Speaker 1: I guess, well, well, what's that mango. So I was
Speaker 1: reading the story about the chess player Bobby Fisher this week.
Speaker 1: This is when he was young, and I guess he'd
Speaker 1: won a US championship at the time, so he was famous,
Speaker 1: but he was also just a kid, and he didn't
Speaker 1: have that much money, and you know, he's kind of
Speaker 1: a recluse, right. Actually I had read that he used
Speaker 1: to play secretly online like later in his life, and
Speaker 1: there was always so much buzz when somebody thought they
Speaker 1: noticed his style of play and and and thought they
Speaker 1: were onto and that they discovered that it was him. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I feel like you'd see that pop up from like
Speaker 1: Japan or Malaysia or wherever. There are these people who
Speaker 1: were just like so excited to have played Bobby Fisher,
Speaker 1: think they've played Bobby Fisher. But so anyway, he's young
Speaker 1: at this time. He wants to go see a movie
Speaker 1: and he doesn't have money for it, so he walks
Speaker 1: into the Chess and Checker Club of New York just
Speaker 1: to pick up a few extra bucks. I guess, to
Speaker 1: hustle it, right, And I guess at the time it
Speaker 1: was this uh, this large smoke filled crowded pool hall
Speaker 1: type place but for chess, and Bobby's totally in disguise.
Speaker 1: He's got a k he's got his collar off, sunglasses
Speaker 1: and a hat. He looks ridiculous, but he does not
Speaker 1: want to be noticed. So he asked a friend, like,
Speaker 1: do you think you can just get me into a game?
Speaker 1: And a friend asked the owner across the bar. And
Speaker 1: remember it's smoke filled and like, Bobby's in disguise, So
Speaker 1: the owner goes tell him, no, he's just a kid.
Speaker 1: The hustlers will eat him alive, and so like, Bobby
Speaker 1: Fisher is furious and he just stomps out, and this
Speaker 1: is all reported. This is a real story. But when
Speaker 1: his friend tells the owner who it was, that it
Speaker 1: was Bobby Fisher who wanted a game, like, apparently the
Speaker 1: whole crowd at the place has this audible grown and
Speaker 1: this one guy goes, oh, man, I would have paid
Speaker 1: hundreds of dollars just to sit across from Bobby Fisher
Speaker 1: on a chessboard. Anyway, So I don't know much about chess,
Speaker 1: but I do love stories about it. And we're gonna
Speaker 1: get into the most dangerous styles of chess. How the
Speaker 1: game moved from the battlefield to the royal court, and
Speaker 1: even why getting a billion people to play chess might
Speaker 1: be our best hope to keep away aliens. Let's dig
Speaker 1: in the their podcast. Listeners, Welcome to Part Time Genius.
Speaker 1: I'm Will Pearson and as always I'm joined by my
Speaker 1: good friend Manues Ticketer and on the other side of
Speaker 1: the soundproof class writing down a list of chess openings
Speaker 1: he's trying to master. Actually, can you read what he's
Speaker 1: got on the white board over there, Mango, Yeah, he's
Speaker 1: got the hillbilly attack, the monkeys burn, Hippopotamus defense. There's
Speaker 1: something called the toilet variation. He's written. Definitely, Yeah, it
Speaker 1: definitely says toilet variation. Well, those are all real chess
Speaker 1: opening moves. But that's our friend and producer Tristan McNeil,
Speaker 1: who also happens to be a future chess master, not
Speaker 1: a current chess master, but I'm confident of future chess man. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he can do anything he puts his mind too. But
Speaker 1: you know, chess is one of those things I used
Speaker 1: to love as a kid, Like I played it on
Speaker 1: my computer, we used to play it with relatives, but
Speaker 1: I never got good at it, Like I'm probably as
Speaker 1: good as I was in second grade, but I do
Speaker 1: love like movies and books that involved it. I I
Speaker 1: read this great book last year. It's really slim. It's
Speaker 1: called The Chess Game and it's by the same author
Speaker 1: that wrote The Hotel in Budapest. And you know, I
Speaker 1: don't understand any of the chess strategy, but I was
Speaker 1: totally enamored with how the main character plays these games
Speaker 1: of chess in his head. Yeah, I mean, like that's
Speaker 1: a real skill. I had heard about these two Silicon
Speaker 1: Vallet guys who met for the first time. I want
Speaker 1: to say it was Peter thiel And and somebody equally famous.
Speaker 1: And the way the first time they met, they sat
Speaker 1: down at a restaurant and one of them said, I
Speaker 1: heard you like chess, and then called out an opening
Speaker 1: play and they actually played a full game on an
Speaker 1: imaginary board in their heads. Like just these two chess
Speaker 1: savants would be the weirdest conversation to like, wait a
Speaker 1: table on like just hearing people call out letters and numbers.
Speaker 1: But you know what's crazy to me is, you know,
Speaker 1: one of our friends, Dad's was a chess chance in Ecuador,
Speaker 1: and there's these photos of him playing like twelve matches
Speaker 1: at a time, just moving from board to board to
Speaker 1: board and making moves super quick. And and then there's
Speaker 1: like blindfold chest, which is kind of like what you're
Speaker 1: talking about. But you know what's weird is that a
Speaker 1: lot of people used to think that playing chess while
Speaker 1: blindfolded can actually lead to brain damage, brain dampisode. So
Speaker 1: why do they think that. Apparently it's just so exhausting
Speaker 1: to keep track of all those pieces while also planning
Speaker 1: out your next moves. And in fact, the Soviet Union
Speaker 1: completely banned blindfold chess in because of that perceived danger.
