The Yard - Ep. 95 - We Forced This Chess Master To Answer This Question... (Ft. GothamChess)

Episode Date: May 10, 2023

This week, the boys are joined by GothamChess! The boys discuss how it feels to be beaten by a 10-year-old in chess, GothamChess playing chess while getting an MRI, and how GothamChess got into trouble with an entire country...

Yeah, now we're going. Now we're going. You know what they call that in chess? They call it the start of the game. Start of the game? Why would we talk about chess? No one cares about the game, dead game. Wait, what?

Oh, is that Zipper? He's just chatting. Zipper's just having a chat. Zipper's socializing, you freaking know. I'm not used to Zipper talking to anyone but the demons. No, this is gonna all be good. Hey! Why are you just loving to say good morning? Oh!

Yes! Your coffee, my liege? AAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY Well, you were saying dead game? Yeah, you were saying dead game. What were you going to say? It solved. It solved. He says it solved, and I trust him. Even though I'm mad at him. Who's playing, though? Who's playing? Who's playing when it's solved?

Deep Blue. Me? In 1996. Wrong year. Wrong year. Yeah, I could probably beat Deep Blue. Really? No.

But it is solved. We just finished the Computer Chess Championship, like 24th edition or whatever. What is that? It's like the best thing for nerds that like to watch bots play. It's like BattleBots, but chess, like the best bots. I do the same thing when I spectate your Valorant games.

I'm a bot? Who's the bot? You're the bot, bro. Bro said, Computer Chess Championship, and he said, what's that? He didn't even

give a description. Okay, okay, okay. Do the bots play each other? How is that interesting? Well, you're right that chess is solved, so if you just let bots play from the beginning,

it's always going to be a draw. Nobody's going to win. Okay. So what they do is they they make them start from certain openings like dutch or you know tell me that's how you find the best opening no what opening sucks that the bots did we learn anything is this candy bad yeah like if they play a certain opening they'll each win with white love you can just tell me the openings like i know this i i don't know them off the top of my head. I mean, they let them play like some, I don't know, some bad line. Dude, London is good. London.

You saw World Championship? First time ever, London got played. There we go. And he won. And he won. And he won the whole thing. Ding. Shout out Ding.

What about, I was playing Magenta opening, and then there was this one guy I remember. Talking about Blue's Clues characters. He was playing Albania. And I was like, no one's used Albania. It literally says 1500. No one's used Albania. And then they brought out paprika. That's 1500?

Huh? You're 1500? No, I'm saying 1500 the year. People were using Albania opening. I was like, damn. Going around, we are looking at what is probably a 600. All right. 1800. Wait, back up one. 600. We are looking at what is probably a 600 all right? 1800

600 okay, and you said I put him at like 25 okay? You said you're a hundred you're 200 To know he would love to know you at 145 That's what I mentioned. I'm tiny Look like you got more muscle go for volume He's like 15 16 yeah 1500 mm-hmm. He's like the champ of the group 18. I tell you buddy. He's not a Teen I beat saddush. He did be sorry. Oh, yeah, 18. What did I tell you, buddy? He's not 18. He's just not 18. I beat Sardosh.

He did beat Sardosh. That's a blame. And ethically, you beat him. You're the better freshman. Ludwig taught me how to play chess. Did he really? Yeah, I had never played a game of chess. And then during the pandemic, when PogChamps happened, he did PogChamps.

And I was like, I want to try chess. Tell me how to play. And he showed me chess.com. Was that how it all started for you? What? to try chess tell me how to play and he showed me chess.com was that how it all started for you like that was your first foray into being famous and then you just kind of like got red hot from there yeah my first foray into chess my first it was it was uh there was like a a laddering effect so the first thing was twitch jeopardy okay which is like a show i did with CallMeCarson, rest in peace, Jay Schlatt and others, and that got like a bunch of views on YouTube. And then my livestream started getting thousands of views,

and then PogChamps, and then I started getting like almost 10,000, and then Among Us came right after. And we got it, look, chess is doing great. It's bigger than it's ever been. Solved. Not even close to the peak of Among Us. You can't solve Among Us, that's the beauty of it. Among Us is the peak of among us you can't solve among us that's the beauty of it because it's among us is the go of social games okay go is more solved than chess go is not more

solved less solved what are you talking about they're not even close to solve they just beat the human right i i can't speak about god you're right i don't know they just replayed go they beat the human no i tried once and it was way too hard I'm a fucking nasty checkers player though All move the same it's a parabola weirdly enough checkers also not solved yeah, not soft Yeah, by the way. I hate when people say it's solved as a way to like Refute playing the game cuz shit connect for solved I would dust you you does make a name or bad I can I can learn connect four in five minutes and we would draw every time you would never you would never do it you know you would never he would

learn in five minutes you play like the outside and then win one in you and you would talk about you would talk about how like oh do I just play different bro like you don't even know what I'm gonna do next bro No, let me out how good are you in connect for ah you have one on set I was on the songs thing and they asked me Like what do you nerd out for and I don't really have an answer. I don't really nerd out for much. But I told them. Bro, you play chess.

Yeah, well, besides that. It was like, besides that, like, what do you nerd out for? And I don't know. I thought of the fact that when I was a kid, I could look at a taillight of a car and just tell you the model. Oh, me too. What I failed to realize is they have like asap access to google chrome so the producer pulled up like the most obscure taillight and it was a tesla and i thought it was a subaru then i was like google subaru legacy it was the same shit i felt like exonerated

now i'm scared because if i say like you know i try to hype myself up you could pull out a connect four and i'm gonna get yeah we're all gotcha at the end of the day we want and our next question is what's your favorite slur let's jump into it um yeah they didn't do that one in the wired interview you nerd out for um boxing combat sports yeah I'll watch your recaps and it'll be like yeah ding nepo kind of like when Sebastian Janikowski beat the shit out I don't watch so I have no idea any names You name drop that so smoothly. He's a kicker in the NFL. Wait, Janikowski Is he the Raiders guy? Former. With the big fucking leg. Big leg, big head. Was he in the Super Bowl? He- That sounds really familiar. He might have made it. He's an old ass- dude he would kick like this And everyone was- it was just like a pendulum. I only know about this because it's so weird

It's different you forced a connection into my brain I realized that Danny from chess comm is is chess is Dana white Really? He's Bob I mean he's gotta start getting into like beefs. He's got to start, you know, telling, you know, other. The thing is, we don't have like a Bellator in chess, right? Like we don't have like another promotion. We don't have an Oscar De La Hoya from boxing taking shots. Can you imagine Danny Wrench shaving his whole head,

getting on an interview and being like, he was coked out of his mind. He just needs that fight to do more cocaine. Like, you know, Danny. Danny dresses up as a pawn chess. Can you look up Danny Wrench? I don't know why he's needs that fight to do more cocaine like yeah no danny uh danny dresses up as a pawn chess can you look up danny wrench i don't know why he's doing that man like danny's great danny's actually the reason that i started doing short form content really intensely yeah dude by the way you have been crushing it i did my research before i came here no no no no no no no no no you are the one i'm gonna have to compliment you are the one creator who has found a way to succeed in shorts in variety content. It's like the Strong Hook.

That can't be true. What if there is a Rey Mysterio in chess? Well, hold on, let me just finish commenting on that. I thought that was good for sure. He's got like 5 million views a short. I thought I was crushing him. You are crushing it. You're also pumping out at a rate. Let's just jerk each other off for the whole time.

Chess with a gun. I mean, I got like three, but it's all like it's not me. Dude, I did a short the other day about this story from when I was young. My cousin used to terrorize me. He's 10 years older than me. He's sweet now. We have

a great relationship. But when he came over from France, he's like classic French guy. Like they grew weed in their backyard. He was a klepto. He used to steal thousands of dollars in grocery stores. Hold on. Is this the most racist thing you've ever said? Do typical French people grow weed in their yard?

And steal? I guess what I mean is like a hoodlum, like a French hoodlum, like a fucking... Yeah, that's different than your average French person. Yeah, you said classic French guy, like they're all like scum people. I more so make classic French guy because he smoked cigarettes and he didn't wear deodorant.

And then outside of that context, he was like a very rebellious teenager and... I see. So classic French guy, comma. Yes. I don't know a single French guy. I mean, I watched Emily in Paris, so I

just assumed that everybody's like that. They're all pussies, comparatively. In the show? In the show. French people in real life are not pussies. Unless an army's coming. Yeah. Take whatever you want. Unless an army's coming. Yeah. Okay. Take whatever you want.

His French accent needs work. No, it's perfect. So that's my cousin. His name's Joe. How is he? What's his actual name? It's Joe Jablomi. No, but like, come on.

Jablomi. Yeah, my name is Joseph Jablomi. Joe Jablomi. His name's Joe. Je blomme. Yeah, my name is Joseph Je blomme. Joe Je blomme. His name's Joe. That's real. And he came over to America once. Like, his parents got him a ticket. It was him and his brother.

They come over and they start just wreaking havoc. Like, one night, they're just, we have like a, like this, like pool room, indoor pool. They just punch a hole in it. So in one of the doors to the pool room. No reason. In New Hampshire? Just, yeah, New Hampshire. Oh, we've been there. You gotta check if it's hole proof, right? You gotta punch a hole in it. So in one of the doors to the pool room. No reason in New Hampshire Just yeah, we've been there Right you gotta see you smoked these guys are 16 and like 14

They would like pick up the butts in the garage and smoke refries. We call those. Yeah. Yeah, that's what they call them, too Chess is a soft game They super soft they took a shit in the bathtub. What? These guys are based as hell. They sound really sick. For fun or they had a problem? Definitely for fun.

They just pulled out. They took a shit in the bathtub. Maybe they had to remove it. In a bathtub it's just easy mode sh, did you take a shit in the bathtub? It's just easy mode shitting. They took a shit in the bathtub. They called my mom. They were like, Paola, onna un proben. Paola, onna un proben.

I put the milk in the bathtub. Yeah, and then my mom ran up and she's like, What? And then they were like, Oh no. Oh my god. And then... She looked at it and said, it has a peanut in it. Disgusting.

Two things. Hold up. They both took shits? One shit. Okay. One shit. One shit. One shit.

Because I'm trying to understand what was just this. Are they both in the bathroom at the same time? Certainly. Imagine back to back. Gumball to Gumball. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, they confused their shits

by going back to back. And then the two things they did to me I'm six at this time in my life I'm a young lad For one, they drew a bath for me This is, I believe, pre-shit bath They drew a bath for me They did it on the hottest

I got bad news for you They did it on the hottest water setting And then they just made it scalding hot And then they're like get in They tried to kill you And then I got in and I like burned me And then the other thing is they handed me a white M&M No Like did you it's a special M&M for you

and I was like I'm six and I'm like ooh M&M's pogchamp I was ahead of my time and then they were like we have many mouths this game and so I take the M&M and I eat it.

And it's a little funny tasting, Levy. It tastes a little funny. It was whiteout. Remember those days? Whiteout? Whiteout in the school notebook? No, no, no. Do you know how M&Ms have a color coding?

