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0:35

Hello, everyone, and welcome back to Perpetual

0:37

Chess. We have a distinguished guest joining

0:40

us momentarily. First, I wanted to give a quick

0:42

shout out to our presenting chess education

0:44

sponsor, Chessable.com. If

0:47

you want to check out my favorite courses, there

0:49

is a link in the show description. I've got descriptions

0:52

for a wide variety of levels, wide variety

0:55

of aspects of your game. And we have an

0:57

extremely popular Chessable author

0:59

joining us this week. He's probably better

1:02

known as the 2018 U.S. champion

1:04

and two-time Olympic gold medalist and

1:06

one of the top players in the United States. He's

1:09

also a trainer and a co-founder of Killer

1:11

Chess Training. He is, as

1:13

I said, a popular and prolific Chessable

1:15

author. His latest course, Lifetime

1:17

Repertoires, Neo-Catalan

1:20

Part 2, which is a symmetrical English

1:22

course, will be out basically at the same time

1:24

as this pod. He's also an acclaimed book author

1:26

for good measure.

1:27

His most recent offering from quality

1:29

chess is Grandmaster Training Camp 1

1:32

Calculation. And I am excited to welcome

1:34

back to the pod five years after our first

1:36

interview, Grandmaster Sam Shanklin. Welcome,

1:38

Sam.

1:39

Thanks. I'm glad to be here. Yeah, excited

1:42

to have you on the pod. It's a real honor.

1:44

And your life has changed a lot in those

1:46

five years, as we'll get to. But the

1:48

topic of the moment, of course, is the World Championship.

1:51

And I've been covering this on separate podcasts,

1:53

so I don't feel like we need to discuss

1:55

it too much. But it is rare that I get to

1:57

talk to a player of your experience.

1:59

level and qualification,

2:02

Sam. So I'm just curious, someone who is in

2:04

the world elite, how do

2:06

you follow this world championship? How much of it

2:09

is as a fan and how much of it is from a

2:11

sort of professional perspective?

2:13

Well,

2:13

most of it's from a professional perspective. I

2:15

mean, the games are at 2 AM California

2:18

time. I'm not waking up in the middle of the night to watch them.

2:20

I check the games in the morning when

2:22

they're over, when I wake up. But

2:25

I think this has been an absolutely fantastic

2:28

match. Certainly one of the best ones

2:30

that I can remember in recent memory.

2:33

I think Ding has brought a lot of energy

2:35

to this match. I guess by the time this podcast is

2:37

out, the

2:38

match will be over. At this point, Ding is down

2:40

again. So probably somewhat of an underdog

2:42

with three games to go. He does have two whites. But

2:45

he's just brought so much energy and he's willing

2:47

to take risks. And I think

2:49

one of the problems that we had

2:51

when Magnus was playing the match was Magnus

2:54

was just better than everybody. And everybody

2:57

knew that coming in. And it really

2:59

felt like a lot of the guys did not

3:01

really want to take any risks with him. And

3:04

that's probably why

3:05

there were more draws than Magnus,

3:08

and all of Magnus's matches

3:10

per capita than you would see in any of his tournament

3:12

games, for example. There's nobody wanted

3:14

to really play with him. I remember,

3:17

for example, I remember when

3:20

he made this draw in game 12 against Karbana

3:23

from what was probably much better if not

3:25

winning position with Black. And he got a lot of heat

3:27

for it. I was like,

3:28

the guy just played seven Sicilians in a

3:30

row and has faced nothing but the Berlin and Patrick

3:33

for the last five years, from

3:35

four different matches against three different opponents.

3:38

And it just feels like when

3:40

you have these guys, Ding and Nepo, who are

3:43

more well matched. I mean, you come

3:45

into this, I came into the match thinking Ding was a very

3:47

small favorite and that it really could go either

3:50

way. It creates

3:52

a very different dynamic than when everybody

3:54

knows that one guy is much better. Ding

3:58

is taking so many more risks than I do.

3:59

anyone I've seen yet.

4:01

And so sadly it hasn't panned out for

4:03

him so far,

4:04

but it just feels like there's more

4:06

risk taking going on. I really like that.

4:09

And are you surprised by Ding's particular

4:12

opening choices?

4:13

Well, I was more surprised by his choice of

4:15

seconds in Richard's report.

4:18

Richard is obviously extremely

4:21

creative and a fantastically strong player.

4:23

But I guess his big criticism

4:25

is that he's sort of too creative and wild

4:28

and wacky. And while that will

4:29

sometimes work really nicely to bring you chances,

4:32

the sort of conventional wisdom is you want more

4:34

solid and boring guys for world championship

4:37

matches. And I actually think that Ding

4:39

has done a pretty good job of questioning that

4:41

conventional wisdom if it's actually right.

4:43

Once the second

4:45

was, Richard was revealed as his

4:47

second, the openings made a lot more sense to me.

4:50

Wouldn't have thought to the French

4:52

unless you had this

4:54

interesting brainchild behind that. But no,

4:56

I mean, I think that

4:59

it's gone sort of,

5:01

I mean, Ding's opening something in that adventure. So he's

5:03

stuck largely to the same black repertoire that

5:06

he was playing prior to the match, which is a little

5:08

surprising. Most people prepare something fresh and new,

5:10

but I was fairly confident

5:12

Ding would stick to his normal like D4, C4

5:14

stuff with White, especially once in his last

5:16

tournament, like he was playing some E4 with White

5:19

too, just sort of seemed

5:20

like he didn't want to burn ideas that he was going to use

5:22

for the match. And his preparations look pretty good, I thought.

5:25

Okay, and you're

5:27

a good person to ask about the quality

5:29

of the play, because I've

5:32

seen a lot of discussion with it online. People

5:34

like me aren't really qualified to judge

5:36

it, but someone like you can compare

5:38

it. So of course you say, when

5:40

people play Magnus,

5:43

they tighten things up a little bit

5:46

and it might lead to an overall

5:48

higher floor, but a

5:50

lower possibility to win. But

5:52

from your perspective, setting Magnus aside, how

5:54

did the quality of these games compare to just general 2,700

5:57

plus level games?

5:59

I don't think they've looked substantially different.

6:02

Some of them have been very

6:04

level and boring draws throughout,

6:07

which

6:08

often is a sign that both players are just

6:10

playing really well. It's

6:12

sad, but that's sort of the case.

6:14

There's definitely been some games that have been

6:16

feistier, and I think

6:18

Ding's big miss in this

6:20

game... I mean, Ding had two big misses in a row.

6:23

One where he lost this French game where he had a nice position

6:25

and just sort of imploded and found

6:27

himself losing on time, and the other where he

6:29

had this fantastic idea in the nimzo and then

6:32

didn't execute when he had, I think, two different chances

6:34

to win that game and failed both times. So

6:38

I think probably slightly

6:41

more half points have been tossed back and forth

6:43

in this match than you would normally expect from

6:45

two players that are

6:47

in the high 2700s to possibly even low 2800s, but

6:50

not substantially more. I think

6:53

it's...

6:54

You know, you think about how often a half point gets tossed

6:56

away from two big players of this level. It's

7:00

maybe a little bit less often

7:02

than what we're seeing in this match, but really not much

7:04

would be my sense. It looks pretty normal to me

7:06

in terms of the quality of play.

7:08

Okay, and was there anything you saw that

7:10

made you... that, like, inspired you or

7:13

made you rethink sort of the way that

7:15

you approach your own study?

7:18

Not really. It was definitely a little bit refreshing

7:21

to see that Classical Trust is having

7:23

so much more life to it. It's

7:25

certainly not Magnus' fault that he's better

7:27

than everybody, but

7:29

when he is, and that's sort of the case, and, like,

7:33

you know, whenever every tournament he plays, you know, there's

7:35

like a 50, 60% chance he's going to win

7:37

it, and then the rest of the field can share the

7:39

rest of the 40, 50%.

7:41

I think it's a little demoralizing,

7:43

and people are less willing to take

7:46

risks, I guess. I don't know. I definitely

7:48

like that

7:49

we've seen five serious shots. I mean, the last time I

7:51

saw a match this place through this, you know, points being

7:54

struck back and forth was probably Kramik

7:56

Topolov, which I thought was a really

7:58

fantastic match, one of the best. the first ones that I followed

8:01

in chess. And

8:03

yeah, there's still a few games to go

8:05

and I'm looking forward to seeing the rest of it. I guess, you know,

8:07

it'll be done by the time

8:08

people hear our conversation, but I anticipate,

8:12

I'm gonna guess there's not gonna be three drops in

8:14

the last three games. Let's put it. Oh, exciting. I'll

8:17

sign up even irrespective of the result, I'll sign up

8:19

for that. And as you say, listeners

8:21

will be able to, they'll know the answer

8:23

when they hear this, but dare I ask, I mean, probably

8:26

nothing too crazy but any opening predictions

8:28

in these final three games, I

8:30

think particularly there's an intrigue with things too

8:33

white. I'm actually more interested

8:35

in Ding's black game. I'm

8:38

gonna make a

8:38

bold prediction. I'm gonna guess we're gonna see Cecilia

8:40

in 13. Even probably

8:43

not if he wins game 12, but. If

8:46

he wins game 12 now, but my guess is we're

8:48

going to see Cecilia in game 13.

8:50

Excellent. Yeah. I

8:52

don't think Ding is gonna play E4.

8:54

I think he's starting to scrape the bottom of

8:56

the barrel for what his, of what

8:59

ideas he's had with D4 and C4. He's

9:01

shown a lot of good ones already, but I think, you

9:03

know, if he has more good ones after this, they'll

9:06

wind up, you know, more power to him, but it's pretty hard

9:08

to find that many ideas.

9:10

I think Ding is gonna stick with D4 and C4 with

9:12

why he'll find some ideas somewhere.

9:15

It won't be as good as what he's found earlier in the match.

9:17

And my guess is he's gonna try to play Cecilia in black.

9:20

Okay. I hope you're right. Should be

9:22

fun and yeah, exciting to hear you talk

9:24

about that, but I'm quite interested in

9:26

your own career as well. And like

9:28

I said, you've had so many accomplishments since

9:31

our prior chat. You had that explosive rise

9:34

in 2018. It looks like you're off to

9:36

a decent start this year. So

9:38

where is your own game right now, Sam, in your estimation?

9:42

I mean, I think my level's probably something

9:44

around 27, somewhere between 27, 20 and 40. My

9:48

rating's like 10 points lower than that a little bit.

9:50

I had a really rough year last

9:52

year, but I think I'm probably

9:55

a little stronger than my rating would imply

9:57

not a ton.

9:58

And I'm just looking for...

9:59

strong events to play in. I mean, one thing is classical

10:02

events are just, there's not as many of them now,

10:04

which makes, and when

10:06

there's not as many of them, that also

10:09

sort of makes, it has an exponential

10:12

effect for players who are around, you know, number 20

10:14

or 30 in the world, because when there's

10:16

a bunch of good events, you know, the guys who

10:18

are number five in the world can't play all of them.

10:21

But then when these guys can play all of them, when

10:23

there are fewer events for guys like me, I've

10:25

literally played two classical games this year, just

10:27

in the American cup, you know,

10:29

two possible games since the US championship,

10:32

championship in October, that's sort of not

10:34

great. I'd love to play more. I wish

10:37

there was more tournaments, but I'm really looking forward

10:39

to the prog masters in the World Cup, which will be coming

10:41

up in a couple months. And I'm hoping that I can

10:43

make a splash in these events. And, and

10:46

I've still been training hard. I mean, one of the times

10:49

that I

10:50

made the biggest progress was when I won the prog

10:52

masters in 2021, and almost

10:54

won the World Cup right after and just sort of won a rampage.

