,
link |
but for books you would study these principles
link |
by studying games.
link |
And also, I'm looking at some notes,
link |
his dominance during the candidate's turn
link |
was unprecedented.
link |
He swept two top grandmasters.
link |
I mean, that guy's meteoric rise is incredible.
link |
Sad that I think at whatever in his 20s,
link |
he then quit chess.
link |
One has to wonder where he could have gone.
link |
Yeah, it is sad that we lost such a brilliant mind
link |
And it's also sad, I think kind of what ended up happening
link |
in his life and the slowly going crazier.
link |
Is there some aspect of chess
link |
that opens the door to crazy?
link |
Like how challenging it is on you,
link |
the stress, the anxiety of it, the isolation.
link |
It's a very lonely sport.
link |
It is, even do you guys, since you both play it,
link |
it's still lonely, the experience of it?
link |
It was when I was competing a lot.
link |
I think the crazy part of it for me
link |
was how obsessed you can get about a board game
link |
where you're optimizing your entire life
link |
to beat another person at pushing wooden pieces
link |
And it doesn't necessarily translate to other things.
link |
And the fact that so many people spend so much
link |
of their life on it,
link |
but you can also spend so much of your life
link |
because it's so deep and so interesting.
link |
And I mean, I've definitely experienced moments
link |
where I didn't want to do anything but chess.
link |
And I had that before I went to college
link |
where I just wanted to take a gap year and focus on chess
link |
because I went to high school, we moved a lot,
link |
there was always other things going on.
link |
So I felt like I could never really focus on chess.
link |
And the one time I could, by taking a gap year,
link |
I ended up not doing because my parents really wanted me
link |
to go to university right away.
link |
But I think maybe if I had taken that gap year,
link |
I don't know if I would have gone back to school.
link |
So maybe it wasn't a bad thing.
link |
I'd also say that's pretty universal.
link |
I think if you want to be the best at anything you do
link |
or any sport, you have to be that level of obsessed.
link |
So I don't know if that's only chess.
link |
Well, some things, some obsessions are more transferable
link |
to a balanced social life.
link |
Like healthy development.
link |
Yeah, chess is a lot less social than most other sports.
link |
Yeah, there's something deeply isolating about this game.
link |
I mean, the great chess players I've met,
link |
I mean, it's really competitive too.
link |
And there's something that you're almost nonstop paranoid
link |
about blundering at every level.
link |
And that develops a person who is really anxious
link |
about losing versus someone who deeply enjoys perfection
link |
or winning and so on.
link |
It's just this constant paranoia about losing.
link |
Maybe I'm misinterpreting it, but that creates huge amount
link |
of stress over like thousands of games,
link |
especially in a young person.
link |
And that blundering is such a painful experience
link |
because you could be playing a game that you've played
link |
for five, six hours and you have one lapse in focus
link |
and you blunder and you throw the entire game away.
link |
And sometimes not just the entire game,
link |
but the entire tournament.
link |
Now you can't place or do anything anymore.
link |
So you just feel those mistakes so strongly.
link |
Yeah, there's no one to blame but yourself.
link |
Are you guys hard on yourself?
link |
Have you been about losing?
link |
Like before you became super famous for streaming
link |
where you could be like, well, fuck this,
link |
at least I can have fun playing.
link |
So I was really hard on myself and I went to play
link |
a tournament in Canada to try to qualify
link |
for the Olympiad team.
link |
And I was like, well, I'm an adult now.
link |
I'm not gonna feel emotional if I lose.
link |
And then I got there on the first day.
link |
I think I was ranked like fourth in Canada for females.
link |
How long ago was this?
link |
This was like earlier in the year actually.
link |
And I go and I lose to somebody lower rated
link |
And I think it was because I blundered
link |
and I went back to my room and I was like,
link |
I am not an adult.
link |
I'm not eating, I'm not leaving this room.
link |
I feel terrible and I know I shouldn't,
link |
but it just cuts so deep.
link |
And then I actually ended up qualifying
link |
for the Olympiad team, but I didn't wanna play
link |
because I didn't have enough time to train
link |
and the losses are so painful that I was like,
link |
it's not worth it.
link |
Yeah, in high school and growing up,
link |
I just remember weekends.
link |
And I think being competitive in any sport,
link |
again, probably people relate to this,
link |
which is like spending weekends crying.
link |
And even like Alex said, like punishing yourself
link |
because you're disappointed in yourself
link |
because you fight so hard and you prepare
link |
and you study and you're like, oh, yeah.
link |
But that's once again on the bright side though,
link |
when you're studying so hard and after like a four hour game
link |
and you actually are on the opposite end and you win,
link |
you feel like such a huge rush of dopamine and serotonin
link |
and you're like on a high from the wind.
link |
So there's also plus sides or you can turn this around.
link |
But yeah, like Alex said, like losing
link |
after preparing for something and fighting on hours
link |
and hours is the worst feeling in the world.
link |
Did you ever get anything like that with martial arts?
link |
Yeah, so, you know, wrestling,
link |
I wrestled all through high school and middle school.
link |
Definitely, so it's an individual sport.
link |
I did a lot of individual sport, tennis,
link |
those kinds of things.
link |
But I think even with wrestling and tennis,
link |
you're still on a team.
link |
You can still like, there's still a comradery there.
link |
I feel like with chess, especially you go on your own
link |
with the tournaments, like you really are alone.
link |
But I mean, I always personally just had
link |
like a very self critical mind in general.
link |
It's one of the reasons I decided not to play chess
link |
because I think when I was really young,
link |
I met somebody who was able to play blindfold chess.
link |
They were teaching me, they were laying in there
link |
on the couch, trashed, drinking and smoking.
link |
Sounds like a Russian.
link |
There are now a faculty somewhere in the United States.
link |
But he making jokes, talking to others
link |
and he would move the pieces, like he would yell
link |
And I remember thinking that if a person is able to do that,
link |
then that kind of world you can live in inside your mind
link |
that becomes the chessboard.
link |
To me, that meant like the chessboard is not just out here.
link |
It could be in here and you could do these beautiful,
link |
you can create these beautiful patterns in your mind.
link |
I thought like, I had such a strong pull towards that
link |
where I had to decide either I'm gonna dedicate everything
link |
You can't do half assed.
link |
And then that's when I decided to walk away from it
link |
because I had so much other beautiful things in my life.
link |
I loved mathematics.
link |
I loved, just everything was beautiful to me.
link |
I thought chess would pull me all in.
link |
And there was nothing like it, I think,
link |
in my whole life since then.
link |
I think it's such a dangerous addiction.
link |
It's such a beautiful addiction, but it's a dangerous one,
link |
depending on what your mind is like.
link |
It reminds me of something I thought of
link |
before I stopped competing as much.
link |
And I'd look at people and think,
link |
imagine being so intelligent that you could become
link |
a grandmaster and yet only spending the rest of your life
link |
being a grandmaster.
link |
Because it's one of those things where it does require
link |
a lot of mental power, but by doing chess,
link |
you're not gonna be able to explore other subjects deeply.
link |
And not in a way that is bad necessarily,
link |
more an admiration and wondering what else could have been
link |
because I've just seen people get to these levels
link |
of obsession where it's all they wanna do.
link |
And they're grandmasters, but they're not even top players.
link |
So they're never gonna make a living out of it.
link |
They'll make like maybe 30, 40K a year max.
link |
They can't even focus on their competitive chess
link |
because they have to supplement it by teaching
link |
and doing things they don't like.
link |
And it's just because of how strong of an obsession
link |
it can be because it truly is very intellectually rewarding.
link |
And I think that's what people are addicted to
link |
in the self improvement, but you can get that
link |
from a lot of other things as well.
link |
Well, I think for me, what I was inspired by
link |
that stuck with me is that a human being
link |
could be so good at one thing.
link |
To me, that person on the couch drinking and so on,
link |
I assumed he was the best chess player in the world.
link |
Like to be able to play inside your head,
link |
it just felt like a feat that's incredible.
link |
And so I fell in love with the idea
link |
that I hope to be something like that
link |
in my life at something.
link |
It would be pretty cool to be really good at one thing.
link |
And like life in some sense is a search for the things
link |
that you could be that good at.
link |
I didn't even think about like how much money
link |
does it make or any of that.