Yeah. Well, it's actually something that can melt off. If you put it in your mouth for a few moments, it goes away. Okay. Or if you do what they did and you put it between your butt cheeks, it's actually something that can melt off. If you put it in your mouth for a few moments, it goes away. Okay. Or if you do what they did and you put it between your butt cheeks, it goes away. And that's what they fed me. Dude. Oh, I thought you were going to say they like nutted on it.

Okay, that's like my... Oh, God. I didn't know. Oh, my God. That unfortunately is an American thing. I think that would still make the pedophiles. Yeah, that's... Like, hey, look at this normal M&M.

I probably just melted it in their butt cheeks. So anyway I made a short about this. I made a little story. Oh really? I uploaded it today and the comments are like, alright I'll watch one short before bed and it's like the short? Oh my god. Didn't your sister also trick you into doing this?

No. Or with them or something? Oh no. Didn't your sister give you a better doing this? Or with them or something? No, no Did your sister give you a burger then? I remember The first time we met Or the first time I met Ludwig's sister Was at Friendsgiving like three years ago now And we were all sitting around the dinner table

And you got up to leave And we like jokingly asked her What are embarrassing stories from Ludwig's childhood? And she told us about's childhood and she told she told us about this story but she told it from the perspective of like being part of the cabal that was tricking you into slapping fives and doing kickflips afterwards with i don't think she's part of this cabal i think she was a terrorizer back in her day as an older sibling is yeah as you have has the right to be that's what I say as the oldest sibling.

You have siblings? Well, my parents really hated each other. Okay. And they separated when I was like three. So I was raised, I had a fun family situation. Like normally one of your parents steals you away from the other when they like go to divorce court. So my parents somehow got a 50-50 and my grandparents were like the DMZ.

So my grandma's house would be where I would like spend half the week going to school in that town. My mom would be there on the weekend and then like the other half would be with my dad and then they would split the weekend. So like there was families being started on both sides. So I have like I'm much closer with my mom's side of the family so my little brother is turning 16 in june he's 15 he's like 6'2 have you met a teenager by the way they're like enormous teenagers are big now yeah he's like 6'1 6'2 i'm like if you can't get a job bodyguard you know like if i have answer yeah yeah i need some security i'm 27 well okay

on your way out yeah you guys are the same age he's sun setting would you say you're on your way out would you say your career is coming to

a close like Ludwig you're sun setting I'm not sun setting he's in denial he's in the denial I've used it every last month it's kind of like

yeah because you made one short you got our young gentleman, young fly gentleman friend to compliment you. He got a weed shirt on. No, he got a weed shirt on. It's a pog shirt.

You're not looking good. About weed. You're inflating the view economy. He's sun setting. You're not sun setting. Also, I want to say something. Привет.

Привет. Yeah. That's the only word I know. Why do you speak Russian? You can speak Russian on a podcast. Привет. Привет. He said this is a shit podcast. That's the only way I know. Why do you speak Russian? You can speak Russian on podcasting. Ah, hello, hello. He said this is a shit podcast.

No, I said we can only speak Russian on this podcast. It's always a big surprise to people when I start rambling in Russian. Even though I'm very open about the fact that my whole family is basically from former Soviet Union. I would more surprise you at 27. Why? The Russian thing checks out. Do I feel old? I thought you were his age. How old are you? Soviet Union, but I was more surprised you're 27 why the Russian thing checks out His age oh you don't want to know he does insulting Taken that lightly that was mean he's 30 this is an old game. You know I mean it's like so

Except for like the 11 year old toyear-old who are grandmasters. You play chess every day. Yeah, but I'm, like, an old soul. Yeah. And he's been aging a lot since he started playing. He listens to, like, old-ass music. Yeah, I listen to, like, the blues.

I mean, I'm kind of an old soul. I've been out to L.A. a few times, and, you know, we went to the after-party of the Streamer Awards with my wife. It was our first... Like, we'd been to L.A.

probably two or three times total, and, like, we show up, and then five minutes later, like, the party's over but even like when we were there we were kind of like it's so loud and a few people would come up and just kind of be like yo man and i'm like i can't hear shit like i'm screaming so i don't know i i probably am also an old soul geniuses two geniuses that hate socializing look at this guy see he knows what i'm about to say because because aiden does this thing when he's talking to someone at a party and the

music gets turned up. He's like, yeah, so I really and the music turns up and he's like and he just stops talking and starts dancing. It's like what kind of human are you? That's what Sims do. I know, it is like Sims. I'm talking about how You are what makes me believe we're in a simulation.

I'm saying, bro. Because whoever's controlling you has ADHD. I don't want to get it. I don't want to get it. We pissed him off before the podcast, too, so he's all around. I'm mad at you, Ian. I'm mad at you, too. I got here a minute before start time, so I'm exonerated.

No one usually comes while we warm up. It's usually private time. It was called a Ludwig's literally always fucking late every single day of his life. It rained in LA today and that made it tough. You made the travel a thousand times. Tougher with rain. It didn't rain that much.

If only there was an app that estimated that told you the traffic and estimated the amount of time. If only there was an app that told you if there was an accident on the way and they gave you The estimated amount of time If the accident happens

While you're driving What do you think happens? Do you think that's what happened? Yeah I know that's what happened You literally haven't been on time I think for 44 years Is that what happens every week?

Can I actually open up a dialogue? No you're going to appeal To our emotional sensibilities I don't want to hear it No I wasn't going to talk to you I was going to talk to you I have a real question About chess What we were talking about earlier I was going to talk to you. I have a real question about chess,

what we were talking about earlier. I was curious about the bot world championship because not all bots are created equal, presumably. And like some bots will continue to be better. Yeah. Doesn't one win out or do they still draw the top level? So now there's like random groups of people around the world that are programming bots and they have different names.

Stockfish is still the best bot. I think it's a team of Norwegian dudes. Of course, it's like we got Norwegian Magnus, we got Norwegian team of developers. But yeah, there's like, I don't know, 15, 20 bots. They all compete. It's because they have Odin on their side. That's not... What's that?

He's the god. The god Odin. He's the god Odin. The old father. You know what Nebula is? He's been watching a lot of Nein. The god Odin. The old father. He's been watching Nebulas. He's been watching a lot of Nebulas. They don't have religious stuff on Nebulas. Also, there's... They have Odin on their side. Do you think it's just Norway?

Tell them they don't have Odin. They don't have Odin. Wow. I have a real... Ragnarok happened. I have a real chess question. Uh-huh. Alright, so historically, you grow up and when people make jokes, like when someone

wants to call you a nerd. Yeah. They're like, what are you, like a nerd yeah like what are you like a chess nerd nerd player chess nerd and all of a sudden all everyone who plays chess is really cool yeah they blew up kind of in my my perception of things is that it kind of blew up online there's like chess influencers now people who go from playing to being influencers people who start as influencers what is like your whole feeling on that movement into like oh shit this thing that i've been doing probably probably your whole life or a majority of your life that for a long time was considered not cool is now randomly cool and what has that been like yeah i mean if i'll try

to give you like the two minute answer uh so what happened with chess is obviously 2020. We have World Shutting Down, first edition of PogChamps, Hikaru streaming a lot on Twitch. And around that time, I was locked inside. I was teaching chess. So I graduated college 2017. I had like a stats degree. I was like, I would say in chess, but you didn't. Do you really think that's a good move?

Let's stop for a moment. Do you really think that? In Soviet Russia it was. I was trying to do like a whole like monologue and you know like show some short content we're cutting we're cutting the short from up right now

yeah oh shit sorry you're short from God go on no look um so I was

I graduated 2017 I had like the stats degree and so what I was doing then is I was teaching one-on-one lessons in New York City like to five and six year olds I was

I had like a little after school program I was 19 20 years old so I basically cut the last two years of college. Uh, and I just tried to teach chess. That's a really good career. You can make six figures in cash being a chess teacher in New York City, even before the boom. Wow. You just have to work like, you know, 12 PM to 5 PM. Like you have weird hours because after school stuff, um, I my taxes irs you can go back and look you also have to be good at chess no you don't you you could make six figures because you're good enough to teach total beginners i can could i make you can make six figures because you're good enough to

teach absolute beginners can you manage a classroom of 10 people of course let's do the math let's do the math 10 kids sign up for an after-school semester they each pay 600 bucks they're all very cool they're like complete beginner kids. They're like third graders. Yes. Six grand for that one class. You show up to like 12 classes. All right. You get paid a hundred bucks for each of those sessions. That's $1,200. Six K minus 1200, 4,800 bucks. The house takes 4,800. Imagine you run that program. Imagine you run the chess camp. Five days during presidential break. Whatever, like presidential weekend.

We could actually camp. Would you? 12 kids show up. Small camp. You need one helper. 12 kids show up. They pay $600 for the camp. Five days a week. Full time. That's $7,200. So a chess teacher on a week off from school can

make six grand in a week you know many people would kill to make six grand in a week a lot of people would kill like that's a lot of money so and you can report half of that if you like want to be a total scumbag and even if you report the whole thing all right it's all like it's all cash you can report none of it well i'm sure some people do i was too scared all right we don't report no no we report we don't report i'm in new york i'm me and. We don't report. No, no, we report. We don't report shit. Dude, I'm in New York. Me and Lovey don't report shit. You live in a state with the highest- You're not getting shit from us! You have the highest effective tax rate here, dude.

Like, I'm trying to get out of New York. I'm like, man, LA is great. I gotta pay 53% if I live here. This shit is crazy. We know his tax bracket. Yeah. Oh. That's dope.

Progressive. Make six figures. Make six figures. Make six figures. No fucking trade. Make six figures teaching chess. What do you think is the line? What elo do you have to hit to hit to unlock this hidden method?

Dude, there's a chess company called Chess at Three whose entire business model is story-based chess lessons, like the king and the queen and the castle, and they teach kids before three years old. Their instructors are 500 ELO. We're extracting wealth from the rich doing this, right? Yes, yes. This is families with disposable income. I have taught, like, heirs of billionaire, you know, families.

And they're completely normal people. Okay, wait, wait. I used to teach this kid on the Upper East Side in a group. This kid was like, worst behaved kid I ever taught. And probably for good reason. He got picked up in a bulletproof Mercedes. Like, his family had to drive in a bulletproof car. That's so fucking cool.

Teaching chess in New York is you could make a series out of it. There's like the heads of chess programs in New York all battling for position. I once stepped on toes. I tried to invite a kid to a camp. I didn't know he belonged to like an instructor. I got it. You know, the next time I showed up to a tournament, they like. So this was, I was going to be rising up the ranks of the hunger games of the New York city school system.

Then 2020 hit. And I mean, can you imagine how depressing it is to teach a six-year-old the London on a zoom call after he already did eight hours of school? He doesn't give a fuck. He's like, Oh my God, why am I doing this? Is like, so I started doing YouTube and I'm mid 2020 to like mid 2021. So a year I made two YouTube videos every day. There was Queen's Gambit, Anal Beats cheating scandal. Wow. That was hot. And then now.

You're talking about events that have happened in the chess world that made. Yeah. So Queen's Gambit. Got it. These were in normal history. I thought those were just positions. There was Queen's Gambit. So I had a video. Have you met Queen's Gambit, so I had a video.

