Q&A: How to get hot wife? The google technique to be a human magnet, anger is...

Transcript

What if you are the number 2 player in the world in whatever sport or activity, whatever it is you love doing? You're number 2. There's number 1, and you're number let's say 100 of millions of people play your sport or game or activity. And out of all those 100 of 1,000,000, you're the 2nd best in the world. And then suddenly, you bit by bit drop. You you you go down to the top 10. Now you're no longer in the top. You go below the top 20, and so you figure, okay. It's over. I got a little too old. Something happened. New people arrived. I'm no longer in the top 20. My career as the best or potentially the best is over. And this is what happened to Hakaro Nakamura. He was the number 2 player in the world in chess in I think it was 2015, and Magnus Carlsen was number 1st. And Hakaro couldn't quite break through the number 1. And then bit by bit after this, you know, almost 20 year career, he starts to drop. He falls below the top 20, and he says, you know what? I'm gonna start you know, the COVID, the pandemic happened. He started streaming. He started, making YouTube videos. But mostly, every day, he was playing chess online and streaming it. Meaning, he was doing it live, and he would talk about chess and answer questions. And he suddenly built up an audience in the millions. Like, tons of people millions of people follow this guy, and they love him as an entertainer and as a chess player. And it's so so amazing to have such a quality chess player do this live streaming every single day, and he explains how to be great at streaming. But an interesting thing happened is that a few years after he started doing this, he started playing in tournaments again for the first time in years, and he bit by bit started climbing up. Until last week, I was in Norway. He was playing in Norway chess along with the number one player in the world, Magnus Carlsen, and several others who are who are top in the world. And Carl, for the first time since 2015, became number 2 in the world again. And one thing I've always wondered watching his career these past few years is did he become did he become strong again? Because as he would put it, he no longer cared. He no longer had the sole stress of, can I be the best in the world at chess? He had he had diversified the successful outcomes in his life. It could either be chess or it could be streaming or it could be investing or it could be, you know, other business ventures he's pursuing. We talk about all of this, how he became a top notch streamer, how he became number 2 in the world, and then again number 2 in the world. Is it really related to this feeling of I don't care? Well, this was a dream come true discussion for me. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. If you do, please share with your friends, subscribe, show it to all your chess playing buddies. And we don't get into the weeds about chess, so this was valuable for anybody who just wants to succeed in life. So here's Hakaro Nakamura. This isn't your average business podcast, and he's not your average host. This is the James Altucher Show. So I just wanted to start really with a question in the kind of in the weeds, but your game in Norway chess against Fabiano Caruana. By the way, you were both vying for number 2 and number 3 in the world, number 1 and number 2 in America. But he unleashed this novelty, like a move that's never been played. And I was sitting in the audience, and I kept wondering, like, why doesn't isn't Hakarl just winning here? Like, why didn't you just win a ruck right there or an exchange right there? And you didn't. And for the for the life of me, I could not figure it out. I didn't have any computer around me or anything, and I was just trying to figure it out. How did he even find a novelty like that? And then why did you just assume, okay. I'm not gonna go into this mess. Yeah. So that would have been, I believe, the, the the 6th round of Norway shots where I played Fabiana Caruana, my compatriot from the United States. And this was a critical game where we were blitzing out our moves, making all these moves very quickly. And then at the key point, Fabiano played a move that looks like a blunder over the board. And when that happens, when both person moving very quickly and someone doesn't stop and slow down, it actually becomes very mental where you'd figure out whether someone is prepared or whether they've made a mistake because Should he have faked it a little bit? Like, instead of moving so quickly, or did he wanna put fear in you? Yeah. It's it's very tough to judge, but the the time control playing, we have a timer for the whole game. There's no increment. You get no added time. So if you get low on time, you run out of time, you will lose the game. And in general, if you waste a couple of minutes sitting there thinking, more often than not, it doesn't really help you. It doesn't give you an advantage. And usually, I would say that the top players can sense it when when you're trying to bluff them. So usually, you just go as fast as you can because you assume that you're gonna need that time later on in the game versus trying to bluff them out, especially when you're talking 3, 4 minutes in a game that goes about or not game. Sorry. But when you have about 2 hours for the whole game, you're probably gonna have, like, 4 or 5:5 decisions where you spend 10, 15 minutes maybe. And already, you're you're using a lot of your time. So you don't really try to bluff that often. And, Fobby, honest, Casey moved very quickly. And when this happens, one of the things that you never or one one of the the truths about chess is that the computer programs are better than humans. So if I go and play against a a computer program like Stockfish, which is the best in the world, I will lose every single game no matter what I do. Could you draw a game? Probably not. A 100 games. And if you're just trying to draw? I would say if I'm lucky, I can draw 1, but I I don't think that I can draw even a single game. Because when you're playing the computer program, there there are a lot of things going to. But first of all, we're humans, so we're emotional. And when you go in and you've heard me just say this where I I say I'll lose every game, when you go in knowing that you're that much worse than the computer program, you already are that much worse, but then psychologically, you even know it too. And computer programs don't have this issue at all. They just simply play the game. They literally don't care Yes. As you often say. And I'm gonna ask you about that later, but that's interesting. So yeah. And so then so so when you're playing a game and and somebody is somebody is moving very quickly, you feel like you're playing against computer program, and that's what you don't want. So when we got to this critical moment, I was actually doing quite well in the term and and with so many rounds yet to be played, I figured it made more sense to be safe and play something where the game would trend towards a draw rather than try to be be be crazy and go for an all out where I would win or lose. If that were the last time of the tournament, I might have made a different decision. But at that moment, it felt like the right right decision. And also, as far as computers go, trust has changed a lot over the years. Computer programs have become very strong, but also there's a difference between the computer program that you use on your laptop versus, say, having, you know, a desktop or or one of these computers that has has a bunch of cores that's sitting at your house or, for example, in the cloud. Either way, like, it's it's very, very different. And a lot of these deep ideas, you won't be able to find with the weaker computers you really do need. I mean, supercomputer is the wrong word for for techies out there, but because, like, it's not the right word, but still, you need a strong computer with many cores. Well well, I mean, I even I looked at it later on the computer because, again, being in the audience directly watching, you're not allowed to have even your phone on. There's no commentary. There's it's it's actually an interesting experience because I never do it. I would just try to put myself actually in the minds of the players as opposed to sitting there with commentary going, computer going. But later, I looked it on the computer, and the computer didn't like it, his move. But, of course, he explained on one of the streams that bigger computers liked it, like, later on. Like, he had to have the computer on for a while even with a stronger computer. So that's why I was wondering, like, how did he even know to pick that position to go deeper and beyond? A computer would probably told him it's not good until he sat there overnight with it. Yeah. I think I mean, saying overnight is an exaggeration. The old days this was true. So when I when I look at myself, one of the things that I've I I I'm not don't necessarily wanna call myself self a pioneer, but I'm one of the first top players who actually started working with someone who basically works a lot of computer programs that they've written articles and and all these different things, and they're not necessarily the the strongest chess player out there. Now we go back in time, a lot of chess players in the old days, you will work with the absolute best players who are around you because computers didn't exist. But even in the early days of computers, it still is believed that humans, like having grandmasters or other very strong players around you was more important than anything else. But I actually started working with someone who's I would say their expertise is essentially in in understanding computer programs and and how how you can use them to be better at chess. And so some of these ideas about leaving computer online or not online, leaving computer on overnight, actually, I saw them very early on, like, in 2009 or 2010. But nowadays, pretty much everybody everybody does this, but also the the time it takes to compute this is why you wanna be using computers with with more processing power is basically because it doesn't even take you overnight. It might take you take 1 hour, might take 30 minutes, but the more processing car you have, the quicker you're gonna get to the solution. So if you have a strong enough computer, and there there is, I I should say, a Russian player specifically who was using, one of these state computers, I think at Lomonosov University, with something like a 1,000,000 cores. And this is something that would cost well into 1,000,000 of dollars for for any top chess player to have access to. Fortunately, for this Russian player, they do have access or they have had access. And if you do a computer with that much power, it's gonna come to that solution much quicker, maybe a couple of minutes versus half hour versus an hour versus, you know, a whole day. So it does it it has changed a lot. But knowing where to look, I think that's up to the people who you're working with, the team you have around you, and their ability to kind of sense where where these things could exist. I wonder if software could be written that looks for situations where the computer is unhappy even searching 30 moves deep, but then they find that the the evaluation changes drastically from moves 30 to 31 deep. Yeah. Yeah. Well, now I think I mean, you're now we are starting to get into the weeds of a different topic, which is I think that one of the things that's so fascinating, or you could say annoying actually if you're if you're playing chess professionally, is that all these computer programs, they're as I understand it, of course, I'm not an expert in computer science, but they are essentially creating their own systems or values for, like, pieces or center like, pawns in the center, the pawn structure, you know, whether a piece is on the edge, whether it's in the center, wherever it is. My understanding is that these computer programs are now creating these algorithms on their own without human oversight. They they create it. And and so I think there's probably some way that you could do that, but ultimately, I mean, the reason I don't think this happens is because chess is a is a gamer sport, which is not as mainstream, and because it's not super mainstream, there isn't necessarily necessarily money in it, and so the motivations, I think, aren't there for a lot of people. And this isn't the only area of chess where I think there could be big improvements, but because it's not, like, mainstream the way that a lot of sports are, I mean, it's not something that I think is explored that much. Well, I wanna get back to, you know, something you were mentioning earlier about, you know, and this is chess as a sport and and your dedication to chess. And by the way, for anyone listening, you did a really great podcast with Lex Fridman about, you know, your your growth in chess, your history in chess, and people people should listen to that. I wanna talk to you about a a variety of things. But you mentioned that, and I've noticed this as well, essentially, you hit your peak in in in rating. I believe it was in 2017. You got to 2812 in rating. 2015. But 20 okay. Goose County. Yeah. Yeah. 2812. And then you were mentioning from 2016 to basically early 2020. I think you went from, like, 28/14 to 27/36, something like that. And then you kinda then the pandemic happened. You started streaming. You became excellent in the streaming with streamer, which, again, we'll talk about the skills required to that. But one thing that I noticed and everybody, like, let's say, in the chess world noticed, is that you went back to being, like, a great, great chess player even though from all our appearances, you were just on streaming all day. And and so everybody wonders, and I know everybody wonders because people ask me about this. And and but do you think that the diversification of your interests and passions and successes somehow relieve the pressure? Or what what was the story then? Yeah. So, I mean, so as far as chess goes, there are a couple things. Chess is very different depending where you grow up, in the world. Obviously, you have many different many different forms of governments, and the systems as a whole are quite different. But I would say for myself, because I grew up in the US, it's unfortunately not a country where I think trust is valued very highly. And what I mean by that is that I didn't really have a lot of support. So from the time I started out pretty much until I was an adult, most of the money or the support that I had was from my parents. It was not from, say, the chess federation or, like, a local state government or anything of that sort. It was essentially my parents supporting me. And what I think that does is it you sort of I think it's it's one of those things where, you know, I I feel like a lot of kids, they they sort of hate their parents from, like, the age of, like, 13 to 18. And then suddenly once you're out in the real world, you actually respect your parents a lot more because you realize all the things they did for you so so that you could be successful and and everything else. And so for myself, you know, once once I was, like, 18, 19, I just start trying to make a living from chess. And I think once you do something like chess where it's pure fun and you don't have to worry about anything, and then suddenly the real world hits you where you have to make a living, you have to try and survive, your whole perspective shifts. And for me, what as I was improving, there there are couple stages. The first stage is you're playing casually. Once you get to grand master, you start having aspirations of maybe playing professionally. By the way, you were the youngest grand master in the world when you became grand master. American, not world. But but still but but but so like they're saying, once you get to grand master, you start to aspire maybe to something more. But beyond that, in order to actually make a living, and when I mean a living, I'm just gonna say, like, $100,000 versus, say, making 30,000. By 30,000, I mean scraping by. I don't mean it's like guaranteed. It's scraping by to make that money. I I mean, of course, we're talking, you know, good 15 years ago now versus the modern day, but you're talking about, like, 30,000 versus, say, a 100,000. It's like you can be a grand master, but you have to get to this 27 100 rating level, which is effectively about the top 15 to 20 in the world to make a good living. There are all these different stages, and