StarTalk Radio - Gambits and Game Theory

Episode Date: January 1, 2021

The Queen’s Gambit, game theory, and more – Neil deGrasse Tyson, Gary O’Reilly and Chuck Nice are talkin’ chess with grandmaster Maurice Ashley, A.I. expert Jonathan Schaeffer, and Alexandra Botez, Woman FIDE Master and host of BotezLive. NOTE: StarTalk+ Patrons can watch or listen to this entire episode commercial-free here: https://www.startalkradio.net/show/gambits-and-game-theory/ Photo Credit: Phil Bray/Netflix. Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ on Apple Podcasts to listen to new episodes ad-free and a whole week early.

Welcome to StarTalk, your place in the universe where science and pop culture collide. StarTalk begins right now. This is StarTalk Sports Edition, and today's topic is gambits and game theories. Ooh, gotta love it. And who do I have? Of course, my intrepid co-hosts, Chuck Nice. Chuck? Hey, Neil. All right. Very good. You are not the professional athlete in this group. So we go to Gary O'Reilly for that. That's right. Gary. What's up, buddy? Hi, Neil. How you doing? Now, none of us have any particular competitive expertise in the stuff we're going to talk about today. We're going to talk about game theory.

We're going to talk about 21st century chess. And there's a lot going on there. Is it a sport? Do we bring it into the Olympics? Or are computers beating us? What's going on? So we had to bring in an expert, okay? And so we're bringing in Dr. Jonathan Schaefer.

Jonathan, welcome to StarTalk. Thank you very much. All right. You're a professor in the computing science department at the University of Alberta, Canada. Formerly, you were dean there, but you quickly stepped down, I think wisely, so now you can actually get some work done, right? Is this how that works? Yep. All right. And we have on record here that you created a computer program called Chinook. This is now 25 years ago that became the world champion of American checkers. That's correct.

Okay. Okay, now checkers, you know, but that's not chess, right? As checkers is often disparaged by that comparison. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That guy's playing Chukers, not chess. That's right. That's right. I'm just saying.

But what I like especially is you're also behind the program Polaris. Did I get that right? Great name, by the way. Had to get in good with every astronomer in the room. That plays the Texas Hold'em poker. That's right. So for me, that's even more intriguing. But tell me, what kind of work have you been involved in with AI and game solving?

Well, of course, I'm doing research in AI. And when I was young, I wanted to be the world chess champion. I mean, Bobby Fischer was my role model when I was young, I wanted to be the world chess champion. I mean, Bobby Fischer was my role model when I was young. But a lack of talent and an interest in girls sort of got in the way, and so I turned to AI to realize my dreams. If I couldn't be world champion, I'm going to let my computer program be the world champion. So that led to, you know, building world champion caliber programs in checkers and poker and a variety of other games. And so I'm a very competitive person. When I start one of these projects, we want to win. And I don't let human egos get in the way of trying to build superhuman game playing programs.

Right. So what you're saying is you weren't as good in chess as you wanted to be, as inspired as you were by Bobby Fischer. So you started writing software and code that could beat not only you. That would kick his ass. Could kick your own ass? Basically. That's what he was like. You know, if I can't be the best,

I'm going to make the thing that's going to be the best. And then by proxy, I am the best. I see. Even if he can't be the best. Even if I am the best. Oh, I see. Even if he can't be the best. I am a genius. I'm a genius. I am a genius. Right.

So this is in movies, right? They're saying, well, you want to kick my ass? Wait, first you have to kick my robot's ass, okay? Yeah. Then you've got to get to me. This is how this works. But, you know, Chuck, to your point, one of the most traumatic moments in my life

was working on my chess program. And I'm a chess master. And the day that it finally beat me, I almost cried and cheered with delight. Yeah. Yeah. You know what? I know that feeling. I have it every time I have an argument with my 14-year-old son and lose.

Darth Vader Skywalker moment. Yeah, but it could also be, it's very sort of Pygmalion, right? It's like your creation. Did you fall in love with your program? No comment. That's right. That's a different AI program you're working on. That's the robot girlfriend.

That's the young lady that got him interested in something else. You just asked the chess master that question and you saw his move there, didn't you? So a couple of years back, I had Maurice Ashley, the chess grandmaster, American grandmaster, come to – he visited. I forgot whether he was in town or we nabbed him, or I forgot how we got him into my office. But a chess grandmaster, and I asked him about Bobby Fischer and what it is to get a machine to learn how to play chess. Do you learn the way Bobby Fischer learned, or the other rules?

Let's find out what he said. Grandmaster Maurice Ashley. Was Fischer innovatively brilliant because nobody trained him and he had to figure it all out on his own. So therefore he came out of someplace else because had he been formally trained, everyone would know he learned these moves that way and that. If you come from somewhere else, if you're self-taught, nobody knows how to play you. Is there some of that in there? I think there is some of that in there. Fisher was his own freak.

I mean, he had his own genius. And his main forte, in addition to being immensely gifted, was his work ethic. He studied everything, looked at everything, looked at other languages so that he could read stuff in Russian. He was incredibly gifted at just consuming information. And then him being himself, he would just add his own twist to it. And you have to realize a whole Soviet school was pitted against him. They wanted to destroy this upstart. And they knew it from when he was 14, 15, 16 years old. I mean, this was a star in the firmament

that they spotted and said, that kid can play. And, you know, it doesn't take much. I don't care what country you're from or race you're from, gender, you name it. You start playing chess moves and chess players are like, this person will kick your ass. Watch out. And they knew it from when he was young.

