GothamChess: Hans Niemann, Magnus Carlsen, Cheating Scandal & Chess Bots | Lex Fridman Podcast #327

1. 0:00 – 1:09

   Introduction

   1. LFLex Fridman0:00

      I have anal beads-

   2. LRLevy Rozman0:01

      (laughs)

   3. LFLex Fridman0:01

      ... that are con- communicating with Stockfish via Bluetooth. We'll get to that.

   4. LRLevy Rozman0:05

      If you cheat, you play God. You decide when the game is over. You can fake bad moves. You can fake everything. You can even, if you're cheating, quote-unquote, "the right way," you're gonna lose plenty of games to avoid getting detected.

   5. LFLex Fridman0:23

      What's the probability that Hans cheated over the board against Magnus in, in Saint Louis?

   6. LRLevy Rozman0:27

      I think day by day, the evidence is slowly starting to show more and more that he's cheated, it, like w- like how Magnus said, more than he's said, and more recently.

   7. LFLex Fridman0:45

      The following is a conversation with Levy Rozman, also known as GothamChess. He's a professional chess player and educator. I highly recommend you check out his YouTube channel, called GothamChess. This is a Lex Fridman podcast. To support it, please check out our sponsors in the description, and now, dear friends, here's Levy Rozman.

2. 1:09 – 2:13

   Elo rating

   1. LFLex Fridman1:09

      You're known for being able to guess people's ELO ratings, so what do you think, just by looking at my face, deep into my eyes, uh, w- what's my ELO rating? Here, I'll help you. I'll, I'll do-

   2. LRLevy Rozman1:20

      (laughs)

   3. LFLex Fridman1:20

      ... E4 for the listener. I actually read that Stockfish prefers E4.

   4. LRLevy Rozman1:26

      Does it really? I didn't-

   5. LFLex Fridman1:28

      B-

   6. LRLevy Rozman1:28

      ... I actually didn't know that.

   7. LFLex Fridman1:29

      ... because it maximizes the number of tactical options. So...

   8. LRLevy Rozman1:33

      That makes sense.

   9. LFLex Fridman1:34

      The right answer is 3400, which is, I believe, Stockfish.

   10. LRLevy Rozman1:38

       (laughs)

   11. LFLex Fridman1:38

       Uh, you guess people's ELO chess rating. What- what's that take? How hard is it to do that, and, like, how would you actually do that? Like, what are telltale signs or red flags about a person at different ratings? Is there something you look for?

   12. LRLevy Rozman1:52

       Yeah, I think you can separate it something like, the very first, the zero to about 8, 900. For simplicity's sake, I'm gonna use the Chess.com rating system because Lichess is slightly different. It tends to go 200, 300 points higher than Chess.com, sometimes even 400, 500 points higher, but then it catches up. They catch up around 22, 2300,

3. 2:13 – 13:04

   Chess.com vs lichess.org

   1. LRLevy Rozman2:13

      I would say.

   2. LFLex Fridman2:14

      What's Chess.com? What's Lichess? Can you like-

   3. LRLevy Rozman2:18

      Yeah. So-

   4. LFLex Fridman2:18

      ... explain what the difference is and what they are?

   5. LRLevy Rozman2:21

      They're two chess websites. Uh-

   6. LFLex Fridman2:24

      Good starting point.

   7. LRLevy Rozman2:25

      Yes. Chess.com is, uh, it has obviously the free option, where you can play games. You get some sort of puzzles every single day. You get some sort of lessons every single day. But then they have tiered memberships, where you can pay annually or per month that you can unlock all the other features and-

   8. LFLex Fridman2:42

      Like what? Like for training, for like-

   9. LRLevy Rozman2:45

      For training. They have-

   10. LFLex Fridman2:45

       ... puzzles and all that kind of stuff.

   11. LRLevy Rozman2:46

       Yeah, they have unlimited puzzles, but they also have, their, their biggest selling point, for sure, is like a dedicated game review that it's like very flashy and sophisticated, and the coach will literally tell you what you did wrong e- at every single moment the computer-

   12. LFLex Fridman3:02

       Got it.

   13. LRLevy Rozman3:02

       ... evaluated a mistake. But the most important thing that they have is they offer international masters, grandmasters, the opportunity to make video lesson libraries, which hundreds of hours of anything. I can even learn some stuff on there probably.

   14. LFLex Fridman3:15

       I have anal beads-

   15. LRLevy Rozman3:16

       (laughs)

   16. LFLex Fridman3:16

       ... that are con- communicating with Stockfish via Bluetooth.

   17. LRLevy Rozman3:19

       Yeah, we've d-

   18. LFLex Fridman3:20

       We'll get to that.

   19. LRLevy Rozman3:20

       Yes. We will get to that.

   20. LFLex Fridman3:22

       (laughs) Uh-

   21. LRLevy Rozman3:23

       Uh, it's epic. It's actually scary how many people think that's a real thing, by the way, which is the danger of the internet. But we, yeah, we will get into that, but-

   22. LFLex Fridman3:29

       I tend to believe that people believing a thing that's hilarious at scale will make that thing a reality. I'm with Elon on this. I think, uh, people manifest the meme. The meme becomes real. So, that, but that, that's, I, in all walks of life, I, I think there is something about humor sort of, uh, being... ugh. Why does m- why did I, I was gonna s- what was I, I was going to say, is I feel like humor becomes a lubricant for the trajectory of human civilization, and I don't know why the word lubricant went into my head, which-

   23. LRLevy Rozman4:04

       Beads?