once you get there, you have to maintain it. So it's not like you get there and then you're set for life. If you have a bad series of terms, you could fall right back down, and your income could basically be decreased by 50 to 60%. So a lot of what was in my mind once once I once I made it past this 27 100 level and I got to about the top 20 of the world is, like, trying to stay at that level. And and when you what I mean by that is, like, you don't take as many risks. You try to you try to win a game here or there. You try to draw a game here or there. I mean, the the risk the the risks that you take are much smaller in general, but what that also does is it takes away from your pure ability to enjoy the game because you're not actually making the optimal decisions at the end of the day. And this I mean, when we talk about optimization and and making certain decisions, like, this is why if chess were bigger, I think you would see a lot of data analytics about, like, you know, when you should take risk, how you should play certain games, which doesn't exist currently. But, obviously, I digress. So it's like once you break in, then you get there. And if if you're able to stabilize in that in that that level, the top twenty of the world, then the next goal is to try and get to the world championship match where if you get there, you can maybe earn a $1,000,000 or more, if if you win the match. So there are all these little stages, but what I would say is that, you know, once you break into this top level, top twenty, you get to travel a lot lot of look to a lot of places like London, Paris, fancy terms. After a couple of years, it gets very boring. And then you're really looking at what's the next stage. The next stage is to get to what's called the candidates tournament, which features the top 8 players in the world roughly, and the winner of that term plays the world champion in a match, and you're guaranteed effectively a $1,000,000, which is a huge jump versus trying to make, like like, a 100, 150, $200,000. It's a huge diff difference, and it can definitely change your life. So for me, I think I felt a lot of this pressure all the way through. But I I think in 2016, one of the big things that changes is I did qualify for the Canada's tournament. And I qualify for this tournament, and I did very poorly there. Now I would say one of the reasons I did poorly is that I simply felt too much pressure because the the jump or the differential between being a solid top ten player and then playing a world championship, it's just miles apart. And if you get there, of course, you're gonna get fame. You're gonna do very well. You're probably the sponsor's life is gonna change in a way that you really can't imagine happening in Chester. There's no other way for that to happen. So I play the tournament. I did very poorly. But besides doing very poorly in the tournament from all the pressure and these delusions of grandeur was that I realized that the tournament ultimately to some degree is about luck. And what I mean by that is that I don't feel like the best player always wins that tournament. Usually, there's little luck, and what I would say is I'll I'll compare it to tennis, for example, because, the French Open recently happened. And and I I know that Zverev won the match against Sindel in the first round, but I would say it's akin to say playing the French Open, and somebody is playing Nadal in the 1st round, or you have to play Nadal in the 4th round versus playing him in the finals. Like, things like this can happen where the pairings of who you play, in such a long term, because it's 14 rounds. If you play someone who's doing poorly early in the tournament versus playing with them at the very end, there's a huge difference. Someone actually is probably gonna get that lucky pairing where they're playing someone who's doing poorly towards the end of the event. So for me, once I play that Canada's turn, I realize there's also a component of luck built into it. It really sour me because then I'm I'm thinking about it and it's like, okay. If if I play this Canada's turn, even getting there is very hard, but winning the tournament is is on some level luck. And besides that, if I do actually win that, I'm gonna play Magnus Carlsen, who's the best friend in the world, and most likely I'm gonna lose. And so after this event, I would say that my mindset became very negative, and I I started really trying hard simply to maintain my level, which took away from the joy of Chaz. And what does it mean when your mindset became negative? Like, that almost sounds like a little technical. Like, what Sure. What would happen to you? Like, what would you think about? So what what I would think about is stay in the top 10 of the world. And what that means is that if you play let's just say you play an individual tournament. There you might play 9 games against 9 different opponents. And it might mean that in, like, 7 of the games, I try to play very boring games and make the draw so that I don't gain or lose a lot of ranking points. And the 1 or 2 games, I try to go crazy, get that win. And those extra few ranking points maybe put me in the top 5 in the world or something like this. But it's that's not really how you should be approaching the game. That's not the minds that you should have. But but, again, everybody is different, and depending where you grow up in the world can be different. Different. What I'm saying here about worrying about my livelihood and all these things is something that does not apply to say Magnus Carlsen who grew up in Norway, which has I I mean, we don't need to get into systems, but I would say, like, things like health care, for example, or or government support. These are not things that you have to worry about in certain places in the world in the way that you do in the US. So Obviously, you grew up, like, in in or around New York City. Right? I grew up in in Rochester County. So very high cost of living, and it's hard to live in New York. Like, everybody in New York is worried Yeah. Basically. Yes. And so you kinda grew up in a in an environment where it's kill or be killed. It's eat or be eaten. And and it is and plus, there's a big New York cultural a chess cultural, Also, to to be fair, also with chess, like, there is no I mean, this it's a career that I would say is relatively very short. Even though people think of it as being mental, it's very hard to maintain your level past about the age of 40. So you're looking at a relatively short career, and then afterwards, there are no benefits. There's no, like, pension plan. There are none of there there are none of these things. They don't exist in general. Become an ESPN commentator, at least back in Exactly. So so, like, you're really looking at a very short career, and and that's why I would say that after I play this Canada's tournament, I thought that it was all that I realized there was some luck to even get to the match. It's became a situation where all I care about is, like, winning a game here or there, keeping my level where it's at, and then then you don't enjoy the game. You start to hate the game. It come it becomes this job. And also, like, people a lot of people think traveling is fun. And I think the 1st couple of years when I broke in, it was a lot of fun. When you're going to the same place over and over and over again, that also doesn't help because it's the same people. It's the same places. And for for me, I think that's that's what really led to this downturn is that I it was all about trying really hard not not to lose ranking points or ranking spots in the world as opposed to trying to actually play good shots. And when you care more about that than actually the enjoyment and try and do your best trying to perform, then I think you're definitely going to you're gonna experience a failure. And and and let's, like, break that down a little bit. Like, when you started going professional and then it just it seems like it just took you a few years and suddenly you were number 2 in the world with Magnus Carlsen being number 1. So the difference between number 1 and number 2, at least in terms of career, as you're pointing out, is huge. Like, there's a big difference between the kind of income you can make when you're Magnus Carlsen as opposed to you know, a lot of people were thinking and are still thinking, you could be number 1. Mhmm. And but I feel like you almost don't wanna think that, and maybe you did think that at one point. And I mean, I think the thing is, like, I I like to I like to think you know, for me, I would love one day to actually be able to talk to us, like, some of these guys in tennis, because I like the same situation where, like, I obviously am a competitor. I want to be the best in the world, but I also know that I live in a time where you have someone who's just so unique. It'd be like I I I've said this on my stream, I think, but it's like Andy Roddick. I think if not for Roger Federer, he probably would have won 4 or 5 grand slams at least. I mean, probably not in the in the double digits, but he would have won more grand slams. But there was this guy, Roger Federer, who unfortunately was like now, of course, there's a doll and Djokovic, but, like, literally, like, the greatest player ever. And you're unfortunately be in the same same time as someone like that. And so so for me, I mean, early on, I would say, like, the the early 2000 tens around, I had some of these these aspirations. But Magus, of course, just he started winning every tournament. He, of course, beat me. He became the world champion. At some point, you wanna believe you can compete against someone like this, but you also know that in reality, it's very, very difficult. It's a very it's it's definitely an uphill struggle. So so you also have to deal with reality. So, like, that's the other problem is I think if I had that component where I thought that I could be the absolute best in the world, maybe my career could have been different. But after a couple of years, it's very clear there's this one guy who's just better than everyone else, and that also hurts the motivation. And and do you think a lot of people in the top 20 and and, again, we're talking let let's say in the world, there's 600,000,000 people who play chess. Right now, of those 600,000,000, you're number 2. There's Magnus Carlsen and then Hakaro. And do you think a lot of the people in the top 20 have kind of become dejected with Magnus there because they just it's like this wall they keep hitting. Yeah. Absolutely. I think there definitely is some of the players from the older generation out. To be be clear, chess is changing. There are kids who are becoming very strong, who are now the top 10. But, definitely, when you look at the players, I would say there there are there are some American players. There's a Russian player. It's this wall. Like, your goal ultimately, I think and no one's gonna admit this because we're all competitors, but your goal is just to get to the world championship. That's the goal. And then you expect to lose to Macas, which, I mean, to be fair, I think when you expect to lose some to someone or you you automatically say they're better than you, more often than not, you're gonna lose some because it's in your head as well. Chelsea is very psychological. Yeah. Like, let's say 2 people have equal skill, and you have this mindset that, oh, you know, this guy's better than me. What's how what what what's the percentage mindset plays a role in an individual game? Huge role. I mean, actually, I I I don't know if I've I've said this, but, you know, a lot of tournaments, I would say, between, like, 27 and 2019, Magnus was playing in the same events I was. And my goal was just to make a draw against them and try to beat other people in the tournament. My goal was to make a draw. It was not to try and beat him or take risks any of these things. It was to make a draw and then try to beat the other players in the tournament. I think a lot of players are like this in general, and and you do. Unfortunately I I mean, it's hard to explain because it's not it's not like a sport. But since I played tennis and it's what I follow the most, it's just one of those things where Magnus in the critical moments, he finds a way to get it done. He finds a way to win the critical games always, and that's what great champions do. And when you set more and more and more over, like, a decade or decade or, you know, decade or decade and a half, it gets in your mind, and you just you think this person's unbeatable. You you really do start to believe that. Take a quick break. If you like this episode, I'd really, really appreciate it. It would mean so much to me. Please share it with your friends and subscribe to the podcast. Email me at altutra@gmail.com and tell me why you subscribed. Thanks. If Magnus didn't exist, you might be the Roger Federer of chess. You know what I mean? Like, I look at your games, and I say that, you know, you get it done. And particularly, like, when I watch you stream, I don't know how you save yourself out of some of these business against, like, some of the best players in history. You're you're getting it done. Yeah. So, I mean, that that's where, like, we can talk about sort of the sort of where I branched out. So, you know, I would say, like, around 2019, things started going really poorly because I fell from about number 7 or 8 in the world all the way down to number 20. I was basically in this danger zone where I might not get invitations to top level tournaments, and my income could essentially dry up overnight. I wouldn't wouldn't disappear completely, but it would go down significant. I would say 50% or more. And that's kind of when at the end of 2019, I made this very conscious decision that I was gonna take a long break from chess. Normally, there are certain periods, certain months when you always play tournaments. So between, like, 2,010,019, I always played a tournament in January. And I decided at the end of 2019, I was gonna take about a 6 month break and come back in April of 2020 to play the United States chess championship. And I was just gonna get this break, refresh, re reset myself completely, and then start start going back into it. Did you play at all during this break? Or No. So so what happened is I took this break, and I was actually I I streamed a little bit, and and I would say December and January, I was doing some live streaming 2019 already. And then in February, I made this decision to go to Hawaii to take a 2 week vacation. As soon as I was gonna come back from that vacation was when I was gonna get serious, start studying chess every day, and get ready for the US championship in April. And I went to Hawaii, and I think it might have been the the first night or the second night that I was there. And I think it was like, I was wait I woke up really early, so I wanted to go hiking. That's another one of my my great passions. And I looked at my phone. I think I looked at the the, like, the Yahoo Finance app or one of those apps, and I saw Marcus Dell, like, 3 or 4%. And, of course, that's because the the I think there was a case in Italy or something of COVID, and that really started the shift. And so I got out of Hawaii just before lockdowns began. I I went back to Florida where where I live, and and I was stuck at home. So what to do? Now you don't know if the US change is gonna happen. What am I supposed to do? So I was very lucky because I had already started streaming in 2019, so I was able to jump right into streaming with nothing else to do. And that that made that made a world of difference, but I guess that's probably a separate topic. So so what I would say, getting back to the chest, is because of what happened with the pandemic, because sort of my whole revenue stream changed and sort of the the way that I went about my life change as a whole, I came back to chess in 2022. I did not play with any of these fears. So you could say it's a good thing or bad thing with something like chess that, you know, the financial situation is the way it is where you only have maybe 10 to 15 players in the world to make a living. For me, I was able to find another avenue to make a living. And because of that, when you play chess terms without any of these fears, I think I I basically freed my mind to use a matrix term where I basically freed my mind where when I play play terms from then to now, the only goal that I set for myself is to be competitive. As long as I'm not losing every single game, that's my only goal. And and I also say