And he was bent on taking them down because he was, he was a perfectionist and he wanted to play against the best. So that drive, that energy was unmatched, was unparalleled. Maybe Kasparov, we could argue, matches that kind of focus, but there's very few players in the history of chess that had that burning desire to simply eviscerate you. And that was Fischer. And he said it. Hecerate you. And that was Fisher. And he said it.

He loves that moment. All these battle terms. That's the game. I will crush and destroy you. I will eviscerate you. That is a war game. It's just pieces on a board. Oh, no.

Oh, no. Oh, this. I got to go. What? This is chess we're talking about. Chess is life. That's a direct quote from Fisher. So, Jonathan, if Bobby Fisher was sort of a perfect learning machine,

today in modern sort of AI models, are they perfect learning machines like Bobby Fisher? Is he some system, some method and operation to follow? Or has AI found even more clever pathways to success? Well, humans are fundamentally different than computers, and they do things very differently. Bobby Fischer was absolutely remarkable. What he did in the span of time that he was on the top of his game is incredible. But what we learned from experience

is that if you feed human knowledge into AIs, they don't play as well as if they can learn on their own. Take a look at... Damn, that's cold. That's just not right. I was going to say, that just makes perfect sense, though. But it does in a way, and if you take a look at the AlphaZero chess program,

it starts off with just the rules of the game. And then it plays against itself. It's a very lonely experience, but it plays against itself millions of times. And it becomes superhuman. And not only is it superhuman, it plays chess in a way that is so different than humans do that we can actually learn from these AIs. The nice thing about these AIs, though, is they don't have an ego. They're not going to make a snide remark when they beat you.

And, well, it's a completely different and humble theory. Wait, Jonathan, you can program the AI to make snide remarks. Wouldn't that be funny? And to trash talk during the game. Actually, in my first chess program, that's exactly what I did. Because, well, there's a competitive spirit behind the facade of an AI researcher. Oh, man, that's so cool. Oh, why didn't you leave that in there?

I want so badly to give somebody, because, you know, these chess programs are immensely popular right now. Yeah. And, you know, they have some of the free versions online where you can get, like, the beginner versions, and I guess that's how they kind of suck you in. They give you the beginner version for free, and then you, like, you play that and then uh you move up but

it would be so great just to have that program saying things like that's all you got or oh no you gotta give him the schwarzenegger terminator voice oh right so now now you gotta up the game and and sort of characterize the voice and have certain movie characters that come in there and just, then you can trash. Oh, wow. Quint of Besson 4, you're going down. You know who you want to do next, don't you?

So, Jonathan, you said it plays millions of games. How quickly can it play a million games against itself? Very quickly. And the reason is because these computers are operating at plays millions of games. How quickly can it play a million games against itself? Very quickly. And the reason is because these computers are operating at the speed of light. You know, the human brain is amazing, but it's incredibly slow. When Bobby Fischer plays chess, he's analyzing roughly two chess positions per second, which is fast for humans, but slow by computers. Take a look at Deep Blue.

We all know who Deep Blue is. Chess program built in 1997, which defeated... By IBM, just to give the credit where it goes. 1997 technology. That's 23 years ago. That program was looking at 200 million chess positions per second compared to Garry Kasparov's two. You know what's amazing? The media doesn't get it right. People are stunned when they say, oh, computers are better than

humans. And I say, well, that's not such an interesting technology story. What's much more interesting is that the humans withstood the technological onslaught of computers for as long as they did. Because when you look at those numbers, the computers have an enormous speed advantage. Well, wait, so computers are better. Well, okay, let me slice it. Let me thread a needle here. Are computers better than us because they're faster than us? Or are they better than us because they are more clever?

Because if they're simply faster, of course they're faster, all right? I'm not going to, you know, take, I'm not going to find the square root of an eight-digit number on my own. Give it to the damn computer, all right? So, so can you tell me that the AI is coming from a whole other place in where it's going? So the AI is two things, as are human chess players. There's search and knowledge. And humans do search very slowly. They only look at two positions at a time.

Computers can go millions of times faster, and that's a huge advantage. Humans make up for the search by knowledge. Garry Kasparov can tell you amazing things about chess. My AI is maybe not so much. And so... Plus, most of those million moves are not interesting, and an expert chess player would never...

Right. That's right. There's a majority of the moves, an overwhelming majority of the moves, that are immaterial. They're ruled out right away. Yeah, but if you're building an AI that's got all these speed advantages,

it costs nothing to look at all these moves. And yeah, 99% of them are bad. But if you don't look at all of them, you might miss something really good. When you talk about pattern recognition and machine learning, as opposed to actual intelligence that human beings possess, which is an actual, the same type of thing, but executed differently. In a chess program, has there ever been the computer that has come up with the innovation? So it's, wow, look at that. Nobody's ever thought of that. That's what Jonathan said. It said they play the game

completely differently as a result of having explored all the parameter space. And they find all these amazing things that humans never even thought of looking at or quite frankly humans overlooked. So we make mistakes. Jonathan, if we've got this powerful

speed freak of AI, could it then go away and bring together or bring forward something like Nash's equilibrium? Or is it just going to deliver in a certain way but not create things like that that will allow to roll out into all sorts of different areas of life?