link |
It's can I fall in love with something
link |
and make it a life pursuit where I can be damn good at it.
link |
And being damn good at it is the source of enjoyment.
link |
Not like not to win because you want to win a tournament
link |
or win because like you just want to be better
link |
No, it's for the beauty of the game itself
link |
or the beauty of the activity itself.
link |
And then you realize that that's one of the compelling
link |
things about chess.
link |
It is a game with rules and you can win.
link |
If you want to be really damn good in some aspect
link |
of life like that, it's a harder and weirder pursuit.
link |
Don't you feel like you kind of did that
link |
with computer science or AI related things?
link |
Like getting that level of damn good.
link |
That's one of the cool things about AI and robotics
link |
or intellectual pursuits or scientific pursuits
link |
is you can spend until you're 80 doing it.
link |
So I'm in the early days of that.
link |
One of the reasons I came to Texas,
link |
one of the reasons I didn't want to pursue
link |
an academic career at MIT is I want to build a company.
link |
And so I'm in the early days of that AI company.
link |
And so it's an open world to see if I'm actually
link |
going to be good at it.
link |
But the thing that's there that I've been cognizant
link |
of my whole life is that I have a passion for it.
link |
Something within me draws me to that thing.
link |
And you have to listen to that, to that voice.
link |
So with chess, you're fucked unless you like early on
link |
are really training really hard.
link |
I think life is more forgiving.
link |
You can be world class at a thing
link |
after making a lot of mistakes.
link |
And after spending the first few decades of your life
link |
doing something completely different.
link |
And chess, it's like an Olympic sport.
link |
Like there's no, perfection is a requirement,
link |
What do you think is that pursuit for you?
link |
Like why did you decide to stream?
link |
I like these questions.
link |
Now we're really getting deep.
link |
Yeah, this is like a therapy session.
link |
I mean, isn't it terrifying to be in front of a camera?
link |
Well, it's terrifying to be in front of five cameras.
link |
It's more terrifying for me to try to remember
link |
if I actually turned them all.
link |
Like I mentioned to you off mic,
link |
I'm still suffering from a bit of PTSD
link |
after screwing up a recording of Magnus.
link |
He had to console me because that was the thing.
link |
I felt, okay, you wanna build robots.
link |
If you can't get a camera to even run correctly,
link |
how are you gonna do anything else in life?
link |
Oh no, don't let it spiral like that.
link |
It was spiraling hard and I was just laying there
link |
and just feeling sorry for myself.
link |
But I think that feeling, by the way,
link |
and the small tangent, is really useful.
link |
I feel like a lot of growing happens when you feel shitty.
link |
As long as you can get out of it.
link |
Like don't let it spiral indefinitely.
link |
But just feeling really, really shitty
link |
about everything in my life.
link |
Like I was having an existential crisis.
link |
Like how will I be able to do anything at all?
link |
Like you're a giant failure,
link |
all those kinds of negative voices.
link |
But I think I made some good decisions
link |
in the week after that.
link |
Do you think you couldn't have made those decisions
link |
if you were less hard on yourself?
link |
Me personally, no.
link |
Okay, so you really need to be angry at yourself enough
link |
to go and do what you need.
link |
Yeah, it's not even angry,
link |
it's just upset of being self critical.
link |
Like also for me personally,
link |
because I don't have proclivities for depression,
link |
I have a lot more room
link |
to feel extremely shitty about myself.
link |
So if you're somebody that can get stuck in that place,
link |
like clinically depressed,
link |
you have to be really, really careful.
link |
You have to notice the triggers,
link |
you don't wanna get into that place.
link |
But for me, just looking empirically,
link |
feeling shitty has always been productive.
link |
Like it makes me long term happier.
link |
Ultimately, it makes me more grateful to be alive
link |
and it helps me grow, all those kinds of things.
link |
So I kinda embrace it.
link |
Otherwise, I feel like I will never do anything.
link |
I have to feel shitty,
link |
but that's not a thing I prescribe to others.
link |
There's a famous professor at MIT,
link |
his name is Marvin Minsky.
link |
And when he was giving advice about like to the students,
link |
he said, the secret to my success
link |
was that I always hated everything I did in the past.
link |
So always sort of being self critical
link |
about everything you've accomplished,
link |
never really take a moment of gratitude.
link |
And I think for a lot of people that hear that,
link |
You should like take a pause and be grateful,
link |
but it really worked for him.
link |
So it's a choice you have to make.
link |
It reminds me of the quote, be happy but never satisfied,
link |
where you can have a positive spin
link |
and still want to improve yourself.
link |
But yeah, like when did you decide
link |
to take a step in the spotlight,
link |
that terrifying spotlight of the internet?
link |
It was actually my senior year of college
link |
and I was really busy with work and school
link |
and chess was kind of like this lost love.
link |
And the interesting thing is that
link |
the longer I don't play chess,
link |
the more I kind of miss playing it casually
link |
and enjoy it more.
link |
Cause then I start looking at it with fresh eyes,
link |
but I didn't have time to play tournaments.
link |
So I started streaming online because it was more social
link |
than just playing strangers on the internet
link |
without knowing anything about who they are.
link |
And I started slowly growing a community
link |
and got in touch with chess.com pretty quickly too.
link |
So then it was this hobby that I would do once a week,
link |
every Thursday at 8 p.m.
link |
And it was one of the things that brought me a lot of joy.
link |
And actually I, speaking of depression,
link |
did struggle for it with at least 10 years of my life.
link |
And it was one of those things where chess and streaming
link |
was such a distraction and it brought me such great joy
link |
that I just kept doing it cause I really, really liked it.
link |
And then I was working on something that didn't pan out
link |
and decided to go and take a risk and just stream full time,
link |
which, you know, seemed a little bit weird at the moment.
link |
Was that terrifying, that leap?
link |
It was terrifying,
link |
but I had taken so many terrifying leaps in the past
link |
and they didn't, you know, the last two hadn't worked out,
link |
but I was like, well, I'll get it eventually.
link |
So somehow having failed before and going through failure
link |
and knowing that it'll be okay,
link |
made me more likely to just try something
link |
that was a very, very weird job.
link |
Yeah, the camera, we don't need it.
link |
But one of the cameras died.
link |
Luckily we have another five.
link |
Like this is where this triggers the spiral,
link |
Alexis is gonna go to A to death now.
link |
It's still somehow awake.
link |
Is there advice you can give about the dark places
link |
you've gone in your mind, the depression you suffered from,
link |
how to get out from your own story?
link |
Whenever I go to those really dark places,
link |
the scariest thing is that it feels like
link |
I will never get rid of this feeling
link |
and it is very overwhelming.
link |
And I just have to kind of look back over time spans
link |
and remember that every single time I have got through it
link |
and remind myself that it is just temporary.
link |
And that has been the most helpful thing for me
link |
because I just try to combat the scariest thing about it.
link |
And then believe, have faith that it's gonna,
link |
like this will go away.
link |
And take action obviously to make sure it goes away.
link |
And I've also tried to spin it as depression
link |
is one of the hardest things I've had to deal with,
link |
but also one of the biggest motivators
link |
because if I just am left with my own brain,
link |
I get very depressed.
link |
Then I really like working or focusing on things.
link |
So it actually pushed me to try to focus on school,
link |
try to focus on chess, focus on whatever I'm doing.
link |
And also if I'm feeling really bad,
link |
then there's probably something a little bit off
link |
and I use it as a signal and try to think of it as,
link |
okay, this is just a sign that there's things
link |
that could be improved for long term.
link |
What about you, Andrea?
link |
Have you gone to dark places in your mind?
link |
I'd say my family, like I see Alex going through this,
link |
my mom also has very serious depression.
link |
Luckily, I got the genes where I don't go through
link |
that serious level of depression that they do.
link |
I'd say mine is much more temporarily.
link |
So it's more similar to what I was feeling
link |
when I was feeling shitty about it.
link |
Exactly, you go through periods, yes, exactly,
link |
where like, but I know that it's not something
link |
that's clinical and that's just a genetic thing
link |
or a mental thing, whereas I know it's more serious
link |
for like my family members.