Have you met Queen's Gambit yet? What does that mean? What does that, what? What are you saying? The queen in the Gambit movie. Talk less. You haven't met her. I was trying to follow, I did not know what to respond to.

I was trying my best. It's yes or no. Privyet or no? No. Okay. I have not met the Queen's Gambit. Me neither. the entity. She's so pretty.

You mean Anya Taylor-Joy? Yeah. Like the actress. Yeah, that's what you're talking about. He does mean that. Oh. No, no, I haven't met. No.

Ah, she's so pretty. She did one collab with someone in the chess world. I think she wanted to forget that ever happened. Like she never spoke about it. She hates that shit. But she got a bunch of roles. She got like, I was watching Chef. You guys seen Chef? Chef?

No. The menu? The menu, yeah. She got Princess Peach. Is it Chef? Chef's the other movie, right? Chef's the one with Jon Favreau. Yeah, that one I watched.

Also in a movie called Chef? No, but she was in the menu and I was like, she's everywhere now. She was in a Peaky Blinders last two seasons. I'm like, what? Although I think that came out

probably before Queen's Gambit. Anyway, we have, it's like a slow descent, slow burn. Queen's Gambit, like late 2020 until mid-2022. We had two years of the Queen's Gambit hype. Podchamps 3 was a hit. All the biggest celebrities played. Yep. How'd you do in that one?

What's that? How'd you do in that one? How did I do for me? Didn't you say Dwight? Didn't Dwight smoke your dumb pussy ass? Who's Dwight? From the office. I beat him.

Oh, let's go! I thought he lit your shit up. He smoked you. He smoked you in spirit, cause that's how we remember. I thought Dwight pulled up with the young Uzi. He smoked you and then he said it's a song. Yeah, you're smoking blood. And he said me and Jin are gonna go you get drunk on it. Yeah, you were smoking blood pack.

And then he said me and Jin are gonna go hang out. His name's not Dwight. It's Rainbolt. Rainbolt. Ohhhhh. I don't remember if we played. That's funny. I also don't remember. I'm trying to remember. No, yeah, I remember because I... no, you played Logic.

Yeah. I like Logic. I asked you. The two most cerebral rappers in the world. I love you. That pogch two most cerebral rappers in the world. That pogchamp is actually my dream blunt rotation. I know. It actually was. What's your rotation? We got Rainbow.

We got Logic. We got myself. X, Charlie. We got X, Charlie, Sardoche. He's lighting up French joints. Hey, everyone. I have Ryan Reynolds tied up in the back of my car. Not a joke.

Not for the podcast. It's for real, actually. I really have Ryan Reynolds in the back of my car Not a joke, not for the podcast It's for real actually I really have Ryan Reynolds in the back of my car tied up And he is running out of oxygen And he will die soon You know he doesn't own it anymore? He doesn't own Mint Mobile? He sold it for like a billion dollars

I thought you knew that I thought that's why you tied him up I was kidding Mint Mobile offers premium wireless for just $15 a month. If you don't want Ryan Reynolds involved, you don't have to have him involved anymore. He's fucking gone. To be clear, it's not a choice.

He sold. Can you go check if there's anything weird in my car? Let it out of tonight. All plans come with a limited top tech and high speed data on the nation's largest 5G network. That's right. And if you use your own phone, you keep your own phone number and all your contacts and all that stuff. And Ryan Reynolds, he can't breathe right now. Why would you lose your contacts?

How long can you last in a car with like... How long has it been? So go to... All the plans come with unlimited talk techs and high speed data. Ben said that. Delivered on the nation's largest 5G network. Yeah, I said that part too. Anyway.

Zipper uses Mint Mobile. Just saying. Zipper uses Mint Mobile and it's great. Wow. Guys, mintmobile.com slash the yard

if you want your wireless bill to be 15 bucks a month but you still want like a good wireless plan. mintmobile.com slash the yard. You can also maybe save

Ryan Reynolds by doing this. I don't think so because he sold it again. No, no, no. The car thing.com slash the yard. You can also maybe save Ryan Reynolds by doing this. I don't think so because he sold it again. No, no, no. The car thing. No, I was... It's not actually in there. I saw it. You seemed really insistent earlier. You keep talking about it. There's like...

And again, that's MintMobile.com slash the yard. You put a diaper on him so he wouldn't get your trunk dirty. Well, he came with the diaper on. Cut your wireless bill to just $15 a month. Vimblable.com slash yard. Lenny's going to come back, and he's going to tell us more about what it looked like to see Ryan Reynolds dump himself in a trunk.

Is he in the car or not? Back to the show. Also, X getting checkmated in five moves was actually the funniest thing ever. It's probably the most viewed chess game in modern history, not? Back to the show. Also, X getting checkmated in five moves was actually the funniest thing I've ever seen. It's probably the most viewed chess game in modern history, right?

Yeah. No, the most viewed modern chess game in history is my doing. It's the Indonesia thing. You know the Indonesia thing? I feel like it's bad when four guys are like,

we haven't seen that. You don't even know what a fucking chess piece is. But I've heard of X, you see in Charlie and I've seen that. Indonesia was like, it was pretty isolated just to the chess world, didn't go too

mainstream. TLDR, I played a 10-minute game on chess.com and... Oh, this drama. Yeah, and I played somebody who, even before the game started, I was like, I think this is a cheater. There's a few signs. You can see if somebody's cheating. And

I play the game, and I'm losing, and they're playing a few signs. You can see if somebody's cheating. And I play the game and I'm losing and they're playing a few unpredictable moves. And generally after like five or six moves or I'm like, and the time usage is consistent. So like, whatever, I lost. I reported the account. They got banned. That was the whole sequence of events.

12 hours later, I'm laying in bed. I'm scrolling on Twitter. My nightly Twitter scroll before I like go to sleep. And I'm blowing up because this kid in indonesia made a facebook post that was like my dad is an amateur chess player and a local champion and he beat gotham chess in a game and gotham chess got mad and mass reported him with his fans and my dad got banned like that in a nutshell is an awful thing to happen to someone right so this thing went mega viral my videos had 90 percent

dislike they got shit i got thousands of dm requests on instagram a second telling me to kill myself telling me they were gonna kill my family they were messaging people i followed yeah to be like yo tell gotham like fuck him like, fuck him, tell him this. It was nuts. And this took a month to resolve because it was like, not true. Basically his argument was my dad plays every day versus the bot. So he learned how to play like a bot. People ate this up, like, you know, and the Indonesian chess federation didn't know what to do. Cause they're like 40 people versus thousands and that's when I learned But did you know that Indonesia is the fourth most populated?

There's like almost 300 million people so you have like that entire pocket of the internet How big they are and how much they are not in our cultural sphere here in the west well that was another part of it it was like this damn westerner right i'm like dude eat shit like i don't know what you want i don't know if the sun cheated the dead sheet i don't know who's there's cheating going on and tldr this took like a couple of weeks to resolve one of the best female chess players in indonesia and just players period her name is irene sukander she decided to be like look there's more to this back off and they went on like the son and the dad went on a podcast like the joe rogan of indonesia called daddy corbusier he's like this bald guy he's literally called that he's

like a mentalist they were on the podcast then irene was like hey get me on the podcast. Then Irene was like, hey, get me on the podcast. And then after that, they did a match. They live streamed the dad versus Irene to prove his level. Because she's my level. And he got zipped. Three zip. He lost like, he's probably like $1,400. Okay. And they put up a $20,000 prize fund.

They got a sponsor. He got like $7,000 for losing. She got $14,000 for winning or something like a $13,700, whatever it was. I think it was like $21,000. And got a sponsor. He got like seven grand for losing. She got 14 grand for winning or something like a 13-7, whatever it was. I think it was like $21,000. And that's it. One million people watched it live. Really? Over one million people. Nobody knows this. We love drama in this planet.

Chess Boxing, we were like, oh shit, 350. 1.2 million live viewers on YouTube watched this game. For only 20k? Sons of bitches. Is that one of the bigger prize pools in chess? 20k? Forons of bitches. Dude, I was... Is that one of the bigger prize pools in chess? 20k? No, no. It's tiny.

For a heads-up match, though, you get Magnus Hikaru to play just a little match one day, like best of four? Seven grand's not bad for that. They do it. Yeah, sure. It's not bad, right? Hog champs is more for a prize pool, though.

But, I mean, obviously, it's longer. So from the time you diced that kid's dad in chess and went to bed from the time the the joe rogan 20 000 match happened how long was that well it's time i think the match happened in april 2021 and the i played the kid march 2nd okay so it was a quick moving i mean it was a month dude it was a month of help it I had to get like an MC I had to geo block Indonesia on YouTube that's crazy so you had to sign up

for an MCN because you can only do that if you have an MCN that's crazy Minecraft Network Minecraft Network Minecraft Network I had to MCN

then I was like guys this was great thank you for your help and then I had there was a 30 day period they kept you know being a part of my channel and they had to cut them out

and then I got demonetized because when you leave an MCN, you got to reapply for monetization. When you're like a noob with all this YouTube stuff, shit is terrifying. You have no idea if you're ever going to get help. You got to make an uproar on Twitter or like, you know. You got to start barking like you're summoning salt. It's crazy how effective that is. It's the only way because two people right now I know have demonetized channels for very

invalid reasons one zane and i am signed with youtube and i he is part of moist moguls and i've pushed it to my youtube manager and youtube reps like a hundred times still demonetized we made him a new channel i was like just make a new channel we'll have a video together it'll get a hundred thousand views that'll be great he does that it's monetized they demonetize that new channel wait why that's great and then the second person hutch og called a youtuber yeah he's like one of the titans of of gaming youtube he played in pogchamps too yeah yeah demonetized also point grow one girl's getting he's actually an early chess influence on me he used to make chess content 12 years ago on youtube oh my god it

would just be like one game, like thousand rated. And he would just talk through his thoughts. That's. Because I would play my uncle and I would want to get better to beat him. So I'd watch Hutch videos. Dude, I, yeah. I mean, I got respect for the guys that were on YouTube doing chess in like 2009. When I first started coming up and getting hot, the longtime chess viewers on YouTube

were very unhappy because they're adults. Like they they don't need the thumbnail they don't care about the algorithm right they'll just they're just gonna click on a video because it's you know they're gonna learn something it's lecture style 40 50 minute that stuff's good which is why i made my technically fifth but like a second channel just reserved for lecture type of stuff you want to watch an hour of chess content god God bless. That's the only stuff I really watch on YouTube. It's like... Really? No, no, not chess, but hour of just talking.

Like, just whatever. About sport. Just to kill the... Video essay stuff. This is the Linus Tech Tips versus Gamers Nexus drama. Not drama. A niche enjoyment. Is Gamers Nexus sweatier?