Speaker 1: And and actually one Russian player died during his attempt
Speaker 1: to break the world record for a number of opponents
Speaker 1: played wild blindfolded. What you're saying, people combine those things
Speaker 1: like they blindfold themselves then play multiple games simultaneously. Do
Speaker 1: people still do this? Yeah? And actually a new world
Speaker 1: record was set less than two years ago. So this
Speaker 1: chess grandmaster, his name's Timore Garyev, and he played forty
Speaker 1: eight games of blindfold chess simultaneously over the course of
Speaker 1: the three hours. Yeah, he actually won eight percent of
Speaker 1: those games. And it's that ridiculous. Along the way, he
Speaker 1: was actually riding an exercise bike the whole time, and
Speaker 1: in the end he peddled apparently about fifty miles. Good lord,
Speaker 1: I mean, I love that they just added the exercise
Speaker 1: bike because they're playing forty eight simultaneous blindfold games. Wasn't enough.
Speaker 1: I'm thinking though, maybe after Tristan masters the Hippopotamus defense,
Speaker 1: that he's going to get on this blindfold chess train.
Speaker 1: We'll see. Probably. Well, anyway, for today's show, we're going
Speaker 1: to cover chess, so we'll we'll take a deep dive
Speaker 1: into the history of the game, how the rules developed,
Speaker 1: and why the iconic pieces look the way they do.
Speaker 1: I think I've always been curious about this. And then
Speaker 1: a little later we'll try to figure out why Russians
Speaker 1: are so good at chess, as well as why computers
Speaker 1: might be the best players of all. And now, of
Speaker 1: course we'll take a look at how playing chess can
Speaker 1: affect your brain and just what kind of smart it
Speaker 1: actually makes you. Anyway, that's right, so let's jump right
Speaker 1: in and talk about the history of chess, because it
Speaker 1: actually goes quite a ways back. So most historians believe
Speaker 1: in early version of the game was invented in India
Speaker 1: about fifteen hundred years ago, and the first known mention
Speaker 1: of anything involving chess appears in a text from five
Speaker 1: and then about a century later, the game made its
Speaker 1: way to Persia, where a few different variations involved. So
Speaker 1: the exact rules of the game and the appearances of
Speaker 1: the pieces hadn't been formalized at that time, but the
Speaker 1: pieces did have these established identities that aren't that dissimilar
Speaker 1: from what we're used today. So one of the main
Speaker 1: differences was that the game didn't lay out a royal
Speaker 1: court like it does. It was more of a battlefield
Speaker 1: back then, with the king being the only piece shared
Speaker 1: between the ancient version and the modern version. I'm curious, like,
Speaker 1: do do you know what the other pieces were in
Speaker 1: the old battlefield version? Yeah, so instead of ponds you
Speaker 1: had these infantry pieces. Nights were cavalry, and and bishops
Speaker 1: were elephants. I think our rooks were actually chariots as well.
Speaker 1: And what about the what about the queen? Was the
Speaker 1: queen part of the game at that point. That's a
Speaker 1: different story. I mean, well, we'll get to that in
Speaker 1: a minute, but the short answer is that the piece
Speaker 1: would later become the Queen. It was actually called the
Speaker 1: vizier or or the advisor. So if you think about Jafar,
Speaker 1: the villain from Aladdin, like, that's basically what the piece was,
Speaker 1: and he was the top counselor to the ruler. But
Speaker 1: you've got to remember the rules of the game hadn't solidified,
Speaker 1: so most of the pieces didn't move exactly like they
Speaker 1: do now. So the Advisor, for instance, could only move
Speaker 1: one square diagonally, which made it this much weaker piece
Speaker 1: than today's Queen, which can obviously, you know, move any
Speaker 1: number of squares in any direction she wants. Yeah, that's interesting.
Speaker 1: So how did the weakest piece in the game pretty
Speaker 1: much become the strongest because the queen has you know,
Speaker 1: better moves than the king, right, I mean, I know
Speaker 1: the King can move in any direction just like the
Speaker 1: Queen can, but he only moves one square at a time,
Speaker 1: which is just I don't know that must that would
Speaker 1: piss me off if I Yeah, but he's probably got
Speaker 1: gout over sense, you know. So the upset and power
Speaker 1: didn't actually happen until after the game had spread west
Speaker 1: to Europe in the early eleventh century. And once the
Speaker 1: game hit Europe, that's when it shifted from that army
Speaker 1: on the battlefield to members of the royal court. And
Speaker 1: for a while most of the pieces still moved more
Speaker 1: or less according to the original rules, but that changed
Speaker 1: sometime in the fourteen hundreds or so when this unknown inventor,
Speaker 1: I think it was either in Italy or Spain, introduced
Speaker 1: the rules we know today, and the most important revisions
Speaker 1: he made were to the Bishop and the Queen, which
Speaker 1: until then had been sort of the weakest pieces on
Speaker 1: the board except for the ponds and something. These pieces
Speaker 1: were less restricted in their movement and a whole lot stronger,
Speaker 1: and it was one of those changes that just made
Speaker 1: the game so much faster and more interesting to play.
Speaker 1: And that makes sense, and I could see how those
Speaker 1: would go over well in terms of the actual game play.