link |
And I did relate a lot with you where you're saying
link |
where that really pushes you and I felt that a lot
link |
through content where you just kind of feel hopeless
link |
and kind of like an existential crisis
link |
where I don't like the content I'm doing
link |
and that's what pushes me to like, okay,
link |
you have no choice but to try something
link |
that now you're gonna be passionate about
link |
because otherwise you're gonna be stuck
link |
in this never ending cycle.
link |
So it's short term and then it helps me come up
link |
with the things that I enjoy the most content wise
link |
and it also long term taught me just how to have
link |
a more balanced life, like doing small things
link |
that make me happier on a daily basis,
link |
to like working out, to eating healthier,
link |
which I notice when I don't do for weeks,
link |
I just get a lot more depressed.
link |
What has playing chess taught you about life?
link |
Has it made you better at life in any kind of way
link |
or has it made you worse?
link |
You know, a lot of people kind of romanticize the idea
link |
that chess is kind of like life or life is kind of like chess
link |
and becoming better at making decisions on the chess board
link |
is gonna make you better at making decisions in life.
link |
Is there some truth to that?
link |
I always shy away from these comparisons
link |
with chess and life.
link |
Cause yeah, it has both positives and negatives.
link |
So one thing it really helps develop from an early age
link |
is having an analytical mind,
link |
but then you could also get like paralysis of analysis
link |
where you've just thought of everything to death
link |
and you're moving too slowly
link |
when you just have to keep going forward
link |
cause there's not a great path ahead.
link |
So it's more like exercising your brain and staying sharp
link |
and then also applying that to other things.
link |
Whereas if instead of playing chess,
link |
you were watching TV or something like that,
link |
you'd probably end up being less sharp.
link |
Yeah, I used to, in high school,
link |
I'd always preach like,
link |
ah, chess transfers to life skills that I would teach.
link |
I taught chess for juvenile department
link |
for a special education school.
link |
I'd cite studies in prisons where like,
link |
oh, playing chess helped them with X
link |
and for your kids, it helps with teamwork
link |
and thinking over life choices.
link |
And now that I'm older, I don't believe in any of that BS.
link |
But I do think that the process of working really hard
link |
at something which takes really long to see results
link |
and you have to be really dedicated.
link |
And like, I remember in high school and in middle school,
link |
well, all my friends, they were having fun on the weekends
link |
and I'd have to be there studying as a chess a day
link |
and knowing one day I'll pay off,
link |
but for like two, three years, nothing paid off.
link |
Kind of learning that type of patience with anything,
link |
it's like, you know, like getting a real job.
link |
I can't say I ever really worked a real job in my life
link |
since I went straight into streaming
link |
and I got to work for myself,
link |
but I'd say it's what people go to college for.
link |
Like they learn how to live in the real world
link |
and I'd say that that's what chess taught me as a kid.
link |
When you're streaming,
link |
when you're doing the creative work, do you feel lonely?
link |
So a bunch of creators talk about sort of the,
link |
it's counterintuitive because you're famous now, you know.
link |
Sort of, not quite, but we're very lucky
link |
to have each other.
link |
So is that the source of the comfort
link |
and like, is there some sense where it's isolating
link |
to have these personalities,
link |
they have to always be having fun, being wild and so on?
link |
Or is it actually the opposite?
link |
Like, is it a source of comfort
link |
to know that there's so many cool people out there
link |
that are giving you their love?
link |
It started as a source of comfort
link |
because it started with a very small community
link |
who would be something,
link |
it would be around 200 to 300 viewers
link |
and you know, only like 30 to 40 of them
link |
would actually chat actively.
link |
So you felt like it was a community, not an audience.
link |
So you like knew them personally almost.
link |
And it was people who were interested in chess
link |
and I would really enjoy that.
link |
And then as, you know, we started growing bigger,
link |
the audience kind of changed
link |
where they're not there for you personally,
link |
they're there while you're entertaining
link |
and it changed for me.
link |
And I ended up being a lot more self conscious
link |
of things online and started even thinking of myself
link |
more like a product than a human being when I'm online
link |
Otherwise you just start taking everything personally
link |
that people comment about you
link |
and it's based off a very small clip.
link |
I see, so it was almost a kind of a defense mechanism.
link |
And it took time to get enough,
link |
because even if you have tough skin,
link |
eventually it gets to you when you're online
link |
every single day listening to, you know,
link |
thousands of people's feedback on you.
link |
I think the loneliest part of being creator
link |
is going through burnout,
link |
which everyone is just, it's bound to happen,
link |
which is why I think we're very lucky
link |
that we have each other because right,
link |
it's a numbers game and you're viral and trendy
link |
at one point and then you have to fall.
link |
And then there's months where you're just grinding.
link |
And I just come into my friends room and I'm like,
link |
Andrea, we're irrelevant.
link |
That's where I'm glad, that's really like the worst part
link |
of being creator and figuring out how to get over that hump.
link |
But it makes me very grateful that I have my sister
link |
because I know that I'm not the only person going through it.
link |
And yeah, I know that most of my creator friends
link |
feel very lonely in that process
link |
because they don't have someone who's their family
link |
and their business partner and they're working
link |
by each other side by side.
link |
You kind of tie in your self worth to your job
link |
and your content and maybe even more extremely
link |
than other jobs because you also are the entire company
link |
and the entire product.
link |
So when things are going well or when things are not,
link |
you just need to be careful to not reflect it like,
link |
oh, I am doing bad.
link |
I am bad rather than the trends have now changed.
link |
There's outside things we're gonna keep going
link |
and this is just the normal waves,
link |
which is how we think about it now.
link |
And also just about, are we enjoying this?
link |
Is this what we wanna make?
link |
But we were stuck in the camp for a while
link |
when we 10Xed our viewership after the pandemic
link |
because people were home and playing chess.
link |
And then of course that dropped by like 70%.
link |
And then you see that and you're trying your best
link |
and you just kind of have to deal with it and be like,
link |
okay, I'm just gonna keep persevering
link |
and maybe it'll get better.
link |
That's so fascinating.
link |
I mean, this is a struggle of sorts in the 21st century
link |
of like how to be an artist, how to be a creator,
link |
how to be an interesting mind in response to this algorithm.
link |
I'm telling you, turning off views and likes is really good.
link |
I don't look at Twitch views for that reason.
link |
And I get obsessed with the numbers too.
link |
And I know Andrea does, but for me,
link |
what I try now is to be more focused in the moment,
link |
but Andrea somehow can do it even with the views.
link |
So you just, you get, you have fun with it.
link |
I'm too much of like a given to the temporary satisfaction.
link |
Like I like seeing, I like knowing
link |
that if something happens right now,
link |
viewership's gonna boost by a couple of hundred
link |
and seeing that I'm right, of course.
link |
But what about when the viewers start dropping?
link |
Exactly, well, and I always,
link |
like you just have this intuition now.
link |
But I think also the reason that it doesn't affect me
link |
so much is when we first started our content journey,
link |
we were only Twitch streamers.
link |
And we, our livelihood were based on Twitch viewers.
link |
But now like I've learned how to recycle that content
link |
into like YouTube and shorts and other things
link |
where I know like, okay, if this stream does badly,
link |
there's so many more things you can do
link |
that also just have a much larger output.
link |
So it doesn't get to me as much as it did.
link |
Do you ever feel that with your podcasts
link |
or do you feel like it's been authentic since the start?
link |
No, so there's a million things to say there.
link |
So one is there's a reason I stopped taking a salary at MIT
link |
and moved to Texas is I wanted my bank account to go to zero
link |
because I do my best with my back against the wall.
link |
So one of the comforts I have is I don't care
link |
if this podcast is popular or not.
link |
I want it to not be popular.
link |
So I don't want it to make money.
link |
You're failing Lex.
link |
Yeah, I wanna, I mean, I just do best
link |
when I'm more desperate.
link |
That's like one thing to say.
link |
Seems like a reoccurring theme
link |
with how you build up your greatest work,
link |
which is honestly very respectable.
link |
Yeah, so thank you.
link |
I wouldn't recommend.
link |
Right, thank you for finding the silver lining
link |
for an unhealthy mental state.
link |
But the other thing is I was very conscious
link |
just like with chess and those kinds of things
link |
that I love numbers.
link |
And I would be, if I paid attention,
link |
if I tried to be somebody at their best,
link |
like Mr. Beast who really pays attention to numbers,
link |
I would just not, I'd become destroyed by it.
link |
The highs and the lows of it.
