WEBVTT - Why are Russians so good at Chess? 0:00:02.279 --> 0:00:04.880 I guess, well, well, what's that mango. So I was 0:00:04.920 --> 0:00:07.640 reading the story about the chess player Bobby Fisher this week. 0:00:07.800 --> 0:00:09.960 This is when he was young, and I guess he'd 0:00:09.960 --> 0:00:12.600 won a US championship at the time, so he was famous, 0:00:12.640 --> 0:00:15.560 but he was also just a kid, and he didn't 0:00:15.600 --> 0:00:18.200 have that much money, and you know, he's kind of 0:00:18.200 --> 0:00:21.200 a recluse, right. Actually I had read that he used 0:00:21.200 --> 0:00:23.959 to play secretly online like later in his life, and 0:00:23.960 --> 0:00:26.840 there was always so much buzz when somebody thought they 0:00:26.880 --> 0:00:29.320 noticed his style of play and and and thought they 0:00:29.320 --> 0:00:31.920 were onto and that they discovered that it was him. Yeah, 0:00:31.960 --> 0:00:33.600 I feel like you'd see that pop up from like 0:00:33.680 --> 0:00:36.000 Japan or Malaysia or wherever. There are these people who 0:00:36.000 --> 0:00:38.000 were just like so excited to have played Bobby Fisher, 0:00:38.200 --> 0:00:41.120 think they've played Bobby Fisher. But so anyway, he's young 0:00:41.159 --> 0:00:43.040 at this time. He wants to go see a movie 0:00:43.120 --> 0:00:45.280 and he doesn't have money for it, so he walks 0:00:45.280 --> 0:00:47.640 into the Chess and Checker Club of New York just 0:00:47.720 --> 0:00:49.360 to pick up a few extra bucks. I guess, to 0:00:49.440 --> 0:00:52.040 hustle it, right, And I guess at the time it 0:00:52.200 --> 0:00:55.720 was this uh, this large smoke filled crowded pool hall 0:00:55.800 --> 0:00:59.360 type place but for chess, and Bobby's totally in disguise. 0:00:59.400 --> 0:01:02.400 He's got a k he's got his collar off, sunglasses 0:01:02.440 --> 0:01:04.600 and a hat. He looks ridiculous, but he does not 0:01:04.840 --> 0:01:07.080 want to be noticed. So he asked a friend, like, 0:01:07.280 --> 0:01:08.840 do you think you can just get me into a game? 0:01:09.319 --> 0:01:11.679 And a friend asked the owner across the bar. And 0:01:11.800 --> 0:01:14.600 remember it's smoke filled and like, Bobby's in disguise, So 0:01:14.640 --> 0:01:17.119 the owner goes tell him, no, he's just a kid. 0:01:17.360 --> 0:01:20.720 The hustlers will eat him alive, and so like, Bobby 0:01:20.760 --> 0:01:24.040 Fisher is furious and he just stomps out, and this 0:01:24.120 --> 0:01:26.880 is all reported. This is a real story. But when 0:01:26.920 --> 0:01:29.160 his friend tells the owner who it was, that it 0:01:29.200 --> 0:01:31.440 was Bobby Fisher who wanted a game, like, apparently the 0:01:31.480 --> 0:01:34.680 whole crowd at the place has this audible grown and 0:01:36.280 --> 0:01:38.559 this one guy goes, oh, man, I would have paid 0:01:38.600 --> 0:01:41.240 hundreds of dollars just to sit across from Bobby Fisher 0:01:41.280 --> 0:01:45.640 on a chessboard. Anyway, So I don't know much about chess, 0:01:45.680 --> 0:01:47.600 but I do love stories about it. And we're gonna 0:01:47.600 --> 0:01:50.400 get into the most dangerous styles of chess. How the 0:01:50.440 --> 0:01:53.360 game moved from the battlefield to the royal court, and 0:01:53.520 --> 0:01:56.080 even why getting a billion people to play chess might 0:01:56.120 --> 0:01:59.240 be our best hope to keep away aliens. Let's dig 0:01:59.240 --> 0:02:23.800 in the their podcast. Listeners, Welcome to Part Time Genius. 