Speaker 1: But it's a little bit surprising because if you think
Speaker 1: about it, make the queen the most powerful piece on
Speaker 1: the board, it feels pretty progressive for you know, think
Speaker 1: about this was medieval times you're talking about. That's true,
Speaker 1: and there were tons of sexist players that did kind
Speaker 1: of excuse the change there and said that the strength
Speaker 1: was only in her defense of the king. That's when
Speaker 1: her power came up. But but the reality is that
Speaker 1: queens were getting more powerful on the chessboard at the
Speaker 1: same time they were getting more powerful in real life.
Speaker 1: So so you think back to the fourteenth and fifteen centuries,
Speaker 1: the ladies that were coming to power all over Europe,
Speaker 1: where people like Elizabeth First and Mary Tudor and Queen Isabella.
Speaker 1: That's pretty cool to see that that would, you know,
Speaker 1: be mirrored on the chessboard. But so I actually want
Speaker 1: to stick with the chess pieces for just a minute
Speaker 1: and talk about how they got these iconic designs that
Speaker 1: we're all used to seeing at this point. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, you think about the horsehead knights and the
Speaker 1: castle shaped brooks, because obviously, during those centuries of innovation
Speaker 1: and development that you were talking about, the game was
Speaker 1: really spreading through all different regions and cultures, and there
Speaker 1: was actually no standard chess set to play with. I mean,
Speaker 1: the basic setup was there. You had a board with
Speaker 1: sixty four squares and thirty two pieces, and you know,
Speaker 1: I guess they made pretty similar moves, but what those
Speaker 1: pieces actually looked like, or how they felt, or even
Speaker 1: what they were made of. I mean, all of that
Speaker 1: very dramatically depending on where you were playing the game,
Speaker 1: and so all of these countless varieties of styles worked
Speaker 1: well enough for a while. But you come upon the
Speaker 1: nineteenth century and the game has become so popular that
Speaker 1: chess clubs and competitions began cropping up all over the world.
Speaker 1: So you can imagine it actually got pretty confusing when
Speaker 1: players from different cultures would sit down for a match
Speaker 1: and then realized that none of the opponent's pieces looked
Speaker 1: familiar to them, would be so weird and very strange.
Speaker 1: But and it's still just so strange that the game
Speaker 1: evolved somewhat similarly in so many places, and that this
Speaker 1: was really the big difference. But you fast forward a
Speaker 1: bit to eighteen forty nine and there was a British
Speaker 1: architect named Nathan Cook who built this standardized set. Now
Speaker 1: it was called the Staunton Chess set, and its pieces
Speaker 1: are actually the ones that we still know today. So
Speaker 1: I'm curious, like, if Nathan Cook made the set, why
Speaker 1: is it called the Staunton set? Like who is donton? Yeah,
Speaker 1: well you'd think it might be called the Cook Chess set,
Speaker 1: but he actually decided to forego that fame and in
Speaker 1: favor of practicality. So there was a guy named Howard
Speaker 1: Stunton who was a major player in the London chess
Speaker 1: scene at the time, and he'd organized these tournaments and
Speaker 1: clubs and was really considered one of the best players
Speaker 1: in the world. And so Cook knew how respected Staunton
Speaker 1: was in this chess community, and so he approached him
Speaker 1: and asked if Staunton's name could be used to market
Speaker 1: his new designs, and of course Staunton was flattered and
Speaker 1: agreed as soon as he saw the pieces, and so
Speaker 1: the set was a huge hit with the public, and
Speaker 1: really since the nineteen twenties it's actually been the required
Speaker 1: set for all worldwide chess organizations. Huh, I didn't realize that.
Speaker 1: So what was the revolutionary about the Stunt set? Like
Speaker 1: I I get that it became the standard, but why
Speaker 1: is that? Exactly? Well, this had a few things going
Speaker 1: for it, so for starters, it it wasn't wholly unfamiliar
Speaker 1: because Cook had studied a bunch of different popular chest
Speaker 1: sets that were in use at the time and use
Speaker 1: those common traits really as starting points for his own set,
Speaker 1: and then from there he would look to inspiration and
Speaker 1: the architecture of Victorian London, which was the city around
Speaker 1: him at the time, and also for some reason, from
Speaker 1: the ruins of ancient Greece and Rome. And so take
Speaker 1: the Night for example, The Night and the Staunton set
Speaker 1: is a great example of that influence. Like it's the
Speaker 1: only piece in the set that isn't an abstract representation
Speaker 1: of something, and instead it looks like a pretty realistic
Speaker 1: horse head. And that's because it's pretty clearly inspired by
Speaker 1: a sculpture on the east pediment of the Parthenon. So
Speaker 1: that carving depicts horses pulling the chariot of the moon,
Speaker 1: goddess of Greek mythology, and so that's supposedly what the
Speaker 1: Staunton Night is based on, like this horse that drew
Speaker 1: the moon across the sky each night, which is such
Speaker 1: a weird mishmash of things, right, like Victorian London, you've
Speaker 1: got like Greece and Rome because the culture is like,
Speaker 1: so what else was Cook doing? All right? Well? I
Speaker 1: actually found this breakdown in the Smithsonian of the Staunton set,
Speaker 1: and here are a few of the key features. According
Speaker 1: to the article, it says, um, while some variation is tolerated,
Speaker 1: there are several key distinguishing characteristics that define a set.
