Transcript
00:00:00 I mean, I’ve definitely experienced moments
00:00:01 where I didn’t want to do anything but chess.
00:00:05 I’d also say that’s pretty universal.
00:00:07 I think if you want to be the best at anything you do
00:00:09 or any sport, you have to be that level of obsessed.
00:00:13 The following is a conversation
00:00:15 with Alexandra and Andrea Botez.
00:00:17 They’re sisters, professional chess players,
00:00:20 commentators, educators, entertainers, and streamers.
00:00:23 Their channel is called Botez Live on Twitch and YouTube.
00:00:28 I highly recommend you check it out.
00:00:30 A small side note about the currently ongoing controversy
00:00:33 in the chess world, where the 19 year old grandmaster,
00:00:36 Hans Niemann, beat Magnus Carlsen at the Sink Field Cup.
00:00:40 After this, Magnus, for the first time ever,
00:00:43 withdrew from the tournament, implying with a tweet
00:00:46 that there may have been cheating
00:00:48 or at least something shady going on.
00:00:50 Folks like the grandmaster, Hikaru Nakamura,
00:00:53 fanned the flames of cheating accusations,
00:00:56 and the internet made a bunch of proposals
00:00:59 on how the cheating could have been done,
00:01:01 and it ranged from the ridiculous to the hilarious,
00:01:05 often both.
00:01:06 Hans himself came out and said that he has cheated before
00:01:10 when he was 12 and 16 on random online games
00:01:14 to jack up his rating.
00:01:16 But he said that he has never cheated in person
00:01:19 over the board.
00:01:21 Danny Wrench from chess.com, who I’ve spoken with,
00:01:24 may make a statement in response to Hans’s claims soon.
00:01:28 Folks like grandmaster Jakob Luegge
00:01:30 spoke to his experience training Hans Niemann
00:01:32 and has said that his memory and intuition
00:01:36 were quite brilliant.
00:01:38 So as you see, there’s a lot of perspectives on this.
00:01:40 ChessBase has a good summary of the saga
00:01:42 that I’ll link in the description.
00:01:45 Also note that this is so quickly moving
00:01:48 that new stuff might come out between me recording this
00:01:50 and publishing the episode,
00:01:52 but I thought I’d mention this anyway
00:01:53 since the episode with the Botas sisters
00:01:56 is a conversation about chess
00:01:58 and was recorded shortly before the controversy,
00:02:01 so we didn’t talk about it.
00:02:03 I’m considering having Hans on this podcast
00:02:06 and also Magnus back on the podcast,
00:02:09 and maybe others like Hikaru
00:02:11 or folks from chess.com’s anti cheat staff
00:02:14 to discuss their really interesting
00:02:16 cheating detection algorithms,
00:02:18 but I may also just stay out of it.
00:02:21 I find chess to be a beautiful game
00:02:24 and the chess community
00:02:25 full of fascinating, brilliant people,
00:02:28 and so I’ll keep having conversations like these
00:02:30 about chess.
00:02:31 It’s fun.
00:02:32 My goal with this podcast and in general as a human being
00:02:36 is to increase the amount of love in the world.
00:02:39 Sometimes that involves celebrating brilliance and beauty
00:02:43 in science, in art, in chess.
00:02:46 Sometimes it involves empathetic conversations
00:02:48 with controversial figures that seek to understand,
00:02:52 not to ride.
00:02:53 Sometimes it involves standing against
00:02:56 the internet lynch mob,
00:02:57 as the ChessBase article calls it,
00:03:00 to hear the story of a human being who is under attack,
00:03:03 even if it means I get attacked in the process as well.
00:03:08 This is the Lex Friedman podcast.
00:03:09 To support it, please check out our sponsors
00:03:12 in the description,
00:03:13 and now, dear friends,
00:03:14 here’s Alexandra and Andrea Botas.
00:03:19 You just got back from Italy.
00:03:20 What’s the most memorable thing?
00:03:22 I was just there recently as well.
00:03:24 It was very chaotic because we went out on a whim
00:03:28 and we only had our first hotel booked,
00:03:30 and then we rented a car and drove around all of the cities
00:03:33 and went to like five different cities
00:03:35 in about a week and a bit.
00:03:37 So I think it was just the variety
00:03:39 of seeing so many different places
00:03:40 when we’re used to being at home all the time,
00:03:42 and Andrea, is yours your luggage?
00:03:45 Yeah, I would say it was the most stressful vacation
00:03:48 we’ve been in in our life,
00:03:49 and it was a valuable learning lesson
00:03:51 because now I know how to be prepared for trips,
00:03:54 but we lost our bags and I never got them back.
00:03:57 And like Alex said,
00:03:58 we didn’t know where we’d be sleeping every night
00:04:00 and we’re just driving through a new city
00:04:02 with a giant van in the most narrowest streets
00:04:06 and getting in many, many fights with Italian men.
00:04:09 So it wasn’t really a vacation.
00:04:10 I saw this motion so many times.
00:04:14 Wasn’t it liberating to lose your baggage?
00:04:16 Is it still the lining?
00:04:17 It was liberating.
00:04:19 My entire life, I’ve always had the issue of overpacking.
00:04:21 And I told her before the trip,
00:04:23 Andrea, you’re gonna pack light, right?
00:04:25 Yeah, Alex, yeah.
00:04:26 And then I see her stuffing her overweight suitcase.
00:04:28 But you did the same.
00:04:29 We both had giant, big extra baggage that we didn’t need.
00:04:33 And I’m actually very glad we lost it
00:04:35 because for Venice, hauling that around on all the boats
00:04:38 and through the tiny streets and there’s no Ubers.
00:04:41 And now it’s the first time where I can travel
00:04:43 without checking in a bag, which I’ve never done before.
00:04:46 So now I’ve learned what it means to pack light
00:04:48 because I saw that I could survive off of just my,
00:04:50 this sounds very dramatic,
00:04:51 but it was really a big learning lesson for me.
00:04:54 The driving must’ve been crazy
00:04:55 because driving in Italy is rough.
00:04:57 The driving was crazy.
00:04:59 I did most of it and it would be really interesting
00:05:03 driving through places like Florence
00:05:06 or even through the beach areas that were super windy
00:05:10 because there are two way streets
00:05:11 that should really only be one way.
00:05:13 So you’d be driving this huge van
00:05:15 and then another car comes on a cliff
00:05:17 and you’re just waiting for it to slowly pass.
00:05:19 So it took all of my focus and concentration
00:05:22 to drive well in Italy,
00:05:24 but it was actually really relaxing
00:05:26 because the hardest thing about making a lot of videos online
00:05:30 is you’re always thinking about it, what’s coming next.
00:05:33 And when we were in Italy,
00:05:34 it was so chaotic that I did not think about work
00:05:37 for a good week and a bit.
00:05:39 Oh, cause you’re just.
00:05:40 We were stressed.
00:05:41 I was just trying to keep us alive.
00:05:42 It seemed higher priority.
00:05:44 And that was kind of fun.
00:05:45 It was kind of fun.
00:05:46 No planning, nothing.
00:05:48 Just on a whim.
00:05:49 I wouldn’t recommend it or ever do that again, but.
00:05:52 It sounds pretty awesome.
00:05:54 And we even randomly ran into two friends of ours
00:05:57 who were in the same city
00:05:58 and we just traveled with them for about half of the trip.
00:06:01 Yeah, so you just took on the chaos.
00:06:03 Exactly, it was an adventure.
00:06:04 Okay, and I see like,
00:06:05 cause you were using your hands a lot.
00:06:07 You picked up some of the Italian hand gestures.
00:06:10 I did.
00:06:11 We did get yelled at by a lot of Italians.
00:06:14 The old Italian grandmas would come to us after breakfast
00:06:17 cause we’d leave something on the plate
00:06:18 and she’d be like,
00:06:19 you could feed an entire village with that.
00:06:21 Tell your friends.
00:06:22 And we’d feel so ashamed.
00:06:24 Yeah, we got cursed out a lot,
00:06:25 but it really reminded me of where we grew up and helped.
00:06:29 That’s true.
00:06:29 Yeah, bring back those mechanisms.
00:06:30 Where’d you grow up?
00:06:32 We’re Romanian,
00:06:33 but it was like an immigrant neighborhood.
00:06:35 In Canada.
00:06:36 So, same if you don’t finish your plate,
00:06:39 that’s disrespectful to the people who made the food.
00:06:42 How was the food in Italy?
00:06:43 I feel like the carbs thing is too intense.
00:06:46 Yeah, I think very overrated in my opinion.
00:06:48 So I’m actually not supposed to eat gluten
00:06:51 cause I have an allergy,
00:06:52 but I was in Italy and it’s gluten galore.
00:06:56 So I was actually eating a lot of it
00:06:57 and it was very interesting
00:06:58 cause I didn’t get sick while I was in Italy,
00:07:00 but I do while I’m in the US.
00:07:03 So somehow the food was actually maybe more okay
00:07:08 for me to digest, which I appreciated,
00:07:09 but I didn’t like it as much as I thought.
00:07:11 Did you like the food there?
00:07:12 Yeah, no, I did, I did.
00:07:16 I love carbs, but it feels like Vegas
00:07:21 when I go there for the food is like,
00:07:24 if I stay here too long, I’m gonna do things I regret.
00:07:28 That’s what it feels like with the food.
00:07:30 I don’t know how to moderate
00:07:31 and everybody is pushing very large portions
00:07:33 and while kind of eating things on you,
00:07:36 pasta, pizza and bread, so delicious.
00:07:41 So yeah, I love it, but I regret everything.
00:07:45 So it’s like, I don’t wanna go to a place
00:07:47 where I’m going to regret everything I do
00:07:51 for too long of a time.
00:07:54 Yeah, surprisingly the people there though
00:07:56 are still very fit and everyone stays in good shape,
00:07:59 but that’s probably because you’re walking around all day
00:08:00 and you’re much more active than anyone.
00:08:02 And they also just know how to moderate food.
00:08:04 I think I’ve gotten used to the US way of eating.
00:08:07 The US portions. What is that?
00:08:09 Just a lot, always a lot and more.
00:08:14 And I feel in the US food advertisements
00:08:17 are also much more in your face
00:08:19 and you’re more often reminded of junk food
00:08:21 than we were in Italy.
00:08:22 So even though we were eating less healthy things,
00:08:25 I think we were getting cravings
00:08:27 and being pushed towards junk food less often.
00:08:30 All right, I gotta ask you a hard question.
00:08:33 So the romance languages.
00:08:34 So I think French is up there as like number one.
00:08:38 Number one in terms of?
00:08:40 I don’t know.
00:08:41 Who’s ranking them?
00:08:42 Oh, you guys speak Italian or no?
00:08:45 Not Italian, but we studied French and Spanish in school.
00:08:49 And Romanian.
00:08:50 I feel like every country calls their language
00:08:52 a romance language.
00:08:53 But it’s Romanian, French, Spanish, Portuguese.
00:08:58 And I think there was one more that was like this dialect,
00:09:00 but those are considered the romance languages.
00:09:03 Okay, so where would you put Italian?
00:09:05 I think we got yelled at so much in Italian
00:09:08 that it’s not gonna be a love word.
00:09:10 So it wasn’t working.
00:09:11 It’s on the bottom of the list
00:09:12 cause people did not use it nicely to us.
00:09:15 But I always really liked how French sounds.
00:09:19 I think something about it where maybe Spanish
00:09:23 actually sounds nicer to the ears,
00:09:24 but French has more character and it feels more sultry.
00:09:27 So I like French.
00:09:29 What about you?
00:09:29 Yeah, that was my answer too.
00:09:30 Oh.
00:09:31 Sultry, okay.
00:09:32 Yeah.
00:09:33 I feel like French, in France,
00:09:36 I feel like I’m always being judged.
00:09:39 Like they’re better than me.
00:09:40 That’s what French.
00:09:41 They are better than us.
00:09:42 That’s true.
00:09:43 It’s just so true.
00:09:45 Which is why I long to belong to that.
00:09:50 I like the British accent.
00:09:51 The British accent?
00:09:52 Yeah.
00:09:53 Actually, one thing we did on our Italian trip
00:09:55 is we just picked up British accents
00:09:58 for the entire trip for fun.
00:10:00 And we forgot we were doing them
00:10:02 to the point where we talked to British people
00:10:03 and they’d ask us, why are you talking like that?
00:10:05 We just couldn’t stop.
00:10:07 I did feel much more elegant and mature.
00:10:10 That’s true.
00:10:11 People like, I don’t know if they felt the same way
00:10:13 about us, but it was more of the confidence.
00:10:16 You do feel like you’re more poised for sure.
00:10:19 Yeah.
00:10:20 So how’d you guys get into chess?
00:10:22 When did you first, let’s say,
00:10:24 when did you first fall in love with chess?
00:10:28 So we both started playing when we were pretty young,
00:10:31 around six years old.
00:10:32 That’s when our dad taught us.
00:10:33 And I enjoyed playing chess
00:10:36 because I had good results early on,
00:10:38 but a lot of it was being pushed from my dad to play chess.
00:10:42 And I only really started loving it
00:10:44 when we moved from Canada and we started moving a lot
00:10:47 and chess was the one stable thing that I had.
00:10:50 And it was also where all of my friends were.
00:10:53 So it was kind of that foundational thing for me.
00:10:57 And that’s when I started studying chess very intensely.
00:10:59 And when I started putting in the hours out of my own will
00:11:02 and not because I was being pushed by my dad,
00:11:04 that’s when I started really loving it.
00:11:05 And I even wanted to take time off college
00:11:07 to just focus on chess.
00:11:09 So training and competing?
00:11:11 Training and competing, yeah.
00:11:12 It was when I was doing it for myself
00:11:15 that I started getting my best results.
00:11:17 And actually enjoying the thing.
00:11:19 And really enjoying it, yeah.
00:11:21 I would spend summer vacations studying for tournaments
00:11:23 and my mom would come and say,
00:11:25 “‘You need to make friends, go leave the house.”
00:11:27 And I’d be like, no, I need to play chess.
00:11:29 And I remember those moments.
00:11:31 That you rebelled by playing chess, that’s awesome.
00:11:34 Yeah, exactly.
00:11:35 How did you get into it?
00:11:36 Yeah, my experience with loving in high school
00:11:39 is very opposite from Alex’s, but right,
00:11:42 my sister was playing and my dad taught me
00:11:44 when I was also six. Andrea was cool
00:11:45 in high school, unlike me.
00:11:46 You were.
00:11:47 I wouldn’t say cool, I’d say more balanced
00:11:49 and I was interested in other hobbies.
00:11:51 In my childhood, if I ever really did love chess,
00:11:54 there’s certainly moments about traveling
00:11:56 and being together with my family
00:11:58 and spending those moments together,
00:11:59 but those are more the social and the experiences.
00:12:02 But funny enough, I think my happiest moment
00:12:05 where I really played the game for my own enjoyment
00:12:08 was probably my most recent tournament.
00:12:11 Because this was after, obviously, we’ve been streaming
00:12:15 and I’m no longer in high school,
00:12:16 but when I was in school, I was always playing for college
00:12:20 and for the results, trying to build a resume.
00:12:22 So I was too stressed out about the pressure
00:12:24 to really enjoy the game.
00:12:25 Whereas when I just played my first tournament,
00:12:27 so it was after a two year break because of the pandemic
00:12:31 and it was also all live on Twitch,
00:12:33 so there was some pressure, but it was the first time
00:12:36 that I was really eager to study for the game,
00:12:39 sitting and focusing since we’ve been streaming
00:12:42 and not getting distracted by something else.
00:12:44 In years, like I said.
00:12:46 And the tournament experience, I hit my highest rating
00:12:48 and it was my best tournament ever.
00:12:50 And I think most of that is because it came
00:12:51 from my own enjoyment.
00:12:54 So you didn’t enjoy the domination?
00:12:56 Because I think you did really well, right?
00:12:58 This is like a couple months ago?
00:13:00 Oh yeah, yeah, the tournament.
00:13:01 Well, of course, I think the results came
00:13:03 from enjoying the tournament.
00:13:04 Because I would be in high school studying triple
00:13:08 the amount of time, like six hours every day
00:13:09 compared to this tournament, I didn’t even prepare for it.
00:13:12 And for three years, I wouldn’t be able
00:13:13 to pass one rating, whereas in this one tournament,
00:13:16 I passed it by like 70 points without even any preparation.
00:13:19 So it was, I think, as soon as you stopped worrying
00:13:22 about the competitions, when the games get much better.
00:13:24 What does it mean to pass a rating?
00:13:26 So I was stuck at 1900.
00:13:28 1900 is 100 points off of expert.
00:13:31 Yeah.
00:13:32 Usually when you reach 2000, you’re considered an expert,
00:13:34 which is the rating Andrea was going for.
00:13:36 Okay, expert, that’s a technical term
00:13:39 or that’s like a talk and trash term?
00:13:40 It’s more of a colloquial term
00:13:42 where if somebody is around a 2000
00:13:44 and you’re playing them in a tournament,
00:13:45 they won’t have the actual title next to their name,
00:13:47 but you always say, I’m playing an expert.
00:13:49 What about like the more official things like master?
00:13:52 Does that have to do with the rating or something else?
00:13:53 Yeah, so national master in the US is when you’re 2200.
00:13:57 Okay, and what’s international master?
00:13:59 International master is based off of a different system,
00:14:02 the FIDE system, which is international.
00:14:04 To be an international master, it’s 2400
00:14:09 and you have to have three international master norms.
00:14:12 Yeah, I think Magnus said he’s a 28, six something.
00:14:16 That was, yeah.
00:14:17 And then he said, that’s pretty decent.
00:14:19 Now.
00:14:20 Well, he always talks a lot about that.
00:14:21 But see the thing is, I think what he meant
00:14:23 is that’s a decent rating
00:14:25 because it accurately captures his actual level.
00:14:29 So it’s not overinflated or underinflated and so on.
00:14:32 And so the discussion there was how do you get to,
00:14:35 can a human being get to 2900?
00:14:38 And then he says, because my current rating
00:14:40 is pretty decent at representing my skill level,
00:14:43 it’s gonna be a long road to actually get there.
00:14:46 Because it’s like, so you have to beat people
00:14:48 at your same level, that’s how the number increases.
00:14:50 Exactly, yeah.
00:14:52 And you beat a bunch of people in the tournament, right?
00:14:54 That are higher than your luck.
00:14:55 I did, I got very lucky.
00:14:56 I was playing, I was really nervous
00:14:58 because my category was like 200 points above my rating.
00:15:01 And of course, I was very rusty
00:15:04 and I didn’t play in a tournament in a while,
00:15:05 but it went pretty well.
00:15:07 Do you feel the pressure when you’re actually recording it,
00:15:10 like the streaming?
00:15:11 It was definitely, so before every round I was vlogging
00:15:15 and I was doing meet and greets
00:15:17 and doing other things for the livestream.
00:15:18 Yeah, I saw you do a meet and greet.
00:15:21 You didn’t know what the hell you were doing, it’s great.
00:15:23 Yeah, yeah.
00:15:24 Like what am I, how do I do this?
00:15:25 Yeah, I see.
00:15:26 What do I do?
00:15:27 It was actually really wholesome.
00:15:29 The beginning was very silly
00:15:31 because I was just not expecting
00:15:33 that it was gonna be more of a seminar.
00:15:35 I thought it was like, oh, you pose and take pictures,
00:15:37 but they actually asked really nice, meaningful questions,
00:15:39 but unfortunately it’s bad for YouTube retention
00:15:41 and we cut them all out, so.
00:15:43 Bad for YouTube?
00:15:44 Yeah.
00:15:45 The good long form conversation.
00:15:46 Yes.
00:15:47 So it was like questions, Q and A type of thing.
00:15:48 Exactly, you have to have very fast paced for YouTube
00:15:51 and that seminar was not fast paced.
00:15:54 Okay, well, not everything in life
00:15:55 needs to be on YouTube, right?
00:15:57 That’s true.
00:15:57 There’s like two parallel things,
00:15:58 stuff that’s fun for YouTube.
00:16:00 Yes, one day we’ll post that Q and A.
00:16:03 Yeah, when you guys like, when you become like ultra famous,
00:16:06 you’re currently just regular famous.
00:16:08 And then they’ll appreciate the long, slow content, yes.
00:16:12 And that, the YouTube aspect, the creation aspect,
00:16:15 does that add to the fun, ultimately,
00:16:17 of the chess, of like your love of chess?
00:16:20 Oh, for the love of chess in general
00:16:21 or just for competing in that one tournament?
00:16:24 No, love of chess in general.
00:16:25 I think you said that for competing for that tournament
00:16:28 is adding pressure.
00:16:29 Yeah, but actually I would say like a good pressure,
00:16:31 but yeah, this is where I differed to Alex
00:16:34 because when I was just competitive and I was younger,
00:16:37 I don’t think I loved chess as much
00:16:39 as when I started doing it for content
00:16:41 because unlike her, who a lot of her friends
00:16:43 and social circle were other chess players,
00:16:46 I never really traveled
00:16:47 and built really solid friendships through chess
00:16:50 until I started streaming and meeting other chess streamers
00:16:52 and actually playing and talking to people for fun
00:16:55 rather than just always being alone in the game
00:16:58 and never really meeting other people my age
00:17:00 or people with similar interests.
00:17:02 So I would say Twitch was the thing
00:17:04 that really changed how I approached the game.
00:17:07 I think with some YouTubers,
00:17:09 there’s a pressure to be almost somebody else.
00:17:11 You create a persona and you’re stuck in that persona.
00:17:14 I think I’m too much of a boomer
00:17:19 to know what the hell Twitch is anyway,
00:17:20 but it feels like when you’re actually live streaming,
00:17:23 you can’t help but be who you really are.
00:17:26 I think it’s, oh, well, I think when you’re live streaming
00:17:28 and I’ve talked to a lot of other streamers about this,
00:17:31 you kind of just over exaggerate
00:17:33 one side of your personality.
00:17:34 And of course, it’s kind of like being like on all the time.
00:17:37 Like you’re trying to be more entertaining
00:17:39 and sometimes you’re being silly at moments or more,
00:17:44 you take what character traits like people know you for.
00:17:46 And for me, one is being like ADHD
00:17:48 and the younger sibling who’s very energetic
00:17:52 and causes trouble,
00:17:53 even though sometimes it’s a little switch.
00:17:54 Yeah, I’m sure you cause trouble just for the camera.
00:17:56 Yeah, right.
00:17:57 I think, yeah, I think,
00:17:59 and of course, once you’re live streaming
00:18:00 for like four or five hours,
00:18:01 there’s gonna be moments in the stream where it’s more chill,
00:18:04 but especially when you’re like editing that content
00:18:07 or you’re doing bigger streams that are shorter,
00:18:10 you are kind of playing up a side of yourself
00:18:13 because of course, there’s a lot of parts of me
00:18:15 that I don’t show to the camera
00:18:16 because they’re not as entertaining to watch,
00:18:18 like the more serious part.
00:18:19 And also there’s things that you are really interested in
00:18:23 about what you do.