10:57

And I think part of that was there was this COVID lockdown,

10:59

right? I didn't play for 16 months and based almost

11:02

nobody else played for 16 months, they just, or maybe

11:04

they did online stuff, but not like serious possible chess.

11:07

And I think other people just sort of

11:09

lost their shape. And I stayed strong, I kept

11:11

training. And that's just what I do. And

11:14

I think that I don't feel rusty at

11:16

all. And I'm ready to fight.

11:18

Yeah, of course, you've got the legendary work

11:20

ethic. And you said you don't feel

11:22

rusty now. So and I know you do,

11:25

obviously, you've been busy as we record

11:27

this. I know last week, you were finishing

11:29

recording video for chessable, you've got your quality

11:31

chess endeavors, you've got a few students. So

11:34

I know you're a busy guy. But in terms of maintenance on

11:36

your game, what do you do these days?

11:39

Well, Jacob sends me lots of exercises

11:41

to work on. So of course, we have killer chess training

11:44

together or the Academy that we call on. And I

11:46

think the best class in killer chess training by

11:48

far is homework club.

11:49

And when I'm not playing tournaments, I just do homework club,

11:51

like I literally just solve that stuff

11:53

all the time. The outcome gives me tons of exercises.

11:56

He's given me some positional exercises this

11:59

recently to

11:59

work on and by

12:01

positional exercises, I mean, you know, hundreds

12:03

and then, and also

12:06

I take really good care to make sure

12:08

that the time I spend training others, I

12:10

try to make it useful for myself as well. So

12:12

for example, this upcoming weekend,

12:14

uh, I'm going from Friday through

12:16

Sunday. I'm going to do an end game

12:19

training camp,

12:20

uh, with some top players in California,

12:22

which range from 22 to 2,600.

12:24

It'll be six participants.

12:26

And there's no doubt that while my primary

12:29

focus focused there is as a trainer and

12:31

trying to

12:32

give the participants as much

12:34

of my perspective as I can and help them

12:36

learn to become better end game players,

12:38

part of it is just going to be warmup exercises

12:41

every single day. I'm going to have Yaka prepare exercises

12:43

for us and I'm just going to solve them alongside everyone else. I'm

12:46

going to compare my solutions to everyone else. And

12:48

so if we're, and then we're

12:50

going to do some playing positions where I might get involved.

12:52

So let's say like, even in these days

12:55

where we have whatever, nine hours,

12:57

a nine hour training day was a lunch break or whatever,

13:00

and

13:00

you might think that, you know, what

13:03

Sam, what are you doing? You're like, you know, spending nine

13:05

hours training other people, you're a professional player. I'm

13:07

like, well, I'm fairly confident that

13:09

three or four of those hours, I'm going to be able to do work

13:11

myself.

13:12

And so I really take care of that. The

13:14

students I take on, uh,

13:16

I really don't like working

13:18

with people for whom I feel like when I work with

13:21

them. Okay. I get paid and then that's

13:23

sort of what I get out of it.

13:24

Uh, but most of the students I work with, in fact, I

13:27

think basically all the students I work with now are

13:29

people for whom I feel like I get

13:31

something out of these sessions too, and I learn,

13:33

uh, and I, and that's sort of like training.

13:36

Now there's no doubt that the time that

13:38

I spend training other people is

13:40

not as efficient and effective as if

13:43

it were be that, uh, that if I were just working

13:45

myself along with nobody else and not working on

13:47

helping other people. But like, if I

13:50

have to teach, if I teach for two hours and I

13:52

get some like 45 minutes of training time out

13:54

of those two hours, that's a good deal for me. And,

13:56

uh, and so I think

13:58

it's very important that if you're.

13:59

going to train people and still want to have high

14:02

ambitions as a player,

14:03

you want to make sure that you're getting something out of the sessions

14:05

too, and that those, not only that these sessions

14:07

are not harming your ability to play well, but also

14:10

that you're getting something out of them. And

14:12

so for example,

14:13

if I ever do like calculation exercises

14:16

with a student,

14:17

I always turn off the computer and if they give

14:19

me a move that's wrong, I'm like, well, I know that move's

14:21

wrong, it's not the solution, the computer didn't say so,

14:23

but I'm going to figure out why. I'm not going

14:26

to go cheat and turn on the machine.

14:27

And so, you

14:28

know, between doing all the work with Jakob, all

14:30

these exercises, both from

14:32

the Killer Trust training calculation stuff, as well

14:35

as the

14:36

strategic stuff, and then teaching

14:39

my lessons, working on creating content,

14:41

which I'm writing a book on rook end games, hopefully

14:43

it'll make me better at rook end games, and then doing opening

14:45

analysis. I can keep my days pretty busy

14:48

and I got a lot of work done and I think that improves my chess

14:50

a lot. We'll be right back with more from Grandmaster

14:52

Sam Shanklin.

14:57

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wow, look at that. No, I'm going to Hawaii now. Ooh,

15:39

Cancun looks nice. You know what? Belize

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Reese's peanut butter cups are the greatest, but

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16:00

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It has to be me for this to work. A

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Small Light, new episodes Mondays

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at 9. Now streaming on Hulu and Disney+.

16:43

And we are back. Yeah, and Yaakov,

16:46

Sam mentioned of course being renowned trainer

16:48

and author, Grandmaster Yaakov Bogard, friend

16:50

of the pod to boot. And you

16:53

mentioned your forthcoming book, Theoretical Rook

16:55

and Things. So you've got this training

16:57

camp coming up. So A, I'm

16:59

curious if you're able to sort of use positions

17:01

from that. And B, I'm curious if theoretical

17:04

Rook and Things, it's not

17:06

guaranteed to be a best seller. No. So

17:09

I'm curious if that was like chess improvement motivated

17:12

that choice. Yeah, so for example, I've done

17:14

a lot of chess content.

17:15

I mean, I wrote Small Steps 1 and 2. I

17:17

did Grandmaster Training Camp calculation

17:19

and then all my chessable courses. Probably like

17:22

the most demanding one of these projects. I don't

17:24

know which one it would have been, but it probably took me like

17:26

maybe a month to a month and a half to allow,

17:30

which is just really not that much. And then when

17:32

COVID hit

17:33

and we weren't sure how long the lockdown would last.

17:36

And I just didn't know. And like, I knew I wasn't playing

17:38

chess anytime soon. And that, you know, we're just going

17:40

to be locked down for the foreseeable future until,

17:43

you know, we just don't know when. I

17:45

just told Yaakov, I need something to keep me busy.

17:48

Like, let's just give me the most demanding project

17:50

that we possibly can. And we

17:52

wanted a theoretical Rook and Things, which I started.

17:55

You know, this would have been now

17:56

three years ago in April, 2020.

18:00

And it's been so much more work

18:02

than anything else I've ever tried to produce. But

18:06

I've turned in my first draft, it's going through editing.

18:08

I'm hopeful it'll be out something around August or

18:10

September. But it was a really

18:12

demanding project and I learned a lot about

18:14

Rook endings doing it. And what I found

18:17

was while I started writing it in 2020,

18:19

and it's now not going to be out until late this

18:21

year,

18:22

what I was seeing was I would write a chapter

18:24

and then like the same Rook end games would come

18:26

up like in my own play, just

18:29

months or a year later, it really became very

18:31

relevant, very fast. And I felt that it

18:33

really grew my knowledge of the game.

18:36

So

18:37

it's definitely demanding work.

18:40

Rook end games are tedious and boring. I know

18:42

that. And I didn't write this book with the

18:44

hope that this would make me rich. I think if you

18:47

write a book in the hopes of getting rich, you're probably

18:49

not very smart.

18:50

But

18:53

I certainly hope that it can reach an audience of people

18:55

who want to learn about Rook end games and become better chess

18:57

players.

18:59

And I wonder, Sam, because I

19:01

know you did the video for the legendary book

19:04

Endgame Strategy by Sharashevsky. You did the video

19:06

for Chessible. And it sounds like

19:09

obviously the book being titled

19:11

Theoretical Rook Endings, it's more on the theory side

19:13

as opposed to like this is how you play this type

19:15

of endgame. And my friend,

19:17

friend of the pod and Fide Master Nate

19:19

Solon recently wrote about this and I've been kicking

19:22

around. I think it comes up a lot for amateurs,

19:24

like how to approach theoretical

19:27

versus practical Rook endings and how to divide

19:29

your time. Do you have any guidance or opinions

19:32

on on this?

19:33

Well, I think theoretical ones are more important

19:36

at the start, because a

19:37

big part of playing practical Rook

19:40

end games well is when you

19:42

start. If it's not clear what's going on,

19:44

it's not particularly technical or theoretical

19:46

in its nature.

19:47

When you start calculating variations,

19:50

you will land at something that looks more theoretical

19:52

at some point and having a good knowledge of whether

19:54

that's going to win or not is a very is very helpful.

19:57

I

20:00

think what

20:02

I've taken a somewhat different approach to these Rook

20:04

End games than most authors. But I think

20:06

what's gonna be one of the most valuable parts,

20:08

especially for stronger players, is

20:10

I'm going to at the end

20:13

have an index where I go through

20:15

every single important position, just give a Cliff

20:17

Notes version of it for two sentences.

20:20

And I'm gonna have a very clear set of

20:22

things, positions

20:25

that I believe you absolutely have to memorize,

20:27

positions that you don't have to memorize, but you need

20:29

to know some important ideas and what the

20:31

ideas are. And just knowing which ones

20:33

you really want to commit to memory, which

20:35

ones knowing the ideas is enough, which

20:38

structures you should memorize instead of which specific

20:40

positions. This is, I think, hugely helpful.

20:43

And that's something that I haven't

20:45

seen in any other Rook End game books. They're always,

20:47

you

20:48

know, well, this is this position, this one is that

20:50

one. It doesn't tell you which one is worth memorizing

20:52

and which one isn't. And to some extent,

20:55

you can argue that they are telling you which one is

20:57

worth memorizing and which one isn't just because the

20:59

ones they don't believe are worth memorizing, they don't put in the

21:01

book. But I don't think that's

21:03

quite as effective. And there are plenty of positions

21:05

in theoretical Rook End games that I absolutely

21:08

think you should know,

21:09

but you don't need to memorize to

21:11

completion. So for example, like

21:13

this one actually isn't in the book because you

21:16

have to draw the line somewhere. But like, for example,

21:18

Rook and Bishop and Pawn against, Rook

21:20

and Pawn against Bishop is one

21:22

where there's a famous one where say

21:24

you have an H pawn

21:27

and Black has a light

21:29

sport Bishop.

21:30

This is actually a draw if your pawn reaches H5

21:33

and Black's King is on G8.

21:34

And it's supposed to be a position that's extremely

21:37

hard to win. And I've seen it published

21:39

everywhere that there's a lot of complicated

21:42

techniques and positions to memorize. But I can

21:44

tell you very, very simply, there's only one thing

21:46

you need to know. You memorize the

21:48

following position.

21:49

King H5, Rook G3, H4

21:52

against Kf7 and Bishop C2. Here Black

21:55

is in Zeyesvang and he loses. I believe

21:57

all you need to know is that position. And if you

21:59

know that position,

21:59

is it's long you can figure the rest out at the board.

