Transcript
This isn't your average business podcast, and he's not your average host. This is The James Altucher Show. Today on The James Altucher Show. Maybe you've seen the hit TV show The Queen's Gambit on Netflix or maybe you haven't. Either way, such a pleasure to have on Jen Shahadeh, chess master. She was twice the US women's champion. She was a chess master at the age of 15. She was a prodigy. She wrote books on chess. She's also a professional poker player and a a commentator for both chess and poker. Pleasure to have her on the podcast to talk about The Queen's Gambit, chess, writing, poker, and all sorts of fun things. So, Jen, I wanted to introduce you to the audience. You're a chess master. I I just realized you were a chess master at the age of 15. I know. It's kinda surprising because I was overrated when I became a chess master. I I'm sure you weren't overrated, but but go ahead. Well, I won it when I was 15. I played in something called the Insanity tournament, which was a tournament where you had to play chess all night. And I was, like, 15, and I was playing against all these, like, you know, mostly older people who, like, this was, like, more of a difficult for them. Like, I'm a I'm a teenager. Like, 3 AM is my time. Right. So I, like, won all my games. And I went from, like, 21 30 to 2202, and I I as soon as I had to play in a regular tournament in the normal hours of the day, I, like, dropped down. But still, you're probably one of the I mean, what how old was Bobby Fischer when he became a chess master? He was 15. Right? That was he was a grand master at 15. But I was still one of the younger masters because at that time, there weren't weren't as many, like, you know, really, really young masters. It it was still, like, somewhat cool to have your master rating at 15. Yeah. That's very cool. So and then you were you were a US women's champion in 2002,004. So So you were, like, 22 years old when you became the US women's champion. Yeah. Yeah. 21, actually. 21. So was the like, who was playing in that? Was Irina Crutch playing in that? She was playing when when I won the second one. When I won the first one, I I can't remember why she didn't play because it was a nice prize fun. She must've had some kind of conflict. But, actually, it was the 1st year that men and women played in the same section. So I was playing against Grandmasters for most of the event. Oh, I see. So whoever the top ranked woman was that year became the US women's champion? Exactly. Exactly. Was that, like, a a highlight of your life, winning that championship at the age of 21? Yes. Definitely. It was definitely a highlight. Yeah. Because I don't think I was it's so much expecting it. I was never you know, all the big achievements I've had in my life, chess wise, I was never the highest ranked player. I was always, like, you know, 3 or 4 on the list. And then, like, I had to play really well in order to become the champion. So I think that makes it sweeter. Like, when you're the favorite and you win, like, you know, you kinda go in a little bit expecting you might. For me, I always had to really, like, you know, dig deep. And your brother obviously is a Greg Shahadi is an international master. Your dad, Michael Shahadi is a FIDE master. Obviously, that's what got you into it, but was, like, was Greg kind of kicking you around and you finally said, I'm gonna learn how to play chess and beat this guy? Or or what happened? How'd you get how'd you get involved? Not exactly like that. So what happened with my brother was that he's always been a great brother, but he and I have very different minds even though, like, you wouldn't think that because we both are interested in a lot of the same things. I'm very creative, and Greg has creative streak too. But I think he's a lot faster, like, the way he thinks. He's very, very quick. I am slower, and I often get to good places, but takes me longer. So, when we both started learning chess, he was just skyrocketed ahead of me. He's 2 years older. He became a master at 14. And when he was a master, I was, like, 1400. Like, I was really low rated for you know, compared to 22100. For those of you who don't know, the the scale goes from kind of, like, about 600 to 28100 for, like, the best player in the world. So 22100 is really good. Yeah. Like, the average player on the street, like, who knows the rules and can play games with their family, what what rating would you say they are? Probably, like, around 5 to 800. Right? Oh, 5 to 800. And so and it's about a a 150 points as a standard deviation. So if you're a thousand and someone's 1150, the 1150 could beat the 1,002 out of 3 times roughly. Yeah. Although I think it's a little less reliable, lower ratings because your learning curve is so steep that if you spend, like, 1 night studying puzzles, like, that could have flip flopped. Right? Yeah. But, yeah, as you get stronger, it's much the rating is much more reliable. So because I was, like, a lot slower, I was like, maybe chess isn't my thing. And so I I I kind of abandoned it for a couple years. So a couple years, you were 12. And then and then what happened? 11. Yeah. 11, 12, 13, something like that. Yeah. So then 13, 14, you get back into it, and a year later, you're you're 22100. So, obviously, there's some some talent there, but you must have learned a lot. Did you learn a lot from Greg and and your father? Oh, yeah. Definitely. A lot. And just, like, the approach. You know, my dad always taught me, you know, just have to study this tactics book and then study it again, because that was a little bit of a problem for me. I wasn't the quickest. But you can train your brain to be really quick when it comes to the patterns that matter in chess. Right? I think the thing is nobody's born a good chess player. And so it's all about training yourself to be a better version of yourself. And for some people, that means different things. For some people, their brain works too fast and they need to slow down. Some people are overconfident and they need to, again, slow down and make sure that they're deliberating. And some people are underconfident. They're too slow. But wherever you are, it's all about, like, trying to perfect it and become a better chess player, which isn't natural. You know, it's interesting. Like, when I first started playing, I got really obsessed with openings. But now, you know, many, many years later, if all you did was study tactics, I think that's good enough to beat everybody you know, unless you're playing, like, you know, grandmasters and stuff. Agreed. Agreed. Tactics and puzzles, and it's so fun. And there's such a high learning curve, which I think is just, like, exciting. It's like lifting weights at the gym. You know? You see all these other people, like, running on the treadmill, getting nowhere, and you're, like, sitting there, like, lifting, and you're, like, really getting stronger. I'm sorry. Yeah. That hasn't that hasn't happened to me. But, I I'm not a cardio hater. I just you know? Both. Felt like a a good malady at the time. I don't I don't like anything that happens in the gym. It's all bad. So I just stick to sitting behind my computer. I don't even like playing chess on on in in with real people anymore. I just like sitting on on playing online. Like, do you play do you ever play in, like, real well, now with COVID, maybe not. But when was the last time you played, like, face to face with somebody other than your family members? Yeah. And ages ago. I mean, at the Saint Louis Chess Club, I'll play some pickup games with people sometime when I'm waiting