Speaker 1: As a Staunton, the King is topped with a cross,
Speaker 1: and as the tallest piece, it serves as a metric
Speaker 1: for the height of the other ones. The Queen is
Speaker 1: topped by a crown and a ball, the Bishop has
Speaker 1: a split top, and the rook is a squat castle turret.
Speaker 1: And so with all of this, Cook really established this
Speaker 1: clear and simple language with the forms that he was choosing,
Speaker 1: which not only made them easy to recognize, but pretty
Speaker 1: cheap to produce as well. And so I'm betting that
Speaker 1: all of that together is probably why the Staunton said
Speaker 1: is still, you know, really the global standard today. All right, well,
Speaker 1: I know we want to jump ahead in the timeline
Speaker 1: and talk a little bit about the rise of chess
Speaker 1: in Russia, but before we do that, I do want
Speaker 1: to run quickly through a little of its history in
Speaker 1: the US. And as you might imagine, the game made
Speaker 1: its way stateside thanks to European columnists, but despite the
Speaker 1: fact that Ben Franklin was a huge chess fan, the
Speaker 1: game really didn't catch on until the mid nineteenth century.
Speaker 1: And what turned the tide was that this American chess player,
Speaker 1: his name was Paul Morphy. He managed to beat all
Speaker 1: of Europe's chess champions in this international tournament. It was
Speaker 1: the first time this had ever happened. So people's patriotism
Speaker 1: just kind of kicked in at that point and it
Speaker 1: did its thing, and from then on chess became super
Speaker 1: popular in the US. Of course, not everyone was happy
Speaker 1: to see the game takeoff. And why is that? I mean,
Speaker 1: I read this hilarious old article from this eighteen fifty
Speaker 1: nine edition of Scientific American and the author basically treats
Speaker 1: chess like the sinister, corrupting influence, almost like it's the
Speaker 1: fortnight of its time. And so this is how the
Speaker 1: author describes this very real danger of chess. A pernicious
Speaker 1: excitement to learn and play chess has spread all over
Speaker 1: the country, and numerous clubs for practicing this game have
Speaker 1: been formed in cities and villages. Why should we regret this,
Speaker 1: it may be asked. We answer, chess is a mirror
Speaker 1: amusement of a very inferior character, which robs the mind
Speaker 1: a valuable time and might be devoted to nobler requirements,
Speaker 1: while it affords no benefits whatever to the body. A
Speaker 1: game of chess does not add a single new factor
Speaker 1: the mind. It does not excite a single beautiful thought,
Speaker 1: nor does it serve a single purpose for polishing and
Speaker 1: improving the nobler faculties. You know, those were really the
Speaker 1: good old days when the greatest threat facing the youth
Speaker 1: of America with the pressure to join a chess club.
Speaker 1: When you talk about it all, Well, now that we've
Speaker 1: heard from the critics, let's talk a little bit about
Speaker 1: some of the game's biggest proponents, which of course are
Speaker 1: the Russians. So but before we get to them, let's
Speaker 1: take a quick break. You're listening to part time genius
Speaker 1: and we're talking about the enduring appeal of one of
Speaker 1: the world's oldest games, chess. So well, one thing I
Speaker 1: noticed this week is that it's suspiciously large number of
Speaker 1: top ranking chess players all hail from Russia or some
Speaker 1: other Soviet republic, and that includes chess grandmasters like Anthelie
Speaker 1: Karpov Gary Kasparov, And it really made me wonder, like,
Speaker 1: why do the Russians have such a dominance for chess. Well,
Speaker 1: that's interesting, and so of course was digging into this
Speaker 1: in our research for this week. But chess first spread
Speaker 1: the Russia along the Persian and Indian trade routes. And
Speaker 1: that was way back in the seventh century or so,
Speaker 1: and it was popular from the start, but it didn't
Speaker 1: really become a national pastime until much later, when we're
Speaker 1: talking like the nineteenth century or so. Now, this was
Speaker 1: during the Russian Revolution when Lenin and the Bolsheviks took
Speaker 1: power and Lennon was a big player and he really
Speaker 1: loved the game, and Stalin would be after him. But
Speaker 1: the real mastermind behind the country's chess movement was Lennon's
Speaker 1: commander of the Soviet Army, this guy named Nicola Kurlenko. Now,
Speaker 1: he opened these dedicated chess schools, he organized competitions and
Speaker 1: really paved the way for these first state sponsored chess tournaments.
Speaker 1: And this was back in So you fast forward a
Speaker 1: decade and you've got roughly half a million amateur players
Speaker 1: that have signed up for these state chess programs. It's
Speaker 1: pretty remarkable how quickly it grew. Yeah, so it sounds
Speaker 1: like there's this big push from the state and that's
Speaker 1: what sort of kick started Russia's love affair with chess.
Speaker 1: But why were all those Soviet leaders and think are
Speaker 1: so into chess in the first place. Like, was it
Speaker 1: just because it's a strategic game, and and they were
Speaker 1: kind of seen as great schemers. You know, I'm guessing
Speaker 1: the strategy involved was a big part of the appeal
Speaker 1: for them, so that that's probably true. But I also
Speaker 1: read this article in Slate that suggested there might have
Speaker 1: been a little bit more to it, so I just
Speaker 1: will read a little bit of this. The author of
Speaker 1: the piece was Chris Beam, and he was described being
Speaker 1: the appeal of chess. So he writes the Soviets saw
Speaker 1: chess as embodying their revolutionary ideals. It was a game
Speaker 1: of skill, and the USSR prided itself on intellectual talents.
