The agadmator Podcast #2 || Hikaru Nakamura

[Music] hello everyone and welcome to the second episode of the agar matar podcast yes we are still using that name and our second guest is none other than hikaru nakamura hello hikaru how are you uh hey antonio it's good to be on the show i've watched a lot of your videos been a fan for a while so it's good to be here uh thanks thanks a lot man uh we're very glad to hear that uh and for those of you who are maybe also they're also new to the chess players uh hikaru is uh currently uh rated in the top 20 in classical chess you are number four in rapid chess and also you are the only player in the world currently uh ranked 2900 in over the board chess uh you are number one player in in blitz so that's some uh three rating points above uh above magnus currently second and uh something uh a lot of people would be interested in is uh well how how how you started your journey i mean you've addressed this question quite a lot but uh before we get to that i would just like to congratulate you on your victory against dubov uh to remain in the chesapeake masters that was a quite defeat uh what happened actually in that game did you do just overlooked that the the rook was defending the bishop or um i i have a feeling that basically dubois thought his position was already really bad around this time that i played pawn to f6 um so i i think he must have seen queen before rook f2 but i think he felt that even if he had played um this line with knight f6 e5 94 uh he would have been much worse in the game so he decided to take a gamble and just just go away yeah but i i also have a feeling that he was not completely aware of the situation either and that by losing that game he won't qualify everyone that he thought he was going to qualify no matter what happened in that game so i think it was a combination of sort of not feeling happy with this position but also not realizing that if he lost that game he won't qualify so i think it was a mix of those two factors okay uh well all in all very very glad that you were able to remain in the competition and now regarding uh how everything started basically you were uh the the youngest ever player to defeat an international master you were the youngest ever to defeat a grandmaster you were the youngest the international master so you were i mean you definitely could be considered a prodigy now a lot of people are asking me this and i always get a lot of questions from subscribers when preparing for a podcast how how did it all started start and how did you get such well such a clean uh upward uh well progress right so i mean i i've said this many times basically uh my origins and chess started um around the time that i was six and seven years old so i was born in japan uh to an american mother who who studied in japan for for nine years and lived there for or studied for like four years to study abroad at college and i ended up moving there marrying my biological father and then my brother and i were born in japan but my mom and my my father they separated in uh at the end of 1989 so when i was about two years old my mom moved back to california with my my brother and i um and then i think when my brother was about like maybe five years old i would say five or six i i obviously don't remember this um because i was way too too little but my brother started taking lessons um with this group called chest for juniors it was i think based and based in and around the la area and so my brother became very good at chess he he was improving very quickly i think um from the time he started he had a very quick ascent from basically zero to i want to say maybe it was like 17 or 1800 very very quickly so he kept improving really fast and um when when he started competing in these national tournaments around the country with other kids in his age group my mother met my stepfather snow where montre who was a very prominent chess coach mainly known for coaching at hunter elementary school and uh and so they met through that they got married at the end of 1993 actually at a chess tournament um in las vegas and then then we all end up moving to new york and so because my brother was already a very strong chess player and my stepfather is a feeding master as well uh they were they were competing in tournaments and chess was just all around me and so by virtue of being around chess all the time when i was that little i naturally got interested in the game and it was specifically at the i believe it's in 1994 united states chess open in concord california um when my brother and my stepfather were playing you know their law class of games on i think was one in one of the evening rounds um i went into the skittles room which is basically where where you analyze game skittles i think that's an american term but anyway you go to where people analyze games and there was there was this very nice guy i think he was also a feeding master his name was oscar tan i think he's i think he's still around um and i i went in there not knowing anything i just want to play some games and and he was and an oscar was very nice he decided to uh just play me and he actually lost a couple of the games against it which of course i mean he never he never would have done normally but but because i had that experience that was sort of the first time that i got into it and then um and then i think was probably a few months later i played my first couple of tournaments back on the east coast in in new york and i did very poorly in fact so um i played played probably i would say maybe five or six tournaments i i think people can go back and check the actual record to see but i played in a bunch of tournaments i did not do very well i had bad results i had a bad temper um and so my parents aft after a couple of months they decided that it was best if i did not play chess simply because my brother was already a very promising junior player my stepfather obviously had played was was playing professionally not professionally but he was playing a lot of tournaments as well so so because of that uh they decide that i shouldn't play so i didn't play any chess for probably about six months and then then when i came back the first one i ever played uh after returning i i won my first three games pretty easily and then the fourth game which is the last game of the event i lost the form of checkmate um so certainly uh you know it it's not a storybook storybook ending or anything by any stretch but i i came back i started playing them from there my improvement was very fast i think having that break having time not playing the game something just clicked and and so i started playing tournaments all the time and then really the big jump for me was when i was about i would say eight and a half or just before i turned nine uh i i don't remember how it was but i had a random copy of the guinness book of world records and in that book um they they listed the youngest youngest master um and this was i think america it wasn't the world at that time but uh the youngest master record was held by evie naibat who who actually i think did i don't know if he became a grand master but he was at least an international master and he held this record so i saw it in the guinness book of world records and then i spoke to my stepfather and we kind of thought well it's fun you're improving very quickly why not take a shot at it and um and so during that one year period between nine and ten i basically played i think i played about i don't remember the exact number someone can obviously fact check this later but it was something like i played 930 games during that one year span and my rating went from about 1700 to 2200 when i became the youngest youngest master in american history so that i think was really the big big moment that it all sort of clicked and obviously i could go on and on but that was sort of when i knew that i was gonna that i was gonna have a promising career or at least i was gonna probably get to like international master of grand master and at what point did you feel like you could already maybe maybe battle it out with with the top guys right so i i think um probably the first time that i really felt that that i could compete with top guys maybe not the absolute top of the top was there there was this uh well i can go into the story but it was 2000 it was 2007. um so basically in 2006 i i stopped stopped playing chess i decided i was going to go to college for a little bit i did enjoy it i dropped out this is something we could talk about as well later potentially but i dropped out of college and i was sort of just like just going along and just trying to play chess in 2007 is when i really got the big break because i played played this tournament in um in barcelona i believe it was it was called this barcelona casino tournament i actually won this tournament it had uh it had lenie dominguez and and mostly like these like 25 50 2600 spanish grand mass and when i won this tournament um somewhere in the middle of this event uh a friend of mine mentioned that there was there was this tournament in corsica shortly after after this tournament in spain i think it's part of the course can course can circuit and so my mom and i decided to change our plane tickets after this tournament in spain and we went to corusca and i played in um i forgot what exactly it's called this tournament organized by leo batesi the very famous french and corsican organizer and it was a rapid event which i also won but during that during that tournament i think i beat i think i beat karpov there um i beat van whaler but i also beat rustom casting genre but i think that was the first time that i really felt that i could compete against against players who were near the top now sure you could say carp over casting john these sorts of guys they weren't at the very top but they were certainly um people who were very prominent and people who have long careers so um that that i think is the first time that i really felt it was it was within the realm of possibility and then i think um in terms of actually knowing was probably when i played um my first super term it's the tal memorial which i believe was the um that would have been i think the end of 2009 if i'm not mistaken i could be off by one year but i think it was the end of 2009 uh where i had this very famous uh last round game against alexander grisschuck uh which which i did not win um but it was it was around that time when i went plus one in the in the town memorial that i really knew that that i was gonna i was gonna get invitations and playing talk tournaments with these guys and then uh you were constantly getting invited and all of a sudden like a few years later you're an elite player yeah so i mean the progression i think is so um so 2000 so in terms of becoming an elite player in 2009 i think that's the first time that i broke 2700 i played in the french league i think in may i went over 2700 and then i played the us championship right after that i did win the us championship that was my second title um and from there i played this tournament in san sebastian which which i won on top of that and i would say that 2009 2010 when i broke in was when i knew that i was going to be there and then then in 2010 i consolidated i started having good results and i broke into the top 10 and i mean from there i i think probably it was at least five years until i dropped out of the top ten again or maybe it wasn't five years maybe i briefly dropped out in 2012 but uh for the next like next five years i was more or less in the top ten pretty consistently but going through throughout all of this progress to from like a beginner to an elite player uh did you always uh enjoy certain time form it's more like were you just it was normal for you to play classical or did you enjoy like rapid and blitz more yeah so i think i think i've kind of come full circle i would say when i was very young this period between the ages of nine and probably nine and about twelve i really like blitz i would say my biggest improvement came from playing blitz games on the internet chess club specifically um so i really did get used to playing blitz rapid chess i would say is not something honestly that i really became that familiar with until probably probably until like 2007 or 2008 because mainly for me it was playing classical chess or playing playing blitz chess um or kind of like i guess slower rapid chess like games game 30 or game game 60 time controls um as well but for the most part it was blitz and then and then sort of classical after that but but blitz was definitely my my main main thing for for a very long time well you mentioned the icc uh i i've seen that you played it there under the nickname capilano bridge is there some story behind it did you like really enjoy it and then you just wanted to crush everyone with that nickname or yeah so i mean capilano bridge actually is probably not the username i'm most famous for um i think the two usernames that people will remember