00:18:24 Like I love competitive chess
00:18:26 where I could sit and really think about it,
00:18:28 but I know that that is not gonna be as entertaining
00:18:30 for stream.
00:18:31 I know that’s not gonna be as entertaining for YouTube.
00:18:33 So you kind of have to take what you like,
00:18:35 but then really adapt it for whatever the format is.
00:18:38 And sometimes that feels inauthentic,
00:18:41 but other times it just feels like repackaging
00:18:44 what you love for people
00:18:47 in a more general audience to enjoy.
00:18:49 Do you feel like it’s a trap a little bit as you evolve?
00:18:51 Like you’re trapped in?
00:18:53 Oh, I think social media, oh, sorry, go ahead.
00:18:56 Social media in general is a trap of that kind?
00:18:59 Well, so we’ve been trying to switch
00:19:01 to learn how to make YouTube videos recently.
00:19:03 And so much of learning YouTube school
00:19:07 is kind of the beastification of content
00:19:09 where you try to get to the point of the video
00:19:12 within like the first 10 seconds to not lose people.
00:19:15 The beastificate, you mean like Mr. Beast?
00:19:17 Yeah. Okay.
00:19:18 Yeah, where it’s so fast paced,
00:19:19 there’s a reason to wait, there’s high stakes.
00:19:21 And everything is created to keep people watching the video
00:19:24 and keep people on the platform.
00:19:25 And in some ways it is a trap
00:19:28 because it’s harder to do the kind of content you like
00:19:32 because you really have to squeeze it to be like,
00:19:34 okay, well, do we have a good thumbnail for this?
00:19:36 Do we have a good title for this?
00:19:38 And that’s something that we’re trying to figure out
00:19:41 how to keep true to what we wanna do.
00:19:45 Yeah, see, the way I think about it is,
00:19:47 yeah, there’s a lot of stuff you can create
00:19:49 and yeah, the Mr. Beastification process.
00:19:53 But also I think about what are the videos,
00:19:57 conversations or things I will create in this life
00:20:01 that will be the best thing I do.
00:20:04 And I try not to do things in my life
00:20:08 that will prevent me from getting there.
00:20:10 I feel like if you’re always focusing on doing kind of,
00:20:14 optimizing the thumbnail in the 10 seconds and so on,
00:20:17 you’ll never do the thing that’s truly you’re known for
00:20:21 and remembered for.
00:20:22 So finding that balance is tricky.
00:20:25 I get that, but at the same time,
00:20:27 this might be my own copium,
00:20:28 which I know is a word you know now.
00:20:31 Yeah, I’m slowly learning the full complexity
00:20:33 of the term, yes.
00:20:35 But the other way I think about it is,
00:20:38 it is a skill to learn how to communicate
00:20:42 with large audiences.
00:20:44 And first I started streaming chess,
00:20:47 which is something I just did and really loved,
00:20:49 but now I have to learn how to translate that format.
00:20:52 And if that’s a skillset we could build,
00:20:54 then we could use it to do really important things.
00:20:57 And I’ve seen a lot of YouTubers
00:20:58 who have done interviews about how,
00:21:01 they didn’t love the kind of content they did at first,
00:21:03 but what they’re doing right now is really meaningful.
00:21:06 So I like to think of it, maybe like skill development,
00:21:08 cause not everybody hits off podcasts
00:21:11 where they can talk to super interesting people
00:21:12 right off the bat.
00:21:14 Yeah, you can be slow and boring in a podcast.
00:21:17 You don’t have to worry about the first 10 seconds.
00:21:19 I mean, people like keep pushing me for,
00:21:21 cause the first 10 seconds of the videos I do is,
00:21:25 well, I know it’s most important for YouTube,
00:21:27 but I don’t give a damn.
00:21:28 I wrote a Chrome extension that hides
00:21:30 all the views and likes.
00:21:32 I don’t look at the click through.
00:21:34 I don’t look at Twitch views, Andrea does.
00:21:37 So we also can relate.
00:21:39 I love numbers too, but that’s why I don’t look at it.
00:21:41 Cause you become like, oh,
00:21:43 you’ll start to think that a conversation
00:21:45 or I think you did sucks because it doesn’t get views,
00:21:48 but that’s just not the case.
00:21:50 YouTube algorithm is this monster that figures stuff out.
00:21:54 And if you let it control your mind,
00:21:56 I feel like it’s going to destroy you creatively.
00:21:58 So you have to find a nice balance.
00:22:01 I have to say, I was laughing a little bit
00:22:02 when I was listening to the Magnus episode
00:22:04 and the first 10 minutes,
00:22:05 you guys are talking about soccer, football.
00:22:08 Two robots seem human in the conversation.
00:22:10 Yeah, exactly.
00:22:11 I was like, let’s have some fun,
00:22:14 make conversation about non chess related topics.
00:22:17 Yeah, talk about sports.
00:22:19 Yeah, it was kind of hilarious.
00:22:20 I was surprised that even at his level,
00:22:24 I wasn’t sure, but I was surprised how much he loves chess.
00:22:28 It sounds cliche to say,
00:22:29 but like the way he looked at a chess board,
00:22:32 you know those memes like,
00:22:33 I wish somebody looked at me the way he still like
00:22:37 the way he glanced down and he reached for the pieces
00:22:40 with excitement to show me something.
00:22:42 There was, there wasn’t like, okay, I’ll show you.
00:22:45 It was like, like there was still that fire.
00:22:49 That’s something that always shocks me
00:22:50 about some of like super grandmasters.
00:22:53 Like one of my coaches was a person who also,
00:22:57 his name’s GM Hammer of Norway.
00:22:58 He also coached Magnus.
00:23:00 He was his second and he was helping me train
00:23:02 for my tournament.
00:23:04 And I was kind of putting off doing the homework.
00:23:06 He’s like, if you’re putting it off,
00:23:07 that means you’re studying the wrong thing.
00:23:09 Like you should be enjoying even when you’re practicing,
00:23:11 which when I grew up, I thought to get to the top level,
00:23:14 like practicing has to be hard and unpleasant.
00:23:17 And when I was listening to Magnus episode,
00:23:19 he was like, I didn’t read books very much.
00:23:20 Or there was one thing that you said
00:23:22 that’s like very normal for studying classical chess
00:23:25 that he didn’t do just because it didn’t interest him.
00:23:27 He says, I suck at puzzles.
00:23:29 I don’t like puzzles.
00:23:30 Yeah, and he doesn’t do what he doesn’t enjoy.
00:23:32 And that’s because it’s like purely driven out of passion.
00:23:35 I think the internet was like, I suck at puzzles too.
00:23:38 Yeah, they like that.
00:23:39 They’re grandmasters.
00:23:41 I don’t have to study at all.
00:23:43 It’s just, it’s fun.
00:23:44 And, but I think the lesson there that’s really powerful
00:23:47 is he spends most of the day thinking about chess
00:23:50 because he wants to.
00:23:51 So do whatever, if you’re into getting better at chess,
00:23:54 do whatever it takes to actually just the number of hours
00:23:57 you spend a day thinking about chess, maximize that.
00:24:00 If you’re like super serious about it.
00:24:02 I actually get very addicted
00:24:03 whenever I start studying chess,
00:24:05 which is why I don’t do it as seriously
00:24:08 when I’m focused on content.
00:24:10 Cause I go through these rabbit holes
00:24:13 where if I’m focusing on chess,
00:24:14 I wanna be as good as I possibly can at the game.
00:24:17 Otherwise it’s hard for me to enjoy it
00:24:19 cause it’s such a competitive thing.
00:24:21 And I remember training for tournaments
00:24:23 and when you’re training for tournaments,
00:24:25 you even start dreaming about chess
00:24:27 and you can stop thinking about it.
00:24:29 And it’s as if you’re flipped
00:24:31 into this completely different world,
00:24:33 which is also what I like best about the game
00:24:35 that it’s a completely different living experience.
00:24:38 And then you take some drugs
00:24:39 and now you start to see things on the ceiling.
00:24:41 Is there some factual hallucination
00:24:44 like to the Queen’s Gambit, like those scenes?
00:24:48 I think it’s…
00:24:49 Is that based on your life story?
00:24:51 Well, I can’t say that on camera.
00:24:53 No, just kidding.
00:24:55 Actually chess players are very careful to not take drugs.
00:24:58 They drink a lot.
00:25:00 They drink so much.
00:25:01 It’s actually crazy for how good they’re able
00:25:03 to play chess when they do.
00:25:05 But when it comes to things like psychedelics
00:25:07 or other things, they usually stay away from those
00:25:10 cause they don’t wanna mess anything up in their brain.
00:25:12 So this is actually intervention.
00:25:13 I saw that you mentioned somewhere,
00:25:17 I think it was the lie detector test
00:25:18 where you have a drinking problem.
00:25:20 Is that an actual…
00:25:22 I think that’s actually a meme
00:25:25 that we like to joke about on stream
00:25:27 because occasionally we’d have like a white claw on stream
00:25:29 or something like that.
00:25:31 And then people meme about it.
00:25:32 It goes back to Andrea’s point
00:25:33 of amplifying a part of your personality
00:25:36 to make yourself a little bit more entertaining.
00:25:39 I’m gonna use that as an excuse from now on.
00:25:41 This podcast is just amplifying a part of that personality.
00:25:45 I’m not really like this, but have you played drunk?
00:25:48 Like Magnus has played drunk.
00:25:50 He says it helps someone with the creativity.
00:25:52 Is there any truth to that?
00:25:53 Well, Andrea is under 21,
00:25:55 so she’s obviously would never do that.
00:25:59 But I have played while drinking.
00:26:01 Actually, I enjoy playing chess and drinking
00:26:05 more than pre gaming or going out to a club and drinking,
00:26:08 which sounds really silly.
00:26:10 And I’ll usually play against opponents
00:26:11 who are also having some beer.
00:26:14 And it does make you feel like you’re seeing the game
00:26:17 from a fresher perspective
00:26:18 where it can sometimes make you feel more confident,
00:26:22 liquid confidence, and it does help with creativity.
00:26:24 You just feel like you could pull things off,
00:26:27 but there’s also a limit.
00:26:28 It’s more like you’ve had one drink or two drink,
00:26:30 but then it goes beyond that.
00:26:31 And then you just start missing tactics
00:26:33 and it’s not worth it.
00:26:34 Yeah, I think it only helps players
00:26:36 in very short time controls.
00:26:38 One time I was challenging this grandmaster on stream
00:26:40 and we were playing bullet chess,
00:26:42 which is one minute chess.
00:26:44 And I was giving him handicaps.
00:26:45 And I said, okay, you have to take four shots
00:26:47 before the next game.
00:26:48 And he just got like 10 times stronger
00:26:50 and transformed into like the Hulk
00:26:52 and destroyed me more than the last game.
00:26:55 But of course, if you’re playing like a three hour game,
00:26:57 it’s gonna get old.
00:26:58 But I think in short time controls, it’s amazing.
00:27:00 Yeah, definitely has to be blitz.
00:27:02 It has to be where it’s more intuition
00:27:04 rather than sitting and calculating.
00:27:06 This is probably like negatively affecting
00:27:08 your ability to calculate.
00:27:09 Absolutely, yeah.
00:27:10 How much when you guys play,
00:27:11 when you look at the chess board,
00:27:12 how much of it is calculation?
00:27:14 How much of it is intuition?
00:27:17 How much of it is memorized openings?
00:27:22 It really depends between short form chess.
00:27:25 So five minutes, three minutes, one minute
00:27:27 and classical chess.
00:27:29 What’s your favorite to play?
00:27:30 I love playing blitz now because that’s most of what I do.
00:27:33 And that’s actually how I got into chess streaming
00:27:35 because I couldn’t spend entire weekends
00:27:37 or weeks playing tournaments.
00:27:38 I would just, while I was in college, log on
00:27:40 and play these long blitz or bullet sessions.
00:27:43 And it’s very fast.
00:27:44 So you don’t have time to go calculate as deeply.
00:27:48 You basically have to calculate short lines pretty quickly.
00:27:51 And a lot of it is pattern recognition and intuition.
00:27:55 As three minutes, you said?
00:27:56 Three minutes, yeah.
00:27:57 Okay, cool.
00:27:58 And so for that, it’s just basically intuition.
00:28:00 A lot of it is intuition, yeah.
00:28:02 See, I saw on streams you actually keep talking
00:28:04 while playing chess.
00:28:05 It seems really difficult.
00:28:06 Yeah, that helps my result.
00:28:07 That doesn’t help my result.
00:28:08 It doesn’t, it hurts.
00:28:09 It helps content, not the game.
00:28:10 Yeah, exactly.
00:28:11 But you can still do it.
00:28:12 Because it feels like how can you possibly concentrate
00:28:15 while talking?
00:28:17 It’s because so much of it is intuition.
00:28:19 You’re not, while you’re talking,
00:28:20 you’re thinking about that topic,
00:28:22 but then you just come to the board
00:28:23 and you just understand what you should be doing here.
00:28:26 And then sometimes you get in trouble
00:28:28 because you’re talking and you have now lost
00:28:29 half of your time.
00:28:30 You have a minute and a half, your opponent has three,
00:28:32 and you’re kind of at a disadvantage.
00:28:34 But that kind of goes to show
00:28:36 that that’s how blitz chess usually works,
00:28:38 whereas classical is very different.
00:28:40 Which of you is better at chess?
00:28:41 I mean, let’s do it this way.
00:28:43 Can you, Andrea, can you say what,
00:28:47 in which way is Alex stronger than you?
00:28:49 Which way is she weaker than you?
00:28:51 Not physically in terms of chess.
00:28:56 Well, yes, of course she is higher rated.
00:28:58 But when we do play, I think her strengths against me
00:29:01 where she really gets me is the end game.
00:29:03 She has stronger end game, so she can,
00:29:06 and I actually have a stronger opening,
00:29:08 but as soon as she’s able to simplify.
00:29:09 Andrea, I’m supposed to say what is good about you,
00:29:11 not you.
00:29:12 You know, I’m getting there.
00:29:13 Well, see, this is what I’m saying,
00:29:14 because don’t worry, it’s related, okay?
00:29:17 Because if I can get an advantage
00:29:19 in the beginning of the game,
00:29:20 but as soon as she starts trading pieces down,
00:29:22 like my confidence drops,
00:29:23 because I know that the end game
00:29:25 is the hardest part of the game and the longest,
00:29:27 and that’s where she ends up beating me.
00:29:29 So her end game is I think really what makes the difference.
00:29:32 It sounds like her psychological warfare is better too,
00:29:36 because if you’re getting nervous.
00:29:39 But it’s harder to play against higher rated players,
00:29:41 same how Magnus and former world champions
00:29:44 have that psychological edge.
00:29:46 So I think it’s always going to be different for Andrea,
00:29:48 because she knows statistically
00:29:50 she should be winning something like one in four games,
00:29:52 but she usually does better than that,
00:29:55 because she’s very distracting and talks a lot.
00:29:58 That does help.
00:29:59 What does it feel like to play a higher rated player?
00:30:01 What’s the experience of that?
00:30:06 Playing somebody like Magnus.
00:30:08 So it depends on how much higher rated than you they are.
00:30:11 If it’s someone who’s like between me and Andrea,
00:30:13 let’s say it’s a 200 point difference,
00:30:16 you know they should win,
00:30:17 but at least you still feel like you have a chance.
00:30:19 I was playing in a title Tuesday,
00:30:21 which is this tournament chess.com has every Tuesday.
00:30:24 And I got really lucky, beat a GM,
00:30:26 drew an international master,
00:30:27 and then I got paired against Hikaru Nakamura.
00:30:30 And my brain just went blank,
00:30:32 because I just know that I’m so unlikely to win
00:30:35 that I couldn’t even play the game properly
00:30:37 when it’s that much of a difference
00:30:39 where they should be winning like 99% of the time.
00:30:42 But that’s like psychological.
00:30:43 So you’re saying that’s the biggest experience
00:30:45 is like actually knowing the numbers
00:30:48 and statistically thinking there’s no way I can win.
00:30:50 But I meant like, is there a suffocating feeling
00:30:52 like positionally you feel like
00:30:54 you’re constantly under attack?
00:30:57 You just feel like you’re slowly getting outsmarted.
00:31:00 And the worst is when you don’t even know
00:31:02 what you’re doing wrong.
00:31:03 You come out of that and you’re like,
00:31:05 I thought I was doing great and I got slowly squeezed.
00:31:08 I didn’t understand what was going on.
00:31:10 And you’re just kind of baffled.
00:31:11 It’s kind of like watching AlphaZero beat up Stockfish.
00:31:15 And you don’t really understand why it’s making certain moves
00:31:18 or how it thought of the plan.
00:31:19 You just see it slowly getting the position better.
00:31:22 And that’s what it feels like.
00:31:24 I would add it’s kind of different for me
00:31:26 if they’re someone who’s significantly higher rated.
00:31:29 So let’s say more than like 300 points
00:31:31 or you’re playing Magnus.
00:31:32 What I notice is I just feel lost straight
00:31:35 as soon as I don’t know my preparation
00:31:37 because they know so many opening lines
00:31:39 that they’re gonna know the best line to beat you
00:31:41 that you haven’t studied.
00:31:42 So then on move 10, you’re like,
00:31:44 he already has a maybe plus 0.5 advantage
00:31:47 which is really small.
00:31:48 But for someone with such a significant skill level
00:31:51 you know you already lost at that point.
00:31:53 And it’s like a third of the game.
00:31:57 What are the strengths and weaknesses of Andrea?
00:32:00 Andrea is very good at opening preparation.
00:32:04 As she said.
00:32:05 As she said, she likes bringing that up.
00:32:07 I mean, she’s very meticulous about it
00:32:09 where she’ll really go in and learn her lines.
00:32:13 And having that initial starting confidence
00:32:16 isn’t just helpful for the opening
00:32:17 but it helps develop your plans for the middle game.
00:32:20 So I think she’s very good at that.
00:32:23 I think she’s actually pretty good
00:32:25 at tactical combinations.
00:32:28 What is tactics?
00:32:29 Tactics is like solving puzzles
00:32:33 or basically finding lines that are forced
00:32:36 where if you find them, you’re going to win.
00:32:39 So that’s like puzzles within a position.
00:32:41 Yeah, exactly.
00:32:42 Whereas strategic chess is making slow moves
00:32:45 and over the process of like 20 moves
00:32:48 you get a slightly better position based on
00:32:50 an understanding of the overall strategy.
00:32:54 So in my extensive research review on Wikipedia,
00:32:58 it says your most played opening
00:33:00 is the King’s Indian defense.
00:33:02 In which, quote, black allows white
00:33:04 to advance their pawns to the center of the board
00:33:07 in the first two moves.
00:33:09 Is there any truth to this?
00:33:11 So the King’s Indian.
00:33:12 And what is it?
00:33:13 Probably is my most played opening.
00:33:15 And it’s one where even when my coach
00:33:19 who was a grandmaster taught me,
00:33:20 he was like, so you know,
00:33:21 I’ve been playing the King’s Indian for 10 years
00:33:23 and I still don’t understand it.
00:33:25 And it’s one of those openings that computers
00:33:27 really don’t like because you do,
00:33:29 or at least Stockfish doesn’t like it.
00:33:31 Maybe AlphaZero would change their mind.
00:33:32 I forgot to look at what.
00:33:34 Can you show me, by the way, what it is?
00:33:35 Yeah.
00:33:36 Is it white’s opening or black’s opening?
00:33:39 Black responds to the D4 Queen’s pawn push.
00:33:44 And you take your knight out to F6.
00:33:46 I’ll just put in the stereotypical,
00:33:50 classical King’s Indian more so to say.
00:33:54 We actually have a very famous King’s Indian game
00:33:57 in the notes that we prepared.
00:33:58 Okay.
00:33:59 For the record, I asked you guys for some games
00:34:02 that you find pretty cool
00:34:04 and maybe to get a chance to talk about some.
00:34:06 Yeah.
00:34:07 So this is the King’s Indian.
00:34:09 As you can see, white has much more control
00:34:13 over the center.
00:34:14 White has three pawns in the center
00:34:16 while black has none past the fifth rank.
00:34:19 And you just have this pawn on D6.
00:34:21 And one of the ideas in chess is
00:34:23 if you’re not taking the center,
00:34:24 then your plan revolves around
00:34:26 trying to continually challenge it.
00:34:29 But what is really fun about the King’s Indian
00:34:33 is that black sometimes gets these crazy King side attacks
00:34:37 while white gets Queen side attacks.
00:34:39 And even though it’s a little bit suspicious for black
00:34:43 and the computer could usually break it,
00:34:45 it’s hard to defend as a human when you’re being attacked.
00:34:49 But if you don’t pull off the attack as black,
00:34:51 then you’re just gonna end up being lost in the end game.
00:34:54 So it’s like a very asymmetrical position.
00:34:56 It’s very asymmetrical,
00:34:57 although a lot of people now stop playing
00:35:00 into the classical King’s Indian,
00:35:01 even though computers give it a big advantage.
00:35:04 And they play these slower lines in the King’s Indian,
00:35:07 which are less fun to play.
00:35:09 What’s slower mean?
00:35:10 It takes a longer time to do something interesting with?
00:35:15 They basically don’t let you get as much
00:35:18 of a King side attack
00:35:19 because they try opening up the center
00:35:22 and then you have no weaknesses,
00:35:23 but you’re just slowly improving the position of your pieces
00:35:27 instead of being able to go for that King side attack.
00:35:29 So for people just listening,
00:35:30 there is the white pawns are all on the fourth row
00:35:34 in a row together.
00:35:35 That feels like a bad position.
00:35:37 For black?
00:35:38 For white.
00:35:39 Oh, you don’t like taking the center?
00:35:41 No, I like taking the center.
00:35:43 Now you’re talking trash already.
00:35:44 Oh, sorry.
00:35:45 But it’s just like they’re like feel vulnerable
00:35:49 there in a row together.
00:35:50 Like it’s like, you know,
00:35:53 cause they’re like, who’s gonna defend them?
00:35:54 I guess the Knights defend and the Queen defends it.
00:35:57 You’re actually talking about a theme
00:35:59 that you do see sometimes, which is called hanging pawns.
00:36:02 And when you have two pawns right next to each other
00:36:04 with no other pawns to defend them.
00:36:06 Yeah, so it is a valid point.
00:36:09 And actually as black,
00:36:10 you’re trying to break apart these pawns
00:36:12 or get them to push and create some holes into the position,
00:36:15 but it’s a trade off.
00:36:17 And that’s a lot of what chess openings are about.
00:36:20 You get more space,
00:36:21 but you’ll also end up having to protect your pawns
00:36:24 potentially or move them forward to the point
00:36:26 where they’re overextended.
00:36:27 And plus pawns being vulnerable, it’s kind of fun.
00:36:30 It’s like, there’s more stuff in danger.
00:36:31 They’re not, cause if it’s like this,
00:36:34 everything’s like trapped, like you can’t do anything.
00:36:37 Everything’s blocked, yeah.
00:36:38 And blocked off, yeah.
00:36:40 It’s like you can’t have fun.
00:36:41 Yeah, one of the most,
00:36:44 one of the opening principles for white
00:36:46 is get your pawns in the center.
