Who is the greatest chess player of all time? | Hikaru Nakamura and Lex Fridman

who do you think is the greatest player of all time you've talked in from different angles on this uh Magnus Carlos and Gary kasparo Bobby Fischer many others can can you make the case for each um can you make the case for you oh no I mean I can't make the case for me to be serious I know I know there are a lot of people who want want that kind of like me to give off some kind of ego like that but no um obviously I'm nowhere near the conversation I I actually on that note I would say also I know people wanted to know if I'm the greatest player to never have played for the world championship or to have not got not become world champion I don't think that I'm actually anywhere near the top of that conversation I actually think Levon aronian tops that conversation by a big margin simply because he was number two in the world for a very very long time and he never even got to the match so as far as world champions and who's the goat I think um I think Magnus is the goat simply because he's playing the best chess by by a bigger margin as the highest ELO of all time uh on the other hand chess is a game where you know you build upon you build upon the Giants of the past we learn we learn from them and so you can definitely make the case for Gary as well I mean he's the number one player in the world for 20 plus years a lot of opening strategies he came up with and our people still play them today Bobby I'm not so sure you can really make that case because he was he shot up really quickly but he was the world champion for a very short window of time and then he he quit the game as soon as he became world champion so I don't really feel like you can put Fisher in that uh in that conversation simply because he didn't have that longevity at all he was he was up there for a couple of years so I would say it's probably Magnus but I understand people can also say Gary's Gary's the best player ever um remains to be seen but I think if Magnus is number one for probably another let's say another three to four years I don't think there's any debate at all can you break down what makes him so good we've already talked about different angles of this and I would also uh try to get the same from you because we talked about early Hikaru like I'd like to uh talk about that folder but first Magnus what makes Magnus so good what are the various aspects of his game that make him so good I think for Magnus he he just you know that in the end game in the end games if you get there he's just he's not gonna blunder that's the first thing so you know if you reach an end game he's not going to make a mistake he obviously plays great openings and there's just really no defined weakness that he has there's no weakness that I can think of very specifically um many there are many times where players that actually out prepare him in the opening phase but as soon as they're on their own and they have to think very often times they'll make mistakes um so there's just no weakness for Magnus really no weakness well unlike say Casper like kasparab on the other hand there there are very clear weaknesses um in his game like kramnik exploits on first of all very I don't want to say like ego is the right word but like very stubborn believing that his openings were infallible that he could just win he could just prove an advantage and win the game out of the opening like against kramnik when he ultimately lost also generally not a great defender either very strong tactically but if he was in positions that were defensive he would make mistakes and lose in end games like he did in one of those games in the world championship against cram next so there were very clear defined weaknesses in Sparrow's game um whereas like maggots are just they're no clearly defined weaknesses maybe maybe he doesn't like being attacked maybe that's the one thing he likes King safety and he doesn't like being attacked but that's not something that you can easily do whereas say uh if someone's very tactical and they're not a strong positionally that is something you can def that will happen quite frequently in games you can steer games a certain way doesn't mean you'll always get there but that is something tangible whereas King safety that's not something tangible at all it's very very hard to attack someone uh based on unless they play certain style of openings do you think Garrick has above reflecting in your comment would agree like what is it about his relationship with with kremnik that was so challenging I mean I think this is kramnik understood him actually one thing that's funny speaking of Kasparov is that I think it got under her skin like when I worked with him kramnik actually played a certain style very like very aggressive very sort of risky opening play during the time when I was when I was working with Gary and I know that he annoyed Gary because he's like why couldn't kramnik play like this against me because I think Gary Felton did that against him he would have just blown him off the board and had had many great victories so I think it's kramnik understood Gary they had worked together I think during during the late 90s I think Gary actually was very useful or very helpful in terms of cram of getting a spot on one of the uh Russian chess Olympiad teams in in the mid 90s so I think it's just cram understood him very well and Gary just could not he just he couldn't figure it out I think also another thing coming back to Psycho psychological part is that Kramer actually beat Kasparov in many games in the king's Indian defense kasparova played the king's Indian defense for many years and they started losing like four or five games in a row in it to kramnik very similar to what I mentioned about the silly night orphan Fabiano and Gary gave it up he started switching to playing the grunfeld defense and so I think that also instilled