getting back to the point that I made about Magus, how I play for a draw, I don't even think that way when I play Magnus anymore. I just go and I try to enjoy playing against them. I don't worry about winning the game or losing the game. I just wanna show that I can compete with these players. And so it's a complete mind shift. And I think if not for that, I don't know where I'd be right now in chess, but because I've been able to just play the game purely for the love and the enjoyment of it and trying to trying to have the best time that I can, and perform the best that I can really, it's just I'm playing better now almost than I ever ever was. I I know. It's really I don't know maybe of another instance where someone went from being number 2 in the world to dropping out of the top 20 and and falling in in rating as you did. And then you went into a completely different career, the streaming. And, again, it really seems like because you like you said, you freed your mind from the anxieties of chess and and money. You have you you diversified your your income streams very well. You it sort of freed your play somehow. Like, I can you think of another chess player where in history that maybe had a bounce back like that? From from there all the way to the top, I can't actually think of about it. Especially because, like, I'm getting older. I'm not if I if I did this when I was dealing between, like, 2025, that's one thing. But, you know, pandemic hit in 2021. I was already 33, 34. So I'm already towards towards that 40 that 40 mark, which is, which of course is closer to retirement. So, no, I can't leave anyone who did it. I also think, honestly, though, one of one of the reasons I think Magnus dominates as much as he does, because I think a lot of players of the older generation, they do have this mindset. Maybe it's not maybe not it's not the fierce, but it's about making sure they maintain their world ranking as opposed to trying to win tournaments and play their absolute best shots. Because ultimately, you have to pay the bills, and you have to make a living. And so I I think a lot of top players from my generation, they struggle with this because they're not actually playing chess for the right reason. Yeah. I well, there was one interview I saw with Magnus yesterday where he was going through his calculations while he was just trying to decide what to do with in his last game, and he was looking at your game. And he made the calculation, okay, no matter what. Oh, no. This is this is the calculations he made after losing, I guess, the 3rd game to to Prague. Okay. If he does this, this, this for the rest of the tournament, he'll maintain his number one status. So, like, these are the things he's thinking. It was very important for him that number one status in the world. Like, he's kept it for so long. He wants to still keep it. And for you, what I see is, of course, you wanna win, but then you have a secondary thing, which is, like you say, you wanna be competitive. Then you have a a third thing, which is you wanted to be entertaining. Yes. I I mean, I think that at the end of the day I mean, a lot of people sort of it's very hard to understand sort of the the separation. A lot of people assume that my streaming career, which, of course, I do stream chess, is sort of connected to my playing career. There's somehow they're symbiotic. I would say they they aren't really at this point. You know, even if I were to do very poorly, a lot of the fans who watch me online, they still are going to watch my live streams even if I fall to number 20 in the world. For me, if I fall to number 20 in the world, I probably just won't play play professional chess anymore because, I won't be competitive. I'm not competitive. I'm not I'm not I'm obviously not going to enjoy losing every game. So, yeah, I I think for Magus being number 1 matter a lot for me, Something like being number 1 in the world was not a realistic goal. I would say after maybe 2010 or 2011, and when something like that isn't a realistic goal, it's not something that ever factors in. But I would also say that the thing with Magna sits and this comes back to, like, great champions is that even if you might think that would add a lot of pressure on him, he makes the right decisions and the right things happen in all these critical moments. You look the world championship in 2018. If you lost even a single game in that match, he would not have been the number one player in the world. But the thing but, you know, champions, they they they have that way of of of getting it done when it ultimately matters. And, you know, as far as myself, obviously, it's not on the same level, but you are right, though, that in recent years when I do compete, I actually have found this 10 I do have this tendency to be a big clutch performer and win games when I need to as well. So, yeah, it's it's amazing. And and do you think that's because, like like, when I used to day trade so for many years, I was a day trader. And then if I had a bad day day trading, I would feel really horrible. But as long as you have other interests, you could diversify. And, like, let's say, I would go online and play chess as an example. Yeah. And I'm not playing at any kind of level, but it was just a way to get my mind off of day trading or losing the money with something I enjoy doing. And I'm wondering if a little bit you got into streaming, and because you're so excited and proud of how you're doing there and you're obviously making good money there, that allows you to take chances or risks in chess that maybe you wouldn't have done before. Yeah. I I would definitely agree with that. I think having that stability where I'm not dependent on my income from the results off of chess tournaments changed everything. If that were not the case, I don't think I would be number 2 in the world right now. I really don't. I think there's a good chance that I I wouldn't be playing chess professionally. If you if you look at where I was in 2019, my rating was down. I was in a very bad place mentally. If not for the pandemic and sort of that that whole shift in everything in my life, I don't think I would even be playing chess professionally. I really don't think I would. Well yeah. Streaming definitely has helped me a lot in terms of, like, in terms of being able to just enjoy chess for what it is instead of it being this job. And and when you say you were in a bad place mentally, were you like I I mean, I hate to ask this way. Were you were you crying or were you Yeah. So, like, let me let me let me let me give you an example. I think there's a there's a Steve one of one of my favorite, videos that I watch from time to time periodically is Steve Jobs' Stanford speech, which I think many people are familiar with. And he says something like he says, it's something like you have to enjoy the work you do. You have to love it or something. It's for work and lovers. I forgot the exact quote, but I would say that I did not love chess. When I was playing chess, I was thinking, oh, man. I have to go waste 5 hours preparing for for this chess game that I'm gonna play the next day. I'm gonna go play. Probably it's gonna be a draw. Probably it's not even gonna be exciting. We're not gonna create any new ideas in the game. And what I mean by that is that chess has a lot of theory. So many games, first 20 moves should play something and generally it can be very boring and there are a lot of draws at the top level. Nobody wins the game. It's just a tie. So, basically, in my sense, okay. I have to go waste 5 hours preparing for this game of chess. Probably, it's gonna be very boring, and we're gonna draw the game. Okay. I'm gonna maybe finish in 4th or 5th place in a tournament. Okay. Great. I travel to the next tournament. Do this on and on for the whole year. And in 2019, actually, this was the case because I traveled for something like 280 days in a year playing the chess competitions, and it's just that the mindset when when you're when you're sort of very negative and you're expecting bad things to happen, I found the bad things do actually happen more often than not. And I'd also say that as I've gotten older, like, you know, there's certain things like manifest station, things of this nature that I when I was younger, I thought complete garbage, complete nonsense. And now I actually, on some level, kind of kind of believe in those things. But it's just when when you expect bad things to happen, when you're not enjoying it, you're like, oh, I have to go waste time doing this. It's gonna be, you know, I'm gonna do okay, but Magda's gonna win every tournament. These sorts of things. Like, it's not productive. And in general, it's just it's this this loop of negativity, and that does not help. And there's also this fear. Right? Because you're, let's say, you're you're 33, and you have to go to your entire life to just getting good at chess. Like you said, you're traveling 280 days in that year for for chess. And to think that this might not be what you continue doing, like, did you think, oh, I'm going off a cliff here. What am I gonna do? Yeah. I mean, it was obviously very scary for me at that time because I I am thinking about it. And if I don't get this invitation, my income go income goes down. I mean, I I don't know I don't know what I'm doing. I don't know. And it's Well, like, what are you gonna do with your what's your are you gonna be an accountant? Like, what's gonna what are your choices? Yeah. I mean, that's that's one of the very tough things about chess is at a young age, you you have to make that decision whether you're gonna approach it professionally or whether you're gonna go into another field. And so, yeah, I mean, I think what I would what I would have done I mean, maybe I would have tried to do something like streaming anyway, but it's very scary because you have no safety net, and it was definitely on my mind in 2019 specifically. I didn't know what I was gonna do, and it's it's very scary at at that age with no safety net. I mean, potentially no career as a chess player. I mean, there are other things you can do in chess, but obviously, it's not, like, teaching chess you can do, but it's not not a lot of fun for most people. And also my stepfather teaches, so it's something I'm very familiar with and not something I ever wanna do. So, yeah, you just you don't know what to do. So you're you're you're you feel, like, desperate on on some level. I think when you have this desperation and this great fear, it does impact your play as well. And so there's a lot of streamers out there. And I think back in, like, 2020, there was a lot of streamers who weren't necessarily good chess players. You had Agammar, King Krusher, you know, all these guys. And and to look at them, it was actually very inspirational that chess was creating all these opportunities. Even if you weren't, you know, Magnus or Hercaro and among the best, you could still make a good living. And and just like a sportscaster doesn't have to be a great football player, they could be a sportscaster instead and make 1,000,000 of dollars. But suddenly, chess was creating these opportunities. And then you start I think you kind of changed the game a little bit with streaming because you were a great player who is now streaming. But again, a lot of good players stream. They don't also always have the skills of streaming. And maybe, like, how did you develop you have to be a good entertainer. You have millions of people watch you. Right. So, again, I I think I think what what I would say to that is, again, to use the Steve Steve Jobs, there there's there's this quote I remember quite well, which is, you know, you can only connect the dots looking backwards, not looking forward. And for me, in in a way, when I look back, it makes perfect sense how this happened because when I was very young, I actually played a lot of chess on the Internet. Trust club when I was young. It was, like, like, late nineties, early 2000. By the way, you know, I helped start ICC. Back in 1992, I wrote some of the code for that. Very nice. So so so, like, I would play there, and one of the things that I did, sometimes it actually type in moves or type type sort of commentary while I was playing. I was doing this when I was, like, 11, 12, 13 years old, and it's a different form of communication versus, say, live stream where you're where you're actually talking out loud versus typing. But I already had some of this stuff from my from my younger days where I was doing this. So it was actually not so difficult for me to transition into it, or I started live streaming. But definitely at the at the start, I was very awkward. I think one thing and this is one thing that I I've definitely tried very hard, I think, to change about chess, or I hope people can can appreciate, is that a lot of people think of chess chess players as being these massive geniuses who are super smart and everything else. And I do think there is, you know, stereotype exists for a reason. So I think if you go back maybe a 100, 200 years ago, a lot of top chess players were actually geniuses. Many of them were, like, engineers. They were, like, pianists or economists or all these different things or math professors. I mean, one of the world champions was actually a math professor. That was his main job. So so so for me, like, I I've really tried very hard to sort of convey that chess players aren't geniuses. And I think the thing is with chess players, we because chess players get treated a certain way within the chess world where people think they're geniuses or treated with so much respect, it's very hard to kind of open up and share with people who don't necessarily treat you that way or or you're in a situation where it's completely foreign. You're just talking to random people. So I think that's one of the biggest difficulties for the top players is, you know, finding a way to communicate with people who are not completely in awe of them. Because in the chess world, people are completely in awe of the top players. So it's just the just how it goes. And to your point, I think culturally, like, in the world, I mean, chess, which let's say it's I don't know how how old, but let's say it's 1500 years old. It's but it was a game of kings. Right? Was it Yeah. Wasn't like the the serfs or peasants play chess. It was it was called the royal game. The kings play chess. And then there is an association of chess with being superior in strategy, being like a military kind of thing. Like, it it's usually used as a metaphor for military. In almost every single TV show, when they try to show that the characters are smart or strategic or even sneaky, they have them playing chess at some point in the in the show. So, yeah, there's this there's this cultural value to being a good chess player. Yeah. Absolutely. And I think also, you know, one thing for for most of my life, I always wonder why chess wasn't bigger. Now I'm I'm very fortunate that I actually saw some really memorable events. I'm I mean, for me, my favorite probably favorite chess experience ever was in 1995. There was a world championship between Gary Kasparov and and Vishwanathan Anand that was held at the World Trade Center. I was very lucky. I actually got to go to that match on one of one of the days they played there. But even besides saying that, you know, I'm I'm someone who, like, for example, I'll watch CNBC or something like this. And I feel like, I I I mean, I don't know how how frequent it is, but it feels like probably once an hour you'll see some ad where there's someone in park playing chess. Like, it could be insurance. It could be any number of things or strategy. But you see chess is everywhere in culture. I I think from a very young age, I always wonder why chess wasn't bigger. Like, why why is it why do I see it everywhere? But it's not that big of a deal. And I think also, like, you know, even if it's subconscious, I think when I went into creating content just to be clear, I mean, there is a slight difference between live streaming and, say making YouTube videos just because live streaming, you're you're live in person. Yeah. Videos, you can edit and do all these different things. But I I think when I went into doing all the content creation, I saw a path to try and do something that could make trust bigger and much more accessible. And, I mean, I was right, and there there's a lot I mean, when it comes back to strategy, I think one thing that trust players are very bad at I mean, not trying to make not trying to speak poorly about, like, my colleagues