0:02:23.840 --> 0:02:25.919 I'm Will Pearson and as always I'm joined by my 0:02:25.960 --> 0:02:28.239 good friend Manues Ticketer and on the other side of 0:02:28.280 --> 0:02:31.120 the soundproof class writing down a list of chess openings 0:02:31.160 --> 0:02:33.480 he's trying to master. Actually, can you read what he's 0:02:33.520 --> 0:02:35.600 got on the white board over there, Mango, Yeah, he's 0:02:35.600 --> 0:02:41.679 got the hillbilly attack, the monkeys burn, Hippopotamus defense. There's 0:02:41.760 --> 0:02:46.440 something called the toilet variation. He's written. Definitely, Yeah, it 0:02:46.480 --> 0:02:50.239 definitely says toilet variation. Well, those are all real chess 0:02:50.280 --> 0:02:53.480 opening moves. But that's our friend and producer Tristan McNeil, 0:02:53.520 --> 0:02:56.520 who also happens to be a future chess master, not 0:02:56.560 --> 0:02:59.920 a current chess master, but I'm confident of future chess man. Yeah, 0:03:00.040 --> 0:03:01.960 he can do anything he puts his mind too. But 0:03:02.280 --> 0:03:04.200 you know, chess is one of those things I used 0:03:04.200 --> 0:03:06.000 to love as a kid, Like I played it on 0:03:06.040 --> 0:03:08.560 my computer, we used to play it with relatives, but 0:03:09.040 --> 0:03:13.120 I never got good at it, Like I'm probably as 0:03:13.160 --> 0:03:16.400 good as I was in second grade, but I do 0:03:16.520 --> 0:03:18.920 love like movies and books that involved it. I I 0:03:19.000 --> 0:03:21.280 read this great book last year. It's really slim. It's 0:03:21.280 --> 0:03:24.320 called The Chess Game and it's by the same author 0:03:24.360 --> 0:03:27.040 that wrote The Hotel in Budapest. And you know, I 0:03:27.080 --> 0:03:29.440 don't understand any of the chess strategy, but I was 0:03:29.480 --> 0:03:33.400 totally enamored with how the main character plays these games 0:03:33.400 --> 0:03:36.280 of chess in his head. Yeah, I mean, like that's 0:03:36.320 --> 0:03:38.600 a real skill. I had heard about these two Silicon 0:03:38.680 --> 0:03:40.800 Vallet guys who met for the first time. I want 0:03:40.800 --> 0:03:44.520 to say it was Peter thiel And and somebody equally famous. 0:03:44.560 --> 0:03:46.640 And the way the first time they met, they sat 0:03:46.640 --> 0:03:49.120 down at a restaurant and one of them said, I 0:03:49.160 --> 0:03:51.480 heard you like chess, and then called out an opening 0:03:51.520 --> 0:03:54.400 play and they actually played a full game on an 0:03:54.400 --> 0:03:57.920 imaginary board in their heads. Like just these two chess 0:03:57.920 --> 0:04:02.760 savants would be the weirdest conversation to like, wait a 0:04:02.840 --> 0:04:07.160 table on like just hearing people call out letters and numbers. 0:04:07.200 --> 0:04:10.400 But you know what's crazy to me is, you know, 0:04:10.760 --> 0:04:13.760 one of our friends, Dad's was a chess chance in Ecuador, 0:04:13.960 --> 0:04:16.799 and there's these photos of him playing like twelve matches 0:04:16.800 --> 0:04:19.400 at a time, just moving from board to board to 0:04:19.440 --> 0:04:22.680 board and making moves super quick. And and then there's 0:04:22.720 --> 0:04:24.480 like blindfold chest, which is kind of like what you're 0:04:24.480 --> 0:04:26.279 talking about. But you know what's weird is that a 0:04:26.360 --> 0:04:28.920 lot of people used to think that playing chess while 0:04:29.000 --> 0:04:33.159 blindfolded can actually lead to brain damage, brain dampisode. So 0:04:33.200 --> 0:04:36.440 why do they think that. Apparently it's just so exhausting 0:04:36.480 --> 0:04:39.000 to keep track of all those pieces while also planning 0:04:39.000 --> 0:04:41.599 out your next moves. And in fact, the Soviet Union 0:04:41.640 --> 0:04:46.520 completely banned blindfold chess in because of that perceived danger. 