Gamers Nexus is a sweaty shit for hardcore guys. Right. Linus Tech Tips is like the tasty cookie, tasty cookie, big thumbnail, like YouTube, like solved YouTube, like yeah,

I keep, I keep getting told again, keep getting told a very strong description. 95% of the audience just enjoys clicking on a video and doesn't mind at all. But of that 5% that is vocal, whether it's positive or negative, it might even be lower than 5%. It's like you know gotham i've seen this before playing the algorithm right now but you know there's channels out there like

ltt when i first saw ltt i had no clue what the fuck that was and like i know linus i just did not make the i'm like what the hell is l i go ltt oh okay so they're trying to use that channel to warn me that like if i play the game like linus tech and i didn't even know you might get 15 million subscribers yeah you might get really successful yeah i did like what the fuck i literally responded with like like i'm laying in bed i'm just you know checking my dashboard as we do hours a day you know looking at what we can change whatever i saw that comment i responded so i'm gonna have 15 million subs like yeah right what is the you know what I mean I don't know how long we got in this space you know there's a there's a

the a death of the self when you start like doing content you think like you're above the idea of like the system and like the algorithm and thumbnails I remember when I met Ludwig and started hanging out with him he's the one that convinced me to start like making thumbnails or whatever like we had this like tiny little podcast based on melee which is the chess of video games and it and i didn't i didn't make thumbnails i didn't give a shit about reach i didn't post it anywhere and post it on red i was like they'll find it if it's good enough and then i talked to ludwig i barely knew him i called him a nerd because you were in the unfiltered tof account at evo you were drunk i was making fun of you which is still standby and i still stand by all of this but he was like you're dumb blood

literally said to me you're stupid just do it just just swallow your pride and like play the video game of marketing and i did and i was like this isn't that bad like what what was i what was my pride doing right it was holding yeah the first episode of this podcast, if you go back, it's called Shingle Bells. That's the title on YouTube. Because he had shingles. On his body, it was gross. It was gross. I just thought it was funny. I thought you had to be like 20, like 100 years old.

Yeah. It takes out old people. Almost took him out. It almost took him out like a dog. It would have been great. I fought god. It almost took him out like a dog would have been great Did always take me I thought I thought We would But yeah, that one's still called shingle bells Which which lovely then told me you can't title episodes like that and I was like, but it's funny

Yeah, do they like try to like corner me one time like we were all talking they're loving what is the old house? They like tried to like corner me one time like we were all talking they're loving what is the old house? What would you rather a title? That's really funny. That's so mad all like for a title that gets more views What would you pick? What would you pick like? What do you care about more views? It was a thing never answered the question. That's why we got mad at him because he was like He's like play in the middle. He was mobile mailing back in 20 I don't know, he's like playing in the middle. He was mobile mailing back in 2018. It's our song that's coming his head off. Yeah, you're coming your head off.

You were mobile mailing, and he got mad. He's like, I guess I just picked the one with more views. That's what you want to hear, right? That's what you want to hear, and he stormed out. This was like, we weren't doing shit at the time. He just barely started streaming. He was also working his normal job. So it was like this very contentious living room argument,

and now look at us. Yeah, I think that's probably why it was like this very contentious living room argument. And now look at us. Yeah, I think that's probably why it was harder back then, right? It's because you didn't have the sauce yet to back it up. You didn't have that big old nasty. I said more views, and that's what I've done. And now you're the guy.

And now, dare I say, we're so far along that you're sunsetting. And that's why it's beautiful. Do you change your own titles? Like, I obviously have seen, for example, you had like uh twitch chat uh youtube thing uh like can twitch be youtube in a video game then i scroll i'm like oh he changed this you you change the titles like you just pop in and you're like fuck this is

not how i wanted it to perform it says 10 out of 10 and he wants to jump out a window so he changes it no that's how i feel today i had a video you know like i've been here three days and i've been recording on my laptop and i had like a plan all these different videos like whatever's hot and they've all been 10 out of 10 and the world championship just ended so chess has these moments where like the whole world gets hype they need a break yeah and the video is performing you know 50 compared to the rest and i'm just sitting here like very frustrated but the truth is if i wait like two weeks it like very it's a cool thing about having a niche and is that your niche if it explodes or if it has like a hype moment it it does you don't need to do more right like you can just keep creating and

then the swell of the niche will carry it we have two very very different problems you and me my problem is i just have to make 1415 videos of the same shit two guys playing a game. That's what I'm saying. So this is why this shit's solved so he lost he heard you say yes and then blacked out it's solved it's solved but like now we have

a cool down you gotta say it like in 30 minutes like we gotta get it up on the screen and then activate again so no

but what I'm saying is alright you got Ding Liran you got Yanyapom Nishi right you got two guys and if you ask a hundred people on the street whether they play chess

or they've got you've heard of chess in the last couple years I don't know now 50 or 60 or 70 of them will be like, yeah, yeah, I know, it's like pretty hot right now, I play, whatever. You give them the names of the players,

they won't know who they are. Yeah. They will know who Magnus is, they will know who Hikaru is. You know him, Ego, you know your age, bud. Yes. You know your Ludwig's. Yes, they'll call him Heroku or Hikaru,

and like the same, you know, they just know. You think you're the Magnus or Hikaru of what, exactly? I've thought about this. Who are the most popular chess players? Like, or like. More so like, I am the what of chess. Like, what is a parallel? And I thought about this for a while.

And I think the best reference is a boxing reference. Like you're an MMA reference. Okay. I think I'm the Hasbulla of chess. Just like a. How chess. Just like a... How? It's like a little guy. He's never going to want to fight.

Yeah. And that's why Danny... Almost every single... Danny White wants to go gambling with you. And every single MMA fan, we could say, would sleep Hossbulla. And almost every chess fan... I sleep Hossbulla. Would sleep me in chess.

But that's not true. You're like a 98th percentile chess player You flatter me, but yes, I recognize me bit of a goofball bit of a bit of a havoc reeker Okay compared to what the scene normally is you if you see what I did to coots behind closed doors You'd be upset about it, too. Yeah, you're been in the chow garden and Sonic Adventure 2 battle No, that was like all gibberish For people who don't understand Russian just sounds like you're walking backwards the whole time He said Sonic did you say the word sonic at any point that was the only word I was like yeah I'm currently learning what do all the uh what do all the real not the real heads

but what are like all the super serious long time chess players the grandmasters sure what do they all think about the the influencers I don't want to um like I don't want to put thoughts in there or or or words in their mouth, thoughts in their head, whatever. I've been told by more down-to-earth top players that I've had conversations with that they're not the happiest. They're not the happiest because I suck at chess compared to them. I'm a fantastic chess player,

but compared to those top guys, it's not even close. Me and you, man. Sorry? Oh, me and you. Yeah, no, not even close. Me and you, man. Sorry? Oh, me and you. Yeah, no, like the three of us. Right. Like you together. We're not into Shaq.

If you add up what we think our MMR might be. Jordan Poole, baby. I don't know who we're. Dean and Sarah, maybe. Me and you. Well. Continue. Anyway, I was going to say, the chess boom has not happened for the top level of chess yeah

they don't receive that benefit not at all uh there's a reason the world championship just happened you don't know a single sponsor like it's not it's just not western i do the kremlin does the russian government sponsor chess no not, not... Directly? Not directly? Not really. I don't like not really. That's much worse than yes or no. Does the Fonder Group sponsor chess? I don't understand.

Does the Pentagon sponsor chess? Nobody actually knows. Nobody knows who is sponsoring chess. The last world championship that had Magnus in it, you could see some of the sponsors. Also, the chairs had Coinbase on them. That was like as close as it is getting to Western. But if you think about don't have a watch company we don't have a microsoft we don't have any of these things and that's why the top doesn't ever experience the same effect the same boom a lot

of the tournaments they get invited to are closed they invite like 14 players there's like show money there's no prize money they get whatever they want so for hikaru for example being a nice hybrid of being a really good player who can show up to an event get top three get some money and like stream 200 hours a month now on kick kick you go to kick wait is a car on kick yeah oh not exclusively he had a really a big craving to sayurs. I don't know what it was. That was not why. That was not why. It was actually, he wanted to restream the NBA finals this year. That might have been why.

He wanted to play that opening. Who was? But like for him, right, he's the best of both worlds competitor and content creator. But Magnus isn't even playing in the world championship because the prize fund has been the same for 30 years. What is it? The winner got like 1 million and the loser got like 800,000 basically. I mean,

imagine being the pinnacle of the sport. That is massive. The absolute chess is enormous right now. And, and you know the World Chess Federation will constantly put out these tweets like

it was the most watched the second most watched I saw him say that cause you know who like chess.com's broadcast had 170,000 live viewers imagine they don't stream it imagine I don't make a recap

Hikaru doesn't make a recap who's gonna Levy have you ever heard of Super Smash Bros. Melee yes I have have you ever heard of our biggest tournament? It's called Genesis.

No? So, no. Prize pool for Genesis. What is it? What was it this year, Aiden? I think it was like a hot $6,000 or something. And the game is as old as chess. Yeah, it's like $15,000.

I thought it was. I've been alive. I'm about the same amount of time. It's a little worse, I would argue. The viewership is a little worse. On the it's like 15,000. I thought it was. I've been alive. I'm about to say my time. The viewership is a little worse, I would argue. The viewership is a little worse. On the one hand, you have that. But on the other hand, you've got a completely ageless game where a kid as young as three and an old person as old as whatever the cap is.

I want to say 95, but then you might have a 98-year-old who watches this and feels left out. So whatever. We have a lot of those. Do you... Okay, so when you said the number i was surprised and maybe that's because i'm i come from esport and i i don't expect that much but a million for the winner and 800 000 for the loser seems like a lot but is there this understanding trivial is there

an understanding that the organizers are seeing a lot of money that the players are not is that like why it's such a pain point i think that's probably money that the players are not is that like why it's such a pain point i think that's probably part of it the other thing is it like it really depends if if the global headquarters of chess was in austin texas yeah or somewhere in the states we would have a big sponsor the joe rogan chess championship and child pageant brought to you by Russia, the state, and the former Soviet Union. And it's held in the White House.

And also Albania can get in there. After the pyramid scheme, it's fucked up. And Serbia. And Serbia. For the boys. As a whole, I thought, because I'm as deep as Normie is in chess i've had a

strategy for about five years of staying at the same level to get a re-invite to pog champs every time and it worked brilliantly it's called sandbagging i've been sandbagging i would stop playing for six to eight months at a time and then have to relearn everything well also you know you know there's a way to artificially deflate your rating. Like actually throw? Yeah, not actually throw, but every time you take like a six month break, your rating change factor recalibrates on chess.com

So if you come back after six months and you win a game, you're not going to gain nine and lose seven. You're like 30. You're going to gain 30 and lose 30. So if you just want to like pull up and you know, play some blitz games after six months and just... Is there a market for Smurf accounts like there is in Valorant? Dude, I have a really funny story. A guy hit me up, and this guy had messaged me a long time ago.

I think it was on Facebook. When I had my first chess course in 2018, he asked for some tips. I gave him some tips. He said, London, diaper, magenta. These are the openings you need to know. It was an opening course I had know, this guy was bold enough. You said London, diaper, magenta. These are the openings you need to know. It was about even, it was an opening course

I had way, way back in the day. So, chess boom happens. It's 2020, 2021. He messages me again somewhere else. He goes,

hey, you know, you helped me out. And he sends me a voice recording. I get this voice recording. He's like, you played a random voice recording? Yes. He goes,

Levi, my brother, I have a very big problem. My friend is always crushing me in the puzzle rush. Can you please log into my account and you will get a high score and I will send you some money. That's so based.