00:36:47 So I’d say like this is actually preferable for white.
00:36:51 Let’s go over some opening principles.
00:36:53 There we go.
00:36:54 Cause this is a very good learning lesson
00:36:56 for any chess beginners in the audience.
00:37:01 Okay, so first thing you wanna do is control the center.
00:37:04 There we go, E4, the more aggressive one.
00:37:07 Isn’t that like the basic vanilla move?
00:37:09 I didn’t, somebody told me that’s the most popular
00:37:12 opening move in chess.
00:37:14 It is.
00:37:15 Why is that considered aggressive?
00:37:16 So it’s E4 and D4 and the king’s pawn is known
00:37:20 as being for more tactical players,
00:37:22 whereas D4 is known for more positional players.
00:37:25 So that’s why it’s considered more aggressive.
00:37:28 Tactical.
00:37:29 More gambits with E4, I think.
00:37:30 So tactical means I’m gonna try to attack you.
00:37:35 You’re gonna try to go for puzzles
00:37:37 and rely more on your combination abilities.
00:37:42 Whereas if it’s something positional,
00:37:44 you usually have like three to four moves
00:37:46 that are all good in the position,
00:37:48 whereas tactics, you need to see this one line.
00:37:50 So it’s more precise.
00:37:52 So this one’s cool cause he can like,
00:37:54 the queen can come out, the bishop can come out.
00:37:57 Yeah, and that’s one of the most popular checkmates
00:38:00 and usually what you teach new students
00:38:02 to try to cheese their friends
00:38:03 cause then they feel really excited
00:38:04 that they know this new trap
00:38:06 where you bring the bishop and the queen out
00:38:07 and you try to checkmate on F7.
00:38:09 Yeah.
00:38:10 It’s the trap that queen’s gambit, Beth Harmon,
00:38:12 falls for in their first game versus the janitor.
00:38:16 She gets all mad cause she gets checkmated very early.
00:38:18 Oh, that’s the one she gets checkmated with?
00:38:20 Yeah.
00:38:20 Okay.
00:38:21 I love how you guys were actually paying attention
00:38:23 to the games carefully,
00:38:25 which is pretty cool that they did a good job
00:38:26 of improving, evolving her game throughout the show
00:38:29 to actually represent an actual growth of a chess player.
00:38:33 Yeah.
00:38:34 They really took every detail into consideration,
00:38:37 which was cool.
00:38:38 Okay.
00:38:39 So what else?
00:38:40 That’s, I brought stuff into the center.
00:38:41 We’ll do the same.
00:38:42 Okay.
00:38:43 So then you want to develop your pieces.
00:38:45 So in the beginning of the game,
00:38:46 you want to take out the bishops and knights first
00:38:49 because you don’t want to start
00:38:50 with the most valuable piece like the queen
00:38:53 cause then it’ll become a vulnerability
00:38:54 and it’ll get attacked very early on.
00:38:57 And the reason you’re taking out these two pieces first
00:39:00 is cause you want to castle your king.
00:39:02 So you can move a knight move or a bishop move
00:39:04 and that’s considered developing.
00:39:06 Yeah.
00:39:07 So at this stage, not like even before
00:39:10 getting a few pawns out.
00:39:11 You usually want to start with getting a pawn
00:39:14 because you want to get space in the center,
00:39:16 but also when you push pawns,
00:39:18 it helps free up some of your pieces.
00:39:22 So usually start with one pawn first
00:39:24 and then you could start taking out your minor pieces,
00:39:26 which is the bishop and the knight.
00:39:28 I have anxiety about a pawn just floating out there.
00:39:31 Defenseless.
00:39:32 But it’s not attacked yet.
00:39:34 See, those are what you call ghost threats.
00:39:36 So you’re scared of something that hasn’t happened yet.
00:39:38 So if I were to attack it.
00:39:40 Feel like there’s a deeper thing going on here.
00:39:43 Yeah.
00:39:43 Actually, let’s say.
00:39:44 Yeah, so you’re attacking the pawn in the center here
00:39:47 and it is vulnerable, but as soon as you do that,
00:39:50 I can develop my own knight and defend it as well.
00:39:53 Okay.
00:39:54 And now for people just listening,
00:39:55 there’s two pawns that just came out to meet each other
00:39:58 and a couple of knights.
00:40:00 You love the chess commentary.
00:40:01 It’s very poetic.
00:40:02 Yeah.
00:40:03 The pawns met after midnight.
00:40:04 Yeah, yeah.
00:40:06 Well, I’m going to romanticize the game a bit.
00:40:08 Yes, exactly.
00:40:09 Okay, cool.
00:40:10 So like there’s, if you bring out the bishops
00:40:14 with the knights, you’re matching that with the other.
00:40:16 Black is going to match it.
00:40:18 Exactly.
00:40:19 Whatever you’re attacking with.
00:40:19 Yep, he’s developing.
00:40:20 It’s going to defend it.
00:40:21 Now you could develop your bishop
00:40:23 or your knight, whatever you’d like.
00:40:25 Oh no, now you give him options.
00:40:27 All right.
00:40:28 Yeah, there you go.
00:40:30 Now I am attacking the pawn in the center,
00:40:32 which is what you were afraid about before,
00:40:34 but let’s see how you defend it here.
00:40:41 By doing this symmetrical thing,
00:40:43 bringing out the knight on the other side.
00:40:45 And actually your other move was good as well,
00:40:48 defending with the pawn,
00:40:49 because then you’re freeing up space for your bishop.
00:40:51 So you’re basically trying to develop your pieces
00:40:54 as quickly as possible, put your pawns in the center,
00:40:57 and then get your king to safety.
00:40:59 And that’s usually the basic opening tips that you get.
00:41:03 And it is kind of counterintuitive
00:41:05 that safety is in the corner of the board for a king.
00:41:09 That was always confusing to me, but you know.
00:41:11 Three pawns in front,
00:41:12 though you typically don’t push those.
00:41:15 Maybe like one, maybe I’ll go one square,
00:41:17 but these will be like the wall of defense
00:41:21 that keep him safe.
00:41:22 But another way to also think about it
00:41:24 is your pieces usually wanna point towards the center.
00:41:28 If you have a knight closer to the center
00:41:29 than closer to the side,
00:41:31 it actually has more squares it can go to.
00:41:34 So a huge part of it is just wanting to have flexibility
00:41:37 for where your pieces go.
00:41:38 So more pieces are going to be able to make threats
00:41:42 in the center or even open up the position.
00:41:45 So since that’s where it’s most likely to open,
00:41:48 you want your king somewhere
00:41:49 where the position will stay closed
00:41:51 so that you have the pawns to defend.
00:41:52 You know, there’s like rules like this,
00:41:54 but I always wonder,
00:41:55 cause I’ve built chess engines,
00:41:57 but then you start to wonder like,
00:42:00 why is it that positionally these things are good?
00:42:03 Like you’ve built up an intuition about it,
00:42:05 but I wish, and that’s the thing that would be amazing
00:42:08 if engines could explain,
00:42:10 why is this kind of thing better than this kind of thing?
00:42:13 You start to build up an intuition,
00:42:15 but if I’m just like knowing nothing about chess,
00:42:17 it feels confusing that cornering your king,
00:42:21 like getting him like trapped here.
00:42:25 Like it feels like you could get checkmated easier there
00:42:27 if I was just using like dumb intuition,
00:42:30 but it seems like that’s not the case.
00:42:33 I imagine maybe, cause AlphaZero learned
00:42:36 by playing games against itself, right?
00:42:38 And I imagine if you have a lot of games
00:42:40 and you do build an intuition,
00:42:42 because if you were to keep your king in the center,
00:42:44 you just see that in those games,
00:42:45 you’re dealing with threats a lot more often.
00:42:48 But yeah, there’s shortcut rules
00:42:50 and this doesn’t even mean it’s the best way to play chess
00:42:53 as we’ve seen with AlphaZero
00:42:55 kind of changing the rules of the game a little bit.
00:42:58 But as a human, to learn it from scratch
00:43:00 is a lot more difficult than to start with principles.
00:43:03 So that’s why beginners usually learn chess this way.
00:43:07 Yeah, because you’re playing other humans
00:43:09 and the other humans have also operated
00:43:11 on a different principles.
00:43:13 And that’s why people that come up now
00:43:15 that are training with engines
00:43:17 are just going to be much better
00:43:20 than the people of the past
00:43:21 because they’re gonna try out weirder ideas
00:43:24 that go against the principles of old.
00:43:27 And they’re gonna do like weird stuff,
00:43:29 including sacrifices and stuff like that.
00:43:30 Yeah, and I also think that’s why AlphaZero was so shocking
00:43:34 because Stockfish was using an opening database.
00:43:37 So it was already based off of knowledge
00:43:39 that humans have from playing chess for years
00:43:41 that we just thought is how you’re supposed to play.
00:43:43 Whereas AlphaZero just learned
00:43:45 from playing the game so many times
00:43:47 and came up with very novel opening ideas.
00:43:49 Were you impressed by AlphaZero?
00:43:52 Have you seen some of the games?
00:43:53 I have seen some of the games.
00:43:54 I think impressed, bewildered, and motivated
00:43:59 were the three things I experienced.
00:44:01 I think Magnus said he was also impressed
00:44:04 that it could easily be mistaken for creativity.
00:44:09 That’s his trash talk towards the AI.
00:44:10 That was a beautiful sentence.
00:44:12 I was listening to the podcast.
00:44:14 I mean, as a human, I agree with him
00:44:17 because you don’t wanna give the machine
00:44:18 the power of creativity,
00:44:20 but if it looks creative, give it a compliment.
00:44:25 That’s fair.
00:44:27 I know that you’re being nice to the machines
00:44:29 in case they are ever looking back through this.
00:44:32 What else is there?
00:44:33 What other principles are there for the opening?
00:44:36 You can go a little bit more forward, let’s say.
00:44:39 Yeah, we can finish full development.
00:44:42 Positions like this, let’s just say
00:44:43 you developed all of your pieces.
00:44:45 So that’s like a really nice,
00:44:49 like nobody took any pieces
00:44:51 and we’re just in a nice positional thing.
00:44:53 Yeah, so it’s not actually a very accurate one.
00:44:56 So I’m actually, I could put a different one on the board,
00:44:59 but usually after you’ve developed all of your pieces,
00:45:03 you wanna get your queen out a little bit
00:45:05 to connect your rooks,
00:45:06 and you also start thinking about certain pawn pushes
00:45:09 and getting more space.
00:45:11 But another good tip is just can you improve
00:45:14 the position of your pieces?
00:45:15 Think about timing.
00:45:16 So if you’ve already moved a piece once
00:45:19 and there’s a piece that hasn’t moved at all,
00:45:20 then you wanna focus on the piece that hasn’t moved at all
00:45:23 to be able to have it more likely to jump into the game.
00:45:26 Right, so don’t move pieces multiple times.
00:45:28 Exactly.
00:45:29 Like try to move it to the most optimal position.
00:45:31 Yeah.
00:45:32 Yeah, that makes sense.
00:45:33 What, so what’s the Indian,
00:45:37 I think we kind of went over it,
00:45:38 but did you ever say why you like it so much?
00:45:41 Because it’s weird?
00:45:42 Because it’s king size?
00:45:43 I liked it because it’s a very fun, aggressive defense
00:45:48 where you’re just throwing your pieces towards white,
00:45:51 and there’s so many sacrificing opportunities.
00:45:55 And for some reason,
00:45:56 tactical games always feel like the most beautiful,
00:45:59 the most satisfying,
00:46:01 and that’s what I liked about the King’s Indian.
00:46:03 But I also suffered a lot from this love
00:46:06 because I would play things
00:46:07 that are not necessarily correct,
00:46:09 then my attack wouldn’t pan out,
00:46:11 and then I would just struggle the rest of the game
00:46:12 having no play and just trying to defend.
00:46:14 So if you’re always attacking,
00:46:15 Wikipedia also says that,
00:46:16 that you’re known for your attacking play.
00:46:19 It’s also known for losses according to Stanford.
00:46:22 Okay, let’s not bring that up.
00:46:23 See Wikipedia doesn’t talk trash,
00:46:25 it just says nice things.
00:46:27 Yeah, Wikipedia’s a lot nicer.
00:46:29 I actually played a lot of positional chess in classic
00:46:32 because I really like the slow squeeze,
00:46:35 but when I transitioned to playing a lot of online chess,
00:46:38 it’s almost as if I was looking
00:46:40 for more instant gratification
00:46:42 because it feels so much better
00:46:44 to beat someone with an attack.
00:46:46 And even if sometimes it doesn’t pan out,
00:46:48 I was okay with it because you get so many games in.
00:46:51 So I think my style in online chess
00:46:54 really changed from my classical chess.
00:46:56 What about you Andrea?
00:46:57 Do you have a style?
00:46:58 Are you attacking?
00:46:59 Are you a more like conservative defensive player?
00:47:02 Are you chaotic?
00:47:03 Opening wise, I like to play more positionally.
00:47:06 Like I like to push T4 and just slowly improve my pieces
00:47:09 and slowly get an attack.
00:47:10 But like Alex said, if you’re playing bullet chess
00:47:13 or blitz against viewers,
00:47:15 you often like wanna play riskier moves
00:47:19 that may not be as good.
00:47:20 And then that’s kind of when I would play more aggressive.
00:47:23 But I do enjoy tournaments for that reason
00:47:25 because then like once you’re 15 moves in,
00:47:29 which as soon as you’re out of your prep,
00:47:31 I like sitting and thinking in more positional,
00:47:34 yeah, positional middle games.
00:47:37 One of the games you found to be pretty cool
00:47:39 was the Hakara Nakamura versus Galfan in 2009.
00:47:44 And that one I think includes the King’s Indian defense.
00:47:47 Yes.
00:47:49 Why is that an interesting one to you?
00:47:52 I also play the King’s Indian as black
00:47:54 and I love this model game.
00:47:56 But as Alex was saying,
00:47:58 like all these advantages for the King’s Indian.
00:48:00 But now there’s this one line
00:48:02 that like every higher rated player
00:48:04 just destroys my King’s Indian.
00:48:06 And you see these beautiful games and like,
00:48:08 ah, yes, I wanna play for these ideas.
00:48:10 But now no one plays into it anymore
00:48:12 and you just get demolished.
00:48:13 So this is why I don’t play the King’s Indian anymore,
00:48:15 but not to ruin the fun.
00:48:16 It’s a love hate relationship, truly.
00:48:18 The reality.
00:48:19 But that’s like the higher level players do
00:48:21 or does everybody?
00:48:21 Yeah, if you’re studying openings
00:48:23 and you know this line as white,
00:48:25 you just, you automatically get the upper edge.
00:48:27 And that’s kind of how openings develop.
00:48:29 You start having players trying new lines
00:48:32 and then you see ones and then everybody adopts it
00:48:35 if they think it’s the best one.
00:48:36 But yeah, so Hikaru is really known
00:48:38 for his aggressive style of play.
00:48:41 Is Hikaru black here or what?
00:48:42 Yeah, Hikaru is black here.
00:48:43 So he’s playing the King’s Indian.
00:48:45 And as you can see in this position,
00:48:47 white already has a lot, a huge center advantage.
00:48:51 But what Hikaru is gonna start doing
00:48:52 even with the next move is bringing all of his pieces
00:48:56 towards the white King side,
00:48:57 because his plan is to start pushing his pawns
00:49:00 towards the white King and ignore the attack
00:49:03 that goes on in the Queen side.
00:49:04 It’s all of the dream attack with the King’s Indian.
00:49:06 So there’s a complete asymmetry towards the King side
00:49:09 and the left side of the board is a ton of pieces.
00:49:12 Yeah, exactly.
00:49:14 Wow, he moved the knight like three times in a row.
00:49:17 Yep, and that’s what you need to do
00:49:19 because you have to move the knight
00:49:20 in order to make space for your pawn.
00:49:22 So again, this is why it’s so counterintuitive
00:49:24 and Stockfish doesn’t like it.
00:49:26 You’re putting almost most of your pieces on the back rank
00:49:29 and you’re pushing your King side pawns
00:49:31 and you’re blocking your own dark squared Bishop.
00:49:33 So none of it makes sense.
00:49:35 You’re mimicking it, that’s awesome.
00:49:37 Okay, so yeah, here you see white going
00:49:39 for a Queen side attack,
00:49:40 black going for the King side attack
00:49:42 and you can keep going a little bit
00:49:43 and I’ll wait to where he starts with the pretty sacrifices.
00:49:47 It’s more fun to analyze games in person
00:49:50 than on the computer, I think.
00:49:51 Yeah.
00:49:53 Okay, so here Hikaru is preparing the attack
00:49:57 and what I really like about this game
00:49:59 is that he finds these tactics
00:50:01 that are not necessarily what a computer would go for
00:50:05 but it’s very hard to face as a human
00:50:07 and that’s why a lot of people play the King’s Indian
00:50:09 because in practice it’s hard to defend against.
00:50:12 So we can keep moving a little bit forward.
00:50:16 Okay.
00:50:19 Yep, so white is just continuing the King side plan.
00:50:21 No, is that like the first piece
00:50:23 I think that’s taken in the game?
00:50:25 Yep, that’s the first trade.
00:50:26 Attack begins.
00:50:27 Exactly, Hikaru had to pause his attack for a little bit
00:50:30 to just make sure that white didn’t have
00:50:33 two dire threats on the Queen side.
00:50:35 So cool to see the asymmetry of this thing.
00:50:37 Exactly, that’s what’s beautiful about the King’s Indian.
00:50:39 And just one thing to highlight
00:50:41 because his rook move here is very bizarre
00:50:44 and typically like a computer probably didn’t like this
00:50:47 but the ideas are interesting
00:50:48 because this is a major weakness for black
00:50:51 that they’re coming to attack
00:50:52 and he’s also making room for his Bishop
00:50:54 to come backwards and challenge.
00:50:56 So this is like a human like maneuver
00:50:58 that computers would like.
00:50:59 I think computers would like this though
00:51:00 because you’d have to move it regardless
00:51:02 because he takes the pawn here
00:51:03 and his rook would be under attack.
00:51:05 Yeah, well having looked at it,
00:51:07 when I actually studied this as a line
00:51:09 and this right away isn’t the best move cutting computer.
00:51:11 So actually that’s such a good question.
00:51:13 So do you guys when you study games use your mind
00:51:15 but do you also use computers to build up your intuition
00:51:19 of like looking at a position like this
00:51:20 and what would a computer do
00:51:22 and then try to understand why it wants to do that?
00:51:24 When I was studying seriously
00:51:26 I would try to use my own mind
00:51:28 because you’re never gonna get the exact same position
00:51:31 so you really need to notice trends
00:51:33 and often computers will give you moves
00:51:35 that are only specific to that position
00:51:38 because of a certain tactic.
00:51:40 But I do use computers to check what I did
00:51:43 and make sure I didn’t make any obvious blunder
00:51:44 that I might have missed.
00:51:45 What does a computer tell you?
00:51:47 Just like what is the best move
00:51:49 or does it give you any kind of explanation of why?
00:51:52 It doesn’t tell you why
00:51:54 but it gives you the different valuations of the position
00:51:57 like black is down a half pawn here or something like that
00:52:02 but it hints you towards what the right move is
00:52:04 and then it’s on you to figure out why
00:52:06 and you can usually figure out why if not right away
00:52:09 then just by going through a few moves
00:52:10 and being like, oh, okay, that makes sense.
00:52:12 I feel like a computer will take you down
00:52:15 with some weird lines potentially like sacrifice.
00:52:18 Like why the hell am I sacrificing this?
00:52:20 Well, we’ll get to the pretty sacrifice soon.
00:52:24 So we could just keep playing.
00:52:25 The pawns are being pushed forward.
00:52:27 Yeah, and Hikaru is kind of ignoring
00:52:31 the queen side attack here.
00:52:33 They basically both only reply to each other’s plan
00:52:37 when they have to.
00:52:39 This is where you convert all the podcast viewers
00:52:41 to YouTube.
00:52:43 Yeah.
00:52:44 They have no idea what we’re talking about right now.
00:52:46 There is a Zen like experience
00:52:48 of just like listening and imagining.
00:52:50 The board.
00:52:51 Just imagine the pieces on the ceiling.
00:52:52 Yeah, we should be calling them out
00:52:55 and then people will be freaking out even more.
00:52:56 Am I supposed to keep track of what the position is?
00:52:59 It’s too late now.
00:53:01 It’s too many.
00:53:02 How hard is blindfold chess?
00:53:03 Have you tried?
00:53:04 Like are you able to keep the mind?
00:53:05 I’ve played blindfold chess before.
00:53:08 For me, it’s pretty hard.
00:53:09 It’s not a muscle that I’ve trained as much
00:53:11 and I’m very visual when it comes to chess.
00:53:14 But it is one as a top player
00:53:16 that starts becoming very second nature for you.
00:53:20 Actually, this is what, I talked to Magnus about this.
00:53:23 Maybe I was, again, influenced by Queen’s Gambit.
00:53:26 What do you actually visualize when it’s in your head?
00:53:29 So for Magnus, it was a boring 2D board.
00:53:31 Right.
00:53:32 Do you have some kind of?
00:53:33 That’s every chess player, no.
00:53:34 You don’t have like,
00:53:35 cause you know some chess like computer games,
00:53:38 you can do all kinds of skins and like fancy stuff.
00:53:41 You don’t have any fancy stuff?
00:53:42 Sadly, I don’t have like a cool 3D warrior mode on.
00:53:45 It’s just the basic.
00:53:46 I just have the default chess base board in my head.
00:53:49 Cause you don’t, yeah, you can’t use your brain power
00:53:51 for adding colors to it
00:53:53 cause you already have to keep track of the pieces.
00:53:55 And it’s one board at a time?
00:53:56 Yes.
00:53:57 Okay.
00:53:58 The current position.
00:53:59 Yeah, I bet every chess.
00:54:00 I wonder if there’s any who hit it differently.
00:54:01 There’s certain players who are really good
00:54:04 and they can even play blindfold chess
00:54:06 and play multiple games at the same time.
00:54:09 So I would be curious how they do it.
00:54:11 But usually when you’re thinking of one game,
00:54:13 that’s the only one in your mind.
00:54:14 Yeah, but you have to do this operation
00:54:16 where you move one piece.
00:54:18 You’re doing like the branch analysis.
00:54:22 Like, and so you still have to somehow visualize
00:54:27 the branching process and not forget stuff.
00:54:31 Maybe that’s like constant memory recall or something.
00:54:34 You’re always looking at one board at a time, but.
00:54:36 And you’re also, oh, cause you’re also looking in the future.
00:54:38 Yeah.
00:54:39 Cause then you have to back track.
00:54:40 Calculating variations and coming back.
00:54:41 I guess you’re keeping the position in your memory.
00:54:44 So you’re remembering where all the pieces are
00:54:45 and then you’re playing it out on one board
00:54:48 and then you can come back to the initial one
00:54:50 that you started with that you kind of just keep
00:54:52 in your brain and it’s also easier to come back to it
00:54:55 once you’ve played a position from it.