Wait, what's Nash's equilibrium? Chuck, do we have to explain everything to you? Yeah, absolutely. That's why I'm here. And me. That's exactly why I'm here. And me. That's exactly why I'm here. So you guys can explain everything to me. So what is Nash's equilibrium?

Hold on. More broadly, what role does game theory play? Which is how and when and why you might even find a Nash equilibrium in the middle of it. So there's one type of game. It's called a perfect information game. It's like chess and checkers. At every point in the game, you know exactly what's going on. You know where the pieces are.

You know whose turn it is. You have complete information. There's another kind of game called imperfect information. That's where some of the information is hidden. That's like a game like poker where you know your cards, but you don't know your opponent's cards. John Nash came up with... Oh, by the way, that would include even Bridge

where you're playing with someone but you don't know their cards, even though you're on the same side. Right. Let's stick to poker because I think more people understand the real concept of poker, the fundamental concept, which is bluffing, which is a really important concept in poker.

And what Nash came up with was this brilliant idea that in these imperfect information games, you can get to a point where everybody has a strategy they can follow and everybody breaks even. And if you deviate from that strategy, you're going to lose. And so this Nash equilibrium is something that is quite surprising. John Nash got the Nobel Prize for it. In economics. In economics, that's right. And many of your listeners may recognize John Nash from the amazing movie called A Beautiful Mind, which details his, at times, tragic life.

What's interesting, though, about this Nash equilibrium, since you bring it up, is that people think of poker as being a game of deception and bluffing. And it is. But the reality is that that's a human concept. And the AIs, remember when we talked about chess, they play very differently. They play almost alien-like in terms of how they play chess.

But when it comes to poker, my poker programs have no knowledge of bluffing or deception. It turns out that it all falls out in the mathematics. And so when you take the mathematical area of game theory and the Nash's equilibrium and you use these concepts in your program, you get bluffing and deception for free. And the net result is you get poker playing programs that can, just like in chess, can beat all humans. So you don't need to teach them how to read a tell or a facial micro expression. I mean, listen, because you're playing the percentages at all times.

You're playing the math. It doesn't make a difference. Why do I care what your face looks like if I know that you have a 4% probability of having a particular hand? I'm going to bet that 4% because I have a 96% chance of winning. No, no, that's not it. It's whether there's a 4% chance he had the hand that will beat your hand. Well, that's what I'm saying. No, no.

I want you to have the pan that I will lose, Neil. I'm just clarifying for precision here. Okay, so, wait, wait, I'm very fascinated by this. What you're saying is, this notion that I'm going to read, you know, they're going to wear dark sunglasses so you can't see their eyes,

so they can't see their emotions, so they can't see this. You're saying that AI playing AI will bluff without having to read anybody's body language. That's correct. Yeah. That's so cool. That's amazing.

Not only will they bluff, they'll do it well. The cool thing is if you watch the World Championships of Poker, they have an AI playing along with the game that's being played so that you can actually see all of the mathematical probabilities and percentages of each hand so that you can see how well the actual human players are playing against one another as opposed to the measure of an AI. And I think it makes it, it's the only reason I watch.

So, Jonathan, we got to bring this segment to a close, of an AI. And I think it makes it, it's the only reason I watch. Sure. So Jonathan, we got to bring this segment to a close, but just let's exit with, I got one question. Let's keep this guy. This is fascinating stuff. He's our new best friend.

Exactly. Because you want to win some poker game. That's all you want to do. Actually, I'd like to play chuck and poker i think there's a real opportunity there for me absolutely oh okay jonathan jonathan he just he that was just a that was a smackdown right not really because let me tell you something i would be offended if my poker face wasn't you gonna lose you to lose, you're going to lose. I'm afraid I will just have to use my best Arnold Schwarzenegger takedown and put you in your place.

So are you working on any programs now to beat something in the future that you're going to show up in the news? Right now, no. I'm working on some fundamental problems to do with games, but not to build superhuman game playing programs. Okay, so what I'd like is, you know, we do games, game, the whole gaming universe is rising up in everyone's awareness, especially ours. And so if we can bring you back to talk about other games that show up, that'd be great to have you as our sort of man at arm's reach for when we need expertise on this. How are you at Monopoly? I'm really good at rolling the dice. I've practiced a lot.

All right. All right, so Jonathan, it's been a delight to have you on. We will definitely find an excuse to bring you back since apparently you're our best friend now for this reason. There you go. All right, Jonathan Schaefer, thanks for joining us. Pleasure. And we'll be back.

This is StarTalk Sports Edition Gambits and Game Theory. We'll be right back. StarTalk Sports Edition. Gambits and Game Theory. And in this segment, we're going to focus on chess in the 21st century. In this segment, we're going to focus on chess in the 21st century. You know, chess brings back all these images of, like, old crusty men playing at tables and things.

And I think that that's been changing of late. And so in this segment, I want to sort of broaden this out. But before we do so, let me reintroduce my co-host, Chuck. Nice. Hey. Chuck, what's that shirt you're wearing you got that i kind of recognize it says science is true whether or not you believe in it i i've heard of that quote well you resemble that quote. Yeah, no. So this is a cool new StarTalk shirt that... Okay.

I don't even have one yet. Okay. No, yeah. So... You got on the early list for that. I did. Okay. I got this and I got it along with a vaccine.

So I'm just good now. Oh, he pretended he was 90 years old and stepped ahead of some little old lady. No, but yeah, you can pick these up now. You can order these now, people. Look at that. And it's really cool. I mean, what a cool look. I will put a link in it.