22:02

There are some positions where you need to know much more than

22:04

just what one particular is it's long is, but

22:06

having just,

22:08

I think being able to know exactly

22:11

how much you need to memorize and what is extremely

22:13

important for the study of theoretical Rokan games.

22:16

Okay, good to know. And do you have a particular

22:18

rating audience in mind?

22:22

Like,

22:22

because obviously

22:24

like a 1200 reading that

22:26

probably isn't gonna need to memorize it, but a stronger,

22:29

like stronger up and coming scholastic

22:31

player might.

22:33

Yeah, I mean, the goal is it's for everybody.

22:35

I mean,

22:36

I think if you're trying to write chess literature

22:38

and it's not useful for everyone, you're sort of missing

22:41

the point. Chess is a game that's for

22:43

everyone. And

22:45

you know, so I mean, these Rokan games,

22:47

the first chapter is on the Lucena position. That's

22:49

very basic. Oh wow, okay. 1200 should

22:51

know. It gets more complicated very

22:53

quickly, but I tried to do a very

22:55

complete coverage. And you

22:57

know, having, you know,

22:58

in-depth

23:00

analysis of what's a Rokan four against

23:02

three where black has GH and E.

23:05

So he has the isolated E-pawn

23:07

and knowing when the position

23:09

is winning and when it's not based upon how far each

23:11

side's pawns are or knowing that for example,

23:14

white's best hope of winning is to

23:16

have his pawns on F2 and E3 and the G

23:18

and H pawns moving up the board. While

23:20

black's best, what's worst chance of winning

23:22

is if the white E-pawn is further advanced up to

23:24

E5, for example, and then there's

23:27

definitely some very advanced stuff that strong

23:29

players would do all

23:31

to learn.

23:32

But I've tried to break it down into very simple terms

23:34

that's accessible for everybody.

23:36

Okay, sounds good. And Sam, you're somewhat

23:39

famously largely self-taught

23:42

as you've mentioned in prior interviews, at

23:44

least until your twenties, until you started working

23:46

with the aforementioned Grandmaster, Yaka

23:49

Bogard. So when you were climbing the ranks, what

23:51

was your approach to end games?

23:53

Basically, I sucked at them,

23:55

I think, which I tried to make people

23:58

before I got to them.

23:59

I was really bad at it. I think

24:02

there's one game, I don't

24:03

think it was 2009 US

24:06

Championship I had with Alex Lunderman

24:08

where I

24:09

had just the most equal rook

24:11

endgame you could imagine. It was just like

24:14

rooking four or five against rooking

24:16

four or five equal pawns, no major weaknesses.

24:19

And I drew the game, but I tried, I really

24:21

tried my absolute hardest to lose.

24:23

And

24:25

at some point I was lost. And so that

24:27

game sort of opened my eyes that this just really needs

24:30

a lot of work. And so at

24:32

first, I mean, again, I had no, I did

24:34

a couple sessions. Like when I

24:36

was growing up, I worked a bit with David Proust, Josh

24:38

Friedll and Vinay Bhat, who were three of my early friends

24:40

of the sort of the Berkeley area. But you

24:42

know, I do like a session once a week, it was

24:45

a little disorganized and I deeply appreciate

24:47

everything they did for me. And at one point for

24:49

a couple of months, I did sessions with Gregory Coddenov.

24:51

So I had like just a little bit of training, but really

24:54

not very much.

24:55

And also

24:57

back then the chess content wasn't that great.

25:00

So what I did for Endgame

25:01

was a few things. First of all,

25:03

I don't know how much ICC is

25:06

still a relevant presence in today's world, but Alexia

25:08

Malinsky had this series, Every Russian Schoolboy

25:10

Knows, and I just started watching it religiously.

25:13

That series has saved me more half points

25:15

in my career than maybe anything else I've studied. Like

25:17

it's really, really good, especially

25:19

for someone like me who basically had no

25:22

formal chess training, certainly not any sort

25:24

of Eastern European Soviet style

25:27

like Endgame training.

25:28

Like it was really eye opening

25:31

to look at all that stuff.

25:32

Later on,

25:34

I quite enjoyed the fundamental

25:36

chess endings by Karsten Muller and I would play

25:39

out some of these positions against training partners.

25:41

This stuff, this is the kind of thing that you can

25:43

do when

25:44

you don't have any money, when you don't have any trainer,

25:46

but you're motivated to work and you have other people

25:49

around you who are positive and influences on you

25:51

and want to work as well.

25:52

And that didn't, like for a lot

25:54

of people,

25:55

especially I think adult amateurs,

25:57

like with limited time, endgames aren't

25:59

their favorite aspect of chess, but you were like

26:02

fired up to do these fundamental chess endings?

26:04

Well, I wouldn't say I was fired up.

26:07

There's other stuff that I put more time towards, but

26:09

I definitely made sure to train them when I could.

26:12

And

26:12

I think I'm a pretty reasonable on-game player now, even

26:15

though you wouldn't think of someone

26:17

who grew up in the West and had, you know, basically

26:19

no formal training. It's the kind of guy who is

26:22

going to play end-game. So these are usually

26:24

players who

26:25

tend to be more creative and, you

26:27

know, imaginative and thriving

26:29

complications. And it's not like I can't do that, but

26:32

I think I've definitely shown that, and

26:35

you can teach yourself end-games even when you

26:37

didn't have like a

26:39

proper chess education or upbringing.

26:41

Okay. And you mentioned that

26:44

by your estimation, you may be 27, 40 feet

26:46

A strength. And

26:50

again, you made congratulations

26:52

on the colossal jump you made in 2018.

26:56

It's the stuff of legend for an adult

26:58

grandmaster to jump 50 points. I mean,

27:01

it basically like, it's so

27:03

rare. So I'm curious, do you

27:05

think about making another push like that?

27:08

Yeah, I mean, I certainly hope I can. I

27:10

keep training every day to make sure that

27:13

I can. I mean,

27:14

you know, certainly possible I've hit my peaking

27:16

chess. I mean, I don't think so.

27:18

And I hope not, but it's possible. But

27:21

I still fully believe in my abilities to keep

27:23

pushing forward and becoming stronger.

27:25

I mean, when I landed on that 27, 40 figure,

27:28

at

27:28

some point I had the most egregious luck

27:32

where I had, I think 10 extra blacks

27:34

across nine tournaments. So one tournament,

27:37

I had two extra blacks and the others I had one.

27:40

And so at that point I was rated like 27, 15 or something.

27:43

But I just took like my performance rating

27:46

with white performance rating with black and hit average

27:48

and it came out to about 27, 40. And the 10

27:50

extra blacks had dropped

27:52

me like 25 points or something.

27:55

That's of course just bad luck and it does

27:57

reverse like my last tournament where I had

27:59

an uneven number was US championship, and then

28:02

I had an extra white there. So I mean, it eventually turns around,

28:04

and so in long-term it should not affect

28:06

your rating, but that's roughly where I think

28:09

I am.

28:10

But yeah,

28:12

I mean, I'm very happy with the

28:14

progress I've made as an adult, and I

28:16

certainly hope that I've inspired people to

28:18

believe that you can make it as an adult even

28:21

if you

28:22

weren't, you know, even if you

28:24

didn't get to go all in on chess as a kid, and

28:26

you weren't homeschooled, and you had like a normal education,

28:28

you grew up in the United States, and you went to school, like, you

28:30

know, there's not many people like that who have

28:33

done that and gotten really good at chess, but I'm hopeful

28:35

that I can inspire people that

28:37

it is possible to do.

28:39

Yeah, I mean, it's inspiring

28:41

for sure. And I know

28:43

you've had some success with your students

28:45

at Killer Chess Training, and obviously

28:47

some success when people purchase your chessable courses,

28:50

like how closely are you tracking sort of

28:52

people trying, I mean, maybe not going to

28:54

Super Grandmaster, but making good

28:56

progress, quick progress?

28:58

Yeah, I mean, I don't like just sort

29:00

of look up the people who have bought my courses

29:02

and check what their ratings are on a day. I'm sure

29:04

you hear from them.

29:06

It always warms my heart when someone comes

29:08

to me and says, you know,

29:11

I played this opening that you had taught

29:13

me to do, and beat somebody much stronger

29:15

as a result, or, you

29:17

know, I think the biggest one that really brought

29:19

a smile to my face was when Avi Mani Mishra

29:21

was fighting for his GM, the Huddle, a couple

29:23

of years ago.

29:25

Like, I hadn't even met him yet,

29:26

but I just looked at his games and literally

29:29

every single white game he played was just my

29:31

D4, rubber, and of course, he's expanded since

29:33

then, you know, he's a much stronger player now, and

29:36

I don't really think you can make it super strong, playing

29:38

the same thing over and over again with white, like I did

29:40

my best to put black under pressure, but of course, black's

29:42

ultimately fine everywhere, and you want to

29:44

be able to play multiple different

29:47

lines to put the

29:47

people under pressure, but he had been playing E4 for

29:50

like his whole career. He switched to D4

29:52

and specifically my D4, like my

29:54

D4, rubber, from chessable, and he just killed

29:56

everybody. It wasn't even remotely close, and

29:59

I was like, yep, here's another way.

29:59

for on Abhi, another one for Abhi. And so I

30:02

immediately became a fan of his well

30:04

before I even knew him. And then when

30:07

I played the World Cup that year in 2011, I got a bye

30:09

through

30:10

to round two because

30:12

I was one of the top seeds. But Abhi was playing Jovava

30:14

and I was going to play the winner of that match. And

30:17

I was like, it'd be pretty funny if I had to play against my own

30:19

repertoire. Not 2011. 2021. Yes. Okay. Yeah. Abhi

30:21

was born around 2011. I

30:25

can't miss my ball. Yeah, no, I mean, it's

30:27

just it puts in perspective how fast his progress

30:30

is. It's crazy. I went to Abhava

30:32

instead and I did manage to get through. But yeah,

30:34

it

30:35

was definitely, it

30:37

makes me happy when people are able to improve

30:40

a lot. We have another student in Killer

30:42

Trust training who I'm very proud of in Shahi Haldai,

30:44

who I only met once on my trip to India

30:47

and for the top I still wrap it in blitz.

30:50

And yes, this was 2021. But

30:53

he came in when he was like 10 and he was rated like 1900

30:56

or something. And now he's an IM and probably

30:58

going to be a GM soon. And so yeah,

31:00

it's been great to watch these kids grow up.

31:02

Yeah, it's amazing to see. And Sam, obviously it's

31:05

been a hot button topic

31:07

here on this podcast, because we talk a lot of chess

31:09

improvement. Like how fast everyone's improving

31:12

now as someone who's basically

31:15

sitting at the top of the pyramid, like

31:17

how in tune with that are you of like how

31:19

much chess learning has changed in the past 10

31:22

years?

31:22

Well, I mean, it's gotten a lot easier

31:25

to get better very fast. I actually think there's even

31:27

a little bit of rating deflation now. In general,

31:29

I'm not a huge believer in the concept. I think ratings

31:32

are relatively stable. But I

31:34

mean, every generation of chess player

31:36

just has so much more opportunity than the

31:38

one that came before it. Like I

31:41

think about like, I'm looking at kids who

31:43

like were, you know, growing up in the pandemic,

31:45

and then just got to like work with me or Kramnik

31:47

or whoever online, like for, you know, 50

31:49

bucks a class with some other

31:51

kids. I mean,

31:52

that's just completely insane.