link |
And I just don't think I would be creating
link |
the best work possible.
link |
But one of the big benefits of a podcast,
link |
it's listeners and there's an intimacy with the voice.
link |
And I think that is much more stable
link |
and a deeper and a more meaningful connection than YouTube.
link |
YouTube is a fickle mistress.
link |
So it's a weird drug that like, it really wants you.
link |
With very addicting feedback loops.
link |
When you have a video that's number one out of 10,
link |
oh my God, the adrenaline you get.
link |
And then the thing I really don't like also
link |
is the world will introduce you as a person
link |
that has a video on YouTube with some X number of views.
link |
Like the world wants you to be addicted to these numbers.
link |
Because they associate it with having done a good job.
link |
Because that's what people think views are,
link |
And primarily because they don't have any other signal
link |
of what's a good job.
link |
I think the much better signal is people
link |
that are close to you, your family, your colleagues,
link |
that say, wow, that was cool, I listened to that,
link |
that was really, I didn't know this,
link |
this was really powerful, this is really moving and so on.
link |
But definitely I'm terrified of numbers.
link |
Because I feel like, just like I said,
link |
I'd rather be a Stanley Kubrick, right?
link |
You'd rather create great art,
link |
not to be pretentious,
link |
but the best possible thing you can create.
link |
Whatever the beauty that's,
link |
the capacity for creating beauty that's in you,
link |
I would like to maximize that.
link |
And I feel like for some people like Mr. Beast,
link |
I think those are perfectly aligned.
link |
Because he just loves the most epic thing possible,
link |
but not for everybody.
link |
I think there's a lot of people
link |
for whom that's not perfectly aligned.
link |
And so I'm definitely one of those.
link |
And I'm still really confused
link |
why anybody listens to this anyway.
link |
But that's also something I guess you're trying to find,
link |
trying to figure out.
link |
I get very afraid of ever becoming someone
link |
who just makes junk food content,
link |
where you can't stop while you're in the moment,
link |
and it has all of your attention,
link |
but when you're done,
link |
it didn't really bring any value to your life,
link |
which is something that I think the algorithm
link |
still does really reward.
link |
And making sure that as we are learning
link |
how to create better content,
link |
it's still something that is gonna be meaningful long term.
link |
Well, ultimately, you inspire a lot of young people.
link |
Yeah, those are the best.
link |
When I get messages from people who are like,
link |
I played you a year ago, and my rating was 1400,
link |
I'd like to challenge you again.
link |
It's a 14 year old writing a former email.
link |
Those things are always very, very fun to get.
link |
And even just outside of chess,
link |
it's just empowering to see,
link |
like for young women too, to see that kind of thing.
link |
I mean, you guys are being yourself,
link |
and making money for being yourself,
link |
and having fun, and growing as human beings,
link |
which I think is really inspiring for people to see.
link |
So in that sense, it's really rewarding.
link |
And then the way I think about it is
link |
there is some benefit of doing entertaining type of stuff
link |
so that you get the,
link |
kind of like Mr. Beast does with philanthropy, right?
link |
The bigger Mr. Beast becomes,
link |
the more effective he is at actually doing
link |
positive impact on the world.
link |
So those things are tied together.
link |
But of course, with podcasts, you guys,
link |
well, maybe you have these kinds of tense things,
link |
but what kind of ideas, what kind of people do platform?
link |
What kind of person,
link |
what kind of human being do you wanna be?
link |
Because you are actually becoming a person,
link |
and a set of ideas in front of the public eye,
link |
and you have to ask yourself that question really hard,
link |
like really seriously.
link |
Because if you're doing stuff in private,
link |
you have the complete luxury to try shit out.
link |
I think you have less of a luxury to try shit out
link |
because the internet can be vicious in punishing you
link |
for trying shit out.
link |
And do you think that's sometimes a bad thing
link |
where you have less freedom to make mistakes?
link |
Yeah, you have two choices.
link |
So one, you put up a wall
link |
and say I don't give a shit what people think.
link |
I don't like doing that
link |
because I like being fragile to the world,
link |
keeping my, sort of wearing my heart on my sleeve.
link |
Or the other one, yeah, you have to be,
link |
you have to actually think through what you're gonna say.
link |
You have to think of like, what do I believe?
link |
You have to be more serious about what you put out there.
link |
It's annoying, but it's also actually,
link |
you should have always been doing that.
link |
You should be deliberate with your actions and your words.
link |
But I don't know, it's,
link |
but some of it, it's such a balance
link |
because some of my favorite people are brilliant people
link |
that allow themselves to act ridiculous and be silly.
link |
Elon Musk, who's become a good friend,
link |
is the silliest human of all.
link |
I mean, he's incredibly brilliant and productive and so on,
link |
but allows themselves to be silly.
link |
And that's also inspiring to people.
link |
Like you don't have to be perfect.
link |
You don't have to, you can be a weird, a giant weird mess.
link |
So it's a balance.
link |
I think when you start to delve into political topics,
link |
into topics that really get tense for people,
link |
then you have to be a little bit more careful and deliberate.
link |
But it's also wise to stay the hell away
link |
from those topics in general.
link |
Like I mentioned to you offline,
link |
somebody I've been debating whether I want to talk to
link |
or not is Karjakin on the chess board
link |
because chess is just a game,
link |
but throughout the history of the 20th century,
link |
it was played between the Russians and the Americans
link |
and so on where they were at war, cold or hot war.
link |
And those are interesting.
link |
Those are interesting conversations to be had
link |
at the Olympics and so on.
link |
It's not just a game.
link |
It's like a mini war.
link |
And so I have to decide whether I want to talk to him or not
link |
and those kinds of things.
link |
You have to make those kinds of decisions.
link |
For now, you guys are not playing chess
link |
with Donald Trump or Obama or so on.
link |
We are not right now, no.
link |
How long is a stream?
link |
Like a few hours, right?
link |
Now they're two to three hours.
link |
When I was first streaming,
link |
I'd stream for like six hours a day.
link |
Yeah, for like six to seven days a week.
link |
Are you doing just like a talking one?
link |
No, I'd be playing chess the entire time while talking.
link |
And when I started streaming,
link |
that's kind of how everybody blows up on Twitch.
link |
You're just putting in crazy hours and you're always there.
link |
It's not about making the best content.
link |
It's about letting people feel
link |
like they're hanging out with you
link |
and just being on as much as you can.
link |
But I ended up feeling very burnt out
link |
because it's hard to be your best self
link |
when you're in front of a camera for that long
link |
because you do get scared of going into places
link |
where you want to learn, but you might not be the best in.
link |
Because it's harder to learn in public
link |
than do something that like,
link |
yeah, we're better than 99% of our viewers at chess.
link |
So that's a lot less scary than trying to play a game
link |
that you're bad at or discuss topics
link |
that you're interested in.
link |
Yeah, have the beginner's mind and be dumb at something.
link |
Yeah, which is where the fun is
link |
and you get to learn together,
link |
but people punish you for it on the internet.
link |
What about you, Andrea?
link |
Yeah, I think like Alex said at the beginning,
link |
when we were grinding a lot,
link |
you don't really even have time for much of a private life
link |
because you're streaming every hour of your life
link |
and people want it, like the appeal of streamers,
link |
it's called like being parasocial
link |
where you feel like they're your friend
link |
and they like it because they want you
link |
to share everything about your life.
link |
Really the main challenge for me at first
link |
when trying to prioritize quantity over quality,
link |
which we're not doing anymore,
link |
was realizing that I can't turn everything I'm interested in
link |
and every passion into content.
link |
Before I'm like, well, I must stream more,
link |
but I like music and I like playing piano
link |
and I like reading into these topics and I like fitness
link |
and then I try to live stream all of it
link |
and that's just, at some point it's like,
link |
just enjoy your time off for those hobbies
link |
and prioritize what you're good at
link |
because that's just gonna be better for the channel overall.
link |
So that was a learning lesson for sure.
link |
It's nice because there are some intersections
link |
when I have tried new things that I really enjoy
link |
and it pays off, but that's less often.
link |
So it's more like you can be yourself,
link |
but only specific parts of yourself online
link |
and the rest, sometimes it's nice to just keep private
link |
and feel that you could just give it your 100% freedom.
link |
See, I feel like I try to be the exact same person
link |
on podcasts as in private life.