for something to happen. But, yeah, I think it'd be more likely that I would use chess pieces and a real board to, like, look at tactics or problems because that's really fun. That is a beautiful exercise. Yeah. I miss I should I should study more with a real board. Like, I tend to not study games anymore, which is probably not so good. Like, I tend to just do too much tactics. And I know, Ben Johnson on his, chess podcast, he just had a guy who said no more you shouldn't do bullet chess. I probably do too much bullet. Oh, definitely. Probably. I mean, it's I think it depends on the person, though. Maybe for you because you tend you it seems like you think and speak really quickly. Maybe Bulleit is like a nice match, and it feels good. But I think for a lot of people, it's like they're trying to think more quickly about chess and is natural for them, and it just leaves you feeling, like, kind of scrambled afterwards, like, not good. I'm curious what you said earlier about how nobody's born a good chess player. Like, when I if you interview some like, you ever you ever watch, this might have been too long ago, but, like, Jorge Zamora when he was 11 years old, that guy was, like, beating grandmasters and his blitz was just like, when he would analyze a game because I I was roommates with Elias Zamora for a while, his older brother. And Jorge would analyze his game. It was like he was so far ahead of us. He must have been born with something. I always debate this talent versus skill thing. Well, yeah. He is is Jorge Zamora or, now Zamora Hasbun is, like, gotta be one of the most talented players ever. I mean, I think a lot of people say that. Like, you're not the only one. He was considered a super talent because, like, the things he saw in Blitz were incredible. But even Jorge, like, it requires, like, training to kinda bring out that talent. It's not like he just, like, looks at a chessboard and is like, oh, yeah. I know what to do here. You you do need to, like, kind of, like, connect. Yeah. Because, ultimately, he I guess, I don't wanna say he fizzled out. I don't really know the story. But, ultimately, he didn't become, like, a top professional when he probably could have been. Probably. With that type of talent. I mean but then there's all these mental game issues. And, you know, about the bullet chest, I'm just curious. How do you feel after? Because I think that matters a lot. Like, do you feel scrambled and kind of, like, unpleasant, or do you feel good after you play, like, a series of bullet games? No. I feel unpleasant because I feel I feel like it's it's like eating junk food or watching, like, really bad TV. It's like I was just entertained, but I got no value out of it at all. Yeah. Where whereas, like, if I play, like, let's say, even 3 or 5 minutes with an increment, there's an extra few seconds your brain can kick in and really dive into a position a little bit. Not not so much like a tournament game, but enough that it's you you're actually thinking about the position instead of just, you know, blitzing out the fastest move. Yeah. I have a theory about blitz and especially very quick games that it doesn't feel good if you're not improving. So, you know, if you're playing a series of bullet games game in you know, that finishes in 2 minutes or 3 or 4 minutes, and you're actually looking at all the openings and you're studying puzzles in between and endgames, and your rating is going up and you're feeling that you're getting better and you're beating better people, then that actually is a really good feeling. But if you're just kind of, like, exercising at the same level, sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, it's just kind of like a way to pass time. I think that that can be, like, less pleasurable. Well, I think that's like learning in general. Like, learning is pleasurable or mastering anything is pleasurable. And just you like, you probably know a lot of people who for 10 years, 20 years, they stay at the same level even though they're playing all the time. They'd like to get better. They just don't study. They don't know how to learn. And I always get frustrated when I see people who obviously wanna get better, but they don't take the basic steps to learn, like studying games or studying tactics or whatever. Although now I'm at a point where I just like to play for enjoyment. I probably should break out a chess book and study, get back to normal. Yeah. I don't know. It depends. I feel like if people are enjoying chess for what it is and they don't really have any desire to get better, then that's okay. I think we should be accepting of that too. Chess is like a language. You know? Like, there's a lot of people who just, you know, wanna play it. But I think for the most part, people do wanna get better. That is probably the dominant type in chess for sure. And so then during this whole time, you then wrote the book, Chess b***h, which was your your autobiography slash memoir about your experiences in chess. And then you wrote the excellent book. Well, both books were excellent, but then you wrote, Play Like a Girl, which was you analyze a bunch of games by women, and you very graciously signed it and and sent signed it for my daughters and sent it to me, which I appreciate. And then, of course, you became a professional poker player. Yeah. I just like I guess I like trying new things. I mean, I know you love doing a lot of new things. I like trying new things because I feel like you you first you learn new things about yourself, and you learn you also get to meet a lot of new people, particularly with poker. With writing, I just felt like beyond besides chess, it was like the one time in my life that I felt this, like, glorious, like, flow experience where everything else in my life disappeared. Whereas when I with chess, in order to get that feeling, I needed to, like, go to a tournament. Whereas, like, with writing, I could, like, just sit down on my computer and get that feeling. That that was really cool. And it's harder to get that feeling from chess when I, like, I'm sitting in my computer because the games are so quick, like you say. But, with writing, I felt that, and I I was, like, kind of intoxicated by that immediately. So when I wrote when I wrote papers in college, I started to realize that about myself. And that made me really wanna write a book about women in chess because there hadn't really been any. And so chess, b***h, it was. Yeah. I don't know of any I mean, there's books about, like, different chess players. I'm I'm assuming there's a book about Vera Menchik somewhere, you know, the first, which she's sort of the 1st woman's world champion. Right? Yeah. And she won it so many times, and she was so dominant, so much better than every other, female of the time. And it was just it's just an incredible story indeed, Vera Menchik. And then and then there's the Polgar sisters, which is like a oh, the Polgar sisters is almost like a story made for a movie as well. Like, 3 sisters who become, like, the the dominant chess players in the world for for women and and for men too. They were great. Oh, yeah. Great story. I mean, the thing is, like, a screenwriter would have to try to figure out what angle to take and where to create, conflicts because there's so many different options when you're dealing with, like, 3 people and the whole family. And yeah. But I there is there's a lot of possibilities there because there's, you know, 3 daughters, and all of them became brilliant chess players, and particularly the youngest, Judith, who, coincidentally, has this