   24. LFLex Fridman4:04

       ... I understand.

   25. LRLevy Rozman4:05

       Yeah.

   26. LFLex Fridman4:06

       But it's very Freudian.

   27. LRLevy Rozman4:07

       Yeah.

   28. LFLex Fridman4:07

       Anyway, so, uh, to 0 to 900, if you're a 1300 player-

   29. LRLevy Rozman4:12

       Yeah.

   30. LFLex Fridman4:12

       ... you were saying.
4. 13:04 – 17:32

   Teaching chess

   1. LRLevy Rozman13:04

      the game.

   2. LFLex Fridman13:04

      So yeah. You did, um ... You taught people chess, you coached people for, for many years, I guess, in, in New York.

   3. LRLevy Rozman13:10

      Yeah. New York, yeah.

   4. LFLex Fridman13:11

      What, what did you learn about the way people learn from that? So like, how, how did people that were successful at getting good at chess quickly-

   5. LRLevy Rozman13:23

      Mm-hmm.

   6. LFLex Fridman13:24

      W- what were the ... some of the commonalities, some of the patterns that you saw?

   7. LRLevy Rozman13:28

      Obsession.

   8. LFLex Fridman13:30

      (laughs)

   9. LRLevy Rozman13:31

      Yeah.

   10. LFLex Fridman13:31

       What does obsession look like?

   11. LRLevy Rozman13:34

       I- I would say it's obsession, and also ... and also love of the game. So if you're bored, you don't wanna watch a show, you wanna boot up chess.com or Lichess, just for ... just so I don't get-

   12. LFLex Fridman13:47

       Yeah.

   13. LRLevy Rozman13:47

       ... flamed by any- anyone in the audience. Uh, and you just play.

   14. LFLex Fridman13:51

       So you're saying that Lichess people are the ones that would attack aggressively? They're the kind of people-

   15. LRLevy Rozman13:54

       It's probably the, the chess24 people.

   16. LFLex Fridman13:56

       Chess ... Oh, that's another-

   17. LRLevy Rozman13:58

       (laughs)

   18. LFLex Fridman13:59

       So there's another ... So there's no- I, I didn't know. I thought chess24 was part of the chess.com, um-

   19. LRLevy Rozman14:03

       Well now, yes.

   20. LFLex Fridman14:04

       ... uh, uh-

   21. LRLevy Rozman14:04

       It's the joke.

   22. LFLex Fridman14:05

       ... cult or tribe or whatever terms we wanna use.

   23. LRLevy Rozman14:07

       No, no. I'm sure there's even more places to play live. There always have been more places to play live. But, uh, chess.com, Lichess, dominate and ... well, chess24 is, uh, is rough for live interface. Of course, they have good courses and everything, but (both laugh)

   24. LFLex Fridman14:22

       I got it. I got it. And some are even good people or whatever.

   25. LRLevy Rozman14:27

       Yes.

   26. LFLex Fridman14:27

       However that quote goes.

   27. LRLevy Rozman14:28

       Yes.

   28. LFLex Fridman14:28

       Okay. Like, uh, obsession. That means the way they look at the board when they're bored, how quickly do they return to the chess board, that kind of stuff?

   29. LRLevy Rozman14:41

       Yes.

   30. LFLex Fridman14:41

       Just like how many hours a day they, they want to spend-
5. 17:32 – 32:47

   Magnus Carlsen

   1. LFLex Fridman17:33

      What ... Isn't that what Magnus is really good at, is taking people away from like making suboptimal moves, to take them away from the known, uh, openings? Or is that unfair to say?

   2. LRLevy Rozman17:47

      Yeah. He gets part of his really dominant reputation, I think, from not letting people get into ultra theoretical positions. He just won this tournament, this online tournament, and he said he had a, a young player strategy. He had an anti- ... Sorry, a anti-young player strategy.

   3. LFLex Fridman18:09

      What's that mean?

   4. LRLevy Rozman18:10

      It means that by move seven or eight, you go to the database, no games.

   5. LFLex Fridman18:15

      Nice.

   6. LRLevy Rozman18:15

      Kid is on their own. They have to swim on their own.

   7. LFLex Fridman18:17

      Yeah.

   8. LRLevy Rozman18:18

      ... and they have to deal with the strategic complexities of the position, which he just, he gets. And he might get from just an enormous database within his brain of historical games that have similar structures, or just sheer genius. Like, we- we- we won't know.

   9. LFLex Fridman18:34

      Yeah.

   10. LRLevy Rozman18:34

       It's a mix of the two, for sure. The younger you are, you can't remember a game played in 1951 in some bar in the Soviet Union, but he does 'cause he read a book once, or a magazine once.

   11. LFLex Fridman18:45

       And he just remembers it.

   12. LRLevy Rozman18:46

       He just remembers, and he remembers the structure, which, it just, it's not fair. (laughs)

   13. LFLex Fridman18:50

       Yeah.

   14. LRLevy Rozman18:50

       It's crazy, right?

   15. LFLex Fridman18:51

       What do you think makes, um, if we can sort of linger on it, what do you think makes him so good?