the most are um when i was real really young and i remember this was probably when i was the master and then i got video master was the username year of the rabbit that was that was actually the first username that i became established with that i think people saw um i think i i don't know if there still are the websites that list the highest ratings but i know that you're the rabbit was on some of those lists for for a very long time then after you're the rabbit um the the username that i that i had which i'm i'm most commonly associated with was smallville um and there are stories to all these usernames i mean you're the rabbit was because i was born in 1987 and for the chinese the chinese calendar that that is the year of the rabbit um as far as smallville smallville was a tv show that i really liked so i used that one probably from about 2000 and i want to say 2005 maybe or 2006 until 2011 i believe it was and then after that i used um uh capilano bridge primarily and the reason behind capilano bridge is uh this also kind of falls on with the whole whole like timing but uh so so after i after i um after i dropped out of school and i just i decided that i was going to play chess i also kind of wanted to to get away and do something different and um in 2008 this this is already after i've gotten around 2700 or close to in 2007 but when i was in the high 2600s like 2680s i think it was in 2008 i decided that i wanted to just go somewhere completely new start off fresh and so i ended up going to uh vancouver british columbia and uh the capilano bridge it's a suspension bridge it's it's outside of vancouver probably about an hour hour north north of vancouver um on the north shore but basically i went to vancouver and i really i really liked the landmark and so i decided to make that my username i could have picked many other other landmarks but that's that's the one that i use and even even to this day um i would say that a lot of a lot of uh the growth that i had in terms of as a chess player and as a person i would attribute a tribute to that time period because it gave me i think a much much better perspective on both of the world but then also of sort of the work that you need to put in to to keep making those slight adjustments in that slight improvement because once you get past about i would say 2600 the improvement that you have in chess generally it's going to be very slight it's going to be small as small things that you do differently so um so i always will be very fond both of the city but also the username as well uh okay uh so with uh so much blitz and rapid games being played every day in the world uh do you think uh classical chess will like sort of regain its former glory when well this global log down uh ends yeah so i mean i think uh first of all in terms of streaming yeah i try i tend to stream every day um that's that's a much bigger topic separate of this question uh but i have streamed uh for i think more or less last two to two and a half half months pretty much with just a day off here and there um now in terms of uh in terms of classical just for a long time i've felt that it's it's a dying format i think when you look at almost any any sort of sport in the world now obviously there are a lot of viewers who are not from north but not from north america but i i'll use baseball as a good example because it's probably the it's one of the oldest american sports and one of the ones that it's it was at least considered america's pastime and what has happened is in probably the last like i would say 15 to 20 years has other sports have surpassed it um football and basketball being the primary examples but i think even even a sport like tennis is probably uh washed a lot more than baseball these days the reason for that is because when you look at baseball it's a very slow game the game takes three hours or very few moments where something really exciting is happening and in many ways i feel that chess is the same so when you have these very long games that are going six or seven hours uh people only tune in for periods they tune in at the start because the exciting the exciting part is the opening and then they tune in like maybe four hours because somebody gets low on time and then if it's still going they tune in um say late in the end game around the sixth hour when both players are low on time and it's get it's getting tricky for one side so uh to me i think classical chess there's always going to be a place for it but i think in terms of trying to adapt and and bring it to a bigger audience i do feel that that rapid shots and blitz chess are the future and um and we're already seeing it i mean you're seeing less and less classical tournaments you're seeing the grand chester for example i know this this year there was going to be two classical events but previous two years i think it was like i think it was one one event if i'm not mistaken and one classical event and three rapid events so to me i think the future isn't wrapped but i think people want to watch game clearly with what you're seeing on the internet the the amount of interest uh when if you have the right time formats uh people will watch the game and so i i do think for something like the candidates and the world championship it always should be classical chess but i do think going forward um we are having more and more rap chess events i think it's only going to continue down that path and i think that's it's better that way especially considering the uh the advancement technology because when you look at chess um and this is sort of a philosophical point but i've always felt that one thing that i've really loved is when you get to a position like it move 10 or something and both players are on their own it's not something they prepare they're kind of it's it's you against your opponent and whoever whoever comes up with a better idea and the better moves wins the game and i feel that um uh well actually just a side note this is one of the things that i really loved about my games against the former world champion vladimir kramnik actually is that i felt that when we played a lot of our games relatively early on we get to these positions where both players were sort of on their own and trying to come up with with ideas and the best moves and and nowadays it feels like chess more and more it's about the preparation so you try to surprise your opponent but it's usually much deeper in the game so like the sort of the natural feel or the natural intuition is kind of getting drowned out by technology and and the computer engines so that's why i also feel like with classical chess in the past you needed that extra time to come up with the best moves but now when you play because of computers you're already getting to move 15 or move 20 um without without having to think at all so having all this extra time to me it doesn't actually make sense and it sort of runs contrary to the way that i've always always thought about chess um so i i think classical chess will exist but i don't think um i i i don't think you're gonna see it become more popular i think it's only gonna you're gonna see less and less of it outside of the tournaments um that are say qualifiers for the world championship match yeah uh okay but uh regarding yourself will you yourself be interested in uh for example playing other tournaments in classical time format other than maybe the world chess championship cycle if you if you if you still have ambitions for that yeah i guess what i would say is as far as i'm concerned um when i look at classical chess tournaments i do think i will play in the u.s chess championship for the near foreseeable future i don't know um when it will happen whether it will even happen this year or not but i do think that's one classical chess tournament that that i will be uh that i will be we'll be looking to play going forward um but in general yeah i mean it doesn't even feel like there's that many there are that many chess tournaments honestly like when i look at the classical tournaments the only ones i can think of are like uh gibraltar which is the big open there is um there's granka although that's invite only um but already i feel like once you get past those two events if you if you don't if you don't think about the grand chess tour already there aren't that many uh many chess events for for the top level players anyway so yeah um i certainly i certainly will will play more classical tournaments down the road but again uh i already see more and more rapid tournaments i think things like the world blitz and rapid or even like these grand chester events to me i find them more appealing honestly i do at this point and it's not that i don't have ambitions but i just feel like the the game is is moving in a different direction okay and uh i'm also interested in now that well your schedule is pretty much filled up i believe with uh all the streaming and collaborations and uh well just playing elite level uh chess uh on pretty much on on a daily basis uh do you still have time to study chess yeah so i mean i do i do a little bit of studying say like probably an hour or two every day um especially right before the events which have been which have been going on the lindoris abbey tournament as well as this uh as well as the shuttle master so i do i do spend a little bit of time studying but that's the other thing i would argue which really appeals to me in general with rapid chess instead of classical chess classical chess is is very much about treating chess like like uh like a mathematical equation you're trying to find the perfect solution um and to me that's just not how i think about chats i don't feel that chess in its natural form is like that like being able to use the computer and find the perfect solution runs counter to how i grew up playing chess so i don't really like that that approach in general which probably is why i'm not a big fan of classical at this point whereas with rapid chess you still study you still have to be very precise with your move orders and finding the best opening setups um which is something i did not do against magnus the other day yeah um but but but generally like you you try to find you still try to find the best side so there's a lot of the intuition the intuition and trying to find the best move when you're on the spot when you when you're under pressure and to me that's that's how should be it should not be something where it's about a math problem and finding the absolute perfect setup which i feel is what classical chess is in many ways turned into so uh my whole philosophy that's just based on my philosophy of growing up with just the way i did uh that that's a big part of why i don't um why i just i i don't think classical chess um is is gonna be around forever and also the other thing i would add as well just from a pure statistical standpoint is when you look at rapid games there's a much higher decisive uh you have many more decisive results in classical chess the draw rate is extremely high these days i think it's somewhere around 70 percent um if not higher for certain events like i think the event in st louis even was um the sink filled cup i think up until maybe the second to last round i think the draw rate was something insane like it was probably like 85 to 90 percent and again with something like chess where it's it's so popular when you're trying to get it out there you really need you really you need sponsor you need people watching it when you have so many draws um it's just not something that i think many people can relate to they're gonna be interested in frankly uh because the only sport in the world where i think you have that is is soccer that's the only sport i can think of where you have uh where you have you have draws you have ties um so so yeah i i i don't know what the future is going forward but i think i think in in general um you are gonna see more and more of the quicker trust yeah and even if there are many games drawn in rapid and blitz chess it's still much more exciting and you get a next game much much more sooner right and that's that i mean i think there are many reasons i see it that way so i think from like an organ organizational standpoint one thing that a lot of people do not are not familiar with is how expensive it is to put on an elite chess tournament so when you look at like a grand chester event you're talking generally about a price but i would guess probably a quarter of a million maybe 250 000 us dollars if not more but then you have all the other operational expenses like putting up the players at hotels covering airfare usually giving a stipend for food like there there are all these other expenses that also add up when you when you look at a classical chess term which can go say two weeks uh i mean every day every day every day counts and when you look at rap tournaments uh of course it's a lot less time you get more action because it's not one game a day you can have like three or four games every day and so to me i just