fiery red hair, kinda similar to Beth Harmon in The Queen's Gambit, and she became one of the top 10 players in the world. So a a really inspiring story in that before before Judith, people questioned whether it was even possible for a woman to get that good. I mean, their parents didn't play. Right? Laszlo and I don't know their mom's name. Claire? Yes. They they didn't play, and they just wanted they it was almost like an experiment that where they wanted to see if they could just raise these kids from birth and see if they could become great chess players, and they did. And and I think they pretty much just focused on tactics as well. But there's a question. I wonder if they were talented and didn't know it, or it was just all from Laszlo's training. I think they are you know, I think there must be stories of, you know, people who tried that, and it didn't work. So I think that they were also talented. Yeah. I see. So Of course, it's like a survivorship bias. Like, we hear about the Polgars a lot because Laszlo was so successful because his methods combined with their kind of, like, innate ability. Well, I don't know. I mean, I I think no matter no matter what, like, his methods seemed like they were very, very good. So probably anybody would become a great chess player. But would they become Judy Pollard? I mean, only one of them did. Right? And a lot of stories have posited that, like, some of the hurdles based on sexism and some antisemitism, were first, like, surmounted by Susan, who was the oldest. And that kind of paved the way, so it was a little easier for Judith. Right? And and that does that does make sense. And, also, some of the pedagogical techniques were further refined because Susan was, like, I think, 7 years older or 8 years older than Judith. So significantly older. Maybe 69, I think, for Susan, and I think it was 76 for Judith. Yeah. Do you think improved in the training? Probably just, you know, which tournaments to play, what openings to study first. Just little things, you know, like, little tweaks. One thing that I heard, which I always was fascinated by, especially now as I'm a mom of a 4 year old, was that when they taught Susan, they tried to teach her at, like, 3 or 4. And the dad decided that that was a waste of time with Judith, and he started more like 5. You know, though, I heard that story, but I couldn't resist. I still started with Bobby a little earlier. But I don't have any, like, I don't have any grand ambitions, chess wise. I mean, I have grand ambitions for him as a human, but I don't plan to train him to be, like, you know, a GM from 5. I just got so excited because, like, he saw chess pieces around the house that even at, like, 2, I was, like, introducing him to them. And does he play? He, you know, he does. He likes a lot of the apps on the on the iPad, like Magnus' Kingdom, which is like a genius app, by the way. It's this app where it's, like, kind of like a merge of, like, Legend of Zelda and chess. So you have to, like, win all these battles, and your piece only moves through the world based on the chess movement. So if you're a knight, you have to, like, hop like a knight everywhere. That is smart. And so the kid has to really figure out, like, how the pieces move because there's all these obstacles. So and this is, an app that Magnus is behind or he lent his name to? Or Yeah. Something like that. It's part of his I think, it's part of his, like, big you know, he's a big businessman now, and he's got this huge, like, list of companies that he's a part owner in, the Magnus Group. And one of them is Play Magnus, and then there's chess 24, which is this, this chess site where all a lot of the best tournaments in the world are hosted. And Chessable, which is, like, a training site, I'm not paid by them for anything. Just you know, I there's a lot of great chess products out there. So I didn't know Magnus was such a wheeler and dealer. So okay. Magnus was Yeah. Probably the arguably the best world champion ever, but it's hard to say. I mean, Kasparov was was world chess champion for 20 years before Magnus. I mean, Magnus always seems sort like sort of, such a introverted type of guy. You don't think of him as a big business guy. Yeah. You know, I think he's really just incredibly intelligent in so many ways, not just chess. He seems like he's got a good business sense. And I think a lot of having a good business sense, if you're that successful, is knowing who to trust. Right? So, you know, picking the right people to be on your team. And and his dad, I think, has always been a major confidant and, you know, part of his team. And, obviously, his dad's made some really good choices, because it doesn't seem like Magnus has a lot of misstep when it comes to business. Seems like he's so he's mostly done, like, a lot of good decisions so far. Were you the announcer when, Magnus was playing Pajarkin in I don't know how to say his name, but in Arikan? Yeah. Yeah. In in New York City? I was not. You know, they actually invited me. It would have been such an exciting opportunity because it was to work with Judah Polgar, but I was very, very pregnant. I think it was, like, the the last the, like, the last month of my pregnancy. So I had to I had to to opt out of that one. But, yeah, that that, that was, you know, I I visited, though. I did visit. I remember, it was pretty cool to have it in New York City. Yeah. It was in the South Street Seaport, and I I just remember, yeah, I guess it was, Judith was astonished when she saw the the last move of the match was Magnus' queen g 6 sacrificing the queen. Gorgeous. Yeah. It was an amazing move. But, so what'd you think of the queen's gambit? Oh, I loved it. I thought it was great. It was beautifully done. It showed chess in a way. I think I really loved it particularly because I've always been interested in kinda, like, the creative and artistic elements of chess and the crossovers creatively and story. And so it just showed things that I think had never been shown before. And I liked how they just avoided a lot of the cliches that you normally see in chess films and chess TV, where so many of them, you know, series show, like, the pieces as a symbol for the player. They avoided that, and they showed for Beth how, like, chess was this way for her to, like, see the world, to kind of, like, find herself, to kind of merge her extraordinarily outer beauty in the series with the inner beauty of thought, like, you know, perfect thought, which to me was quite interesting because I read the book recently because we had this I organized this mad woman's book club for US chess women, And our first book was The Queen's Gambit. And I read the book and in the book, Beth is is supposed to be homely, which is a word I don't think people use very much now. I don't know why it got but apparently, it means, like, unattractive. So she was unattractive in the book. When she played chess in the book, though, she glowed. So she kind of, like, became it was like an elixir of beauty for her in the book. I thought that that must be, like, a challenge to kind of, like, have that conceit in the book and translate it to the screen because now you have Anya Taylor Joy, who is obviously, like, incredibly stunning. Like, how can you make her more beautiful? But they did it. They did it when they showed that kind of, like, climactic scene where she kind of, like, merges her, like, brain and her her body. It it was amazing. Yeah. And I thought I thought the the show was pretty accurate to the book, like, beat by beat, which, which is not a common thing. You know, Walter