00:54:57 I feel like it’s that memory recall
00:55:03 that gets you to blunder.
00:55:04 So I’ll like see that I’m being attacked by certain things,
00:55:09 but then because I get so exhausted thinking
00:55:11 about a different thing, I forget,
00:55:13 I actually forget about an entire branch of things
00:55:16 that I was supposed to be worried about.
00:55:17 It happens very often.
00:55:18 Yeah.
00:55:19 If you spend a bunch of time calculating in a position,
00:55:22 let’s say like when you’re really in trouble
00:55:24 and you’re spending 15, 20 minutes calculating,
00:55:26 you’ll forget about something that you spotted like,
00:55:29 oh, if I do these two, three moves, I’ll walk into a trap
00:55:32 cause you’ve looked at so many lines and then you play it
00:55:34 and then you see it and you’re like, oh, I looked at it
00:55:36 and I saw it, but I forgot about it.
00:55:39 It’s often called tunneling where you’re just looking
00:55:41 so deeply on one thing you forget about the rest
00:55:43 of the board.
00:55:45 And it’s the worst when, at least in a beginner level,
00:55:47 there’s like a, I don’t know, a Bishop just sitting there,
00:55:51 obviously attacking your like queen or something.
00:55:54 And then you just forget that Bishop exists.
00:55:57 Cause if they just sit there for a few moves
00:55:59 and don’t move, you just forget their existence.
00:56:02 And then it’s just, yeah, that’s definitely very embarrassing.
00:56:05 Well, it happens to everyone, so.
00:56:08 Yes.
00:56:10 Okay, cool.
00:56:11 Okay, so we see a few trades happening on the queen side
00:56:16 where he had to go for those, otherwise he’s in trouble.
00:56:18 And this is where the game, oh, sorry.
00:56:22 This is where it gets exciting.
00:56:23 Yeah, so Knight H4 is really when the sacrifice starts.
00:56:28 And here the two important pawns are the ones in front
00:56:33 of the King, cause they’re helping with the entire defense
00:56:35 and Hikaru is actually preparing to sacrifice his Knight
00:56:38 for a pawn just so that he can continue his attack
00:56:42 and open up the position.
00:56:43 Because if you don’t do that here as black
00:56:45 and don’t get some kind of attack,
00:56:47 you are completely lost on the queen side.
00:56:49 And also you’ve pushed all of your own king side pawns,
00:56:51 so you’re gonna be in danger.
00:56:53 So it’s one of those do or die moments.
00:56:55 Oh, okay, so that’s what makes it all in,
00:56:57 cause the King is wide open.
00:56:58 Yeah, yeah, the King is wide open
00:57:01 and all of White’s pieces are pointed
00:57:03 towards the queen side too, where you’re also cramped.
00:57:06 So is the attack primarily by black done
00:57:08 by the two pawns and the Knight?
00:57:10 And the light squared Bishop is always extremely important.
00:57:13 So you don’t wanna trade this in the King’s Indian
00:57:15 because it’s very helpful for a lot of attacks.
00:57:18 Even though it’s on the other side of the board,
00:57:19 I guess it can go all the way across in,
00:57:23 like I’m not sure what it’s doing here,
00:57:25 but probably threatening.
00:57:26 Like for example, if it was another move black
00:57:29 could have played would be something like Bishop H3,
00:57:32 where if you take the Bishop,
00:57:33 you actually get mated on G2.
00:57:35 With what?
00:57:36 So let’s say you take here
00:57:37 and then you could push the pawn
00:57:39 and then it would be checkmate.
00:57:40 So you’re kind of using your Bishop to sacrifice
00:57:44 against White’s King side pawns.
00:57:47 Yeah, I’ll be freaking out if their Bishop did that.
00:57:50 What are they up to?
00:57:51 Right, and that’s the thing,
00:57:53 this position looks very scary as White
00:57:55 because all of Black’s pawns are starting
00:57:57 to come towards you.
00:57:58 And it’s one of those things where humans
00:58:01 do start to worry in these positions,
00:58:03 whereas computers obviously can just calculate
00:58:05 the best line and maybe the attack doesn’t go through.
00:58:07 So you’re saying the computer might say
00:58:09 that the White is actually a slight favorite here?
00:58:12 Yeah, potentially.
00:58:13 Okay, so then White makes a little bit of room
00:58:17 by moving the Rook.
00:58:18 Right.
00:58:19 And the attack begins.
00:58:20 I like the commentary here.
00:58:23 The Knight is hugging the King.
00:58:26 And actually White can’t even take the King here
00:58:28 because then H4 and H3 is coming in.
00:58:31 White can’t take the Knight.
00:58:32 Yeah, oh did I say King?
00:58:33 Yes, thank you, the Knight.
00:58:35 White can’t take the Knight because why?
00:58:37 So if White takes the Knight here,
00:58:39 then Black starts pushing his pawn to H4
00:58:41 with H3 incoming and the idea of trying
00:58:45 to defend against this is, it looks very difficult.
00:58:49 So White just chooses.
00:58:51 It’d be cool to watch a chess game,
00:58:53 to experience watching it without understanding it
00:58:55 just for a day.
00:58:57 Feel like I could use that to make better content.
00:58:59 True.
00:59:01 Okay.
00:59:02 I mean, that’s what getting drunk does.
00:59:03 Unfortunately for chess players,
00:59:05 it never leaves your brain.
00:59:07 Doesn’t matter how.
00:59:08 But this is actually a very cute move
00:59:10 because Black’s Queen is under attack,
00:59:13 but the King is so cramped that he can’t actually take it
00:59:16 or he’s gonna get checkmated by a pawn,
00:59:18 which is a sad way to go cruelly.
00:59:20 Yeah, those pawns are doing a lot of work here.
00:59:23 They really are.
00:59:24 That is the King’s Indian.
00:59:24 This is the King’s Indian player’s dream.
00:59:26 The attack of the King side pawns.
00:59:29 Yeah, these pawns are like, right,
00:59:31 so they’re the ones that are doing a lot
00:59:32 of the threatening.
00:59:33 Right, and they’re also opening up the position
00:59:35 to bring more of the pieces in.
00:59:37 But the pawns kind of help break open the King side,
00:59:41 but they can’t checkmate by themselves.
00:59:43 So after the pawns come in,
00:59:44 that’s when you need to start bringing in pieces as well,
00:59:46 which you will see Ahi Kar do here.
00:59:49 Okay. There you go.
00:59:50 He puts. One more sacrifice.
00:59:52 This was actually another beautiful sacrifice in the game.
00:59:56 But then puts the King in check with a pawn.
00:59:59 Right, and the pawn is going to be given here for free,
01:00:02 but the idea is you’re giving your own piece
01:00:04 because you want to have more space and open up the King,
01:00:07 which is what you’re always trying to do
01:00:09 when you have a King side.
01:00:10 You’re trying to remove as many of the King’s defenders
01:00:12 as you can without giving up too much.
01:00:14 And then you have a ton of pieces on the King side
01:00:17 for black, just waiting to.
01:00:20 Exactly.
01:00:21 To do harm.
01:00:22 And then.
01:00:23 And notice how every single move,
01:00:25 white is getting attacked.
01:00:26 Like they’re just never getting a break.
01:00:28 Black just keeps throwing all their pieces.
01:00:30 So it’s funny that black’s Queen has been hanging
01:00:32 for like three moves now
01:00:33 and white still can’t do anything about it.
01:00:36 So rook puts the King in check.
01:00:38 The King runs.
01:00:40 And then again, we leave the Queen hanging
01:00:44 and you develop a piece,
01:00:45 this light squared Bishop that’s so important,
01:00:46 and you’re once again threatening checkmate on G2.
01:00:51 And then Bishops coming to the game.
01:00:53 Once again, the Queen hanging.
01:00:55 I mean, the game is just so beautiful.
01:00:57 The amount of calculation Hikaru put into this position.
01:01:02 It feels like so much is in danger.
01:01:04 Right.
01:01:05 It’s so interesting.
01:01:07 And Knight takes what?
01:01:09 A pawns.
01:01:09 So now his Queen is attacked twice
01:01:12 and he doesn’t care.
01:01:13 He takes the Bishop
01:01:14 and he’s still threatening the checkmate on G2.
01:01:18 And then the Queen takes the Bishop.
01:01:21 So now he’s defending against G2
01:01:24 and black just goes and grabs some material back here.
01:01:29 So here, black is already is winning.
01:01:32 Well, he ends up winning a Knight here
01:01:34 because black had to be so much on the defensive.
01:01:38 He’s just taking pieces.
01:01:39 Yeah, I mean at this point,
01:01:40 you’re up two whole pieces.
01:01:41 So you knew it was in here.
01:01:43 Yeah, exactly.
01:01:44 But.
01:01:46 And Queen.
01:01:47 Queen.
01:01:49 And then you take,
01:01:51 and then the rook takes
01:01:53 and there’s not as much of an attack on the King anymore,
01:01:56 but Hikaru is up a Knight here,
01:01:59 which is GG.
01:02:01 Yeah, what’s the correct way of saying that?
01:02:04 Because I played Demis Hassabis.
01:02:07 I played him in chess.
01:02:09 And then I quickly realized like from his facial expressions
01:02:13 that I should have like stopped playing.
01:02:16 Oh.
01:02:17 It was like, it’s already set.
01:02:19 Yeah, when it’s.
01:02:20 And then he’s like, like, this is the good time to like,
01:02:23 give up.
01:02:24 Right.
01:02:25 You’re not gonna get to checkmate where like this,
01:02:27 you know, he could see like,
01:02:29 the checkmate is like five or seven moves away or something.
01:02:32 And what’s the play?
01:02:34 Usually you have to resign if you’re in a position
01:02:38 or you should through chess etiquette resign
01:02:41 when you’re in a position where your opponent
01:02:44 is definitely gonna win out of respect.
01:02:46 Like if you’re a piece down.
01:02:48 And obviously all top grandmasters do that.
01:02:51 The only people who don’t do that is kids
01:02:53 because their coaches.
01:02:54 They love to play till the checkmate.
01:02:55 Their coaches always tell them never resign
01:02:57 and they’ll be in hopelessly lost positions
01:02:59 playing against like two rooks, a king,
01:03:02 and they only have their sole king,
01:03:03 but they’re still playing on.
01:03:05 So that’s a position where it’s obvious they can’t win.
01:03:08 Because the kids might make errors.
01:03:09 Yeah, exactly.
01:03:10 And so it might as well.
01:03:11 That was the interesting thing about,
01:03:12 I think game six of the previous world championship
01:03:15 with Magnus.
01:03:16 Was it the one where he beat Nap?
01:03:18 Yeah, the first time he beat him,
01:03:20 where it was like, he said that,
01:03:23 I don’t know how often you come across
01:03:26 this kind of situation.
01:03:26 He said, the engines predict a draw,
01:03:30 but that doesn’t mean that it’s going to be a draw.
01:03:33 So you play on hoping that you take a person into,
01:03:38 I mean, this is, I guess, an end game thing.
01:03:40 You take them to deep water
01:03:41 and they make a positional mistake or something.
01:03:43 I don’t know when, like he from his gut knows
01:03:47 that this is supposed to be a draw,
01:03:48 but he still plays on.
01:03:50 Yeah, I mean, that is one where
01:03:52 it could theoretically be a draw,
01:03:54 but it could be very hard to defend
01:03:56 because it’s a hard technique to know as a human.
01:03:59 And especially in that game,
01:04:01 I know that Nepo was also in time pressure,
01:04:04 which makes it even harder.
01:04:05 So in situations like that, you should always continue.
01:04:07 It’s more where an engine would give you something
01:04:10 like plus 10 or something where it’s not just clearly a win,
01:04:14 but anybody would know how to win.
01:04:16 And that’s where you’re usually supposed to resign.
01:04:18 So what do you find beautiful about this game?
01:04:20 Is it the attacking chess and just the asymmetry of it?
01:04:27 It’s the asymmetry.
01:04:28 And it’s the fact that this is the dream
01:04:32 for the King’s Indian,
01:04:34 where you’re able to get a beautiful attack.
01:04:36 And there was also those two really nice sacrifices
01:04:40 where Black just continuously kept putting pressure
01:04:43 on White’s King to the point where he was able
01:04:45 to win material.
01:04:47 And the best part of it is that if the attack didn’t work
01:04:50 out, Black would have been completely lost.
01:04:53 How often does that happen, by the way?
01:04:54 Like as an attacking player,
01:04:56 how often do you put yourself in the position of like,
01:04:59 I’m screwed unless this works out?
01:05:01 In online chess more than I should.
01:05:04 And it’s usually when I sacrifice,
01:05:05 I know it’s either gonna work or I’m lost.
01:05:09 And those are the most fun positions to play usually.
01:05:13 But in tournaments, if you’re doing a sacrifice,
01:05:15 you’re playing it with 100% confidence
01:05:18 because you’re taking the time to calculate it.
01:05:20 But yeah, when you have three minutes,
01:05:22 you don’t have time.
01:05:23 So you take a whim and you follow your intuition
01:05:25 and you find out later.
01:05:27 Or you’re very confident it’ll work
01:05:29 and you haven’t calculated all the way until the end,
01:05:31 but you’ve calculated to the point where you have enough
01:05:34 in exchange for the sack
01:05:35 and you think you could play that position.
01:05:37 How do you train chess these days?
01:05:41 What’s, do you practice?
01:05:44 Do you do deliberate practice?
01:05:45 I mean, you’re in this tough position
01:05:47 because you’re also a creator and educator and entertainer.
01:05:50 So do you try to put in time of like daily practice?
01:05:55 I don’t train chess anymore when I’m focusing on creating.
01:06:00 I do if I’m preparing for a tournament.
01:06:02 But back in the day,
01:06:04 I would train very seriously for tournaments.
01:06:07 And the way it would work is I do opening preparation
01:06:10 for a specific tournament
01:06:12 because that’s when you really need to have
01:06:13 those lines memorized
01:06:15 and you could also prepare for specific opponents.
01:06:17 And I would do tactics to make sure I stay sharp.
01:06:20 So those were the two things I would do every single day
01:06:23 for a tournament and then mix up the rest
01:06:25 with like maybe some end games,
01:06:26 maybe some positional chess.
01:06:28 So what does tactics preparation looks like?
01:06:30 Do you do like a puzzle, like a random puzzle thing?
01:06:34 Yeah, I would just train puzzles
01:06:36 for at least like 30 to 60 minutes or books.
01:06:39 And sometimes you were,
01:06:41 and there’s different kinds of puzzles.
01:06:42 One you could train for pattern recognition
01:06:44 where you’re supposed to go through them very quickly.
01:06:46 And that’s just so that when you’re playing the game,
01:06:48 if your mind is tired,
01:06:49 it’s still keeping track of things
01:06:51 a little bit more easily.
01:06:53 And then there’s where you’re practicing your combination
01:06:56 and those sometimes take like 20 minutes to find
01:06:58 because you have to just calculate a lot.
01:07:00 And it’s more like making sure
01:07:01 that you’ve trained with that muscle.
01:07:03 But Andrea is actually very good at finding ways
01:07:06 to balance and still study while also doing content.
01:07:09 Yeah, so what, you’re able to do both?
01:07:11 That’s the hard thing.
01:07:12 I was getting very irritated with content
01:07:14 because I’m very competitive.
01:07:16 I don’t like playing chess if I’m losing.
01:07:18 And if you’re talking and entertaining,
01:07:20 you’re gonna be losing more games than winning.
01:07:22 So then I started doing more training streams
01:07:24 where I’d bring on my coach.
01:07:27 And one of the things that I wanted to add
01:07:28 to Alex’s training repertoire.
01:07:30 So I would do daily puzzles every time I’m streaming,
01:07:34 which helped me a lot, even if it’s like,
01:07:37 there’s this thing on chess.com called Puzzle Rush,
01:07:40 where you have three minutes
01:07:41 and you just do puzzle after puzzle
01:07:43 where they get incrementally harder.
01:07:45 And it’s just a really good way
01:07:46 to build your pattern recognition,
01:07:48 especially when you’re rusty.
01:07:49 So I would do that till I hit a high score
01:07:51 and I wouldn’t play any blitz
01:07:52 until I hit the score that I want.
01:07:55 But that’s kind of more like the fun part of chess studying.
01:07:59 The very important one is actually analyzing your losses
01:08:02 in your tournament games.
01:08:04 And first you sit and you look through your mistake yourself
01:08:07 and try to see if you can find the better moves.
01:08:10 And then that’s when you would check over with a computer
01:08:12 to see if you’re right.
01:08:13 So game analysis is also very important, which I try to do.
01:08:16 I remember to give a shout out,
01:08:18 I listened to a couple of episodes
01:08:19 of the Perpetual Chess Podcast, which is pretty good.
01:08:24 But whatever I listened to, I remember the,
01:08:27 it’s, I think they really focus on like teaching people.
01:08:34 How to train.
01:08:35 Yeah, how to play, how to train, all that kind of stuff.
01:08:37 They do like, yeah, I’m looking now, adult improver.
01:08:41 So basically like how do regular noobs get better at chess?
01:08:46 One of the things that, one of the person that said,
01:08:50 I think he was the grandmaster, but he said,
01:08:52 to maximize the amount of time you spend every day of like,
01:08:56 basically as you were saying, like suffering.
01:08:58 So like you, it’s not about the,
01:09:01 like you should be thinking.
01:09:02 You should be doing calculating.
01:09:04 So it’s the opposite of what Magnus said.
01:09:06 Like you should be doing a lot of time.
01:09:08 It doesn’t matter what the puzzle is
01:09:10 or whatever the hell you’re doing,
01:09:11 but you should be like doing that difficult calculation.
01:09:14 That’s how you get better.
01:09:15 Yeah, it really depends what you’re training.
01:09:17 Cause I used to think the same,
01:09:18 but it depends what you’re weaker at.
01:09:20 Cause if you’re doing the really difficult puzzles,
01:09:22 you’re training for like visualization
01:09:24 and calculating more moves ahead than you typically would,
01:09:27 which maybe you wouldn’t get into that as often
01:09:30 in a regular game because typically you run into like
01:09:32 three to four tactics, which are actually the easier
01:09:35 and more fun ones to solve.
01:09:37 So it really depends.
01:09:39 And on top of that, as a hobbyist,
01:09:41 your motivation is very different
01:09:43 than when you’re playing from a young age
01:09:45 and have pretty high competitive ambition.
01:09:48 And a lot of people who are new to chess,
01:09:52 you could basically work on anything and still improve.
01:09:55 So if you’re focusing on something you like,
01:09:58 you’re probably gonna stick to it more
01:09:59 and be more consistent,
01:10:01 which I think is more helpful longterm.
01:10:03 What was the most embarrassing loss of your career?
01:10:08 I had so many flashbacks,
01:10:09 but I’m so glad it’s a question for Andrea.
01:10:12 I like that you specified.
01:10:14 You know, it’s funny.
01:10:15 Cause.
01:10:16 I mean, because you said you’re so competitive and like.
01:10:19 Yeah, no, no.
01:10:20 I could tell just even from the way you said it,
01:10:22 that like you hate losing.
01:10:24 Yeah, I mean, that was the reason I hated chess
01:10:27 in high school, cause it’d always be like,
01:10:29 but okay, there’s many traumatizing losses
01:10:32 where it’s like your top three, you’re running for first.
01:10:34 And then you throw a game you shouldn’t,
01:10:36 and this shouldn’t hurt my ego as much as it does,
01:10:40 but it’s always kids.
01:10:42 Or when I was a high school girl,
01:10:44 it’s the younger boys who are really cocky.
01:10:46 And when they win, they start rubbing it in your face
01:10:48 and they’re yawning and looking around
01:10:50 when like 90% of the game you were destroying them
01:10:53 and you had this one tiny mistake
01:10:55 and now their ego’s huge.
01:10:57 But I’ll never forget I was playing like
01:10:58 for a chess scholarship.
01:11:01 And it was tiebreaker for first,
01:11:04 and I think I lost to a 12 year old girl
01:11:06 who couldn’t even use the scholarship,
01:11:08 but she beat me in one first place
01:11:09 and she got some other prize.
01:11:12 So yeah, I was losing to that little girl
01:11:13 who’s literally like 2300 now, so makes sense.
01:11:17 Right, you keep telling yourself that.
01:11:18 What do you think, do you think Gasparro was feeling that
01:11:22 when he was playing 13 year old Magnus?
01:11:24 Like why?
01:11:26 As much as it’s a beauty of the sport
01:11:28 that any age can be brilliant, any demographic, anything,
01:11:33 I feel like when you’re adults
01:11:34 and you’re paired against the kid,
01:11:36 it’s just hard not to let it get to you.
01:11:38 And it depends, maybe if they’re a really sweet kid,
01:11:40 but most of the times I play kids,
01:11:42 they’re just really arrogant.
01:11:43 And I don’t think they do it intentionally
01:11:45 because they’re kids.
01:11:46 I mean, there is a certain etiquette thing
01:11:48 where like you said, yawning, and in general,
01:11:51 like it’s not.
01:11:52 If they’re kids, there’s no etiquette.
01:11:53 Yeah, yeah.
01:11:54 They don’t care.
01:11:55 Yeah, the kids traumatized me too.
01:11:57 I was playing in Vegas and it was not even my opponent.
01:12:01 It was the board next to me.
01:12:03 And the kid was at least 10 years old, 12 max,
01:12:07 and he was playing against an adult
01:12:08 and he takes out his hand and he starts doing a fake phone
01:12:12 to which the kid sitting across diagonally
01:12:15 picks up their banana and starts talking like it’s a phone
01:12:18 and they’re just mouthing words
01:12:19 while their two adult opponents
01:12:21 are thinking intensely at the game.
01:12:23 And then I see the adult look up, look at the kid,
01:12:26 just making banana phone and the despair in his eyes
01:12:29 as he sighs.
01:12:31 Yeah.
01:12:31 And they’re not even doing it for trash talk.
01:12:33 No, no, no.
01:12:34 They’re just bored.
01:12:34 They’re just bored kids.
01:12:35 Yes, exactly.
01:12:36 What was the,
01:12:37 cause you play a bunch of people for your channel.
01:12:41 What was the most like memorable?
01:12:43 What’s the most fun, most intense?
01:12:46 There’s a bunch of fun ones.
01:12:47 You’ve played kids before, some trash talking kids.
01:12:50 That sounds great.
01:12:52 They trash talk kids.
01:12:53 Yeah.
01:12:54 Nothing like losing a 12 year old
01:12:56 who then starts doing a Fortnite dance.
01:12:59 Yeah.
01:13:00 So that actually happened?
01:13:01 That did happen.
01:13:02 He is a very young master.
01:13:05 I think he became master
01:13:06 when he was like nine years old or something.
01:13:08 And he’s very good at chess and doing a lot of training,
01:13:11 but he’s also incredibly good at trash talking.
01:13:13 And he beat me one game and he stood up
01:13:15 and he started doing the Fortnite dance.
01:13:18 So you gotta just swallow your pride in those moments.
01:13:22 What is that culture of like street chess players?
01:13:25 It seems pretty interesting.