   16. LRLevy Rozman18:55

       I think it's the memory, and I think it's ... He just seems to get the game better than anybody else. That's the best way I- I can describe it. In sports, you have reaction time, you have strength, you have ... But also, as he's now evolving, it's stamina. So there have been games that if you put two other 2750 rated players, or world top 10 players, they would've drawn the game. The game would've ended. The game, nobody would've won it. You put Magnus as one of the aggressors in that game, s- suddenly the chance of victory doubles, from 5% to 10%.

   17. LFLex Fridman19:35

       Yeah, weird. What- what's that about? 'Cause the, what is it, game six against Nepo, like-

   18. LRLevy Rozman19:39

       Right.

   19. LFLex Fridman19:40

       Uh, isn't Stockfish say that it's supposed to be a draw?

   20. LRLevy Rozman19:43

       So 0.00 does mean a draw sometimes, but other times it means, and this is the joke I always make, it means that Stockfish is out for a smoke break. It just, it ju- it can't-

   21. LFLex Fridman19:53

       Can you explain the joke?

   22. LRLevy Rozman19:54

       Yes.

   23. LFLex Fridman19:54

       And can you explain 0.00?

   24. LRLevy Rozman19:56

       Yes. So when ... So Stockfish will show, uh, an evaluation which determines whether the position is equal, slightly better for one side, slightly better for the other side, or completely winning.

   25. LFLex Fridman20:08

       Yeah.

   26. LRLevy Rozman20:08

       You can, yeah, 0.0, 0.2, -0.2, that's all within a balance. You can say, okay, black has a little sprinkle of activity, something, white has that. But if it's 000, it could be literally a dead draw, meaning, theoretically, com- just impossible to win. But oftentimes what that means is, the smoke break joke is, Stockfish doesn't know. There is so much complexity within the position, the combinations of different moves that are acceptable and okay, it cannot evaluate correctly.

   27. LFLex Fridman20:41

       Wow. So even the end games are tough for Stockfish.

   28. LRLevy Rozman20:45

       Which is why Magnus won that game, because there was practical value remaining. It wasn't a dead draw. He continued to ask questions over the course of six or seven hours. He would sacrifice a pawn, he would sacrifice another pawn to damage the structure. Evaluation stayed the same, because a machine could stop him, but not Jan. And that was one of my favorite re- that, that, that game ruined my whole day, by the way.

   29. LFLex Fridman21:09

       Yeah.

   30. LRLevy Rozman21:09

       It destroyed, because I made s-
6. 32:47 – 37:30

   Greatest chess player of all time

   1. LFLex Fridman32:47

      who would you say is the greatest of all time? Can you m- can you make the case, you mentioned Kasparov. Can you make the case for Kasparov? Can you make the case for Magnus Carlsen? Uh, Bobby Fischer? Tal?

   2. LRLevy Rozman33:02

      Y- in my opinion, you can make a case for Magnus, Garry and Bobby Fischer. I, I'm not one of-

   3. LFLex Fridman33:08

      That's fair.

   4. LRLevy Rozman33:08

      ... the folks that's like, "Oh," I mean, Capablanca was brilliant. You can argue Steinitz was brilliant. But as f- uh, I think, I think it was, it's probably Kasparov and Magnus has a chance to overtake it.

   5. LFLex Fridman33:22

      So the longevity is really important to you when you're thinking about this.

   6. LRLevy Rozman33:25

      Yes. I think so. I think Magnus is very, very close. Like, it's, it's extremely close, yeah.

   7. LFLex Fridman33:31

      What would be the magic?

   8. LRLevy Rozman33:32

      You gotta get that sixth one. (laughs)

   9. LFLex Fridman33:34

      Oh, so the-

   10. LRLevy Rozman33:35

       I'm just kidding. (laughs)

   11. LFLex Fridman33:36

       So the world championships matter?

   12. LRLevy Rozman33:39

       It's kinda like basketball, right? Rings. It's all, all comes down to how many rings did, did this person win, win.

   13. LFLex Fridman33:44

       What about, well, basketball doesn't have this. The number of years at number one. Right?

   14. LRLevy Rozman33:49

       Mm.

   15. LFLex Fridman33:49

       Like, uh, rating. Sorry.

   16. LRLevy Rozman33:51

       Yeah.

   17. LFLex Fridman33:52

       Uh, like there's a, there is a, which is what Magnus really likes is like, there is a nice system of rating of who is ranked number one-

   18. LRLevy Rozman34:02

       Yeah.

   19. LFLex Fridman34:02

       ... and it has to do not with some championships or low sample tournaments.

   20. LRLevy Rozman34:07

       Mm-hmm.

   21. LFLex Fridman34:07

       It has to do with g- general. Game after game after game helps estimate more accurately the ELO rating. So...

   22. LRLevy Rozman34:15

       Yeah, he's been world number one for, I think, 11 years. Right? So...

   23. LFLex Fridman34:18

       Which is still less than Kasparov.

   24. LRLevy Rozman34:19

       Garry was world number one for 20 years. Yeah. Which is, which is quite wild.

   25. LFLex Fridman34:24

       But still lower rating, I think, than Magnus now, right?

   26. LRLevy Rozman34:27

       Yeah. I think rating in general has sort of...

   27. LFLex Fridman34:30

       Allegedly, it got inflated?

   28. LRLevy Rozman34:31

       Yeah. I-

   29. LFLex Fridman34:32

       Is that true? Is there truth to that?