0:04:46.680 --> 0:04:49.600 And and actually one Russian player died during his attempt 0:04:49.640 --> 0:04:51.520 to break the world record for a number of opponents 0:04:51.520 --> 0:04:55.159 played wild blindfolded. What you're saying, people combine those things 0:04:55.160 --> 0:05:00.480 like they blindfold themselves then play multiple games simultaneously. Do 0:05:00.560 --> 0:05:04.679 people still do this? Yeah? And actually a new world 0:05:04.680 --> 0:05:06.960 record was set less than two years ago. So this 0:05:07.240 --> 0:05:12.160 chess grandmaster, his name's Timore Garyev, and he played forty 0:05:12.240 --> 0:05:15.200 eight games of blindfold chess simultaneously over the course of 0:05:15.200 --> 0:05:18.919 the three hours. Yeah, he actually won eight percent of 0:05:18.960 --> 0:05:23.479 those games. And it's that ridiculous. Along the way, he 0:05:23.560 --> 0:05:26.960 was actually riding an exercise bike the whole time, and 0:05:27.080 --> 0:05:31.520 in the end he peddled apparently about fifty miles. Good lord, 0:05:31.560 --> 0:05:33.800 I mean, I love that they just added the exercise 0:05:33.839 --> 0:05:39.000 bike because they're playing forty eight simultaneous blindfold games. Wasn't enough. 0:05:39.760 --> 0:05:43.040 I'm thinking though, maybe after Tristan masters the Hippopotamus defense, 0:05:43.080 --> 0:05:45.280 that he's going to get on this blindfold chess train. 0:05:45.360 --> 0:05:48.400 We'll see. Probably. Well, anyway, for today's show, we're going 0:05:48.440 --> 0:05:50.680 to cover chess, so we'll we'll take a deep dive 0:05:50.720 --> 0:05:53.120 into the history of the game, how the rules developed, 0:05:53.440 --> 0:05:55.960 and why the iconic pieces look the way they do. 0:05:56.040 --> 0:05:58.720 I think I've always been curious about this. And then 0:05:58.720 --> 0:06:00.720 a little later we'll try to figure out why Russians 0:06:00.760 --> 0:06:03.279 are so good at chess, as well as why computers 0:06:03.360 --> 0:06:05.880 might be the best players of all. And now, of 0:06:05.880 --> 0:06:07.720 course we'll take a look at how playing chess can 0:06:07.760 --> 0:06:10.400 affect your brain and just what kind of smart it 0:06:10.480 --> 0:06:13.760 actually makes you. Anyway, that's right, so let's jump right 0:06:13.760 --> 0:06:15.359 in and talk about the history of chess, because it 0:06:15.400 --> 0:06:19.040 actually goes quite a ways back. So most historians believe 0:06:19.040 --> 0:06:21.120 in early version of the game was invented in India 0:06:21.160 --> 0:06:24.040 about fifteen hundred years ago, and the first known mention 0:06:24.080 --> 0:06:27.479 of anything involving chess appears in a text from five 0:06:28.800 --> 0:06:30.880 and then about a century later, the game made its 0:06:30.880 --> 0:06:33.400 way to Persia, where a few different variations involved. So 0:06:33.600 --> 0:06:35.599 the exact rules of the game and the appearances of 0:06:35.600 --> 0:06:38.120 the pieces hadn't been formalized at that time, but the 0:06:38.160 --> 0:06:42.039 pieces did have these established identities that aren't that dissimilar 0:06:42.080 --> 0:06:44.680 from what we're used today. So one of the main 0:06:44.720 --> 0:06:47.640 differences was that the game didn't lay out a royal 0:06:47.680 --> 0:06:50.000 court like it does. It was more of a battlefield 0:06:50.040 --> 0:06:52.080 back then, with the king being the only piece shared 0:06:52.120 --> 0:06:55.440 between the ancient version and the modern version. I'm curious, like, 0:06:55.520 --> 0:06:57.279 do do you know what the other pieces were in 0:06:57.360 --> 0:07:01.479 the old battlefield version? Yeah, so instead of ponds you 0:07:01.520 --> 0:07:04.960 had these infantry pieces. Nights were cavalry, and and bishops 0:07:04.960 --> 0:07:08.320 were elephants. I think our rooks were actually chariots as well. 0:07:08.760 --> 0:07:10.480 And what about the what about the queen? Was the 0:07:10.560 --> 0:07:13.120 queen