Kind: captions
Language: en
i mean i've definitely experienced
moments where
i didn't want to do anything but chess i
also say that's pretty universal i think
if you want to be that the best at
anything you do or any sport you have to
be that level of obsessed
the following is a conversation with
alexander and andrea botez they're
sisters professional chess players
commentators educators entertainers and
streamers
their channel is called botezlive on
twitch and youtube i highly recommend
you check it out
a small side note about the currently
ongoing controversy in the chess world
where the 19 year old grandmaster hans
niemann beat magnus carlson at the
sinkfield cup
after this magnus for the first time
ever withdrew from the tournament
implying with a tweet that there may
have been cheating or at least something
shady going on
folks like the grandmaster hikaru
nakamura fanned the flames of cheating
accusations and the internet
made a bunch of proposals
on how the cheating could have been done
and it ranged from the ridiculous to the
hilarious
often both
hans himself came out and said that he
has cheated before when he was 12 and 16
on random online games to jack up his
rating
but
he said that he has never cheated in
person over the board
danny wrench from chess.com who i've
spoken with may make a statement in
response to hanza's claims soon
folks like grandmaster yakabuga spoke to
his experience training hans neiman and
has said that his memory and intuition
were quite brilliant
so as you see there's a lot of
perspectives on this chess base has a
good summary of the saga that i'll link
in the description
also note that this is so quickly moving
that new stuff might come out between me
recording this and publishing the
episode but i thought i'd mention this
anyway since the episode with the
beautiful sisters is a conversation
about chess and was recorded shortly
before the controversy so we didn't talk
about it
i'm considering having hans on this
podcast and also magnus back on the
podcast and maybe others like hikaru or
folks from
chess.com's anti-cheat staff to discuss
their really interesting cheating
detection algorithms
but
i may also just stay out of it
i find just to be a beautiful game
and the chess community full of
fascinating brilliant people and so i'll
keep having conversations like these
about chess it's fun
my goal with this podcast and in general
as a human being
is to increase the amount of love in the
world
sometimes that involves celebrating
brilliance and beauty in science in art
in chess
sometimes it involves empathetic
conversations with controversial figures
that seek to understand
not deride
sometimes it involves standing against
the internet lynch mob as the
chess-based article calls it to hear the
story of a human being who is under
attack
even if it means i get attacked in the
process as well
this is the lex friedman podcast to
support it please check out our sponsors
in the description and now dear friends
here's alexandra and andrea botez
you just got back from italy
what's the most memorable thing i was
just there recently as well it was very
chaotic because we went out on a whim
and we only had our first hotel book and
then we rented a car and drove around
all of the cities and went to like five
different cities in about a week and a
bit um so i think it was just the
variety of seeing so many different
places when we're used to being at home
all the time and andrea
is yours your luggage yeah i would say
it was the most stressful vacation we've
been in in our life and it was a
valuable learning lesson because now i
know how to be prepared for trips um but
we lost our bags and i never got him
back and like alex said we didn't know
where we'd be sleeping every night and
we're just driving through a new city um
with a giant van in the most narrowest
streets with and getting in many many
fights with italian men um so it wasn't
really a vacation i saw this motion so
many times
wasn't it liberating to lose your
baggage is it like a silver lining it
was liberating my entire life i've
always had the issue of over packing and
i told her for the trip andrea you're
gonna pack light right yeah alex yeah
and then i see her stuffing her over you
did the same we both had giant big extra
baggage that we didn't need and i'm
actually very glad we lost it because
for venice hauling that around on all
the boats and through the tiny streets
and there's no ubers
and now it's the first time where i can
travel without checking in a bag which
i've never done before so now i've
learned what it means to pack light
because i saw that i could survive off
of just my this sounds very dramatic but
it was really a big learning lesson for
me the driving must have been crazy
because driving in italy is rough the
driving was crazy i did most of it and
it would be really interesting driving
through places like florence or even
through uh the beach areas that were
super windy because they're two-way
streets that should really only be one
way so you'd be driving this huge van
and then another car comes on a cliff
and you're just waiting for it to slowly
pass so
it took all of my focus and
concentration to drive well in italy but
it was actually really relaxing because
the hardest thing about uh
making a lot of videos online is you're
always thinking about it what's coming
next and when we were in italy it was so
chaotic that i did not think about work
for a good week and a bit
oh cause you're just we were stressed i
was just trying to keep us alive
higher priority and that was kind of fun
it was kind of fun no planning nothing i
wouldn't recommend it or ever do that
again but
it sounds sounds pretty awesome and we
even randomly ran into two friends of
ours who were in the same city and we
just traveled with them for about half
of the trip yeah so you just took on the
chaos exactly it was an adventure okay
and i see like because you were using
your hands a lot you gotten you you
picked up some of the
the italian hand gestures i did we did
get yelled at by a lot of italians the
old italian grandmas would come to us
after breakfast because we'd leave
something on the plate and she'd be like
you could feed an entire village with
that tell your friends and we'd be we'd
feel so ash yeah we got cursed out a lot
but it really reminded me of where we
grew up and how true yeah bring back
those where'd you grow up
oh we were
romanian but it was like an immigrant
neighborhood
um so you know same if you don't finish
your plate that's disrespectful to the
people who made the food how's the food
in italy i feel like uh the carbs thing
is too much very yeah i think very
overrated in my opinion so i'm actually
not supposed to eat gluten because i
have an allergy yeah but i was in italy
and it's you know gluten galore so i was
actually eating a lot of it and it was
very interesting because i didn't get