Speaker 1: It was also cheap, which meant anyone could play it,
Speaker 1: and it's back and forth dynamic reflected that dialectical concept
Speaker 1: of history espouse by Marxism. You know. Never mind the
Speaker 1: irony of playing with imperialist symbols like kings and queens.
Speaker 1: That is funny, you know, I have thought about that.
Speaker 1: But I know chess is hugely popular in Russia, even
Speaker 1: if it no longer has state money behind it. And
Speaker 1: there's actually this one famous chess supporter in particularly who
Speaker 1: I want to talk about, not only because he's done
Speaker 1: a lot to keep the game relevant for Russian citizens,
Speaker 1: but also because he's just a super weird guy. His
Speaker 1: name is kirsn uh Illium's in off, which I know
Speaker 1: I mispronouncing. He was president of the World Chess Federation
Speaker 1: from all the way up until just last year, and
Speaker 1: that's when he was finally ousted in favor of a
Speaker 1: new pres in it, it's a pretty impressive run those
Speaker 1: of what makes him such a weird guy. So there
Speaker 1: are actually a bunch of things, but honestly they all
Speaker 1: kind of hinge on one in particular, which is that
Speaker 1: Kirsen claims that he was abducted by aliens, and I'm
Speaker 1: just gonna let him explain what happened. And this is
Speaker 1: what he said an interview about a decade after the abduction.
Speaker 1: It happened on September sev I was taken from my
Speaker 1: apartment in Moscow and taken to the spaceship and we
Speaker 1: went to some star and after that I asked, please
Speaker 1: bring me back because the next day I should be
Speaker 1: back and go to the Ukraine. They said, no problem, Kirson,
Speaker 1: you have time. Oh no, no problems. I guess he
Speaker 1: got napped by some considerate aliens. I mean, not every
Speaker 1: abductee is so lucky, is that? Yeah? Usually there's more provings.
Speaker 1: These weren't just any aliens. They were the sophisticates that
Speaker 1: invented chess. Apparently that's true. You know, I didn't realize
Speaker 1: that this was even a theory. So do people really
Speaker 1: think chess was created by aliens? Well, at least one
Speaker 1: guy does, because in that same interview, Kerson went on
Speaker 1: to say, I am not a crazy man. My theory
Speaker 1: is that chess comes from space. Why because the same
Speaker 1: rules sixty four squares black and white, and the same
Speaker 1: rules in Japan and China and Qatar and Mongolia and Africa.
Speaker 1: The rules are the same. Why I think maybe it
Speaker 1: is from space. I mean, I don't want to challenge
Speaker 1: somebody that was in power for that long, but I
Speaker 1: have to say his evidence feels a little bit thin
Speaker 1: to me. I mean, we just tracked the spread of
Speaker 1: chess across different continents, so I feel like jumping straight
Speaker 1: to the aliens theory it feels a little off to
Speaker 1: me for some reason. So Kirson did leave the door
Speaker 1: open for at least one other possibility, and in this
Speaker 1: interview with the observer. He admitted that there were actually
Speaker 1: two options, and this is how he put it. Each
Speaker 1: year archaeologists find evidence of chess in America, India, Japan,
Speaker 1: or China played under the same rules from a time
Speaker 1: without planes or the internet. Look, the chess board has
Speaker 1: sixty four squares and ourselves are made of sixty four pieces.
Speaker 1: All this shows that chess comes either from God or
Speaker 1: from UFO. So curs. Yeah, it's basically a toss off. Like,
Speaker 1: the only thing we know for certain is that chess
Speaker 1: wasn't invented by humans. Is such a strange story. I mean,
Speaker 1: why even tell people about this? I mean, the aliens
Speaker 1: just kind of took him on this joy ride through
Speaker 1: the Solar System and then dropped him off in time
Speaker 1: for a meeting him. It seems pretty uneventful for what
Speaker 1: it could have been. Yeah, but you've got to remember
Speaker 1: he remained president of the Chess Federation for another twenty
Speaker 1: years after the incident, So I guess the story really
Speaker 1: didn't bother people. And as for the trip being uneventful,
Speaker 1: there was at least one part that had some real
Speaker 1: and lasting consequences. Oh yeah, what what's that? At some
Speaker 1: point during the journey the alien suggested to Kirrison that
Speaker 1: it would be a really good idea for him to
Speaker 1: build this extravagant city dedicated to all things chess, and
Speaker 1: so he went home and did that. But he built
Speaker 1: an actual chess city. Yeah. So at the time Kirsen
Speaker 1: had this second job, he was president of the Republic
Speaker 1: of Calmakia, which I guess it is a subject of
Speaker 1: the Russian Federation, and using his cloud as leader, Kierson
Speaker 1: was able to build his chess city on the east
Speaker 1: side of this Buddhist town called Alista, and he went
Speaker 1: all out right, like, the city has a chess museum,
Speaker 1: this huge open air chess board, it's got a swimming pool,
Speaker 1: enough chess sets to host year round tournaments. It's actually
Speaker 1: hosted several championships in the year was built, I guess
Speaker 1: in But Kirson's real goal was to use Chess City
Speaker 1: to boost the popularity of the game so that the
Speaker 1: total number of chess players in the world would rise
Speaker 1: from six hundred million, which I guess is where it
Speaker 1: is approximately now, to a full billion. Wow, I mean,
Speaker 1: that seems like a big goal. So what was so
Speaker 1: important about hitting a billion players? Apparently that's the number
Speaker 1: of players needed to stop aliens from destroying the planet.