or anything, but I think Go ahead. Notion of that that I think the the thing with trust is if you can take those lessons and transition them I mean, assume you're not a top player, but if you can take those lesson and transition them to other areas of life or other areas of business, I think that that's the biggest I mean, that's the biggest thing trust can give you is the ability to do that. Whether you can apply that is always a tough tough question because in chess, you you come with a strategy, come with a thinking ahead, but can you actually think ahead when it matters? I think for me, when I look at the live streaming specifically in 2020, there was a lot of planning that went into many different things. And I I would say one thing actually, and this comes back to playing chess, is very early on. I had a tough decision when I was making YouTube videos, and I started doing some of these recaps of my games where after I play, I do these 15 minute videos of whether I wanted to dumb down my content. Now if you look at chess, the the smart smart move is, of course, to reach the biggest audience. I mean, it's in business too. You know, you're looking where is the the biggest group of consumers. And in chess, that group is players who are basically beginner. I'm not gonna use ratings, but basically beginner level. There there's a big pocket. I'd say probably I'm gonna guess, like, 85% of players are people who who just started the game or played for a couple of months. That that is the biggest market by far. But could they are they is that a market that's passionate about viewing chess online? I I mean, I think they wanna watch it, but the thing is if I do stuff that's not stuff that they don't understand because I'm talking to high level chess concepts, some amount of them are never gonna watch my content no matter what I do, no matter who I am. But I made the decision actually very early on to not not care. So it's to try and keep the level high because I always did think that I would want to play play top level chess. And this comes back to another area of chess too, but generally, chess is a game where I would say the simplest way of putting it is you learn a 1,000 rules, and then you learn how to break every single rule as you get better and better at the game as you progress through levels. And with chess, if you start doing things at a very basic level, and a lot of people who teach us have this issue, you start thinking about the game in a much more simplistic way. And so instead of instead of sort of seeing the 1,000 rules and how to break them, you see the 1,000 rules and you're trying to follow them to a t because that's what you're trying to convey to your viewers or you're trying to convey to your students if you're teaching chess. So for me, very early on, I made a conscious decision that I was not going to dumb it down because I was always hoping that I would be able to plan top level tournaments. It's just one one example of, like, strategy where maybe it was right, maybe it was wrong. And that's interesting because let's say everybody's out there making educational videos. Like, oh, have an open file, grab it, or blah blah blah. And you were saying it seems like even, like, in your earlier videos, you were, like, doing, you know, 1 minute chess, which people advise, obviously, teachers advise not to play. You were you were doing, you know, disrespect runs where you were just, you know, giving up a queen and then crushing people. So you weren't playing by the rules even of, you know, the the top streamers out there who were trying to be educational. Like, oh, here's a classic game. Here's what Capablanca did in this point. You were just kinda going in there, and and and you had a different vision of how entertaining chess could be. Yeah. I mean, I think certainly I mean, like, I I obviously could try to be different, but but definitely well, different there's a relative term, of course. But, yeah, I I decided very early on that I was gonna try to stay true to my roots, of of being this top level player. And, I mean, I would also say that there is nobody else doing it too. So, you know, if you wanna talk about having a mode or having some advantage, like, in a way that does give me a bit of an advantage because there's no one else doing it. I'm the only only only game of talent. But I think that no one else doing it is because it's hard. Like like, I think other people try. No. I mean, you're I would I would say, actually, I don't think any of the other top top players really have tried. You've had maybe 1 or 2 who have. I think that the big the biggest thing is that with chess players, I think I think they have this this mentality that the the world and I think this also comes from actually what I was saying earlier about how when you play when you play tournaments and you start getting into this is work, it's grinding, it's do this little things here and there. It it's more about maintaining what you have. It's not about taking risks. I think a lot of top players, they they sort of view you have this old world mentality where you're supposed to do things in chess a certain way, especially as it relates to training for games, getting ready for tournaments, playing competitions where you're basically you're supposed to prepare before the tournament. Spend x amount of hours every single day looking at chess. Before the event, you play the event, same thing. After the event, same thing where you're doing this day after day after day, and you're not supposed to be doing these things that are, like, improper or whimsical or how however you wanna put it. And and are you afraid, like, are people afraid they'll others will their peers will look down on them? They might look down. They also think it's gonna hurt their chest. I think it's actually gonna be a it's gonna detract from what they're doing in chest versus being added added value. And so it's like one of these things where it's like, okay. You take 3 hours string or something. Okay. What am I doing? I'm it's gonna hurt my chest, and I'm not making a lot of money. Why bother? What am I doing? Now to be fair, I I mean, obviously, I was in the right place at the right time with the pandemic, but no none of these top players during the pandemic actually tried to do it. You know, when the pandemic happened in March of 2020, I don't think any other player who's in the top 50 in the world did live streaming probably until, I would say, the middle of 2021. None of them even tried even though they were all at home and they had the they had the ability. I think it's just because this they're trying something new or doing something they thought might perhaps hurt their chest, they didn't wanna take that risk. They they didn't wanna take that risk. And I I was lucky enough that I was in a position where where I I could take the risk, and I I I mean, maybe not could, but I was doing so poorly in terms that there was nothing to lose from taking that risk, I guess you could say. When did you first start to feel like, oh, this streaming thing is getting bigger? I might be good at it, and you did have skills at it. Like, a lot of pea I think a lot of top players when I see them play, you know, chess online, they just sort of play and they don't talk, and they make little tiny comments here and there. Like, you know, there used to be the banter blitz stuff, and it was almost very uncomfortable to watch some of that. And but you had you you were engaging the audience, and you you had formats that you would play, like, you know, kind of the speed run style or or, you know, today, I'm gonna sacrifice my queen, or I'm just gonna play king to e 2 on the second move, you know, the the bond cloud opening. And you made it fun as a great player. Yeah. So I think when I when I look back when it started to become very real for me, it was probably it was around April or May of 2020. And and what happened in in that during that period of time is that they're the big streamers on Twitch at the time, they started getting into chess. And one of the ways that you can grow the base or or or get people really interested is having this crossover between different communities. So if you have the chess community, there's certain amount of people in it. But there are a lot of people who are not in the chess community who maybe they'll get an interest in it. Let's just say you have, you know, a 1000000 people. If even 10% of those people get interested in chess and start start consuming content for some amount of time, let's say, 6 to 12 months, that's already huge versus not having them find that spark to get into chess at all. And it was in April of 2020 when I did some collaborations with the biggest streamer on the platform at the time, his name was xQc Mhmm. That it really started to change. Because prior to that, I would say I was averaging maybe a few 1000 years. It was it it was actually already quite a big size. It was already probably 34,000, I think, on average prior to that. But once I did that collaboration, it exploded to north of 10,000, concurrent viewers that I had every single day. That's that's when I started to realize that it was for real. When I combine that with this with the event that happened shortly thereafter, it's called Podchamps, which had big streamers from across different communities who competed in the Shuss tournament, which was in June of 2020. When when those two events happened and then the pandemic was not ending at that time, that's that's when I actually started to realize that this probably was going to be, going to be my job. And, also, I I mean, to to be fair at this time, because it was because there were no sports or anything else going on, there were a lot of sponsorship opportunities that I never had during my chess career either. So, like, the income was already already shooting up as well. So this is I would say it was this period between April June that I started realizing it's gonna be very serious. And then I would say by the end of 2020, I I kind of I already knew that that I was never going back to playing playing 10:10 to 12 chess tournaments a year and and doing that as my main main job. And and what skills do you think you were learning at this time to become a better streamer? And I always I always do use the word entertainment because I think Mhmm. You you can't just be a great chess player. You can't just be a great anything. You have to be able to communicate that to the world and and through some entertaining means, and you did develop skills. Yeah. I think the I mean, it's it's silly to say this, but I think the the most important thing that I learned along the way is to to not be so serious about myself. I I think from the from the time I was very young, I would say probably from the time I was 10 or 11, the the the way that I got really good at chess was sort of having a me against the world attitude. Sort of, you know, like, I enjoyed the hate. I enjoyed people not liking. I enjoyed just wanting to, like, prove people wrong, shove it in your face, all this sort of stuff. And probably growing up in New York didn't didn't hurt with that, having that attitude. But but I but I would say that I I always had that, you know, like, me against the world attitude being super serious all the time. And I think what I learned to kind of just, like, not be that serious, to kinda relax and and not not not be so angry, that helped me a lot. That that's a core a long process even before stream. But I think for streaming specifically, learning to sort of not not not hold things personally. You know, I I think even now sometimes I can get annoyed by comments on the Internet. But in general, it's just, like, not not being so serious, not not being so tense about everything, and just trying to share your personality, what you've done. Because, you know, I I I I think this happened the other day, and I I saw Levy, actually, Gotham, Chelsea. He made a tweet about how Barcelona is new favorite city. And, you know, when when you grow up with a certain perspective of the world, like, let's just say traveling, for example, for me, when I when I was 10 years old, I I I went to Barcelona, because my brother played a youth tournament. I was there. I I think I played I I went to Barcelona. I was 11, 12, 13. And it's very easy when you grow up with a certain perspective of thinking certain things are normal when they actually are not normal. And that there's a second thing, is that that I that I also learned that that what's normal to me is actually not normal for most people. And it's fascinating to hear about traveling around the world or or, you know, meeting different people, all all these different things. And it also comes back to another point which which, like, when I was on Twitch, sometimes I watch people do these IRL streams where they go out, they walk around like Tokyo, or they go to some city. And to me, I'm just like, what is this nonsense? It it's there's nothing special to this. But, of course, I've been out there in the world. I've traveled a lot. So to me, it's not special or exciting. But for a lot of people who don't have these opportunities in life, it really is. So it's really learning how to convey those stories, convey everything that I've done in a way that I think people who who haven't had the chance to experience them will will will will enjoy hearing about. And there are a lot of these stories a lot of these stories. Yeah. Because think about it. You bet, like, the the top 20 or the, let's say, the top 50 players, how many of them have you known since you were 12 years old? Yeah. Exactly. Most of them. I mean, that's That's an odd thing. Yeah. It's like I I was doing some interview recently. I I I was thinking to myself, like, in a way outside of my direct family, like, somebody like Magus, even though he's, like, he's a major competitor of someone that on some level, like, I don't like him or or things like this. Of course, I respect him. But he's, like, in a way, when I quit, he's he's, like, one of the few people that I'm actually gonna have shared most of my life experiences with, him, Fabiano, and a few others more than anyone else. And so it's like we're we're like enemies, but we're also friends and all these other things. Yeah. We call each other and just like, hey. How's it going? I mean, not now, but, I mean, I I think especially as I I I would say, especially as we get older and the end is closer than the beginning, I think you sort of the bygones become bygones, and and it's it's all about the respect. So maybe not now, but I wouldn't be shocked in a few years if that's the case. And and the streaming okay. So so it's kicking off. You're getting sponsors. You're realizing this is a business. How has it become a business? Like, how many employees do you do you do you hire to to run this business for you, and and how have you grown and expanded it? Yeah. So at at the very start, I mean, it was basically myself, one one moderator that I had, and then then a few other unpaid employees. And that that grew very quickly. I think that live streaming is not particularly difficult from a standpoint of of the staff that you need to maintain it. But when you start creating trying to create content, unless you have someone who can do all the different things, for example, editing, thumbnails, you know, the the tags, the titles, all these different things. And there there are people who are geniuses at this, but you need to have more people. So at the very start, it was actually it's really just 3 people. I had one moderator that I paid, and I one editor slash thumbnail artist. He did both who was doing all my videos throughout 2020. But one of the things is and this is this speaks to how difficult it is as, like, an online content creator influencer or however you wanna coin the term, is that in order to be successful, you're very beholden to the algorithms. And and probably the golden rule, I would say, with any form of content creation is that you're very consistent, and that means doing it basically every day. So in 2020, when you're writing these these new highs every day, whether it's in live sharing, the viewership numbers, ad revenue sponsors, or creating YouTube content where the the numbers are are so so out of this world high that you you just see you almost can't believe it. Very easy to to run on the adrenaline. But once you see the downtick, which I think started started after Queen's Gambit, I would say, like, March, April of 2021, is people burned out. So I ended up having to hire actually multiple thumbnail artists. I