31:54

And then I look at the generation

31:56

that came just before them. And

31:59

while they did

31:59

have that. They did have strong round robins

32:02

in America and all sorts of great technical

32:04

tools. They had the

32:07

chess base working really well. Computers were not

32:09

good enough that they couldn't see basically everything.

32:11

They're not going to start

32:13

suggesting stupid moves in close positions. You can

32:15

really learn from them. My

32:18

generation didn't really have that, but

32:20

we still had reasonable tournaments to go

32:22

to. The internet

32:24

was out, so even if

32:26

we didn't have great training resources, just being able

32:28

to play on ICC and stuff like that. Then the generation

32:31

before me didn't have that, but they had other.

32:33

Basically, it's really clear to me that every

32:35

single generation in chess just has had so

32:37

much more opportunity than the generation that

32:39

preceded it. And that's a good thing. It means the

32:42

world is becoming a better place, but it also means I don't

32:44

think we should be surprised when

32:46

players are reaching crazy high levels faster.

32:49

But while I think that

32:50

I don't necessarily think it will make them stronger

32:53

long-term overall, like I don't think we're

32:55

necessarily just going to see,

32:57

oh, Gudkesh and Arjun and

33:00

Nordebek are all just going to be better than Carlson

33:02

and Ding. I don't really buy

33:04

that. I do think that

33:06

the extra opportunities

33:09

that people have and the better training resources

33:12

of today with technology and whatnot, that

33:14

gets them to the top faster.

33:16

But it might get them to their peak faster, but I

33:18

don't necessarily think it will make them

33:20

overall much, much stronger than

33:22

what came before. Wow. It's

33:25

definitely an exciting time for chess. So what

33:27

makes you think that they're just going to approach

33:30

their ceilings faster?

33:32

Well, I mean, it's just like when you...

33:34

I

33:36

mean, I do believe that every human being

33:38

ultimately has a ceiling as to what they're

33:40

capable of in chess.

33:43

And most

33:45

people will probably never reach their ceiling, which

33:48

is sort of sad. But I mean, of course, in

33:50

the world, most people don't reach their full potential. But

33:54

if you're going to reach your ceiling, just the question

33:57

is really, how quickly can you

33:59

get there? many good years do you have at that level?

34:02

And if the training

34:04

resources are just so much better today, people will

34:07

get there faster. And

34:09

perhaps it will raise their ceilings to

34:11

a degree, I just don't think it'll be so much that

34:13

we're

34:14

going to look back, we're going to 15 years from now, we're

34:16

going to look back and like, yeah, Carlson wasn't

34:18

that great, everybody today is just stronger than he was that

34:20

I just don't think that's going to happen.

34:22

And how does the say, 16

34:25

to 21 year old generation,

34:28

including the aforementioned Gukesh and Faruja

34:30

and so many others? Is there anyone that

34:32

stands out to you as a potential future world

34:34

champion?

34:36

I mean, I think any one

34:38

of that group is capable.

34:41

The odds of any one individual player

34:43

ever becoming world champion is pretty darn

34:45

low. You

34:48

know, like, for example,

34:50

if I said Faruja has a 5%

34:52

chance of becoming world champion, that gives them

34:54

the biggest chance of anybody on the planet is

34:57

not currently playing a match.

34:58

Like, I don't think that's unreasonable.

35:00

You know, it literally means he's

35:03

the most likely one,

35:04

but still not probably not going to happen.

35:06

I mean,

35:07

just there's so many great chess players

35:09

in history that did not become world champion,

35:12

and very, very few that actually did. There's

35:14

a huge amount of luck. But yeah, like when I look at those,

35:16

I mean, there's going to be random dumb luck to

35:19

I mean, like, for example,

35:21

if you look at Magnus's five matches, the

35:24

only one where I really at some

35:26

point thought this might actually happen was

35:28

the match with Karjakin.

35:30

Everyone else like Karjakin

35:33

had, yeah, I mean, he tied the match, but he

35:35

never took the lead. And it never really seemed

35:37

like he was I mean, he had the one winning

35:39

chance once early in one game, but like,

35:42

very quickly, black was fine. The only

35:44

guy between all of them who I thought

35:47

really had a chance was Karjakin.

35:49

And do I really think that Karjakin played

35:51

that much better than like Karjakin and on

35:53

like not really, I just think he happened

35:55

to be lucky enough that Magnus was on the worst form

35:58

against him compared to the other guys he played.

36:00

So there is some, a

36:02

fair amount of luck involved. Do you win the candidates?

36:05

Do you on good form during the candidates? You

36:07

know, where are you going to be healthy? Where are you going to

36:09

be sick?

36:10

And then do you face the defending champion

36:12

when they're on form or not? So much

36:14

of this matters. And I think a lot of that matters for

36:17

specifically winning World Championship. A lot of that matters

36:19

potentially even more than like objectively is

36:21

one of them 2800 is the other 28, 760 or something.

36:25

Yeah. I mean, for one thing,

36:27

just getting in the candidates is no

36:30

small feat. And as you allude to like Magnus

36:32

himself, like barely won the candidates

36:34

where he started his World Championship reign. Like he

36:36

didn't control his own destiny

36:38

in the final round.

36:41

So yeah, it's a good point.

36:43

Well, he tried to control his own destiny.

36:45

But yeah, I

36:47

mean, he ended up needing Gramnick

36:49

to lose. So

36:52

what about yourself and the candidates?

36:55

I'm like, MBL recently blogged about

36:57

the fact he'd fallen out of the top 10, which

37:00

to your point shows just how challenging things

37:02

are and how now he has to think about how to get

37:04

into the candidates. Is that like a priority

37:07

for you where you are or is it just like as

37:09

you say, you

37:10

know, to the candidates, of course,

37:14

I came really, really

37:16

close at the last World Cup. And my

37:18

suspicion is, you know, when I'm

37:21

the day that I die, I'm going to look back

37:23

at my trust career. And I think that match with

37:25

Kariakan is going to be the only one that I regret.

37:28

I mean, I've lost so many important games and tough

37:30

games in my career, but that's, I think, going to be

37:33

the one that haunts me forever. Everything else. Final

37:35

eight. Is that right? There was a

37:37

quarterfinal. I beat him in the first game, too.

37:39

And the second game

37:42

I underestimated an attack and got myself mated

37:44

when I should have been fine. And then I won the

37:46

first tiebreak into I really had it within

37:48

my power to win that get much. And then

37:51

next up, I would have played Feta save who was lower

37:53

rated than me at the time. And if I would not have met the candidates

37:55

and then if I had won that I'm playing

37:57

due to in the final, who was higher than me. But I have

37:59

a.

37:59

colossal score against. I'm like, you

38:02

know, I think that

38:04

match,

38:05

I'm fairly likely I get to the candidates,

38:07

fairly likely I won the World Cup if that match

38:09

had gone different.

38:12

One of the problems for me is that as

38:14

someone who's

38:15

mainly got where I am by working hard and

38:18

is not super talented, is I'm just better at classical

38:20

than rapid. And

38:22

while the candidates is possible and

38:24

the world championship is possible, there's a lot

38:26

of rapid involved to get into them. You know, go

38:28

win the World Cup, go win your tiebreak matches. Like,

38:32

or,

38:32

you know, I think the grandchester is going to have like

38:34

the grandchester winner might get a spot, I don't follow

38:37

exactly how it works. But again, you know, go

38:39

win rapid events. Like there's a lot of

38:41

rapid to get into the candidates, which makes my life harder.

38:44

But it's still a huge goal of mine

38:46

that I hope to accomplish. And

38:48

I'm still really upset I didn't make it to this

38:50

last one.

38:51

Yeah, well, I mean, always rooting for

38:53

you, but yeah, the World Cup especially.

38:56

I didn't even play the candidates after he took the spot.

38:59

Right, yeah, yeah.

39:00

Well, hopefully

39:05

this World Cup. So do you do, so I mean,

39:07

I have a couple of follow ups. Let's

39:09

start with this one. So does,

39:12

obviously I infer from your statement

39:14

that you feel like,

39:16

I mean, and this is something someone like our

39:18

friend Greg Shahadi has written about. Like, I'm

39:21

guessing you feel like the format should match what you're

39:23

trying to qualify for.

39:25

Yeah, I mean, I don't mind

39:28

rapid tiebreak at all. I

39:30

mean, if you look at any other sport, like

39:32

baseball, basketball, you name it, whenever it's tied

39:34

after regulation, people just play the same sport

39:36

faster. You know, it's gonna

39:38

be one inning instead of nine. You know, first one to

39:40

score, you know, soccer, it's gonna be,

39:43

you know, another two halves, but

39:45

the halves are shorter. Like, I don't mind the concept

39:48

that

39:48

when your game is tied, that

39:50

you play a faster version of the same game as

39:53

a tiebreak. What I don't love is when,

39:55

oh, you play two classical

39:57

games in the World Cup and when they're tied, you end up playing.

40:00

like 10 rapid games as tie breaks. I

40:02

mean this is,

40:03

it feels like, I wish there

40:05

was a little bit more emphasis on classical chess

40:07

and more of an opportunity for people to make their

40:09

mark in classical chess and then really, or

40:11

at least for these tournaments for the candidates,

40:14

to use rapid specifically as a tie

40:16

breaker. And it feels like, well even if that's

40:18

technically what's happening now, it just

40:20

feels like the balance is you barely get a chance to play

40:22

rapid, classical before rapid just starts coming in.

40:25

And yeah,

40:26

I think the balance is a little

40:28

bit off and it should be tilted more towards classical

40:30

than it currently is, but I don't care

40:33

that much. I mean, there's

40:34

a lot of people who like to spend their time

40:36

debating the rules and trying to petition

40:39

for them to be rewritten in some way. I really

40:41

just think that's a distraction from what matters, which is

40:43

training and trying to bring your best self.

40:45

Yeah, I mean, your point's well taken, but

40:48

on the topic of training and trying to bring your best

40:50

self, so an event that takes like an outsized

40:53

role, as you mentioned, like the World Cup, are

40:55

you going to put in a lot of like rapid

40:57

training games or how would you prepare

40:59

for that event this year? I did do some rapid

41:01

training games in preparation for the last World

41:04

Cup, which helped a lot. I mean,

41:06

I beat Arashenko in tiebreak. So

41:08

that was the only match I actually felt

41:11

I deserved to lose was,

41:12

it was my second match, but I guess it was round three

41:14

with Arashenko. And I was dead

41:17

to rights in game two of classical and somehow

41:19

survived it to force a rapid play. And then I was dead

41:21

to rights in game two of the rapid play off as well.

41:23

But I managed to trick my way

41:26

out of it and win. So I definitely

41:28

did some preparation and you know, the fact that I won one

41:30

rapid tiebreak,

41:32

and then took the first rapid game off

41:34

karaoke, and it was and then

41:36

only lost in like faster rapid tiebreak.

41:39

I mean, at

41:40

some point, I didn't really want to be playing Blitz

41:42

in preparation for the World Cup, but I definitely

41:44

did take rapids somewhat seriously. And my rapid hasn't

41:46

proved like when I played the

41:49

St. Louis rapid and blood. So I mean, I got clobbered in the blood

41:51

section because that's what I've been

41:53

what I was trying. It's not what I'm good at. But like in rapid,

41:56

I mean, I made

41:57

plus one against

41:58

the ground.