I haven't seen it yet. So that's a, you'll be doing this behind my back. Very cool. Gary. Yes. Always good to have you, man. Thank you, my friend. Okay.

I love your sports sense. So here's with it. None of us play chess, or if we do, we're probably not good at it. No, exactly. So we needed somebody who, we're probably not good at it. Not exactly. We needed somebody who had some street cred in this at all. So we've got somebody who won the Girls Nationals, U.S. Girls Nationals at age 15. Okay.

Currently ranked Women's Fide Master. Okay. That's a title. All right. And your host, she's host of Bo-Tez Live, all right, on Twitch alongside her kid sister, Andrea. And she's a 24-year-old trash-talking chess player and internet influencer, Alexandria Bo-Tez. Alexandria, welcome to Star Talk. Thank you so much for having me. I'm super excited.

Excellent, excellent. I got to ask you the perfunctory questions like, what got you interested in chess? Let's get these out of the way. So give us a short history of your interest in chess. Yeah, so traditionally in the U.S., chess has been seen as a game for nerds. But in Eastern Europe, it's a game for everyone

and my parents came from romania where there was a very heavy chess culture so my dad actually started teaching me when i was six oh okay so this is just that's like here like you go out with your kids and and play ball with them yeah they set you up in front of a chess board man that's badass okay yeah exactly i mean all the kids have to do it it's just kind of a chessboard. Man, that's badass. Okay. Yeah, exactly. I mean, all the kids have to do it. It's just kind of a rite of passage. Wait, wait, but you didn't reject it, so not everyone is going to embrace it. So what's different about you?

She wanted to eat. Oh! Oh, Chuck, there's a window on your parenting skills. I mean, he's not wrong. Okay. Actually, I think it started just because I was super competitive, which I got from my dad.

So he actually wanted to troll my mom, who didn't play very much chess. And he said, I'm going to teach my six-year-old daughter how to play, and I bet she can beat you in two weeks. Oh, the trash talking is in the house. So it's in the blood. I grew up like this. So when I say things, it's not my fault. It's been ingrained since a young age, you know.

All right. So that's your baptism, your chest baptism. Wait, two weeks later, what happened? I beat her with an opening trick. I mean, think of the Terminator coming into chess with like a four-move tactical combination he remembered, and then I just got

lucky, and my dad just will never let my mom forget. So you beat your mother after two weeks? He won the bet. At chess meal. Careful how you phrase that. Let's take a peek at my next clip with Maurice Ashley. Because I asked him, what did it take to make it to the top of the game?

Generally, what is required for this to happen? Let's check it out. You've made a strong case for being possessed in your early days, in your love for chess. Can someone reach international grandmaster just simply by studying but not being completely possessed by it? No. Really? No.

You cannot become an international grandmaster. That means all the international grandmasters, there's something a little different about them. Absolutely. Absolutely. To want to be a grandmaster at chess, I think Malcolm Gladwell talks about 10,000 hours. That's not enough.

I mean, you have to have... You play 10,000 games. Yeah. Forget the 10,000 hours. You have to have the passion. You have to have the will. You have to have... You play 10,000 games. Yeah. Forget the 10,000 hours. You have to have the passion. You have to have the will. You have to have the determination. You have to have the desire to study that much,

to put in that amount of data into your brain. And on top of it, you have to have the thickest skin to tolerate being humiliated over and over on your way to the top. I've seen many talented young players, players where people say, he's got the gift. He's the next Bobby Fischer. He's the next Gareth Sparrow. And you can see that they're excellent players. But the moment they get to a level where they start getting punched in the nose and they can't quite win as easily as they did back in the young days, they suddenly start to feel a little less comfortable. And suddenly the game's not as much fun.

And suddenly they don't want to do it as much. And that struggle to get past that critical point has stopped many a prodigy. I think that happened to my son. Because he beat people easily throughout elementary school, middle school. Bad thing to do. Into high school. And he started beating me when he was 12. And by the time he was 14,

I would take one game out of 30 from him. And then he goes into high school tournaments. And now, like national tournaments. And then you start seeing people his age even younger and it's like oh it's not so easy anymore it's not so you know and and and i think the effort that it actually requires to be the best had eluded him all those previous years and so i think he might have been a casualty in just the way you described. Yes. I don't know that that's what happened to him, but that happens to a lot of

young people. Especially when it comes easy. One of those things, things should not come too easily to you. You're gifted, but you shouldn't feel like, oh, come on, I'm going to beat everyone because it takes so much work. And the thing is, everybody at the top is gifted. Every last one of them is tremendously gifted, no matter which one of those players. Magnus Carlsen happens to be the best of the best of the best, but everyone after him is a freak. And they all have to work really hard, extremely hard to maintain that level because there's some kid who's 16 years old in China right now who everybody's pointing at and saying, he's the next one. And China's got a billion people. And they're knocking on the door and you're sitting at the top like, man, I'm trying to hold on to this title.

I'm trying to be one of the best because as soon as that player comes up, somebody is going to get replaced. Wow. So, Alexandra, are you weirdly obsessed, possessed? And are you thoroughly depressed now after that hearing all that? I am not a grandmaster. I'm a master. Just a master. I know.