   30. LRLevy Rozman34:34

       I think so. I don't, I can't speak to how exactly it happened. But it also happens online. If you go back just three or four years, I think some of the best blitz players on, let's say, chess.com were 27, 2800 and now they're 3200. I think it's just sort of what happens. But I, I don't exactly know. Uh, I will mention that there was a very strange change, not exactly sure when the year was, in FIDE, so over-the-board chess, where if you were under the age of 16 or 18 years old, one of those two, and you were below 2300, okay? Your rating change factor was three to four times higher.
7. 37:30 – 38:59

   Hans Niemann cheating scandal

   1. LRLevy Rozman37:30

   2. LFLex Fridman37:30

      So there's a guy named Hans Niemann.

   3. LRLevy Rozman37:34

      Yep.

   4. LFLex Fridman37:35

      And, uh, he beat Magnus Carlsen recently.

   5. LRLevy Rozman37:40

      Yeah.

   6. LFLex Fridman37:41

      Has it been already, what is-

   7. LRLevy Rozman37:42

      September 4th.

   8. LFLex Fridman37:42

      Was it August?

   9. LRLevy Rozman37:43

      September 4th was the date.

   10. LFLex Fridman37:44

       Oh, it was September? So he beat him twice, right? Recently. Once is the allegations the, by the internet that Hans Niemann cheated, and then the second time, uh, Magnus played a few moves and f- forfeited, and resigned.

   11. LRLevy Rozman38:04

       There's actually... So there's three.

   12. LFLex Fridman38:06

       Okay. Sorry, can you-

   13. LRLevy Rozman38:07

       No, no, no. Yeah.

   14. LFLex Fridman38:07

       Can you, can we go through the stops? So...

   15. LRLevy Rozman38:09

       Yes, yes, yes.

   16. LFLex Fridman38:10

       Uh...

   17. LRLevy Rozman38:10

       So they play a live esports event in Miami, Miami Beach.

   18. LFLex Fridman38:16

       Yes.

   19. LRLevy Rozman38:17

       Eden Rock.

   20. LFLex Fridman38:18

       That's where I actually interviewed Magnus. Yeah.

   21. LRLevy Rozman38:20

       That's where that was?

   22. LFLex Fridman38:21

       Mm-hmm.

   23. LRLevy Rozman38:23

       Oh.

   24. LFLex Fridman38:23

       By weird circumstance, I found myself in Miami unrelated to the chess event. And, uh, yeah, it was a very dramatic event for me for various reasons, one of which the camera stopped working halfway through the conversation.

   25. LRLevy Rozman38:36

       I saw that, yeah. I saw that. I also, a side note, I really respect how you write comments, pin them at the top, you add timestamps. You're, like, very true professional. I am the complete opposite on YouTube when I'm off the camera. So-

   26. LFLex Fridman38:52

       (laughs)

   27. LRLevy Rozman38:53

       ... I dig in the mud. Like I-

   28. LFLex Fridman38:54

       What, what does that mean, dig in the mud?

   29. LRLevy Rozman38:56

       From when I started on YouTube in

8. 38:59 – 53:07

   Pin of Shame

   1. LRLevy Rozman38:59

      2020, I... In June, like May, June 2020, I had no subscribers. So I got to a million in a year. I had a lot of people analyzing my every move, all of my small flaws. And I, I love getting hate comments because-

   2. LFLex Fridman39:17

      Yeah, you pin, you pin-

   3. LRLevy Rozman39:19

      Yeah.

   4. LFLex Fridman39:19

      Is it the comment of shame, or something?

   5. LRLevy Rozman39:21

      It, it, that's what it was, it's been named over the years by, by folks. I never-

   6. LFLex Fridman39:24

      Yeah.

   7. LRLevy Rozman39:24

      ... called it that, but yeah, it's, it's, it's pin of shame. And the-

   8. LFLex Fridman39:27

      Pin of shame, yes.

   9. LRLevy Rozman39:28

      It's been tough because now people pretend to write hate comments just to get attention. So like anything, the public ruined a good thing. (laughs) But it started that way. It started with people just shredding me to bits, calling me spinoffs of this and that. And, um, I think I'm, I'm a human more than I am a creator, an influencer, an attention seeker. Like, I'm just a person. So to me, even at the size of 1.6 million subscribers now, September 2022, I don't understand that I've gotten big and that I shouldn't do this stuff and that I should be beyond it or I shouldn't be checking my social media as much as I do and interacting one-on-one. I'm still very much a human being, and my guilty pleasure, my way of killing time if I'm not laying on the couch and playing some chess blitz games off stream is I just interact with people who say nice things and who say horrible things.

   10. LFLex Fridman40:24

       Mm-hmm.

   11. LRLevy Rozman40:25

       And I really like to get into the head of the people who say the terrible things. Now sometimes you can't, sometimes they are truly trolls, but sometimes people just, they just, they just really hate you, so.

   12. LFLex Fridman40:34

       Wh- what, (laughs) wh- what's a successful, what's a successful interaction with the person that's, uh, trolling you? What's, uh, like at the end of that hero journey that you were, uh-

   13. LRLevy Rozman40:44

       Yeah.

   14. LFLex Fridman40:45

       ... uh, partaking in, what's, what's, like, what's the top of the mountain look like? Is the troll conquered and broken mentally?

   15. LRLevy Rozman40:54

       Yes. Not, no, not mental... I don't wanna, I don't wanna defeat. I ho- I honestly sometimes, if somebody writes a very long comment, I'll just, I'll respond with a question mark.