41:59

I beat the Manchester

42:02

field, I beat the Caro,

42:04

and I beat Napamishie and I only lost

42:06

to Jeffrey. And

42:08

I could have even scored more points. I was winning as

42:10

Faroujian and Aronian. I felt like I didn't

42:12

feel like the Manchester field was better than midrabbit

42:15

at that point. So I've

42:17

definitely done some work on that, but

42:19

it is important in preparation for the World Cup

42:21

to do that.

42:23

And are there any adjustments you could put

42:25

in non-chess board, mostly

42:28

audio only podcast terms that you made

42:30

to sort of strengthen your rapid game?

42:33

Just practice and play a lot. I

42:36

think one of the

42:38

big reasons that

42:41

some people prefer rapid is, I

42:43

think in classical you need to

42:46

do a fair amount of things that might not

42:48

seem glorious or fun to get better while rapid.

42:51

Like honestly, probably the best thing you can do is just

42:53

play, play, play, play, play, play, play, play, play.

42:55

And for people who just want to play and don't really want to train,

42:58

you can probably play really get pretty darn good

43:00

at rapid and blitz and you're just not going to make it in classical.

43:03

And people who are

43:05

less willing to put in the sacrifice to spend their

43:07

time doing something like doing real training,

43:10

they usually tend to prefer the rapid

43:12

and playing online and that whole world.

43:15

Okay. And even for club

43:17

players, you just got to get the cadence

43:19

down, it sounds like. Yeah, just keep playing,

43:22

playing, playing, playing, playing. But for rapid, that's what

43:24

does it for you.

43:25

Okay. For work, I know

43:27

you're working with a lot of like maybe

43:29

professional track players in killer chess

43:31

training, but also a lot of hardworking

43:34

amateurs like your friend who's been on the pod,

43:36

National Master Doug Eckert. What

43:39

sort of like,

43:40

what do you find provides the biggest bang for

43:42

the buck for amateur players who are trying to improve?

43:46

Probably calculation training. I

43:48

mean, like now

43:50

it's a little different with the engines being as

43:52

strong as they are in terms of understanding, but not

43:55

that long ago, there was a time where these engines

43:57

were just not that good at understanding

43:59

chess. that we're just calculating so deeply that

44:02

they would still beat the tar out of us. Now that they

44:04

understand chess too, we have a real problem on our hands,

44:06

but like one, you know,

44:09

I was looking at these engines that are, you know, programmed

44:11

by Larry Kaufman and guys like that were, you

44:13

know, whatever, let's say from, you know,

44:16

Komodo and Stockfish and Houdini, like their

44:18

programmers are anywhere from like 2000, 2400 or

44:21

something. And like, as someone, I

44:23

was looking at this and thinking,

44:25

you know, can these like

44:28

IM maximum level players or like,

44:30

you know, 2400 level players be,

44:33

have such amazing understanding that's just

44:35

superior to mine and then be able to

44:37

put that understanding into like little lines

44:39

of code to make the computer understand. I just don't

44:42

buy that. And

44:44

I,

44:44

but the computer still beat the tar out of

44:47

us just because they calculate crazy

44:49

fast, like, you know, many millions of times

44:51

faster than humans do. And it just made

44:53

me realize that if you calculate better

44:56

than your opponent, like usually that's just going to prevail.

44:58

And especially at lower levels

45:00

where, you know, let's say up to, you know, I don't know, 24, 2500 or

45:03

whatever, I mean, by

45:05

the time you're over 2500, you're

45:07

probably not an amateur anymore. I mean, maybe

45:09

you are for the most part, you're not, but up

45:12

to that

45:12

level, I think if you calculate better than your opponents,

45:15

you're just going to do better. And so yeah,

45:17

to that effect calculation training is the best

45:20

place you can go. And so we do all

45:22

that at Killer Chess Training, of course, but also there's plenty of

45:24

books, like obviously I came out with a calculation

45:26

workbook recently, Grandmaster

45:29

Training Camp, it's also available on Chessables,

45:31

you know, and

45:34

Yacob has written a lot of calculation books and there's

45:36

really a lot of resources for calculation out there. It's

45:38

just, it takes a lot of work and

45:41

people often don't want to do it because it's tough.

45:44

Yeah, yeah. And

45:46

I checked out your calculation work on Chessable

45:49

and I will say like,

45:50

it's accessible starting at a decently

45:53

low level, like 17, 1800, I

45:55

would say can start with it. So, and

45:58

of course there's plenty of resources.

45:59

Now, for players

46:02

rated below that, now let me ask you, Sam, like,

46:05

where are you on sort of Puzzle Rush type

46:07

tactics? Like, should they be incorporated into

46:09

a training regimen as well?

46:11

Not really. You can certainly

46:13

do them

46:14

for fun.

46:15

I don't think Puzzle Rush will harm your chest

46:17

in any way. And if you enjoy it, I would say

46:20

fire away, but I don't.

46:22

I mean, I guess that could help with your blitz,

46:24

but in general, what I see in Puzzle Rush is

46:26

a couple of things. One is most problems

46:29

are extremely easy.

46:30

And the difference between someone who's good at Puzzle

46:32

Rush and someone who isn't is they'll solve the easy

46:35

ones in half a second instead of 1.25 seconds. That's

46:38

just not going to help you in possible chest legibility.

46:40

And by the time you get to harder ones, which,

46:43

you know, you're

46:45

sort of, you don't have enough time

46:47

to really think about them. You often just have to guess.

46:50

I don't really think it helps you for calculation. It

46:52

helps your quick little tactical vision a little

46:54

bit, which isn't that relevant

46:57

for classical leg again. If there's some easy, if

46:59

there's even, I'll say, a moderately not obvious

47:01

tactic, it's so relatively straightforward. And

47:04

one guy sees it in three seconds and the other guy sees

47:06

it in eight. Is that really an issue

47:08

in a 30 second increment gain? I just don't buy

47:10

it.

47:12

That's probably helpful for blitz and stuff like that.

47:14

But another thing with Puzzle Rush is I think it can

47:17

give you

47:18

somewhat questionable habits in

47:20

that

47:20

there's sometimes where you just know the tactic is

47:23

going to be there and there's only one move

47:25

that starts some kind of something interesting happening.

47:27

And because it's Puzzle Rush, you know, this move

47:29

has to be right. So you just play it and feel your way through.

47:32

And the best Puzzle Rush players are very good at

47:34

that. But that's not how

47:36

chest works over the board.

47:38

Okay. Yeah, good advice. And

47:40

it just goes to show how

47:42

you can always get different advice in chest like Dina

47:44

Bell and Kaya was recently on and said she actually thinks

47:47

it's a good training tool. I think a lot of it,

47:49

as you say, comes down to what time control you're training

47:51

for.

47:52

Yeah, I mean, if you want to be a better blitz player, I'm fairly

47:54

confident Puzzle Rush will help a lot. And

47:56

maybe at lower levels, if you're just not very good

47:58

at tactics, one you're going

47:59

1200 or something is one of like

48:01

get down basic tactical patterns

48:04

puzzle rush will give you a lot of tactical

48:06

patterns one right after the Other after the other but

48:08

for serious training for stronger players. I don't think

48:10

there's

48:12

We'll be right back with more from grandmaster

48:14

Sam Shankler So

48:16

you open Google Chrome on your phone you're hunting for

48:19

a super rare first edition vinyl of a band you're

48:21

obsessed with when you're supposed to be

48:23

working, but the site you tapped on

48:25

seems pretty shady and Daryl

48:28

from IT just jumped up from his desk.

48:30

Oh, no, he's coming

48:32

your way It's a good

48:34

thing built-in malware production keeps you safe

48:37

and sound not from Daryl though.

48:39

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site for details And

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We are back

49:21

Yeah, and on the topic of serious training

49:23

We have a question from a patreon supporter

49:26

of perpetual chess those who

49:28

provide extra financial support for petrol

49:30

chess consenting questions And this one I actually asked on

49:33

I am Andras top

49:34

recently by accident,

49:36

but it's from Daniel. He who's

49:38

about 2100 so Reasonably

49:41

strong player just to give you some

49:43

context Sam so he asks when

49:45

doing opening prep hurt excuse me preparation

49:48

How do you strike a balance between choosing the objectively

49:50

best moves in the position versus analyzing

49:53

in-depth some moves that are slightly weaker? But

49:55

unexplored since your competitors

49:57

can access the same engines it would seem practical

49:59

to me

49:59

me in a game to sidestep their prep

50:02

and enter a relatively fresher position where

50:04

your deeper analysis will shine.

50:06

What do you think, Sam? Well, there's a couple points.

50:09

I think for a player of 2100 strength,

50:11

you definitely want to do the objective

50:13

stuff more. So

50:15

for one thing, it goes far beyond the opening.

50:17

You want to... Mainline middle games are extremely

50:20

important to understand and to be able to play

50:22

properly. And if you start doing

50:24

creative stuff when you're like really

50:26

young or when you haven't had that much

50:28

experience in chess, then what you'll

50:31

ultimately do is I'm not even going to claim that

50:33

your odds of fighting for an edge are worse

50:35

doing that than they are playing mainlines.

50:38

They probably aren't even into this. I don't necessarily

50:40

think that's the worst way to fight for an edge. But what you will

50:42

do is deny yourself the chance to play mainline

50:45

middle games because the positions

50:47

will get funky faster.

50:49

At higher levels,

50:51

once you've got that and you're really... Another

50:54

thing is also at lower levels, like your

50:56

opponents aren't going to be that well prepared. You

50:59

know, when you're looking at my games and

51:01

it's like, well,

51:02

you know, Anish is the best prepared player I could

51:04

face. And I'm like, oh, I should, you know, maybe

51:07

against Anish I'll play something, try to sidestep

51:10

his preparation against the next guy. I'll do

51:12

a mainline. Oh, your next guy's dead. Oh, he's definitely

51:14

not going to know what he's doing. It's like, it's

51:16

just not... It's a bit different when you're playing strong

51:18

guys and you know that literally every single one of your opponents

51:20

is going to be crazy well prepared.

51:23

In more recent times, I've been looking more for fresh

51:25

stuff, but there's also a white black balance

51:28

in that you don't really have to reinvent

51:30

the wheel so much with black just because he's absolutely

51:32

fine in every single opening variation there is.

51:35

Like with black, I think keeping

51:37

it pretty standard and straightforward and

51:39

solid is... Maybe solid is the

51:41

wrong word. I mean, you can play the Nite Orff, Specialty, Cockburn,

51:43

Faldim, and you can play dynamic lines, but like you

51:46

don't really need to have that much creativity

51:48

or that much ingenuity to get

51:50

a good position with black and then leave it to

51:52

white. You know, if he wants to try to win this game, he

51:54

can try to

51:55

mix things up and burn his time in

51:58

preparation trying to find something fresh. or

52:00

might not be there.

52:01

But with White, I think you want to take much

52:03

more risks and much more liberties just because

52:06

if you play like the absolute clearest best

52:08

moves according to engine and correspondence, you ask,

52:10

okay, fine, it will be a draw and move 30 and he

52:13

will equalize that.

52:15

And so with White, I definitely think it makes more

52:17

sense to take more risks and look for more creative

52:20

ideas. And with Black, I

52:22

think, you know, staying

52:23

sort of more close to the well-known

52:26

paths makes a bit more sense. Okay,

52:28

yeah, makes me think of the world championship.

52:31

And I'm curious, Sam, we talked about a bit earlier,

52:33

but particularly Dings 4H3,

52:35

what did you think of that one?