link |
I really don't like hiding anything.
link |
But you're also a generalist, right?
link |
Where you have people with all topics.
link |
For us, we built our audience off a very specific thing
link |
so people sometimes feel like,
link |
even at the start when we started playing less chess,
link |
they're like, I subbed for chess.
link |
Why are you not playing chess?
link |
People are tuning in for an interesting conversation
link |
on a bunch of topics.
link |
So like the more you are yourself, the better it is,
link |
but it is very hard when you build your brand
link |
on like one type of gaming content.
link |
But yeah, the way you become a generalist
link |
is you slowly expand.
link |
It's like expand to checkers.
link |
I guess that's like a downward.
link |
Poker, yeah, exactly, poker.
link |
But also just the ideas, the space of ideas.
link |
And one of the cool things about chess
link |
is when you're talking over the chess board,
link |
you're, it's a kind of podcast, you know?
link |
That is actually an idea we've had with playing chess
link |
while also doing a podcast and talking with people.
link |
It's kind of like an icebreaker.
link |
We're also focusing on the game at the same time.
link |
But you know, we are slowly evolving
link |
and we're doing more things.
link |
Like one thing we wanted to do is spend less time
link |
in front of the computer.
link |
So now we're doing a chess travel show
link |
where we go to different countries
link |
and look at the chess culture.
link |
So it actually feels like we're doing things
link |
that we would want to do and explore anyway.
link |
And maybe it's not as much in the idea space,
link |
which we both enjoy and do a lot in our own free time,
link |
but in the sharing cool experiences with our audience
link |
that we actually want to do.
link |
Where do you look forward to going?
link |
We're going to Romania on September 9th.
link |
And I think this is the most exciting for me
link |
because we're going back to, you know,
link |
the country where our entire family's from,
link |
where our grandmother taught our dad
link |
who taught us how to play chess.
link |
It has a very strong chess culture.
link |
So it'll be very unique to go back and see
link |
how everything is when we haven't been back
link |
for a very long time.
link |
And for Romanians, like it's very rare
link |
when there's like a famous Romanian
link |
who accomplishes something,
link |
which is why like right now,
link |
Andrew Tate's the most famous Romanian.
link |
But he's banned for a bad reason.
link |
And there's like something very special
link |
about Romanian pride.
link |
And when we meet fellow Romanians in the US,
link |
like it's just an amazing connection.
link |
And like, I hear the way my dad talk about like,
link |
for example, Nadia, who was a famous Romanian gymnast
link |
and he's like, yeah, like Romania,
link |
we sucked at everything.
link |
But when she won the Olympics for gymnast,
link |
every kid on the street was doing gymnastics
link |
because it's very rare that they make it
link |
to that level of success.
link |
And I'm not saying that we're super successful,
link |
super famous, but it is really cool
link |
to meet other Romanians through chess
link |
because it's a very special bond.
link |
Yeah, you feel like it's a community and like you belong.
link |
Yeah, you can't get that anywhere else.
link |
Let me ask your opinion since you mentioned him,
link |
Andrew Tate, you're both women, successful women,
link |
you're both creators.
link |
So Andrew Tate is an example of somebody
link |
that has become exceptionally successful
link |
at galvanizing public attention,
link |
but he's also, from many perspective, a misogynist.
link |
So let me ask a personal question.
link |
Do you think I should talk to him on this podcast?
link |
How would you feel as a fan as somebody,
link |
I'm talking to the great Alex and Andrea Botez
link |
and the next episode is with Andrew Tate?
link |
I think it's a double edged sword
link |
and most of these things are not as black and white
link |
as they seem, you know,
link |
because on one hand, I don't agree with his beliefs
link |
and I think he said a lot of things that are very hurtful
link |
and that influence people's opinions.
link |
At the same time, talking to someone through that
link |
and trying to get to the root of it
link |
and how much of it he used just as a social media tactic
link |
to maybe change the opinion of people
link |
who have been so influenced by him towards
link |
something that is maybe more understanding towards women
link |
or things like that could do some good,
link |
but at the same time, platforming someone like that
link |
and giving them more attention also signals to other people
link |
who have a platform that it's okay,
link |
so it's kind of weighing the pluses and the minuses
link |
and it's a very tough decision because it's not clear.
link |
And the thing about the internet,
link |
you make the wrong decision, you're gonna pay for it.
link |
That's the thing, like personally,
link |
and it is funny, like I think the whole way
link |
you rose to fame is just a growth hack
link |
and I've seen other people do it
link |
where like you just say kind of,
link |
I don't, honestly, I don't really listen to his content
link |
because I just find it so dumb,
link |
but I think he knows that by saying the dumbest,
link |
most controversial things, that's like a quick rise to fame
link |
and I think surface level, like he can really hold it up,
link |
but that's why I would honestly enjoy tuning
link |
into a conversation where you're really breaking down
link |
to the core of those beliefs
link |
and I think like young kids who look up to him
link |
and when you actually hear someone challenging it
link |
could actually be helpful for people,
link |
but at the same time, it's a lot of bad publicity,
link |
people see your podcast, they see, wow,
link |
like if they don't know you
link |
and they don't know why you're interviewing him
link |
and they don't listen, they'll see that
link |
and then 100% think it's for the other reason.
link |
But I'm also afraid of a society
link |
where you can't have discourse
link |
with people you disagree with
link |
and even though I don't like Andrew Tate,
link |
I think the fact that he got banned from all the platforms
link |
is kind of scary because it sets a precedent
link |
and you always have to ask yourself,
link |
would this be ethical if I was on the other side
link |
and even things with a president like Trump,
link |
even if let's say you're somebody who was on the left,
link |
if that would have happened to a leftist president,
link |
how would you feel?
link |
Would you think that's morally ethical?
link |
So that is something that I think is important.
link |
We try to find ways to have conversations
link |
and reach some mutual understanding
link |
and try instead of just amplifying the worst
link |
about every human being.
link |
Well, so one of the major reasons I'm struggling with
link |
is because I really enjoy talking to brilliant women.
link |
I think it's also, a lot of women reached out to me
link |
saying like, it is what it is,
link |
but they're inspired when the female guest is on.
link |
And to me, if I talk to somebody like Andrew Tate,
link |
even if I have a really hard hitting,
link |
I think it could be a very good conversation
link |
that lessens the likelihood
link |
that a brilliant, powerful female will go on the show.
link |
Because they'll never watch it,
link |
but the thing we do in this society
link |
is we put labels on each other.
link |
Well, Lex is the person that platforms misogynists.
link |
I did a thing where Joe Rogan got in trouble
link |
over an N word controversy earlier in the year.
link |
And Joe's a good friend of mine
link |
and I said that I stand with Joe,
link |
that he's not a racist or something like that.
link |
And within certain communities,
link |
I'm now somebody who's an apologist for racists, right?
link |
Or a racist myself, that kind of thing.
link |
And we put labels without ever listening to the content,
link |
without ever sort of,
link |
actually just even the very simple step
link |
or it seems to be difficult of like,
link |
taking on the best possible interpretation
link |
of what a person said
link |
and giving them the benefit of the doubt
link |
and having empathy for another person.
link |
So you have to play in this field
link |
where people will assign labels to each other
link |
and it's difficult.
link |
But ultimately, I believe,
link |
I hope that good conversations is a way
link |
to like a greater understanding for people
link |
to grow together as a society
link |
and improve and learn the lessons,
link |
the mistakes of the past.
link |
But you also have to play this game
link |
where people just like putting labels on each other
link |
and canceling each other over those.
link |
Or that guy said one thing nice about Donald Trump,
link |
he must be a far right Nazi.
link |
that this person said something nice about the vaccine,
link |
he must be a far left whatever,
link |
because apologist for whatever, for Fauci.
link |
Or most of us I think are ultimately in the middle.
link |
It's a weird, it's a weird thing.
link |
But I think, and it's also painful on a personal level.
link |
Like people have written to me
link |
about things like single words,
link |
half sentences that I've said about either Putin or Zelensky
link |
where they have hate towards me because of what I said.
link |
Either both directions.
link |
I've now accumulated very passionate people
link |
that some call me a Putin apologist,
link |
some call me a Zelensky apologist.