   16. LFLex Fridman41:01

       Yeah. Oh, so you're, you're, you see each other as like a br- like a brother and sister. You're gonna travel together on this journey of-

   17. LRLevy Rozman41:09

       (laughs) .

   18. LFLex Fridman41:09

       ... deep meaning, like introspection of what does this mean?

   19. LRLevy Rozman41:12

       Yeah, I've had people write, I can't quote now, but something about my persona, my behavior, this and that. And I just, like, respond to them and I say, "Hey, it sounds crazy that a large creator might do something like this," but this kind of goes back to y- y- you speak to folks on a very respectful way. If you make a mistake, you completely own up to it. So I have this sometimes these one-on-one interactions where I say, "I think you're reading too much into this. I think you're kind of, you don't understand maybe some of my humor or sarcasm as, as such, so you form this opinion that-"

   20. LFLex Fridman41:44

       Mm-hmm.

   21. LRLevy Rozman41:44

       "... I'm this kind of a person," this and that, "and now you're sort of, anything I do, you're trying to attach to that reasoning, and here you are writing this lengthy essay of why nobody should watch my content." And sometimes people go, "You know what? I think you have a point. Maybe I should relax a little bit." And I say, there, there you go.

   22. LFLex Fridman41:59

       Yeah, I would love, I, I would love to sort of interview and understand the lives of the f- the folks that post that kind of stuff. I mean, they're, they're human beings, they have interesting journeys also.

   23. LRLevy Rozman42:10

       Yeah.

   24. LFLex Fridman42:10

       I think they often don't realize... I think they don't realize their comment will be read by anybody, especially you.

   25. LRLevy Rozman42:18

       Maybe.

   26. LFLex Fridman42:18

       They, they think like, and they also don't realize you're a human being, I feel like. That's-

   27. LRLevy Rozman42:25

       Yeah.

   28. LFLex Fridman42:25

       And it's, it's so interesting to watch it. (laughs) Like, uh, some guy, 'cause I posted on Twitter for like a minute, uh, that I'm talking to you and asking for questions. I, I deleted that tweet because-

   29. LRLevy Rozman42:39

       ... yeah, no, 'cause you didn't like it.

   30. LFLex Fridman42:40

       Like, 95% of the people were, "Talk about cheating, talk about the cheating." All right, I got it. Thank you. This is not gonna be helpful at all. (laughs)
9. 53:07 – 54:59

   Bullying

   1. LRLevy Rozman53:08

      I skipped kindergarten, so I was always the smallest kid. And I-

   2. LFLex Fridman53:12

      You f- you were picked on?

   3. LRLevy Rozman53:14

      I was picked on and then I did picking.

   4. LFLex Fridman53:16

      Nice.

   5. LRLevy Rozman53:16

      So I had kind of both in my life. I kinda know. I went home from summer camp crying, and I also made a kid cry once-

   6. LFLex Fridman53:23

      Nice.

   7. LRLevy Rozman53:23

      ... in fourth grade.

   8. LFLex Fridman53:24

      Nice.

   9. LRLevy Rozman53:25

      So I had the balance. And I-

   10. LFLex Fridman53:26

       Uh, physical or mental abuse? Or both?

   11. LRLevy Rozman53:29

       Verbal.

   12. LFLex Fridman53:30

       Verbal.

   13. LRLevy Rozman53:30

       No, I didn't beat anybody up. I was tiny.

   14. LFLex Fridman53:32

       Okay.

   15. LRLevy Rozman53:32

       I think the kid in the younger grade was bigger than I was.

   16. LFLex Fridman53:35

       And you still broke him.

   17. LRLevy Rozman53:36

       Because I was an ass.

   18. LFLex Fridman53:38

       Well done.

   19. LRLevy Rozman53:38

       I was... Yeah.

   20. LFLex Fridman53:38

       Well done, Lex.

   21. LRLevy Rozman53:39

       Yeah. I...

   22. LFLex Fridman53:39

       (laughs)

   23. LRLevy Rozman53:39

       So I had to use my-

   24. LFLex Fridman53:41

       Mental warfare.

   25. LRLevy Rozman53:42

       I had to use my words.

   26. LFLex Fridman53:43

       Yeah.

   27. LRLevy Rozman53:43

       I had to be... And growing up, uh, my parents split when I was super young and I played chess. So all things that make you super self-trustworthy. Like, you believe your first instinct. You don't listen to what other people tell you. And if people give you advice, you say, "Okay. I'm gonna think about that. I'm not gonna go and- and do that." I wasn't impressionable. You couldn't convince me to do something. That stuck to this day. My wife has had to deconstruct some of my stubbornness I didn't even realize was incredible stubbornness. It's just something that you're- you're brought up with. So to me, that stuff doesn't bother me. Uh, and it's- it's-

   28. LFLex Fridman54:21

       S- so the voices of others don't shake you quite... They can't mentally, um, shake your, like, psychological stability?

   29. LRLevy Rozman54:31

       No, they- they haven't. I- I think when it got probably at its worst point was in combination with being unable to perform well in over-the-board play. But that was also self-driven. I wasn't performing poorly because I was getting comments.... but because I was performing poorly, the comments got to me more. The cycle was sort of in- in the opposite direction. And that- that was probably the most frustrating.

10. 54:59 – 1:06:34

    Indonesia incident

    1. LRLevy Rozman54:59

       Uh, people have said some vile things to me, you know, about my whole Indonesia thing.