52:37

Well, the game didn't impress me. I

52:40

didn't look at this game and think, oh my god, White

52:42

got such an amazing position from this, how did

52:45

White manage to do so well? But

52:48

this is the kind of thing I'm talking about, like H3,

52:50

I mean, it didn't pay off, but Dings was ready

52:52

to take risks in this match, and he's taking much more

52:55

risks with White. And with White, you

52:57

want to be doing creative stuff and trying to

53:00

open new chapters in theory and

53:02

looking for ways to put your opponent under practical

53:04

pressure because, you know, he's going to be fine anywhere no matter

53:06

what when it comes to objectivity. Well,

53:09

with Black, Dings, you know, just been sticking to his normal

53:11

Roy Lopez in Queens game, but declined repertoire.

53:13

He's played some of the same lines

53:15

he's played in the past, didn't really care if Neville

53:18

came with some new preparation or anything. I

53:21

definitely think with White, you want to be taking more chances.

53:23

And while this particular one

53:25

from DING with H3 sort of fell on its face

53:28

under other circumstances, it could have worked well. And DING

53:30

has brought other interesting ideas to this match

53:32

and has one with White in those games too.

53:35

Okay. And Sam, this has been great.

53:37

If you're up for it, I want to read you a couple quotes

53:39

I've pulled from previous interviews that I'd like

53:41

to hear you expound on. Okay. So you said in

53:43

one of your chessable courses,

53:45

a big part of how you got strong, as strong as

53:48

you are, is by deeply studying opening structures.

53:50

So any tips on that front?

53:53

Well, you should have your openings extremely

53:55

well organized and extremely well

53:57

annotated. So

53:59

the biggest reason

53:59

The reason to study openings is not to get a

54:02

good position at the beginning of the game, it's to

54:04

learn about the resulting middle games. So

54:06

I will, and when

54:08

you just sort of click around with an engine when

54:10

you're like sort of freestyling

54:13

or whatever, trying to just sort of get a sense of the

54:15

position, clicking around with the engine,

54:17

seeing what moves are best. You will develop

54:20

some kind of an intuitive feel for the position,

54:22

whether you realize it or not.

54:24

But that you will lose that intuitive feel over

54:26

time. And so if I just

54:28

sort of click around with an engine and some random

54:31

middle game that could be reached and I get a feel for

54:33

this position. And it doesn't come for the

54:35

game but it comes a year later and probably not going

54:37

to remember the kind of things that I have there so you have to

54:39

be very clear to be writing down your

54:41

thoughts on when how pieces coordinate

54:44

and stuff like that and this helps grow your understanding

54:47

of the game and you want to be well organized so that you can

54:49

find this stuff later.

54:52

Because if you have extremely messy

54:54

files and they aren't well annotated, even

54:57

if you

54:59

remember, oh, this is this thing that I checked like

55:01

a year ago and

55:03

there were some important themes I really wrote there, let

55:05

me go back to it. A, you can't find your

55:07

file. B, when you find it, you can't

55:09

find the spot in the file that it's supposed to be

55:11

and then C,

55:12

you don't have any notes explaining what the key ideas

55:15

are and you just have to start clicking around with the space

55:17

program and you might as well not have had the file in the first place,

55:19

just open a blank board and start clicking. So

55:21

you definitely want to have your stuff well organized,

55:24

annotated really well,

55:25

both in words, preferably English I

55:27

would recommend, especially if you ever want to work with

55:29

anybody international like,

55:32

I know, I mean for Americans, it's natural enough,

55:34

but like, you know, if you got someone who's,

55:36

you know, Spanish or Italian or French or Chinese

55:39

or whatever, and they're doing their analysis,

55:41

their first instinct is probably going to be, I'm going

55:43

to do this analysis at my native tongue.

55:45

But when you're moving

55:48

on and trying to work with other players from other

55:50

countries, and when you get strong enough, this is something you definitely

55:52

have to do. Just having your analysis

55:55

in English is going to be really, really helpful.

55:57

Okay. And Sam, so...

56:00

That's helpful. Now, do you have any advice

56:02

on like how to

56:04

divide, say, memorizing moves

56:06

versus looking at whole games? I know you've mentioned

56:09

in your chessbook courses, you place an emphasis

56:11

on providing a lot of model games.

56:14

Yeah, well, I mean, it's tough because you

56:16

need to understand which games actually are

56:18

model games and which ones aren't. And then

56:20

when you like filter for some

56:22

position in the database and you see a game,

56:24

you know, Carlson plays with white, Carlson

56:27

wins, and you like think this is a good model game with

56:29

white. It's very possible that Carlson

56:31

just played a lousy game and won anyway.

56:34

These things happen.

56:36

And so you just look through the database, oh,

56:38

this is a game that, you know, a guy won playing this opening

56:40

that does not necessarily make it a good model

56:42

game to study,

56:43

or to try to

56:45

use that to further your understanding

56:47

of the opening. So I think

56:49

you often want to,

56:52

at least for me, I don't usually look at specific

56:54

games as model games. And part of it is that I'm

56:56

just strong enough that I'm fairly confident

56:59

that me with my engine is going to play better

57:01

and understand the position better than like any random

57:03

person in a game that they played, even if

57:05

they're extremely strong.

57:07

But

57:08

you definitely want to be going deep into these

57:10

middle games and understanding the positions

57:12

well. And part of that

57:15

could just be, you know, like there's

57:17

some move that looks natural to me and the computer

57:19

hates it, make the move, have

57:21

the computer show you why it's wrong, and

57:23

then keep playing against the computer

57:26

until you understand why it's wrong, and then write a note

57:28

about why it's wrong. And

57:29

then, you know,

57:30

even if you never get that position on something

57:32

similar, Thomas, you've probably grown your understanding

57:35

of chess. Okay.

57:37

And I hear you mentioned working

57:40

with engines, like how has that changed with you?

57:42

Are you using cloud engines now? Like what's

57:45

your approach and how has it evolved as

57:47

the engines just keep getting crazy? I

57:49

have my own server pretty good. I

57:51

mean, I, when I played

57:53

my first Olympiad in 2014,

57:56

I just decided, you know, now you're

57:58

a full time pro player, you just graduate. college

58:00

and making a debut for the US Olympic team. At that

58:02

point, I was rapidly closing in on number two in the

58:04

US.

58:05

And I just said, I'm going to take my entire

58:08

Olympiad appearance fee and just buy

58:10

a really powerful computer. And I used that

58:12

for

58:13

many, many years. It lived in my parents' basement,

58:15

and I would

58:17

access it remotely from my place

58:19

or from wherever I am in the world then. And

58:22

I used that for like seven years

58:24

or so. And in 2021, I bought a new computer

58:26

and upgraded

58:27

So how much was it? I mean, I don't

58:30

know if you remember 2014, but how much was the one in 2021?

58:33

So

58:36

I forgot 2014. Well,

58:38

I don't forget, but if I

58:41

say then people will know exactly how much

58:44

I should keep that to myself. But in 2021, the

58:48

one I

58:49

bought, when it came down to

58:51

the computer, all the parts, all the put together,

58:54

all the shipping and everything, I think it was like $13,000. Okay.

58:56

Yeah, more than I would have changed.

58:59

But if you're

59:00

going to use it all the time and be a top professional,

59:03

you can use the engines in the trust based pod.

59:05

And for example,

59:06

my computer, if you look at the ones in the

59:08

trust based pod, my computer

59:10

is probably about as good as like the second

59:12

best one that you'll see in the cloud that you can run for

59:15

whatever 15 or 20 bucks an hour or something.

59:17

And so, you know, $13,000, it's a fair amount of hours that you

59:19

would have

59:23

to rent that one for quite a

59:25

number of hours before you would say it

59:27

would be better off to just buy one of your own. But I think over

59:29

a few years, I will reach that number. So it

59:31

was a good purchase to make. I also don't like

59:33

having to fight with people in the trust based pod and

59:36

bid for engines. I like having one that's just fine.

59:38

And you got to remember to turn off the leaving

59:40

your tracks stuff. No,

59:42

otherwise you will have another leaked prep

59:45

scandal. Yeah,

59:46

well, my, yeah, so having

59:49

your own computer is really helpful in that regard. And also

59:51

my father is extremely good at computer nerd

59:53

stuff, which he's helped me with this stuff and helped

59:56

me set it up in a way to make it really

59:58

secure that I certainly could not have done on my own.

1:00:00

Okay. Another quote of yours

1:00:02

to ask you about, and this is something that came

1:00:05

up in our old pod, but you've, of course, as you even alluded

1:00:07

to, discussing the cardiac and match, you've, you've

1:00:10

had your own setback since then, despite your success.

1:00:12

You said, nobody gets to the level I am

1:00:15

without suffering a lot of severe setbacks,

1:00:17

you told Levy when you were on Gotham City

1:00:19

Pod.

1:00:20

So

1:00:22

any general advice? I mean, I feel

1:00:24

like, I mean, again, we talked about, you've

1:00:26

almost quit chess a couple of times, but have

1:00:29

you had any, I know you had a rough 2019, you've

1:00:32

mentioned, like, what, what helped you pull out of that?

1:00:36

I mean, part of it is just life sucks

1:00:38

sometimes. I mean, you know, point out

1:00:40

to me, one person on planet earth who hasn't

1:00:42

had serious setbacks in their life, who hasn't

1:00:45

been victimized by factors outside of their

1:00:47

control, who hasn't been hit with bad

1:00:50

luck at the worst possible moment. This is just part

1:00:52

of being a human being.

1:00:53

That's, I mean, it sucks, but

1:00:55

that's part of life. And you can whine

1:00:57

about it, or you can fight through

1:00:59

it. And at some point, I just,

1:01:02

I just decided, like, you have to be an adult. And

1:01:05

I wasn't the best at dealing with this stuff

1:01:08

when I first went through major setbacks when I was 18. You

1:01:11

know, then again, when I was 27, and it was probably,

1:01:13

I mean, I've gone through tons of setbacks in

1:01:15

between there, but like, really this year, I was getting

1:01:17

pummeled once, once, one time after

1:01:20

another, I mean, these things,

1:01:22

it ultimately, it happens, you know, and

1:01:25

you have to be ready for that. And you can't be a top

1:01:27

athlete, if you're not ready to overcome it, you probably can't

1:01:29

be wildly successful at anything if you're

1:01:31

not ready to overcome it. And, you

1:01:35

know, things you can do include make sure

1:01:37

to take care of yourself physically and mentally,

1:01:39

I mean, constantly go to the gym, you

1:01:41

know, eat well, you have to surround

1:01:43

yourself with people who are supportive

1:01:46

of you and to want you to succeed and

1:01:48

to really want the best for you and care about

1:01:51

you, but also, you

1:01:52

know, won't tolerate it when you

1:01:55

complain about how unfair the world is, because

1:01:57

I think the human nature is to complain about

1:01:59

how unfair

1:01:59

the world is whenever something bad happens to

1:02:02

you. I know I've done it.

1:02:03

I know I think anyone who hasn't done

1:02:05

it is just a liar.

1:02:07

But you know, when

1:02:08

Yaka at some point, you know, at

1:02:10

some point, you know, he'll be like, Yeah,

1:02:12

that sucks. And it's always like, okay, blah, blah, blah, blah,

1:02:14

blah, blah, blah, solve this problem. You

1:02:17

know, and

1:02:18

it's not what anybody wants to hear at

1:02:20

the time.

1:02:21

You know, what you want is sympathy.