Why don't we even talk to her? Get off the show. Why are we wasting our time here, guys? She's just a master. All right, so tell us, what level of weird preoccupying obsession has to descend upon people, or does it? It absolutely does. you have to live and breathe chess there's moments in your life where it's your number one priority and to end

up being a professional chess player is worse than becoming a struggling artist i just feel like it's worse actually i'm sure artists also have it pretty bad but the point is there's not a lot of money in chess unless you're in the top 10 in the world so you're only doing it because of your pure obsession and being competitive for the sake of being the best so you have to have a very strong why to why you play wow so which so just to restate what you just said, you're saying in so many other professions, there's a lot of money awaiting people who are all really good at it. But here, the money is only awaiting the very few. So you're not driven by money. Yeah, exactly.

It's a pure passion sport. Gee, okay. Okay. So, okay, in the words of a soon-to-be former president, why would you do it? I actually think that's the question. And that was one thing that really changed my trajectory. Because when I won girls nationals, I got offered a full ride to be on the chess team at university of Texas. Okay. That's a reason that that is a good reason. Okay. That's a good reason. That is a good reason, but it would also mean that that would be my number one priority. And I realized that if I

wanted to do chess, that's all I could ever do. And for me, that wasn't a compelling why I'm much more passionate about things like making really good content for chess and getting the average person into it, which I think is so beneficial and so inspiring that that's why I switched more to the content side. So you see being more of an ambassador for the game, the sport, the endeavor, whatever anybody's going to call it. We'll get to whether or not it's a sport, I'm sure, at some point. So I don't want to be, I don't want to chime in right there. But is the ambassadorship where your passion is? That's what you feel is? Because I think that that's, you know,

based on what we were listening to with Maurice, I mean, you're talking about an extremely high litmus for anybody to pass in terms of that kind of dedication. There are very few people who have that kind of dedication to anything. Right, that's right. That's right. That's right. If you look at Edison talking about how much he worked. Right.

No one is saying, oh, he's just naturally brilliant. That boy worked his ass off. Right, he worked his ass off. So, Alexandra, what you, so what you're saying is some of your chess energy that might just be purely put into chess, you are also spreading into, as Chuck said, becoming an ambassador for the sport, raising the awareness level just to increase the health of the sport in general. Is that now a priority? That is my biggest priority right now. And I had to have that switch because I know what it's like to be obsessed with chess. And that's what got me to the level that I'm at right now.

But I think it's also extremely fascinating to be able to explain these difficult concepts to people who maybe never would have been into the game otherwise. At all. And what's helping you, of course, is the runaway success of The Queen's Gambit on Netflix. We made time for that, saw it maybe within two days of when it posted, that saw it maybe within two days of when it posted but all anecdotal evidence suggests that i mean from from the sales of of chess boards over the holidays to the chatter that's going on and the membership and the number of total games played that's had a real effect on things i mean the two of you right yeah i mean the queen's gambit success has absolutely bled into all types of chess events and chess content and chess equipment like boards. So it's been super exciting to see.

Wait, wait, Gary, did you hear she used the word bled? That's very warlike. It didn't spill, overflow. No, you bled. Look, we've already heard Maurice Ashley talk about evisceration. Okay. Anyone thinks this is tea and biscuits? Something as simple as I want to sell more chess boards.

We'll bleed into it. This is pretty. Yeah. I mean, all right. We are looking at brutality in the most cerebral form. I didn't want that to go by without somebody other than me noticing. Okay, keep going, Alexander. You won't make me bleed my own blood. Isn't that one of the

wonderful quotes? You got to think of these super passionate chess players. Nobody ever cared about this game when I was growing up. It was nerdy. People made fun of it. And now all of a sudden, it's a number one hit on Netflix. You never have a moment

like this as a chess enthusiast in your entire life so we're just all trying to make the most of it and are so excited to see regular people like this game yeah yeah and i think i think you're right to do it i think you're right to ride this wave because what i hear is Parcheesi is on your heels. You know, once that catch is on, forget about it. That new Netflix show about the Parcheesi champion. Oh, man, I'm intimidated already. So the thing is, Alexandra, you look at your sport and then being 20 something you see it through your natural lens of digital social media how she's a 21st century person right yeah and she's going to look at it and say this thing needs to be electrified i'm gonna in fact let's establish this let's establish this

clearly uh so you're 24 going on 25. I actually turned 25, but... You turned 25. Okay, so what it means is you barely have a memory of the 20th century, if you are a normal human. Because our earliest memories are when we're four, typically if you're really precocious, maybe three. But basically between three and five. So the 20th century is you are all made, branded, made in the 21st century.

So what is that doing to chess? Because I don't want to entirely credit the Queen's Gambit Netflix series for this because you're out there. You've got a huge following. And the fun with you and your sister. You know, I caught some of those. You know, that's just fun just to watch the confusion, right? And it's fun confusion

because there's always an objective there. So you can't tell me you're not a participant on this landscape. Yeah, I mean, it's made me shift how I prioritize what we're doing with chess. Before, it was all about accuracy. It's a game of perfect information. All you're trying to optimize

is for the most accurate play. That's your number one goal. But now with playing online, when you're playing fast games, it's not just about accuracy. It's also about playing trickier things that are hard to calculate in a specific time. And then when you add an audience on top

of that, the number one goal is making it either entertaining or educational, or if you're talented, both. Okay. Let's see what Maurice Ashley had to say, because I asked him about the 21st century chess. And this interview is only a couple of years old, but let's find out what he tells us. I think that chess has definitely married well with the 21st century. It's now a big online game. Everybody goes online and plays. Everybody all over the world. You can just get online and play in these internet chess clubs and chess.com and all these great sites. And you just go on and you play players from all over the world.