part of the game at that point. That's a 0:07:13.160 --> 0:07:14.920 different story. I mean, well, we'll get to that in 0:07:14.920 --> 0:07:17.160 a minute, but the short answer is that the piece 0:07:17.200 --> 0:07:19.720 would later become the Queen. It was actually called the 0:07:19.800 --> 0:07:23.480 vizier or or the advisor. So if you think about Jafar, 0:07:23.760 --> 0:07:26.920 the villain from Aladdin, like, that's basically what the piece was, 0:07:26.960 --> 0:07:29.520 and he was the top counselor to the ruler. But 0:07:30.000 --> 0:07:32.440 you've got to remember the rules of the game hadn't solidified, 0:07:32.520 --> 0:07:34.560 so most of the pieces didn't move exactly like they 0:07:34.600 --> 0:07:37.280 do now. So the Advisor, for instance, could only move 0:07:37.360 --> 0:07:41.040 one square diagonally, which made it this much weaker piece 0:07:41.080 --> 0:07:44.440 than today's Queen, which can obviously, you know, move any 0:07:44.520 --> 0:07:48.440 number of squares in any direction she wants. Yeah, that's interesting. 0:07:48.480 --> 0:07:50.480 So how did the weakest piece in the game pretty 0:07:50.560 --> 0:07:53.320 much become the strongest because the queen has you know, 0:07:53.360 --> 0:07:55.080 better moves than the king, right, I mean, I know 0:07:55.160 --> 0:07:57.040 the King can move in any direction just like the 0:07:57.120 --> 0:07:59.880 Queen can, but he only moves one square at a time, 0:08:00.000 --> 0:08:01.480 which is just I don't know that must that would 0:08:01.520 --> 0:08:05.680 piss me off if I Yeah, but he's probably got 0:08:05.760 --> 0:08:10.679 gout over sense, you know. So the upset and power 0:08:10.720 --> 0:08:13.800 didn't actually happen until after the game had spread west 0:08:13.800 --> 0:08:16.320 to Europe in the early eleventh century. And once the 0:08:16.320 --> 0:08:18.880 game hit Europe, that's when it shifted from that army 0:08:18.920 --> 0:08:22.080 on the battlefield to members of the royal court. And 0:08:22.160 --> 0:08:23.920 for a while most of the pieces still moved more 0:08:24.000 --> 0:08:26.920 or less according to the original rules, but that changed 0:08:26.960 --> 0:08:30.520 sometime in the fourteen hundreds or so when this unknown inventor, 0:08:30.960 --> 0:08:33.240 I think it was either in Italy or Spain, introduced 0:08:33.280 --> 0:08:36.320 the rules we know today, and the most important revisions 0:08:36.360 --> 0:08:38.840 he made were to the Bishop and the Queen, which 0:08:38.880 --> 0:08:40.960 until then had been sort of the weakest pieces on 0:08:40.960 --> 0:08:43.560 the board except for the ponds and something. These pieces 0:08:43.559 --> 0:08:46.320 were less restricted in their movement and a whole lot stronger, 0:08:46.840 --> 0:08:49.120 and it was one of those changes that just made 0:08:49.120 --> 0:08:51.920 the game so much faster and more interesting to play. 0:08:52.160 --> 0:08:53.920 And that makes sense, and I could see how those 0:08:53.960 --> 0:08:57.040 would go over well in terms of the actual game play. 0:08:57.080 --> 0:08:59.520 But it's a little bit surprising because if you think 0:08:59.520 --> 0:09:01.920 about it, make the queen the most powerful piece on 0:09:01.960 --> 0:09:05.240 the board, it feels pretty progressive for you know, think 0:09:05.240 --> 0:09:08.400 about this was medieval times you're talking about. That's true, 0:09:08.480 --> 0:09:11.400 and there were tons of sexist players that did kind 0:09:11.400 --> 0:09:14.160 of excuse the change there and said that the strength 0:09:14.200 --> 0:09:16.840 was only in her defense of the king. That's when 0:09:16.840 --> 0:09:18.960 her power came up. But but the reality is that 0:09:19.120 --> 0:09:22.080 queens were getting more powerful on the chessboard at the 0:09:22.120 --> 0:09:24.240 same time they were getting more powerful in real life. 0:09:24.240 --> 0:09:27.080 So so you think back to the fourteenth and fifteen centuries, 0:09:27.320 --> 0:09:29.280 the ladies that were coming to power all over Europe, 0:09:29.280 --> 0:09:33.240 where people like Elizabeth First and Mary Tudor and Queen Isabella. 