i think when you look at the general structure of everything it rapid just makes a lot more sense for chess players for organizers and for the fans as well and i think i think that's the main reason that i that i also fundamentally believe that rapid chess is the future of the game and uh uh how do you study when you study how do you study openings something i'm very interested in like do you just repeat the line until you have it memorized until it's basically like muscle memory or do you is there like a certain uh so i would say it's a mix of a couple things i think if if it's during it like an over the board tournament let's we start there and then talk about the online ones i think certainly um it is very much about that because when you play an online term at least for me all the preparation i do usually is before the event so uh since most of the time you know your opponents and the colors you're gonna have a week or two in advance i'll try to do all my preparation look for ideas um and and come up with something that that i'm familiar with before the event and then write like the day before then it's just just like repeating it over and over and over again to make sure you have it down but generally it's just trying to think about it from a from a general standpoint of what everyone is doing where people think their our ideas and where the holes are in someone's repertoire um and so normally it's more of that as opposed to pure repeating until until you feel like you have the whole whole idea down um like you feel like there are no holes there's nothing more you need to look at and that's when you start start just doing the pure memorization but generally um i found that pure memorization is is not a great tool to use unless you do it um right before a game because what happens is then you don't really understand why the computer says play this move or play that move um so for so for the most part i i think it's it's it's not a good thing because then also when you only do that you can't remember the reason you do have certain situations where you'll make a blunder um like case and point my game against wesley so from uh from the granchester event in london i think it was three years ago now where i where i played white and grunfeld and i made a blunder i think it was on move moved nine or moved ten and um and that was a direct result of uh of like trying to memorize things so i think you have to be very careful but normally i think it's trying to trying to see what the other players are doing looking for certain ideas um as opposed to just like just like repeating stuff over and over again because again when you're looking at top level tournaments if you have an idea it's only good for one game that's that's all it works for and that's what makes it so challenging in many ways is that every game uh is so critical and so important and and the ideas only exist for one game like i could literally spend you know i could spend the next week looking at some idea and well let's just stay in the berlin but it's probably only going to be good for one game okay and then i'm gonna have to move on so so generally it's just looking more ideas instead of trying to repeat and memorize completely because if you do that for something that's only going to work for one game i think it's just it's not the most efficient use of time okay and then when such a such a gem is played in a classical game everyone immediately knows about it and it will never work again right and i think that's that's that's one of the things to me that uh looking at the generational shift is is amazing about somebody like like anon is so all the all of us who are relatively young or we've only been in chess probably for the last decade decade and a half um our perspective is that if that's that's normal you have this idea and if it works it works and and great but you don't really expect somebody to to to work for for longer than that and and one thing that i find amazing is like somebody like anand who actually was playing against kasparov he was playing in the mid 90s when you could still you could play something it would work for multiple games uh the fact that someone like that has been someone like vichy has been able to um sort of transform himself and like accept them accept that the new new reality mindset uh is is is amazing to me because for all of us who are younger we're used to it but someone like vichy who could play like the play the open spanish or play i think he played the open spanish um how many games did he do that did you like two or three in that match 95 i think it was um but but you would see like nowadays the line that he played in in that fateful tenth game which he lost um uh where gary gary played the the tal the towel line with knight shoot five um like if you look at something like that now that would be fine for one game in a world championship match that would not hold up past one game um so so it's really amazing to see see the generational shift and also to see some of these players like fishy where they can do it because i know from my own personal experience gary has always had um had issues accepting that uh it's not something that he completely completely gets okay uh bataan is pretty much the only one still still yeah i mean i would say in such a top level i would say that because like somebody like boris and chooky they're uh yvonne they're both very strong chess players even now but i wouldn't say that they were still capable of winning games and playing and playing against the top guys on an even playing field um you know in the la last couple years probably like five six years ago they they were but i would say it's been a while whereas vishy still is is competing at the at the top level yeah and on a plane even playing for all of us okay vasily would now be more of a landmine like you he could he could obliterate you but he will probably not have a steady result right and also what like with uh with vasily i would say is that his his repertoire it's more about variety playing everything and having a broad base of knowledge instead of instead of trying to trying to zone in on one little one little line or one little idea um in the way that the vicious capable of doing so it's also the playing style is quite different okay uh so regarding online chess now that we have this like super big boom and everything and it's like chess is experiencing its uh well maybe second or third renaissance uh since it was invented uh what would you attribute it to mostly like not just mostly but why why are we seeing this now um so i mean i think there are many reasons obviously the first and foremost is with what's going on in the world with covid um and people being stuck at home uh you're seeing you're seeing a boom in in many many sort of i would say esports and online games uh besides chess as well but i think the main reason chess is saying this is is because when you when you look at when you look at the game of chess there are very low barriers to entry so whether this is online or over the board it really really doesn't matter i'll just use over the board specifically but but if you look at over-the-board shots what do you need to play chess you basically you need you need a chess board you can buy i mean you can buy a basic wooden chest set for probably like five or ten dollars uh it's not very expensive now getting lessons in the rest of course there are expenses but when you look at something like i don't know like tennis even for example or you look at i guess golf is probably too too upscale but if you look at tennis i know i know because i took i took tennis lessons when i was young like um for tennis even buying buying a good racket usually like one of these good wilson rackets or head which uh whichever brand it is right there it's already probably 150 dollars to buy to buy a good tennis racket just just to play um and so because of a very low barrier to entry which this is all i mean like i'm talking over but even online it's the same thing because you can literally just go online and and create a free account on any number of chess sites you can just get going without needing there is the cost isn't there so uh that's the main reason that i think chess has has sort of that's that's the starting point um beyond that i think i think a lot has to do with the uh the promotion i think certainly what i've been doing on on twitch specifically and other streamers other chess rumors as well it hasn't just been me um is trying to find a way to bridge the gap and bring it to people who are not uh strong chess players i think one thing that we that gets missed very often in chess is that chess is a game where it's pure pure skill there's very little luck involved i mean there there is luck at the top like you know someone plays this opening or that opening but it's very minuscule and so um very often what i think players and chess forget is that yes how good you become a chess is a direct result of how much time and work you put into the game but at the same time just because you put in that that time and work it doesn't necessarily mean that in some way i'm better than you or you know other people can't enjoy the game and and so to me i think that the biggest thing is always finding a way to bridge that gap because the majority of chess players i would say i i don't know is for a fact but i'm guessing the majority of chess players in the world are probably somewhere between 1 000 rating and 1 500 is my guess and so if you think if you try to put that in perspective if you want to grow the game or you want more people interested in the game of chess that is the audience that you really need to bring it to because that's where the most chess players are um and so i think that the fact that myself people like alexandra botez um and i mean they're they're people like daniel naraditsky and many others um eric rosen as well uh we're doing all these collaborations and trying to to to sort of relay it in a way that uh people can understand is very important because at the end of the day you really do want the game to grow it's not you know i to me um as far as chess goes like you know if i got hit by a bus tomorrow which i mean i i know is is not like it's less likely than like uh winning the water or something like that but uh but you know like if i were to get hit by a bust tomorrow i think i think at the end of the day what what you want to do is you want to do something that leaves chest in a better place and so for me uh this is sort of been my attitude for a long time is that yes i will have these great games games like the game against boris or the game boris gelfand or the game against uh uh krasankov uh or bellayovsky these these amazing like king kings indian games they're gonna last regardless of of everything else but you still want to try and do something to to grow the game and as someone who's spent a lot of time um in the chess world obviously the stepfather who's who's coached for the last 40 years um you know i've seen i've seen a lot of a lot of enthusiasm at many different points for the game of chess um but it seems to always die down it doesn't if to me it doesn't feel like it ever becomes as big as it should so i've always had this attitude that uh there has to be some way to try and try and grow the game to make it more popular and so what i've been doing on twitch just these collaborations what happened with pogchamps um it's my way of trying to sort of give back and grow the game in a way that i think that in a way that i think i can and i think it's been very successful certainly i had no idea that it would that would turn into what it's what it's turned into but um i think mainly it's just trying to bring it to an audience and and make them feel comfortable in a way they can understand i think also back to you as well i mean it's it's the same thing what what you're doing with your analysis in the games it's not so much about catering to the top players i mean they they will understand your videos but it's about bringing it to the people who are are going to um who are going to have enjoy it the most but also the people that are the majority of chess players in the world and and so i think i think all of us in in our own way are are are moving the game forward yeah contributing in in some way uh but this just since you already mentioned po pog champs how was the overall experience and did you know most of these guys before the tournament started or did they just appear out of nowhere so i mean some of them i knew before um so for example i i'll this will go back to my twitch origins but i've said this before but the origins of how i really started streaming on twitch is i streamed a little bit i think in 20 2016 i think it was or maybe it's 2017. but in 2018 around october i had this uh i played the tournament in isle of man and i think it was maybe the second to last round or maybe i think i was sending the last round i was tied for first place and i lost this very critical game