have a quite a few people making the thumbnails. I have, I would say, 3 to 4 editors as well. So all in all, my team is probably it's about I would say I'd pay 10 people. It's 10 people. And what about people to pursue sponsorships and and business development, stuff like that? So, I mean, we live in a very different world now than we did at the time. In in 2020, I would say 2020 through 2022, there were a lot of sponsorship opportunities for many mainstream companies. So I actually had representatives. I was at United Talent Agency, and then what was the other one? WME, William Morris Endeavor. In recent times, I'm not actually with an agency. I think it's as I look at the landscape now, I I I don't wanna I mean, luckily, I I will say I'm I'm glad that, like, I don't, like, run a company or something, which is, like, publicly traded because I I don't have it in me to sort of, like, make up things or try to sound always sound super rosy when I when I'm not. Those sponsorship opportunities are very few and far between. I think it that live stream is still very big, but it's not but it's not confined, I would say, to, like, one platform the way that it that used to be. And so they're they're just aren't the same opportunities. And for that reason, I'm mostly I'm just on my own these days. I have a couple people who help with emails, but I don't have an agency or anything along those lines. So what do you think is the next evolution in terms of, like, staying in either content creation or or streaming? Like, what's go what's gonna happen? Or what do you see? In the channel. Yeah. In in chess streaming, chess content creation. I mean, chess content creation, I think it's it's very stable right now. You have certain channels that are doing very well. You you have Lavi, of course, Gotham Trust. You have myself where we're by far and away the 2 biggest. I think that what what needs to happen is you need more of the top players getting into it. Now one of the exciting things currently is that a lot of the top players are juniors. There are many kids who are coming up through the ranks who are starting to break through, so they're not as dogmatic. They're not stuck in the old ways as much. And even, you know, as an another example of of something that's changed, I was talking about right and wrong. Like, you do things a certain way. When when I was growing up, almost none of the top chess players played chess online. They they just didn't compete online. I mean, could you imagine, like I was saying this. Like, can you imagine, like, Petrosian or Swyslov being, like, a Twitch streamer? Like, it's crazy. I love that style of of player. And that's earlier in the nineties. But Right. And maybe even Kasparov. I mean, even and odd. I mean, those those guys Yeah. They they played very sporadically. But now what you have is, like, everybody plays online, which is very good for the game because it gives these kids in a lot of these these poor countries a chance to compete against the best players in the world. And the whole view of online chess is actually very serious. It's legitimate. It's worth it's worth spending time to go online and play blitz because they're competitive tournaments. You have Magus online. You have me online. And so that has shifted completely, and that that's one one way it shifted. So, like, all the kids now who are breaking in the top 10 in the world, these kids have grown up where that is a new normal. They do actually play a lot of chess online. So I'm I'm I'm somewhat optimistic that because there's already this this shift where playing online is normal, that even seeing someone like me making this content will be perceived as being more more normal as well. And these kids will actually take up that mantle, and they'll they'll get into it. I think that's a big question is whether these kids, whether they choose to pursue this or whether they start doing what everyone else has done in the past. And I I don't know the answer to that, but I think if they start doing it, the the future could be very, very bright. And, you know, there's always the danger like you had in 2020, though, where, okay, you're hitting or 2019, you're hitting this cliff in potential income of chess, so you go into streaming. At some point, whether it's because interest slows or there's too much competition, perhaps there becomes that cliff even in streaming or content creation. And I've I've seen and I've I've heard that you've been diversifying your income further. Like, you've been getting more into and you talk about this on your stream. You were getting more into investing and and whether it's stocks or real estate. I know you do some some real estate stuff. Like, what other things do you are you doing now? Yeah. So there's a lot a lot of stuff that I do. I mean, I obviously own a lot of properties in real estate, a lot of rentals. Why is it obvious? I didn't I didn't know that. Oh, did I say it's oh, I meant obvious because I assume you listened to my stream. Sorry. I I do listen to your feedback. I just didn't know Sorry. Yeah. Yeah. What extent you've owned a lot of properties. Yeah. I mean, I I would say, actually, that that was one of the one of the smart things that or one of the one of the things, and, I mean, maybe I'm maybe I'm unique in this way, but this is also very true of chess in general. There are a lot of people, whether they're in the chess world or, like and by that, I mean, like player players or organizers or sponsors, or people who just play as kids and then moved on. And there are a lot of people I know from my childhood who have gone to be very successful in in other areas, and I actually try very hard to keep in contact with a lot of these people because you never know when there will be opportunities outside of chess. So I I I think I can say his name. You you actually probably know AJ. I'm guessing you've heard the name. But but one of the people that I I think I'm basically friends with him, but we never met. Yeah. Well, he he he challenged Peter to, to to, like, a game for $1,000,000 or something, one of those those marketing gimmicks. But, you know, one of one of my good friends in Florida, AJ Seidman, he's actually been in real estate for a long time. And I think it was in 2017 or 2018 that he he approached me, you know, about trying to buy some properties, you know, basically renting them out on the usual get a mortgage rent amount and everything, and, kind of that that coincided with the rise in my income in 20 2018, 2019, and then 2020. So we actually acquired a lot of properties, which we currently own in Florida and Georgia. Although one of them is a bit of an issue right now because it's a section 8, and they're they're these sorts of things, which are always a hassle. But, that's one thing. But then also, of course, I've or not, of course. I say of course because I think of myself with all the things I've said on my stream. But from a very by the way, like like, take someone like me, I watch your stream, listen to it, but I think I haven't listened to every single thing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And and in my mind, I'm thinking that I've said these things probably a 100 times on my streams. I think, yeah. Of course. It's obvious. Right? But it's not to to the listener. The the other thing, and this is much more longer term support and that that's it, of course. Stop. Now I'm starting to talk like a streamer again. So from a very young age, I've had an interest in investing. I think the started the the it's it's 2 things. It's the perspective of the childhood and what I remember of my childhood in the early days. Very specifically, when I I spent the first about 5, 6 years of my life in the Mojave Desert, about 2 hours north of Los Angeles, and let's just say low lower lower middle class, I would say, lower lower middle cla*s. And a lot of the memories that I have or the memories I remember as a kid are from that time period more actually than sort of a more affluent period of my life in White Plains outside the city. So, like, I've internalized a lot of that from from a very young age, those sort of struggles. You know? And and then I think it was when I was about 15 or 16. My mom actually she bought me this book on investing. 1 of our neighbors in in the building we lived in, White Plains, he'd written a book. I actually found it recently, but I don't remember what it the title is right off. It was about investing. It was mostly about, like, mutual funds, things like this. That got me quite interested in not in the stock market specifically, but in trying to create long term wealth. And then around 17 or 18, I my favorite book that I that I read was it was the Bogle book, Bogle on mutual funds. So it's just this red book. I remember reading it many times. That and Jeremy Siegel's book, Stocks for Long Run. So I read a lot of books about it, and I also had a little bit of money at the time. So I I started very early on investing in mutual funds. Eventually, I shifted over to ETFs. They weren't really that popular so much of a thing in in the mid 2000, but I I slowly shifted over there. And the main reason that I got into the market is because I didn't think trust was something I was gonna be doing forever, and I really did. I wanted to be able to support myself and have passive income down the road. So that that's something I've been doing on and off since the the mid 2000. These days, it's pretty boring. It's mostly most mostly index funds or companies that pay pay good dividends. I still do gamble, like, in GameStop every so often. It's hard not to view view the market as a game, I think. Right. But but one thing, there's there's another good friend of mine who I know who, also also does does a lot in business. And he said this, and he's right. One of, I think, the big advantages to playing chess as it relates to, say, the stock market or or life in general actually is that in the in a single game of chess, you're making so many decisions, so many calculations. Do I play this move? Do I play that move? And in life, very rarely do you make that many decisions. Very, very rarely. I mean, what are what are the big decisions you make in life? I mean, probably whether to get married, whether to have the kids, whether to buy a house or maybe buy a nice car. Those are really, I think, where to go to college probably. Those are probably the only five things in life I can think of that are major decisions. So in life, generally, you're not you're you're not having to make a lot of decisions. You're not thinking about it. And I think many people are averse to making decisions. I mean, you look at a lot of companies. It's you don't have individuals being them. It's like a panel. It's a board. I mean, it's a group decision as opposed to individuals making decisions. That's a good point. So so for me, that's one of the great things that I like about the market is that, like, I'm I'm trying to calculate, but I'm making these decisions. And making decisions comes very naturally to me because I'm already doing that in chess. So it doesn't necessarily mean you're gonna make great decisions. You obviously can make mistakes. Most people do. But just I I really enjoy enjoy the the process of trying to analyze and and come to conclusions and make make the right decision. I'm wondering if there's an analogy too in terms of analyzing risk. Like, let's say you're playing a chess game. And, again, it's it's it's I'm not gonna try to put myself in your mind during a game, but, let's say you're trying to make a decision in chess. There's a lot of good possibilities. Like, oh, if I move this make this move, maybe I can attack the king. But then, okay, you could have that idea in a half a second, and then the rest of your thinking is, what are the risks? How do I how do you remove risk from that position? And just like in the market or in business in general, oh, this would be a great idea. It's it's easy to come up with a great idea, but then the rest of the time is removing risk from that idea. Yes. Absolutely. Yeah. Like, do to go back to trust for a second, that that's definitely true. There's definitely games where you try to control where it's like you you essentially wanna make sure that you have the tie, but but if your opponent makes one wrong move, you have a chance to win the game. There's no chance of a loss. You wanna have, like, basically, a 66% chance of getting the optimal outcome or or 33% chance again the absolute outcome and 30% of 33% of the okay one. Right? Or 66% of an okay one. Sorry. 66 percent of an okay one. All game. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. 2 results. 2 results instead of 3 results. So, yeah, exactly. 66% draw, 33% win, but 0% chance of loss. So definitely in chess, for myself, there are there are situations where I try to mitigate the risk, and I think that the the best players in the world at the at the quiver form of chess, like blitz chess where you play games in 5 minutes for the whole game, are Mags and myself because we are able to actually incorporate that into those games as well, not just in the slow games where you have a ton of time to think about it. So and then then back to the market, of course. I mean, a a lot of it is analyzing and thinking about the outcomes. I think in many cases, you don't peep people don't generally I mean, I'm talking about, like, the the everyday person. You you aren't in situations where you think about these sorts things. It's just not something that's in your life. That that's why why I think for Charles, it's a great thing to take up because the the ability to analyze, even if it's not gonna make some huge difference in your life overall, I think it can be beneficial. And, you know, with with real estate, I agree with you, by the way, that real estate is potentially a good investment if you don't live in the real estate. So I think I and I by the way, I own a home, so I'm giving it, like, I'm giving advice against what I've actually ended up doing in the past few years. Like, for a while, I would never own a home. I hated the idea. I lost money on every home I owned, and I didn't even like renting. I would just live in Airbnbs for a long time and just live very minimally. But it's very hard to make money, I think, if you're thinking about it in terms of, like, I wanna live in this home and then make money on it. It's better to say, I'm gonna try to get a good deal in a good place, maybe not where I would live, but where a lot of other pea it gives you much more opportunity to make a good investment if you don't have to live in the investment. You know, one thing that I would say is when when I think about when I think about just the the general general public is is that I feel that people, they look at the stock market as a way of getting rich. And I I I sort of blame the media for that. I I I think when I when I was much younger, I remember this very clearly. Now, of course, it's it's magnified. But you see all these articles about how this person makes a $1,000,000 a year to retire, how this person made 250,000 or, like, I think when I was younger, was it I I I remember I got this address guy, Bernie Shaffer, the CDs, these options things, and you're probably very familiar with that. And it's, like, it's all about get rich. And I I feel like for someone who doesn't I mean, nowadays, indexing is is much more common. A lot a lot of people are the information is much better in terms of what people should do towards passive investing, but I feel like that a lot of people look at us get rich. I feel like most people when they do try to get into the market, if you get if you go and you invest, you're probably gonna lose money unless you're indexing. A lot of people try to hit it rich, you know, buy off as a more out of money. The average investment gamble. Doesn't beat the market. Exactly. And I feel like with real estate for someone who just buys their house and they're gonna live in it for, you know, 20 years, unless they're unless they have access access to information or they or they're they're curious and they they they research deeper, it's probably gonna be better than than trying to invest in the market. I think for most of that Yeah. That's probably true. But I I think for just your your average Joe, they're gonna be better off buying a house they live in for 30 years and having that equity in the house versus investing in the market. Yeah. I think that's true because I think I think people have to be very careful investing. Like, there's a lot let's say 95% of the information out there, including