sick while i was in italy but i do while
i'm in the u.s
so somehow
the food was actually maybe more okay
for me to digest which i appreciated but
i didn't like it as much as i thought
did you like the food there yeah
no
it's uh i did i did i love cars but it's
um
it's it feels like vegas when when i go
there for the food it's like if i stay
here
too long i'm gonna do things i regret
that's what it feels like with the food
right i don't know how to moderate and
everybody is pushing very large portions
and wild kind of eating things on you
uh pasta
pizza and it's so good and bread
so delicious so
yeah i i love it but i regret everything
so it's like i don't want to i don't
want to go to a place where
um i'm going to regret everything i do
for too long of a time
yeah surprisingly the people there
though are still very fit and everyone
stays in good shape but that's probably
because you're walking around all day
and you're much more active than
anything and they also just know how to
moderate food i think i got used to the
u.s way of eating the u.s porsche what
is that
just a lot
never always a lot yeah and more and i
feel in the u.s food advertisements are
also much more in your face and you're
more often reminded of junk food than we
were in italy so even though you're
eating less healthy things i think we're
getting cravings and being pushed
towards junk food less often
all right i got to ask you a hard
question
uh so the romance languages so i think
french is up there as like number one
number one in terms of i don't know this
was ranking them
oh you guys speak italian or no not
italian but we studied french and
spanish in school
and romanian i feel like every country
calls their language a romance like no
but it's romanian french spanish
portuguese
um and i think there was one more that
was like this dialect but those are
considered the romance languages okay so
where would you put italian i think we
got yelled at i'm so
it's on the bottom of the list because
people did not use it nicely but i
always really liked how french sounds
um
i i think something about it where maybe
spanish actually sounds nicer to the
ears but french has more character and
it feels more sultry so i like french
that was my answer too oh sultry okay
yeah
i feel like uh french well in france i
feel like i'm always being judged
like they're better than me that's what
friends they are better yeah
this is so true
uh which is why you know yeah i long to
belong to that i like the british accent
the british really yeah actually one
thing we did on our italian trip is we
just picked up british accents for the
entire trip for fun
and we forgot we were doing them to the
point where we talked to british people
and they just ask us why are you talking
like that i just couldn't stop i i did
feel much more elegant and mature true
people like you know i don't know if
they felt the same way about us but it
was more of you know the confidence
you do feel like you're more poised for
sure yeah
so how'd you guys get into chess
when when did you first let's say when
did you first fall in love with chess
so we both started playing when we were
pretty young around six years old that's
when our dad taught us and
i enjoyed playing chess because i had
good results early on but a lot of it
was being pushed from my dad to play
chess and i only really started loving
it when we moved from canada and we
started moving a lot and chess was the
one stable thing that i had and it was
also where all my
uh friends were so it was kind of that
foundational thing for me
and that's when i started studying chess
very intensely and when i started
putting in the hours out of my own will
not because i was being pushed by my dad
that's when i started really loving it
and i even wanted to take time off
college to just focus on chess
so training and competing training and
competing yeah it was when i was doing
it for myself that i started getting my
best results
and actually enjoying the thing and
really enjoying it yeah i would spend
summer vacation studying for tournaments
and my mom would come and say you need
to make friends go leave the house and
i'd be like no i need to play chess and
i i remember those moments that you
rebelled by playing chess yeah exactly
how did you get into it yeah my my
experience with
loving in high school is very opposite
from alex's but right my sister was
playing and my dad taught me when i was
andrea was cool in high school unlike me
you are uh i i wouldn't say cool i'd
save more balance and i was interested
in other hobbies in my childhood if i
ever really did love chess there's
certainly moments about like traveling
and being together with my family and
spending those moments together but
those are more the social and the
experiences but funny enough like i
think my happiest moment where i really
played the game for my own enjoyment was
probably my most recent tournament
because this was after obviously we've
been streaming and i'm no longer in high
school but when i was in school i was
always playing for college and for the
results trying to build a resume so i
was too stressed out about the pressure
to really enjoy the game whereas when i
just played my first tournament so it
was like
after like a two-year break because of
the pandemic um and it was also all live
on twitch so there was some pressure but
it was the first time that like i was
really eager to study for the game
sitting and focusing since we've been
streaming and not getting distracted by
something else in years like i said and
the tournament experience i hit my
highest rating and it was my best
tournament ever and i think most of that
is because it came from my own enjoyment
so
you didn't enjoy the domination because
i think you like did really well right
this is like a couple months ago uh oh
yeah yeah the tournament well of course
i think the results came from enjoying
the tournament because i would be in
high school like studying double triple
the amount of time like six hours every
day compared to this tournament i didn't
even prepare for it and for three years
i wouldn't be able to pass one rating
whereas in this one term and i passed it
by like 70 points without even any
preparation so it was i think as soon as
you stop worrying about the competitions
when the games get much better what does
it mean to pass a rating so i was stuck
at 1900. 1900 is 100 points off of
expert yeah
usually when you reach 2000 you're
considered an expert which is the rating
andre i was going for okay expert that's
the technical term or this like
it's more of a colloquial term where if
somebody's around a 2000 you're playing
them in a tournament they won't have the
actual title next to their name but you
say i'm playing an expert what about
like the the more official things like
master that have to do with the ratings
yeah so national master in the us is
when you're 2200.