um to arkady nidich and that basically cost me a shot at first place in the tournament and i was in just sort of not not a great place mentally after that event and so with the world championship match coming up uh in in november i actually decided i was gonna stream a little bit and one thing that really surprised me besides the obvious numbers which were very big for the magnus match against fabiano is that there were streamers who were playing chess at that time so my first introduction to seeing xqc play chess was actually during that match in november of 2018. so i was i was actually familiar with him as far back as then and i saw fourson and reckful also playing playing chess back then too so i would say that was the first time that i saw some of these guys not not all of them on playing chess and that i kind of felt that even though that died down very quickly that there are there was always some potential for chess to get big on twitch based on what i saw saw there in in november um but in terms of overall knowing these people i was familiar with some of them uh so obviously forrest and xqc i was familiar with um i was familiar with nate hill he was somebody that i'd already been watching for quite a while because of because of fortnite which i do watch from time to time so i would say probably like five or six of them i was familiar with the rest i i i think i'd seen their names but i didn't didn't know them know them personally but it was just it was really amazing to see and i think to me uh it the thing that really made its success there were there were two things first of all um it was the fact that it was there was it was really there's no it was not self-serving in any way either to myself or chess.com and what i mean by that is there are a lot of there on twitch you have things called bounties for example where you can play a game on stream and make money or or sponsored but usually the way it's structured is that you have to have concurrent viewership to get x amount of dollars from these sorts of things um and and and so because it wasn't structured like that people just played the event essentially what happened is that they got they got all the content they made they made prize money but there was nothing that came back to me or to chess.com and i think that's very unique uh because it's not it's not common with all the with a lot of these things on twitch where you just do something there they're no requirements the the the creators the content creators they're the ones who get all of the benefit out of it um uh in general terms so so i think that was that was one of the things that made it really really successful uh is that they they got to do that and then secondarily um it's the fact that all these all almost all the people who played in pogchamps they they had a good time they they did not get embarrassed in any way there were many players who were very new to the games at the start of the term they took lessons they they studied they did puzzles they did all these different things on stream and off stream and and so the fact that everybody almost everybody i mean there were two people who didn't win any games but the fact that almost everybody won a game in the event and had a positive moment um i think really reinforced that that it was just a good event where everybody had fun and there were no losers it wasn't competitive it was just an event that really broadened broadened chess and and um and the streamers they they all loved it i mean probably half the streamers i would say privately sent me messages saying thanks the event was was amazing i really enjoyed it i hope there's another one so uh it really it really came out very well and and i i mean i personally for me it was it was just it was amazing because as someone who's been in the chess world for most of my life i mean and i i don't mean this to be negative about chess but i feel like a lot of events have had potential over the years and because of one certain little things that happen the event either the event doesn't come off the way you want or it just ends up turning into a complete failure and so to see an event like this which was essentially um the child of twitch chat basically the people who are in my twitch chat suggesting it and then to see the event come off the way it did uh it was just it was phenomenal and um i think you know down the road there will be another one so uh it exceeded all my expectations and i i think um it was just nothing but pause positive for the chats community yeah and i i remember seeing some few years back i seen voibor play chess in between his league of legends games i've seen hutch play chess and it was uh well it was interesting to see that the two of them have met in in the finals and it was a well it was really a wild clash in the end yeah losing i mean i think that's no i mean i think sorry what i was gonna say is i think um that to me really you could tell with these guys that they were they were really really grateful not not just for the tournament and i'm referring to hutch and voyboy specifically but that basically it gave them a chance to um to come back and play a game that they really loved when they were younger um like with hutch i think on the broadcast even he mentioned that got chess got him through a lot of rough times and again this is kind of the the point that i always um i will always say this about chess is that for 99 more probably than 99 but for more than 99 of people it's not about the competitive aspect it's not about becoming world becoming a grand master becoming world champion that's not really ever going to be the goal but it's one of those things that can help you in so many other ways whether it's getting you through a tough spot in life whether it's as a kid coming from a rough background and helping you slow down and think um you know or help you with just like reading and writing skills critical thinking skills the benefits of chess that's really what i think at the end of the day is most important so for me uh when i heard hutch saying how it got through tough times or void boys saying how it really it helped him when he first started playing i think it was in lcs um and just like thinking of using chess to think about certain things uh in league like it shows just what what a broad reach chess has and i i think um i i was just i thought it was great especially for hutch someone who i think many many years ago probably five or six years ago uh was playing chess on on twitch um just to have that opportunity to to compete many years later was something that he i think had kind of kind of forgotten about it was just it was amazing to see and i i think i mean i'm really happy that that hutch and all these other people had the experience they did yeah and it's uh i mean it's definitely a win if uh well if just one of those uh streamers who were involved in the tournament or or any of their viewers you know fire up a game or two now and then uh it's definitely definitely a win for chess right you know i was thinking i was thinking also like it's completely crazy but a few people in my chat said this and um it's completely insane but there is a chance you know you could have the next world champion you could have someone who's gonna become one of the top chess players in the world watching one of these streams i mean it's insane to think about it but you could have someone who's like six seven eight years old watching watching whether it's my stream whether it's xqc or any number of these streamers literally you can have a kid watching the stream and because of these streams because of these tournaments they could take they could end up becoming one of the best chess players in the world and to me like the thought is completely crazy but i think it's it's very it's definitely valid and um and it's it's just all around i think it's it's been great yeah one day when they will be maybe somewhere giving an interview they will say okay i started my my journey watching someone uh on pogchamps for example play in the quarterfinals that's that's the first thing i remember from chess could be right right and uh do you yeah uh dude were you familiar with charlie before he did the chess drama video no i actually was not um so i think charlie's very big on youtube i'm a little bit less familiar with youtube pretty much um of course there's a limited limited amount of time in the day but i'm primari i primarily when i do watch other other content it's almost always on twitch so um i was not actually familiar with charlie before that but certainly the video he did on that um i think was it was very well done and it it certainly like i mean i i don't know if you have a do you have a question about this specifically or not well yeah i do but but feel free to yeah so so yeah i mean i think i thought the video was great doing well i wasn't familiar with charlie i think he did uh he did bring bring it a lot of exposure a lot of notice yeah no that that's what i thought did you uh how did he get uh to know about this i mean okay there's always drama in chess but for someone he and yeah he is big on youtube he's like over 5 million subscribers and uh he really covers a lot of internet drama and although chess is a lot of drama i i didn't really get how how this came all the way to him so i thought maybe maybe you knew him prior to that so that's why he did it no i mean i think really what happened is and i'm not really sure what what kind of spark i mean i i know what sparked initially like the the interest in chess on twitch it was definitely the collaborations that i did with xqc combined with the fact that xcc started just playing it uh playing it on a stream during breaks or when he was downloading games and so forth so that's the start but i think really what happened is at some point everybody took notice of it and with all the streamers um taking notice when when magnus made this tweet i think it sort of spilled over into twitter onto reddit and um and i think a lot of people just just by virtue of chess becoming bigger uh heard about it one way or the other [Music] uh you mean to tweet about uh rebranding well i mean yeah yes there's this tweet and there's also the final tweet there they're two they're they're two sep or not tweet but the the clips uh i mean they're two separate things but yes i think basically uh because chess was already very popular um when you started having this drama it's just everybody was already hearing about justin was already becoming very big and and so uh i think it's just the reach everyone just started hearing about and seeing it and just you couldn't really avoid it okay any of the platforms uh okay but now since you already mentioned the the the tweet that magnus tweeted uh what was what was basically the problem behind it the way i understood it was uh they were worried about uh random viewers uh checking out your channel and thinking that the tournament was organized by chess.com was that the issue um i'm trying to think of the right way to put this uh the the simple simple answer to the question is that magnus was uninformed about my discussions with chess 24 prior to the event his tweet was uh was a misinformed tweet he did not realize that i had conversations with with chess 24 prior to the event and i mean i don't know if chess 24 might have had a different stance at the time if they'd known that it would be so big but i don't think they i don't think they were paying attention to twitch or to my viewership and so um and so because of that like sort of magnus you know i think he saw that i had 20 000 people watching and he's like what's going on like this i mean this is this is just wrong but they had agreed to it they did say it was completely fine um prior to the event and uh and and so it was just magnus was misinformed so that's basically it it's only about the views it's not about uh thinking that like someone will think that maybe chess.com organized the event no no okay so i thought maybe it was also about that okay well as i mean magnus magnus made the tweet to be to be clear it's magnus and not just 24 but magnus's tweet was based on it based on misunderstanding okay yeah i did i did not know that uh and also something very interesting uh young gustavsson asked alireza once uh on the stream he he asked him who's the best bullet player in the world is it magnus or you alireza and he said it's hikaru do you agree with this so i think that's a very interesting question i think that and the my answer to the question actually depends on what the website is specifically so i would say that um one what i am probably the best at is i'm very good at the reaction and anticipation of my opponent's moves um so for me when i get this big time advantage uh i generally i'm very good at converting when i when i have more time um so on a site like chess.com where your time runs regardless uh i would say that i probably am the best under those conditions but when you go to a site like lead chess for example being the