And I think that you're right. There is something that's lost in the face-to-face, personal, mano-a-mano, and also just the interaction between people at a board. But at the same time, it also is something enhanced, because the game has gotten much more international. And if I'm a kid in Brooklyn, I could get online and be playing some kid in South Africa, or in Tokyo, or in Australia, just like that.

What's to stop someone getting online? Because there's not a picture of you there. You're just this probably a name handle. What's to stop someone from attaching a computer to the other side

and then you end up playing the computer? Absolutely nothing. Absolutely nothing. The only thing that stops them is their integrity. And if there's a deficit of that, then you're going to be playing

against a computer and that's it. I think there's, I mean, clearly there's some people who do that, but most people are online to have a good time. And you can pretty much very quickly see when someone's playing a little out of their league. And

most people just want to have fun. So very rarely do they cheat. So, Alexandra, what Maurice is not imagining here, because he's saying 21st century, you're exploiting the electronics and the internet and the web. What he's not imagining is turning that activity into a spectator sport, which is what you've done.

Right. I mean, nobody expected that for games either. It seemed a little bit counterintuitive for anybody to enjoy watching somebody else play a game. Play video games, which is huge. Right. And when you think about it, it's kind of similar to sports. Why would you watch sports instead of just play it yourself? Because you're looking at the people who are the best at this particular game, and it's really entertaining, and you learn more from it.

You get inspired and chess is now having a very similar uprising on the internet where all of a sudden people think it's entertaining or educational to watch see that's it you do you emulate your heroes neil you know as as a young boy growing up watching soccer i wanted to be pele i wanted to be the world's greats and emulate them and i think wait did you do the back the backwards bicycle kick into the goal? Yeah, but I missed the ball pretty much every time. You missed the ball? You did the move, you just missed the ball.

Yeah, maybe I wasn't as naturally blessed as I imagined. All I look at when we listen to Alexandra is, you know, chess may be becoming the new rock and roll, but am i looking at the new lead singer here oh wow that's very flattering are you talking about neil oh yeah yeah he needs me to flatter him yeah i mean it's really weird to even think that but yeah i mean i've definitely become one of the most well-known female chess figures. And I think that's what it usually goes like with the intersection of social media and any sport. It's the person who is good at that sport,

but also very good at spreading content and learning how to reach a wide audience. So, so, and that's what I don't think Maurice was imagining as a 21st century manifestation of chess. So, right. So this is interesting. So, Alexandra, you could have birthed an entire stratum of chess enthusiasts where, well, you could be spoiling them because they think this is what chess is. If they get really good and they go to the international contest and there's the Russian across the table,

now they just want to smack talk it and that you're not supposed to do that. That's true, but I actually wonder what the desires of the average person is because anyone can play in an over-the-board tournament and they can enjoy it because they are also going to get matched with people who have a similar ranking to them. But for the hobbyists, now you can enjoy chess just by playing it online so maybe it's going to be a difference where people are playing the most chess ever online before they've even ever played a game that lasts over two hours which is insane to me wow wow okay that's just a difference that's we've been discussing

strategies and nash equilibrium with professor with Dr. Schaefer. And here I'm listening to a chess master whose strategies are very much 21st century. I want to trash talk someone. I'm actually going to illustrate my moves as I play. So there's an educational part of it. There's a time, if you play blitz, that you'll play complicated moves. So as that person has to calculate in a short space of time. This is evil, by the way, just so as everyone knows.

That's how I think about it because I can't play chess. But this is strategy all the same. And Alexandra seems to be working it to her own advantage, most certainly. Well, we've got to take a break, but when we come back, we'll get into her gameplay and just find out. Because, Alexandra, we saved part three for just sort of shoot the shit, right? So I just want to get into what your tactics are and how successful are they and what role you have your sister, your kid sister, playing in all of this.

So we're going to take a quick break. This is StarTalk Sports Edition Gambits and Game Theory. We'll be right back. This is StarTalk Sports Edition. We're talking about gambits and game theory as applied to chess. And I got Chuck. Chuck. Hey. Always there.

Gary. Hey, Neil. You're helping me do this, and we had to bring in someone who had at least some expertise in chess, unlike the three of us, and so we went straight to the internet top, Alexandra Botez. Alexandra, welcome to StarTalk. This is our third segment where we're just unscripted,

just try to learn some stuff, free association. But why is there a particular kind of gambit associated with you in particular? What is that? What? That's called the Botez Gambit. The Botez Gambit. Well, first tell me what a gambit is. Just, what is a gambit?

I will, but for those listening, don't try these at home. Don't try these at home. All right. You can put your eye out. Don't try this at home. Use at your own risk so gambits are usually when you give up some material for some kind of compensation that is along the lines of peace activation so say you give a pawn and even though you're down upon

your pieces are going to be more active so it it usually feels fair. Oh, I see. So sacrificing for an advantage or sacrificing to disadvantage. Yeah. Sometimes you disadvantage yourself. That's what mine does. Okay. So the Botes Gambit is what now? So, you know, it's a little bit embarrassing, but when you play chess that lasts only 60 seconds, you make a lot more mistakes. And what kind of chess is 60 second checks? It's called bullet. So the entire game can't last longer than two minutes. Wow.