okay and what's international master
international master is based off of a
different system the fide system which
is international to be an international
master it's
2400 and you have to have three
international master norms
yeah i think magnus said he's uh 28 6
something
that was yeah and then he said uh that's
pretty decent
no well he always uh but the thing is i
think what he meant
is
that's a decent rating because it
accurately captures his actual level
so it's uh it's not over inflated or
underinflated and so on
and so the discussion there was how do
you get can a human being get to 2900
and then he says because my current
rating is pretty decent
representing my skill level it's gonna
be a long road to actually get there
right because it's like
so you have to beat people your same
level that's how the number increases
exactly
yeah and you beat a bunch of people in
the tournament right that are higher
than that very lucky oh i was playing i
was really nervous because my category
was like 200 points above my rating and
of course
i was very rusty and i hadn't played a
tournament in a while but it went pretty
well
do you feel the pressure when you're
actually recording it like the streaming
it was
definitely so before every round i was
vlogging and i was doing meet and greets
and doing other things for them that's
how you do a meet and greet you didn't
know what the hell you're doing is great
yeah like where am i how do i do this
yeah i see
what do i do it was actually really
wholesome the beginning was um very
silly because i was just not expecting
that it was going to be more of a
seminar i thought it was like oh you
pose and take pictures but they actually
asked really nice meaningful questions
but unfortunately it's bad for youtube
retention and we cut them all out so
bad for you
the good long-form conversation so it
was like questions q a type of thing
exactly you have to have very fast pace
for youtube and um that seminar was not
fast-paced okay well not everything in
life needs to be on youtube right
there's like two parallel things stuff
that's fun for youtube yes and one day
we'll post that q a one yeah when you
guys like when you become like ultra
famous you're currently just regular
famous
q and a slow
content yes
and that the youtube aspect the creation
aspect does that add to the fun
ultimately how's the chess of like your
love of chess oh for the love of chess
in general or just for competing in that
one tournament no love with just in
general i i think you said that for
competing for that tournament was adding
pressure yeah but actually i would say
like a good pressure but yeah this is
where i differed to alex because
um when i was just competitive and i was
younger
i don't think i loved chess as much as
when i started doing it for content
because unlike her a lot of her friends
and social circle
other chess players i never really
traveled and built really solid
friendships through chess until i
started streaming and meeting other
chess streamers and
actually playing and talking to people
for fun rather than just always being
alone in the game and never really
meeting other people my age or people
with similar interests so i would say
twitch was the thing that
really changed how i approached the game
i think with uh with some youtubers
there's a pressure to be almost somebody
else you create a persona and you're
stuck in that persona i think
um i'm
too i'm too much of a boomer to know
what the hell twitch is anyway but the
it feels like when you're actually live
streaming
you can't help but be who you really are
i think it's oh well i think when you're
live streaming and i've talked to a lot
of other streamers about this
you kind of just over exaggerate one
side of your personality and of course
it's kind of like being like on all the
time like you're trying to be more
entertaining and sometimes you're being
sillier at moments or
more
you take what character traits like
people know you for and for me one is
being like adhd and the younger sibling
who's very energetic and causes trouble
even though yeah i'm sure you caused
trouble just for the camera yeah right
i think yeah i think
and of course once you're live streaming
for like four or five hours there's
gonna be moments in the stream where
it's more chill but especially when
you're like editing that content or
you're doing bigger streams that are
shorter
you are kind of playing up a side of
yourself because of course there's a lot
of parts of me that i don't show to the
camera because they're not as
entertaining to watch like the more
serious part and also there's things
that you are really interested in about
what you do like i love competitive
chess where i could sit and really think
about it but i know that that is not
going to be as entertaining for stream i
know that's not going to be as
entertaining for youtube so you kind of
have to take what you like but then
really adapt it for whatever the format
is and sometimes that feels inauthentic
uh but other times it just feels like
repackaging what you love for people
in a more general audience to enjoy do
you feel like it's a trap a little bit
as you evolve like uh
oh i think social media oh sorry go
ahead social media in general is a trap
of that of that kind
well so we've been trying to switch to
learn how to make youtube videos
recently and so much of learning youtube
school is kind of the beastification of
content where you try to get to the
point of the video within like the first
10 seconds to not lose people you try to
take it you mean like mr beast yeah okay
yeah where it's so fast-paced there's a
reason to wait there's high stakes
and everything is created to keep people
watching the video and keep people on
the platform and in some ways it is a
trap because it's harder to do
the kind of content you like because you
really have to squeeze it to be like
okay well
do we have a good thumbnail for this do
we have a good title for this um and
that's something that we're trying to
figure out how