    2. LFLex Fridman55:03

       Ooh, this is good.

    3. LRLevy Rozman55:04

       (laughs) Oh.

    4. LFLex Fridman55:05

       This is gonna give the anarchists and Lee Chess some- some fuel.

    5. LRLevy Rozman55:08

       (coughs) Oh, I-

    6. LFLex Fridman55:08

       Let's go, the Indi- what's the Indonesia thing? (laughs)

    7. LRLevy Rozman55:10

       Yeah.

    8. LFLex Fridman55:11

       The way you said it, okay, maybe we don't want to talk about it.

    9. LRLevy Rozman55:13

       No, no, it's-

    10. LFLex Fridman55:13

        But let's- let's talk about it.

    11. LRLevy Rozman55:14

        No, it's- it's- it's totally fine. I...

    12. LFLex Fridman55:17

        Who did you kill?

    13. LRLevy Rozman55:18

        I didn't... phh, I- I was gonna say, "I wish," but I'm not even sure I can make a joke like that.

    14. LFLex Fridman55:22

        (laughs)

    15. LRLevy Rozman55:23

        I, uh, so the Indonesia thing was, I was streaming chess.

    16. LFLex Fridman55:28

        Mm-hmm.

    17. LRLevy Rozman55:29

        On chess.com, I might add, (laughs) uh, and I got booted up for a 10-minute game. Just a random account from Indonesia. That was the flag. Now, mind you, on these websites, you can pick your flag. It can be from wherever, you don't have to, it's not geo-tracing, you can change it. I was like, "Okay, an account from Indonesia." And as always, I looked at the account, 'cause it was an untitled high-rated account, and I looked through the games. Win rate was suspiciously high. A- average accuracy was suspiciously high. I went, "Okay, I think this is a cheater." I said it out loud. It's not the first time I've played cheaters on stream. And I said, "Okay, I'm still gonna play, let's see what happens." The game was not crazy suspicious, but definitely suspicious. A few critical moments where I just clearly thought I had a good position, and then the person or the bot played some move that just killed my hopes.

    18. LFLex Fridman56:23

        Mm-hmm.

    19. LRLevy Rozman56:23

        And I lost. I went, "Okay, I lost." And, uh, I wrote to the chess.com fair play team, like behind the scenes, I wasn't even saying anything publicly on stream, and, uh, the guy got banned.

    20. LFLex Fridman56:34

        Mm-hmm.

    21. LRLevy Rozman56:34

        He was a cheater. So that night...

    22. LFLex Fridman56:37

        Uh-oh.

    23. LRLevy Rozman56:38

        Right before I'm going to sleep, 'cause Indonesia's 12 hours ahead of New York, I go on my Twitter, "The hell is going on?" I see hundreds of responses to my recent tweets. "Levy, you gotta check Facebook man, you gotta check Facebook." Like, so, "You got, here's a link." So, allegedly, that account belonged to an older gentleman, and his son made a Facebook post that said, "My dad played a big streamer in chess, Gotham Chess, and Gotham got mad he lost to my dad, so his community mass-reported my dad and he was banned for cheating."

    24. LFLex Fridman57:13

        Mm-hmm.

    25. LRLevy Rozman57:15

        Oh, it went viral.

    26. LFLex Fridman57:17

        Oh, no.

    27. LRLevy Rozman57:18

        Did you know that Indonesia has the fourth-largest population in the world? I didn't know.

    28. LFLex Fridman57:24

        Oh.

    29. LRLevy Rozman57:24

        I learned it the hard way.

    30. LFLex Fridman57:25

        Interesting.
11. 1:06:34 – 1:13:11

    Retiring from chess

    1. LFLex Fridman1:06:34

    2. LRLevy Rozman1:06:34

       Yeah.

    3. LFLex Fridman1:06:34

       Um, when you talked about retiring, you, I th- I think you tweeted about retiring-

    4. LRLevy Rozman1:06:41

       Mm-hmm.

    5. LFLex Fridman1:06:41

       ... from chess.

    6. LRLevy Rozman1:06:42

       I made a video, yeah. I tweeted.

    7. LFLex Fridman1:06:44

       Um-

    8. LRLevy Rozman1:06:45

       It's my value to the world. (laughs)

    9. LFLex Fridman1:06:47

       The tweet or the video?

    10. LRLevy Rozman1:06:48

        No, I just... (laughs)

    11. LFLex Fridman1:06:49

        Or both?

    12. LRLevy Rozman1:06:49

        Yeah.

    13. LFLex Fridman1:06:50

        Uh, "I'm retiring from all competitive chess events. My preparation is outmatched, my calculation skills are too flawed, and most importantly, my anxiety is beyond repair. I physically and emotionally cannot do it anymore."

    14. LRLevy Rozman1:07:06

        Yeah.

    15. LFLex Fridman1:07:06

        What was the hardest thing, uh, what was the hardest thing about competing? Like, can you, can you elaborate on that?

    16. LRLevy Rozman1:07:13

        Yeah. I think it's separated into phases of my life. So after being a creator and coming back and playing over-the-board and making recaps of all my games, I think the constant feeling that I had at the board was a kid who hadn't studied enough for a test, which is a very unique type of anxiety. And during the game, it was just self-hatred. Like, good moves did not feel as good as how bad bad moves felt, and bad moments.

    17. LFLex Fridman1:07:49

        Right. And- and then underneath that, you're saying there was a sense that, "I did not prepare well enough," always.