Speaker 1: I mean, it just gets weirder and weirder. So how
Speaker 1: did this guy stay in office for multiple decades? I know,
Speaker 1: I I guess he was just really serious about it,
Speaker 1: and like, I don't know. I found this interview that
Speaker 1: he did with The Independent. This is back in two
Speaker 1: thousand and ten, and he kind of just flat out
Speaker 1: says that playing chess is the key to preventing this
Speaker 1: alien attack. And he writes, above us, they're all looking
Speaker 1: at us, and maybe they will get tired of us.
Speaker 1: And suddenly he tails off, making dramatic gesture of destruction.
Speaker 1: How can we save ourselves from them only through intellect,
Speaker 1: concentration and spiritual energy. If a billion people are in
Speaker 1: these chess centers playing chess, the world will still have
Speaker 1: positive energy. All right, Well, I admit it. I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm invested in this now if the fate of the
Speaker 1: world is at stake on all this. But I have
Speaker 1: to know, did Kirrison get to a billion players? Like,
Speaker 1: did the Chess city work? It did not, so and
Speaker 1: the whole thing is mostly vacant today and it barely
Speaker 1: gets any use. And what's particularly sad about it is
Speaker 1: that Kirrison actually cut the town's food subsidies to help
Speaker 1: pay for this fifty million dollar complex. So now Chess
Speaker 1: City is is really just a monument to the local
Speaker 1: government's disregard for its citizens. Yeah, that's kind of a bummer,
Speaker 1: But you know, I don't want to dwell on all
Speaker 1: these neglectful politicians or even the alien invasions. As weird
Speaker 1: as that story was, and I feel like we should
Speaker 1: talk about a few chess stories that are a little
Speaker 1: more upbeat. What do you think I'm for it? First?
Speaker 1: A quick break? Okay, Well, so chess may not be
Speaker 1: your best hope for a stemming off this alien division,
Speaker 1: but the game still has a whole lot going for it,
Speaker 1: Like plenty of studies have shown that playing chess can
Speaker 1: improve your focus, it can help you hone your decision
Speaker 1: making skills, and of course it's a great way to
Speaker 1: strengthen your memory, especially if you play it blindfolded. But
Speaker 1: before we get to the mental benefits, let's talk about
Speaker 1: some of the more surprising things we found out about
Speaker 1: the game, and and maybe we've never noticed before. You know,
Speaker 1: one thing that stood out to me is how resilient
Speaker 1: the game is. Like it stands up to scrutiny more
Speaker 1: than just about any other game out there. You know,
Speaker 1: people over the years have tried to I guess like
Speaker 1: saw of chess for for decades and decades, but the
Speaker 1: game always seems to elude them. I mean, there's always
Speaker 1: another move you never considered a new way to win
Speaker 1: or even lose at chess. And remember that's true even
Speaker 1: after we built computers specifically designed to decode the game
Speaker 1: and really select the best possible move for millions and
Speaker 1: millions of different scenarios. Isn't that exactly what it means
Speaker 1: to solve chess? Like, if we're able to compute every
Speaker 1: possible sequence of moves and counter moves and all these
Speaker 1: different forms of match can take, then isn't the game
Speaker 1: effectively solved? Well, I mean that's actually the thing, because
Speaker 1: even if you had the most powerful computer in the world,
Speaker 1: it still wouldn't be able to calculate all the unique
Speaker 1: games that could be played. And this just seems unimaginable,
Speaker 1: but the possibilities just scale up way too quickly. So
Speaker 1: for example, after both players have moved one time in
Speaker 1: a game of chess, there are four hundred possible boards
Speaker 1: set ups, but after the second of the turns, the
Speaker 1: number of possible games shoots up to just under two
Speaker 1: hundred thousand. Now after three moves there are one hundred
Speaker 1: and twenty one million possible outcomes, and so on and
Speaker 1: so on until you get to the current best estimate
Speaker 1: for the total possible number of chess games, which is
Speaker 1: a staggering ten to the one hundred and twentieth power.
Speaker 1: So to put that number in perspective just a little bit,
Speaker 1: there was a great breakdown that I found from Popular Science,
Speaker 1: and here's what it says. There are only ten to
Speaker 1: the fifteen total hairs on all the human heads in
Speaker 1: the world, ten to the twenty third grains of sand
Speaker 1: on Earth, and about ten to the eighty one atoms
Speaker 1: in the universe. The number of typical chess games is
Speaker 1: many times as great as all those numbers multiplied together.