to
keep true to what we want to do yeah see
the way i think about it is yeah there's
a lot of stuff you can create and yeah
the mr bestification process
but also
i think about what are the videos
conversations or things i will create in
this life
that will be
the best thing i do
and um i try not to do things
in my life that will prevent me from
getting there i feel like if you're
always focusing on um
doing kind of the optimizing the
thumbnail in the 10 seconds and so on
you'll never do the thing that's truly
you're known for and remembered for so
finding that balance is tricky i get
that but at the same time this might be
my own copium which i know is a word you
know now
yeah i'm slowly learning the complexity
of the term yes um but
the other way i think about it is
it is the skill to learn how to
communicate with large audiences
and
first i started streaming chess which is
something i just did and really loved
but now i have to learn how to translate
that format and if that's a skill set we
could build then we could use it to do
really important things
and i've seen a lot of youtubers who
have done interviews about how you know
they didn't love the kind of content
they did at at first but what they're
doing right now is really meaningful so
i like to think of it maybe like skill
development because not everybody hits
off podcasts where they can talk to
super interesting people right off the
bat yeah you can be slow and boring in a
podcast you don't have to worry about
the first 10 seconds i mean people like
keep pushing me for because but the
first 10 seconds of the videos
i do is well i know it's most important
for youtube but i don't give a damn i
wrote a chrome extension that hides all
the views and likes i don't look at the
the the click i don't look at twitch
views andrea does so we also can relate
i love numbers too but that's why i
don't look at it because you become like
oh i
you'll start to think that a
conversation or a thing you did sucks
because it doesn't get views yeah but
that's just not the case
the youtube algorithm is this monster
that figures stuff out and if you let it
control your mind i feel like it's going
to destroy you creatively so you have to
find a nice balance i have to say i was
laughing a little bit when i was
listening to the magnus episode and the
first 10 minutes you guys are talking
about soccer football two robots seem
like humans yeah
i was like let's have some fun a
conversation about non-chess related
topics yeah talk about sports yeah it
was kind of hilarious i was surprised
that
uh even at his level
i wasn't sure but i was surprised how
much he loves chess it sounds cliche to
say but like the way he looked at a
chess board you know those memes like i
wish somebody looked at me in the way
he's still like the way he glanced down
and he reached for the pieces with
excitement to show me something there
was there wasn't like
uh okay i'll show you it was like
like there was still that fire
that's something that always shocks me
about some of like super grand masters
like one of my coaches was a person who
also his name's jim hammer of norway he
also coached
magnus he was his second and he was
helping me train for my tournament and i
was kind of putting off doing the
homework he's like if you're putting it
off that means you're studying the wrong
thing like you should be enjoying even
when you're practicing which when i grew
up i thought to get to the top level
like practicing has to be hard and
unpleasant and when i was listening to
magnus episode he was like i didn't read
books very much or it there's one thing
that you said that's like very normal
for studying classical chess that he
didn't do just because it didn't
interest him he says i suck at puzzles i
don't like puzzles yeah and he doesn't
do what he doesn't enjoy and that's
because it's like purely driven out of
passion i think the internet was like i
suck at puzzles too yeah they like that
i don't have to study at all it's just
it's fun and uh but i think the lesson
there that's really powerful is he
spends most of the day thinking about
chess because he wants to yeah so do
whatever if you're into getting better
chess to whatever it takes
to actually just the number of hours you
spend a day thinking about chess
maximize that if you're like super
serious about it i actually get very
addicted whenever i start studying chess
which is why i don't do it as seriously
when i'm focused on content uh because i
go through these rabbit holes where if
i'm focusing on chess i want to be as
good as i possibly can at the game
otherwise it's hard for me to enjoy it
because it's such a competitive thing
and i remember training for tournaments
and when you're training for tournaments
you even start dreaming about chess and
you can't stop thinking about it and
it's as if you're flipped into this
completely different world which is also
what i like best about the game that
it's a completely different living
experience and then you take some drugs
and now you start to see things on the
ceiling is there some factual um
hallucination like
uh to the uh queen's gambit like those
scenes uh i think it's is that based on
your life story from well i can't say
that on camera no just kidding um
actually chess players are very careful
to not take drugs they drink a lot yeah
they drink so much it's actually crazy
for how good they're able to play chess
when they do
but when it comes to things like
psychedelics or other things they
usually stay away from those because
they don't want to mess anything up in
their brain so this is actually an
intervention i've i saw that you
mentioned somewhere i think was the lie
detector test where you have a drinking
problem
is that actual i think i think that's
actually um a meme that we like to joke
about on stream because occasionally
we'd have like a white claw on stream or
something like that and then people meme
about it it goes back to andrea's point
of amplifying a part of your personality