And I was like, that's funny. But no. You didn't do it? No, I didn't do it. Why would I do it? It's puzzle rush. Dude, I'm going do it. Why would I do it? It's Puzzle Rush. Dude, I'm going to feel guilty.

His friend is going to have an existential crisis. Dude, that's so fucking fire. That is a fire video. You do it. If it was me, I'd hire you to beat my friend in Puzzle Rush and make a video out of it. He's your Zane. I've done this with him. Yeah, we did.

He's your Levy. Dude, you know what? I've done this with him. Yeah, we did um... He's your levy. Dude, you know what? I'm gonna... That video we did was the best performing video you had in like three months. Yeah, bitch.

Yeah, pussy boy. Why do you don't respond to my message? How would you respond? Guys, I have a question. Is he really that busy? A hundred... He can't respond to my message. No, it's not busy, but he does this to his beloved best friends all the time. Wait, do you actually think it's not busy though?

And you think it's just because I don't care about my beloved best friends? because back in the day you did the same shit. Literally, yes. So does that mean I'm a best friend? I got a ticket

because I was yelling at him because I was at a stoplight texting him and mad at him in the group chat for like, I don't know, something in the house way back.

Okay. Way like years ago. I got a ticket, never paid it, got all the points taken on my license, got it suspended all because he was a bad fucking

roommate Why didn't you just pay the ticket I forgot about it that was his fault right if he was a better roommate I wouldn't have been fucking texting at a red light Good roommate one time he got pulled over without driving with a license and I drove him his license I was on the first date too to the cop it was actually really nice

I was like hey sir here's a real license I was gonna say I like it here cause you guys got no cops on the highway is it cause it's like

May 4th it's not May 30th May the 4th be with you yeah the 4th but uh Star Wars dude have you ever heard of Star Wars

it's cause it's there were cops but it's raining so I think they just. Dave, haven't been here the whole time? I've been here. I'm like getting in the left lane. I'm in 90, like I'm like, there's no cops. In New York.

Depends, depends where you're at. Okay. If you're in the richer area, probably not. I am indeed in the richer area. New York City, do you have a foreskin on your penis, or is it off? Why would New York City be related to that? We do ask every guest this question, and you don't have to answer if you're uncomfortable? Why would New York City be related to that? We do ask every guest this question and you don't have to answer if you're uncomfortable, but why

New York? Why did that come up in your mind? Levy? They got $2 street dogs. I have a question. So like back before the influencer boom even and all this stuff, if you're a career chess player, maybe Grandmaster,

maybe like your level which is below but still really really good were you mad when i called you grandmaster i wasn't mad why would i be mad i don't know did you do it by accident or on purpose oh totally on purpose okay i figured you don't make mistakes no i know i know how to get me i i yeah you know how to schmooze them uh can i interject with a quick question it'd sound better uh so this is either gonna make me feel really really smart uh- or really, really bad. You have the power. It's all in your hands right now.

The title Women's Candidate Master. Yeah. If you beat one on chess.com, is that impressive? Depends how old they are. Because they could be like... They could be like an 80? They could be 80. They could be like 6.

You never lose the title. Yeah. You never lose the title. Oh, so they could have gotten it in the 1700s. And they could be 80. They could be like six. You never lose the title. Yeah. You never lose the title. Oh, so they could have gotten it in the 1700s. And they could be sunsetting now. I don't think. They could be sunsetting. Yeah, they could be sunsetting.

Makes sense. But it's less likely. Ludwig is an 80-year-old chess woman. I'm impressive. I'm sure. He said you're good. Yeah. You're a really good tweeter.

We're all very proud of you. Tell me you're proud of him. We're all proud of you. We are all proud of you. We're proud. I don't get why their email is low. Bro, it could be an older person who lets their kid play on their account. That's possible.

We're still proud of you! And the game was really close. I don't know who played on that account from Indonesia. You don't know who played on that account, you know what I'm saying? We're the same. One thing to ask is like, so the career path in the Cold War, it was different

because you were literally representing your fucking country. In the Cold War, it was just Russians playing chess. The first American to actually succeed was 1970s. It was Bobby Fischer. That was still the Cold War. It was one American. It was one American. It wasn't like everyone was a competitive player. Okay, but what I'm

saying is that was the career path, was like get good enough to represent your nation. Yeah. Wait, what did he say? He said Morphe. Like Kobe, when you make a shot, you like take a piece, you got to go Morphe. Morphe.

Morphe. Morphe. I've never seen the Bobby Fischer interview where they're like, do this little puzzle, and he like does it really well, and they're like, whoa. And it's like, this guy's a chess champion. Yeah, no, the interview that he did, it's like a famous, I forgot the host's name.

But that host was great. I really enjoyed it. And the questions were good. Yeah, Fischer was the first guy, he was the first chess boom. I mean, he basically was like, I'm not playing for a world title until you make the prize fund higher. The prize fund before Fischer was like five grand. What's so sick? And after him, it was like 250.

And then he would have played the biggest match of all time up to that point, which was going to be him versus Karpov, like the number one Soviet player. Karpov went on to play Kasparov, but Fischer ended up like walking away in 1975. That's like the biggest what if in chess.

Then the next 15 years were Kasparov-Karpov. It's their Joe Frazier, Muhammad Ali final round game. Yeah. Yes. Don't you like boxing? I like mixed martial arts I don't like from it is crazy

what were you going to ask about career? yeah these fucking assholes my question was like what's back then was the career path even viable if you weren't like fucking I don't know Bobby Fisher? if you're just asking like even in 2017 like I said if you were not in a big

city it's really impossible to start teaching If you're just asking, like, even in 2017, like I said, if you were not in a big city, it's really impossible to start teaching and then network. So the only reason I managed to make a career out of it is because I was good at managing the classrooms. I would network with the parents after they picked up the kids. I'd be like, that kid is good. Like, this kid needs some help, whatever. And then the parent would introduce you to another parent, right?

So teaching is the main juice, milk, honey, sweet nectar. You can make money playing chess at top tournaments. You can make money teaching chess in one-on-one settings. Adults, kids, camps. So I was doing number two because I can't compete and win money. But if you're outside of top 20 in the world world like you're the 25th rank player in the world you're reigning as 2700 but you're number 25 you ain't making shit because you're not getting invited anywhere too like i said a lot of these tournaments are closed it's it's like us open

right well i don't know what the next big tennis tournament coming up as a french open whatever number 30 could win that you'd be like holy shit like number 30 wow that nobody saw that coming not in chess because you don't even get the invite to begin with right it's like smash yeah it does sound also the economy of of teaching has become really big yeah and that's a lot of like the smash players will make income and similarly there's a lot of invite tournaments and that's a lot of guaranteed income and then players outside the top i mean honestly for smash it's like top 15 aren't able to sustain it full time. And even then they make about as much as like a manager at Taco Bell.

But then the top top gets fucking top top, you know what I mean? You know what I'm saying. The top top gets top top because we got the top top. It's already top top. I'm not a top player, I get top player. Not like, sure.

Do you ever. Yeah. Do you ever like have a little voice, a little gremlin in the back of your head? It's like, what if I did try to like, what if I did try to hit the next title? Do you ever have that? I did. I went on that little journey. This all started because I'll.

Gotta get coffee for this. So it was uh June 2021 right and uh I'm like alright you know what I'm gonna go to the Vegas Chess Festival

it's like a nice venue they like they take care of the participants pretty well I go to also the worst hotel it was at

I'm not gonna actually I just thought about that no fuck em alright it was not on the strip it was at the Westgate alright oh my gosh

the biggest that is filled with cockroaches right next to the convention center I don't know about that for legal reasons sue him No, fuck him. All right. It was not on the Strip. It was at the Westgate, all right? Oh, my gosh. The biggest. That is filled with cockroaches right next to the convention center. I don't know about that. For legal reasons, sue him. It was at the Westgate for Evo, right? Yeah, it sucked. It was not for Evo. Oh, yeah, it was for the first Evo in 2017.

It was filled with cockroaches. But they have $5 tables, and you can double down on other people's tens. My friends did the gambling. My friends did the gambling. My friend lost so much money, they comped us for our next visit, which we never took. But they were like, bro, you lost mad fucking money. They wanted more. And then he won it back the last night before we went to the airport.

So we got the comp, and he got his money back. That was where the tournament was. I decided to play, and I did really well. And I was making recaps of my own games, which people really enjoyed. I was like, wow, what a business model. I'm going to go to tournaments. I don't stop videos.

I have nine videos in five days because you play nine games in five days. Tournament went great. I was like swarmed by fans. It was like the first time. It was like a little fan expo. We had like 500. I was like, damn, this is the shit.

Like, let's go. And then I'm like, all right, next tournament. Let's do it. Next tournament was tough, but like I got through it. I did pretty okay. Tournament three hits. I get fucking stomped.

Like, stomped. And then the doubt starts creeping in. There's nothing worse than playing a four-hour game and just getting demolished. And you've got to make a video about this. Oh, it's so long. Imagine a melee match with four hours. Yeah, and you've got to sit and look.

And you're losing the whole time. And you're losing the whole time. And then it, you know, it happened again. I'm like, all right, I'm going to take a break, regroup. I started taking chess lessons again from like a Polish grandmaster, Wojciech Moranda. Shout out. That guy's the man. You know, like I worked with him back in the day.

The problem is when you take chess super seriously, it's basically a full-time job. And you're making these tiny scientific little improvements to your game. Yeah. And you go to show up to a tournament, you play a nine-year-old that's homeschooled and has no life, and that kid is like We're the same. He's the lamest nine-year-old. Dude, he's so lame. No race.

No magic. This nine-year-old has no race. Zero clown magic. Zero crypto. Yeah. He got nothing. I played a tournament in St. Louis, I played the number one, number two, and number like four ranked eleven year olds in the country.

It was ridiculous. A few years ago- Dude, Adam Blonk just removed the last part of that. You fucking lose your five hour match, you get up and you're like, you got no hoes! You got no hoes! Collectively they got no hoes. It was ridiculous. I show up to my first round game, I'm playing a kid who three years ago was a pro, and I No hoes! You got no hoes! Collectively they got no hoes. It was ridiculous.

I show up to my first round game, I'm playing a kid who three years ago I was coaching at the World Youth. This kid is like eight years old back in the day. I'm the same level I was three years- I'm worse. You're like Mr. Miyagi. I'm a YouTuber now, alright? I lost like half my functioning cortex. He's been grinding the whole time. He fucking, like, he plays an opening he's never played before like the magenta no he plays the fucking London

And like you know at that level. He's good enough that I can't do anything. I'm trying all these complications I barely survive and hold a draw I beat the other kid the second ranked Oh, you know I beat his ass I'm like I'm one and a half at a to by the way that kid is like that kid's ass his mom that kid is Like a grandmaster now now, who I beat. And then number three, I play the number one ranked eleven year old. Okay, let me say this. It's so funny to say that.