Tevis, who wrote the book, he also wrote The Hustler and The Color of Money. So he's very good at these, like, competitive subcultures and bringing it out. And he was also a a chess player. He was a class c rated chess player. Yeah. And the dialogue was just like some of it was just lifted from the book. You know, what surprised me was how badly they all played. But the Carol Kahn Yeah. Paul Pawns and No Hope. Like, just some of their best lines were just lifted straight out of the book. I loved it. Yeah. And it did sort of seem very similar to the I mean, I wasn't alive, but, like, US chess culture in the 19 fifties, early 19 sixties, it it felt like what I read about that, you know, US chess history. Like, the grandmasters were good players, but they weren't really at the highest level at that time in in the world. Yeah. Yeah. They did a really good job of conveying that. And then the the Soviet chess school and the warmth of the Soviets, which, you know, Gary Kasparov being a consultant on it, you know, gave a lot of advice on, like, how to portray them and, obviously, also, the chess moves themselves along with Bruce Pandolfini. So, yeah, they did a really good job with it. One thing that I think a lot of other people have pointed out so I I, I have, like, a lot of respect for some of the people who pointed this out, and I do agree in some ways. Judith Polgar was one of them, that the show underestimated the sexism that she would actually experience. And, yeah, I I think it's kind of funny from, like, a mathematical perspective also. It's like everybody she meets in the series is good. There's only one exception. There's, like, one bad person. That's, like, the, adoptive dad. Right? Everybody else is like a good egg. And, like, what a wonderful world that would be if it's, like, 9.5 out of 10 people you meet are just gonna be, like, wonderful and generous and kind to you. Well, I guess the I don't know what you call it. The headmaster or the headmother of the, foster home or adoptive orphanage, she wasn't so nice. You know, I have a I have a different view on her, actually. For for any this is very early. I guess people who are watching this probably don't wonder about spoilers. But, you know, I thought that her concerns about Beth being alone with a janitor in the basement were complete. That's reasonable and and when you put it that way. Yeah. And then and then and, you know, it kind of tied in because when Beth was allowed to go on that class trip to a high school, the headmaster was like, okay. But you need another woman to come with you. Right? Because she's she was, like, worried about Beth's safety. It that was, like, the subtext to me, which is, of course, more important than anything else. Right? Yeah. And then I guess Jolene, they they became best friends. But, when they were both young, there was some tension when you saw her book. Saw the chest modern chest openings book. Yeah. I like that, though. I thought that was a good way of, like, giving Jolene a little bit of her own character. Yeah. That, you know, she also had, like, hopes and desires, and she wasn't just, like, a, you know, a trope for the series, which I think, unfortunately, Jolene was one of the weak points of the writing for me in both the book and in the series. Like, it just seemed like it was a bit, like, tacked on. Like, this the acting was brilliant, but, like, he was just this, like, you know, black character that was tacked on to help Beth whenever she needed her. And, like, I would have liked to see even more development of, like, the person who stole the modern chest openings. You know? There was more to explore there. I mean, this is, like, the number one show ever on Netflix on in terms of their original scripted series. What do you think captured the public imagination so much? It's not like chess has been a great theme in TV or movies recently or or ever. The glamour, the, introspection at a time when we need it the most, you know, the the, the idea of just losing yourself. Oh, and one big thing because Netflix international, and it's been an international hit, is the lack of dialogue. I mean, the dialogue that's there is awesome, but there's actually not that much of it. There's a lot of just complete silence as chess moves are played or even, like, you know, just beautifully edited scenes with, like, you know, a lot of music and fashion and cinematography that doesn't have much words. And I think, you know, as somebody who sometimes watches things in other languages, and doesn't, you know, listen to the dubbed versions always, like, it's actually kinda nice to watch things that have some words, but not too many. Because then, you know, maybe I have a hope of kind of, like, understanding it, and I can kind of relax a little bit and not be reading, like, constantly. So I wonder if that had something to do with it, and I think so. I wonder also just it feels accessible. Like, if you're watching a show about some world class athlete, that might not be as accessible, whereas chess feels like anybody could do it. You know, just like poker. Just like rounders with poker, I feel. Feel this is for chess what rounders did for poker. Yeah. Yeah. And and, I mean, it's just so huge that I think it could even potentially do more. But you won't know for a while because, you know, it'll take some time for people to find out. Like, you know, 62,000,000 people watched it apparently or household, which probably means a 100,000,000. And so of that a 100,000,000, like, some are just gonna have you know, chess is cooler than I thought it was. It's beautiful, but never think of it again. But there's gonna be a sliver of that, you know, 100,000,000 that will become obsessed with chess because of the series and never look back. And I think in 5, 10 years, so one of those people will win a tournament, and they'll they'll say, yeah. This is what it traces back to. And when you were when you were first starting out, did you experience a lot I mean, this is sort of a cliche question, but did you experience a lot of sexism and a lot of, people upset at themselves when they lost to this little girl? Less than most people because of my strong support network. I did sometimes have I think more than people upset that they lost me because, you know, rating is such an indicative, indicative of your trust strength that, like, I don't think people would be upset to lose to a 22100 girl. They might be upset to lose to a 1400 girl who's on her way up. Like, there were, like, people who seem to be more upset at that point. But once I got good, people just seemed, you know, quite excited and, you know, mostly rooting for me. But the one thing that I think I every girl who plays chess, the sexualization and the harassment, it's kind of impossible to totally avoid. So depending on, I think, the personality type, there's some women and girls who are really good at just, like, shutting that stuff out or they have a really strong support network, so they just keep going. But there's some women and girls who don't, either don't have that support network or just are more sensitive. And, like, that can just shut them down. You know? Somebody who just makes them uncomfortable, puts them in some uncomfortable situation, you know, ask them to analyze chest, but really just wants to ask them on a date. For some people, that's just like whatever. And for some people, it's like, okay. Like, not so sure about this game. And that's why I yeah. I think that it it would have been interesting to see Beth deal with a little bit more of conflict in that area, because I would