specific one um uh you can actually make pre-moves where you lose no time so you lose point zero zero zero zero um for pre moves and i i think one thing that ali reza especially is significantly better at than i am is making very fast free moves so i don't i i think that's very it depends on which site you play on and then then then to further add like if you look at chess 24 for example um you cannot make a pre-move which doesn't which doesn't take more than like 1.17 milliseconds so i think on every site it varies widely but i think if you play under the general general thing that you can make a move in point zero zero one uh milliseconds on trust.com i think i i probably am the best but it varies widely based based on site i would say however i do think um i would i would consider ali reza to be a better bullet player than magnus though i i do consider ali reza to be better and is it the is it a huge difference uh for example when you play one plus zero then when you play one plus one yeah it's a he it's a huge difference um i i would say the biggest difference between one plus zero and one plus one is that one plus one basically just becomes uh it becomes like i mean i i actually i was gonna say i wonder how grishchuck would do it one plus one because oneplus one feels like a game that would that would be made for him actually where he could get down to 10 seconds yeah get down to 10 seconds every game and just like make make every move in one second um uh yeah but oneplus one is much different because you can't really flag anybody and and so um when you play one plus one you have to still find a lot of good moves as well of course they're gonna be blunders but in one plus one it's it's a whole different game and i i don't even know who i would say is best i have a feeling it's probably i don't think it's probably me i don't think it's magnus i have a feeling it's it's probably someone completely different if you add the time okay and do you have a is it the different for you to handle let's say tournament pressure if you do experience such a thing over the board than in online chess like not so long ago you played a match against magnus you lost the first match three to zero but then you bounced back and then you you won the third one so how do you like come back from from a 3-0 yeah so i what i would say is first of all playing online it's it's very interesting i i think in many ways it's actually more pressure than playing over the board i think the reason i would say that is because uh when you play over the board you're very aware that there are people watching you so like you're very restrained you're very very sort of controlled per se whereas when you're sitting at home in front of your computer it's very easy to forget that and just like you kind of like lose your mind like i mean i've done it a few times magnus has done it i think everybody's everybody kind of has shown a lot of expressions um so i think in a way it's much harder because it's like you you you uh you want to be like more natural but then you realize like there are always all these people watching so i think that actually adds a lot of pressure psychologically um uh for online as opposed to over the board now in terms of um in terms of like coming back from being behind like three three zero i think the main thing is with that format you realize it's only one match and i think what a lot of people and this is something that makes chess hard to relate to but what a lot of people i think don't understand is that when you're behind in matches like and you're in situations which are must win or you know like even if it's only a draw like whatever it is the result your desired result when you only have one result um you're going to take risks you're going to do things that are that are not natural and and so like when people say three nothings like oh wow like that's just terrible it's the end of the world but uh i mean i could have played something solid instead and drawn the game probably but i still would have lost match so it didn't the score didn't really affect me if anything i thought the fact that i lost three nothing was a good sign because you want to get all the bad games out of your system in that one match that you have a chance in the other two to play better um and then coming back i think really was just um i mean it was it was actually i think very similar to the final which i lost to do bob where in day two the first game magnus kind of um he got a great position maybe even winning and um and then he sort of fell asleep yeah i won that game uh with with white and and it's the same thing like basically in the first game against dubob um on on the second second day i basically fell asleep at the wheel and this in this uh in this alpine sicilian and just started drifting in the middle game and then and then of course he converted quite nicely and so i think in both those matches the second day was really critical when when i was behind then also when duval was behind where uh you just you you get that good start to the second day instead of feeling like you're you're on edge because once you win that first game it gives you a lot of confidence and so um i think that's the big thing in terms of why i came back was the second day start off really well and the third day um i mean i just try i just try to play good moves and i think i think for magnus um he seems to be a little bit a little bit uh i would say a little bit more nervous perhaps online he does he seems more tentative i would say than he does over the board and i think that that played a big role um so yeah okay so you're saying you're more nervous playing online i think i think you just don't know what to expect it's like you you really don't know because like yeah it's i don't i don't even know how to explain it but you just you feel like it's it's all much more unpredictable somehow it's like you just don't really don't know what to expect even though i mean of course it's the same game but i mean but it's online so for me i mean i do i know if i feel more nervous but i feel like much more uncertain about what's going to happen when i play online than than over the board and also because you can have things like mouse slips as well you know or disconnections which which can occur too so i think that that certainly doesn't help either yeah it's like you you have less less control but also something i wanted to ask you i think was maybe some five years ago or something like that there was this uh article on chess.com uh and uh they asked a bunch of people you amongst them like who do you who do you consider the top five most influential world champions and like uh pretty much everyone had bobby fischer either in the first place or maybe in the in the top three but you do not consider him like in the top five at all so i i always uh thought that was really uh well really weird so is there like uh is do you just consider other world championships was that was that as a player or was that someone like who who pushed the game forward who mostly influenced the game okay okay yeah i mean i think with fisher um he had an influence but it was very temporary and and this this i think is also if if i go this sort of gets back to one of the earlier things i said is that chess has had booms before it's it's had booms and busts um and for the most part they always seem to die out i felt that that boom in in 1972 uh could have been much more sustained it could have lasted a lot longer if bobby fischer had stayed in the game or he'd stayed relevant um instead of instead of you know refusing to play play against karpov a couple years later so i think that's the main reason that i don't don't consider him one of the most influential because it was so short and so brief and in many ways i think i think what happened is when he left the game it reinforced certain stereotypes very negative stereotypes um about the game of chess and the people who do play chess so he was influential but i i don't necessarily consider it to be through his own his own doing i think it's through his results and through the through through on the time period that we're in but um but as a player obviously it's completely different so in terms and it depends how you how you yeah okay that that makes sense but i'm kind of curious do you actually do you have the list of the five people that i said yeah i do okay i want to see if i can say i'm one i wonder if i'll say the same five or no okay actually um so obviously kasparov obviously anond um i would say magnus carlsen um it's probably those those are three uh this person i definitely did not say but i think because of his contributions as an or as uh as president of pda i would say max oyva as well um and then that's for and who did fifth one be um yeah let's see who the fifth one be yeah i i i would probably say kappa blanc is what i would say because i just have to go back in time to come up with come up with a fifth one i don't really have a strong preference but i know those are not the five that i said because i know i did not say max but you you did get two correct only two okay only two yeah yes you mentioned mikhail botwinic gary kasparov uh jose royal capoblanca alexander rajen and anatoly karpov okay those were your five in those days but yeah i figured that maybe it did kind of change now yeah i mean i i think probably a large part of why that changed uh actually like yeah i think bob vinnick bob finnegan probably should have said said in this list just because he established the whole system um the russian system uh the russian method for for learning chess and obviously was very very successful many people came out of that school um but so like when i look at someone like max oyva i think certainly that's somebody who made a very big contribution as the president of fiji and and so it's it's different than like what i would what i said back thanks think about those names like aliakin or bob binnick i mean these are guys like the influence i think of as as a chess player like the this you know ali atkins uh refining the openings or bob bennett creating the whole system um so it's directly related to playing the game of chess whereas like with max oyva it's it's more like just pushing the game forward um being president of feeding and and so i mean i kind of think maybe a large part of why i would say a name like that now is because for me as i'm trying to do things to to to raise the profile of chess it's sort of in that same vein it's not something directly related to playing the game of chess it's trying to it's trying to make it more accessible for people so i so i think that probably what's happened has shifted my view a little bit okay and do you do you have any other plans uh for your streams other than chess like you mentioned you you uh watch some fortnight you watch somewhere i i've seen you watch other streamers for sometimes play something else but i've never seen you actually play something so i've actually played valor in the last couple of days on myself um what i would say in general is that i don't think i'll ever do a stream that is is uh is doesn't have any chess in it because i mean at the end of the end of the day chess is what i am most known for it's what i'm going to be the best i i mean it really doesn't matter what other game i play i'll never be as good at anything else in this lifetime as i am just so i don't think i'll ever do streams without any chess but one of the things right now that's very unique is that there are a lot of online chess terms like there's still this magnus event there's another one after and there's a grand final in august as well um so with all these events going on it's one of those things where i do want to branch out a little bit more but it's going to be down the road simply because if let's just say you know let's say i boot up my stream an hour from now and i uh and i i play like 10 hours of of some some game fortnight valor and you know uh whatever game it is um there is i do open myself up to a certain amount of criticism if i don't perform in these events and i am very mindful of that so i won't be doing it in the near future i would say in the next month or two but down the road i probably will play play other games um specifically i mean i will i will play valor some i will probably play uh team fight tactics the league of legends game um those are probably the two games most likely that i'll play on stream uh that i could play for hours but but mainly i think i'll continue to do what i'm doing but with a mix of them i don't think i'll ever devote streams solely to playing playing other games have you ever tried like playing a game and chess simultaneously like maybe a team fight tactics plus chess like a bullet on the other screen maybe yeah so you so it's like it's that's the same concept as when i see uh like void boy or yasuo right when they're queuing up they're queueing up uh in league and they play play a game of chess at the same time oh no they they only