what's on CNBC or The Wall Street Journal, is just bad information. Like, you just don't know. Okay. NVIDIA is the biggest AI company in the world, and AI is a trend that's gonna keep going. But we really have no insight onto how NVIDIA is gonna perform next to its peers next year. So it's hard. No. There's no way to predict. Yeah. I mean, there are many things. Like, I I would even use, like, the Roaring Kitty thing, like, as as another example. Like, I don't even know if I believe it's true because if I were in that situation, like, when the stock was 60 plus after hours, of course, he should be shorting against the box selling selling stock against a 120 that 120,000 calls. Like, even even that I'm sorry. I'm using a modern example. No. It's okay. But but it's just an example of, like, any sane person would be doing that. I mean, I'm not I'm not even, like, in finance that kind of way, and I would be doing that, of course. Just to lock lock in, you know, the lock with 400% or whatever it is. So, yeah, I I feel like that's a thing. And also, like, my wife, I remember she she's someone who who asked me about the marks a few years ago when we were we were dating initially, and she, of course, used a Robinhood app. And I was absolutely appalled that, like, maybe the first time that that I that I saw her phone, I saw the app. Like, they were, like, literally, like they were, like, animation, the graphics when she would, like, buy a sign. I'm like, wait. What what is this? This is like Yeah. They gamified it. I was I was actually shocked by that because that's, of course, going the wrong direction. I mean, the way that you you make wealth is by long term investing. I mean, you hold stocks for a long time and and, you know, the the market does go up over the long term. And so so so it's interesting. So you're doing yourself with real estate. Obviously, you're you're building the streaming. Obviously, you've come back strong on the chess. How do you, actually, how do you like, all the other chess players are studying, like you say, 3, 4, 10 hours a day. How do you keep up with the chess? I mean, you're playing a lot of the day, so maybe that helps, but I don't know. Well, there there are many things. I think for a short period of time after after the pandemic, my results are really good solely because I had been playing online every day against the top players in the world. I think many people would be surprised to hear this, but professional chess players can be very lazy. And I think that for the most part, during the pandemic, from about March, I would say September, all the other top players, they were just sitting at home in their underwear just, like, watching Netflix or doing stuff, but not actually studying chess, whereas I was playing as top players online. And that actually helped me sharpen my game quite a bit. So there there, I think, was a period when I came back where I was just better than every everybody else simply cause I was actually sharper. Even though it was online, these were competitive games. Were you analyzing your blitz games at all? Or I I think it was more the the alpha zero approach. It's just you play over and over and over again. You use I mean, of course, I'm playing against other players, not not against myself, but you just play over and over and over again. And I I think that that really you you do benefit off of that. It's not something that I think you can quantify. I mean, as an example, when you start playing chess, the easiest way to improve is just keep playing games against other players over and over again because you subconsciously start connecting the dots. You start seeing these patterns, the pattern recognition forms, even if you're not trying to do it. It's just one of those things that subconsciously occurs. So so that I think gave me a big edge at the start. I think the you know, there there are a couple different things. I I made this joke to you about how chess is very psychological or mental, and it definitely is. And I think for myself, one of the things that gives me a big advantage over a lot of my fellow competitors is that when I do these live streams, I'm actually actually explaining my thought process in a very high level way because I I chose not to simplify it. And these players, they they might not all admit it, but at some point or another during the pandemic, I know like Magnus, Fabiano, Wesley, all these top guys, they watch my stream. And you can analyze games with a player, but when you actually see someone day after day or I shouldn't say day after day, but game after game, hour after hour explaining these very high level concepts, it actually makes you more impressed by them than talking to them individually, analyzing a one off game that you played against them. So I can see 100 of games. And then actually, I think, changed the perception of me as a player because then they actually start to respect me more than they used to. So maybe you're saying you built up this persona that now you're intimidating to a lot of the players. That's part of it. Yeah. I'm giving the the many facts. I think that's a big part of it, though, is that, like, they probably didn't realize just how good I am. Now that's not to say that, like, if if I watch one of them do it, if they were trying to do it, I might not be like, wow. He's so good. Like, he's seeing all these great ideas. Mhmm. It could it could cut the other way too, but I think that's one of the things is that they they've seen this. They realize how good I am in a way that they didn't before. Secondarily, I think also it's very hard to rationalize the fact that I don't study chess every day. I don't do things the proper way. I'm still very successful. So it's like, if I'm not doing this proper way, then then I think in their mind, there's also this this confusion about, wait, is he studying chess at all? What what's going on? Like, is he studying? He's not saying, what do I play? Should I play this opening or not opening? I mean, I I think it becomes very tricky to figure out. And then the third component as well is that the style of chess that I play now is very different. And when you play against people for for many, many years over decades, you you get very familiar with the style, the sort of choices they make. And the simplest thing I would say is that it's almost like I I scramble my brain. So the decision making process that I take now is not the same process I had in 2019, for example, or even 2015. It's completely different. Mhmm. Because you're supposed to play a certain way to minimize the risk at times. You're not supposed to play aggressive openings and critical moments. You're supposed to get the desired result, usually a tie or or have a chance to win. But I take I take risks in certain moments when it seems completely logical. Point in case would be this candidate's term, the one where you play the world championship. And I needed to qualify for that candidate's term, so I was playing the last round of this this open event in in the Isle of Man and common thought or the way someone would think that I would approach the game is that if I tie this game, I get the draw. I'm gonna qualify for the candidates. Qualified for the candidates has to be the ultimate goal because that gets you the world championship. It gets back to the cycle I was talking about with when you're breaking through about, you know, point a, point b, points, point c. And so getting to the candidates, that has to be the ultimate goal. It should be the only thing that matters. So if you only need the tie to get there, what are you supposed to do? You're supposed to play the most solid opening and and not take any risk. And then in the game, I didn't do that. And my opponent was actually very confused. He was surprised by it. Now Well, what what opening did you play? How did you I played a Sicilian. I played the clash of the cop variation of the Sicilian. But my opponent did not expect that because the common thought or or the the way that you approach it is, it's like, why would you do that? You only need this result to get there. But for me, it's it's also like I wanna enjoy at the same time. It's not and also I wanna be very unpredictable too. Like, the unpredictability factor matters a lot as well. I think the streaming gives you the unpredictability card because your worst case scenario is, okay. I didn't make it to the candidates. That's because I'm a streamer, but this is great content, and so I'm gonna use it in this way. And then lo and behold, you win because you have the unpredictability. Right. Right. But but I would say, like but but it's all those things combined. It's all those but the unpredictability, like I said, there's a certain approach, a certain way that you think about it. Everybody thinks the same way. When everybody has the same thinking, I mean, if you're if the way you're thinking about is different, you can surprise people much more and you can actually do very well. But I would also say the other thing is that the way that I study chess is much better. It's much smarter than it than it used to be, and I think that also comes back to having more confidence. Like, I I don't I would say when when I was younger and I would play against Magnus, I would literally review every opening on their son. I'd be so afraid I'd be I honestly, I'd say I'd be so afraid of Magnus that I'd be looking at, like, 5 different openings systems or 6 or 7 versus looking at the 2 that he's probably gonna play. Now, of course, you have to look at, you know, little bits here and there. When when you're look trying to look at 7 different things and you're burning out you're you're spending all this energy before a game trying to get ready, the the odds are gonna say that he's most likely gonna play 1 or 2. He's not gonna play he's not gonna play this, like, 7th option out here. But if you're so afraid of the player, you're so worried or or lacking confidence that you need to do that, it's just it's not it's not smart. You're wasting time looking at things that are not that that are not gonna happen. And so I've gotten a lot better at that too. It's just sort of being practical and trusting myself in a lot of situations. Like, when you play Magnus now, like, let's say in this Norway chess tournament, you go in there with a Nimzo. Did you think specifically what variations he would respond with? Or I did. I mean, I I had a feeling he'd probably play something very close to what he did play in the game. I I think I actually have gotten very good at predicting. I I think I'm able to understand how players approach the game. But but I think that if you look at a couple of opening systems and then you have some general idea elsewhere. So I would say it's like, if there are 5 openings, you you have something for 3 of the openings, and the last 2, you just you you know a couple of the moves or lines you're gonna do, and that's it. You don't really look very closely at it. But in the old days, it's more like spending an hour on all 5 days or spending, say, like, hour and a half on these 3 and then just looking for 5 minutes to the other 2. And how good do you think is your memory now? Like, you know, you've you've played thousands of games online, but you still seem to I see when you're online, you say, oh, I've I had this game against Kaminsky in the 2009, you know, whatever. And he played this, this, this, but now I'm gonna try this. And it seems like your memory is still holding up. Like, do you feel like with ages, there's any decline? Or I think my long term memory is better than my short term memory. I think that that, like, a lot of things from the past, I remember better than, like, things that I just just learned learned in the moment for sure. But it but it it changes. I don't think that that it's necessarily worse or better. I I don't think it's something that ultimately changes changes that much for the for the game, whether it's long long term or short term. But, definitely, my long term is better. I I would also say, though, as I get older, I'm definitely slower. Like, one one of the big shifts is when I was younger. I really like Blitzchuss the most, and now I think I actually like classical chess the most because I I like thinking more than I ever used to. But but you're still clearly, like, I mean, your Blitz rating at times has exceeded Mhmm. Magnus, at least on chess.com. I mean, you've got a number 1 on chess. Com quite a bit. And so so it's not like your blood is suffering, but I'm wondering if, like, these young kids who are you know, it it's interesting, by the way, the top 20 is made up almost entirely of people in their thirties, like yourself, Magnus, Jan, and and others, or kids in their late teens or at the most age 20. Like, Ollie Reyes is now 20. And what happens to the people in the twenties? And there there's nobody in their twenties. Yeah. I mean, I I think it's probably just a generation gap. For whatever reason, they're they're just they're the people who yeah. I I I actually don't know. I think it could just be a generation, like, I I feel in chess. Normally, there's a gap of about I feel like the world championship champions, usually, it's 13 year gap between them or or around there or something along those lines, I feel like. If I'm not mistaken, I think about Krammick to Magnus specifically or Karpov to Kasparov. So I think I think there's there's, like, a 12, 13 year gap in in general. I think it might just be a lost generation, really, if if you were to ask me. But I I don't but I do think going forward, more and more kids I I think chess players are gonna be getting better at younger and younger ages. I think a lot of things that we thought were, you know, impossible in chess 5 years ago, like a grand master, maybe 10 or 11 years old, is going to happen in the near future. Future. And and I wonder about that. Like, they always say and I know this is a a spurious statistic, but they always say, oh, it takes 10000 hours to to master something. And, obviously, every year, you have more and more experience with chess, and yet there's these 18 year old you know, like Prague, 18 years old here in this tournament who who beat Magnus. Where is he getting his information from? Like, how does he have as much knowledge and depth in the game as someone who still studies it every day, who's the number 1 in the world or number 2 in the world? Yeah. I think that comes down to this actually I think a large part of it is is related specifically to the chess boom that occurred during COVID times. And what I what I mean by that is information is basically power in the game of chess and and more specifically, the opening phase of the game. I I would say that if you can get through the first twenty moves, the the big advantage between the absolute top players and say someone who's number 50 or number 100 in the world is the opening phase. If someone who's 100 of the world can get through the first 20 moves of the game and they're not at some big disadvantage, it's very unlikely they're gonna lose to Mac. It's very unlikely. Now that they could lose him, they could lose to me, but I would say that if they get through the 20 moves, they're gonna lose maybe 10% of the time, if that. Those are 1 out of 10. So the big advantage is the opening phase. And because of the pandemic, what happened is a lot of people in chess saw these these financial opportunities to try and make more money. And so there's a site called Chessable, which started basically promoting chess courses and a lot of strong grandmasters. I mean, people who were, like, top 100 in the world, people who were, like, top 10 even in the world started making these courses and putting all this information out there. And what that does is in the past, you would have to hire these people, pay them, and they would give you some of their secret the secret sauce, some of the work that they would they would do. But now, you can basically pay $50 and get all this information for free, and it's not just like one top player. There are many top players doing this. And even if you try to hide some of that information, like one line here, one line there isn't the absolute best variation, and you're gonna play something else if you have it in your games. It's still so much information these players can can go through it and consume it and and really just remember it better than than past generations. I mean, kids these days, they grow up with computers, and that has made a world of difference. It's just the the amount of information out there from from openings to, like, playing