have liked to see how that character dealt with it. Yeah. I guess she didn't really deal with it at all other than people resenting losing to her. She didn't deal with anybody harassing her. Yeah. A lot of people were interested in her, but if she wasn't interested in them, they were just seem to be like, okay. You know? There weren't people, like, chasing her down when she, like, wasn't interested, which I think a lot of a lot of girls and women in the chess world probably get more of that than they should because there's such a there's such a skewed ratio and also because people just need to be, trained better and more respectful that, you know, it can make a woman uncomfortable to relentlessly hit on her if she's already shown that she's not interested. Even if she's just in an arena where it's more of a professional and competitive arena, not one where, you know, she's looking for a date. And, you know, we have plenty of parties and stuff in chess tournaments. So I'm not, like, saying, like, I'm some, like, stodgy person who's like, yeah. A guy can never ask a chess girl out. But there are a lot of girls who, like, basically get asked out, like, when they're, like, walking to the board about to play a game. And, like, that's like you can wait for a better time. You know? Because if that woman is interested in that, she will also go to the parties and the bars afterwards, and you'll have an opportunity that's more appropriate. You know? And if she's not interested and she just goes to her room to study chess afterwards, then, hey. You know, that's what she's here for, and she's not interested in in, like, anything else right now. You were playing. You were winning the US women's championship. You were writing books, and then you switched to poker. What made you kinda not go for more in chess? Do you feel like you could've gone for more? Yeah. I could've gone. I mean, I had 2 international master norms, so I definitely could've gotten, like, the international master title, I think. Why did I do other stuff? Just because I was more interested in new things. I felt like I kind of overperformed in terms of getting my 2 US Women's Championships kinda early in life. And to me, that was, like, great because now I can, like, take those, use those for my, you know, business, and also engage in other intellectual activities rather than just, like, kinda trying to, like, narrow down and get a little, little, little bit better at chess, you know? Because at some point, you have to work really, really hard to just get a little bit better. And I was like, well, if I start playing poker, there's this whole world I can meet and I can learn about a totally new thing. And I I think I got lucky in that respect. But, you know, I did miss some of the things about the chess world, like the travel and the flow experience of playing, like, a really important classical chess game. But I didn't miss, you know, spending most of my time thinking about one very narrow subject. Well, you know, the great thing about chess also is it's a somewhat small subculture. So let's say you're traveling for an international women's tournament. You're gonna run into the same people. You're probably gonna be friends with them over the decades. Yeah. It's neat, the subcultural aspect. And and poker is so big. There's a little bit of that effect, but probably not the same effect. Yeah. But the thing is, even if you just I've always stayed in the chess world as, like, you know, a promoter and as a writer and a a content creator and now a commentator. So I feel like I kinda get that that, like, community of chess in my work, in my life without, like, you know, also, like, training all the time, thinking super, super hard about chess. But I respect people who do. I think it's like for me, like, thinking about it really, really hard for 10 years was enough. But some people just keep doing that, and I think that that really works for some people because it's just this, like, rock for them, and they can do other things in their life around it as they figure out a way to, like, support themselves. So I I do appreciate the people who just keep doing chess. But for me, I think it was good to kinda move on from my brain. Yeah. I think also, like, maybe do you think getting older I I mean, right now, chess masters are getting younger and younger and younger. Some 9 year old kid just became a chess master, which is, like, an incredibly hard level to get to for most people. And now there's 9 year olds getting it. I feel like at a certain age, people just top out naturally. Like, you can't you know, is it is it something about being young, the memory is better, or maybe the tactical vision is better? I don't know. Well, I think the peak age is, like, late twenties or early thirties. So, you know, you don't peak that young, but I think that, like, compared to other sports. And, like, still, there's lots of amazing players who are almost at the top of their game, from, you know, all the way through the thirties into the forties, like, you know, Vicianan or Kramnik, Bessel and Topolov stayed up there for ages. So, yeah, I think that you can keep playing, but the world is structured where there's a lot of programs and activities for very young people. And so it's kinda natural that as people go through the different ages, they, you know, slip in and out of chats because there's just so many great tournaments for kids and then for teens and even for college students. And then after that, there's, like, a big break until they have, like, big seniors events. That said, I think that it's important to kind of engage grown ups because it's like a community. And, right now, especially, you are seeing that people are experiencing a lot of loneliness during the pandemic and, like, creating communities around activities like Chas, I think, is an elixir for that. Yeah. And, like, you know, some of the names you mentioned, like Kramnik or or Topolov or Ananya. Yeah. They you know, what happens to them? They've they they reach world champion status, and then, you know, the young crew like Magnus Carlsen and all the all the young kids now competing for the world championship come through. What happens to these grandmasters who are in the top 10, top 20? How do they make a living afterwards? Well, those guys are all so successful. I don't think they have to worry about it. I mean, especially because they've made so much money over the years. And then they're they're so like, I think those elite players are usually doing quite fine. And anything they they consult on or write about or coach is always gonna be charged at a very premium rate because they used to be a world champion. Yeah. Sponsorships. Vladimir Kramnick did some work for Google DeepMind, with the AlphaZero project. I mean, like, chess, it's like it's it's more secretive than some sports. Like, we don't really know how much money people have, but we we can be pretty sure that anybody who's been world champion before right now, especially with chess, you know, being so popular, is doing really, really well. It's more than mid tier people that struggle a lot, especially when they get too old to play if that's their main bread and butter. Like, people who are, you know, more in the 26100 range or 25100 range, not the 28100 plus. Okay. Let's take a guy like in the US, Joel Benjamin, someone like that who's US champion, big in the eighties, maybe early nineties. What happens to a player like that? Well, he did you know, he still just won a tournament, the US senior championship. And, I think he he write he's written a lot of