01:13:27 Like, I don’t know,
01:13:29 that seems to be celebrating the beauty of the game.
01:13:31 It’s the trash talking, but also having fun with it,
01:13:34 but also taking it seriously.
01:13:36 And you’ve done a few of those.
01:13:37 Did you go to New York?
01:13:39 Yeah, in Union Square Park in Washington Square.
01:13:42 What was that like?
01:13:43 It’s such a unique place.
01:13:46 I haven’t seen it anywhere else in the US
01:13:48 where people are just professional chess hustlers,
01:13:52 even if they’re not necessarily a top player,
01:13:55 but they play chess every single day.
01:13:58 And so many of them learn chess by themselves
01:14:01 and never had a professional coach.
01:14:03 So they are quite good at it.
01:14:05 They’re also very tight knit.
01:14:06 They all know each other.
01:14:07 And it’s a very social thing
01:14:09 where you’re not just playing chess.
01:14:11 It’s the experience of getting to know this person
01:14:13 who’s very much a personality and they talk to you.
01:14:16 They could either give you tips
01:14:18 or they could be really chatty and talk to you during.
01:14:20 So it’s a chess experience rather than just playing a game.
01:14:24 Do you tell them like what your rating is
01:14:26 or do you just let people, like both ways,
01:14:29 do you discover how good the person actually is?
01:14:31 Initially, I loved going and not telling people my rating
01:14:35 and just surprising them and winning games.
01:14:39 But now we’ve gone so many times that they just know us.
01:14:41 So we can’t get away with it anymore.
01:14:43 One time, actually, I don’t know if I should share this,
01:14:46 but one time we dressed up as grandmothers
01:14:49 and we had prosthetics on our face.
01:14:51 And I think they still recognized us.
01:14:54 Yeah, it’s probably the, there’s other components,
01:14:56 like probably the trash talk and all that kind of stuff.
01:14:58 Actually, no, it was funny.
01:15:00 We were talking like grandmothers,
01:15:01 but it was the way I held, it was the way I held them.
01:15:04 Grandmother talk like, back of my day.
01:15:06 No, no, no, no, no, no, we’re not bringing this back.
01:15:10 We’re not bringing this back.
01:15:11 Okay, what were your names, what were the code names?
01:15:14 Oh my God.
01:15:14 I think it was Edna, Edna, and I had a really,
01:15:19 I can’t remember the other one.
01:15:20 But it was embarrassing because we were walking so slowly
01:15:23 and Andrea dropped her cane or something at one point
01:15:25 and then people in the park came to help her.
01:15:27 We felt so embarrassed.
01:15:29 But yeah, it was funny.
01:15:31 Cause they didn’t know it was us
01:15:33 until he saw the way I reached for my pawn.
01:15:35 And he said, the way you held your pawn, I knew it was you.
01:15:38 It was like such a niche thing.
01:15:40 That was what blew the grandma cover.
01:15:42 Yeah, do you have a style of how you play physically?
01:15:47 Is that recognizable?
01:15:47 I didn’t think we did until grandma went to play chess, but.
01:15:51 Yeah, I’ve never thought about that.
01:15:53 Yeah, I think our style is just trash talking now.
01:15:56 Style is very, if you’re talking about style
01:15:59 on YouTube and Twitch, we definitely have a distinctive style.
01:16:03 What’s that?
01:16:04 What’s your distinctive, just talking shit?
01:16:06 Yes.
01:16:07 But not going too far.
01:16:09 No, no, definitely that’s, definitely going to.
01:16:12 If it’s us two against each other.
01:16:14 Oh, we trash talk each other so hard.
01:16:16 So brutally.
01:16:17 And I love looking at Andrea
01:16:18 and watching her little nose scrunch up
01:16:21 as she’s annoyed and the satisfaction
01:16:22 I get when that happens.
01:16:24 How many times do you play against each other
01:16:26 on online publicly?
01:16:28 I think I’ve seen a couple of games.
01:16:29 We played a lot of times.
01:16:31 We try not to do it too often cause it’s repetitive,
01:16:33 but every now and then when we haven’t done it for a while,
01:16:35 we’ll go at it again.
01:16:36 What do you mean repetitive?
01:16:37 Is that implied trash talk right there?
01:16:40 No, it just, we play similar openings.
01:16:42 So you just start seeing the same position too often.
01:16:44 It’s the same opening against each other every time.
01:16:46 Andrea’s really good at opening.
01:16:48 So I just start playing bad openings
01:16:50 to get her out of her preparation.
01:16:51 Cause I don’t like opening theory very much.
01:16:53 I just like playing the game
01:16:54 and getting into middle games and end games.
01:16:57 But yeah, typically the only time we’re playing each other
01:16:59 is when we’re setting up in the park
01:17:01 and we don’t have opponents yet and we need content.
01:17:04 So we just play each other until people show up.
01:17:05 But we always put stakes on the line,
01:17:07 which makes it very interesting.
01:17:09 Cause otherwise it wouldn’t be fun to play each other
01:17:11 if there’s no stakes.
01:17:11 Where’s the most fun place you’ve played?
01:17:14 Is it New York?
01:17:15 I think so.
01:17:16 And it was actually when we set up in Times Square one night,
01:17:19 we just brought a table with us and chess.
01:17:22 And it’s not even where people usually play chess,
01:17:25 but it was so lively.
01:17:27 There were all of the lights out
01:17:29 and so many people just kept stopping by to play chess.
01:17:31 And it was really one of my favorite streams.
01:17:33 It’s just the opposite of like the classical chess world.
01:17:36 It’s super loud.
01:17:37 There’s music, there’s cars,
01:17:39 there’s street dancers,
01:17:40 even some naked people walking around
01:17:42 who we had to be careful not to get banned.
01:17:44 But I honestly really liked the chaotic environments
01:17:47 for chess games.
01:17:48 Cause I think it’s a good way
01:17:49 to break more into the mainstream culture
01:17:51 and make it entertaining and appealing
01:17:52 to anyone who doesn’t know anything about chess.
01:17:55 So that’s the way.
01:17:56 And also in an authentic way,
01:17:57 because it’s what we really like about chess
01:17:59 when you’re just enjoying the game,
01:18:01 but also the atmosphere
01:18:03 and the people who you’re playing with.
01:18:05 And that’s one of the things that I think you see less
01:18:07 when you’re just thinking of chess as a competitive thing.
01:18:12 You’ve mentioned a few other games,
01:18:14 like the Bobby Fischer games,
01:18:16 the Candidates match,
01:18:17 the game of the century,
01:18:19 which I feel like is a weird game
01:18:21 to call the game of the century
01:18:22 when there’s still like a few decades left in the century.
01:18:24 But yeah.
01:18:25 I mean, it wasn’t an official thing.
01:18:27 It was just the chess journalist.
01:18:28 It’s just like made on a chess article.
01:18:29 But it’s stuck if you look on.
01:18:31 Yeah, no, it did stick.
01:18:32 Again, Wikipedia.
01:18:33 This is all I do research wise.
01:18:34 Because there’s,
01:18:36 so that particular one was a 13 year old Fischer
01:18:41 and he did a queen sacrifice.
01:18:44 I wonder, there’s that movie searching for Bobby Fischer.
01:18:47 Was that related?
01:18:48 Cause didn’t they have a young somebody
01:18:51 who’s supposed to be kind of like Bobby Fischer
01:18:52 played by Josh Waitzkin.
01:18:54 Yeah, I think he ended up being an international master.
01:18:57 It wasn’t based on Bobby Fischer.
01:18:59 It was based on another player,
01:19:00 but I liked how they told it through the lens
01:19:02 of being inspired by Bobby Fischer.
01:19:04 Do you remember that game?
01:19:05 Like why do you think it was dubbed the game of the century?
01:19:08 It was just journalists being like.
01:19:10 I think part of it was the atmosphere
01:19:12 where you have the US junior champion
01:19:15 who’s this 13 year old nobody.
01:19:17 And it’s the first time he’s playing
01:19:19 in a very competitive landscape
01:19:21 against some of the top American players.
01:19:23 And he goes up against an international master.
01:19:26 So somebody who’s a lot stronger than he is
01:19:29 who’s played in Olympiads for the American team.
01:19:32 He’s having a bad tournament,
01:19:34 but then he has this one game
01:19:36 where he just shows off his tactical prowess
01:19:40 and plays incredibly well.
01:19:41 And I don’t know if this is true,
01:19:43 but in the paper clippings of it,
01:19:44 they’d say things like grandmasters were by the board
01:19:47 and they would say things like,
01:19:48 oh, Bobby is lost in this position.
01:19:51 What is he doing?
01:19:51 But there’s this 13 year old kid
01:19:53 who’s just playing incredibly well.
01:19:55 And then that also happened
01:19:56 before Bobby’s started really rapidly improving at chess.
01:20:01 Not that people knew that,
01:20:02 but he kind of seemed like a rising star.
01:20:03 So I think the game was beautiful,
01:20:05 but I also think the idea of a 13 year old kid
01:20:08 coming out from nowhere
01:20:09 and beating a top American player was very fascinating.
01:20:12 And there was aggressive chess
01:20:13 and it was interesting ideas.
01:20:17 Yeah, taking big risks.
01:20:18 It’s cool to see a 13 year old do that.
01:20:21 What about the,
01:20:22 you mentioned that his match against Mark Taimano
01:20:27 from their 71 candidates match
01:20:29 was interesting in some way.
01:20:31 Why is it interesting to you?
01:20:33 Move 45, I’m looking at some notes.
01:20:36 This is with the Bishop E3.
01:20:38 I think I know which one you’re talking about.
01:20:41 It’s, I wouldn’t say,
01:20:43 a lot of these games on these lists
01:20:45 I think are really great combinations
01:20:48 that when tactics come into play,
01:20:50 which is what we’re talking about.
01:20:52 But they’re very good at exemplifying lessons.
01:20:56 This is why you study famous games.
01:20:58 So you can apply these lessons to your own games.
01:21:00 And I think the main takeaway for this one
01:21:02 was they’re punishing their opponent
01:21:04 from steering away from opening principles,
01:21:07 which is something that we learned a little earlier
01:21:11 where he delayed the development of his King
01:21:14 and put his Queen out a little bit too exposed.
01:21:17 So Bobby Fisher immediately punished that.
01:21:19 And then there was just like a beautiful combination
01:21:22 where it was like a 12 in a row perfect moves,
01:21:25 which was a tactic, just winning the game.
01:21:27 But it only came from punishing those mistakes.
01:21:30 The mistake being bringing the Queen out?
01:21:32 Bringing the Queen out
01:21:33 and yeah, not castling your King right away.
01:21:35 And these were just like opening principles
01:21:37 that now they’re written in books,
01:21:39 but for books you would study these principles
01:21:42 by studying games.
01:21:45 And also, I’m looking at some notes,
01:21:48 his dominance during the candidate’s turn
01:21:50 was unprecedented.
01:21:52 He swept two top grandmasters.
01:21:54 I mean, that guy’s meteoric rise is incredible.
01:21:57 Sad that I think at whatever in his 20s,
01:22:01 he then quit chess.
01:22:03 One has to wonder where he could have gone.
01:22:07 Yeah, it is sad that we lost such a brilliant mind
01:22:11 so early on.
01:22:12 And it’s also sad, I think kind of what ended up happening
01:22:15 in his life and the slowly going crazier.
01:22:18 Is there some aspect of chess
01:22:19 that opens the door to crazy?
01:22:23 Like how challenging it is on you,
01:22:26 the stress, the anxiety of it, the isolation.
01:22:30 And being alone.
01:22:31 Yeah.
01:22:32 It’s a very lonely sport.
01:22:33 It is, even do you guys, since you both play it,
01:22:36 it’s still lonely, the experience of it?
01:22:38 It was when I was competing a lot.
01:22:40 I think the crazy part of it for me
01:22:43 was how obsessed you can get about a board game
01:22:47 where you’re optimizing your entire life
01:22:50 to beat another person at pushing wooden pieces
01:22:53 across the board.
01:22:53 And it doesn’t necessarily translate to other things.
01:22:57 And the fact that so many people spend so much
01:22:59 of their life on it,
01:23:01 but you can also spend so much of your life
01:23:02 because it’s so deep and so interesting.
01:23:07 And I mean, I’ve definitely experienced moments
01:23:09 where I didn’t want to do anything but chess.
01:23:13 And I had that before I went to college
01:23:16 where I just wanted to take a gap year and focus on chess
01:23:18 because I went to high school, we moved a lot,
01:23:21 there was always other things going on.
01:23:23 So I felt like I could never really focus on chess.
01:23:26 And the one time I could, by taking a gap year,
01:23:29 I ended up not doing because my parents really wanted me
01:23:32 to go to university right away.
01:23:33 But I think maybe if I had taken that gap year,
01:23:35 I don’t know if I would have gone back to school.
01:23:37 So maybe it wasn’t a bad thing.
01:23:39 I’d also say that’s pretty universal.
01:23:40 I think if you want to be the best at anything you do
01:23:43 or any sport, you have to be that level of obsessed.
01:23:45 So I don’t know if that’s only chess.
01:23:47 Well, some things, some obsessions are more transferable
01:23:50 to a balanced social life.
01:23:53 That is true.
01:23:54 Like healthy development.
01:23:55 Yeah, chess is a lot less social than most other sports.
01:23:58 Yeah, there’s something deeply isolating about this game.
01:24:01 I mean, the great chess players I’ve met,
01:24:03 I mean, it’s really competitive too.
01:24:07 And there’s something that you’re almost nonstop paranoid
01:24:15 about blundering at every level.
01:24:18 And that develops a person who is really anxious
01:24:21 about losing versus someone who deeply enjoys perfection
01:24:26 or winning and so on.
01:24:27 It’s just this constant paranoia about losing.
01:24:30 Maybe I’m misinterpreting it, but that creates huge amount
01:24:35 of stress over like thousands of games,
01:24:38 especially in a young person.
01:24:41 And that blundering is such a painful experience
01:24:44 because you could be playing a game that you’ve played
01:24:47 for five, six hours and you have one lapse in focus
01:24:52 and you blunder and you throw the entire game away.
01:24:54 And sometimes not just the entire game,
01:24:56 but the entire tournament.
01:24:57 Now you can’t place or do anything anymore.
01:24:59 So you just feel those mistakes so strongly.
01:25:02 Yeah, there’s no one to blame but yourself.
01:25:06 Are you guys hard on yourself?
01:25:08 Have you been about losing?
01:25:10 Like before you became super famous for streaming
01:25:13 where you could be like, well, fuck this,
01:25:15 at least I can have fun playing.
01:25:17 So I was really hard on myself and I went to play
01:25:20 a tournament in Canada to try to qualify
01:25:22 for the Olympiad team.
01:25:24 And I was like, well, I’m an adult now.
01:25:28 I’m not gonna feel emotional if I lose.
01:25:30 And then I got there on the first day.
01:25:33 I think I was ranked like fourth in Canada for females.
01:25:38 How long ago was this?
01:25:40 This was like earlier in the year actually.
01:25:43 And I go and I lose to somebody lower rated
01:25:46 on the first day.
01:25:47 And I think it was because I blundered
01:25:49 and I went back to my room and I was like,
01:25:51 I am not an adult.
01:25:52 I’m not eating, I’m not leaving this room.
01:25:54 I feel terrible and I know I shouldn’t,
01:25:56 but it just cuts so deep.
01:25:59 And then I actually ended up qualifying
01:26:02 for the Olympiad team, but I didn’t wanna play
01:26:04 because I didn’t have enough time to train
01:26:06 and the losses are so painful that I was like,
01:26:08 it’s not worth it.
01:26:09 Yeah, in high school and growing up,
01:26:12 I just remember weekends.
01:26:14 And I think being competitive in any sport,
01:26:16 again, probably people relate to this,
01:26:18 which is like spending weekends crying.
01:26:20 And even like Alex said, like punishing yourself
01:26:22 because you’re disappointed in yourself
01:26:23 because you fight so hard and you prepare
01:26:25 and you study and you’re like, oh, yeah.
01:26:29 But that’s once again on the bright side though,
01:26:32 when you’re studying so hard and after like a four hour game
01:26:37 and you actually are on the opposite end and you win,
01:26:40 you feel like such a huge rush of dopamine and serotonin
01:26:43 and you’re like on a high from the wind.
01:26:45 So there’s also plus sides or you can turn this around.
01:26:47 But yeah, like Alex said, like losing
01:26:50 after preparing for something and fighting on hours
01:26:53 and hours is the worst feeling in the world.
01:26:54 Did you ever get anything like that with martial arts?
01:26:58 Yeah, so, you know, wrestling,
01:27:00 I wrestled all through high school and middle school.
01:27:02 Definitely, so it’s an individual sport.
01:27:03 I did a lot of individual sport, tennis,
01:27:05 those kinds of things.
01:27:07 But I think even with wrestling and tennis,
01:27:09 you’re still on a team.
01:27:11 You can still like, there’s still a comradery there.
01:27:14 I feel like with chess, especially you go on your own
01:27:16 with the tournaments, like you really are alone.
01:27:20 But I mean, I always personally just had
01:27:23 like a very self critical mind in general.
01:27:25 I would not.
01:27:26 It’s one of the reasons I decided not to play chess
01:27:29 because I think when I was really young,
01:27:32 I met somebody who was able to play blindfold chess.
01:27:38 They were teaching me, they were laying in there
01:27:39 on the couch, trashed, drinking and smoking.
01:27:42 And there were.
01:27:43 Sounds like a Russian.
01:27:44 Yeah, exactly.
01:27:45 There are now a faculty somewhere in the United States.
01:27:48 I forget where.
01:27:49 But he making jokes, talking to others
01:27:54 and he would move the pieces, like he would yell
01:27:56 across the room.
01:27:58 And I remember thinking that if a person is able to do that,
01:28:04 then that kind of world you can live in inside your mind
01:28:08 that becomes the chessboard.
01:28:09 To me, that meant like the chessboard is not just out here.
01:28:12 It could be in here and you could do these beautiful,
01:28:14 you can create these beautiful patterns in your mind.
01:28:17 I thought like, I had such a strong pull towards that
01:28:22 where I had to decide either I’m gonna dedicate everything
01:28:26 to this or not.
01:28:29 You can’t do half assed.
01:28:30 And then that’s when I decided to walk away from it
01:28:35 because I had so much other beautiful things in my life.
01:28:37 I loved mathematics.
01:28:38 I loved, just everything was beautiful to me.
01:28:40 I thought chess would pull me all in.
01:28:44 And there was nothing like it, I think,
01:28:47 in my whole life since then.
01:28:49 I think it’s such a dangerous addiction.
01:28:52 It’s such a beautiful addiction, but it’s a dangerous one,
01:28:54 depending on what your mind is like.
01:28:56 It reminds me of something I thought of
01:28:58 before I stopped competing as much.
01:29:01 And I’d look at people and think,
01:29:03 imagine being so intelligent that you could become
01:29:06 a grandmaster and yet only spending the rest of your life
01:29:10 being a grandmaster.
01:29:11 Because it’s one of those things where it does require
01:29:13 a lot of mental power, but by doing chess,
01:29:16 you’re not gonna be able to explore other subjects deeply.
01:29:20 Yeah.
01:29:21 And not in a way that is bad necessarily,
01:29:24 more an admiration and wondering what else could have been
01:29:27 because I’ve just seen people get to these levels
01:29:29 of obsession where it’s all they wanna do.
01:29:31 And they’re grandmasters, but they’re not even top players.
01:29:34 So they’re never gonna make a living out of it.
01:29:36 They’ll make like maybe 30, 40K a year max.
01:29:38 They can’t even focus on their competitive chess
01:29:40 because they have to supplement it by teaching
01:29:44 and doing things they don’t like.
01:29:45 And it’s just because of how strong of an obsession
01:29:48 it can be because it truly is very intellectually rewarding.
01:29:52 And I think that’s what people are addicted to
01:29:54 in the self improvement, but you can get that
01:29:55 from a lot of other things as well.
01:29:58 Well, I think for me, what I was inspired by
01:30:00 that stuck with me is that a human being
01:30:03 could be so good at one thing.
01:30:09 Right.
01:30:10 To me, that person on the couch drinking and so on,
01:30:11 I assumed he was the best chess player in the world.
01:30:14 Like to be able to play inside your head,
01:30:18 it just felt like a feat that’s incredible.
01:30:22 And so I fell in love with the idea
01:30:24 that I hope to be something like that
01:30:26 in my life at something.
01:30:27 It would be pretty cool to be really good at one thing.
01:30:31 And like life in some sense is a search for the things
01:30:34 that you could be that good at.
01:30:36 I didn’t even think about like how much money
01:30:38 does it make or any of that.
01:30:40 It’s can I fall in love with something
01:30:42 and make it a life pursuit where I can be damn good at it.
01:30:46 And being damn good at it is the source of enjoyment.
01:30:50 Not like not to win because you want to win a tournament
01:30:55 or win because like you just want to be better
01:30:58 at somebody else.
01:30:59 No, it’s for the beauty of the game itself
01:31:01 or the beauty of the activity itself.
01:31:03 And then you realize that that’s one of the compelling
01:31:05 things about chess.
01:31:06 It is a game with rules and you can win.
01:31:10 If you want to be really damn good in some aspect
01:31:12 of life like that, it’s a harder and weirder pursuit.
01:31:19 Don’t you feel like you kind of did that
01:31:20 with computer science or AI related things?
01:31:24 Like getting that level of damn good.
01:31:27 That’s one of the cool things about AI and robotics
01:31:31 or intellectual pursuits or scientific pursuits
01:31:34 is you can spend until you’re 80 doing it.
01:31:36 So I’m in the early days of that.
01:31:37 One of the reasons I came to Texas,
01:31:40 one of the reasons I didn’t want to pursue
01:31:43 an academic career at MIT is I want to build a company.
01:31:49 And so I’m in the early days of that AI company.
01:31:52 And so it’s an open world to see if I’m actually
01:31:56 going to be good at it.
01:31:57 But the thing that’s there that I’ve been cognizant
01:32:01 of my whole life is that I have a passion for it.
01:32:03 Something within me draws me to that thing.
01:32:06 And you have to listen to that, to that voice.
01:32:09 So with chess, you’re fucked unless you like early on
01:32:13 are really training really hard.
01:32:16 I think life is more forgiving.
01:32:19 You can be world class at a thing
01:32:22 after making a lot of mistakes.
01:32:25 And after spending the first few decades of your life
01:32:28 doing something completely different.
01:32:30 And chess, it’s like an Olympic sport.
01:32:34 Like there’s no, perfection is a requirement,
01:32:37 is a necessity.
01:32:39 What do you think is that pursuit for you?
01:32:42 Like why did you decide to stream?
01:32:45 What drew you?
01:32:46 I like these questions.
01:32:48 Now we’re really getting deep.
01:32:50 Yeah, this is like a therapy session.
01:32:51 I mean, isn’t it terrifying to be in front of a camera?
01:32:55 Well, it’s terrifying to be in front of five cameras.
01:32:58 The set up is.
01:32:59 Corrections, six.
01:33:00 Six, okay.