    18. LRLevy Rozman1:07:54

        O- oh, un- unquestionably. So my ... I'm an international master, but i- there's international masters now who are 11. I got the title when I was 22, which is late. That might not sound like it's late, but it- it's really late, and I quit chess multiple times when I was a teenager. If I hadn't, if one of my parents was like, "Sit down. This is the only thing that you're good at. Focus on it."

    19. LFLex Fridman1:08:20

        (exhales) Yeah.

    20. LRLevy Rozman1:08:21

        Maybe I would've been a grandmaster, but that's- that's life, right? And I would come back to chess at various points in my life when I felt more mature, I felt more ready, and I felt more motivated. I- it was all me. I never ... I had one coach when I was maybe about 10, I never listened to the guy. Great guy. Like, he emailed me even recently just wanting to catch up, which I thought was adorable, 'cause I'm like, I'm like, I don't- don't even know if he knows that YouTube chess exists. He's in his 70s. He's just, he's just like a nice older guy.

    21. LFLex Fridman1:08:49

        Yeah.

    22. LRLevy Rozman1:08:49

        Um, and he would come to my house. We would have dinner, and my grandma would make us food, and he would tell her that I'm brilliant, but I never work. (laughs) And I have so much potential. If only I ever worked at all, one minute on anything. I just played speed games online and- and I-

    23. LFLex Fridman1:09:06

        But did he- did he speak the truth there? Like, could you have worked more?

    24. LRLevy Rozman1:09:10

        I could have worked more, for sure. Yeah. Absolutely.

    25. LFLex Fridman1:09:12

        When you listen to Magnus who doesn't- he seems like he doesn't work either.

    26. LRLevy Rozman1:09:16

        He works. Uh, he might work in different ways. But I- I think for him, it's also, uh, obsession, again, love. It's- it's everything. It's- he might read a book, he doesn't consider it work.

    27. LFLex Fridman1:09:28

        Mm-hmm.

    28. LRLevy Rozman1:09:28

        It's work. He's getting information in, and he's learning something. It might just be easier for him to learn than for me, for example, or for anybody. Just everybody learns and absorbs things differently. So I- I would come back to chess, and the best run of my life that I had was in 2016, where I basically, while teaching a chess program, scholastic chess program, I told all the parents, "Hey, so for these four months, I'm gonna stop doing private lessons, and I'm gonna go travel and play tournaments, because I wanna become an international master finally."

    29. LFLex Fridman1:10:00

        Mm-hmm.

    30. LRLevy Rozman1:10:01

        I'm 20 years old. This is in 2016. Like, "Can- can you help me raise some money?" These are all managing directors. These are lawyers. These are seven-figure, eight-figure households. And they contributed, and I ke- kept a blog. And then I worked just six hours, seven hours every day, like, studying all the opening trends, uh, all of the new ideas, reading the books, analyzing my own games, playing s- my own speed games, and analyzing them, training every day. And that year, I went from 2240 over-the-board to 2404 with two of the three norms, as they call them, which are basically tournament performances.
12. 1:13:11 – 1:16:53

    Death

    1. LFLex Fridman1:13:11

       this game?

    2. LRLevy Rozman1:13:11

       I- I don't think I'm going to do what I do right now forever.So-

    3. LFLex Fridman1:13:16

       Well, you're gonna die one day.

    4. LRLevy Rozman1:13:17

       Right.

    5. LFLex Fridman1:13:17

       Just a heads-up.

    6. LRLevy Rozman1:13:18

       Yes. Yes, yes, yes. I once cried when I realized that. It was at a funeral. It was very sad. That's another entirely separate rabbit hole to go down.

    7. LFLex Fridman1:13:27

       When- which is when? Uh, what age?

    8. LRLevy Rozman1:13:29

       When, when did this happen?

    9. LFLex Fridman1:13:30

       Yeah.

    10. LRLevy Rozman1:13:30

        Just a couple years ago. Yeah. It was rough.

    11. LFLex Fridman1:13:32

        So you really were able to like... Like that, the realization really hit you like, "Fuck, this, this ends."

    12. LRLevy Rozman1:13:40

        Yeah. I'm the kind of person who, I have my active thoughts in my brain of things I have to get done, and the more of those the better 'cause I'll, my brain will walk me off a cliff, not t- the physical body, the brain itself will walk off a cliff, uh, spinning in circles. So I try to keep myself as active as possible on tasks I have to do. It's good and I'm busy, it's good I'm at the scale I am, 'cause you can't really rest a whole lot. But yes, that was... I have these moments in my life where I have realizations of past fuck-ups or things I ha- like I really have to do that I've been like really doing poorly, or things like this.

    13. LFLex Fridman1:14:17

        Mm-hmm.

    14. LRLevy Rozman1:14:17

        Massive existential things that just hit me like a ch- just like a bus.

    15. LFLex Fridman1:14:23

        There are several things tricky about it. So, 'cause I meditate on death a lot. Like i- in this conversation, I imagine this is the last thing both you and I do. Just, we're gonna die after this. So you meditate on that. But then you also have to, I think what hits people really hard is the realization that life moves on. Not only does it just end for you, but m- most people would be like, um, they'll, you know, in your case, they'll tweet. It's like, "Oh, he's so great." And there'll be-

    16. LRLevy Rozman1:14:55

        They'll be Twittering.