do it while queuing up but you could like play both simultaneously yeah i mean i i guess i could because in teamfight tactics yeah you do you do normally have like 30 seconds to set it up um yeah i mean maybe maybe i would consider doing it i i haven't i haven't really thought about bought it out in that kind of a way but um but i will say that uh with all the chess that i have done um i do sometimes want a little bit of a break so i i will do other games on stream probably i will always do some chess but i i will definitely have periods where i do other games as well yeah sometimes i tried uh i tried like playing a three minute blitz game on one screen and let's say a game of hearthstone battlegrounds and the other one and it seems like you have so much time but for like for me you don't like um oh i'm constantly late here and i'm constantly late here so it'd be it'd be interesting to see like you who are so much faster would you be able to like tackle but tackle both of them yeah i mean i i think it would be the only thing i would say about this i think would be very hard because one of the things that i i will say um and i think in many ways this makes me a little bit more unique is that i can actually play good chess while reading chat and having like a gazillion thoughts going through my mind at the same time um so trying to play two games and rechat and have all these thoughts at the same time i don't know i mean i think my brain might explode honestly but but i i might try it down there yeah something something to consider yeah yeah okay so that pretty much covers our topics on on online stuff uh and something uh that i wanted to ask you i i kind of remember like maybe reading about it a few years back that you are married yes no i'm not married you're not married no no i'm single were you ever married no i was not ever married really i i totally remember like reading that uh you were married no nope uh okay okay okay that uh that that's really weird it's like the the mandela effect or something uh but okay then uh if uh if that's a no-go uh what i really wanted to know is how how did they approach you uh for the for the uh billions uh uh for the show where you appeared so so yeah as far as billions is concerned um the way that came about was uh i think the the show producers of billions since it's a show that's based in new york they actually reached out to someone that i know at the marshall chess club um in new york city about getting a grand master to appear on the show and um and so so they they went and approached uh the people at the chess club and then they started sending out a couple of emails and it was through that that my stepfather received an email uh from i think it was the president at the martial chess club asking about it and then through that we connected directly with uh with with the uh with the producers of billions um and then and then yeah and then i just went to upstate new york and uh shot it all in day it was like six hours um there's a lot of fun i enjoyed i had a chance to hang out and talk to a couple of the cast members and and really seeing the whole process that goes into making a show like that it's really i mean everybody thinks of show business being super glamorous but i think all the cast members literally every morning they're you know they get chauffeured so they don't have to drive at least but they're it's an it's an hour drive to like upstate new york and they have to do that every morning like 6 a.m do do the shooting until probably like 9 or 10 in the evening when it wraps up and and so it's just a lot of long days and a lot of hard work and i think seeing that um i was just amazed by by all these people they do it every single day and even even the people behind the scenes who are who are doing the filming and the the show runners like everybody it's just it's amazing to see the process at work and i i really did enjoy it it's a lot of fun in the scene where you just go uh oh i think your line is like a checkmate good game uh is it uh did you were you able to do it on the first try so this is kind of what's amazing um is that when i say six hours i mean literally like we filmed it from different angles angles different scene setups four or six hours so um basically i think at the start uh there was the idea there would be eight tables there would be like two two or maybe it was like three two three or something but i make a move on one side go to the other side come around to the side where um where where where where uh mike burbigle is the the actor um and and i do it sort of in a sequence so we did a couple of those sorts of takes and then later on then we took some of those tables out then we had uh we had like a a spot where like a trolley was coming down down the middle of the middle of the pathway um but it was not one take and i actually thought it would be something relatively relatively brief like maybe take like one hour but they did they did film all all the angles a lot of different takes and and i'm not even sure the final take they ended up using i think was actually one of the takes from later on in fact um of the shooting so so like i said it was not just like i wasn't like i'm in there do this in like 15 minutes and go home they they were very thorough they they filmed it from all different angles there were scenes where i was in it for the dialogue scenes where i was not in it at all with the dialogue so it's just um they they did a lot a lot of a lot of work on it and it wasn't something um and and and it wasn't something that just took five minutes okay so your part that you did was six hours and the suit you had was it also theirs is it or is it yours no no that that was mine uh i don't know yeah i think if you're a main cast member they they sort of they do have a wardrobe department but if you aren't then i think it's just uh if you're just like a guest you know if you're just a guest uh making camera or something they they didn't so i just brought my own suit but and did you get some makeup maybe they did your hair or was it all you yeah yeah they did a little bit of makeup yeah but before we did the filming they i went to the the makeup makeup studio um and and yeah i was but the whole thing really just was was exceptional and uh like i said before there's a lot that goes into it that i think people don't realize it's not it's not some simple process so so yeah i was just it was a great experience and i mean i i i i'd love to do more of that yeah it's possible that uh that there will be uh like opportunities for more like uh every other like tv show on netflix i see has chess in it like uh the the money heist constantly has chess in it the blacklist constantly like there are there's literally chess in every episode so it's uh also you know maybe maybe knocking on the big doors yeah i mean i think this is also one of the reasons like i've always tried to try to figure out like what what is going on with chess in terms of why is it why are there not more sponsors why is it not popular because it's very true if you in a lot of tv shows you will see chess in it for whatever i mean no matter how short it is you will see you will see chess and so many of these different tv shows and and even like on television in ads you almost all like i've seen i don't even know how many insurance ads i've seen where it's like there's somebody in a park playing chess in the 30-second ad so yeah um chess seems to be everywhere and that to me that's always been the kind of questions why is it why is it so popular in a way but why is it like not prominent like you see it in all these ads you see it you see it everywhere almost everybody's heard of the game of trust but then like it doesn't have any traction um in terms of something that people are interested so um i in many ways i feel like uh what's happened especially on twitch and just the general boom it sort of validates what i've always believed which is that there are a lot of people who do like chess but it's a matter of finding like sort of the way to bring it to people um and that's always i think been been the issue yeah okay and uh one other thing i'm interested in uh i've seen you tweet about it sometimes and maybe maybe you are into it maybe you're not uh do do you do trading i have in the past i mean lately i have not been doing it just because i've been so busy with that which probably i mean this is this is sort of a very very sort of negative take i would say but but but i i always have kind of i've always been interested in it but i feel like what i've seen um probably in like the last couple of years honestly to me it feels like the whole system is rigged and i don't say that in a way like i'm not doing well because i'm doing completely fine but it feels very rigged in that it feels like the forces that be are kind of manipulating and forcing the market to go a certain direction um and so i've kind of lost i would say at least in the last couple of months i've lost a lot of interest because of what i've seen with the real world problems that people are struggling with and then having say the federal reserve which more or less is intentionally keeping the stock market inflated to help people who are who are very wealthy so uh just when i see stuff like that it's it's not that i i won't get back into it at some point but it makes me very pessimistic and very negative because it feels very wrong that you have you have people out there who are losing their jobs people are struggling every single day and then you then you have you have obviously the stock market being bailed out and artificially um propped up so that people who are rich um are okay so so i mean it's not that i won't get back into it but what i've seen especially in the last couple of months makes me i don't know it makes me very very negative and pessimistic and i feel like it's just like it's it's i don't know it just bothers me yeah i'm asking because i've never i've never tried it myself and it always uh seemed like so something like uh like an illusion to me like how do you even how do you even start that is it is it sort of something you could maybe study and get good at or is it like gambling or i mean i think there are many many things there's certain parts that definitely are like i mean i would say it's certain parts like derivatives that are very it's very much like um it's very much like uh like poker for example where it's it's a lot of like you try to make informed decisions but if you're wrong you're just wrong um okay but but the general thing i would say also is um is that there are always going to be opportunities uh for individual investors where when the market collapses you can you can do very well and you can buy these bargains for example what happened in march when when everything started shutting down you saw most of the most of the uh most of the the markets go down by at least like 25 to 30 percent if not more and there were a lot of bargains there where you could buy just for example stock like amazon at say 1500 and now it's something near 2700 so it's just a huge return um but in general i think uh it's not something that people should expect to get rich from unless you're already very wealthy you have a lot of money to play with but i i think it's some it's a good thing to to learn how to invest at least on a basic level because you will over the long run if you just invest in and say index funds you will you will make money but in terms of trading i think it takes a very specific mindset it also takes a lot of work and being on top of everything and i i can say from personal experience um it's it's it's it's impossible to to really make money from it if you're not completely focused on it um and like for example uh what i mean by that is i i don't remember which tournament was during but there was one term that i was playing um and i think at the time i was in i think i was in maybe it was netflix stock or something but literally i i needed to be watching it right on the open at 9 30 eastern in order to close the position but because i because i was playing a game or doing other things um and i only saw it a couple hours later um i end up losing money on that trade because the stock from being up like five percent ended up down two percent or whatever it was and so it's one of those things that i think uh if you if you really want to be super serious about it takes an insane amount of work and and effort and it's something that probably isn't isn't worthwhile i i always enjoy enjoy doing it on a small scale but um i think the main thing that to take from it is learning about investing learning how long term you will make money so i think a lot of chess players um tend not to not to think about things like that and think about long term um in the in the right right sort of ways and and and like for me one of the biggest things i've always thought is like you you always assume you're gonna be playing chess like for me i've always thought i'll be playing chess forever um but you