blitz online, to all these courses, everything. It's just it it's just so much better for the kids today. And I think they can just do it hour after hour. They grow up with iPads and and phones these days. So they're they're just much better processing the information. And in a much shorter time, of course, because they're also much younger. You you know, and this is gonna get a little bit more into the well, actually, before I get totally into the weeds of of chess just for a second. In the in the candidates, these recent candidates, you know, g**kesh 1, 17 year old, the youngest person to ever win the candidates. He's gonna challenge the world champion, Ding Liren. I saw an interview right after the candidates. Obviously, you were emotional even, you know, let's say, teared up a little bit. And then you were trying to explain in the interview why you teared up, but I think it was pretty clear you were disappointed you didn't win the candidates. No. That's not the reason, unfortunately. Well, tell me. I was supposed to No. I mean, part of it is it's actually not about me directly. What I would say is that for me, I'm very realistic about the future. And in that event, like, my parents were there. My brother actually came for one day and, like, I I don't wanna sound like morbid or anything, but, you know, they're they're saying that, you know, when when you're dying or something, like, your life flashes in front of your eyes, something along these lines. I've I've heard this quote quite a few times. And it's sort of just seeing the whole progression from the start to where I am today and sort of sort of realizing how great it's been, but how much I could have accomplished. And and, actually, like, the the hardest part of the candidates was not about me. It's that I had all these these members who actually wanted me to win it more than I did. So, like, that actually was a pressure for me than than the pressure that I put on myself for that event. But, certainly, I mean, it was a disappointment considering how close I was, but I also would say that it it doesn't it wasn't that big of a shock to me because when I go back to 2016, I already knew there was a bit of a luck component there. And you could make the argument that in in this past event, like, there were a couple of critical matchups at the end that were in in the player's favor, the one who won. Now mind you, he deserved to win. Like, I'm not saying he didn't deserve to win. But if Fabian or myself or Neto or some of the other players had gotten that same pairing, there's a very good chance we could have won. So, yeah, I mean, it was definitely a little bit disappointing, but on the other hand, it's it's like I've always said, and maybe it's just a a mindset thing. You know, I felt like I've been playing with house money. And I I also felt that it really comes full circle. Because when I compare the candidates tournament that I played in 2020, just just now in 2024 versus 2016 specifically, 2016, I had the same start. I I drew a game early and then I lost. And once I lost, I came early. I felt very much like there's this pressure. I have to win the next game. I have to take these risks. I must win a game, like, as opposed being patient and waiting for the opportunities to present themselves. And in the one that I just played in 2024 when I when I tied a game early and then lost, I actually I I had a couple more ties and then I started winning some games towards the middle and towards the latter half of the event. And that is something that if I look at my chest for a prior streaming, I never could have done that in the candidates. Never. So I was also very proud of the performance. But disappointment, I would say, I mean, mildly disappointed, but it's it was never, like, a massive disappointment simply because I never had a chance to win the game. I never had that moment in a game where I can say if I play this move, I win the tournament. But was there a sense that, this might be the last time? But but actually just to as I don't, I can't say about this tournament, which is why I'm actually more disappointed with this event than that event because there was a game here against Ollieres of Faruja, I think, in the the 8th round, I believe it was. I had the game 1. If I play 1 move, I would have won that game. And So I was much more disappointed with this event than that one. By the way, I was I was in the audience that that for that game. And so, again, I didn't have access to computer or or a commentary or anything. And it did look like you had you know, after bishop c 4, it looked like you had 2 choices, c 6 and rook d 8. And I was really curious, how did you decide between the 2? The way that I decide between the 2 is I thought that by 1 c 6, the pawn structure become fixed in the center. I thought that after rook d 8, I'd be able to play b 6 and and go after the pawns on d 4 and c 5. That's that's what I thought. I thought the rook on d 5, the pawns on d 4 and c 5 were weaker. I go c 6, there's only the one open e file, and I can't really open up the queen side. And then I don't I don't know. But, like, if c 6 queen e one, use it. You did rook d 8, he did queen e one and penetrate. C 6 queen e one, what do you do to kinda stop him from I just take pawn h5 and play rook e 8 to take the e file. Uh-huh. Alright. So But it but, I mean, again, it's that's kind of beside the point. But the thing is I had the champ like, back in, if I play that move, I probably I mean, I would say probably, like, 80% certainty that I win that game. So, like, I actually am much more upset about that because had the chance to win. Whereas in the candidates, I never had the chance to actually win. And then back to your other point about other it's the end. I mean, obviously, I think these days, I I I think about a lot more than I ever used to. It's not so much that I'm not competitive. It's more that, like, you know, I wanna live life. I I don't I I think a lot of people see whether it's content creation or playing chess is, like, a lot of fun, and it is fun, but there's also a lot to it that is is pretty negative. Having dealt with the trolls on the Internet day in and day out, having to make content every single day. Like, it does there there is a lot of wear and tear, and it's very easy to burn out. So, yes, definitely, I think when when you ask about being emotional or thinking about the last time, definitely could be. Absolutely. And, see, yeah, so what would be like, even if you get burnt out on, like, the content creation stuff or the or the chess world in general, like, what would be next if you're still very young? Yeah. I don't know. I mean, I've I've I I have some thoughts about possibilities to do something with with AI, something something maybe start a company, do something chess related in AI. That's one of the thoughts I've had. Primarily, I would say also because some of the some of some of the, content I do now, for example, like, on one of my channels, I I it's all AI generated thumbnails, for example. Mhmm. I I don't actually have, have someone doing that. It's just on one of my backup channels. But that's made me start to think about the the possibilities of what could could be possible down the road. You know You sort of like testing the waters to see what excites you. Yeah. I would I would say something along those lines. I mean, I certainly think that I wanna do something with chess going forward even even if I stop playing or I stop making content. I mean, I think think I have a pretty good idea of when when that time is gonna come for me. But but, yeah, there there are other things that I that I have an interest in. I mean, probably I don't know. Something related to finance maybe down the road, who knows possibly. But, I mean, even even that, their their stress is there too. So lot of stress is in there, but there's a lot of you know what I've I've noticed is that in every every subculture that's interesting and exciting, and I would say the chess subculture is 1, the finance world to some extent to some, you know, some areas of the finance world, but there's always gonna be, like, really bad people. And and they're the ones who are gonna be in your face the more successful you get. So you have to kinda figure out how to how to balance that. Yeah. I mean, that's it's very difficult dealing with that. And that that also I mean, I think that that's one of the things that was streaming specifically. I learned I learned very early on in in order to be successful is that you can't take things personally. You really do have to just let it roll off your back. And it's very hard as a chess player. I mean, for most of my life, I've I've been incapable of that. But you just you have to sort of just let it let it go on some point. And It's very hard. Like, as a writer, I've often written controversial stuff that's I don't wanna say has gotten me into trouble, but it's gotten me the the the viral trolls. And, unfortunately, I learned too late, the best way to respond is to not respond. Because when you respond, you're lending them your entire audience that you've spent, let's say, 20 years building. You're just giving it to some troll to piggyback off of. Yeah. Actually, I was gonna say, I forgot there was a second part of that. Like, besides letting it roll off your back, one thing that I I learned very early on this might even be the most valuable thing, probably I mean, it's not most valuable in terms of, like, being financially successful, but most valuable in terms of being successful just as an online content creator is that when people write really nasty things, one of the best things or the best thing I would say that you can do is actually take the words and turn it into a joke in a way. It's like you take the sting out of the world. When someone says something and you turn into a bit of a joke or or or it becomes funny, that takes all the sting out of what they're trying to do. Right. And it makes some of their followers you appear likable to them. It also kind of energizes your crew. It's tricky, though. That's a that's a hard balance. Like, lately, I've been taking the tack just to ignore because Mhmm. It's too easy to just fall into the rabbit hole of trolldom if when you respond. Absolutely. I I think I mean, for example, I feel like every day I see some comment on my YouTube videos or or I see some comment on on x, and you see that and it's just, like, you know that if you respond, they've actually succeeded in a way. Right. So because they watch you all the time, and you don't know them. So they know what buttons to press, but you don't know what buttons. You press on them. Yeah. Yeah. So it's it's trouble. Yeah. So so you mentioned earlier about and I know you're busy. I really appreciate the time. I'll I'll I just really do wanna get in the weeds. Now that I have the number 2 role the player in the world sitting in front of me. You say said earlier, you know, first, you learn the 1,000 rules, but then a big challenge for the top players is you you break all the rules. And I have seen this in your games. Like, when I'm looking at openings and I see, oh, Hakaro has played this line, I'm I usually I pay attention. So for instance and I'm really getting in the weeds. So listeners, I apologize. You could tune out if you want. The b 4 Kings Indian, Bayonet Kings Indian. K? For 30 years, people have been playing a 5. But you went back to what would be kind of a classic line, knight e 8, which I think is brilliant because you're going for that f 5, f 4. And everybody has forgotten the reason why that's a bad move or maybe not as good as a 5. So I've started playing 98 because of you. Thank you very much. My highest rated wins ever are from that line. But do you try to to kind of go back and clean up the old now that we have computers to look at these things? I think that's actually the most exciting thing for me when I when I look at chess these days is that, effectively, anything is anything is acceptable. Computers have basically shown you can play almost anything unless it is outright losing the game right away. And that actually makes chess very exciting because then you do start to think about all, like, rules made the wrong way. But you think about all these openings that you discarded in the past because they were just considered bad by what was modern modern theory at the time. So that that is that is very true. Like, I I do that quite frequently or you look at some variation. If it's not losing, you play it. I played this thing against Fabiano and the candidates, for example, in the first round. It's something that probably, you know, for the last 40 years, people were saying you don't do this. I I remember there was a time I was working with a strong grand master. I was, like, 11 years old, and he said, well, why don't you push this pawn to e 5? And he said, well, because white plays his bishop check. So for a long time, like, it was considered just bad. But now because the computer is in the strength, you can you can you can play that, and it's completely acceptable. And it's not the only instance or many, many instances. So chess is very rich. I think that's where when we look at the future, it it gives me a lot of hope for a class because for a slow form of chess, because when you have these kids playing the game where they've actually learned that way that you can play almost anything, you can take these risks and still be fine as long as you know what you're doing versus, like, the older generation where it's, like, try to be super fundamentally sound and play a certain way. If the young players keep playing that style, chess is gonna continue to move forward. It's gonna remain a very, very exciting game versus all the players who play some of these boring systems like the Berlin defense, as an example. So with the kids learning this way, playing all these exciting openings versus the older generation where we kind of we we play these fundamentally sound openings as long as they keep playing exciting way, these exciting opening strategies, chess chess chess is gonna remain very exciting for a long time. And, yeah, I look at these Norway chess games, though. I think I don't know for sure, but I think the only Sicilian was when Magnus attempted it against Prague and lost. And the commentators I was listening to said, oh, maybe Magnus is not gonna try this risky style anymore against these kids. And then a lot of the games were just e 4, e 5, and Spanish or Italian. And maybe there's some fluctuation in there, like Magnus changing the move order slightly against Fabio. Fabiano wrote the course on the opening they played yesterday, and he Magnus played a special move order, but it wasn't that huge of a risk. Yeah. I mean, I think that's because the the players in this event, specifically, some of them were coming off the Canada's term where they had done a lot of preparation for the event. And as I said, it's easier to be lazy if you if you have certain opening strategies that you've looked at a lot recently. Why do you wanna go and try to learn something new? It's better to be lazy or it's easier to be lazy, I should say. And then also, I mean, you have players who didn't have great ambitions. I mean, you had Ding Lauren, for example, the current world champion, where his aspirations, I think, were simply to just perform. He wasn't looking to try and win games or do anything special. So I think I think the field definitely plays a huge role. And I think when you have more and more tournaments with the younger kids who are more who are hungrier and more ambitious, you're gonna see more exciting games. And now you've won, you know, an example of of risky play. You've won so many exciting games against the world's top players, against world champion players with the Kings Indian, but I don't really see people play Kings Indian anymore in these top level tournaments. Yeah. I think the the reason people don't play Kings Indian is because it's a situation where you think about why do you play such an opening. And the reason you play the opening is you're hoping to get winning chances with the black pieces. Generally, it's very hard to win games with the black piece at the top level. So because of that, you're looking for something exciting. And the reason I think many people don't play it, including myself, is that because of computers, white can play almost any system and get a small advantage and they don't have to go for the systems that are exciting. They can they can go for this 2 result situation where they play something very boring, where they