books, which are, you know, widely acclaimed. The American Grandmaster Liquidation and Chess. And then he also plays here and there. And then he he coaches. And because he lives in, like, the New York area, that can be very lucrative for a former US champion. I mean, there's a lot of parents out there who are, like, excited to to learn from someone like that. And I I think he believe I believe he teaches it, you know, a couple of places, including, Columbia grammar, I think. But I could be wrong about that. But I know he, is a very well respected coach. So I think it's easier for people like that. Like, Joel Benjamin has, I think, done very well for himself. And what do you do for your different streams of income? Like, the you're very good at, like, finding, like, a whole bunch of different streams of income. Like, you're not relying on any one thing. Yeah. Well, you've thought definitely taught me that as well, because I work, you know, I work. I have, like, my labor of love at the US Chess Federation with, like, the women's program and, you know, bringing chess to girls and women. So that's something I do. It doesn't pay all of my bills, but it's exactly what I wanna be doing. So it's nice that I'm making money out of it all. And then I am also an ambassador for PokerStars. So, that's, you know, helpful as I play in poker games. Not only can I make money from the game itself, but I make some money from, you know, speaking about the company and, like, doing interviews and, you know, creating content for them? So that's another one. And then I also have commentary for the Saint Louis Chess Club, so we do commentary for major events. And then just, like, speaking gigs and things like that. I love speaking to different groups of people, especially now that I can do it on Zoom. It's so fun. And I I bet you, like, demand is up now because of, the Queen's Gambit. It is. It's really up. It's up, and I I love to see it. I enjoy doing that a lot. Talking about you know, whether it's talking about how you can learn from the first episode of The Queen's Gambit, how to be a a basic player, you know, to go from, like, knowing the rules to knowing some checkmates or just talking about negotiating and poker and how some of the things in poker can teach you how to be a better negotiator. I like speaking to people, so that's that's always fun. And then, of course, writing. I've done less of that ever since I've gotten into, like, kind of, like, commentary and podcasting. But in some ways, besides chess, it's, like, my my biggest love. So You know, I I have an idea for you based on you you did this, series of podcasts where you were asking people their their favorite hand. Yes. Yes. You should you should do a book, My Favorite Hand, and just compile all the transcripts, you know, edited, but compile all the transcripts of all the people you interviewed. Yeah. I think we wanna do that kinda similar to, like, Tools of the Titans by Jim Harris where we take out, like, all the best parts of the interviews and, like, you know, compile it into a book. Yeah. That's a good benefit from podcasting that even though I think from a financial point of view, to me at least, I mean, it hasn't really offered a lot of, you know, opportunities, but it's really great networking tool. It's also really great for your sponsors because they love to see you getting out there and talking to cool people. And then it's great for creating content that you can later repurpose. Right? I'm sure you've gotten a lot of writing ideas from your pods. Oh, yeah. And I think I think so many podcasters are missing out on the opportunity to just turn so many episodes into complete books. They're just not doing it. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I gotta get on that. And and my friend, Ben Johnson, too, who we mentioned earlier, the Perpetual Pet podcast. Yeah. He definitely needs to do that. Yeah. He's got great interviews. Like, he's got he's got a great chess podcast. Now a lot of people in the past few weeks, obviously, have been coming up to me and saying, well, how do I learn chess as quickly as possible? What do you what do you say to people? What's what's the recommendation? I think they should go to one of the sites, or it depends whether they like learning on their computer or their phone. I'm sorry, man. It's like forget about, like, the chess set. It's like, you got 2 choices, your iPad or your phone or your desktop. And if you go on your desktop and you go to, like, lead chess or chess dot com, they've got, like, great tutorials. And then if you go on your iPad or your iPhone, you download, like, Play Magnus or ChessKid. That's the other thing I'd warn people about. If you're a grown up and you wanna learn chess, don't be afraid of kids' books or kids' tools. You know? Just because it's like a a talking, laughing pawn doesn't mean that you can't use it too. Yeah. And, but, you know, it's interesting that you say go to the computer or the phone because I feel like when I was a kid, chess books were beautiful. Like, they were just designed beautiful. And, and like you said earlier, you like taking out the board and playing through the games. Now it just doesn't happen anymore. I feel like there are no I mean, there are chess books in the bookstore, but it's people don't really get the books as much. They watch YouTube videos and then play games and right away, and it's not so much a a a book buying thing to learning chess. Well, I think that's a mistake at some point because when I think when you're learning the rules, I think it's, like, a practical thing that it's a practical thing that it's good to use a computer or an iPad because if you try to move your pawn somewhere that where you can't move it, it'll tell you. So it's just a very it's a very elegant system for you to learn chess as opposed to, like, trying to learn it with 1 person on a board and pieces, especially in a pandemic when you can't easily hire a coach. But, afterwards, like, once you reach a certain level, one of the great delights of chess is how well it pairs with books because of, like, the diagrams in a chessboard and, you know, how you can kind of combine pictures and words to have, like, this, you know, luxurious reading experience. I mean, some of the oldest bestsellers were about chess. What what are your favorite older chess books? Oh, I'm talking about the ones, like, written around the time of the Bible. I mean, the the Gutenberg Bible. I'm talking about, like, that kind of stuff. But I like, there was the I like this classic, but it's my first chess book was Paul Morphy's Games of Chess, And I I don't remember the author now, but it was I had a blue cover. In terms of, like, old books, like, maybe a copy of my dad's books, my 60 memorable games, definitely. Oh, yeah. I loved I liked Overeski's books when I was a kid. I like tactics books of any kind. I would always, like, devour those tactics books. My dad taught me about that. And Rauzan's books. I liked endgame books. I was never very good at endgames, like endgame strategy. I so I because I wasn't good at them, I like to to, like, read books about them, and I felt like it was a good learning curve for me. And my friend, Irina Krush, who, you know, we talked about on my podcast ladies night, is a, you know, she's a grand master and a time US women's champion. And she tells me that when she does coaching with children, she often finds that people reach a plateau if they don't use books. Isn't that funny? If they're just sitting on the computer. Yeah. Probably because they're not slowing down enough. That