0:09:33.679 --> 0:09:35.360 That's pretty cool to see that that would, you know, 0:09:35.400 --> 0:09:38.439 be mirrored on the chessboard. But so I actually want 0:09:38.440 --> 0:09:40.280 to stick with the chess pieces for just a minute 0:09:40.280 --> 0:09:43.120 and talk about how they got these iconic designs that 0:09:43.400 --> 0:09:45.160 we're all used to seeing at this point. I mean, 0:09:45.200 --> 0:09:47.560 you know, you think about the horsehead knights and the 0:09:47.600 --> 0:09:51.480 castle shaped brooks, because obviously, during those centuries of innovation 0:09:51.600 --> 0:09:54.040 and development that you were talking about, the game was 0:09:54.160 --> 0:09:58.360 really spreading through all different regions and cultures, and there 0:09:58.400 --> 0:10:01.600 was actually no standard chess set to play with. I mean, 0:10:01.640 --> 0:10:03.520 the basic setup was there. You had a board with 0:10:03.559 --> 0:10:07.240 sixty four squares and thirty two pieces, and you know, 0:10:07.280 --> 0:10:10.240 I guess they made pretty similar moves, but what those 0:10:10.240 --> 0:10:12.880 pieces actually looked like, or how they felt, or even 0:10:12.960 --> 0:10:14.760 what they were made of. I mean, all of that 0:10:14.920 --> 0:10:18.200 very dramatically depending on where you were playing the game, 0:10:18.960 --> 0:10:21.440 and so all of these countless varieties of styles worked 0:10:21.480 --> 0:10:24.120 well enough for a while. But you come upon the 0:10:24.240 --> 0:10:27.480 nineteenth century and the game has become so popular that 0:10:27.600 --> 0:10:30.960 chess clubs and competitions began cropping up all over the world. 0:10:31.480 --> 0:10:34.120 So you can imagine it actually got pretty confusing when 0:10:34.160 --> 0:10:36.760 players from different cultures would sit down for a match 0:10:36.800 --> 0:10:40.079 and then realized that none of the opponent's pieces looked 0:10:40.120 --> 0:10:43.920 familiar to them, would be so weird and very strange. 0:10:44.000 --> 0:10:46.240 But and it's still just so strange that the game 0:10:46.320 --> 0:10:49.320 evolved somewhat similarly in so many places, and that this 0:10:49.440 --> 0:10:52.000 was really the big difference. But you fast forward a 0:10:52.000 --> 0:10:54.440 bit to eighteen forty nine and there was a British 0:10:54.559 --> 0:10:58.680 architect named Nathan Cook who built this standardized set. Now 0:10:58.679 --> 0:11:01.280 it was called the Staunton Chess set, and its pieces 0:11:01.280 --> 0:11:04.600 are actually the ones that we still know today. So 0:11:04.800 --> 0:11:08.240 I'm curious, like, if Nathan Cook made the set, why 0:11:08.320 --> 0:11:11.400 is it called the Staunton set? Like who is donton? Yeah, 0:11:11.679 --> 0:11:13.920 well you'd think it might be called the Cook Chess set, 0:11:13.960 --> 0:11:17.000 but he actually decided to forego that fame and in 0:11:17.120 --> 0:11:20.160 favor of practicality. So there was a guy named Howard 0:11:20.240 --> 0:11:22.960 Stunton who was a major player in the London chess 0:11:22.960 --> 0:11:25.920 scene at the time, and he'd organized these tournaments and 0:11:26.000 --> 0:11:28.880 clubs and was really considered one of the best players 0:11:28.880 --> 0:11:32.040 in the world. And so Cook knew how respected Staunton 0:11:32.160 --> 0:11:34.840 was in this chess community, and so he approached him 