1:02:23

But it's important for your friends

1:02:25

and the people around you to,

1:02:27

to give you that sympathy and try to

1:02:29

help you feel better and whatnot. But they also have

1:02:32

to be the best friends you have in this world are the ones

1:02:34

that push you to be the best versions of yourself and

1:02:36

will not accept anything less. And when they see

1:02:38

you in sort of a destructive pattern,

1:02:41

or sort of feeling too much self pity, or, or

1:02:43

stuff like that, they're the ones who say, Come on, you're

1:02:45

better than this, you know, like,

1:02:47

man up, basically. And I'm

1:02:49

really glad that I have people in my

1:02:51

life

1:02:52

who will tell that to me when when it needs to be told.

1:02:55

That doesn't mean they're not supportive. It doesn't mean that

1:02:57

they don't care about me. It doesn't mean that you know, they're,

1:03:00

they're overly harsh. It's just, they

1:03:02

know when it's time to just

1:03:04

say, All right, you know,

1:03:05

sorry, you had to deal with it.

1:03:07

Now put your head down and solve,

1:03:08

right. And

1:03:10

having

1:03:11

the ability to have people like that around and

1:03:13

the confidence to know that they really want what's best

1:03:16

for you. And they're not trying to just be jerks here, whatever,

1:03:18

like, it's really important to hear. And

1:03:20

I'm glad that I have people in my life who will do that for me.

1:03:23

And they were there the whole time. Was it something

1:03:25

where you needed to be ready to hear it?

1:03:28

Or did you kind of were you able to make sort

1:03:30

of a swift turnaround in these frustrating

1:03:32

moments? Certainly wasn't a swift

1:03:34

turnaround. I mean, 2019, yeah, every time I recovered

1:03:37

from one sucker punch to the face, I just took

1:03:40

another right after

1:03:41

both, you know, at the board and both

1:03:43

at the board in terms of my results, in

1:03:46

terms of trust politics and invitations

1:03:48

in terms of things going on in my personal life,

1:03:50

with the health of my parents or my hand or

1:03:53

anything like that, there were all sorts of things

1:03:55

that went down and, you

1:03:57

know, people, they to

1:04:00

be supportive while also being firm. And

1:04:02

I'm very glad. I mean, Yacob is obviously the biggest

1:04:04

example because of my full time trainer, but there's plenty of other

1:04:07

people in my life who fit this description

1:04:09

really well, and I'm extremely grateful for.

1:04:12

Wow, inspiring stuff. I appreciate

1:04:14

it. And to

1:04:16

bring it to a high after that sort

1:04:18

of sobering, although somewhat reassuring note,

1:04:21

you also told Dina Pelincaya in

1:04:23

an interview for the FIDE, brilliant grandpique,

1:04:26

I've never been able to find anything else that gives me

1:04:28

the same kind of joy as winning a really competitive

1:04:30

game against a really strong player. So is

1:04:33

something like that? Is that what you tell yourself in those

1:04:35

moments?

1:04:36

Yeah, I mean, I remember early 2020,

1:04:38

I mean, after having taken so

1:04:41

many hits, and I dropped my radius and

1:04:43

like catastrophically low, like 2675 or something,

1:04:46

and I started the prog masters

1:04:48

that killed me in game one. And then

1:04:51

I made a bunch of draws, I was winning

1:04:53

against dude, I did when I was winning as ragger,

1:04:55

I didn't when I was winning as Debbie Antonin

1:04:58

didn't win, I was just like, it

1:05:00

just felt like, you know, something was going wrong.

1:05:02

I was really flying off to you when I finally

1:05:04

beat Brenda Elias around seven. I was

1:05:06

like, okay, I beat a guy who was a bit lower rate

1:05:08

than me and I made it to an even score, but just this rush,

1:05:11

I just felt this relief. And

1:05:13

then I held for originally easily with black and round

1:05:15

eight and beefy to govern round nine and then just sort

1:05:17

of everything since then I started going forward. But yeah,

1:05:19

I mean, this this rule, this Russian

1:05:22

relief, I don't really know anything that

1:05:24

can can mirror that so well.

1:05:27

That's yeah, it's

1:05:29

well said. And, and in your interview with

1:05:32

Levy, he mentioned that you messaged him

1:05:34

he after a period of frustration for

1:05:36

his odb play. I know

1:05:39

you had played him previously in classical

1:05:41

chess, but so I don't know if you

1:05:43

could share any of the advice you gave if it

1:05:45

was a personal nature or more of a sort

1:05:47

of drawing on what you'd been told.

1:05:49

Yeah, it was some first of home. And the

1:05:52

first thing I said to him was I don't think we've ever formally

1:05:54

met. So yeah, it's nice to meet you. I've like never

1:05:57

spoken with them before we played that one guarantee and million

1:05:59

or trust along time before. That was before I

1:06:01

was Sam Shankman, before he was Lovey Rossman.

1:06:04

And so despite both of us

1:06:06

being very big names in the chess world, with of course

1:06:08

very different roles, and

1:06:10

very different,

1:06:11

you

1:06:12

know, we fulfill different roles in this world

1:06:14

that we're both co-exist in. I

1:06:16

just saw a fellow chess player, you know, struggling

1:06:18

and unhappy, and

1:06:20

I wrote to him and basically said,

1:06:23

you know, that

1:06:24

I know what that kind of frustration feels

1:06:27

like, and that

1:06:29

it's incredibly devastating, but that

1:06:31

I quit chess

1:06:33

once a while back when I was 18, and I

1:06:36

stayed away from it. And my plan

1:06:38

was to quit forever at the time. I ended up only quitting for

1:06:40

nine months and I came back. But

1:06:42

I told him,

1:06:43

I don't know what's down the road not taken,

1:06:45

but I

1:06:46

think I would have, my life would have been

1:06:48

much worse off if I had just kept my word and

1:06:50

never come back. And

1:06:52

that

1:06:54

even if now is not the time

1:06:56

for him to

1:06:58

go through and try to fight for GM or whatever

1:07:00

he's aiming for, if he's unable

1:07:02

to

1:07:03

put the effort into fulfill his goals now

1:07:05

because he's too busy with streaming or other stuff, that's

1:07:08

fine. It just, you don't want to rule

1:07:10

it out in the future. And I also said

1:07:12

that,

1:07:13

I'm sure that, you know, if I think he

1:07:16

had said something about how he was worried, he was disappointing

1:07:19

his fans or something, I'm like, you know, I don't think that

1:07:22

if you were to take some break and then come back and

1:07:24

play chess and then

1:07:25

stream a bit less, but then ultimately

1:07:28

make it closer to your goals, I don't think that

1:07:30

your fans would think less of you for it if you went back on

1:07:32

your word and think that they'd be very happy to see you succeed.

1:07:35

So, you know, just stuff like that. I mean, nothing

1:07:37

bothered personal. I mean, I didn't know him really

1:07:39

like, you know, this was one of the

1:07:41

first time I met him, but I just

1:07:44

thought, you know, so I saw a fellow American

1:07:46

chess player suffering. I know the struggles that American

1:07:48

chess players face and I thought I should drop him a line

1:07:50

and yeah, that's how the podcast began.

1:07:53

Yeah, it sounded like it meant a lot to

1:07:55

him. And yeah, I mean, I understand

1:07:58

his quitting, but would love to see him.

1:07:59

Making content around his competitive

1:08:02

chess again. I mean the ups and downs

1:08:04

that you allude to like I

1:08:06

mean That's the most compelling thing to

1:08:08

me like as much as levies videos can

1:08:10

be entertaining the the highs

1:08:12

and the lows the the suffering And the joy

1:08:15

is what keeps us all coming back.

1:08:17

Yeah, I mean, it's tough Like I remember when

1:08:19

I quit chess The back

1:08:21

when I was 18 for nine months I

1:08:23

mean

1:08:24

what helped was I had three tournaments left that I still

1:08:26

had already agreed to play one of which was the US

1:08:28

Junior I'm sure you know the story of this one, right?

1:08:30

Yeah All right I lost

1:08:32

the first two games to the bottom two seeds in the round

1:08:35

Robin and it was Held alongside

1:08:37

the US Women's Championship at the time

1:08:39

and

1:08:39

Toto said something like

1:08:42

oh, you know cheer up You can still

1:08:44

win this from you're insane Like

1:08:47

come on. I just lost the first

1:08:49

two games around Robin look too low is

1:08:51

he doing I'm gonna win this tournament I know I

1:08:53

might win this terminal wear your dress and pose

1:08:55

for pictures and eight wins later Boy, was

1:08:58

I regretting those words? But um

1:09:01

No, I mean like winning that tournament helped a lot

1:09:03

and then

1:09:04

you know When you're just in a rut and you're frustrated

1:09:06

just having some space and time to step

1:09:08

away

1:09:09

Once you start winning again, it feels really good.

1:09:11

Yeah, you know, so it goes

1:09:14

Excellent advice and one

1:09:16

last or one or two last topics Sam

1:09:19

on on the topic of levy like obviously

1:09:22

every time I hear his name. I think of this explosion in

1:09:25

chess's popularity It's been discussed a lot

1:09:27

on the pot But I'm curious as one of the top players

1:09:29

in the country like does that affect your

1:09:31

lifestyle at all or you just see

1:09:33

the same Articles and headlines we do and that's it

1:09:36

not especially I mean, I'm very divorced

1:09:38

from the streaming world I don't have it to which account

1:09:40

I don't follow any streamers at all and

1:09:42

a lot of ways I find that

1:09:45

Internet chess and streaming chess can be very

1:09:47

toxic and I think some of the creators

1:09:49

are

1:09:50

not the most nice people sometimes

1:09:53

but

1:09:53

Ultimately, I just sort of see it

1:09:56

as a different world than the one I operate

1:09:58

in and one that's sort of on the parade periphery,

1:10:00

but that

1:10:01

has a positive impact on my world

1:10:03

as well. So

1:10:04

I know maybe I definitely can sort

1:10:06

of get the gripes that like, let's say you have

1:10:09

some grandmasters in twenty five, fifty

1:10:11

or twenty six hundred is trying as hard

1:10:13

as they can to make it in the world. And they basically see

1:10:16

these streamer types who they think are like taking

1:10:18

shortcuts to, you know, oh, they don't

1:10:20

even have to try to get good. They're just going to like stream

1:10:23

and share their thoughts and whatever.

1:10:25

And they just randomly became popular because

1:10:27

they're lucky. And while I sort

1:10:29

of understand that gripe

1:10:32

that some of these players have, I don't really agree

1:10:34

with it. And I think that

1:10:36

the bringing this more people

1:10:39

into the game is

1:10:41

important. Now, I'm

1:10:43

fully aware this is something that I suck

1:10:45

at. I've tried like doing commentary.

1:10:47

I just I'm really bad. Like it's just not

1:10:50

me. I'm not good at the whole.

1:10:52

There's basically three elements of chess, chess playing,

1:10:54

chess instruction, chess, entertainment.

1:10:57

And most people can do two of the three.

1:10:59

And I don't know anybody who can do all three. I

1:11:01

do chess playing and chess instruction. I don't do chess

1:11:03

entertainment.

1:11:04

But I think it's important that chess entertainment exists.

1:11:07

And I'm glad that there are people with that who are much better

1:11:09

at that than I am who are taking up that

1:11:11

role.

1:11:12

And so and another thing

1:11:14

is I don't really

1:11:16

believe in envy so much as

1:11:19

well.

1:11:20

I wouldn't say that I don't believe in envy when it comes to money.