He's like, no one ranked eleven year old. He's good at chess and he's also bad at chess. No, let me say this. This shit was so fucked up, man. And I was having a bad tournament and I was like, I'm gonna beat him and I'm breaking even again. This is great. And I knew the opening he played.

I studied his games. And for the first time in my life, I was gonna detonate an opening that I had never played publicly. I had played it a hundred times on my anonymous account. I was like the master. I got to move 15. I knew the position.

I knew all the best moves because I remembered it. This kid is down 40 minutes on the clock and he's looking around because he's mad. And I'm looking like, I'm a win and I'm going to go play tennis with my friend before the sun sets. Like Eric Rosen and I are going to go because he lives in St. Louis. We're going to go. I'm going to hang out with my friend, get a nice bite to eat. Then I play a move and I'm walking around the room because you could do that. That's not like, you know, bad manners or anything. And I go, wait, does he have this random defensive resource? Fuck. I come back.

I'm like, he plays it. I'm like, all right, no problem. Let's buckle down. Got a thing. Keep the prep. Make a move. Fuck, does he have that move? He plays it.

Two seconds. Like, this kid. Oh, shit. He snap calls. Dude, he said, like, every move he starts making in five seconds. So within, like, seven or eight moves, all of my advantage is gone. I'm still equal, but I'm like very frustrated. All that doubt is creeping in all, you know, all that stuff.

And I end up going on to lose this game. So instead of me winning in about an hour and a half, just blowing him off the board, I lose in like a three and a half hour game. And to an 11 year old. And I'm just, I'm devastated. Like I, you know, I can't. He needs his diaper changed. And I ended 11 year old. And I'm just, I'm devastated. Like I, you know, I can't. He needs his diaper changed. You're mad.

I ended up withdrawing. I like didn't even play the last round because I just like physically could not bring myself. And then I was sitting in my hotel room going, this kid is not going to remember this game even happened. I am devastated that I lost to this fetus, you know? And I like, this is so ridiculous. I mean, and he's going to be a grandmaster within a year or two. He's going to be better at chess than probably I will ever be.

But I was like, I was this close. And it's the same thing for me over and over. I don't get blown off the board. My biggest weakness is like a lack of focus. I probably need a sports psychologist. And obviously I need to study like 30 hours a week. That was when I was like, this, this has to be the end. I can't keep doing the same thing and losing the exact same way in every tournament I'm on my lowest rating in like seven years if I if I go to a tournament I lose more points I might disappear like so for me it's the next tournament is going to be make or break so I kind of said look I can't keep playing I'm done with this for now. No, the way, that's interesting. So you can protect your rating by just not playing anymore and it doesn't shift?

It doesn't shift, but it's definitely brought up in arguments for, you know, why I'm like not this or not that or, but yeah, I mean, if you don't play nothing. It's like melee, bro. Right, yeah, yeah. So in baseball, you don't bat. Your batting average stays the same. Right, so you're incentivized if you like kind of go out

on top, quote unquote, like Ludwig might. He was never on top, but ever. What's up? What are you talking about? That's an interesting dynamic. I have a question. As someone who has played fucking 10 games of chess in his entire life, knows about the horse, but that's about it.

When you're sitting and looking at the board in a long form game like that, like you were talking about. Those 11-year-olds really got no riz, dude. Zero riz. But if you started playing Fortnite, he would. Skyrocketing. No, what I'm saying, he would be his idol. And that might be an advantage.

Honestly, I. Being a Fortnite YouTuber, he might end up watching you and be like. An 11-year-old who's willing to sit at a table to play a four-hour chess game does not watch Fortnite. No, no, no. Dude, if that kid's parents divorce, you make a video about it? Who in his life? Yo, it's got you. Guys, some of these kids' parents were coming up to me at the tournaments.

Like, these kids are already better than me. And they're like, oh, my kid really loves your videos. I'm like, why? He's better than me. Like, I make... Yeah, that's so wild. I have an idea for you. Uh-huh.

Kids will be our future GM you. Uh-huh. Kids will be our future GMs. Uh-huh. You go to tournaments and do an open invite and try to find like the best eight-year-old in the world. Okay. And then you thug finals, beat that eight-year-old because you'll beat any eight-year-old, right? Dude, I don't know. An eight-year-old from Kazakhstan?

I don't... Give yourself some credit. Say yes. Then that eight-year-old goes on to be the best player in the world, or, you know, close to, you can say you beat him. So you only play 8-year-olds, you run this 8-year-old event, and then you dust everybody.

Yeah. You have a 1-0 record on all of them. Never play them again. The wiki just says, win over... Yeah. Yeah. Beat him before he became the... Osmula. Yeah. Osmula. Very good. And then when they turn 9, you're like, yep, I won't play you ever again. You'll be king of the boys. Don't call yourself that No, I mean listen like I could do that I flew out every eight-year-old in the world every eight-year-old Pump the brakes on this idea I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I- And he made it shit. I was nice enough, but Aiden isn't. He's the voice of me. What the heck?

You made Levee leave too. Well, okay. Well, I hope you're hungry. I'm starving and you just gave me shit food. I tried making my best sandwich. It's- it's- listen, you need nutritious, convenient meals, okay? Not like- not that stupid dog shit garbage that you put in our mouth with your hands. Whatever gruel you brought from your home. Imagine that shit was filled with factors.

A fresh, never frozen meal. Ready to eat in just two minutes. But it's not. If that was a factor, we'd get nutritious chef-prepared meals delivered straight to our doors and our mouths, Ludwig. That's a good point. I didn't think about that. But it tasted like dog shit in my head.

But does that... Are you going to cry? No, I'm not going to cry. Are you going to cry? You look like you're going to cry. Your heart rate is bad? I'd rather, instead of you cried, that I got a calorie smart meals with around less than 550 calories per serving. Are you gonna cry? No, I'm not gonna cry. You look like you're gonna cry. You're gonna tell me that your heart rate is bad? That doesn't bother me. I'd rather instead of you cried that I got a calorie smart meals with around less than

550 calories per serving. Does it have protein? Yeah, it has protein. It's 30 grams of protein, you dumb bitch. It didn't have any protein in it. No, it didn't have protein. There's clearly the bacon and cheddar egg bites, apple cinnamon pancakes. Hello!

Hello, are you hearing me? Potato, bacon, egg for breakfast, skillet. But, but I'm- Jesus Christ, this is prepared by chefs, factories. Not like you're a chef. Are you a chef? I do nothing. You're a dietician?et! Jesus Christ, this is prepared by chefs, Factor Meals! Not like you're a chef! You're a chef? You're a dietitian? You fed me bread and sweat! Go to factormeals.com slash theyard40

if you actually care about what you put in your body. No, Loving, Loving, you say it. Is it pricier? Say what it says! Use the code YARD40 for 40% off. What's the URL? It's factormeals.com slash theyard40 for 40% off. What's the URL? It's factormeals.com slash theyard40 for 40% off. Say it again.

Factormeals.com slash theyard40. Say the food will be better. Say you'll bring me Factor next time. I'll bring you Factor. I'm sorry. Ah, all right. That wasn't so hard. I mean, he seems kind of...

All right. Seems way better. When you say what we want, you're better. All right, let me come back in here. This is the number one meal kit. I'll throw it out. What do you think it is about the kids? Do you think that they're just working with their biology

and adults are working against it? Kids know nothing, and they don't know what hurts them. They have no anxieties. Their brain is like a complete blank slate. The number one reason adults don't get into chess and stop themselves short is because they have already done things in their walk of life or career. They try to imprint their own mental framework on the game.

For example, they say things like, I never really got into chess because I can't really think ahead. I only look in the present moment. Or I'm really bad at learning from my mistakes. Or it's like, no, chess is a completely unique experience. A lot of people stop themselves short. Adults are the only students I have ever taught that before you they give an answer they go well. This is probably wrong, but and It's like not wrong ego. It's yeah, they need to somehow insecure. They need to see like yeah

I mean, that's super interesting. It's are like that is it rookie for no I gotta know I gotta know I gotta know for real For please let me say the answer. I'm like, bro, you are 0 for fucking 12. But they're excited. But they just, you know, they don't know their own limitations. Wait, wait, wait. My question was, someone doesn't know anything. When you're staring at the board trying to figure something out, what are you thinking about?

Are you thinking about future moves? This is a basic question. So there's like the auto, there's like a default setting of things you got to scan. Your opponent makes a move. As you're like improving, you go, okay, what's the idea? Sometimes there is no idea, but you just need to go, what can that piece capture?

Does my opponent have any checks, captures? Like the most easy framework is, can they take any of my pieces? Can they like check me? Can they attack any of my pieces? And then you check me? Can they attack any of my pieces? And then you do the reverse. You're like, okay, do I have any checks? And it's all patterns. The truth is like no chess player is really smart.

It's just thousands and thousands of patterns like in iterations. That's just the reality. You show me a chess position, I'll tell you who's better because I probably played some game where the pawns were similar and I remember some game where like a trade occurred and like you know something

was compromised and if you show me a checkmate in three it's just because I've seen that pattern a hundred times. I've probably played like a million chess games. I mean imagine you do anything a million times if you're not good at it then sex. What? Are you good at it? You're saying you've just had sex

a million times? I'm talking about I've had sex a million times and I'm talking about how I've had sex a million times. I'm really good. You've had sex? I don't think that's true. I've had it a million times. How many days have you been alive? Less than a million.

Shit, bro. Shit. All right. You're putting NBA numbers. I do. I do a lot of NBA numbers. Anthony Davis game. I'm Rui Hachimor off the bench.

I was thinking he went to the Lakers game. I did. How did XQC get his feet on the court? Like, how did that happen? Do you have any idea? I don't know. Bread talk. He's got eight figures.

Yeah, bread talk. Oh, he just bought it. He didn't get, like, invited? The tickets are about $15,000 for a floor seat. That is crazy. That's crazy. The Knicks floor seat tickets are like $40,000. Really?

Yeah. No, Lakers, the most expensive floor seat for game five of this series is 30k 30k for one night I don't think it's worth it because I wouldn't buy it but I think for people that's not a question of worth it it's they just have enough money it's like is that time you valuable to you have enough money uh but it's like for me it's a decision he could but it kind of hurt a little bit not without thinking about it yeah but there's people to spend. You have enough money? I don't know. He said 30k. 30k is a dent. He could, but it kind of hurt a little bit. Not without thinking about it. But there's people who don't

think about it. There's people who like 30k is not a... I'm sure Jack Nicholson isn't thinking about it. Can I steal this discussion for a second? I just realized I was going to ask. I don't have a lot of creator friends because I'm... Because they're chess players. No, I hate all of them. No, they're fine. But I'm from New York, right? I'm... Because they're chess players. No, I hate all of them. No, they're fine.

But, like, I'm from New York, right? I'm not in L.A., and I've lived my entire life out there. I went to school there, and I just sort of, you know, like, I got married there. My wife and I, like, she did a job there.

Imagine you got a slice of fucking pepperoni for you. Yeah, that's how... You'd be surprised. A lot of people sound like that. Like, no joke. I mean, it's a stereotype. You see the Queen's Gambit, the fucking pieces are on the ceiling and shit.