0:11:34.880 --> 0:11:37.560 and asked if Staunton's name could be used to market 0:11:37.600 --> 0:11:40.840 his new designs, and of course Staunton was flattered and 0:11:40.840 --> 0:11:43.679 agreed as soon as he saw the pieces, and so 0:11:43.760 --> 0:11:45.800 the set was a huge hit with the public, and 0:11:46.280 --> 0:11:49.320 really since the nineteen twenties it's actually been the required 0:11:49.400 --> 0:11:53.640 set for all worldwide chess organizations. Huh, I didn't realize that. 0:11:53.720 --> 0:11:55.880 So what was the revolutionary about the Stunt set? Like 0:11:55.960 --> 0:11:58.000 I I get that it became the standard, but why 0:11:58.200 --> 0:12:01.360 is that? Exactly? Well, this had a few things going 0:12:01.400 --> 0:12:04.760 for it, so for starters, it it wasn't wholly unfamiliar 0:12:04.800 --> 0:12:07.760 because Cook had studied a bunch of different popular chest 0:12:07.760 --> 0:12:10.160 sets that were in use at the time and use 0:12:10.240 --> 0:12:13.920 those common traits really as starting points for his own set, 0:12:14.480 --> 0:12:16.679 and then from there he would look to inspiration and 0:12:16.720 --> 0:12:20.199 the architecture of Victorian London, which was the city around 0:12:20.320 --> 0:12:22.839 him at the time, and also for some reason, from 0:12:22.840 --> 0:12:26.360 the ruins of ancient Greece and Rome. And so take 0:12:26.400 --> 0:12:28.600 the Night for example, The Night and the Staunton set 0:12:28.800 --> 0:12:31.640 is a great example of that influence. Like it's the 0:12:31.679 --> 0:12:34.559 only piece in the set that isn't an abstract representation 0:12:34.679 --> 0:12:38.199 of something, and instead it looks like a pretty realistic 0:12:38.240 --> 0:12:41.560 horse head. And that's because it's pretty clearly inspired by 0:12:41.559 --> 0:12:45.240 a sculpture on the east pediment of the Parthenon. So 0:12:45.280 --> 0:12:48.200 that carving depicts horses pulling the chariot of the moon, 0:12:48.280 --> 0:12:51.640 goddess of Greek mythology, and so that's supposedly what the 0:12:51.679 --> 0:12:54.559 Staunton Night is based on, like this horse that drew 0:12:54.600 --> 0:12:58.240 the moon across the sky each night, which is such 0:12:58.280 --> 0:13:02.080 a weird mishmash of things, right, like Victorian London, you've 0:13:02.120 --> 0:13:06.240 got like Greece and Rome because the culture is like, 0:13:07.600 --> 0:13:10.280 so what else was Cook doing? All right? Well? I 0:13:10.360 --> 0:13:13.880 actually found this breakdown in the Smithsonian of the Staunton set, 0:13:13.960 --> 0:13:16.040 and here are a few of the key features. According 0:13:16.080 --> 0:13:19.720 to the article, it says, um, while some variation is tolerated, 0:13:19.760 --> 0:13:23.600 there are several key distinguishing characteristics that define a set. 0:13:23.640 --> 0:13:26.560 As a Staunton, the King is topped with a cross, 0:13:26.640 --> 0:13:29.400 and as the tallest piece, it serves as a metric 0:13:29.480 --> 0:13:32.160 for the height of the other ones. The Queen is 0:13:32.200 --> 0:13:35.240 topped by a crown and a ball, the Bishop has 0:13:35.240 --> 0:13:38.800 a split top, and the rook is a squat castle turret. 0:13:39.360 --> 0:13:42.040 And so with all of this, Cook really established this 0:13:42.160 --> 0:13:45.680 clear and simple language with the forms that he was choosing, 0:13:45.679 --> 0:13:48.880 which not only made them easy to recognize, but pretty 0:13:48.960 --> 0:13:51.480 cheap to produce as well. And so I'm betting that 0:13:51.600 --> 0:13:54.400 all of that together is probably why the Staunton said 0:13:54.480 --> 0:13:57.760 is still, you know, really the global standard today. All right, well, 0:13:57.840 --> 0:13:59.679 I know we want to jump ahead