really never know when the end is going to come for example even now there's there's no guarantee that i will ever improve my classical ranking again this could be the end for me um in a way potentially uh yeah i i mean i know it sounds silly uh obviously but i mean there's no saying that like i when if chess comes back that i won't have bad results my rate ranking won't fall out of top 25 and i won't get invitations that is a very real possibility it's a very real thing that i do have to be concerned about and so um you know when i think about things like that in the in the the grander scheme of things uh you always want to make sure you have some backups or some things to fall back on um and so that that i think is probably the main reason is just to understand that you want to have other ways to potentially make money down the road you know if and when your your chess career ends so that's the way i got into it but i would say in general learning how learning how to invest you can learn that from from reading and that that's i think much more much more um reasonable than trying to trying to trying to trade because trading requires uh a lot of time a lot of effort things can go wrong you have to be very strong mentally as well and um it's not something you can just learn either what's that and you're obviously not allowed to sleep well i mean if you only trade the us markets you can but but in general yes it's one of those things that i think it's uh it's very very difficult and it's something that requires a very kind of hardened mentality in order to be successful and so i think i think for most people just just learning the basic rules of investing um rather than keeping money in cash i would say um matters matters it matters a lot in in long run but it's just something i've always always been interested in from from a young age okay on a more cheerful note i've noticed on your instagram account you've uh went to hawaii to hana pepe and you've jumped out of an airplane how was that uh one of the best experiences of my life honestly um so so this is the other thing that that in a way i think is very good is um i i was very fortunate i decided to actually take a vacation early march and go to hawaii and literally i would say two days after i came i think it was two or three days after i came back from hawaii to florida is when the lockdown started it started occurring in the us um uh pretty much across the board so so um i went in early march and uh there were many things i did a lot of hiking as well i i did skydiving but i i would say skydiving probably was one of one of one of my favorite favorite activities i've done and um i have thought about it been down the road potentially if uh if things get back normal i might i might actually try to go and uh get the uh get i don't know what they call the license or what what they call but where you can actually just jump so i think you do something like uh eight or nine jumps um you have to do it with an instructor and and everything but down the road uh i might try and actually go and do the jumps and and and learn the proper techniques and so i can so i can do it solo in the future um but it was a great experience i i loved it i think uh i think it's one of those things that everybody should do at least once because it's just like letting go of all your worries and all your fears and kind of just just uh just just letting just just living free basically and how long is the leap does it feel like it lasts forever or is it like super quick um so i think it's about i think it varies depending on on the height you jump from but i i think for me it was probably maybe like 45 seconds to a minute i think before they pulled the chute um but yeah i think it's just it's one of those experiences just just completely letting go uh and i think in many ways like not to use the not to use the the matrix quote so it sounds really cheesy but it's like it's freeing your mind basically when you do something like that you have no control like you're basically you're in the air you're you're of course you know coming back down to earth but you have literally no control and and i think i think it's one of those things it's not the only thing you can do like that obviously but it's one of one of those things where when you do it i think it really makes you realize um just like you know kind of just how to have fun just like you can't you can't always be worrying about every last little thing that's going on in your life and and so i i loved it it's one of the it's one of those things that i i was when you get up there first before you jump you're like it's like oh man you're looking down because because basically you go up in a small small airplane and they just open open the open sidewinder you jump out just like oh man like you look like you're so high you're just going to jump to your death but uh then then once you actually cross that across that that line you just jumped it's uh just exhilarating i i really enjoy it i i do plan on doing it again in the future how long did it take you to go from sitting in the airplane to actually jumping like so i would say it probably took um i'm guessing about 10 minutes to get to get to the altitude i think it was um i don't know how high it was maybe it was like five six thousand feet i think it was maybe a little bit higher than that but it took about 10 minutes i think the main thing is like i'm i i in general i don't i'm not afraid of things for the most part so um like for people who are afraid i think the main thing with doing it kind of is you just you don't look out you just you try to keep your mind focused on something anything else uh before you jump it took about 10 minutes from from takeoff to get there and then i would say it took about five to six minutes i think maybe a little bit less i don't i don't remember exactly how long it took but um but it took took a couple of minutes to get down but certainly when you jump out i mean that's just it's it's a great feeling and then even when you're drifting drifting back down after the shoot is out um it's just one of those experiences that i think i mean pretty much anyone should have okay thank you for that and i would like to i would like to end it with a couple of questions from my subscribers they would be very angry if i didn't ask uh so are you a fan of any particular tv shows um okay so i i guess let me think in terms of past tv shows there are a lot of shows that i really like probably my favorites are um breaking breaking bad and the wire those are probably my two favorite shows of all time pretty much um those are past shows in terms of current shows um i was i haven't i didn't really like the last probably season of black mirror but i really like black mirror and and lately i actually binged it this past the past like two weeks a friend told me about it what's the show dark on on netflix uh it's really the german like the german show yeah yeah yeah big fan of that show and i think season three is coming out in three days so really looking forward to that yeah i i agree about the black mirror as soon as the next netflix acquired it it just uh went bad yeah yeah it was unfortunate but but still even that like i've watched some of those episodes and it it does make you wonder what what the future is going to look like because some episodes are really silly but there are some episodes where you see things you're like wait that's already happening yeah yeah like uh if someone gets a lot of likes and uh a lot of comments online it means that he's telling the truth or that right he's innocent or something like that yeah we could be very close to that all right so uh a few more from the subscribers uh what was your favorite chess opening growing up um favorite house opening probably um with black it was it was always the sicilian night or and then with white i loved playing with the scotch opening those were my two favorites uh okay uh and what is the favorite game that you played yourself favorite game that i played i think it's probably the game against boris gelfand um at the world team championship in in versa in 2010 um primarily because it was an idea that i've been familiar with for a long time but going into that game i also had a really i think i had a really bad score against boris i'm not even sure if i had any wins against him in in classical chess and kind to play that game and win the way i did as quickly as i did um it was just it almost was was just a shock at the time um and then obviously just to use that night the night the bishop and the pawn that the common theme of the checkmate combined with that queen d3 um it's definitely my favorite game by quite a big margin when you offered your queen like four times right right well yeah because it was always a checkmate on g yeah always always some some form of that checkmate so that that definitely was is my favorite game yeah i i agree with that that that's my favorite game you played as well uh and what's uh the favorite game that you've lost if there is such a thing favorite game that i've lost um okay so i have to think about miniatures um hmm let me think if there's a if there's a favorite game that i've lost actually i would probably say it's a game um i'm sure there are others but i would say right off it's a game that i lost to uh fabiano in london i think it was probably three years ago was in the sicilian idol when he played this bishop g5 variation he sacked his queen for two pieces um that i think it was 2017 might have been 2018 but that would be my favorite uh that would be my favorite game uh that i lost at least right now okay uh it doesn't really build but but i will check it out uh okay here's a interesting one uh someone asked what's with the head tilting oh the head tilting i think that's just uh that's just a natural thing that i've picked up um over the years i think it's just one of those uh one of those behaviors you know one of those mannerisms that i have um i i think i i don't know how how most shots players do this but i i've noticed all childish players in some form when they're when they are thinking about something uh on the chessboard they they usually look away now i tend to tilt my head and look up towards the sky i think chooky does this a lot as well by the way um but some people just like they stare like side to side i think it's just everyone whatever it is that whatever mannerism they have it makes them do that just that's their way of doing the calculation in their head um but i don't there's no specific reason it's just one of those things i think i picked up at a young age and um and it's just a trait that i have but but all chess players i think at least the elite chess players they do something similar some form of it um maybe not fabiano maybe not fabiano actually but he's the only one that i can think of who i i don't think necessarily does it but i think almost everybody else does yeah but he goes all the way like he he just goes all the way up there right right okay someone asked what's the best way to improve middle game i think the best way to improve middle games is um is just to look at the games the top players are playing from a set position on movetown let's say it's the italian opening just look at the set position that they get to on move 10 in a game between like myself and chris shucker or magnus and vichy whomever it is but just look at the top games and try to see what the ideas are uh in that middle game when you get the set position rather than like trying to plan it out because i think one thing that people try to do too much is they try to plan out the whole game from start to finish and unless you're extremely lucky that's that's never gonna happen um so i think it's mainly just look at the top players games in the openings that you're familiar with on like move 10. don't look at like the specific you know like the specific line but just get to like move 10 or move 12 whatever it is after both players have castle and finish the development and just look at the ideas that they come with the moves specifically just go over those games okay uh uh have you ever tried using a cheap trick against a grand master uh you said cheap right yeah yeah like um like an opening trick or something hmm so i mean the problem is everybody's so well prepared now that even if i try to do that against the master it wouldn't work in this day and age um i i don't i'm sure i probably did when i was much younger but right off the top my head i can't recall um trying to do it yeah i can't recall playing any specific gambits that were just bad or stuff like that um so so no yeah i thought as much all right uh is there do you have some sort of a special diet for your brain uh no i i don't have any diet i mean i guess what i would say in general is at least for me kova has been i mean it's been it's been very bad over well one of the things that it has done is i do tend not to eat as much uh junk food of course most people in america are very familiar with what junk