would be my guess. That's really interesting. About the book that forces your brain to slow down a couple notches. I should probably take a break from the computer and just just look at books for a couple months. Yeah. Or just a couple hours a day. Yeah. Well, I'm gonna devote my life to it now. Now that I've watched The Queen's Gambit, I'm gonna go I'm gonna become a professional chess player. It's all I'm gonna do. I wonder if anybody's making that decision. Like you said earlier, maybe maybe some kids are right now. They watch that, and they they figure, oh, if it was her, it could be me too. Yeah. The thing is, how many parents are letting their kids watch that? Because I I teach a group of girls with my US Chess Women program, and, we had Gary Kasparov come in to talk about the series, and we showed a couple, you know, PG excerpts, obviously. They were the chess parts. And and when when I talked to the girls about whether their parents had let them see it, one of them, said something hilarious. She was like, no. My parents don't let me see it. They watch it by themselves when I'm in my room doing homework. But then every time there's a chest part, they're like they're like, come in. Come in. You can watch. Watch them. Oh my god. So it's like the inverse, right, of, like, what normally I feel bad. I let my daughters watch True Blood on HBO when they were little kids. So so what what other I when I was a kid, I I read The Queen's Gambit. It was written in the early eighties, again, by Walter Tevis. What other chess books, fiction, anything that, that you've been reading? I really liked, a couple of books, actually. They came out last year, which was horrible timing, but a coin bad coincidence, I guess. One was called The Moves That Matter by Jonathan Rauzan. It was kinda like this he's a philosopher and a grand master. Oh, yeah. I got I got that book. Yeah. I like that a lot. Especially, it's a kind of book that you just read parts of from time to time, similar to, like, the Tools of the Titans. Like, you don't read it in one sitting. You kinda, like, pick through it. And then there was another guy who wrote a book called All the Wrong Moves. That was a quick read. That sounds familiar. It was a memoir about, a writer who decided to just, like, spend a whole year, traveling the chess circuit and playing chess, And he traveled all over the world doing this, and he wasn't a great player. Did he travel with a guy who was, like, a master and they went to, the Saint Petersburg? The or they went to the place where the chess city is? Yeah. The, Elista. Yeah. You're thinking of the chess artist, which is a lot older. That's, like, that's a that that JC Hallman, though, he's a great writer too. But that book's really old, like 15 years old or something, I think, or 10 years old. Oh, thanks for for aging me there. Oh, no. No. No. That's an ancient book. I feel like I read it yesterday. Well, maybe it's maybe it's had a resurgence because JAC is also doing a lot of, like, mainstream writing. But, it was a really beautiful book. It's just that the chess world has changed so much since then. You know? And what about what about fiction? You read The The Defense by Vladimir Nabokov? Yeah. I did. I don't remember loving it, though. I know that I loved I loved the you know, some of his other books, but I don't remember loving that one. I think that was one that he wrote in Russian, not English. Right? Oh, I don't know, actually. Nonfiction, there's a lot. Like, the Queen of Catway. That was a great movie. Didn't your brother, like, tutor her a little? Greg did, I think, online, and I she came to Philly once, and I gave her a chess lesson. And she spoke to the girls in the Philly, the Philly chess girls movement with ASAP. It was cool. She's she was great, but she was shy at the time. Now she's been in America for many years. She goes to, a college. I think it's called it's in Seattle area, new North Western University or something. Does she still play chess? She does. She does. Not a ton, though. I think she's kinda more into, like, the college life and, you know, just, getting out there. But I she's probably having a resurgence in her career after this, Queen's Gambit because it's actually a great movie, the Queen of Catway. It's a great movie. It didn't get enough attention. And, you know, one of the one of the only criticism people are bringing against the Queen's Gambit is that there's not a ton of diversity in it, which may and, you know, people say that's reflective of the chess world in the 19 sixties, which it was set. But, you know, it wasn't kind of a fantasy series as was, so they could have maybe thrown in a little more diversity anyway. But, you know, it kind of leads people naturally to some of these other movies, like Queen of Catway and Brooklyn Castle, which, do show know Brooklyn Castle. What's that? I don't know Brooklyn Castle. Oh, you'd love that. That's a great movie. It's a documentary about IS 318, which is this, like, multinational championship team in, Brooklyn. And it's about, like, how they became this chess powerhouse. Were they masters? Some of them were. Most of them were more of, like, the expert level, but they won, like they were, like, the 1st junior high school team to ever win the national high school championship. So they basically, like, won a higher weight class, which is amazing. So what what's, what's next for you now in chess or poker or anything? What's the next what's the next big thing you're gonna try out? What is the next thing I'm gonna try? Well, those books that you told me to write. Those are such such a great idea. I mean, like, I'm that's what I've been missing really, like, writing. I just wrote an op ed for the Washington Post the other day. And even that, like, it's just an article, but it just feels so good to, like, you know, force yourself to organize your thoughts on paper. What what was it about? It was about myths and chess, like the 5 biggest myths of chess. Well, can can you tell us what they were? Yeah. Well, some of them are, you know, gonna be obvious after you've listened to this conversation or watched The Queen's Gambit. One of them was that chess is not sexy. And I talked about how in the medieval times, chess was seen as synonymous with sex. And there was even a book called The Book of Erotic Chats. And, like, yeah, this is this is not a joke. That's, like, the opposite of the chess tournaments I went to as a kid. And, you know, people it was considered that, like, a chess game was, like, an allegory for, like, having sex because, you know, you couldn't show 2 people having sex. Maybe that would be considered pornographic. So, like, that's, like, a fascinating bit of chess history. And, you know, when when you see these, like, kinda, like, sexy scenes in chess movies or TV, it's like, hey. That that goes back quite a long time. The other one was, that I liked was the chess players c twenty moves ahead. Because I think one of the most important life lessons from chess actually is that you need to consider all your options and, like, try to look for different options. Like, you know, you have your theory of listing all the different things you can do, your idea list, like, 10 ideas a day. Yeah. I love that because you're looking horizontally. You're like, what can I do now? What what ideas are right there in front of me that I'm not considering? Whereas, instead, sometimes people get tunnel vision, and they're looking like 20 moves ahead in one plan. And that's just like we say in CHASS, long think, wrong thing. Right? Yeah. And it reminds me I never