to make yourself a little bit right more
entertaining you could use that as an
excuse from now on i'm just this podcast
is just amplifying a part of that person
now i'm not really like this
uh but have you played drunk like magnus
has played drunk he says it helps him
with the creativity is there any truth
to that well andrea is under 21 so she's
obviously would never do it never do
that um but i have played while drinking
actually
i enjoy playing jess chess and drinking
more than pre-gaming or going out to a
club and drinking which sounds really
silly and i'll usually play against
opponents who are also you know having
some beer
and
it does make you feel like you're seeing
the game from a fresher perspective
where it
can sometimes make you feel more
confident liquid confidence and it does
help with creativity you just feel like
you could pull things off um but there's
also a limit it's more like you've had
one drink or two drink but then it goes
beyond that and then you just start
missing tactics and it's not worth it
yeah i think it only helps players in
very short time controls one time i was
challenging this grandmaster on stream
and we were playing bullet chess which
is one minute chess and i was giving him
handicaps and i said okay you have to
take four shots before the next game and
he just got like 10 times stronger and
transformed into like the hulk and
destroyed me more than the last game so
but of course if you're playing like a
three-hour game it's gonna get old but i
think in short time controls it's
amazing yeah it does definitely has to
be blitz it has to be where it's more
intuition rather than sitting in
calculus this is probably like
negatively affecting your ability to
calculate absolutely
how much when you guys play when you
look at the chess board how much of it
is calculation how much of it is
intuition how much of it is memorized
openings
um
it really depends between short form
chess so five minutes three minutes one
minute and classical chess what's your
favorite to play i love playing blitz
now because that's most of what i do and
that's actually how i got into chess
streaming because i couldn't spend
entire weekends or weeks playing
tournaments i would just while i was in
college log on and play these long blitz
or bullet sessions and it's very fast so
you don't have time to go
calculate as deeply you basically have
to calculate short lines pretty quickly
and a lot of it is pattern recognition
and intuition um that's three minutes
you said three minutes yeah okay cool
and so for that it's just it's basically
intuition a lot of it is intuition yeah
see i saw on the streams you actually
keep talking while playing chess it
seems like yeah that's my result that
doesn't help my results it doesn't help
the content not the game yeah exactly
but you can still do it because i i it
feels like how can you possibly
concentrate while talking it's because
so much of it is intuition you're not
while you're talking you're thinking
about that topic but then you just come
to the board and you just understand
what you should be doing here and then
sometimes you get in trouble because
you're talking and you have now lost
half of your time you have a minute and
a half your opponent has three and
you're kind of at a disadvantage um
but that kind of goes to show that
that's how blitz chess usually works
whereas classical is very different
which of you is better at chess i mean
let's do it this way can you
um andrea can you say
what is
in which way is alex stronger than you
which way is she weaker than you not
physically in in terms of the ch in
terms of chess
um
well yes of course she is higher rated
but when we do play
um i think her strengths against me
where she really gets me is the end game
she has stronger end games so she can
and i actually have a stronger opening
um but as soon as she's i'm supposed to
say what is good about you not you
yeah i'm getting there well see this is
the same because don't worry it's
related okay because if i can i can get
an advantage in the beginning of the
game but as soon as she starts trading
pieces down like my confidence drops
because i know that the end game is the
hardest part of the game and the longest
and that's where she ends up beating me
so her end game is her
i think really what makes a difference
and she sounds like her
psychological warfare is better too
because if you're getting nervous that
is that but it's harder to play against
higher rated players same how you know
magnus and former world championship
champions have that psychological edge
so i think it's always going to be
different for andrea because she knows
statistically she should be winning
something like one in four games but she
usually does better than that because
she's very distracting and talks a lot
that does help what does it feel like to
play a higher rated player
what's the experience of that
in like uh
playing somebody like magnus
so it depends on how much higher rated
than you they are if it's someone who's
like between me and andrea let's say
it's a 200 point difference
you know they should win but at least
you still feel like you have a chance i
was playing in uh title tuesday which is
this tournament chess.com has every
tuesday and i got really lucky beat a gm
drew an international master and then i
got paired against hikaru nakamura and
my brain just went blank because the i
just know that i'm so unlikely to win
that i couldn't even play the game
properly when it's that much of a
difference where they should be winning
like 99 of the time
but that's like psychological so you're
saying that's the biggest experience
it's like
actually knowing the numbers and
statistically thinking there's no way i
can win but i meant like is there a
suffocating feeling like positionally
you feel like you're constantly
under attack
you just feel like you're slowly getting
outsmarted and the worst is when you
don't even know what you're doing wrong
you come out of that you're like
i thought i was doing great and i got