link |
And it hurts to, given how much I have family there,
link |
how much I've seen of suffering there,
link |
and to carry that burden over time
link |
and not let it destroy you is tough.
link |
So like, do you wanna take on another thing like that
link |
when you have conversations?
link |
Or can I just talk to awesome people like you two?
link |
Where it's not that burden.
link |
We're not controversial.
link |
Or you're interesting, you're fascinating,
link |
you're inspiring, you're like fun.
link |
Not all those difficult things that come with more difficult
link |
But somebody has to be making those difficult decisions
link |
and challenging the notions that we should cancel someone
link |
just for slightly disagreeing with us.
link |
And it's very hard to take that on personally.
link |
And I think that's a huge part of it.
link |
When you know it's something you're doing
link |
for the right reasons and you're getting a lot of people
link |
coming and misinterpreting it, it's very painful.
link |
But I think you have to ask yourself long term
link |
if when you made that decision, you ultimately thought
link |
it would be better or worse for your listeners
link |
to know that conversation.
link |
And then if you can sleep with it at night, take the risk.
link |
Yeah, actually when I talk to people that,
link |
especially astrophysicists, and you realize
link |
How incredible, like how huge the universe is.
link |
Like you don't, it doesn't matter, you can do anything.
link |
You could like, you can walk around naked,
link |
talk shit to people, do whatever the hell.
link |
And actually in modern social media,
link |
people just like forget.
link |
It's like, it's ultimately liberating.
link |
Just try to do, at least from my perspective,
link |
the best possible thing for the world you can.
link |
Take big risks, and it doesn't matter.
link |
And that's the other thing with being canceled nowadays
link |
because everyone's attention is much more shortsighted.
link |
You can get canceled and then it'll blow over in three days.
link |
And you actually see things like this on Twitch very often
link |
where people just have bursts of outrage
link |
and they come into your chat and they're all spamming
link |
and saying mean things, and then three days after.
link |
And of course they're not actually ever serious things.
link |
They're usually like things clipped of any streamers
link |
in like their worst moments, but then people forget
link |
about it pretty soon after.
link |
So you're able to accept that?
link |
Like when somebody is being shitty to you for a day?
link |
Yeah, I mean, I still get sometimes emotional about it,
link |
especially when I'm like, oh wow,
link |
these things that are being said are not true
link |
or like this was clearly taken out of context,
link |
but I've just accepted that it's part of the job.
link |
And if I am trying my best and I am trying things
link |
with as good intentions as possible,
link |
then I just try to learn every time that happens
link |
and be like, okay, what could I do better?
link |
And what is just part of the job?
link |
Well, let's start some controversy.
link |
Who's the greatest chess player of all time?
link |
Is it Magnus Carlsen, is it Gary Kasparov,
link |
is it somebody else, Bobby Fischer?
link |
Do you have a favorite, Alex?
link |
So whenever I hear this question,
link |
I interpret it in a very specific way
link |
where it's not who was the most talented chess player
link |
or who had the most impact on the chess world,
link |
but who is the greatest at playing chess?
link |
Where if you were putting all of these players
link |
at their peak, who would be the best?
link |
And we're kind of living in a world
link |
where obviously humans are becoming more like cyborgs
link |
and their tools make them a lot more powerful.
link |
And the computer is the most powerful tool
link |
for chess that we've ever witnessed.
link |
And the top players now, someone like Magnus Carlsen
link |
or Gary Kasparov, if they were gonna go towards people
link |
like even Lasker or Bobby Fischer back in the day,
link |
Lasker, he was world champion for 27 years,
link |
he was the best in his field by far,
link |
but would he be able to stand up to someone
link |
like Magnus Carlsen who has had these tools?
link |
So most chess players have said Gary Kasparov
link |
and I think even Magnus has said that in the past,
link |
but I like to think of it as Magnus in his peak
link |
and Gary at his peak, and because Magnus was able
link |
to live more in a computer era,
link |
I feel like so far he's the greatest of all time.
link |
And some studies say things like
link |
how there's rating inflation,
link |
but I looked into some of them
link |
and they basically calculated people's play
link |
over the years and it seems
link |
that there hasn't been inflation,
link |
people are just getting better
link |
and I think it's because you have better tools at chess.
link |
And also one of the cases, what's your?
link |
I was gonna say, I actually, I disagree with that.
link |
Good, make it interesting.
link |
I think I would judge the greatest player of all time
link |
in relative to the time that they lived in
link |
and Magnus, although he is technically
link |
the strongest chess player in history,
link |
that is because he had computers to study chess with.
link |
And of course, if you compare him to like Gary Kasparov,
link |
he plays most like Stockfish,
link |
but Gary Kasparov at his time,
link |
he beat more players of his skill level than Magnus did.
link |
Magnus loses more often.
link |
He also of course held the belt for 20 years more.
link |
So I'd say actually, because Gary lacked the help
link |
of computers to study chess
link |
and overall performed better against players
link |
of his skill level, I think he would be number one.
link |
Yeah, but I mean, the case that people make for Magnus
link |
on many, I mean, what Alex said,
link |
but also Magnus plays a lot and he doesn't,
link |
he plays a lot blitz, bullet and like he puts,
link |
he gets drunk and like he's really putting himself out there
link |
and in all kinds of conditions and he's able to dominate
link |
and a lot of them, we get to see many of the like losses
link |
or blunders and all that kind of stuff
link |
because he just puts himself out there.
link |
And I think Kasparov was much more like.
link |
Never saw him play drunk, right?
link |
Yeah, and it's very focused on the world championship.
link |
It's very, very limited number of games
link |
and very focused on winning.
link |
And so there's some aspect to the versatility,
link |
the aggressive play, the fun, all of that,
link |
that I think you have to give credit to.
link |
In terms of just the scope,
link |
the scale of the variety of genius exhibited by Magnus.
link |
And he might not even be done yet.
link |
I don't know if he'll ever hit 2,900,
link |
but we can't judge yet
link |
because he's not at the peak of his career potentially.
link |
What do you think about him not playing world championship?
link |
Isn't that like, isn't that wild?
link |
The entirety of the history of chess in the 20th century
link |
It's walking away from this one tournament
link |
that seems to be at the center of chess.
link |
What do you think about that decision?
link |
I mean, you can't help but be disappointed as a chess fan
link |
who wants to see the best player in the world
link |
But I also understand it on a personal level
link |
and not feeling as satisfied
link |
when you're going to the world championship
link |
and having to defend against people
link |
who are less strong than you.
link |
And also imagine winning world championships
link |
and not feeling a joy out of that.
link |
So maybe by not doing that
link |
and focusing instead on a goal like 2,900,
link |
he'll be more likely to accomplish it
link |
because he's focusing on what actually motivates him
link |
But I do think that it will hurt
link |
how we judge the next world champion.
link |
I think it won't change him being the best player
link |
And for someone to replace him,
link |
even let's say like Nepo versus Sting,
link |
even if one of them win and right on some stance,
link |
it does lower the merit
link |
because now who has the world chess championship title
link |
isn't actually the best player in the world.
link |
And that has happened before in the past,
link |
but still going to take the same effort to prove
link |
when they would pass him like 10, 20 years
link |
to become stronger than Magnus.
link |
So I don't think it changes the skill level
link |
that it takes to become the best chess player in the world.
link |
I think for chess fans, it's very disappointing,
link |
but I think in the overall like grand scheme
link |
of like the public view to people who don't really,
link |
so like, you know, what breaks the popular culture
link |
and you think of what names people know
link |
who don't play chess like Bobby Fischer did it.
link |
Most people know Casper over Magnus.
link |
It takes the same ability and talent and that doesn't change.
link |
I think it does change though
link |
if you're playing a player who's not as strong,
link |
but I see your point as well.
link |
And I know we differ on this.
link |
Like I said, I heard you ask Magnus,
link |
but what is your take on it?
link |
Well, listen, his answer is kind of brilliant,
link |
which he's not saying he's bored
link |
of the world championship.
link |
He's bored of a process
link |
that doesn't determine the best player.
link |
Like, and it's too exciting inducing to him
link |
to have a small number of games.
link |
He doesn't mind losing, which is really fascinating
link |
to a better player or somebody who is his level.
link |
He's more anxious about losing to a weaker player
link |
because of the small sample size.
link |
Now, if like poker players had that anxiety,
link |
they would never play at all, right?