thought of it this way, but it reminds me of Alexander Kotov's book, think like a grand master, where he he says breath first. Like, look at all your choices first before you go start going down any one because some of the choices you could eliminate right away. Exactly. Exactly. And you're just gonna miss something right in front of you. Because if you look 20 moves ahead, invariably, there's gonna be something on move 3 that you didn't see, and you just wasted all that time, which is very similar to the life axiom that, man plans, god laughs. Yeah. That's that's interesting. So what what's another myth? Another one I put, which was everybody's most favorite one, at least chess players, was, that it's a myth that the king is the most important piece in chess. The pawn is the most important piece in chess because without pawn, the game is just like a ma*s. It's mushy. And the pawns have the most kind of, like, interesting piece movement in a way because they capture differently than they move. They kinda create the bones of the game where all the other pieces play, you know, based on their their structure. And I also found this very interesting because when AlphaZero, the artificial intelligence, that was devised by Google a couple years ago, recently, in an even more interesting experiment, this artificial intelligence was tasked to try different chess variants. Right? So in some of them, stalemate was a win, not a draw. In some of them, you weren't allowed to castle. But most of them changed the movements of the pawn. Like, they tried variants where alpha 0 would play itself for, like, a week, but the pawns, instead of moving only forwards, would also be allowed to move sideways or backwards I don't know. Or it's 2 squares at a time. And so they tested all these variants. And the the the small changes to the plot to me are so fascinating because it totally changes the game. Have you, have you read that book, analyzing AlphaZero's games? It's very interesting. Yeah. I have. Game changer? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's great. It's a great book. And it was, like, Alpha 0 was very it was much more of it was like a human aggressive player. It was like an extremely aggressive player, which I thought was interesting, as opposed to Stockfish, which is very you can't figure out Stockfish's moves. Yeah. I found that fascinating. It's like it it sounded like they were thinking more like a poker player. It's very like it was more probabilistic in a way than, you know, just just brute force kind of calculating a position based on on, like, pawns. For listeners, like, normally, when you're talking about a chess position with a computer, you know, you determine everything in pawns. So if I have a really good position but we have the exact same pieces, the computer will tell me I'm up a pawn. But it's like, I'm not up a pawn. We have the same pieces. I just have this, like, great open file, and my bishops are in better squares. So they're telling me I'm up like the equivalent of a pawn. Right? Whereas AlphaZero, communicated how it felt about positions totally differently. It started saying, well, I'm 80% to win this position, which I think is just like a way more human way to think about things. Right? I asked Gary Kasparov if he had read the book, and he's like, read the book. I I wrote the forward to the book. I missed that he wrote the forward of that book, and I had just read it. But, well, anyway so thanks so much for talking about the Queen's Gambit with me. I've been wanting to talk with you about this since the show came out. Yeah. It's so fun. We'll have to play some time online, but I'm I I have to I have to study a little bit more first. I wanna catch up. I remember I was playing your brother blitz once, and he was like he made some comment to me that, it's like I I knew nothing about strategy at all, and I just had tactics or something like that. Like, he it was like playing someone who was a little kid, but who knew the tactics. So he had he had some kinda offhanded insult slash compliment. Sounds like a compliment. Yeah. You're you play like such a young person. That's that's definitely a compliment in chess. Right? I don't know. He beat me every game. Although, I remember playing him in a tournament in 1997, and it was a b 4 Kings Indian, and he he crushed me. He's such a strong player. So He's particularly good at blitz. He's like a he's an absolute monster in blitz. So and he and he's he he must have really liked you if he was trash talking. I'll say that. It's one of those things. Like, somebody's only gonna trash talk you if they actually think you're awesome. Well, what, what openings do you play? I play e 4 and the Sicilian. Kinda like Beth Harmon. Or she plays the Queen's Gambit on for white. Right? But, she was playing the Sicilian in the beginning, at least. Oh, yeah. She did play the Sicilian, though. She likes the Sicilian, but the Queen's Gambit is is not I've never played that. Although, you know, after watching the series, I'm like, a lot of my girls who are gonna be coming up for the program are gonna wanna play The Queen's Gambit. So I feel like I have to learn it a little more now. I feel like with the with King Pawn openings, you have to know too much opening theory or or you have to take a step back and play very conservative. Like the London. Yeah. Yeah. That's not very Beth Harmon asks. She would not play it in London, I don't think. It's like a system. She wants to go for something aggressive. The thing about the Queen's Gambit that people should understand, and Gary was actually talking about when he spoke to my girls club room about his work on the series, is that it's, like, very specific. Right? You you push your pawn forward. They push yours. There's and then you you sacrifice your pawn, right, with c 4. And, actually, there's so many ways that it could go besides that. Like, the game you played against my brother with the Kings Indian, the the Grunfeld. There's a lot of different ways it could go. But I I think that it's definitely an opening that's we're gonna see a lot more of because of the series. Yeah. It's probably true. Also, I think there's a rise of streamers now. You should you should do streaming on Twitch of chess. I bet you would get, like, a huge audience. I did do some of that earlier in the pandemic. I enjoyed it, actually. I thought it actually, it was, like, for me, it was, like, an addiction. I had to quit a little bit because I was just working. Like, I have a 4 year old, and I was doing all of my other work in the morning, and then I would just stream every night. And it's addictive, but the thing is it it really rewards the people who do it the most. You kind of have to, like, make it your main thing. I'll say, Greg, your your brother does, has a great, I watch his YouTube videos. I don't watch it on I don't know if he does it on Twitch. I'm sure he does, but I watch the YouTube videos. And, Eric Rosen, I've been watching lately. Yeah. He's a great guy. Very, very cool guy, Eric Rosen. Not my brother. Not not we must clarify when he was a great guy. I met Eric. Right. Well You gotta play mafia with us, though. Yeah. No. Definitely, I want to. I've I the only thing that stopped me, actually, is that lately, I've gotten more addicted to playing chess online, but that'll settle down. I'm sure. But, in any case, Jen Shehade, author of Chess b***h and Play Like a Girl, both books I highly recommend, and thanks for coming on the podcast. Thank you so much for having me. It's been so much fun.
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