food is i think in europe actually it's a lot less common certainly because people don't eat out as much but because of covet i've actually generally been eating at home so i i think the main thing is just avoiding all the all the greasy fast food that that america has um unfortunately that's the main thing i've been doing but i don't have a specific specific diet per se okay and someone also asked are you superstitious uh you always wear your famous sweater for for your big games yeah so i mean that's specific to the magnus event generally i'm not um but i just i feel comfortable and it's worked so i see no reason not to uh i would say i'm somewhat superstitious um in terms of like wearing like a sweater or like a certain shirt per se but that's really as far as it extends um i don't generally take it beyond that okay i think that's something a lot of elite players in their sports share uh someone someone well a lot of people actually mentioned this they uh they said that you you've some somehow changed over the last few years almost like in character do you feel that also about yourself um yeah i mean i think okay this is a this is a question that i can answer much more in depth um i i guess what i would say in general terms is basically my whole character and persona has shifted over the years what i would say is when i was very young um what drove me or what made me really good not just at chess but in general being very competitive was sort of having this fire and feeling like you know it was the world against me so so when i say like world against man i'm talking when i was like probably a teenager-ish uh and and and like this it's it's it's interesting because like a lot of people now consider me a prodigy um but when i was growing up i certainly did not feel like the chosen one or feel like a prodigy or someone who's going to go on to do great things so when i was younger a lot it was sort of i felt like it was me against the world like i really had to be um i kind of had to just like maybe not hate everyone but i had to use sort of the the the negativity like the fact that people weren't fans of me and used to fuel me to get better and better at the game so when i was younger i i mean certainly i i basically enjoyed the that mentality of everyone is against me i'm going to use that as my fuel as the fire uh the motivation to get really good at the game so when i was younger that was the big thing um and also i would say since since i started getting not getting good but since i was um since i was already like a grand master at 15 uh it's like kind of you you realize like what it took to get there and then like actually being there it's it's not always going to be the same and so for me once i actually started once i became a grand master i started improving it's like well well it's a little bit different because now actually people people do respect you and maybe this maybe this actually comes back to elitism a little bit in a way but but it felt but it seemed different like there was certainly more respect towards what i was doing um and being being a very strong chess player and so i would say over time that changed a little bit and then um and then beyond that i think once once you keep improving at a certain point like you you also you also mature you also grow up and kind of you realize like being angry at everyone sort of like hating the world it's not it's not um i guess it's not beneficial is what i found especially as i get older and and also once you mature you start realizing like why should you be angry at everyone like what's the point what purpose does it serve we're all gonna we're all gonna die at some point anyway um so mainly i think i think like i really needed that like i had to have that personality to get to where i got in chess because without that motivation that that sort of that that that fire um i don't think i would have ever gotten as good as i did so that was the first thing um and then i would say in the last couple of years um obviously i've been competing for a long time and i think one of the things that's that you feel is uh you kind of can't be close you can't you can't be close to your competitors and i'll go off topic for one second but one thing that i've noticed with and this is specific to magnus actually is that magnus makes he makes it a habit of trying to have this mysterious personality where nobody ever sees him accepted the board so for example um i think i think i play whenever i played this london classic term in london um i think the last few years at least when magnus has been playing there he literally does not stay at the site hotel he goes and stays somewhere completely different um off-site and everything and um and so he kind of has developed this mysterious personality where like no one sees him so it's like i mean like like what is he doing who is he you don't really kind of view him in the same way as being like a real person i guess like because he just you never see him like you know if i see lavon at breakfast or something it's like okay this is lavon you know he's a cool guy he's normal like all the rest of us but magnus uh makes makes a specific habit i think of trying to uh trying not to be be visible during during these events and so um so when i get back get back to myself and like i talk about about personality i would say for for a long time um i had that same sort maybe not not quite the same approach but sort of like i don't really want to be friendly with my competitors they are the people i'm competing against i do need to beat them at the end of the day um but i would say especially in the last couple of years uh when when i mean more or less i've i feel like i've accomplished everything except becoming world champion uh it feels more and more like uh the the end is closer than the beginning so you start to realize that at some point it's not all going to be there and and you do want to be more friendly you do want to have more interactions with these people because i am on the tail end as opposed to being being at the front end so i think that um is is the main thing i would say over the last few years i've started to realize the end is closer than the than the beginning and um and it is more important at this stage to uh to try and push the game forward try and do things that are good for the game as opposed to just simply focusing a hundred percent on being like really really concentrated really focused and like super super serious and and sort of um just i don't know standoffish or just being aloof okay so shifting the the focus from yourself to being the ambassador of the yeah and i mean i i would you know i think there are examples in many different many different fields i i since tennis is the sport that i that i've uh that i'm most familiar with i've played it the most and i also follow it probably the most um i would use an example from tennis i would say if you look at somebody like andre agassi specifically um he was very much a bad boy when he was on the scene in the early 90s very much bad boy the wild hair obviously the drugs and all the other stuff um but then when you saw him come back i think it was something around like 97 98 when he went from like 140 or whatever it was in the world back to i think number one um you kind of saw that he was a different person like he had maturity realized he obviously wanted to compete and be the best but the whole persona was different like it was about doing good things within tennis and being sort of the ambassador as one of the one of the older people on the tour and so for me i kind of view it the same view sort of like my role in shots in the same way where it's it's more like i need to also try to be one of the ambassadors because most of the people i play against now are younger than me which is i mean it's it's a very weird feeling when i play when i play a tournament and you know it's like people like duda or fabiano like i mean even fabiano who i feel like i've known forever i mean he still is like what like six or seven years younger than me um and so when i play his tournaments and literally the only people who are older than me are bishi and probably labon um you kind of you start to realize your role and you kind of i think it's important to to understand um what that role is okay very thorough and uh yeah also a popular question uh if you could give your younger self some advice what would it be um if i could give my younger self some advice i think honestly it would be um just try to try to enjoy enjoy the ride a bit more because i felt like the period probably uh from probably 17 maybe not 17 but probably from like about the time that i i dropped out of college probably like 18 19 until i was probably about 24 25 all those those early years like they just blur together um now when i look back on them and and i i kind of wish i had enjoyed them a little bit more um obviously playing serious chess was great but i wish i had enjoyed some of those experiences some of those places and and some of the people more more than more than more than i did yeah it's like that there there's this song about chess one night in bangkok that talks about how chess players view the world and it's like every city is the same you see the chess board is your opponent and that that's just it okay thank you for hikaru and for the end i have a question for you uh you have to guess uh which grand master said this uh quote are you ready all right so the quote is i am a chess player and not a poet or philosopher chancellor not a poet or philosopher he said grandmaster right yeah yeah a very strong one yeah i assumed a strong one i'm not a poet or philosopher um i don't know write off so i'm gonna have to make you guys okay not a poet or philosopher it's okay i'm not a poet or a philosopher i'm gonna i'm gonna guess that it's bobby fisher that's my guess but it's probably wrong okay that's my guess well uh close it's it's actually you oh it's me oh yeah i dug it up like uh i think it was from 2014 or 2015. uh you started it yeah you actually started your article with those words you said this is my first blog on chess.com so i'd like to write something really eloquent and profound so i can look back on this moment however i'm a chess player and not a poet or a philosopher it's it's it's fun it's funny actually because again i think this goes in this sort of fits with the last question where were you asking about how like i've changed over the past couple years like even a quote like that actually i would i would actually never i would never say that now because i'm obviously not a poet or a philosopher but i do think that my overarching uh my philosophy my views on chess do very they are they are like my views on chess are very greatly influenced by by my philosophy on life and everything else so i i probably would i would i would definitely not write that that quote now okay uh do you think uh is there anything we we could have mentioned that we didn't no i mean i think i think we more or less cover it all i think just in general um i'm very grateful to see to see the growth that chess has had um on the internet i mean i think i think going forward i do feel that it will be sustained i don't think it's something that is a fad or it's going to fade away in a month but i do think um at least as far as i'm concerned i think what you really want though is you want people to keep on moving forward keep on keep on doing these events and keeping keeping the flame going so i think one of the biggest issues with chess is whenever there are these booms that start usually somewhere in the middle um whether it's like due to bad organization or due to people leaving it feels like it all falls apart i think i think right now especially with what's with what's going on across various shot sites across twitch um i think chess is here to stay and it's it's just a very exciting time for for the game of chess and i'm just grateful to really be a part of it cause i think if this happened maybe even a year later or a year earlier there's no guarantee that i would have been in the same spot and so i'm just grateful for everything okay hikaru thank you for your time thank you for joining me i had a had a wonderful time we had some technical difficulties but we were able to overcome them and yeah for the audience i don't know if you can see the board there's actually a position here from hikaru's game uh a very famous one so you can try and guess which one is it and hikaru agreed to play one blitz game against me for the end of the podcast so if you want to check that out the link will be uh in the description below so thanks icaru thank you everyone and we will see you soon [Music] you

Channel: agadmator's Chess Channel

Views: 403,797

Keywords: agadmator, chess, best chess channel, best youtube chess channel, youtube chess, agadmator podcast, agadmator vs mvl, chess podcast, fide candidates

Id: vrFa4B0Ghjk

Length: 96min 58sec (5818 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 27 2020