Speaker 1: An impressive feet for thirty two wooden pieces lined up
Speaker 1: on a board. That is unbelievable. You know, uh, when
Speaker 1: you look back at the kind of like endless complexity
Speaker 1: of the game, you know it's really no wonder that
Speaker 1: it gives our brains such a workout. And actually read
Speaker 1: the study from a while back that found that experts
Speaker 1: who played chess actually used both sides of the brain
Speaker 1: while solving chess problems, and not just the analytical right side.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, but this only happens and I'm guessing like
Speaker 1: really experienced players, that's right. So the researchers gathered eight
Speaker 1: international chess players and then eight novice players, and then
Speaker 1: they took fm r I brain scans while the subjects
Speaker 1: worked their way through two different tests. And first they
Speaker 1: had to identify geometrical shapes and then they had to
Speaker 1: determine whether or not the pieces on the chessboard were
Speaker 1: in a check situation. And the results from these tests
Speaker 1: were really unexpected because they showed that while the novice
Speaker 1: players had only used the left side of the brain
Speaker 1: to process this task, the expert players had used both
Speaker 1: sides of the brain. So this is what the lead
Speaker 1: researcher explained. Quote. Once the usual brain structures were engaged,
Speaker 1: the experts utilized additional complementary structures in the other half
Speaker 1: to execute processes in parallel. Wow. So did this dual
Speaker 1: processing improve the expert's performance at all? Yeah, it actually
Speaker 1: made them much quicker at solving the chess problems. The
Speaker 1: novices were, but it is worth noting that the parallel
Speaker 1: processing only occurred during the chess problems and not during
Speaker 1: that geometry test. So it really seems like all the
Speaker 1: extra practice that the experts had given their brains was
Speaker 1: this nice boost, but only when it came to chess.
Speaker 1: You know, it's interesting to hear that, because I was
Speaker 1: actually reading about how playing a lot of chess can
Speaker 1: actually be a detriment to players sometimes, like rather than
Speaker 1: being beneficial to them. And how's that. Well, it's because
Speaker 1: of something called the einste Long effect, which Scientific American
Speaker 1: describes as the brains tendency to stick with solutions it
Speaker 1: already knows, rather than look for potentially superior ones. So
Speaker 1: scientists researching this effect really love using chess players as subjects,
Speaker 1: and that's because they provide a really clear way to
Speaker 1: see the effect in action. So as an example of this,
Speaker 1: some studies present master chess players with a chessboard that
Speaker 1: has two possible solutions. You've got this well known maneuver
Speaker 1: that can win the game in five moves and a
Speaker 1: less common but actually much faster, three step solution. So
Speaker 1: the players were told to win the match in as
Speaker 1: few moves as possible, but once they had spotted this
Speaker 1: familiar five steps strategy, they actually seemed unable to recognize
Speaker 1: the much quicker solution. And it wasn't that the three
Speaker 1: step move was really obscure or anything like that, but
Speaker 1: because those same players were actually presented with a similar
Speaker 1: setup where the three step move was the only way
Speaker 1: to win, and then in that scenario, the players recognized
Speaker 1: the strategy right away. So in that first experiment, it
Speaker 1: really was the einstell Lung effect at work. And you know,
Speaker 1: the players weren't able to see any of the other
Speaker 1: options because they had this cognitive bias for the move
Speaker 1: they knew best. That's really fascinating. But I also like
Speaker 1: that even chess masters can learn something to do better
Speaker 1: the next time around, because like, there are that many possibilities.
Speaker 1: Like I actually think that's why so many schools invest
Speaker 1: in their own chess programs. It's one of those rare
Speaker 1: hobbies that can boost your cognitive ability well also teaching
Speaker 1: you these coping skills like how to win or lose gracefully.
Speaker 1: Although I do have to say the one time my
Speaker 1: son got hit at school, it was in his first
Speaker 1: grade chess club. He came home with dirt on his face,
Speaker 1: and I was like, Henry, how that happened? And he
Speaker 1: kind of gleefully said, oh, I took the second grader
Speaker 1: as queen, so he kicked me in the face. For Henry,
Speaker 1: it seems like he was okay with that. He'd rather
Speaker 1: win t face. Oh. You know, and there are so
Speaker 1: many places where they're teaching it really young to kids,
Speaker 1: like in Armenia, for instance, Chess is actually a required
Speaker 1: subject for every kid who's six years and older. And
Speaker 1: that's kind of awesome, even though it probably means the
Speaker 1: poor Matt teachers wind up pulling double duty and teaching
Speaker 1: chess as well. Right, Yeah, But I have a feeling
Speaker 1: it's worth it to them anyway, because, you know, as
Speaker 1: one Armenian teacher explained, Chess trains logical thinking. It teaches
Speaker 1: how to make decisions, trains memories, strengthens willpower, motivates children
Speaker 1: to win, and teaches them how to deal with defeat.
Speaker 1: It's the only school subject that can do all of this. Oh,
Speaker 1: I really love that idea. Well, how about we knock
Speaker 1: out this fact off and and then get Tristan to
Speaker 1: show some of his opening moves. He's been perfecting. So
Speaker 1: for a while now, we've known that elite athletes tend
Speaker 1: to live longer than the rest of us, and that's
Speaker 1: really not the big of a surprise, But research now
Speaker 1: shows that elite chess players also have a survival advantage
Speaker 1: over the general population. A team of Australian researchers looked
Speaker 1: at players from twenty eight countries and specifically over a
Speaker 1: thousand players who reached international chess grandmaster status over a
Speaker 1: period of nearly seven years, and then they compared the
Speaker 1: survival data of those people to fifteen thousand Olympic medalists,
Speaker 1: and not only did they find that both groups had
Speaker 1: significant survival advantages over the general population, but that the
Speaker 1: difference between the two was not even statistically significant. Oh wow,
Speaker 1: that's pretty interesting. Alright, Well, years ago I remember reading
Speaker 1: about how, you know, before the age of the Internet,
Speaker 1: people used to play chess by mail or what's called
Speaker 1: correspondence chess. So you'd make a move, put that move
Speaker 1: in the mail, and then your opponent would do the same,
Speaker 1: and you go back and forth and games could take
Speaker 1: years to play. And actually this kind of sounds fun
Speaker 1: to be able to do this with a friend who lives,
Speaker 1: you know, across the country or whatever. But what surprising
Speaker 1: is that even today, the US Chess Federation estimates they
Speaker 1: have about three thousand members still playing correspondence chess. Don't now,
Speaker 1: of course, some play by email, and there are even
Speaker 1: tournaments for correspondence chess with rules like each player is
Speaker 1: given thirty days of reflection time over ten moves, you know,
Speaker 1: to really speed things up. I guess. So I was
Speaker 1: reading recently about how chess became popular among captured or
Speaker 1: wounded soldiers during World War Two, and you know, the
Speaker 1: rules of war is so interesting to me sometimes, you
Speaker 1: remember learning about the Geneva Conventions, which are often thought
Speaker 1: of today is sort of the way war crimes are defined.