link |
That's the World Series of Poker.
link |
You get to lose against weaker players all the time.
link |
That's the throw of the dice.
link |
But that's an interesting perspective
link |
that he would love to play 20, 30, 40 games
link |
in the world championship,
link |
and then he would enjoy it much more.
link |
And also play shorter games
link |
because they emphasize the like pure chess,
link |
actually being able to like much more variety
link |
in the middle game just to see a bunch of chaos
link |
and see how you're able to compute,
link |
calculate and intuition, all that kind of stuff.
link |
I mean, that's beautiful.
link |
I wish the chess world would step up and meet him
link |
in a place that makes sense,
link |
change the world championship.
link |
So FIDE changing it somehow, a loss for that.
link |
Or having other really respected tournaments
link |
that become like an annual thing that step up to that.
link |
Or more kind of online YouTube type of competitions,
link |
which I think they're trying to do more and more,
link |
like the Crypto Cup and all those kinds of things.
link |
And the Grand Tour does play in,
link |
which takes a lot of the top players
link |
and they do it online in shorter formats.
link |
But there's, so that's his perspective.
link |
My perhaps narrow perspective
link |
is I romanticize the Olympic games
link |
and those are every four years
link |
and the world championships because they're rare,
link |
because the sample size is so small.
link |
That's where the magic happens.
link |
Everything's on the line for people
link |
that spend their whole life, 20 years of dedication,
link |
everything you have, every minute of the day
link |
spent for that moment.
link |
You think about like gymnastics at the Olympic games.
link |
There's certain sports where a single mistake
link |
and you're fucked.
link |
And that stress, that pressure, it can break people
link |
or it can create magic.
link |
Like a person that's the underdog
link |
has the best night of their life
link |
or the person that's been dominating for years
link |
all of a sudden slips up.
link |
That drama from a human perspective is beautiful.
link |
So I still like the world championships,
link |
but then again, looking at all the draws,
link |
looking at like, well, the magic isn't quite there.
link |
So to me, when I see faster games of chess,
link |
that's much more beautiful.
link |
But then I don't understand the game of chess
link |
deeply enough to know.
link |
Like, does it have to be so many draws?
link |
Like, is there a way to create a more dynamic chess?
link |
And he talked about random chess
link |
with a random starting position.
link |
That's really interesting.
link |
But then of course, that's like,
link |
then you do have to play hundreds of games
link |
and that kind of stuff.
link |
But I think it's great that the world number one
link |
is struggling with these questions
link |
because he's in the position,
link |
he has the leverage to actually change the game of chess
link |
as it's publicly seen, as it's publicly played.
link |
So it's interesting.
link |
He's still young enough to dominate
link |
for quite a long time if he wants.
link |
I, you know, with Kasparov, the fight between nations,
link |
I hope they have the world championship
link |
and I hope he's still a part of it somehow.
link |
I hope he changes his mind.
link |
Kind of dramatic thing.
link |
But it is, his heart is not in it.
link |
and then that's not beautiful to see, right?
link |
Yeah, it is beautiful that the thing he wants
link |
is a great game of chess against an opponent
link |
that's his level or better.
link |
And that's great that he's coming from that place.
link |
But I hope he comes back tomorrow.
link |
Because the world championship is a special thing
link |
So you do wish that the person
link |
who wins the world championship
link |
is the best player in the world?
link |
I hope that the best people in the world,
link |
the two best people in the world
link |
are the ones that sit down.
link |
But the person that wins is the person that,
link |
that's the magic of it.
link |
Nobody knows who's going to win.
link |
I think Magnus is so, he really wants
link |
the best person to win.
link |
Like the, that's why he wants the large sample size.
link |
But to me there's some magic to it.
link |
The stress of it, the drama of it.
link |
That's all part of the game.
link |
Like it's not just about the purity of the game,
link |
like the calculation.
link |
The pure chess of it.
link |
It's also like the drama.
link |
Like the, yeah, the pressure, the drama, all of it.
link |
The shit talking, if it gets to you, the mind games.
link |
This is the part that's fun to watch,
link |
but less fun to be playing.
link |
But that's why it's great.
link |
Who can melt, who can rise under that pressure
link |
and who melts under that pressure.
link |
There's a lot of people that look up to you,
link |
like they're inspired by you
link |
because you've taken a kind of nonlinear path through life.
link |
Is there any advice you have for people
link |
like in high school today?
link |
They're trying to figure out what they want to do.
link |
Do they want to go to Stanford?
link |
Do they want to pursue a career in, I don't know,
link |
in industry or go kind of the path you guys have taken,
link |
which is have the ability to do all of that
link |
and still choose to make the thing
link |
that you're passionate about your life.
link |
I always liked the calculated risks approach
link |
where when you're younger, it's okay to take more risks
link |
because you have a lot more time,
link |
but there has to be a reason
link |
why you're doing that particular risk.
link |
Is it something that you've spent a lot of time already
link |
really passionate and working on
link |
or is it just something that's trendy
link |
and you want to do it because you don't have a better option?
link |
And that's actually similar to what Andrea did
link |
when she decided to go into streaming instead of school.
link |
Yeah, the reason I got into streaming
link |
because I was initially going to go to college,
link |
but the pandemics,
link |
it was right at the beginning of the pandemic
link |
and all my classes were online.
link |
And I never thought, ever since I was 12,
link |
like my dream was school and I saw myself nowhere else
link |
than going to university.
link |
And I thought of it and kind of weighed out the risks.
link |
I'm like, well, if I take a gap year
link |
and I try streaming with my sister, what do I have to lose?
link |
I gained some experience working with someone
link |
who has a lot more experience than I do.
link |
And then I can go back to school after.
link |
And if I go to school right now,
link |
I do online classes for a year
link |
and that's something that I could do at any time.
link |
So that's why it made a lot of sense for me to go into this.
link |
But of course, this is also a very unique opportunity.
link |
So I don't know how applicable,
link |
but I do think overall the calculated risk
link |
is a really good lesson.
link |
So life is like chess.
link |
You also, have you considered a career
link |
in professional fighting?
link |
I saw you did a self defense class,
link |
you did a little Jiu Jitsu.
link |
Did you see the 10 year old kid who...
link |
Yes, and apparently I could have broken a leg.
link |
But it's actually funny, like chess boxing is a thing
link |
and I have been doing a lot of boxing.
link |
Physical activity is like, honestly,
link |
one of my favorite things to do.
link |
And I have been testing it out on content
link |
and we have a creator friend
link |
who's hosting a chess boxing tournament,
link |
but there's no woman who could match me, unfortunately,
link |
because all the opponents are male
link |
and I can't fight a guy.
link |
How does chess boxing work?
link |
So you do a round of chess and a round of boxing.
link |
And we actually did a training camp for it before.
link |
And of course, after you go into the ring.
link |
Yes, it's amazing.
link |
We went to a London chess boxing club.
link |
And after you get...
link |
No, it seemed like videos,
link |
I thought it was something you'd just do in Russia
link |
No, it's a real sport.
link |
It's a real sport.
link |
Yeah, no, it's very cool.
link |
But after you get really tired,
link |
you're more likely to make a mistake
link |
and they call them Jaffers or something.
link |
Yeah, there's probably good strategies,
link |
like what do you want to...
link |
Because some of it is a cardio thing.
link |
Do you want to work on your chess or your boxing?
link |
They do both, it's very fun.
link |
But yeah, from a content perspective,
link |
I'm sure there's a lot of people that would love to see.
link |
I don't want to see Andrea getting hit.
link |
I would love to fight.
link |
Unless she doesn't get hit.
link |
Our roommate fought in a fight
link |
and she did end up winning,
link |
but seeing her get hit,
link |
I thought I was going to throw up off screen.
link |
I just think it was so cool.
link |
She had no experience in boxing whatsoever.
link |
And then coming from someone in the content world,
link |
where you start waking up six days a week at 6 a.m.
link |
and she's training every day,
link |
like a real professional athlete,
link |
I think like it's such a unique experience
link |
and also like a really test
link |
of how much you can really commit to this and progress.
link |
And I think that's really rewarding.
link |
Did you ever end up doing the marathon with David Goggins
link |
that you were training for?
link |
No, I got injured, but we're going to do it soon.