01:33:01 It’s more terrifying for me to try to remember
01:33:04 if I actually turned them all.
01:33:06 Like I mentioned to you off mic,
01:33:07 I’m still suffering from a bit of PTSD
01:33:09 after screwing up a recording of Magnus.
01:33:15 He had to console me because that was the thing.
01:33:19 I felt, okay, you wanna build robots.
01:33:24 If you can’t get a camera to even run correctly,
01:33:28 how are you gonna do anything else in life?
01:33:30 Oh no, don’t let it spiral like that.
01:33:33 It was spiraling hard and I was just laying there
01:33:36 and just feeling sorry for myself.
01:33:38 But I think that feeling, by the way,
01:33:40 and the small tangent, is really useful.
01:33:44 I feel like a lot of growing happens when you feel shitty.
01:33:48 As long as you can get out of it.
01:33:50 Like don’t let it spiral indefinitely.
01:33:53 But just feeling really, really shitty
01:33:55 about everything in my life.
01:33:56 Like I was having an existential crisis.
01:33:58 Like how will I be able to do anything at all?
01:34:01 Like you’re a giant failure,
01:34:03 all those kinds of negative voices.
01:34:06 But I think I made some good decisions
01:34:08 in the week after that.
01:34:10 Of like, okay.
01:34:11 Do you think you couldn’t have made those decisions
01:34:13 if you were less hard on yourself?
01:34:16 Me personally, no.
01:34:18 I’m too lazy.
01:34:19 Okay, so you really need to be angry at yourself enough
01:34:23 to go and do what you need.
01:34:24 Yeah, it’s not even angry,
01:34:25 it’s just upset of being self critical.
01:34:27 Like also for me personally,
01:34:29 because I don’t have proclivities for depression,
01:34:34 I have a lot more room
01:34:38 to feel extremely shitty about myself.
01:34:41 So if you’re somebody that can get stuck in that place,
01:34:45 like clinically depressed,
01:34:47 you have to be really, really careful.
01:34:48 You have to notice the triggers,
01:34:50 you don’t wanna get into that place.
01:34:51 But for me, just looking empirically,
01:34:54 feeling shitty has always been productive.
01:34:58 Like it makes me long term happier.
01:35:00 Ultimately, it makes me more grateful to be alive
01:35:04 and it helps me grow, all those kinds of things.
01:35:06 So I kinda embrace it.
01:35:10 Otherwise, I feel like I will never do anything.
01:35:12 I have to feel shitty,
01:35:13 but that’s not a thing I prescribe to others.
01:35:16 There’s a famous professor at MIT,
01:35:19 his name is Marvin Minsky.
01:35:22 And when he was giving advice about like to the students,
01:35:26 he said, the secret to my success
01:35:28 was that I always hated everything I did in the past.
01:35:33 So always sort of being self critical
01:35:36 about everything you’ve accomplished,
01:35:37 never really take a moment of gratitude.
01:35:39 And I think for a lot of people that hear that,
01:35:41 that’s not good.
01:35:42 You should like take a pause and be grateful,
01:35:45 but it really worked for him.
01:35:47 So it’s a choice you have to make.
01:35:50 It reminds me of the quote, be happy but never satisfied,
01:35:54 where you can have a positive spin
01:35:57 and still want to improve yourself.
01:36:00 But yeah, like when did you decide
01:36:06 to take a step in the spotlight,
01:36:08 that terrifying spotlight of the internet?
01:36:11 It was actually my senior year of college
01:36:14 and I was really busy with work and school
01:36:17 and chess was kind of like this lost love.
01:36:21 And the interesting thing is that
01:36:22 the longer I don’t play chess,
01:36:24 the more I kind of miss playing it casually
01:36:26 and enjoy it more.
01:36:27 Cause then I start looking at it with fresh eyes,
01:36:30 but I didn’t have time to play tournaments.
01:36:32 So I started streaming online because it was more social
01:36:35 than just playing strangers on the internet
01:36:38 without knowing anything about who they are.
01:36:41 And I started slowly growing a community
01:36:44 and got in touch with chess.com pretty quickly too.
01:36:47 So then it was this hobby that I would do once a week,
01:36:50 every Thursday at 8 p.m.
01:36:52 And it was one of the things that brought me a lot of joy.
01:36:55 And actually I, speaking of depression,
01:36:58 did struggle for it with at least 10 years of my life.
01:37:02 And it was one of those things where chess and streaming
01:37:06 was such a distraction and it brought me such great joy
01:37:09 that I just kept doing it cause I really, really liked it.
01:37:13 And then I was working on something that didn’t pan out
01:37:18 and decided to go and take a risk and just stream full time,
01:37:21 which, you know, seemed a little bit weird at the moment.
01:37:26 Was that terrifying, that leap?
01:37:29 It was terrifying,
01:37:30 but I had taken so many terrifying leaps in the past
01:37:33 and they didn’t, you know, the last two hadn’t worked out,
01:37:36 but I was like, well, I’ll get it eventually.
01:37:39 So somehow having failed before and going through failure
01:37:43 and knowing that it’ll be okay,
01:37:45 made me more likely to just try something
01:37:48 that was a very, very weird job.
01:37:51 Goodbye camera.
01:37:52 I saw it die.
01:37:53 Yeah, the camera, we don’t need it.
01:37:55 But one of the cameras died.
01:37:56 Luckily we have another five.
01:37:58 Yeah, I know.
01:37:59 Like this is where this triggers the spiral,
01:38:02 Alexis is gonna go to A to death now.
01:38:04 It’s still somehow awake.
01:38:09 Is there advice you can give about the dark places
01:38:12 you’ve gone in your mind, the depression you suffered from,
01:38:15 how to get out from your own story?
01:38:18 Whenever I go to those really dark places,
01:38:21 the scariest thing is that it feels like
01:38:24 I will never get rid of this feeling
01:38:27 and it is very overwhelming.
01:38:31 And I just have to kind of look back over time spans
01:38:37 and remember that every single time I have got through it
01:38:39 and remind myself that it is just temporary.
01:38:42 And that has been the most helpful thing for me
01:38:45 because I just try to combat the scariest thing about it.
01:38:49 And then believe, have faith that it’s gonna,
01:38:52 like this will go away.
01:38:53 And take action obviously to make sure it goes away.
01:38:57 And I’ve also tried to spin it as depression
01:38:59 is one of the hardest things I’ve had to deal with,
01:39:01 but also one of the biggest motivators
01:39:03 because if I just am left with my own brain,
01:39:06 I get very depressed.
01:39:07 Then I really like working or focusing on things.
01:39:10 So it actually pushed me to try to focus on school,
01:39:13 try to focus on chess, focus on whatever I’m doing.
01:39:16 And also if I’m feeling really bad,
01:39:18 then there’s probably something a little bit off
01:39:20 and I use it as a signal and try to think of it as,
01:39:23 okay, this is just a sign that there’s things
01:39:25 that could be improved for long term.
01:39:27 What about you, Andrea?
01:39:28 Have you gone to dark places in your mind?
01:39:31 I’d say my family, like I see Alex going through this,
01:39:36 my mom also has very serious depression.
01:39:38 Luckily, I got the genes where I don’t go through
01:39:41 that serious level of depression that they do.
01:39:44 I’d say mine is much more temporarily.
01:39:47 So it’s more similar to what I was feeling
01:39:50 when I was feeling shitty about it.
01:39:51 Exactly, you go through periods, yes, exactly,
01:39:53 where like, but I know that it’s not something
01:39:55 that’s clinical and that’s just a genetic thing
01:40:00 or a mental thing, whereas I know it’s more serious
01:40:02 for like my family members.
01:40:04 And I did relate a lot with you where you’re saying
01:40:06 where that really pushes you and I felt that a lot
01:40:08 through content where you just kind of feel hopeless
01:40:12 and kind of like an existential crisis
01:40:14 where I don’t like the content I’m doing
01:40:16 and that’s what pushes me to like, okay,
01:40:18 you have no choice but to try something
01:40:20 that now you’re gonna be passionate about
01:40:21 because otherwise you’re gonna be stuck
01:40:22 in this never ending cycle.
01:40:24 So it’s short term and then it helps me come up
01:40:28 with the things that I enjoy the most content wise
01:40:31 and it also long term taught me just how to have
01:40:33 a more balanced life, like doing small things
01:40:36 that make me happier on a daily basis,
01:40:37 to like working out, to eating healthier,
01:40:39 which I notice when I don’t do for weeks,
01:40:42 I just get a lot more depressed.
01:40:44 What has playing chess taught you about life?
01:40:48 Has it made you better at life in any kind of way
01:40:52 or has it made you worse?
01:40:54 You know, a lot of people kind of romanticize the idea
01:40:56 that chess is kind of like life or life is kind of like chess
01:40:59 and becoming better at making decisions on the chess board
01:41:03 is gonna make you better at making decisions in life.
01:41:06 Is there some truth to that?
01:41:09 I always shy away from these comparisons
01:41:11 with chess and life.
01:41:15 Cause yeah, it has both positives and negatives.
01:41:17 So one thing it really helps develop from an early age
01:41:21 is having an analytical mind,
01:41:23 but then you could also get like paralysis of analysis
01:41:25 where you’ve just thought of everything to death
01:41:28 and you’re moving too slowly
01:41:29 when you just have to keep going forward
01:41:31 cause there’s not a great path ahead.
01:41:33 So it’s more like exercising your brain and staying sharp
01:41:39 and then also applying that to other things.
01:41:41 Whereas if instead of playing chess,
01:41:43 you were watching TV or something like that,
01:41:44 you’d probably end up being less sharp.
01:41:47 Yeah, I used to, in high school,
01:41:49 I’d always preach like,
01:41:50 ah, chess transfers to life skills that I would teach.
01:41:55 I taught chess for juvenile department
01:41:56 for a special education school.
01:41:58 I’d cite studies in prisons where like,
01:42:00 oh, playing chess helped them with X
01:42:02 and for your kids, it helps with teamwork
01:42:05 and thinking over life choices.
01:42:07 And now that I’m older, I don’t believe in any of that BS.
01:42:09 But I do think that the process of working really hard
01:42:15 at something which takes really long to see results
01:42:18 and you have to be really dedicated.
01:42:20 And like, I remember in high school and in middle school,
01:42:22 well, all my friends, they were having fun on the weekends
01:42:25 and I’d have to be there studying as a chess a day
01:42:27 and knowing one day I’ll pay off,
01:42:29 but for like two, three years, nothing paid off.
01:42:32 Kind of learning that type of patience with anything,
01:42:35 it’s like, you know, like getting a real job.
01:42:37 I can’t say I ever really worked a real job in my life
01:42:41 since I went straight into streaming
01:42:42 and I got to work for myself,
01:42:44 but I’d say it’s what people go to college for.
01:42:47 Like they learn how to live in the real world
01:42:49 and I’d say that that’s what chess taught me as a kid.
01:42:52 When you’re streaming,
01:42:53 when you’re doing the creative work, do you feel lonely?
01:42:58 So a bunch of creators talk about sort of the,
01:43:01 it’s counterintuitive because you’re famous now, you know.
01:43:06 Sort of, not quite, but we’re very lucky
01:43:09 to have each other.
01:43:11 So is that the source of the comfort
01:43:13 and like, is there some sense where it’s isolating
01:43:18 to have these personalities,
01:43:19 they have to always be having fun, being wild and so on?
01:43:24 Or is it actually the opposite?
01:43:25 Like, is it a source of comfort
01:43:26 to know that there’s so many cool people out there
01:43:28 that are giving you their love?
01:43:31 It started as a source of comfort
01:43:34 because it started with a very small community
01:43:37 who would be something,
01:43:38 it would be around 200 to 300 viewers
01:43:41 and you know, only like 30 to 40 of them
01:43:43 would actually chat actively.
01:43:45 So you felt like it was a community, not an audience.
01:43:47 So you like knew them personally almost.
01:43:49 Yeah, exactly.
01:43:50 And it was people who were interested in chess
01:43:53 and I would really enjoy that.
01:43:55 And then as, you know, we started growing bigger,
01:43:58 the audience kind of changed
01:43:59 where they’re not there for you personally,
01:44:03 they’re there while you’re entertaining
01:44:05 and it changed for me.
01:44:08 And I ended up being a lot more self conscious
01:44:11 of things online and started even thinking of myself
01:44:14 more like a product than a human being when I’m online
01:44:17 because I had to.
01:44:18 Brand.
01:44:18 Yes, exactly.
01:44:19 Otherwise you just start taking everything personally
01:44:22 that people comment about you
01:44:23 and it’s based off a very small clip.
01:44:26 I see, so it was almost a kind of a defense mechanism.
01:44:28 Exactly.
01:44:30 And it took time to get enough,
01:44:32 because even if you have tough skin,
01:44:34 eventually it gets to you when you’re online
01:44:36 every single day listening to, you know,
01:44:38 thousands of people’s feedback on you.
01:44:41 I think the loneliest part of being creator
01:44:43 is going through burnout,
01:44:45 which everyone is just, it’s bound to happen,
01:44:48 which is why I think we’re very lucky
01:44:50 that we have each other because right,
01:44:52 it’s a numbers game and you’re viral and trendy
01:44:55 at one point and then you have to fall.
01:44:58 And then there’s months where you’re just grinding.
01:45:00 And I just come into my friends room and I’m like,
01:45:01 Andrea, we’re irrelevant.
01:45:02 That’s where I’m glad, that’s really like the worst part
01:45:06 of being creator and figuring out how to get over that hump.
01:45:08 But it makes me very grateful that I have my sister
01:45:10 because I know that I’m not the only person going through it.
01:45:14 And yeah, I know that most of my creator friends
01:45:17 feel very lonely in that process
01:45:19 because they don’t have someone who’s their family
01:45:21 and their business partner and they’re working
01:45:22 by each other side by side.
01:45:24 You kind of tie in your self worth to your job
01:45:27 and your content and maybe even more extremely
01:45:30 than other jobs because you also are the entire company
01:45:34 and the entire product.
01:45:35 So when things are going well or when things are not,
01:45:38 you just need to be careful to not reflect it like,
01:45:40 oh, I am doing bad.
01:45:41 I am bad rather than the trends have now changed.
01:45:44 There’s outside things we’re gonna keep going
01:45:45 and this is just the normal waves,
01:45:47 which is how we think about it now.
01:45:49 And also just about, are we enjoying this?
01:45:52 Is this what we wanna make?
01:45:53 But we were stuck in the camp for a while
01:45:56 when we 10Xed our viewership after the pandemic
01:46:00 because people were home and playing chess.
01:46:02 And then of course that dropped by like 70%.
01:46:04 And then you see that and you’re trying your best
01:46:06 and you just kind of have to deal with it and be like,
01:46:09 okay, I’m just gonna keep persevering
01:46:11 and maybe it’ll get better.
01:46:13 That’s so fascinating.
01:46:14 I mean, this is a struggle of sorts in the 21st century
01:46:20 of like how to be an artist, how to be a creator,
01:46:23 how to be an interesting mind in response to this algorithm.
01:46:27 I’m telling you, turning off views and likes is really good.
01:46:30 I don’t look at Twitch views for that reason.
01:46:32 And I get obsessed with the numbers too.
01:46:34 And I know Andrea does, but for me,
01:46:37 what I try now is to be more focused in the moment,
01:46:39 but Andrea somehow can do it even with the views.
01:46:42 So you just, you get, you have fun with it.
01:46:44 I’m too much of like a given to the temporary satisfaction.
01:46:48 Like I like seeing, I like knowing
01:46:51 that if something happens right now,
01:46:52 viewership’s gonna boost by a couple of hundred
01:46:55 and seeing that I’m right, of course.
01:46:57 But what about when the viewers start dropping?
01:46:58 Exactly, well, and I always,
01:47:00 like you just have this intuition now.
01:47:02 But I think also the reason that it doesn’t affect me
01:47:05 so much is when we first started our content journey,
01:47:08 we were only Twitch streamers.
01:47:10 And we, our livelihood were based on Twitch viewers.
01:47:13 But now like I’ve learned how to recycle that content
01:47:16 into like YouTube and shorts and other things
01:47:18 where I know like, okay, if this stream does badly,
01:47:21 there’s so many more things you can do
01:47:22 that also just have a much larger output.
01:47:24 So it doesn’t get to me as much as it did.
01:47:27 Do you ever feel that with your podcasts
01:47:29 or do you feel like it’s been authentic since the start?
01:47:32 No, so there’s a million things to say there.
01:47:35 So one is there’s a reason I stopped taking a salary at MIT
01:47:40 and moved to Texas is I wanted my bank account to go to zero
01:47:46 because I do my best with my back against the wall.
01:47:48 So one of the comforts I have is I don’t care
01:47:50 if this podcast is popular or not.
01:47:52 I want it to not be popular.
01:47:54 So I don’t want it to make money.
01:47:56 You’re failing Lex.
01:47:57 Yeah, I wanna, I mean, I just do best
01:47:59 when I’m more desperate.
01:48:03 That’s like one thing to say.
01:48:04 Seems like a reoccurring theme
01:48:06 with how you build up your greatest work,
01:48:08 which is honestly very respectable.
01:48:10 Yeah, so thank you.
01:48:14 This is like.
01:48:15 I wouldn’t recommend.
01:48:17 Right, thank you for finding the silver lining
01:48:20 for an unhealthy mental state.
01:48:24 But the other thing is I was very conscious
01:48:26 just like with chess and those kinds of things
01:48:29 that I love numbers.
01:48:31 And I would be, if I paid attention,
01:48:35 if I tried to be somebody at their best,
01:48:38 like Mr. Beast who really pays attention to numbers,
01:48:42 I would just not, I’d become destroyed by it.
01:48:47 The highs and the lows of it.
01:48:48 And I just don’t think I would be creating
01:48:50 the best work possible.
01:48:54 But one of the big benefits of a podcast,
01:48:59 it’s listeners and there’s an intimacy with the voice.
01:49:02 And I think that is much more stable
01:49:06 and a deeper and a more meaningful connection than YouTube.
01:49:10 YouTube is a fickle mistress.
01:49:13 So it’s a weird drug that like, it really wants you.
01:49:18 With very addicting feedback loops.
01:49:20 When you have a video that’s number one out of 10,
01:49:23 oh my God, the adrenaline you get.
01:49:25 And then the thing I really don’t like also
01:49:28 is the world will introduce you as a person
01:49:33 that has a video on YouTube with some X number of views.
01:49:39 Like the world wants you to be addicted to these numbers.
01:49:42 What?
01:49:43 Because they associate it with having done a good job.
01:49:45 Yeah.
01:49:46 Because that’s what people think views are,
01:49:47 even if it’s not.
01:49:48 Right.
01:49:48 And primarily because they don’t have any other signal
01:49:52 of what’s a good job.
01:49:53 I think the much better signal is people
01:49:56 that are close to you, your family, your colleagues,
01:49:59 that say, wow, that was cool, I listened to that,
01:50:00 that was really, I didn’t know this,
01:50:02 this was really powerful, this is really moving and so on.
01:50:05 But definitely I’m terrified of numbers.
01:50:08 Because I feel like, just like I said,
01:50:10 I’d rather be a Stanley Kubrick, right?
01:50:16 You’d rather create great art,
01:50:21 not to be pretentious,
01:50:22 but the best possible thing you can create.
01:50:24 Whatever the beauty that’s,
01:50:26 the capacity for creating beauty that’s in you,
01:50:28 I would like to maximize that.
01:50:29 And I feel like for some people like Mr. Beast,
01:50:32 I think those are perfectly aligned.
01:50:35 Because he just loves the most epic thing possible,
01:50:37 but not for everybody.
01:50:38 I think there’s a lot of people
01:50:39 for whom that’s not perfectly aligned.
01:50:42 And so I’m definitely one of those.
01:50:44 And I’m still really confused
01:50:46 why anybody listens to this anyway.
01:50:49 But that’s also something I guess you’re trying to find,
01:50:53 trying to figure out.
01:50:54 I get very afraid of ever becoming someone
01:50:58 who just makes junk food content,
01:51:00 where you can’t stop while you’re in the moment,
01:51:03 and it has all of your attention,
01:51:05 but when you’re done,
01:51:06 it didn’t really bring any value to your life,
01:51:09 which is something that I think the algorithm
01:51:11 still does really reward.
01:51:14 And making sure that as we are learning
01:51:16 how to create better content,
01:51:18 it’s still something that is gonna be meaningful long term.
01:51:21 Well, ultimately, you inspire a lot of young people.
01:51:26 Yeah, those are the best.
01:51:27 When I get messages from people who are like,
01:51:30 I played you a year ago, and my rating was 1400,
01:51:33 and now I’m 1900.
01:51:34 I’d like to challenge you again.
01:51:35 It’s a 14 year old writing a former email.
01:51:38 Those things are always very, very fun to get.
01:51:40 And even just outside of chess,
01:51:42 it’s just empowering to see,
01:51:44 like for young women too, to see that kind of thing.
01:51:46 I mean, you guys are being yourself,
01:51:50 and making money for being yourself,
01:51:51 and having fun, and growing as human beings,
01:51:54 which I think is really inspiring for people to see.
01:51:57 So in that sense, it’s really rewarding.
01:51:59 And then the way I think about it is
01:52:03 there is some benefit of doing entertaining type of stuff
01:52:06 so that you get the,
01:52:10 kind of like Mr. Beast does with philanthropy, right?
01:52:13 The bigger Mr. Beast becomes,
01:52:15 the more effective he is at actually doing
01:52:16 positive impact on the world.
01:52:18 So those things are tied together.
01:52:22 But of course, with podcasts, you guys,
01:52:25 well, maybe you have these kinds of tense things,
01:52:28 but what kind of ideas, what kind of people do platform?
01:52:31 What kind of person,
01:52:36 what kind of human being do you wanna be?
01:52:39 Because you are actually becoming a person,
01:52:42 and a set of ideas in front of the public eye,
01:52:47 and you have to ask yourself that question really hard,
01:52:49 like really seriously.
01:52:50 Because if you’re doing stuff in private,
01:52:54 you have the complete luxury to try shit out.
01:52:57 Right.
01:52:58 I think you have less of a luxury to try shit out
01:53:01 because the internet can be vicious in punishing you
01:53:04 for trying shit out.
01:53:05 And do you think that’s sometimes a bad thing
01:53:07 where you have less freedom to make mistakes?
01:53:11 Yeah, you have two choices.
01:53:12 So one, you put up a wall
01:53:14 and say I don’t give a shit what people think.
01:53:17 I don’t like doing that
01:53:18 because I like being fragile to the world,
01:53:20 keeping my, sort of wearing my heart on my sleeve.
01:53:23 Or the other one, yeah, you have to be,
01:53:26 you have to actually think through what you’re gonna say.
01:53:30 You have to think of like, what do I believe?
01:53:33 You have to be more serious about what you put out there.
01:53:38 It’s annoying, but it’s also actually,
01:53:41 you should have always been doing that.
01:53:43 You should be deliberate with your actions and your words.
01:53:48 But I don’t know, it’s,
01:53:49 but some of it, it’s such a balance
01:53:54 because some of my favorite people are brilliant people
01:53:57 that allow themselves to act ridiculous and be silly.