    17. LFLex Fridman1:14:55

        ... so much outpouring. There'll be outpouring of love and so on for a day-

    18. LRLevy Rozman1:15:00

        Yeah.

    19. LFLex Fridman1:15:00

        ... and then it moves on.

    20. LRLevy Rozman1:15:01

        Yeah.

    21. LFLex Fridman1:15:01

        And the, you know, the new trees grow, new, uh, bridges are built, and then eventually human civilization ends, or it moves over to Mars and so on.

    22. LRLevy Rozman1:15:12

        Mm-hmm.

    23. LFLex Fridman1:15:12

        And you'll be forgotten completely.

    24. LRLevy Rozman1:15:14

        Yeah.

    25. LFLex Fridman1:15:14

        And that, but that, that for most people come right away, like you, you get a cancer diagnosis or something like that and it's like, "Doesn't anyone else know that I'm going to die? Does anyone else care?"

    26. LRLevy Rozman1:15:27

        Yeah.

    27. LFLex Fridman1:15:27

        Like, nobody gives a shit. I mean, uh, they do, I mean, there's love there, but like not in, in a dramatic way that you would somehow deep inside hope for, that the world would stop because your life is facing this catastrophic event, so.

    28. LRLevy Rozman1:15:42

        Yeah.

    29. LFLex Fridman1:15:43

        But I think ultimately what you could channel that realization into appreciation of the current moment and just the people you love and, uh, sharing love with them as intensely as possible, experiencing every moment as intensely as possible. 'Cause eventually there'll be a last moment, and after that there'll be no more moments.

    30. LRLevy Rozman1:16:04

        That's sort of what I do. Yeah.
13. 1:16:53 – 1:30:29

    Streamers

    1. LFLex Fridman1:16:53

       So, uh, how hard is it to reach... What, what are the, what are the requirements for grandmaster by the way? 'Cause, yeah, and what are the requirements for international master? You mentioned a few requirements and so on.

    2. LRLevy Rozman1:17:04

       Yes. So the first one is you have to know how to use a Shure mic and an arm. I'm slowly learning-

    3. LFLex Fridman1:17:09

       You were impressed by this here microphone by the way. For the, for people listening, we're using this, uh, SM, Shure SM7B that a lot of pod- podcasters use. I don't know why.

    4. LRLevy Rozman1:17:20

       That's interesting.

    5. LFLex Fridman1:17:20

       And Michael, uh, Jackson on Thriller, which Grimes told me.

    6. LRLevy Rozman1:17:25

       Really?

    7. LFLex Fridman1:17:26

       That's what... I think it looked a little different, but it's, it's the same-

    8. LRLevy Rozman1:17:29

       Wow.

    9. LFLex Fridman1:17:30

       ... uh, underneath it. A few musicians used it in studio. I don't know where it became popular as a, as a podcasting microphone, 'cause I think most broadcasters use condenser mics that look like really fancy.

    10. LRLevy Rozman1:17:42

        Yeah.

    11. LFLex Fridman1:17:42

        This looks a little...

    12. LRLevy Rozman1:17:44

        No, this one's great. It sounds really, really good. And I told you before that I wanted to use it, but it requires a external dashboard of some sort and I'm way too lazy to learn how to do it. And my microphone doesn't sound that bad for YouTube and for, for Twitch, but this is a long-term project.

    13. LFLex Fridman1:18:01

        I still have to figure out how to stream stuff. I have not, I haven't figured that out because I-

    14. LRLevy Rozman1:18:05

        You, you want to go down into the world of Twitch?

    15. LFLex Fridman1:18:07

        No, I don't.

    16. LRLevy Rozman1:18:07

        Okay.

    17. LFLex Fridman1:18:08

        I don't.

    18. LRLevy Rozman1:18:08

        You just wanna learn how to do it.

    19. LFLex Fridman1:18:09

        Uh...

    20. LRLevy Rozman1:18:09

        Just in case.

    21. LFLex Fridman1:18:10

        Uh, no, for, uh, no, not Twitch. (laughs) Uh-

    22. LRLevy Rozman1:18:15

        (laughs) Do you know what we have over there? It's... (laughs)

    23. LFLex Fridman1:18:17

        Uh, so first of all, yes, it is, it's like a (laughs) I feel like The Hobbit going into like Mordor, like I, I, I, the... Yeah, Twitch is a, is a, is a very intense world. But the, there is useful cases when you should have your microphone work with like the different pro- the processing chain work in real time.

    24. LRLevy Rozman1:18:40

        Mm.

    25. LFLex Fridman1:18:40

        So you can do like interviews. And also I play video, I try to play a video game once a month. (laughs) So, um, I've done that like three times already. Uh, so stream that kind of stuff for like, for like an hour. Um, like play Skyrim. I like, I love playing Skyrim. I actually love the idea, I haven't done that yet, but apparently in Skyrim you can turn off the monsters and you can just walk around. So I love the idea of just walking around Skyrim for a couple hours and just like, 'cause it's beautiful nature.

    26. LRLevy Rozman1:19:11

        I see.

    27. LFLex Fridman1:19:12

        Have you... Do you know anything about those, uh, it's the Elder Scrolls, but-

    28. LRLevy Rozman1:19:15

        I know very, I know, I know, I know little about Skyrim. Uh, but-

    29. LFLex Fridman1:19:19

        So it's, it's kinda like Chat- no. (laughs)

    30. LRLevy Rozman1:19:21

        (laughs)

Episode duration: 3:33:18