So one minute for each of you. Exactly. Right. Okay. All right. Yeah. And I kept blundering my queen, which means giving it away. kept blundering my queen which means giving it away so i joked that it was a gambit and that i would get compensation as a way of kind of trying to overcome what happened and then it just ended up growing from there even though people use it mostly as a joke okay so hey magnus carlson

botez gambited like two weeks ago it happens to everyone that's what I'm saying. You're hiding behind Carlson now, right? Yes, exactly. Wait, so isn't the question, you accidentally gambit your queen, but do you come out on top at the end? It's interesting. I actually played some games where I would give it up on purpose to see what my rating was without a queen against somebody my rating. And it was like a class A player without my queen.

Oh, okay. Yeah, so that was pretty decent. Okay, that's good. That's good. Now, I heard, wasn't there... It's the equivalent of playing with one arm tied behind your back, basically. Okay. Oh, I'd say two arms, because it's your most valuable part.

All you can do is bite them. Exactly. Oh, my God, that's hilarious. So I had my son do some checking on you, and so he dug up a series of games you played where every game your opponent, you played someone better than you, so you introduced some kind of handicap.

So they introduced the botes handicap on your opponent and so if i remember this correctly your opponent had to sacrifice the queen within the first 10 moves of those games did i get that right yeah that that was exactly that's hilarious i know it was so much fun but he actually prepared for it he used a computer to find the best lines to sacrifice your queen so that they're actually things that he could play and win it was fantastic wow do you take that as a compliment that someone that someone goes to that length to just say right okay well actually it's just a competitive chess player in him he wanted to win the match so whatever it

takes yeah plus it's that that's just got to be fun to watch, right? And just to follow it, and you cheer on. And I bet people, I mean, are there many chess trolls out there, or is it all just in good fun? I think there's a lot of chess trolls. I mean, when you look at the chess.com chat room, I love chess.com, but it reminds me a little bit of what you'd find in, like, an online dungeon or something.

Oh, okay. Wow. Oh. Whoa. I love it. Please don't drop me chess.com. We got your back. We got your back.

You're not leaving the comments. You're just reporting on them. Exactly. Exactly. So what did you major in in college? You're just reporting on them. Exactly, exactly. So what did you major in in college?

I studied international relations with a focus on East Asia because I wanted to do U.S.-China policy. Wow, look at you. Okay. Going all Condoleezza Rice on us. Yeah, she actually gave me my diploma. Oh, wow. Because she's ex-Stanford, right? She's ex-Stanford, yeah.

Oh, she's back. They took her back. She was international relations as well. Did you see how Oh, she's back. They took her back. She was in international relations as well. Did you see how I said that? I said they took her back. Do you play Go? I've never played Go. I'm worried that if I try another strategic game,

I'll get addicted and then I won't get better at chess. I mean, you've got a handful of devious strategies. Well, I say that. More than a handful, I'm sure, for chess. I dare say you'll create something for a game like Go. I mean, most of my devious strategies come within the frame of timed games. So if it's a one-minute game, I do come up with a lot of tricks because it's almost as if there's some luck involved.

You can guess that your opponent might make a mistake just because they don't have time. Right. Oh, interesting. So, okay, so you should now publish a book called, you know, the book of Botez tricks, right? I could. And I think I would make a lot of people upset on the internet

because people get really upset when you dirty flag them. Okay, what is a dirty flag? It means when you make your opponent run out of time in a position they're completely winning. Oh, okay, okay. So if it's a timed event, who cares? You win. That's what I say. I said it's within the rules.

I'm not doing anything wrong. You went four corners on them. They're like, you can't do that. You can't go four corners on them. They're like, you can't do that. You can't go four corners on them. Okay, so how much, I have to ask, just because that is what we do here. Other than your chess geek underbelly, did you have any other geekiness? Were you a Star Wars or, you know,

did you like physics or math? Anything like total card carrying geek? I was always just really nerdy. I loved school so much because school was like a game. You know what your why is. Your why is do the best in school because it helps your life. So I would go and study by myself. I mean, I came from a really poor middle school. My family were immigrants, so we didn't have a lot of resources. So I spent all of my free time just studying for the classes that I was taking. Wow. Okay. So there are kids right now watching this going, God, I hate this woman.

And they're watching saying, that's exactly right. That's how you break the code. That's how you work. You've got a big gig now. Have you just signed with Envy Gaming? Yes, yes. We just signed with Envy. I mean, congratulations. Wait, is you and your sister?

Yes, me and my sister. Absolutely. Yeah. Can you explain, I mean, not the finances, but how all of that is going to pan out? Because this is esports, legit. Are you going to be doing esports chess? Or is it going to be competitive chess as watched on the internet?

Here's what I think it should be, and then you answer. I'm thinking they should let you do whatever the hell you want. It just now has a more visible platform. Because they're only interested in you because of you doing whatever the hell you want. It just now has a more visible platform because they're only interested in you because of you doing what you wanted to do. Well, that would be smart. And then you lead the entire creative presence on the internet.

So what's going down? That's actually exactly what they want to do. So they're already esports champions. They've won so many titles in different games. And now what they want to do is they want to help make the content even better. So we have a ton of tournaments, chess-related tournaments that are really good and entertaining for the average person. And they're going to help with the production, with getting it out to media, with helping our ideas come to life.