slowly squeezed i didn't understand what
was going on and you're just kind of
baffled it's kind of like watching alpha
zero beat up stock fish and you don't
really understand why it's making
certain moves or how it thought of the
plan you just see it slowly getting the
position better and that's what it feels
like i i would add
it's kind of different for me if they're
someone who's significantly higher rated
so let's say more than like 300 points
or you're playing magnus
what i notice is i just feel lost
straight as soon as i don't know my
preparation because they know so many
opening lines that they're going to know
the best line to beat you that you
haven't studied so then on move 10
you're like he already has a maybe plus
.5 advantage which is really small but
for someone with such a significant
skill level you know you already lost at
that point and it's like a third of the
game
what are the strengths and weaknesses of
andrea
andrea is very good at opening
preparations as she said as she said she
likes bringing that up i mean she's very
meticulous about it where she'll really
go in and learn her lines
and having that initial starting
confidence isn't just helpful for the
opening but it helps develop your plans
for the middle game so i think she's
very good at that
um i think she's actually pretty good at
tactical
combinations um what is tactics tactics
is like solving puzzles
um or basically finding lines that are
forced where if you find them you're
going to win
so that's like puzzles within a with
yeah exactly whereas strategic chess is
making slow moves and over the process
of like 20 moves you get a slightly
better position based on
an understanding of the overall strategy
so in my extensive research review on
wikipedia
it says your most played opening is the
king's indian defense
in which quote black allows white to
advance their pawns to the center of the
board
in the first two moves i is there any
truth to this
so
the kings and what is it probably is my
most played opening um
and it's one where even when my coach
who was a grandmaster taught me he's
like so you know i've been playing the
king's indian for 10 years and i still
don't understand it and it's one of
those openings that computers really
don't like because you do or at least
stockfish doesn't like it maybe alpha
zero would change their mind i forgot to
look at what can you show me by the way
what it is yeah
is it uh
is it white's opening or black something
black responds to uh the d4 queen's pawn
push and you take your knight out to f6
i'll just put in the you know
stereotypical
classical king's indian more so to say
um
so we actually have a very famous king's
indian game in the notes that we
prepared okay
for the record i asked you guys for one
some games that you find pretty cool and
well maybe to get a chance to talk about
something yeah um so this is the king's
indian as you can see
white has much more control over the
center white has three pawns in the
center while black has none past the
fifth rank and you just have this pawn
on d6 and one of the ideas in chess is
if you're not taking the center then
your plan revolves around trying to
continually challenge it
but what is really fun about the king's
indian is that black sometimes gets
these crazy king side attacks while
white gets queen side attacks and even
though
it's a little bit suspicious for black
and the computer could usually break it
it's hard to defend as a human when
you're being attacked but if you don't
pull off the attack as black then you're
just gonna end up being lost in the end
game so it's like a very asymmetrical
position it's very asymmetrical although
a lot of people now stop playing into
the classical kings indian even though
computers give it a big advantage and
they play these slower lines in the
king's indian which are less fun to play
what's slower mean it takes a longer
time to like
do something interesting with um
they basically don't let you get as much
of a kingside attack because they try
opening up the center and then you have
no weaknesses but you're just slowly
improving the position of your pieces
instead of being able to go for that
king side attack so for people just
listening there is a the
white pawns are all on the fourth row in
a row together that feels like a bad
position for black for white
oh you don't like taking the center no i
like taking the center so this is now
you're talking trash around oh sorry but
like
they're just like they're like feel
vulnerable they're in a row together
like it's like uh like a you know
because they're like who's gonna defend
them i guess the nice defender when the
queen defends it that you're actually
talking about a theme that you do see
sometimes which is called hanging pawns
when you have two pawns right next to
each other with no other pawns to defend
them yeah um so it it is a value valid
point and actually as black you're
trying to break apart these pawns or get
them to push and create some holes into
the position
but it's
a trade-off and that's a lot of what
chess openings are about
you get more space but you'll also end
up having to protect your pawns
potentially or move them forward to the
point where they're overextended and
plus pawns being vulnerable it's kind of
fun this it's like there's more stuff in
danger they're not because if it's if
it's like this everything's like trapped
like you can't do anything everything's
blocked yeah blocked off yeah because
you can't have fun yeah
the the
one of the most one of the opening
principles for white is get your pawns
in the center so i'd say
like this is actually preferable for
white go let's go over some opening
principles there we go because this is a
very good learning okay
in the audience
okay so first thing you want to do is
control the center
there you go e4 the more aggressive one
isn't that like the the basic vanilla
move i didn't uh somebody told me that's
the most popular
opening move in chess it is why is that
considered aggressive so the two it's e4