01:54:01 Elon Musk, who’s become a good friend,
01:54:03 is the silliest human of all.
01:54:05 I mean, he’s incredibly brilliant and productive and so on,
01:54:09 but allows themselves to be silly.
01:54:11 And that’s also inspiring to people.
01:54:13 Like you don’t have to be perfect.
01:54:15 You don’t have to, you can be a weird, a giant weird mess.
01:54:19 Then it’s okay.
01:54:20 So it’s a balance.
01:54:22 I think when you start to delve into political topics,
01:54:25 into topics that really get tense for people,
01:54:28 then you have to be a little bit more careful and deliberate.
01:54:31 But it’s also wise to stay the hell away
01:54:33 from those topics in general.
01:54:35 Like I mentioned to you offline,
01:54:36 somebody I’ve been debating whether I want to talk to
01:54:39 or not is Karjakin on the chess board
01:54:42 because chess is just a game,
01:54:45 but throughout the history of the 20th century,
01:54:48 it was played between the Russians and the Americans
01:54:51 and so on where they were at war, cold or hot war.
01:54:56 And those are interesting.
01:54:57 Those are interesting conversations to be had
01:55:01 at the Olympics and so on.
01:55:03 It’s not just a game.
01:55:04 It’s some sense.
01:55:05 It’s like a mini war.
01:55:08 And so I have to decide whether I want to talk to him or not
01:55:11 and those kinds of things.
01:55:12 You have to make those kinds of decisions.
01:55:14 For now, you guys are not playing chess
01:55:16 with Donald Trump or Obama or so on.
01:55:18 We are not right now, no.
01:55:20 How long is a stream?
01:55:22 Like a few hours, right?
01:55:23 Now they’re two to three hours.
01:55:24 When I was first streaming,
01:55:26 I’d stream for like six hours a day.
01:55:28 A day.
01:55:29 At least usually.
01:55:30 Yeah, for like six to seven days a week.
01:55:33 Are you doing just like a talking one?
01:55:34 No, I’d be playing chess the entire time while talking.
01:55:38 And when I started streaming,
01:55:42 that’s kind of how everybody blows up on Twitch.
01:55:44 You’re just putting in crazy hours and you’re always there.
01:55:47 It’s not about making the best content.
01:55:49 It’s about letting people feel
01:55:51 like they’re hanging out with you
01:55:53 and just being on as much as you can.
01:55:55 But I ended up feeling very burnt out
01:55:58 because it’s hard to be your best self
01:56:00 when you’re in front of a camera for that long
01:56:02 because you do get scared of going into places
01:56:06 where you want to learn, but you might not be the best in.
01:56:09 Because it’s harder to learn in public
01:56:10 than do something that like,
01:56:12 yeah, we’re better than 99% of our viewers at chess.
01:56:14 So that’s a lot less scary than trying to play a game
01:56:18 that you’re bad at or discuss topics
01:56:20 that you’re interested in.
01:56:22 Yeah, have the beginner’s mind and be dumb at something.
01:56:26 Right.
01:56:27 Yeah, which is where the fun is
01:56:28 and you get to learn together,
01:56:30 but people punish you for it on the internet.
01:56:33 What about you, Andrea?
01:56:35 Yeah, I think like Alex said at the beginning,
01:56:38 when we were grinding a lot,
01:56:39 you don’t really even have time for much of a private life
01:56:43 because you’re streaming every hour of your life
01:56:45 and people want it, like the appeal of streamers,
01:56:49 it’s called like being parasocial
01:56:50 where you feel like they’re your friend
01:56:52 and they like it because they want you
01:56:54 to share everything about your life.
01:56:57 Really the main challenge for me at first
01:56:59 when trying to prioritize quantity over quality,
01:57:03 which we’re not doing anymore,
01:57:05 was realizing that I can’t turn everything I’m interested in
01:57:08 and every passion into content.
01:57:11 Before I’m like, well, I must stream more,
01:57:14 but I like music and I like playing piano
01:57:16 and I like reading into these topics and I like fitness
01:57:20 and then I try to live stream all of it
01:57:22 and that’s just, at some point it’s like,
01:57:24 just enjoy your time off for those hobbies
01:57:27 and prioritize what you’re good at
01:57:28 because that’s just gonna be better for the channel overall.
01:57:32 So that was a learning lesson for sure.
01:57:34 It’s nice because there are some intersections
01:57:36 when I have tried new things that I really enjoy
01:57:38 and it pays off, but that’s less often.
01:57:41 So it’s more like you can be yourself,
01:57:43 but only specific parts of yourself online
01:57:46 and the rest, sometimes it’s nice to just keep private
01:57:50 and feel that you could just give it your 100% freedom.
01:57:56 See, I feel like I try to be the exact same person
01:58:02 on podcasts as in private life.
01:58:03 I really don’t like hiding anything.
01:58:06 But you’re also a generalist, right?
01:58:08 Where you have people with all topics.
01:58:10 For us, we built our audience off a very specific thing
01:58:13 so people sometimes feel like,
01:58:15 even at the start when we started playing less chess,
01:58:17 they’re like, I subbed for chess.
01:58:18 Why are you not playing chess?
01:58:20 Exactly.
01:58:21 People are tuning in for an interesting conversation
01:58:23 on a bunch of topics.
01:58:25 So like the more you are yourself, the better it is,
01:58:27 but it is very hard when you build your brand
01:58:29 on like one type of gaming content.
01:58:31 Build your brand.
01:58:34 But yeah, the way you become a generalist
01:58:36 is you slowly expand.
01:58:38 It’s like expand to checkers.
01:58:45 I guess that’s like a downward.
01:58:47 Maybe poker.
01:58:48 Poker, yeah, exactly, poker.
01:58:50 But also just the ideas, the space of ideas.
01:58:52 And one of the cool things about chess
01:58:54 is when you’re talking over the chess board,
01:58:56 you’re, it’s a kind of podcast, you know?
01:58:59 That is actually an idea we’ve had with playing chess
01:59:02 while also doing a podcast and talking with people.
01:59:05 It’s kind of like an icebreaker.
01:59:06 We’re also focusing on the game at the same time.
01:59:08 But you know, we are slowly evolving
01:59:11 and we’re doing more things.
01:59:12 Like one thing we wanted to do is spend less time
01:59:15 in front of the computer.
01:59:16 So now we’re doing a chess travel show
01:59:18 where we go to different countries
01:59:19 and look at the chess culture.
01:59:20 So it actually feels like we’re doing things
01:59:23 that we would want to do and explore anyway.
01:59:25 And maybe it’s not as much in the idea space,
01:59:28 which we both enjoy and do a lot in our own free time,
01:59:31 but in the sharing cool experiences with our audience
01:59:34 that we actually want to do.
01:59:36 Where do you look forward to going?
01:59:37 We’re going to Romania on September 9th.
01:59:41 And I think this is the most exciting for me
01:59:44 because we’re going back to, you know,
01:59:46 the country where our entire family’s from,
01:59:48 where our grandmother taught our dad
01:59:51 who taught us how to play chess.
01:59:52 It has a very strong chess culture.
01:59:54 So it’ll be very unique to go back and see
01:59:58 how everything is when we haven’t been back
02:00:00 for a very long time.
02:00:01 And for Romanians, like it’s very rare
02:00:04 when there’s like a famous Romanian
02:00:06 who accomplishes something,
02:00:07 which is why like right now,
02:00:09 Andrew Tate’s the most famous Romanian.
02:00:10 But he’s banned for a bad reason.
02:00:12 Exactly.
02:00:13 And there’s like something very special
02:00:15 about Romanian pride.
02:00:17 And when we meet fellow Romanians in the US,
02:00:19 like it’s just an amazing connection.
02:00:22 And like, I hear the way my dad talk about like,
02:00:24 for example, Nadia, who was a famous Romanian gymnast
02:00:28 and he’s like, yeah, like Romania,
02:00:30 we sucked at everything.
02:00:31 But when she won the Olympics for gymnast,
02:00:34 every kid on the street was doing gymnastics
02:00:36 because it’s very rare that they make it
02:00:38 to that level of success.
02:00:39 And I’m not saying that we’re super successful,
02:00:40 super famous, but it is really cool
02:00:42 to meet other Romanians through chess
02:00:44 because it’s a very special bond.
02:00:45 Yeah, you feel like it’s a community and like you belong.
02:00:50 Yeah, you can’t get that anywhere else.
02:00:53 Let me ask your opinion since you mentioned him,
02:00:55 Andrew Tate, you’re both women, successful women,
02:00:59 you’re both creators.
02:01:01 So Andrew Tate is an example of somebody
02:01:03 that has become exceptionally successful
02:01:06 at galvanizing public attention,
02:01:10 but he’s also, from many perspective, a misogynist.
02:01:13 So let me ask a personal question.
02:01:16 Do you think I should talk to him on this podcast?
02:01:19 How would you feel as a fan as somebody,
02:01:24 I’m talking to the great Alex and Andrea Botez
02:01:29 and the next episode is with Andrew Tate?
02:01:32 I think it’s a double edged sword
02:01:34 and most of these things are not as black and white
02:01:37 as they seem, you know,
02:01:39 because on one hand, I don’t agree with his beliefs
02:01:43 and I think he said a lot of things that are very hurtful
02:01:45 and that influence people’s opinions.
02:01:51 At the same time, talking to someone through that
02:01:54 and trying to get to the root of it
02:01:57 and how much of it he used just as a social media tactic
02:02:01 to maybe change the opinion of people
02:02:03 who have been so influenced by him towards
02:02:06 something that is maybe more understanding towards women
02:02:08 or things like that could do some good,
02:02:12 but at the same time, platforming someone like that
02:02:15 and giving them more attention also signals to other people
02:02:18 who have a platform that it’s okay,
02:02:20 so it’s kind of weighing the pluses and the minuses
02:02:22 and it’s a very tough decision because it’s not clear.
02:02:25 And the thing about the internet,
02:02:28 you make the wrong decision, you’re gonna pay for it.
02:02:30 Right.
02:02:32 That’s the thing, like personally,
02:02:34 and it is funny, like I think the whole way
02:02:37 you rose to fame is just a growth hack
02:02:39 and I’ve seen other people do it
02:02:40 where like you just say kind of,
02:02:42 I don’t, honestly, I don’t really listen to his content
02:02:45 because I just find it so dumb,
02:02:46 but I think he knows that by saying the dumbest,
02:02:49 most controversial things, that’s like a quick rise to fame
02:02:52 and I think surface level, like he can really hold it up,
02:02:56 but that’s why I would honestly enjoy tuning
02:02:58 into a conversation where you’re really breaking down
02:03:00 to the core of those beliefs
02:03:02 and I think like young kids who look up to him
02:03:04 and when you actually hear someone challenging it
02:03:06 could actually be helpful for people,
02:03:09 but at the same time, it’s a lot of bad publicity,
02:03:12 people see your podcast, they see, wow,
02:03:13 like if they don’t know you
02:03:16 and they don’t know why you’re interviewing him
02:03:17 and they don’t listen, they’ll see that
02:03:18 and then 100% think it’s for the other reason.
02:03:22 But I’m also afraid of a society
02:03:24 where you can’t have discourse
02:03:25 with people you disagree with
02:03:29 and even though I don’t like Andrew Tate,
02:03:31 I think the fact that he got banned from all the platforms
02:03:33 is kind of scary because it sets a precedent
02:03:36 and you always have to ask yourself,
02:03:38 would this be ethical if I was on the other side
02:03:40 and even things with a president like Trump,
02:03:42 even if let’s say you’re somebody who was on the left,
02:03:45 if that would have happened to a leftist president,
02:03:47 how would you feel?
02:03:48 Would you think that’s morally ethical?
02:03:49 So that is something that I think is important.
02:03:54 We try to find ways to have conversations
02:03:56 and reach some mutual understanding
02:03:59 and try instead of just amplifying the worst
02:04:02 about every human being.
02:04:04 Well, so one of the major reasons I’m struggling with
02:04:07 is because I really enjoy talking to brilliant women.
02:04:11 I think it’s also, a lot of women reached out to me
02:04:14 saying like, it is what it is,
02:04:17 but they’re inspired when the female guest is on.
02:04:20 And to me, if I talk to somebody like Andrew Tate,
02:04:23 even if I have a really hard hitting,
02:04:25 I think it could be a very good conversation
02:04:29 that lessens the likelihood
02:04:32 that a brilliant, powerful female will go on the show.
02:04:37 Because they’ll never watch it,
02:04:39 but the thing we do in this society
02:04:41 is we put labels on each other.
02:04:42 Well, Lex is the person that platforms misogynists.
02:04:48 I did a thing where Joe Rogan got in trouble
02:04:53 over an N word controversy earlier in the year.
02:04:56 And Joe’s a good friend of mine
02:04:58 and I said that I stand with Joe,
02:05:00 that he’s not a racist or something like that.
02:05:02 And within certain communities,
02:05:06 I’m now somebody who’s an apologist for racists, right?
02:05:09 Or a racist myself, that kind of thing.
02:05:12 And we put labels without ever listening to the content,
02:05:14 without ever sort of,
02:05:17 actually just even the very simple step
02:05:19 or it seems to be difficult of like,
02:05:25 taking on the best possible interpretation
02:05:27 of what a person said
02:05:28 and giving them the benefit of the doubt
02:05:30 and having empathy for another person.
02:05:31 So you have to play in this field
02:05:34 where people will assign labels to each other
02:05:36 and it’s difficult.
02:05:39 But ultimately, I believe,
02:05:40 I hope that good conversations is a way
02:05:45 to like a greater understanding for people
02:05:46 to grow together as a society
02:05:50 and improve and learn the lessons,
02:05:51 the mistakes of the past.
02:05:52 But you also have to play this game
02:05:54 where people just like putting labels on each other
02:05:56 and canceling each other over those.
02:05:58 Or that guy said one thing nice about Donald Trump,
02:06:01 he must be a far right Nazi.
02:06:04 Or the opposite,
02:06:06 that this person said something nice about the vaccine,
02:06:11 he must be a far left whatever,
02:06:13 because apologist for whatever, for Fauci.
02:06:20 Or most of us I think are ultimately in the middle.
02:06:23 It’s a weird, it’s a weird thing.
02:06:25 But I think, and it’s also painful on a personal level.
02:06:28 Like people have written to me
02:06:32 about things like single words,
02:06:35 half sentences that I’ve said about either Putin or Zelensky
02:06:39 where they have hate towards me because of what I said.
02:06:43 Either both directions.
02:06:45 I’ve now accumulated very passionate people
02:06:48 that some call me a Putin apologist,
02:06:52 some call me a Zelensky apologist.
02:06:54 And it hurts to, given how much I have family there,
02:06:58 how much I’ve seen of suffering there,
02:07:00 and to carry that burden over time
02:07:02 and not let it destroy you is tough.
02:07:04 So like, do you wanna take on another thing like that
02:07:07 when you have conversations?
02:07:09 Or can I just talk to awesome people like you two?
02:07:13 Where it’s not that burden.
02:07:14 We’re not controversial.
02:07:16 Or you’re interesting, you’re fascinating,
02:07:17 you’re inspiring, you’re like fun.
02:07:21 Not all those difficult things that come with more difficult
02:07:24 conversations.
02:07:25 Right.
02:07:26 But somebody has to be making those difficult decisions
02:07:30 and challenging the notions that we should cancel someone
02:07:35 just for slightly disagreeing with us.
02:07:37 And it’s very hard to take that on personally.
02:07:40 And I think that’s a huge part of it.
02:07:42 When you know it’s something you’re doing
02:07:44 for the right reasons and you’re getting a lot of people
02:07:46 coming and misinterpreting it, it’s very painful.
02:07:52 But I think you have to ask yourself long term
02:07:56 if when you made that decision, you ultimately thought
02:07:58 it would be better or worse for your listeners
02:08:01 to know that conversation.
02:08:02 And then if you can sleep with it at night, take the risk.
02:08:05 Yeah, actually when I talk to people that,
02:08:08 especially astrophysicists, and you realize
02:08:10 how tiny we are.
02:08:11 Right.
02:08:12 How incredible, like how huge the universe is.
02:08:14 Like you don’t, it doesn’t matter, you can do anything.
02:08:16 You could like, you can walk around naked,
02:08:20 talk shit to people, do whatever the hell.
02:08:23 And actually in modern social media,
02:08:25 people just like forget.
02:08:26 It’s like, it’s ultimately liberating.
02:08:29 Just try to do, at least from my perspective,
02:08:32 the best possible thing for the world you can.
02:08:34 Take big risks, and it doesn’t matter.
02:08:37 And that’s the other thing with being canceled nowadays
02:08:39 because everyone’s attention is much more shortsighted.
02:08:43 You can get canceled and then it’ll blow over in three days.
02:08:46 And you actually see things like this on Twitch very often
02:08:48 where people just have bursts of outrage
02:08:51 and they come into your chat and they’re all spamming
02:08:53 and saying mean things, and then three days after.
02:08:55 And of course they’re not actually ever serious things.
02:08:57 They’re usually like things clipped of any streamers
02:09:00 in like their worst moments, but then people forget
02:09:01 about it pretty soon after.
02:09:04 So you’re able to accept that?
02:09:06 Like when somebody is being shitty to you for a day?
02:09:09 Yeah, I mean, I still get sometimes emotional about it,
02:09:12 especially when I’m like, oh wow,
02:09:14 these things that are being said are not true
02:09:16 or like this was clearly taken out of context,
02:09:19 but I’ve just accepted that it’s part of the job.
02:09:22 And if I am trying my best and I am trying things
02:09:26 with as good intentions as possible,
02:09:29 then I just try to learn every time that happens
02:09:31 and be like, okay, what could I do better?
02:09:32 And what is just part of the job?
02:09:35 Well, let’s start some controversy.
02:09:37 Who’s the greatest chess player of all time?
02:09:39 Is it Magnus Carlsen, is it Gary Kasparov,
02:09:43 is it somebody else, Bobby Fischer?
02:09:46 Do you have a favorite, Alex?
02:09:48 So whenever I hear this question,
02:09:50 I interpret it in a very specific way
02:09:53 where it’s not who was the most talented chess player
02:09:57 or who had the most impact on the chess world,
02:09:59 but who is the greatest at playing chess?
02:10:02 Where if you were putting all of these players
02:10:05 at their peak, who would be the best?
02:10:07 And we’re kind of living in a world
02:10:11 where obviously humans are becoming more like cyborgs
02:10:14 and their tools make them a lot more powerful.
02:10:18 And the computer is the most powerful tool
02:10:21 for chess that we’ve ever witnessed.
02:10:23 And the top players now, someone like Magnus Carlsen
02:10:26 or Gary Kasparov, if they were gonna go towards people
02:10:30 like even Lasker or Bobby Fischer back in the day,
02:10:35 Lasker, he was world champion for 27 years,
02:10:38 he was the best in his field by far,
02:10:40 but would he be able to stand up to someone
02:10:41 like Magnus Carlsen who has had these tools?
02:10:44 I don’t think so.
02:10:45 So most chess players have said Gary Kasparov
02:10:49 and I think even Magnus has said that in the past,
02:10:52 but I like to think of it as Magnus in his peak
02:10:55 and Gary at his peak, and because Magnus was able
02:10:57 to live more in a computer era,
02:10:59 I feel like so far he’s the greatest of all time.
02:11:02 And some studies say things like
02:11:04 how there’s rating inflation,
02:11:05 but I looked into some of them
02:11:06 and they basically calculated people’s play
02:11:11 over the years and it seems
02:11:13 that there hasn’t been inflation,
02:11:14 people are just getting better
02:11:15 and I think it’s because you have better tools at chess.
02:11:18 And also one of the cases, what’s your?
02:11:21 I was gonna say, I actually, I disagree with that.
02:11:24 Good, make it interesting.
02:11:26 I think I would judge the greatest player of all time
02:11:31 in relative to the time that they lived in
02:11:33 and Magnus, although he is technically
02:11:36 the strongest chess player in history,
02:11:38 that is because he had computers to study chess with.
02:11:41 And of course, if you compare him to like Gary Kasparov,
02:11:45 he plays most like Stockfish,
02:11:47 but Gary Kasparov at his time,
02:11:49 he beat more players of his skill level than Magnus did.
02:11:53 Magnus loses more often.
02:11:55 He also of course held the belt for 20 years more.
02:11:57 So I’d say actually, because Gary lacked the help
02:12:01 of computers to study chess
02:12:03 and overall performed better against players
02:12:06 of his skill level, I think he would be number one.
02:12:09 Nice.
02:12:10 Yeah, but I mean, the case that people make for Magnus
02:12:13 on many, I mean, what Alex said,
02:12:16 but also Magnus plays a lot and he doesn’t,
02:12:21 he plays a lot blitz, bullet and like he puts,
02:12:25 he gets drunk and like he’s really putting himself out there
02:12:29 and in all kinds of conditions and he’s able to dominate
02:12:32 and a lot of them, we get to see many of the like losses
02:12:35 or blunders and all that kind of stuff
02:12:37 because he just puts himself out there.
02:12:39 And I think Kasparov was much more like.
02:12:42 Never saw him play drunk, right?
02:12:44 Yeah, and it’s very focused on the world championship.
02:12:47 It’s very, very limited number of games
02:12:51 and very focused on winning.
02:12:52 And so there’s some aspect to the versatility,
02:12:56 the aggressive play, the fun, all of that,
02:12:59 that I think you have to give credit to.
02:13:01 Oh, 100%.
02:13:02 In terms of just the scope,
02:13:06 the scale of the variety of genius exhibited by Magnus.
02:13:10 And he might not even be done yet.
02:13:12 I don’t know if he’ll ever hit 2,900,
02:13:14 but we can’t judge yet
02:13:16 because he’s not at the peak of his career potentially.
02:13:18 What do you think about him not playing world championship?
02:13:20 Isn’t that like, isn’t that wild?
02:13:23 The entirety of the history of chess in the 20th century
02:13:26 going like meh.
02:13:27 It’s walking away from this one tournament
02:13:31 that seems to be at the center of chess.
02:13:35 What do you think about that decision?
02:13:37 I mean, you can’t help but be disappointed as a chess fan
02:13:41 who wants to see the best player in the world
02:13:43 defend his title.
02:13:44 But I also understand it on a personal level
02:13:48 and not feeling as satisfied
02:13:51 when you’re going to the world championship
02:13:53 and having to defend against people
02:13:55 who are less strong than you.
02:13:57 And also imagine winning world championships
02:13:59 and not feeling a joy out of that.
02:14:02 So maybe by not doing that
02:14:04 and focusing instead on a goal like 2,900,
02:14:07 he’ll be more likely to accomplish it
02:14:09 because he’s focusing on what actually motivates him
02:14:12 to play chess.
02:14:13 But I do think that it will hurt
02:14:17 how we judge the next world champion.
02:14:21 I think it won’t change him being the best player
02:14:23 in the world.
02:14:25 And for someone to replace him,
02:14:27 even let’s say like Nepo versus Sting,
02:14:29 even if one of them win and right on some stance,
02:14:32 it does lower the merit
02:14:34 because now who has the world chess championship title
02:14:37 isn’t actually the best player in the world.