they have good chance to win, but if they mess it up, it's only gonna be a draw. Whereas in some of the the most exciting lines, whites either going to win the game or lose the game. You're looking at 2 results, but it's a white win or or a black win. And I think that's the main reason is because there's just too many ways for white to get a small advantage and not play something that you're really hoping for, which is an exciting game at shots in the Kings India. I'm just trying to think of more of the I just wanna squeeze the chess Mhmm. Knowledge out of you a little bit. Sure. Well, if you were starting to a lot of the your listeners, if you were or are just starting chess, how should people learn the rules of them and then learn to break the rules? Like, how do you how do you really make the fastest strides in chess? I think I think actually the the 10000 hours is definitely applicable on this case. I actually did a podcast with Malcolm Malcolm a couple years ago. And I think I think that just playing as much as you can, getting a basic opening strategy where you're not gonna lose the game and say the first 4 to 10 moves. Once you have a basic opening strategy, just play as much as you can. Whether whether you're a kid or even whether you're an adult, because actually I mean, that's the the other great thing is that you see some of these some adults now who are actually trying this where they just for hours and hours and hours, and they get very, very good very quickly. Now, of course, very good is relative, but you get to, I would say, a reasonable amateur level without without a too much difficulty if you just play if you just keep playing. But it's very hard because when you do poorly, it it also takes a certain mindset to be able to keep pushing forward rather than just stopping after you have a bad day and you lose, like, 10 games in a row. Yeah. Like, how do you how do you get that bounce back mindset? That, I don't know. The mindset, I I can't speak to. Because you've had it lately, and maybe you didn't have it in 20 Yeah. I mean, I I I think it's just that because, ultimately, when I when for myself, when I think about the bigger picture, I just believe that good things are gonna happen, or I know that everything's gonna be okay versus looking at it as, like, I'm worrying about everything and where things are gonna go at the end of the day. Like, do you feel your self worth is not as tied to your rating? Yeah. I I mean, I don't I don't think it has anything to do with the rate. It's just the self worth is tied to the income I make from the chest turn. Like, the the the rating matters so much you get the invitation if you if you don't if you maintain or don't maintain it. But I think it's just that that ultimately, like, it's how I do the tournament is not going to change my life at the end of the day. It's not going to have an adverse or a positive, positive effect either way, whether I win or I lose because of everything else I've I've accomplished. You know, I wonder, like so just in, you know, relative terms, like, in the nineties, I hit about 2250. I played your brother at the Marshall Chess Club in the nineties. I remember you were you were there watching the game, and then as soon as the game was over, your brother won. And as soon as the game was over, you were, like, throwing the pieces all over the board. Like, oh, you could've done this. You could've done this. You could've done this. You probably obviously don't remember, but I remember. And then I stopped playing right right around then. And only recently, I've started playing again, and it's like an immediate drop of 200 rating points. And then I just can't I feel like I have knowledge, but I don't I've lost some ability to win or to kill. And I don't know if that's an age thing or because I've done a lot of other things in my life, but I'm just not sure how to get back that that killer mentality. Well, I think there are a couple of things. I am sure that you are lacking the killer mentality, but but you're lacking that and probably being older doesn't help. But I would actually say probably the biggest thing is that chess is just it's just a very different game now. So it's it's a lot tougher. I think the the quality of the competition is much better across the board at all levels just because of the amount of information out there. So it's it's a combination of many things, but I I think probably I mean, it's it's so tough, though. It's so tough because you're at a level where you're you're pretty good, but there there probably are a lot of really good you know, if you follow on, there are probably a lot of really good players that level, who are aspiring It was that or, yeah, who are aspiring to get really good. They're trying to get better. Yeah. I'm not sure. I I honestly, like, I I don't like to be negative, but I think it's actually game. It's just different. It's very, very hard. And I actually see this a lot, like, with my wife, for example, where, she's a very strong chest player, about 23100, similar level. And then she she started teaching about, like, 6 or 7 years ago, and now she's trying to play again competitively. But she runs into all these kids who are super well prepared for 2 to 3 opening systems that she played her whole life. There is just not good enough. You have to play many different opening systems and strategies. So I I think it's just it's because the game is different. It's not even necessarily a youth thing. I think it's probably just a game. It's a it's a much harder game now, much harder at all levels. Yeah. I I feel that's true. I mean, I've been trying my best, and I've been studying I study it every day and get coached and all all sorts of things. But, yeah, when I actually sit down for a a a game, I'll even get winning positions much more than I'll get losing positions out of the opening. But I just can't kids are good at defending. Mhmm. They're good at the tactics. They they move fast because they'll make any move that is just you know, they're very good at making pretty good moves Yeah. With the whole game. Yeah. Yeah. And I have to learn that. Like, I'm trying to make the perfect move because I run out of time. Actually, I I would say that's one thing. You know, I worked with Garry Kasparov in 2011, and that that's one of the biggest differences in modern day chess versus, like, when when Kasparov or Karpov or these great champions of pass were playing. Is that, like, the goal was to play the perfect move. You wanted to play the perfect move. And, again, I think technology has changed things because when you look at positions with computers now, there are a lot of positions where you might be a little bit worse, but there is very rare there's a situation where there's one move that's winning unless it's a straightforward sequence of, like, you know, 10 moves calculation. When I think about, like, Kasparov, for example, he grew up with, like, there's one best move. It's not where you have a computer telling you, well, you can play 3 moves and they're all almost equally good. It's like there's one move. There's a system to to the whole thing, to the whole approach. And a lot of people, I think, who are from the older generation, people who like, I'm different because, of course, I've I've, you know, I've adapted. But I think if you played chess a lot in, like, the nineties or before computers became really strong or even into the 2000, this this notion of wanting to play the perfect move is very common. Even my wife, she's the same way. She wants to play the perfect move. I'm like, no. If there are 3 good moves, just pick one of the moves. Don't waste 20 minutes on. So pick 1 of the 3 good moves. I mean, the accumulation of good moves is gonna be more important than trying to play, like, 2 perfect moves because the 2 perfect moves are not going to win you the game. That's a really good point, and I think that also is about patience too. It's just like you're not gonna get rich quick on one stock. It's not necessarily the case that every move you have to win the game. Like, it's just a a cut there's a compounding effect to making these pretty good moves. Yes. I I agree with that. I mean, like, it's fairly abstract, but I argue that's why when you see Magnus make blunders, more often than not, he makes blunders. And unless it's one of those those howlers that lose the game, somehow he's still in the game after the blunder because the accumulation of all the good moves, it kind of it it balances out. It it balances out versus the blunder. So, definitely, I mean, being practical is something that players today are much more cognizant of because you do look with computers, and the computer, most of the time, will just laugh and be like, okay. You can defend this way, that way, everything is fine. Whereas in the old school approach, it's, you know, the the it's not defensible. If you play the best move, you will win the game, but that's just not not reality. And computers have shown us that that trust us. It's very, very rich, and there's so many different possibilities. Why did you stop working with Kasparov at at the end of 2011? Mainly because our styles didn't really fit that well, I would say. I mean, his his approach was perhaps I felt like a a little bit dated on the one hand. He's too serious. He also took too much credit. He made certain decisions for me as well. And, I mean, I I'm not gonna fault him for that. I mean, I I understand who is his personality. There were just a lot of little things that just it it didn't really work out the way that I was hoping to because I felt like, you know, Kasparov is too much of a dominant figure. And in some ways, I was too deferential for for obvious reasons to him. So, yeah, it just was it wasn't it wasn't a good match. And I also think, you know, when I look at just in general, whether it's chess or or anything I do, like, I'm somebody where I I really believe that certain people have talents have talents, and you you can find ways to go about about showcasing those talents, and they don't have to be the absolute top players. For example, you know, the the people the the people that I work with in my in in the all the content creation, many of them are misfits. You know, some of these some of those people, they they're on depressants all the time. Like, you know, some of them are smoking weed. Like, they they have issues in their life, but they're extremely good at what they do. And I think when I look at chess, the person I work with mostly on chess, he's only about 23100. He's not the strongest player. I mean, he he can't play complete games at chess. He'll get winning positions, blunder and lose games just like just like you will. But what I what he what I need him for for him to do the preparation where he can look at the opening strategies, get me to the position, and then I can take over and plan. If he can do that, he's done his job, and that is actually the most important thing. Because ultimately, it's on me to make the right decisions, you know, when when I'm when I'm in the when I'm in the game. Do you feel he's gotten better working with you? I mean, I think he understands me very well. I don't think it's something that anybody could do certainly, but he he he is a better transfer now than than he is at the start. I mean, I think the start is maybe, like, 2,000 when when he started working with me. Now he's probably 23100. But, you know, I also would say, like, to it's like if you look at business, for example, I think it's like I think it's Bezos. He said something about, like, you know, what is the role of the CEO? And I think the role is basically make a couple of very big decisions. And and when you you put that in the context of chess, the goal my goal is to make those big decisions in the games. Like, if I can play 15 moves, they're gonna that middle game strategy where there are 5, 6 moves in a row, those are the critical decisions that are gonna determine the outcome. So as long as I can do that, I've done my job. Now other people can get me to that point, then they they've done their job too. So you don't necessarily need the absolute best chess player in in order to be successful. Well, Hakaro, you mentioned your wife earlier. We've gotta get you to her. Thank you so much for sitting down with me. I really appreciate it. It's been an interview I've been looking forward to for for a long time, and congratulations again. I think Norway Chest was like was outstanding at least as a spectator to watch you in action and your success, either the results from winning number 2, getting back to number 2 in the world, getting over 28100 again. For the first time, what, since 2015? 2015. Yeah. Amazing. And But it's it's different. You know? Like, to add one more point to that about being 28100, I remember when I got to 28120 in 2015, and it was a big accomplishment, but then there's like, okay. What next? And at the time when I was thinking about it, it's just, like, if I draw against people who are lower rated, I lose ranking points. How am I gonna maintain this ranking? It was more about, like, trying to maintain it. Whereas now when I was rating, I don't really expect to keep the rating for forever, but I'm but I'm enjoying it. I'm not thinking about, oh, the dread of, like, I have to maintain the reign to get the tournaments or, like, you know, I have to say number 2 in the world. I have to be ahead of certain players. I don't have any of those thoughts anymore. So I don't have the baggage or the burden that I once did. And and so I I think that's why in many ways, I'm I'm, you know, I'm playing better than I ever did. So it's a I hope the the listeners enjoy it, and I hope they find it fascinating. And I think it's this healthy approach to all of these things, like, in particular, chess or streaming. The idea of not being attached to one artificial idea like rating or viewers or whatever actually contributes to success. It allows you to be you're always there. It's I keep keep going on. But one other thing I would say is very, very important. Really wanna have lunch with your wife. You're just you wanna I'm just gonna But but but what I was just gonna say, like, it's very important when it comes, you know, to to, like, livestream. A lot of people have this misconception about, you know, the the streamers aren't smart. They don't know what they're doing, but it it is really important that that you you understand that the viewers are watching it. Like, they see you for who you are. I'm talking about, like, live stream or not not YouTube videos so much. But they see you for who you are. And what I mean by that is that a lot of people who if you go into it for the wrong reasons, you're not going to have success. So I think one of the reasons a lot of people in chess have not been successful starting recent times is because the reason that they go into it is the wrong reason. They're going into it hoping to make a lot of money because they see the success that I've had or others have had along the way. And I think the viewers are actually very smart and they see right through that. And so if you go into it with that approach, where it's just doing it because it's something they try out, something is exciting, something you enjoy is more of a passion, then you're not going to be successful. And when I started out, of course, I had none of these aspirations. I just thought it's something to do. It's something exciting, maybe share a chest with a slightly broader broader audience, and then it became something much bigger. But I did not go in with the intention of it becoming my main job or how I would make a living. I I think you're absolutely right. Like, I did stand up comedy for many years, and I owned a comedy club in in New York. I got stand up New York on 78th in Broadway. And one thing I learned very quickly is that the audience is an x-ray machine. Like, they if you're even the slightest bit nervous, they know it and they destroy you. And you always have to be you always have to have the mindset that this is my party and you guys are just invited, and I don't give a s**t if you wanna leave. Yeah. No. It's very true. Because also sometimes when I'm in a very bad mood, the view viewership is lower, and that's not by accident because it's just it's not an enjoy enjoyable atmosphere for them. Yeah. Well, again, Hakaro, thank you so much. I really appreciate it. And, you know, you're welcome back anytime. And when you start a chess AI company, let me know. I'll invest in it. So Alright. Thank you very much. Sure. No problem. Alright, sir. Thank you. Great.