What the fuck? Is she on fucking drugs? I have a neighbor. I have a neighbor who's a handyman, and he's like a young guy, and every morning is, Hey, how are you? How you doing? Yeah, I can be there in about 30, 40 minutes. Yeah, no problem.

That's amazing. Oh, it's not fucking working? I told you. You gotta like... My wife and I in the house are like, Hey, how are you? How you doing? Like, we just talk to each other like that now because we got a neighbor let's call him ralph and every day ralph is out there with his old dog and his little kid and he's holding the kid and

he's like i gotta take the fucking bqe to get there yeah around this time it's like 40 50 fucking minutes like i'll bring the lax yeah no problem and then it's so funny because like in boston what the bostonian accent right the one time I went to Boston in the last, I don't know, five years, it was maybe even more now because COVID messed my perception time. I was visiting colleges. I didn't get into any of them, but we were at a hotel and we need to take an Uber. We're trying to get to Harvard. Okay.

That accent, right? I called like a car service with my friend and the guy goes i'm like what's the estimate of time to get from a to b and he goes well if i had to give you a shot in a ball pack because you know we got the regatta in town it's probably about 40 it'd be like 40 50 minutes on 45 50 hours sewer people i was like i literally heard this and went, no, no fucking way. They really talk like this? I thought it was a joke. It's insane. I mean, the regatta. Like, it's literally Peter Griffin.

We went to Boston. No, you didn't. You went to Boston. That's where you went. The thing is, me and Aiden, we fucking flew out of Logan. We peeled out of Logan like fucking bats out of hell in a car.

No, but it was crazy because there was this old lady who was like yelling at a parked car and she talked like that and i was like this is weird because we walked down the street and we're we're doing the accent unprompted to each other yeah we're talking just for each other and then we're as we get as we get close to the restaurant we hear a woman yell in the background and she does the most b Bostonian yell of the word car you've ever heard. But it's as we've been making fun of this person who doesn't even exist. Good lows.

What I think happens is that there's a lot of local pride on accents for Boston and New York, so they caricaturize their own voice to match the voices around each other. And it keeps escalating until you reach intelligible words like Boston and New Yorkers. Similar to the chess world and how people start talking like Europeans, like good old Hans Niemanns. Oh, that was so weird, man. That whole interview that he gave, like the, and then he, yeah, the accent. Were you acting to switches and shit? This happened in Dota.

Arteezy, Artur Babayev, one of the greatest. He started talking in a certain way because he's, I think he's a Canadian from like some Eastern Bloc country. Uzbekistan. Uzbekistan. And so his accent's very interesting, but he also just played on NA servers in Dota and he would just talk like, all right, boys, here we go. And now every NA player to this day talks like Arteezy because there was just like this

weird cult of personality. Is it called cult switching? What is it called? Yeah. I got a vibrating egg up my ass. I might sound Russian too. Yeah. Yes, sir.

That happens in Valorant. You know the Valorant accent. I know what you're saying. I know what you're saying. Dude, like I think the reason I can. You got three eggs up there. I can do a lot of different accents, and I think it's literally just from watching chess interviews my whole life.

Like, I can do, like, six different Russian accents, whatever, British, French, others. You know, like, you can't do Chinese accents anymore, like, on camera. You can't do, like... I do an amazing Taiwanese. What happened? No, you can't. I was like, we used to be a fucking country. Can I just say,

Indians, because they're the second biggest audience for chess, like tied with Germany. It's very close. They're smaller than Germany? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't believe that. Sorry, keep going.

Size-wise? Size-wise. Percentage-wise? Yeah, percentage-wise, for me, it's around the same. They are so big. They love if you impersonate Vichy Anand, right? He's like the chess goat over there. They love if you impersonate Vishy Anand, right? Like he's like the chess goat over there.

They love if you like, because I taught a lot of Indian kids in New York. I mean, it was, and their dads were intense. Like their dads would sit there as 300s on chess.com and be like, pay attention, you know? And they like, they love when you, if you do like the accent, you know, the people who try to cancel you,

it's like the white Americans. They're like, you can't do that accent. The Indians love when you do the accent. It's like funny for them. Well, there's a different. I ran into the same problem. I was in Japan. It's not the same.

It's not the same? Well, you can't walk around Tokyo saying the Pokemon thing is awesome. They love when I do it. Who's they? I think. No, my friend, my friend Victor. When Victor does his Indian dad accent, oh my God. Victor's Indian.

Yeah, he's Indian. Oh, Victor's Indian. How did that happen? How did he get a Victor name? I don't know, actually. I think it's just when you're born in America. But he'll do it and I'll laugh and he'll be like, you think that's funny?

You like that? I'm like, stop it. Oh, that reminds me of Ken Chen, our old boss. He would run this bit that we've talked about a lot. But it reminded me also, Ken, he played Olympian table tennis or like trained in Olympian table tennis in China when he was a little kid. And he, because he got a bad head start, like he didn't get trained young enough. Yep.

He was like 18 or something i i forget how old he was but he was basically put in with the 12 year old girls and they were smoking him wow and he was like i think he was like three four years older than them and he was like his most embarrassing thing and they like just started early yep that reminds me of like this culture of like people who are they have a kid and they're like you will be a chess player i've decided this chess is no fortnight but chess is actually the only activity you could be a six-year-old kid playing a 50-year-old man like i see which is cool terms yeah be unequal or yeah the kid is just straight up better yeah one thing i don't know if this is true but i think i was talking to danny and he said this

that there's no person who started chess as an adult and became a grandmaster yeah there's like one and i think it was a chinese player who was 18 that's that's the age yeah that was the age i mean like if he was like 20 if he was 19 he would have never got it do you do you think it's just a time thing? Like, I think there's something to be said about that. But imagine you as an adult, right? Had access to the same level of free time to practice anything. Your preconceptions probably do damage you in some ways, right? But the likelihood of you being 18 or older and having the same amount of free time as a child who is learning and

studying chess is just very low non-existent i would say and if you gave a bunch of people between the age of like 18 and 35 the opportunity to play chess 12 hours you know 12 hours a day for 10 years i think the percentage of people that reach that ranker is probably higher yeah it's definitely higher um my feeling is the biology is probably more... Then you need to account for, and you've got to study how a kid's brain versus an adult's brain retains. A kid can

probably use an hour so much more effectively than an adult can use multiple hours. I actually did a study on this, except it never got published. I will tell you what I did. They invited me to lay in an MRI machine. You ever got MRIs? Yeah. They did it to me when I was a kid, and they said they were going to scan my brain, and I thought they would see my dirty thoughts.

And they did. Why did they scan your brain? You had a brain tumor? It was a study. They were studying brains. The doctor in the MRI was like, oh my god. Why didn't they study your cousins? He's like, what? His cousins have shit in the bathtub. Shit sounded like Apex went in there.

Well, they invited me to this thing, and they wanted to do a study of chess masters versus chess amateurs. This was before 2020, and I had to lay in an MRI machine for 90 minutes. Most I've ever done in an MRI machine is like 30, 40, and that was awful. 90 minutes was not fun.

And essentially what they would do is I would lay there, they would scan my brain, and then they would give me a maiden two. Like they would put a checkmate in two and I had to tap when I had the answer. Like I had a button. So to see how fast, and they wanted to see how my brain works

versus a chess amateur. Like how much of their brain is illuminating. Versus a chess amateur or like a child who's a chess amateur specifically? No, like a 1,000. It could be an adult. Yeah, I don't know. Maybe they wanted,

and I have no idea what happened to that like i never heard again interesting wow oh so you don't even know what the results no i have no idea what maybe the fucking button didn't work like um they have printouts of your brain scan up on a wall somewhere like a poster yeah maybe or i don't know maybe the whole thing just didn't work my guess as to like how these things might work is you as an adult have have ideas or things that you have developed that can either hinder or help your ability to learn something faster and like some people depending on like the skills or like ideas that they bring to the table could potentially learn something quicker than a child could because uh if the time allowed for it but then a lot of people carry over things that hinder their ability i don't think you ever then a lot of people carry over things that hinder their

ability i don't think you ever learn faster no for sure like what things that you can yeah things that you can apply experience to like what i think the easy example i go to is the way people the way people learn languages so like the way a child learns a language right you don't study your first language is not uh like studied you just simply listen to language for years and years and years and you slowly acquire it right and that's the way the child the child learns and you can do that as an adult it is just very very difficult to recreate the environment of your childhood to learn a language in the same way but if you were to intentionally recreate that environment and then also supplement it with activities to enforce that learning faster you can learn a language

quicker than a child can't oh dust a child you think you think bar for bar you're learning a language faster than a kid if he didn't have a job is what he's saying i'm saying yeah same free time same hours a week not every kid if you took if you took my 25 year old body and dropped it in with a uh fucking say a russian family and i lived with a russian family for the next five years i speak and listen to russian every single day and then i also do things that supplement that learnings like say i have uh flash cards that like i study i like learning study writing with no no no no no that's not what I said I said the kids

just learn the language like you normally would you as an adult are able to do things to learn things that a child would never do right

a two year old cannot study flashcards they do not have the mental faculty to do that I'm saying but he's gonna put himself against a two year old

to win you understand what I'm fucking saying I still think a kid's better and probably has a better accent at the end of it at all. And maybe you understand the grammatical structure better of Russian,

but the kid would sound more fluent. Well, also, you don't know retaining, right? For example, I really liked White Lotus season two. And my family's going to go to Sicily this summer and have a little villa. So I was like, I'm going to go on Duolingo.

I'm going to get some Italian under my belt. So I was crushing it the first week. And then a week went by. I got a little distracted. You lose your Duolingo streak. If you pay it, they artificially keep it, but whatever. And a week later, I go, wait, I remember nothing. Yeah.

And the way I've been learning Chinese, like my wife's Chinese and the in-laws came to visit, Yeah. And the way I've been learning Chinese, like my wife's Chinese and the in-laws came to visit, when I would be speaking with them, I would pick up 10% of the things they were saying, probably 5%. And I would go, wait a minute, what was that again? And I would learn that way. I would learn how to use practical things like like uh well like what are you eating i'm eating what do you say i don't know man and and retaining i but if if you don't constantly hammer it home you just forget everything yeah absolutely it's the same way with children like when a child is like raised in a certain like country or language for like the first three or four years of their life and then they're removed from that environment and like say the family moves to like a new country those kids forget the fucking language like that's it's i think culturally we romanticize the idea of like there's only one time in the world where your brain's like play-doh and you gotta fucking get it in there i think it is a myth that like children you're you miss this window in life by your brain is not capable of doing or learning something once you escape

childhood because the circumstances in society that you just exist in as an adult it would be extremely difficult to recreate that environment but if you were like if we just put humans in test tubes and wanted to run equal experience I don't test you people

I'm saying that no matter how smart or how good a kid is at chess or better at languages I will always sleep a kid in the ring that's not a debate have any of you learned a new skill or hobby recently and gotten like half decent at it not chess just I don't know

last couple years while we've been on this rock climbing you gotten good at it were you bad at first is it not intuitive I think pound for pound kids will always be better at learning unless it's maybe I mean you gotten good at it? Yeah. Were you bad at first? Is it not intuitive? Oh, I did it because of intuitive. I think pound for pound kids will always be better at learning unless it's maybe a physical activity and they just have worse motor skills. In which I sleep them. That's a good question. I think in a practical sense you are right. Yeah.