02:14:39 And that has happened before in the past,
02:14:41 but still going to take the same effort to prove
02:14:45 when they would pass him like 10, 20 years
02:14:48 to become stronger than Magnus.
02:14:49 So I don’t think it changes the skill level
02:14:51 that it takes to become the best chess player in the world.
02:14:54 I think for chess fans, it’s very disappointing,
02:14:56 but I think in the overall like grand scheme
02:14:58 of like the public view to people who don’t really,
02:15:01 so like, you know, what breaks the popular culture
02:15:04 and you think of what names people know
02:15:08 who don’t play chess like Bobby Fischer did it.
02:15:10 Most people know Casper over Magnus.
02:15:12 It takes the same ability and talent and that doesn’t change.
02:15:15 I think it does change though
02:15:16 if you’re playing a player who’s not as strong,
02:15:20 but I see your point as well.
02:15:22 And I know we differ on this.
02:15:23 Like I said, I heard you ask Magnus,
02:15:25 but what is your take on it?
02:15:30 Well, listen, his answer is kind of brilliant,
02:15:33 which he’s not saying he’s bored
02:15:37 of the world championship.
02:15:39 He’s bored of a process
02:15:41 that doesn’t determine the best player.
02:15:44 Like, and it’s too exciting inducing to him
02:15:47 to have a small number of games.
02:15:50 He doesn’t mind losing, which is really fascinating
02:15:54 to a better player or somebody who is his level.
02:15:58 He’s more anxious about losing to a weaker player
02:16:05 because of the small sample size.
02:16:07 Now, if like poker players had that anxiety,
02:16:09 they would never play at all, right?
02:16:11 That’s the World Series of Poker.
02:16:13 You get to lose against weaker players all the time.
02:16:17 That’s the throw of the dice.
02:16:19 But that’s an interesting perspective
02:16:21 that he would love to play 20, 30, 40 games
02:16:25 in the world championship,
02:16:26 and then he would enjoy it much more.
02:16:28 And also play shorter games
02:16:29 because they emphasize the like pure chess,
02:16:34 actually being able to like much more variety
02:16:40 in the middle game just to see a bunch of chaos
02:16:42 and see how you’re able to compute,
02:16:43 calculate and intuition, all that kind of stuff.
02:16:46 I mean, that’s beautiful.
02:16:48 I wish the chess world would step up and meet him
02:16:51 in a place that makes sense,
02:16:55 change the world championship.
02:16:56 So FIDE changing it somehow, a loss for that.
02:17:00 Or having other really respected tournaments
02:17:03 that become like an annual thing that step up to that.
02:17:07 Or more kind of online YouTube type of competitions,
02:17:12 which I think they’re trying to do more and more,
02:17:14 like the Crypto Cup and all those kinds of things.
02:17:16 And the Grand Tour does play in,
02:17:19 which takes a lot of the top players
02:17:21 and they do it online in shorter formats.
02:17:23 But there’s, so that’s his perspective.
02:17:26 My perhaps narrow perspective
02:17:30 is I romanticize the Olympic games
02:17:32 and those are every four years
02:17:33 and the world championships because they’re rare,
02:17:38 because the sample size is so small.
02:17:40 That’s where the magic happens.
02:17:42 Everything’s on the line for people
02:17:45 that spend their whole life, 20 years of dedication,
02:17:50 everything you have, every minute of the day
02:17:52 spent for that moment.
02:17:54 You think about like gymnastics at the Olympic games.
02:17:57 There’s certain sports where a single mistake
02:17:59 and you’re fucked.
02:18:01 And that stress, that pressure, it can break people
02:18:08 or it can create magic.
02:18:11 Like a person that’s the underdog
02:18:13 has the best night of their life
02:18:15 or the person that’s been dominating for years
02:18:18 all of a sudden slips up.
02:18:19 That drama from a human perspective is beautiful.
02:18:22 So I still like the world championships,
02:18:24 but then again, looking at all the draws,
02:18:28 looking at like, well, the magic isn’t quite there.
02:18:33 So to me, when I see faster games of chess,
02:18:36 that’s much more beautiful.
02:18:39 But then I don’t understand the game of chess
02:18:41 deeply enough to know.
02:18:43 Like, does it have to be so many draws?
02:18:48 Like, is there a way to create a more dynamic chess?
02:18:51 And he talked about random chess
02:18:53 with a random starting position.
02:18:55 That’s really interesting.
02:18:56 But then of course, that’s like,
02:18:58 then you do have to play hundreds of games
02:19:00 and that kind of stuff.
02:19:03 But I think it’s great that the world number one
02:19:08 is struggling with these questions
02:19:12 because he’s in the position,
02:19:13 he has the leverage to actually change the game of chess
02:19:16 as it’s publicly seen, as it’s publicly played.
02:19:19 So it’s interesting.
02:19:21 He’s still young enough to dominate
02:19:24 for quite a long time if he wants.
02:19:26 So I don’t know.
02:19:27 I, you know, with Kasparov, the fight between nations,
02:19:32 I hope they have the world championship
02:19:34 and I hope he’s still a part of it somehow.
02:19:38 I hope he changes his mind.
02:19:40 And comes back.
02:19:41 Comes back.
02:19:42 Kind of dramatic thing.
02:19:43 I don’t know.
02:19:44 But it is, his heart is not in it.
02:19:47 And then,
02:19:51 and then that’s not beautiful to see, right?
02:19:57 Yeah, it is beautiful that the thing he wants
02:20:02 is a great game of chess against an opponent
02:20:04 that’s his level or better.
02:20:07 And that’s great that he’s coming from that place.
02:20:10 But I hope he comes back tomorrow.
02:20:11 Because the world championship is a special thing
02:20:15 in any sport.
02:20:16 So you do wish that the person
02:20:18 who wins the world championship
02:20:20 is the best player in the world?
02:20:23 No.
02:20:25 I hope that the best people in the world,
02:20:28 the two best people in the world
02:20:30 are the ones that sit down.
02:20:33 But the person that wins is the person that,
02:20:35 that’s the magic of it.
02:20:37 Nobody knows who’s going to win.
02:20:39 I think Magnus is so, he really wants
02:20:42 the best person to win.
02:20:44 Like the, that’s why he wants the large sample size.
02:20:48 But to me there’s some magic to it.
02:20:50 The stress of it, the drama of it.
02:20:53 That’s all part of the game.
02:20:55 Like it’s not just about the purity of the game,
02:20:58 like the calculation.
02:21:00 The pure chess of it.
02:21:01 It’s also like the drama.
02:21:03 Like the, yeah, the pressure, the drama, all of it.
02:21:07 The shit talking, if it gets to you, the mind games.
02:21:10 This is the part that’s fun to watch,
02:21:12 but less fun to be playing.
02:21:14 But that’s why it’s great.
02:21:15 Who can melt, who can rise under that pressure
02:21:18 and who melts under that pressure.
02:21:22 There’s a lot of people that look up to you,
02:21:24 like they’re inspired by you
02:21:26 because you’ve taken a kind of nonlinear path through life.
02:21:28 Is there any advice you have for people
02:21:31 like in high school today?
02:21:33 They’re trying to figure out what they want to do.
02:21:35 Do they want to go to Stanford?
02:21:37 Do they want to pursue a career in, I don’t know,
02:21:41 in industry or go kind of the path you guys have taken,
02:21:46 which is have the ability to do all of that
02:21:48 and still choose to make the thing
02:21:50 that you’re passionate about your life.
02:21:53 I always liked the calculated risks approach
02:21:56 where when you’re younger, it’s okay to take more risks
02:22:00 because you have a lot more time,
02:22:02 but there has to be a reason
02:22:04 why you’re doing that particular risk.
02:22:06 Is it something that you’ve spent a lot of time already
02:22:08 really passionate and working on
02:22:09 or is it just something that’s trendy
02:22:11 and you want to do it because you don’t have a better option?
02:22:13 And that’s actually similar to what Andrea did
02:22:16 when she decided to go into streaming instead of school.
02:22:19 Yeah, the reason I got into streaming
02:22:21 because I was initially going to go to college,
02:22:24 but the pandemics,
02:22:25 it was right at the beginning of the pandemic
02:22:27 and all my classes were online.
02:22:29 And I never thought, ever since I was 12,
02:22:31 like my dream was school and I saw myself nowhere else
02:22:36 than going to university.
02:22:37 And I thought of it and kind of weighed out the risks.
02:22:40 I’m like, well, if I take a gap year
02:22:41 and I try streaming with my sister, what do I have to lose?
02:22:45 I gained some experience working with someone
02:22:47 who has a lot more experience than I do.
02:22:49 And then I can go back to school after.
02:22:52 And if I go to school right now,
02:22:54 I do online classes for a year
02:22:55 and that’s something that I could do at any time.
02:22:57 So that’s why it made a lot of sense for me to go into this.
02:23:00 But of course, this is also a very unique opportunity.
02:23:04 So I don’t know how applicable,
02:23:05 but I do think overall the calculated risk
02:23:07 is a really good lesson.
02:23:08 So life is like chess.
02:23:10 Exactly.
02:23:11 Maybe sometime.
02:23:12 Exactly.
02:23:13 You also, have you considered a career
02:23:15 in professional fighting?
02:23:16 I saw you did a self defense class,
02:23:18 you did a little Jiu Jitsu.
02:23:20 Did you see the 10 year old kid who…
02:23:22 Throwing her?
02:23:24 Yes, and apparently I could have broken a leg.
02:23:26 But it’s actually funny, like chess boxing is a thing
02:23:29 and I have been doing a lot of boxing.
02:23:32 Physical activity is like, honestly,
02:23:34 one of my favorite things to do.
02:23:35 And I have been testing it out on content
02:23:38 and we have a creator friend
02:23:40 who’s hosting a chess boxing tournament,
02:23:42 but there’s no woman who could match me, unfortunately,
02:23:45 because all the opponents are male
02:23:47 and I can’t fight a guy.
02:23:50 How does chess boxing work?
02:23:51 So you do a round of chess and a round of boxing.
02:23:54 And we actually did a training camp for it before.
02:23:56 And of course, after you go into the ring.
02:23:59 Is this real?
02:24:00 Is this serious?
02:24:01 Yes, it’s amazing.
02:24:01 We went to a London chess boxing club.
02:24:03 And after you get…
02:24:04 No, it seemed like videos,
02:24:05 I thought it was something you’d just do in Russia
02:24:06 or something.
02:24:07 No, it’s a real sport.
02:24:08 It’s a real sport.
02:24:09 Yeah, no, it’s very cool.
02:24:10 But after you get really tired,
02:24:12 you’re more likely to make a mistake
02:24:14 and they call them Jaffers or something.
02:24:16 Yeah, there’s probably good strategies,
02:24:17 like what do you want to…
02:24:19 Because some of it is a cardio thing.
02:24:21 Do you want to work on your chess or your boxing?
02:24:23 They do both, it’s very fun.
02:24:25 But yeah, from a content perspective,
02:24:27 I’m sure there’s a lot of people that would love to see.
02:24:31 I don’t want to see Andrea getting hit.
02:24:33 That would be…
02:24:34 I would love to fight.
02:24:35 Unless she doesn’t get hit.
02:24:37 Our roommate fought in a fight
02:24:39 and she did end up winning,
02:24:40 but seeing her get hit,
02:24:42 I thought I was going to throw up off screen.
02:24:43 I just think it was so cool.
02:24:44 She had no experience in boxing whatsoever.
02:24:47 And then coming from someone in the content world,
02:24:49 where you start waking up six days a week at 6 a.m.
02:24:52 and she’s training every day,
02:24:54 like a real professional athlete,
02:24:55 I think like it’s such a unique experience
02:24:58 and also like a really test
02:25:00 of how much you can really commit to this and progress.
02:25:02 And I think that’s really rewarding.
02:25:05 Did you ever end up doing the marathon with David Goggins
02:25:08 that you were training for?
02:25:09 No, I got injured, but we’re going to do it soon.
02:25:11 That’s on my bucket list,
02:25:14 just to see what your limits are.
02:25:15 You’re ready to do it?
02:25:16 What did you do leading up to this?
02:25:19 Nothing.
02:25:19 You’re just going to go into it.
02:25:20 It’s mental anyway.
02:25:22 Oh, you don’t…
02:25:23 I run a lot to make sure like there’s no…
02:25:27 You have to have a base level of fitness
02:25:29 to make sure your body doesn’t completely freak out.
02:25:32 But other than that, 50 plus miles is just about
02:25:36 like taking it one step at a time
02:25:39 and just being able to deal with the suffering
02:25:42 and all the voices, the little voices
02:25:43 that tell you all the excuses,
02:25:44 like why are you doing this?
02:25:47 This blister is bleeding, whatever.
02:25:49 Whatever the thing that makes you want to stop,
02:25:53 just shut it off.
02:25:54 Sometimes it feels like you like pain.
02:25:56 No, well, no, no.
02:26:00 But the pain does seem to show the way to progress.
02:26:05 So what…
02:26:06 In your turn of life.
02:26:08 In my world.
02:26:08 Something that’s really hard and I don’t want to do,
02:26:11 that’s usually the right thing to do.
02:26:14 And I’m not saying that’s like a universal truth.
02:26:17 It’s just, if there’s a few doors to go into,
02:26:22 the one that I want to go into least,
02:26:24 that’s the one that usually is the right one.
02:26:27 Afterwards, I will learn something from it.
02:26:29 The David Goggins thing, I don’t know.
02:26:31 Listen, we’re talking offline,
02:26:34 the conversation with Liv,
02:26:36 she has a very numeric, calculated risk.
02:26:38 Everything is planned.
02:26:39 I go with the heart.
02:26:41 I just go whatever the hell.
02:26:42 I think two years ago, I woke up,
02:26:44 it was summer, I decided to tweet,
02:26:50 I will do as many pushups.
02:26:53 I don’t know why I did this,
02:26:55 but I will do as many pushups and pull ups
02:26:58 as this week gets likes, something like that.
02:27:00 Okay.
02:27:01 Right?
02:27:02 And then that it got like 30,000.
02:27:07 Once you put it out on the internet,
02:27:08 you’re held accountable.
02:27:09 Well, for myself, I mean, in some sense.
02:27:11 And then that’s when, I already was connected to David
02:27:14 at that point, but that’s when he called me.
02:27:18 And then didn’t have to do it.
02:27:19 And then I did it and it was one of the hardest things
02:27:21 I’ve ever done.
02:27:22 How long did you take?
02:27:23 I did it for seven days and I got injured.
02:27:25 So I did about a few thousand.
02:27:27 Wait, so this is what got you to be injured?
02:27:29 This challenge?
02:27:30 No, it’s different.
02:27:31 I keep getting injured doing stuff.
02:27:34 But this particular thing, I started doing the,
02:27:36 you don’t realize that you have to really ramp up.
02:27:39 So I got like overuse injury tendonitis on the shoulder
02:27:44 all the way down to the elbow.
02:27:46 So I took like eight or nine days off
02:27:49 and then started again.
02:27:51 And then it took about 31 days to do.
02:27:55 30,000.
02:27:57 The number was like 26, 27,000.
02:28:01 Yeah.
02:28:02 Wow.
02:28:03 And it took like three, four hours a day.
02:28:06 Oh God.
02:28:07 Yeah.
02:28:08 Sounds like torture.
02:28:08 And not, you know, constantly asking myself,
02:28:11 what am I doing with my life?
02:28:13 This is why you’re single, was the voice in my head.
02:28:16 This is what are you doing?
02:28:18 It’s like face down on the carpet.
02:28:21 Like exhausted.
02:28:23 Like what, what?
02:28:24 Because of a tweet?
02:28:25 What is this?
02:28:26 Did you record it or you just?
02:28:28 I did.
02:28:29 I did record it for myself.
02:28:30 Okay.
02:28:31 Now imagine doing this every day
02:28:32 and that’s what it’s like to be a Twitch streamer.
02:28:34 Just kidding.
02:28:35 Right.
02:28:36 I’m doing stupid things.
02:28:37 That was really important to me actually
02:28:39 to not make it into content.
02:28:42 You know, I recorded everything.
02:28:43 So maybe one day I could publish it.
02:28:44 I recorded it mostly because it’s really hard to count.
02:28:48 Yeah.
02:28:49 When you get exhausted.
02:28:50 Yeah.
02:28:51 Like I just, so you actually enter the Zen place
02:28:54 where with pushups, where it’s just like,
02:28:58 it’s almost like breathing.
02:28:59 You get into a rhythm and you can do quite a lot.
02:29:02 But I wanted to make sure like,
02:29:04 if I actually get this done, I want there to be evidence
02:29:07 that I got it done for myself so I can count it.
02:29:10 I had this idea that I would use machine learning
02:29:12 to like automatically process the video to count it.
02:29:15 But then like, after like 10 days,
02:29:17 I didn’t even give a shit what anyone thought.
02:29:19 It was about me versus me.
02:29:21 I didn’t even care.
02:29:22 Lex versus Lex.
02:29:23 Yeah.
02:29:24 And then, yeah.
02:29:26 And David was extremely supportive.
02:29:27 But that’s when I realized like,
02:29:28 I really want to go head to head with him.
02:29:31 So yeah, those kinds of people are beautiful.
02:29:34 They really challenge you to your limits.
02:29:36 Whatever that is.
02:29:37 It’s like, the thing is physical exercise
02:29:40 is such an easy way to push yourself to your limit.
02:29:42 There’s in all other walks of life,
02:29:44 it’s trickier to configure.
02:29:46 Like how do you push yourself to your limits in chess?
02:29:48 It’s hard to figure out.
02:29:50 But like in physical.
02:29:51 Do you think it’s ever dangerous?
02:29:53 Yeah.
02:29:54 And that’s why it’s beautiful.
02:29:56 The danger.
02:29:56 She likes the pain.
02:29:57 I don’t like that your eyes lit up as I said.
02:30:00 Yeah.
02:30:01 Like if you don’t know how you’re gonna get out of it,
02:30:04 you’re gonna have to figure out something profound
02:30:08 about yourself.
02:30:10 And I mean, one of the reasons I went to Ukraine
02:30:13 is I really wanted to experience the hardship
02:30:19 and the intensity of war that people are experiencing
02:30:23 so I can understand myself better,
02:30:25 I can understand them better.
02:30:27 So the words that are leaving my mouth are grounded
02:30:30 in a better understanding of who they are.
02:30:32 And I mean, the running a lot with David Gong
02:30:36 is it’s a much simpler thing to do.
02:30:40 Simpler way to understand something about yourself,
02:30:42 about like the limits of human nature.
02:30:44 I think most growth happens with voluntary suffering
02:30:47 or struggle, involuntary stuff.
02:30:50 That’s where the dark trauma is created.
02:30:52 But I don’t know, maybe it is.
02:30:55 Maybe I’m just attracted to torture.
02:30:57 And what is it that your mind does
02:30:59 when you’re going through this involuntary suffering?
02:31:03 I think,
02:31:14 there’s like stages.
02:31:15 First, all the excuses start coming.
02:31:17 Like why are you doing this?
02:31:20 And then you start to wonder like what kind of person
02:31:25 do you want to be?
02:31:26 So all the dreams you had,
02:31:28 all the promises you made to yourself and to others,
02:31:30 all the ambitions you had that haven’t come yet realized,
02:31:34 somehow that all becomes really intensely like visceral
02:31:39 as the struggle is happening.
02:31:41 And then when all of that is allowed to pass from your mind,
02:31:47 you have this clear appreciation
02:31:49 of what you really love in life,
02:31:50 which is just like just living.
02:31:53 Just the moment, the step at a time.
02:31:57 I think what meditation does and it’s most effective,
02:32:00 it’s just that pain is a catalyst
02:32:02 for the meditative process, I think.
02:32:05 For me, for me.
02:32:07 I don’t know.
02:32:09 Magnus said there’s no meaning to life.
02:32:10 Do you guys agree or no?
02:32:14 Why are we here?
02:32:17 I do not know why we’re here,
02:32:20 but I do know that having some kind of meaning
02:32:26 that I give my own life
02:32:28 makes it a lot more motivating every day.
02:32:32 So I just try to focus on finding meaning within my own life
02:32:34 even if I know it’s just self imposed.
02:32:38 And then chess is a part of that?
02:32:41 Chess is a part of it.
02:32:44 Maybe it was more so when I was younger
02:32:47 because it was easier to just feel like I wanna improve
02:32:50 as a person and to use chess
02:32:54 to kind of measure some kind of self improvement.
02:32:57 And now it’s more different than that.
02:33:00 And I think I need to once again find
02:33:02 what that northern star is.
02:33:06 Basically, I need to have a why for why I’m doing things.
02:33:09 And then I feel like I could do very hard things.
02:33:12 What role does love play in the human condition?
02:33:18 Alex and Andrea.
02:33:20 I’ll let Andrea start this one since I took the last.
02:33:23 Sure.
02:33:23 And yeah, just to add my answer for the last one.
02:33:26 I also kind of think, well, life is meaningless,
02:33:30 but I like the stoic idea where that’s something
02:33:32 that you live to revolt against.
02:33:35 But for the second question.
02:33:37 The revolt against the fundamental meaninglessness of life.
02:33:41 I like it. Exactly.
02:33:43 Yeah.
02:33:44 It was what does love play?
02:33:45 What role does love play?
02:33:47 Yeah, in the human condition.
02:33:49 The way I see it,
02:33:54 love is a reason you want to share experiences
02:33:57 with other people.
02:33:59 That’s how I see it.
02:34:00 Like the people you really love,
02:34:01 you wanna share the things you’re going through with them.
02:34:05 The good and the bad.
02:34:06 Yeah, exactly.
02:34:08 That’s my simple take on love.
02:34:12 My take on it is that part of what it is to be human
02:34:16 is to be somebody who feels things emotionally
02:34:20 and love is one of the most intense feelings you can have.
02:34:26 Obviously there’s the opposite of that
02:34:28 and there’s things like hate,
02:34:30 but I think the love you feel for people like your parents
02:34:33 and your friends and romantic love in that moment
02:34:35 is much more intense than in other situations.
02:34:41 And I think it’s also just very unique to humans
02:34:44 and that’s what I appreciate about it.
02:34:46 Maybe that’s the meaning of life.
02:34:49 Maybe that’s what the Stoics are searching for.
02:34:52 Andrea, Alex, thank you so much for this
02:34:54 and thank you for an amazing conversation.
02:34:56 Thank you for creating, keep creating
02:34:58 and thank you for putting knowledge
02:35:01 and love out there in the world.
02:35:02 Thank you for having us, Lex.
02:35:04 It was a pleasure.
02:35:05 And we’re both big fans of your podcast,
02:35:08 so this was really exciting for us.
02:35:11 Thanks for listening to this conversation
02:35:12 with Alexandra and Andrea Botez.
02:35:15 To support this podcast,
02:35:16 please check out our sponsors in the description.
02:35:18 And now let me leave you with some words from Bobby Fisher.
02:35:22 Chess is life.
02:35:24 Thank you for listening and hope to see you next time.