and d4 and the king's pawn is known as
being for more tactical players whereas
d4 is known for more positional players
so that's why it's considered more
aggressive
gambits with e4 i think so tactical
means
i'm i'm gonna try to attack you
you're gonna try to go for puzzles and
rely more on your um
combination abilities
uh whereas if it's something positional
you usually have like three to four
moves that are all good in the position
whereas tactics you need to see this one
line
so it's more precise so this this one's
cool because he can like you know the
queen can come out the bishop can come
out yeah and that's uh
one of the most popular checkmates and
usually what you teach new students to
try to cheese their friends because then
they feel really excited that they know
this new trap where you bring the bishop
and the queen out and you try to check
mate on f7 yeah it's the trap that uh
queen's gambit beth harmon falls for
nerf like first game versus the janitor
she gets all mad because she gets
checkmated very early that's the one she
gets checkmated with yeah okay i love
how you guys were actually paying
attention to the games carefully
uh which is pretty cool that they did a
good job of
improving evolving her game throughout
the show to actually
represent an actual growth of a chess
player yeah they they really
took every detail into consideration
which was cool okay so what what else
that's that's i brought stuff
okay
so then you want to develop your pieces
so in the beginning of the game you want
to take out the bishops and knights
first because you don't want to start
with the most valuable piece like the
queen
because then it'll become a
vulnerability and it'll get attacked
very early on
and the reason you're taking up these
two pieces first is because you want to
castle your king so you can move a night
move or a bishop move and that's
considered developing yeah so if at this
stage not
like even before getting a few pawns out
you usually
want to start with getting a pawn
because you want to get space in the
center but also when you push pawns it
helps free up some of your pieces
um
so usually start with one pawn first and
then you can start taking out your minor
pieces which is the bishop in the night
i have anxiety about a pawn just
floating out there
defenseless but i'm not attacked yet
it's a see those are what you call ghost
threats so you're scared of something
that hasn't happened yet so if i were to
attack it i feel like there's a deeper
thing going on here
actually let's say
yes so you're attacking the pawn in the
center here and it is vulnerable but as
soon as you do that
i can develop my own knight and defend
it as well
okay and now for people just listening
there's two pawns that just came out to
meet each other and a couple of nights
we love the chess card
the pawns met after midnight yeah yeah
i'm gonna romanticize the game a bit
exactly uh okay cool so
so like there's uh
if you bring out the bishops with the
knights you're matching that with the
other uh the black is going to match it
whatever you're attacking with yeah
can't defend it i could develop your
bishop or your knight whatever you'd
like
oh no now you gave him options oh right
yeah
there you go
now i am attacking the pawn in the
center which is what you were afraid
about before but let's see how you
defend it here
by doing this symmetrical thing bringing
out the knight on the other side and
actually your other move was good as
well defending with the pawn because
then you're freeing up space for your
bishop so you're basically trying to
develop your pieces as quickly as
possible put your pawns in the center
and then get your king to safety and
that's usually the basic opening tips
that you get it is kind of
counterintuitive that safety is in the
corner of the board for kings
that was always confusing to me but you
know three pawns in front though you
typically don't push those
maybe like one maybe i'll go one square
but
these are will be like the wall of
defense that keep them safe but another
way to also think about it is um your
pieces usually want to point towards the
center if you have a knight closer to
the center then closer to the side it
actually has more squares it can go to
so a huge part of it is just wanting to
have flexibility for where your pieces
go so more pieces are going to be able
to make threats in the center or even
open up the position so since that's
where it's most likely
to open you want your king somewhere
where the position will stay closed so
that you have the pawns to defend you
know there is like rules like this but i
always wonder because i build chess
engines but then
you start to wonder like why is it that
positionally these things are good like
you've built up an intuition about it
but i wish and that's the thing that
would be amazing if engines could
explain
why is this kind of thing better than
this kind of thing you start to build up
an intuition but if i'm just like know
nothing about chess it feels confusing
that cornering your king
like getting them
uh
like trapped here like it feels like you
could get check made it easier there if
i was just using like dumb intuition but
it seems like that's not the case
i imagine maybe because alpha zero
learned by playing games against itself
right yeah and i imagine if you have a
lot of games then you do build intuition
because if you were to keep your king in
the center you just see that in those
games you're dealing with threats a lot
more often
um but yeah they're shortcut rules and
this doesn't even mean it's the best way
to play chess as we've seen with
alpha zero kind of changing the rules of
the game a little bit but as a human
to learn it from scratch is a lot more
difficult than to start with principles
so that's why beginners usually learn
chess this way
yeah but because you're playing other
humans and the other humans have also
operated under different principles and
that's why
people that come up now that are
training with engines