Speaker 1: But the Third Convention set out how prisoners of war
Speaker 1: would be treated, so in addition to how prisoners would
Speaker 1: be treated physically, it also had sections on recreation and
Speaker 1: stated that the captors should encourage the intellect show diversions
Speaker 1: and sports organized by prisoners of war, which makes it
Speaker 1: not that surprising that a quiet game that could take
Speaker 1: hours of days to play and was understood around the
Speaker 1: world could take off at a time like this. So
Speaker 1: organizations like the Red Cross would even send chess sets
Speaker 1: around the world to prisoners where there were even organized
Speaker 1: chess tournaments and were so weird. But I do think
Speaker 1: that one aspect is pretty cool. Yeah, all right, we
Speaker 1: mentioned earlier the similarities between elite athletes and chess players. Well,
Speaker 1: did you know that the World Chess Federation actually conducts
Speaker 1: drug tests and they do this pretty routinely, and this
Speaker 1: is because there's a push for it to be part
Speaker 1: of the Olympics and so this is actually required by
Speaker 1: the IOC. But there's some interesting studies around the effects
Speaker 1: of you know, so called smart drugs on the ability
Speaker 1: to play chess. Now, specifically drugs like modafinil and riddle
Speaker 1: and so Madefanil is a drug we've talked about actually
Speaker 1: in an episode. I guess it's been quite a while,
Speaker 1: but it's commonly used to help with sleep disorders, and
Speaker 1: riddlin is commonly used to treat things like a d
Speaker 1: h D. And the findings from some of the studies
Speaker 1: on these players was really interesting because weirdly, players on
Speaker 1: these smart drugs were often losing more games than those
Speaker 1: who were not taking these but this was actually because
Speaker 1: the players on them, We're taking more time per move
Speaker 1: and just running out of time. So once they took
Speaker 1: the time out as a factor, they found that these
Speaker 1: players were actually playing better. So it's one of the
Speaker 1: researchers put it, these substances may be able to convert
Speaker 1: fast and shallow thinkers into deeper, but somewhat slower thinkers. Huh,
Speaker 1: that's really interesting. Well, we talked about how long chess
Speaker 1: has been around, and I was reading about some of
Speaker 1: the oldest strategy books on chess, and this one from
Speaker 1: way back in one had some pretty awesome advice. The
Speaker 1: book suggests strategies such as playing with your back to
Speaker 1: the sun. Why because that could blind your opponent. It
Speaker 1: also suggests that if you're playing by a fire at night,
Speaker 1: you should use your hand to create a shadow over
Speaker 1: the board so that your opponent won't be able to
Speaker 1: see his pieces clearly. Wow. You know, I had a
Speaker 1: couple of facts about weird chess tournaments and a couple
Speaker 1: of other things. But looking over there at Tristan and
Speaker 1: seeing the size of the smirk on his face, I've
Speaker 1: never seen him smirk that big because I know he
Speaker 1: loves this fact, because he loves to play dirty. Whenever
Speaker 1: he competes, he plays so dirty, such a dirty guy.
Speaker 1: But anyway, I'm gonna have to stop us there and
Speaker 1: give you today's trophy, Mango, thank you so much. Well,
Speaker 1: all right, well, if you've got any great stories about
Speaker 1: chess or any facts about chess that we may have
Speaker 1: left out today, we always love to hear those from you.
Speaker 1: If you can email us part Time Genius and How
Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot com, or you can always hit us
Speaker 1: up on Facebook or Twitter. But from Gabe, Tristan, Mango
Speaker 1: and me, thanks so much for listening. Thanks again for listening.
Speaker 1: Part Time Genius is a production of How Stuff Works
Speaker 1: and wouldn't be possible without several brilliant people who do
Speaker 1: the important things we couldn't even begin to understand. Tristan
Speaker 1: McNeil does the editing thing. Noel Brown made the theme
Speaker 1: song and does the mixy mixy sound thing. Jerry Rowland
Speaker 1: does the exact producer thing. Gabe Bluesier is our lead researcher,
Speaker 1: with support from the research Army including Austin Thompson, Nolan
Speaker 1: Brown and Lucas Adams and Eve. Jeff Cook gets the
Speaker 1: show to your ears. Good job, Eves. If you like
Speaker 1: what you heard, we hope you'll subscribe, and if you
Speaker 1: really really like what you've heard, maybe you could leave
Speaker 1: a good review for us. Do we do we forget Jason?
Speaker 1: Jason who