1:11:22

So, for example, you know, I

1:11:25

make a ton of money now because I train,

1:11:27

I make a lot of playing. I do

1:11:30

all the trustful courses, which is good. I've got my books. I

1:11:32

charge a lot for private lessons. And

1:11:34

I'm very satisfied with my financial situation.

1:11:37

It does not bother me if Levy or

1:11:39

Alexander Botes makes more money than me.

1:11:41

I totally don't care.

1:11:43

Like I'm happy with my own situation and it doesn't

1:11:45

bother me at all.

1:11:46

If someone makes more and I get

1:11:49

how people can get better at it. Like, oh, how

1:11:51

is it fair that, you know, Levy makes so

1:11:53

much more money than super grandmasters when he's so

1:11:55

much worse, I just don't care. That

1:11:57

doesn't bother me at all.

1:11:59

One of the big criticisms I've seen is

1:12:02

that like the streamers are getting it easy and just a

1:12:04

I don't buy it like the top few streamers

1:12:07

are probably making a ton and most people stream aren't

1:12:09

making a lot. But

1:12:10

it doesn't bother me that they make

1:12:12

money it doesn't bother me that they have their other

1:12:14

world it's not doesn't have much to do with mine

1:12:17

i just see our world is sort of.

1:12:19

Sort of side by side and

1:12:21

i don't interact much with their worlds

1:12:24

but that doesn't mean i don't understand it's

1:12:26

utility and.

1:12:28

Don't appreciate it

1:12:29

yeah well too quick follow

1:12:31

ups on that number one I mean obviously

1:12:34

as you say you're doing quite you well on

1:12:36

your own so that might sort of inform your perspective

1:12:38

more than someone who's like trying to travel

1:12:40

the tournament circuit and maybe trying to scrape

1:12:43

out a living. Although, of course, they're responsible

1:12:45

for for their choices as well

1:12:47

and number two i'm just curious because i've heard levy

1:12:49

allude to this but i don't know how much he hears it like how

1:12:52

often do you hear that sort of comment

1:12:54

from other strong grandmasters.

1:12:57

From the top grandmasters almost never from

1:12:59

like mid level to lower level

1:13:02

grandmasters it's more common it's understandable

1:13:04

like.

1:13:05

You know it's easy for me to want to make

1:13:07

a very good living so i don't care if someone makes

1:13:09

more than i remember what it was like to be twenty six

1:13:11

hundred.

1:13:12

I know exactly what

1:13:14

that was like i was there for years and years i

1:13:17

mean i didn't have any. Sponsorship

1:13:19

or support really of any kind until i got the

1:13:21

sanford fellowship when i was in my early twenties

1:13:23

i had to make it all the way. Through there

1:13:25

especially my early i mean when i was a kid my

1:13:27

parents would take me to tournaments but it wasn't the same

1:13:29

as like being able to vote yourself full time

1:13:31

and. You

1:13:32

know how to full time sponsor a full time trainer

1:13:34

and stuff like that and i am fully

1:13:36

aware i remember what it was like it was

1:13:38

not glorious and so.

1:13:42

But i would just say

1:13:44

you know just put put in the work i mean

1:13:46

there's one time i think the one time i met

1:13:49

julie before she retired.

1:13:52

One thing she had mentioned was it was

1:13:54

definitely a different era than back in even

1:13:56

just back as 2014 it's not that long

1:13:58

ago, but this is what i met.

1:13:59

her prior to her retiring.

1:14:02

One thing she had mentioned was she

1:14:04

had heard people complaining like, oh,

1:14:06

I'm a professional chess player, but I'm so poor,

1:14:08

I train so hard, I work, I train four hours a

1:14:10

day on chess, and so much like,

1:14:12

show me the rich person who works four hours a day

1:14:14

at their job. She had this

1:14:17

total lack of sympathy and

1:14:19

total lack of tolerance for laziness.

1:14:21

And that sort of opened my eyes,

1:14:24

or I mean, I'm not gonna open my eyes, but like it definitely

1:14:26

inspired me

1:14:28

to work hard. Not that I needed any particular

1:14:30

inspiration to work hard, that is not been my problem

1:14:32

in chess in my life. But, you

1:14:35

know,

1:14:36

I definitely got the sense that if

1:14:39

you're not satisfied with where you are as

1:14:41

a pro chess player, you're not satisfied with your

1:14:43

life, just work hard and get stronger. And

1:14:45

I definitely took that to heart.

1:14:47

Okay, great advice.

1:14:50

We'll be right back to wrap things up with Grandmaster

1:14:52

Sam Shanklin.

1:14:54

And we are back. There is

1:14:56

an extra lane, I mean, as you say, only a

1:14:59

few make it in terms of Twitch streaming in addition

1:15:01

to sort of reaching your level in chess, but at least there

1:15:03

is another avenue. Yeah, and also I think

1:15:06

people really underestimate, I

1:15:08

think people underestimate

1:15:09

coaching and training. They overestimate how

1:15:11

much damage this will cause to your actual

1:15:13

playing. If

1:15:14

they underestimate how easy it is or

1:15:18

how much damage it will cause,

1:15:20

they underestimate how easy

1:15:22

it is or how much work you can get and

1:15:24

how much money you can make. Like if

1:15:26

you spend, you know, say 10 to 15

1:15:28

hours a week training

1:15:32

other people, and in that time,

1:15:34

like half of that time is sort of useful for

1:15:36

you. Like if, like one thing I'll do is for example,

1:15:38

when I was writing theoretical rookie end games, I'd be like,

1:15:41

here's a rookie end game I just checked, let's look at

1:15:43

it. And now I'll remember it better. You

1:15:45

know what they say, you need to remember, go over something

1:15:47

seven times to memorize it fully. I don't know if that's

1:15:50

real or not, but that's what I've heard. Like if I

1:15:52

just show my students the rookie games I've been studying,

1:15:55

that's not an inefficient use of time. And I'm getting

1:15:57

something out of that too.

1:15:58

And then you're getting paid for it.

1:15:59

And it's like if you work 10, 15 hours

1:16:02

a week, I mean, the

1:16:04

opportunity is there. And I remember, I know what

1:16:06

it was like when I was, you know, 17 and, you know, working

1:16:09

for 40 bucks an hour, trying to save as much money

1:16:11

as I could so that I could go to Europe and play one game per

1:16:13

day. I get what it's like. I get the struggle. I

1:16:16

grew up with it.

1:16:18

But I do think that people

1:16:20

underestimate

1:16:21

how easy it is to get it, or overestimate how

1:16:24

hard it is to get out of it. And the

1:16:26

teaching and content can

1:16:28

definitely be helpful as long as you

1:16:30

don't make it like your big full-time thing, and also

1:16:32

as long as you're making sure that whatever coaching

1:16:35

or content you do also provides you

1:16:37

with some utility as well. I've made sure to

1:16:39

do that in all of my chessable and quality chessable

1:16:42

courses and quality chessbooks in all of my students. I

1:16:44

don't take on students or take on projects

1:16:46

that I don't think will be helpful for me as well.

1:16:49

Okay. And yeah, on the topic of chess,

1:16:51

but we didn't give an explicit

1:16:53

shout-out to Lifetime Repertory's Neo-Cadolin

1:16:56

Part 2. I did check out a pre-released

1:16:59

version a bit, and it looks great.

1:17:02

Anything you feel listeners should know about

1:17:04

it?

1:17:05

Well, it's your best. It's a strategic

1:17:08

repertoire that you're trying to learn. It's Part 2, obviously.

1:17:10

In Part 1, I covered C4 and everything except

1:17:12

for C5 and E5. Here with Part 2, I'm

1:17:14

covering the symmetrical language with C4,

1:17:17

C5, which was challenging. But

1:17:18

I did my best to put Black's position

1:17:21

under pressure. And I think a big part

1:17:23

of modern opening preparation is looking for spots

1:17:25

where there's fresh

1:17:27

positions that haven't been seen before. The computer

1:17:29

calls it equal, and then you have to use your human head.

1:17:31

Does this actually feel equal? And I found

1:17:34

multiple spots in this repertoire. I found, like, strategic

1:17:36

queen sacrifices where, you know, Black

1:17:39

ends up with 0, 0, 0, but it's not

1:17:41

a draw, and you have to play. You have to get

1:17:43

there. And then I've often found that

1:17:46

positions that the computer calls equal, or one

1:17:48

side has a queen, and the other side has pieces. Usually,

1:17:51

the pieces feel more fun, is

1:17:53

what I've found. I mean, maybe that's my own personal inherent

1:17:55

bias. I mean, if the computer says it's equal, of

1:17:57

course, objectively, it should be.

1:17:59

But...

1:18:00

But that's the kind of thing I was doing. I didn't

1:18:03

make any bold claim, oh,

1:18:05

I can promise you an advantage in every

1:18:07

single line after one C4, C5. Anyone

1:18:10

who promises you an advantage in every single

1:18:12

line playing white is just lying

1:18:14

to you. Or maybe they're stupid enough to believe

1:18:16

it, but more likely they're just lying to you.

1:18:19

So I did my best to

1:18:22

define ways to put Black's position under pressure. And I'm

1:18:24

really glad that part two is coming out. I'm

1:18:26

looking forward to part three soon. And I've built quite a

1:18:28

following on Tressible. I certainly

1:18:30

hope that this,

1:18:31

especially for the people who have followed a bunch of other

1:18:34

courses, but really for everybody who follows this one, I

1:18:36

hope that it helps them on some games.

1:18:38

Excellent. All right, and last question,

1:18:40

Sam. Last time we chatted, you mentioned a few of your

1:18:42

favorite TV shows. You mentioned

1:18:44

the sort of subversive

1:18:46

comedies

1:18:48

like Family Guy

1:18:49

and

1:18:52

what's that? South Park is better than San Francisco. Yeah,

1:18:54

and South Park. And I was just

1:18:56

curious, like what you're up to pop culture wise

1:18:58

these days. So you're watching a lot of shows?

1:19:00

Not much less than I used to. I

1:19:03

mean, South Park is still my favorite, but I guess

1:19:05

they just finished their recent season with just six

1:19:07

episodes. I actually thought this season was really

1:19:09

good. It was one of the better ones compared to the last few

1:19:11

years. I don't know. I

1:19:14

liked King of the Hill when it was out, but a lot

1:19:16

of, I watched the reboot of Dexter,

1:19:18

which disappointed me a little bit. But

1:19:21

yeah, I don't

1:19:22

do a ton of that stuff these days.

1:19:25

It's just not really my thing anymore.

1:19:27

How's the cooking grind?

1:19:30

Doing more fun

1:19:32

stuff, more basic. I

1:19:35

just don't have as much time and tolerance

1:19:37

to spend a long time cooking as I used

1:19:39

to.

1:19:40

I order too much DoorDash, but I also

1:19:43

cook good stuff. I can make Wagyu burgers

1:19:45

really well. I make sushi. I make green

1:19:48

curry, Thai curry, Indian curry. I

1:19:51

can make string rolls. I do lots of good

1:19:53

stuff.

1:19:54

Sounds good to me. All right, well, Sam, really

1:19:56

appreciate your taking the time. Slash viewers,

1:19:58

be sure to...

1:19:59

check out Sam's Chasuble Course. Sam, anything

1:20:02

to add before we say goodbye? I know, this was

1:20:04

the pleasure. Thanks for having me. All right, thanks, Sam.

1:20:06

It's always an honor. I'm a big fan of yours, and I'll be

1:20:08

rooting for you in the World Cup and everything

1:20:10

else that you should get invited

1:20:12

to.

1:20:13

Thank you. Thanks, guys.