are just going to be much better at than
the people of the past because they're
going to have they're going to try out
weirder ideas that go against the
principles of old right and they're
gonna do like weird stuff including
sacrifices and stuff like that yeah and
i also think that's why alpha zero was
so shocking because stockfish was using
an opening database so it was already
based off of knowledge that humans have
from playing chess for years that we
just thought is how you're supposed to
play whereas alpha zero just learned
from playing the game so many times and
came up with very novel opening ideas
were you impressed by alpha have you
have you seen some of the games i have
seen some of the games i think
impressed bewildered
and uh motivated were the three things i
experienced i think magnus said uh he
was also impressed that
it could easily be mistaken for
creativity that's this trash talk
towards the ai that was a beautiful
sentence i i was listening to the
podcast
i mean
as a human i agree with him because you
don't want to give the machine the the
power of creativity but
if it looks creative
get give it give it a compliment that's
that's fair
i know that you're being nice to the
machines in case they are ever looking
back through this
what else is there what other principles
are there for the um the opening you can
go a little bit
more forward let's say and yeah we can
finish full of development positions
like this
let's just say you developed all of your
pieces
um
so that's like a really nice
like nobody nobody took any pieces and
we're just in a nice positional thing
yeah so it's not actually a very
accurate yes
i could put a different one on the board
but usually after you've developed all
of your pieces
um you want to get your queen out a
little bit to connect your rooks and you
also start thinking about certain pawn
pushes and getting more space
but another good tip is just can you
improve the position of your pieces
think about timing so if you've already
moved a piece once and there's a piece
that hasn't moved at all then you want
to focus on the piece that hasn't moved
at all
to be able to have it more likely to
jump into the game right so don't move
pieces multiple times exactly like try
to move it to the most optimal position
yeah yeah that makes sense what uh
so what's the indian so i think we kind
of went over it but why did you ever say
why you like it so much because that's
weird because it's king-sized i liked it
because it's a very fun aggressive
defense where you're just throwing your
pieces towards white and there's so many
sacrificing opportunities
and for some reason tactical games
always feel like the most beautiful the
most satisfying and that's what i liked
about the king's indian but i also
suffered a lot from this this love
because i would play things that are not
necessarily correct then my attack
wouldn't pan out and i would just
struggle the rest of the game having no
play and just trying to defend so if
you're always a wikipedia also says that
that you're known for your attacking
play
it's also known for losses according to
stanford okay let's not bring see
wikipedia doesn't talk trash
a lot nicer um i actually
played a lot of positional chess in
classic because i really like the slow
squeeze
but when i transition to playing a lot
of online chess it's
almost as if i was looking for more
instant gratification because it feels
so much better to beat someone with an
attack and even if sometimes it doesn't
pan out i was okay with it because you
get so many games in
so i think my style in online chess
really changed for my classical chess
what about you andrea do you have a
style are you attacking are you uh more
like conservative defensive player
are you chaotic opening wise i like to
play more positionally like i like to
push d4 and just slowly improve my
pieces and slowly get an attack but like
alex said if you're playing bullet chess
or blitz against viewers you often like
wanna
play riskier moves that may not be as
good and then that's kind of when i
would play more aggressive but i do
enjoy tournaments for that reason
because then
like once her 15 moves in which as soon
as you're out of your prep i like
sitting and thinking in more positional
um
yeah positional middle games one of the
games you found to be pretty cool is the
uh hakara nakamura versus golf on in
2009. and that one i think includes the
king's indian defense yes um what's
what's why is that an interesting one to
you i also played the king's indian as
black and i loved this model game but
and as alex was saying like all these
advantages for the king's indian but now
there's this one line
that like every higher rated player just
destroys my king's indian and you see
these beautiful games they're like oh
yes i want to play for these ideas but
now no one plays into it anymore and you
just get demolished so this is why i
don't play the kings indeed anymore but
not to ruin the fun right the love hate
relationship truly the reality but
that's like the higher level players do
or does everybody yeah if you're
studying openings and you know this line
as white you just you automatically get
the upper edge and that's kind of how
openings develop you start having
players trying new lines and then you
see ones and then everybody adopts it if
they think it's the best one but yeah so
hikaru is really known for his
aggressive style of play
black hero yeah hikaru is black here so
he's playing the king's indian
and as you can see in this position
white already has a lot a huge center
advantage but what hikaru is going to
start doing even with the next move is
bringing all of his pieces towards the
white king side because his plan is to
start pushing his pawns towards the
white king and this ignore the attacks
that's a great example of a dream attack
with the king's indian so there's a
complete asymmetry towards the king side
on the left side of the board is a ton
of pieces yeah exactly um
wow he moved the night like three times
in a row
and that's wh