Like I think if I like I pick a baseball faster than like a six-year-old cuz that fucker doesn't even know how to hold a bat. Oh, I just saw you didn't you pick a basketball? Bro, I am nasty Fucking I would oh dude, I would love to dust you Athletic levy you're nice and all but look at this Box you out my ass can box Ask asked to box you out. Yeah. Wait, what? What do you mean? My ass can box you out. Oh, I thought you said you got asked to box me. No, no, no.

I don't know if I could ever be good enough at basketball to not get boxed out by that guy's ass. All right, yo, Zipper, I'm sending you something. I'm sending you something. All right. So I'm going to get a little into basketball. Mainly because people said I can't hit a three-point shot. And then I did because I'm electric.

It wasn't the first try, though. It was my first try. That was literally- No way. That was how your YouTube shorts started. Yeah. Yeah, you just said the exact same two sentences. I'm the same guy.

Jesus. So then that short comes out, Yingling, he's talking about it. All right. And he's like, dude, I would beat you in a three point contest, something to that effect. What are you doing? So let's drive to a court. I'll play you one-on-one. The content will be tremendous.

Well, let me just give you my resume here. So Yingling's like, I'd beat you in a three-point contest. I'm like, fine. I delay my stream. We go directly to a court. I got my basketball. We're going shot for shot, 10 three-point shots each. That's fine.

Whoever hits the most wins. Yeah, it was 2-2. Through the first nine, it's 2-2. Right? We were taking it easy, bro. We were taking it easy. On the tenth shot, Yingo misses. And on the tenth shot, Zebra, can you pull the tape?

He's a little late on the draw. He was dealing with something right now. You're not showing it? Oh, shit. The screen is just the Yard logo. I saw it, but the audience might have not seen it. Yeah, I saw this dude. No, no, this is the new one. This is new. No, no, I'm pretty sure I saw this too.

How? Oh, on stream? No, because I fucking see- oh, this isn't posted yet or what? No, no, I've not posted this on a short. So this is me versus Yingo, shot for shot. He misses his tenth shot. It's two to two of nine. No. Nah, stop. You hit this? What, you grant? Oh? Just a

Style shot sinked in oh my god. We're the white ray allen yeah Yeah, I don't see them granny saw the last and then like this. Yeah. That's crazy. That's my hustle back. You don't play on a limbo. I would probably lose if you're actually decent from three or from midcourt or from anywhere. I smoke even bigger than me. I'm down to do it. All right. You don't smoke him in threes.

I'm only here for like, I don't know how much longer. Let's go do it right now. Aiden gets first. I get second. Ludwig gets third. Let's play a little two on two. Ludwig gets third. I'm three.

Oh, let's play two on two. This is'm sorry. Oh, let's wait till two. It's fun I'm free after this up until three I excuse myself to on two because I can't remember what retain my skill for the kids Yeah What you can be the camera man? It's oh, yeah, there's five people I have to retain my skill you'll work out by Moving the camera. Oh you try this is how you guys. I have to retain my skill. You'll work out by moving the camera. Oh, you try. This is how you do it. Guys, I'm in town.

This is how you do it. I'm in town until... Did you just shot a ball, bro? People are just chess pieces to you. I haven't played basketball in like four years. But now that I saw you go into it... Now I'm excited. I have not played a game of basketball in six years.

I have a herniated disc, all right? Oh. Yeah, in my lower back. L5S1. Just remove it. I hate that one. It's coming, dude. Yeah. I had a herniated disc all right now yeah in my lower back l5 s ones remove it Yeah My millionth fuck Yeah, what was that million fuck? We'll say before you came back there we go. He timed it to um Yeah, we can we can do a little one-on-one

What do we have four times it let's get this going I? Think we're there do we do we have for time, Zip? Let's get this going. I think we're there. Don't ever tell me where I am. Bro, why are you worried about it? That's the word you're worried about, is getting a ball. You somehow figured out how to get $15,000. Yo, did you responded to my fucking DM in the middle

of this podcast? It's on you now. Ball's in your court. Why have you not replied for our collab? Is this just YouTube big time? Kind of weird. Anyway, this is Levy, Goth Is this just you two big time? Kind of weird. Anyway, this is Levy. Gotham Chess. Two big time for us. Yeah, we never actually introduced him or said what he did.

That's fine. It's fine. You gaslighting the... How dare you? I would have gaslighted. Yeah, he does that. How dare you? Can I just secure my job opportunity here?

Chess boxing too, if it happens. Will I be here? Will I be co-commentating? No, no, you'll be in the ring. No, he doesn't want to be in the ring. You'll be commentating. No, I would need to make like a new... Oh, will I be here? Will I be co-commentating? No, no, you'll be in the ring. No, he doesn't want to be in the ring. You'll be commentating. No, I would need to make like a fat million dollars. You versus Hezbollah.

Hezbollah, do you play? I'm not fighting. I'll do a photo. I'll let him knock me out like he knocks out everybody. You Hezbollah kickboxing. Would you do creative clash? Well, no. You would fight, right?

God, no. Why would you fight? It's such a... Okay, I was at creative clash. I was in the second Creator Clash? Well, no. We would fight, right? God, no. Why would you fight? It's such a... Okay, I was at Creator Clash. I was in the second row. I was watching this fight. It was unlocking

everything animalistic inside me. I'm like, this is fucking sick. Oh my God. Like, amazing. Violent. Like, you can see

their form. Like, they're not the best, but the best boxers are always like staying on the outside. These two... Alex Wasabi versus iDubbbz,

they were tough. The uppercut was sending the spit and then at some point i'm like this is like awful like i mean this is like 18,000 people in a hockey arena screaming for people who have boxed for like a year to fight but it unlocks something inside of you we want to see it in our brains yeah i'll give you the best example best example some somebody brought this up recently to me they said imagine there's a hockey game going on a baseball game going's a hockey game going on, a baseball game going on, a basketball game going on.

You're watching the game. A fight breaks out in the stands. What are you going to watch? True. You're going to watch the fight in the stands. That's such a great question. That's a great right. I'm going to watch it.

Shout out to... Shut the fuck up. I wouldn't fight anyone. I don't have any mental energy. Not if Rui's on the court. Not if Rui's on the court. If Rui's on the court, I actually would. I probably pray

so which is me though but it's like it's one of these things right so anyway I wouldn't do it because I'm not gonna do I got into the boxing gym

because I didn't know if I was gonna be fighting at chess boxing can I ask you a question I want you to be very honest with me when you talked about chess boxing for the first time with me

in DMs I thought about Eric Rosen I thought about a couple of other people I started going to the boxing gym because of him, because I thought maybe I'm going to chess box somebody. I ended up leaving the boxing gym because I got COVID, but also I had started to spar and like, even just getting hit when your gloves are up is awful. You didn't like that shit. No, I didn't like it. I'm not going to, no, I didn't like that shit at all. Even the stomach,

nothing. Anyway, I got COVID covid so i don't box anymore um so i was uh i was at the boxing gym i was i was thinking of uh you know of doing the chess boxing the day before the chess boxing you moved aman and lawrence up like they got moved up and toast was the main event right the yes because he toes got the loudest pop of the night definitely yeah yeah and they were swapped a main event was the night definitely yeah yeah and it was swapped a main event was maybe originally meant to be like it was supposed to be the chess grandmasters but it wasn't that wasn't smart because like they wouldn't you know um would you have moved me no you would have been i would have been the last one of the title baby you think so yeah 100 yeah

he'll say whatever you want to hear yeah you versus hosbley no i've been dying to know because it was me and Rosen and like a day before you were like I'm gonna put you like okay dude if you put Andrea Botez's fight after mine I wouldn't have shown up to the fight I was

like are you kidding me that was a good fight it was a great fight I wait a minute it was it wasn't a good fight it was a good chess boxing match yeah as Dina didn't really but

she was there and she was like she ended up checkmating it was fun to watch but yes I think you would have easily been main event I wouldn't have been

nervous about that so you put Point Crow and Toast into the fucking trash can gutter for our go here no it's the opposite dude I didn't think

because they were not they were in the trash can gutter to begin with you keep them in the gutter and you spit in it I keep them in the gutter that was a great fight too it was an amazing fight

so Toast Point Crow was I mean do you remember the force queen capture go in the distance? Yeah? I love how he thinks about the chest. Oh my god. I was thinking about the low In the in the stadium the thing wasn't working for a while a game because I was really excited about the chest That's cuz we don't have any Technologies like ten years old. It's like a little magnetized board Yeah, I was never supposed to be in a boxing ring,

connected via wires that go out. I mean, the sky table was sick. A lot of that stuff was good. I don't know. Somebody's got to... We've got to get there. I think it'll be good. Well, thanks for coming on.

I learned a lot about the magenta opening. Did you? You clearly did learn anything. That isn't the queen. Diagonally, that is the rook, which is much like... They call Luigi and is the rook. Which is much like, they call Luigi and Melee the rook of Chitin. Tell me right now how the horse of the knight moves.

All right, everyone. We're going to go to the Patreon episode now. So please have fun. In the Patreon episode, we'll tell you who won the basketball match. Patreon.com slash Gotham Chess. Actually, that guy got a URL in a scam. Do it again. Shout yourself out. Shout yourself out. Do you want to shout out your new channel? You got your new channels. Slash Gotham chess actually that guy got a URL in a scan again

I don't have I don't actually have a patreon someone is camping on a patreon URL I reported it to patreon and they said we can't tell you the result of our investigation. So Gotham chess on everything Subscribe to the YouTube so I can pass a lot I was like 700k away and then you had to fucking make that thing about Mr. Top 5 and now you're back to a million ahead. I was so, I was like, I'm passing all these YouTubers. I'm like, am I actually

getting close to Ludwig? Anyway, I need something to aspire to. I'll get past Mr. Top 5. We just all collected into Mr. Top 4. Did that guy ever address that whole thing? Oh yeah, he reached out to me. He was not happy. Really? No, he was not happy at all.

Wait, actually? He was... Is this, like, breaking news? Because I was wondering... Yeah, I've talked about it on stream, but he was certainly not enthralled with the short, and he was like, yeah, it was kind of funny,

but, like, people keep messaging me. And I was like, totally fair. Totally fair. My bad. People keep messaging him. We'll talk about it. Yeah, bitch, we got more subs now. Not me, but, you know, a lot of weeks we got more subs. Basically you know, what are we exam more subs basically?

You don't want a bunch of people yelling at you for no reason Thousands of DMs every second He's sleeping. He's sleeping in Indonesia. I'm like, hey, all you guys, click this link. And it takes their IPs all offline. All 250 million people. All offline. To the entire country.

All right. Well, while we plan to take down the fourth largest nation in the world, you can do anything you want. We'll see you later. See you later. Bye. Bye. Bye.

Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.

Bye. Bye. Bye.