some psychological fear as well because Gary was he was the boss in openings no one could compare to him what makes you so good what uh what What's the breakdown of the strengths and weaknesses so that's I think probably my biggest strength is that I'm a universal player I can play pretty much any opening strategy doesn't doesn't really matter um beyond that I think it's mainly that I don't really make many blunders I don't make blunders unless I'm under a lot of pressure generally so that I mean I know I'm I'm oversimplifying it's not as as simple as this does this apply to uh to Blitz as well I think it's much more applicable to Blitz in particular because my intuition is very good so when I'm making less blunders with limited time on the clock my opponents actually make a lot more blunders that that's why I think it's much more pronounced in Blitz than it is in classical chess because in Blitz when you're down to like 10 seconds uh in the game both players have 10 seconds my intuition is just better than theirs I mean Magnus maybe not so clear but like if you look at other players say Fabiano caruan a very strong player when he gets down to 10 seconds or in these these uh these situations he almost always makes a blunder almost always um so I'm just more precise I make less blunders and that that's really the the effect is much more dramatic Blitz what do you think that intuition is like uh sorry for the kind of uh like almost philosophical question what what is that is that calculation or is it some kind of weird memory recall what is that like being able to do that Short Line prediction I think that's just playing so many games online and there's some kind of subconscious field that I have because when you're that low on time you can't calculate it's just you have to look you just have to figure out what's the move you want to play as no calculation and just go with it and I think just playing so many games probably I mean I'm guessing I played over 300 000 games online and I think just playing all those games it's it's a feel there's there's no tangible way uh that I can't put that really into words it's just a feel what do you Visual and we should say that you're I think currently the number one ranked Blitz player in the world you have uh been for a while you're unquestionably one of the greatest so the classical rapid and Blitz you're one of the best people for many years in the world okay but you're currently number one in Blitz um so I I'd love to kind of for you to dig into the secret to your success in Blitz is it as you're saying that intuition being able to when the time is short to not make blunders and then to make a close to Optimal move I think it's generally that I'm able to keep the games going no matter what until we're low on time I'm always able to do that yeah like if we play a game with three minutes like there are games I will just win win very quickly but a lot of games between top players players have to think you have to use time and in those final critical stages I just don't blunder I just don't blunder really at the end of the day that's that's really the only difference because everybody's very very strong but it's sort of like who is the who is the better like brain who is a better like CPU or for lack of a better way of putting it it's like who makes a split to SEC Split Second decisions the best and uh I do think that I'm extremely good at that in a way that almost nobody else is that that really is the only difference is that those Split Second decisions because you can get a worse position but again if you keep the game going players have to use a time when you get down to those final 10 15 seconds uh I almost always end up winning in those situations what are you visualizing like when in those when you're doing the fast fast calculations what what is it um it's basically you look at a move and you see like when it's like five seconds or ten seconds you play a movie you just make sure that it's not a blunder you just look make sure it's not a blunder and you just go with it and the first part though is the feel so it's like I see this move and it looks right I don't know why it's right I can't put that into words but it looks like the right move and then I look very for like a split second see as long as it's not some kind of blender and you just play that move is there a bit of a tunnel vision are you able to understand the positions of all the other pieces on the board or are you just focusing on a very specific interaction it's just Phil it's really just feel it's like this move feels right and so I play it when you're at that stage of the game it's it's like as long as it's not a blunder and it just that it's just that feel there's there is no way for me to put that in and that feel like empirically does result in low probability of blender for you yeah it's like you don't blunder even though there could be like you don't forget like a random piece that was like very very I mean it does happen of course but very rarely and I mean I've done it on stream many times like it's just you you go with the move that for whatever reason like it just intuitively whether it's from playing hundreds of thousands of games on the internet um or just that that experience like it you just intuitively can can feel like the move is right

Channel: Lex Clips

Views: 869,225

Keywords: ai, ai clips, ai podcast, ai podcast clips, artificial intelligence, artificial intelligence podcast, computer science, consciousness, deep learning, einstein, elon musk, engineering, friedman, hikaru nakamura, joe rogan, lex ai, lex clips, lex fridman, lex fridman podcast, lex friedman, lex mit, lex podcast, machine learning, math, math podcast, mathematics, mit ai, philosophy, physics, physics podcast, science, tech, tech podcast, technology, turing

Id: 7K8kOKA7PE0

Length: 10min 38sec (638 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 17 2022