Right, because they've got the resources to do that. So are you going to take this bullet chess and feature that? Because I want to be honest, of everything that we talked about today, I mean, you're talking about a 1,500-year-old game that has seen a resurgence. I have never heard of this bullet chess. Wait, that's only one of three or four fast chess words what are the others what are the others um it's bullet and blitz blitz is over is usually five minutes or three minutes and there's also rapid which is usually 15 minutes well that and regular chess

is what and regular regular chess is an hour and a half with 30 seconds per move, and you usually get 40 minutes or 30 minutes after the 40th move. So it could last like six hours. Yeah, that's not what we're talking about. That's not what they're buying from you. This is the TikTok age. We can't launch more than 12 seconds. Yeah, we're not talking about that. But I'm just telling you right now,

this whole idea of a game lasting two minutes is, I mean, I think you want to talk about something that's compelling to watch on screen. That's an amazing place to be. Think about it, Chuck. Think about the landscape for esports right now. Our drone racing league guys, our friends at the drone racing league, those races last just over a minute, 10 seconds. So everything is snappy. Everything is really pacey.

So this is a good thing. We interviewed a leading drone racing champion. That's a whole other esport thing because it's all electronically controlled. We only have a couple of minutes left. Alexandra, have you thought of playing quantum chess? That's why I asked you how much physics geek is in you,

because quantum chess sounds like if you get bored with chess and you want to take it up a notch. I actually watched videos on quantum chess, and I played 5D chess. The thing is, these variants are so hard to do well, but they're very, very interesting. What is 5D chess? 5D chess is basically you have

five planes of chess, so you have to make sure you're checkmating the person in all of the different planes, if I explain that correctly. Wow, okay. Well, that's two dimensions higher than 3D chess, I guess. How about the Star Wars chess? Have you ever

played that, where your monster kills another monster. Oh, I saw that. That was in that holographic thing. Oh, I have to check it out. My dad actually told me if I didn't watch Star Wars as a kid, I wasn't his kid. So... Yeah, his highlight of the week is watching Mandalorian and sharing to my mom what Baby Yoda did. Oh, wow.

Okay. All right. So that's going on. Your dad's a good man. It's in the blood. Yeah. That's a good did. Oh, wow. Okay. All right. So that's going on. Your dad's a good man. It's in the blood. Yeah. Your dad's a good man. That's a good man.

So you played 5D. I have a crack team of researchers that said you played 5D chess after three beers. Well, yes. That was not the best preparation for the game I had in mind. Guess, guess. Okay. So it's 3B, 5D. That's what that is. Exactly, yes. Okay. So it's 3B, 5D. That's what that is.

Exactly, exactly. So did The Queen's Gambit on Netflix, did that influence you at all? And were you like me when I see a sci-fi movie and I say, oh, that couldn't happen or that's not right or they didn't do that right? I think they had some good researchers on this, but how would you say overall they captured the reality of chess? This was the best depiction of chess on a screen ever. Whoa.

It is. Okay. That's the one-liner. And it's not just me who thinks this. It's everyone in the chess community from what I've heard so far. So this was just fantastic for that. But it was also super entertaining on top of being accurate. What more could you want?

Right. Yeah. Right. And the lead actress in that, she's got those creepy eyes. And I found out she was in horror movies before this one. And you look at her eyes, it's like, yeah, put that woman in a horror movie.

Because she... Neal! That's what she was! He's right. He's absolutely right. She's got the stare. It's like you... Well, it's a great intensity for Ch right. I didn't mean, she's got this stare. It's like you, you know. Yeah, it is. Well, it's a great intensity for chess. Yeah.

I actually watched her interview. She did an interview with Judith Polgar, the greatest woman to ever play chess. She was ranked number seven, so she was the only to ever break top 10 in the world. And that was the only part of the show that I would say was inaccurate. Inaccurate.

Yeah, and it was basically, I like that they didn't make it about being a female in chess. I remember thinking that exactly. Once they got past the registration scene, which was very interesting. Yeah. It was just, here's someone who wants to win. Right. Right. But for example, if you would have thought in that timeframe, if you're actually a female chess player, the first female to ever qualify for the candidates, which the winner of competes for the world championship was denied being able to play because she was female. So if this was realistic, then, you know,

Beth Armand would have actually faced a lot more sexism. But what I loved about it is it shows you what it would be like to play chess if there was no sexism involved. And that is so inspiring so inspiring right and so that becomes the standard of how we all and plus all the people who were sort of trash talking her for being female became her close friends later on right and wanted to help her and she got better than all of them so this if you haven't seen the scene i highly recommend it um well alexandra it's been a delight to have you on, and we're going to keep following your career, you and that of your sister. And good luck with your new sports contract. Yeah.

And maybe one day we'll find competitive chess in the Olympics. No. We have an Olympiad right now, so that's already pretty cool. But thank you so much for having me. This was a must-see pleasure. Yes, excellent. Excellent, guys. Okay.

And Chuck, always good to have you always a pleasure and you're tweeting at chuck nice comic gary you're still tweeting at my three left feet you're my three left feet and i don't know what the hell that means and alexandra just tell us where to find you on twitch botes live b-o-t-e-Z-L-I-V-E. BotezLive. And do you tweet? Yes, Alexandra V. Botez. And Instagram? Miss Botez. I wish I could have had all the same names, but they were taken.

So, Alexandra, thanks for all those handles. We can find everybody here on the internet and do so. You've been watching, possibly just listening, to StarTalk Sports Edition, Gambits and Game Theory. I'm Neil deGrasse Tyson, as always, bidding you to keep looking up.