link |
That's on my bucket list,
link |
just to see what your limits are.
link |
You're ready to do it?
link |
What did you do leading up to this?
link |
You're just going to go into it.
link |
It's mental anyway.
link |
I run a lot to make sure like there's no...
link |
You have to have a base level of fitness
link |
to make sure your body doesn't completely freak out.
link |
But other than that, 50 plus miles is just about
link |
like taking it one step at a time
link |
and just being able to deal with the suffering
link |
and all the voices, the little voices
link |
that tell you all the excuses,
link |
like why are you doing this?
link |
This blister is bleeding, whatever.
link |
Whatever the thing that makes you want to stop,
link |
Sometimes it feels like you like pain.
link |
But the pain does seem to show the way to progress.
link |
In your turn of life.
link |
Something that's really hard and I don't want to do,
link |
that's usually the right thing to do.
link |
And I'm not saying that's like a universal truth.
link |
It's just, if there's a few doors to go into,
link |
the one that I want to go into least,
link |
that's the one that usually is the right one.
link |
Afterwards, I will learn something from it.
link |
The David Goggins thing, I don't know.
link |
Listen, we're talking offline,
link |
the conversation with Liv,
link |
she has a very numeric, calculated risk.
link |
Everything is planned.
link |
I go with the heart.
link |
I just go whatever the hell.
link |
I think two years ago, I woke up,
link |
it was summer, I decided to tweet,
link |
I will do as many pushups.
link |
I don't know why I did this,
link |
but I will do as many pushups and pull ups
link |
as this week gets likes, something like that.
link |
And then that it got like 30,000.
link |
Once you put it out on the internet,
link |
you're held accountable.
link |
Well, for myself, I mean, in some sense.
link |
And then that's when, I already was connected to David
link |
at that point, but that's when he called me.
link |
And then didn't have to do it.
link |
And then I did it and it was one of the hardest things
link |
How long did you take?
link |
I did it for seven days and I got injured.
link |
So I did about a few thousand.
link |
Wait, so this is what got you to be injured?
link |
No, it's different.
link |
I keep getting injured doing stuff.
link |
But this particular thing, I started doing the,
link |
you don't realize that you have to really ramp up.
link |
So I got like overuse injury tendonitis on the shoulder
link |
all the way down to the elbow.
link |
So I took like eight or nine days off
link |
and then started again.
link |
And then it took about 31 days to do.
link |
The number was like 26, 27,000.
link |
And it took like three, four hours a day.
link |
Sounds like torture.
link |
And not, you know, constantly asking myself,
link |
what am I doing with my life?
link |
This is why you're single, was the voice in my head.
link |
This is what are you doing?
link |
It's like face down on the carpet.
link |
Because of a tweet?
link |
Did you record it or you just?
link |
I did record it for myself.
link |
Now imagine doing this every day
link |
and that's what it's like to be a Twitch streamer.
link |
I'm doing stupid things.
link |
That was really important to me actually
link |
to not make it into content.
link |
You know, I recorded everything.
link |
So maybe one day I could publish it.
link |
I recorded it mostly because it's really hard to count.
link |
When you get exhausted.
link |
Like I just, so you actually enter the Zen place
link |
where with pushups, where it's just like,
link |
it's almost like breathing.
link |
You get into a rhythm and you can do quite a lot.
link |
But I wanted to make sure like,
link |
if I actually get this done, I want there to be evidence
link |
that I got it done for myself so I can count it.
link |
I had this idea that I would use machine learning
link |
to like automatically process the video to count it.
link |
But then like, after like 10 days,
link |
I didn't even give a shit what anyone thought.
link |
It was about me versus me.
link |
I didn't even care.
link |
And David was extremely supportive.
link |
But that's when I realized like,
link |
I really want to go head to head with him.
link |
So yeah, those kinds of people are beautiful.
link |
They really challenge you to your limits.
link |
It's like, the thing is physical exercise
link |
is such an easy way to push yourself to your limit.
link |
There's in all other walks of life,
link |
it's trickier to configure.
link |
Like how do you push yourself to your limits in chess?
link |
It's hard to figure out.
link |
But like in physical.
link |
Do you think it's ever dangerous?
link |
And that's why it's beautiful.
link |
She likes the pain.
link |
I don't like that your eyes lit up as I said.
link |
Like if you don't know how you're gonna get out of it,
link |
you're gonna have to figure out something profound
link |
And I mean, one of the reasons I went to Ukraine
link |
is I really wanted to experience the hardship
link |
and the intensity of war that people are experiencing
link |
so I can understand myself better,
link |
I can understand them better.
link |
So the words that are leaving my mouth are grounded
link |
in a better understanding of who they are.
link |
And I mean, the running a lot with David Gong
link |
is it's a much simpler thing to do.
link |
Simpler way to understand something about yourself,
link |
about like the limits of human nature.
link |
I think most growth happens with voluntary suffering
link |
or struggle, involuntary stuff.
link |
That's where the dark trauma is created.
link |
But I don't know, maybe it is.
link |
Maybe I'm just attracted to torture.
link |
And what is it that your mind does
link |
when you're going through this involuntary suffering?
link |
there's like stages.
link |
First, all the excuses start coming.
link |
Like why are you doing this?
link |
And then you start to wonder like what kind of person
link |
do you want to be?
link |
So all the dreams you had,
link |
all the promises you made to yourself and to others,
link |
all the ambitions you had that haven't come yet realized,
link |
somehow that all becomes really intensely like visceral
link |
as the struggle is happening.
link |
And then when all of that is allowed to pass from your mind,
link |
you have this clear appreciation
link |
of what you really love in life,
link |
which is just like just living.
link |
Just the moment, the step at a time.
link |
I think what meditation does and it's most effective,
link |
it's just that pain is a catalyst
link |
for the meditative process, I think.
link |
Magnus said there's no meaning to life.
link |
Do you guys agree or no?
link |
I do not know why we're here,
link |
but I do know that having some kind of meaning
link |
that I give my own life
link |
makes it a lot more motivating every day.
link |
So I just try to focus on finding meaning within my own life
link |
even if I know it's just self imposed.
link |
And then chess is a part of that?
link |
Chess is a part of it.
link |
Maybe it was more so when I was younger
link |
because it was easier to just feel like I wanna improve
link |
as a person and to use chess
link |
to kind of measure some kind of self improvement.
link |
And now it's more different than that.
link |
And I think I need to once again find
link |
what that northern star is.
link |
Basically, I need to have a why for why I'm doing things.
link |
And then I feel like I could do very hard things.
link |
What role does love play in the human condition?
link |
I'll let Andrea start this one since I took the last.
link |
And yeah, just to add my answer for the last one.
link |
I also kind of think, well, life is meaningless,
link |
but I like the stoic idea where that's something
link |
that you live to revolt against.
link |
But for the second question.
link |
The revolt against the fundamental meaninglessness of life.
link |
I like it. Exactly.
link |
It was what does love play?
link |
What role does love play?
link |
Yeah, in the human condition.
link |
love is a reason you want to share experiences
link |
with other people.
link |
That's how I see it.
link |
Like the people you really love,
link |
you wanna share the things you're going through with them.
link |
The good and the bad.
link |
That's my simple take on love.
link |
My take on it is that part of what it is to be human
link |
is to be somebody who feels things emotionally
link |
and love is one of the most intense feelings you can have.
link |
Obviously there's the opposite of that
link |
and there's things like hate,
link |
but I think the love you feel for people like your parents
link |
and your friends and romantic love in that moment
link |
is much more intense than in other situations.
link |
And I think it's also just very unique to humans
link |
and that's what I appreciate about it.
link |
Maybe that's the meaning of life.
link |
Maybe that's what the Stoics are searching for.
link |
Andrea, Alex, thank you so much for this
link |
and thank you for an amazing conversation.
link |
Thank you for creating, keep creating
link |
and thank you for putting knowledge
link |
and love out there in the world.
link |
Thank you for having us, Lex.
link |
It was a pleasure.
link |
And we're both big fans of your podcast,
link |
so this was really exciting for us.
link |
Thanks for listening to this conversation
link |
with Alexandra and Andrea Botez.
link |
To support this podcast,
link |
please check out our sponsors in the description.
link |
And now let me leave you with some words from Bobby Fisher.
link |
Thank you for listening and hope to see you next time.