in the timeline 0:13:59.720 --> 0:14:01.480 and talk a little bit about the rise of chess 0:14:01.480 --> 0:14:03.840 in Russia, but before we do that, I do want 0:14:03.840 --> 0:14:05.880 to run quickly through a little of its history in 0:14:05.920 --> 0:14:08.880 the US. And as you might imagine, the game made 0:14:08.920 --> 0:14:12.360 its way stateside thanks to European columnists, but despite the 0:14:12.400 --> 0:14:15.280 fact that Ben Franklin was a huge chess fan, the 0:14:15.320 --> 0:14:17.840 game really didn't catch on until the mid nineteenth century. 0:14:18.280 --> 0:14:21.320 And what turned the tide was that this American chess player, 0:14:21.360 --> 0:14:24.480 his name was Paul Morphy. He managed to beat all 0:14:24.520 --> 0:14:28.120 of Europe's chess champions in this international tournament. It was 0:14:28.160 --> 0:14:31.560 the first time this had ever happened. So people's patriotism 0:14:31.600 --> 0:14:33.800 just kind of kicked in at that point and it 0:14:33.880 --> 0:14:36.320 did its thing, and from then on chess became super 0:14:36.320 --> 0:14:39.560 popular in the US. Of course, not everyone was happy 0:14:39.600 --> 0:14:42.200 to see the game takeoff. And why is that? I mean, 0:14:42.240 --> 0:14:45.160 I read this hilarious old article from this eighteen fifty 0:14:45.240 --> 0:14:49.560 nine edition of Scientific American and the author basically treats 0:14:49.680 --> 0:14:53.040 chess like the sinister, corrupting influence, almost like it's the 0:14:53.120 --> 0:14:56.360 fortnight of its time. And so this is how the 0:14:56.360 --> 0:15:00.640 author describes this very real danger of chess. A pernicious 0:15:00.640 --> 0:15:03.240 excitement to learn and play chess has spread all over 0:15:03.280 --> 0:15:06.240 the country, and numerous clubs for practicing this game have 0:15:06.360 --> 0:15:09.680 been formed in cities and villages. Why should we regret this, 0:15:09.840 --> 0:15:12.680 it may be asked. We answer, chess is a mirror 0:15:12.720 --> 0:15:16.400 amusement of a very inferior character, which robs the mind 0:15:16.480 --> 0:15:19.720 a valuable time and might be devoted to nobler requirements, 0:15:19.880 --> 0:15:22.920 while it affords no benefits whatever to the body. A 0:15:23.000 --> 0:15:25.320 game of chess does not add a single new factor 0:15:25.400 --> 0:15:28.440 the mind. It does not excite a single beautiful thought, 0:15:28.880 --> 0:15:31.360 nor does it serve a single purpose for polishing and 0:15:31.400 --> 0:15:35.040 improving the nobler faculties. You know, those were really the 0:15:35.080 --> 0:15:37.480 good old days when the greatest threat facing the youth 0:15:37.480 --> 0:15:40.200 of America with the pressure to join a chess club. 0:15:40.240 --> 0:15:43.200 When you talk about it all, Well, now that we've 0:15:43.200 --> 0:15:44.880 heard from the critics, let's talk a little bit about 0:15:44.920 --> 0:15:47.920 some of the game's biggest proponents, which of course are 0:15:48.000 --> 0:15:50.280 the Russians. So but before we get to them, let's 0:15:50.280 --> 0:16:08.600 take a quick break. You're listening to part time genius 0:16:08.640 --> 0:16:10.680 and we're talking about the enduring appeal of one of 0:16:10.720 --> 0:16:14.160 the world's oldest games, chess. So well, one thing I 0:16:14.240 --> 0:16:17.040 noticed this week is that it's suspiciously large number of 0:16:17.080 --> 0:16:20.080 top ranking chess players all hail from Russia or some 0:16:20.200 --> 0:16:24.480 other Soviet republic, and that includes chess grandmasters like Anthelie 0:16:24.560 --> 0:16:28.040 Karpov Gary Kasparov, And it really made me wonder, like, 0:16:28.120 --> 0:16:31.760 why do the Russians have such a dominance for chess. Well, 0:16:31.760 --> 0:16:34.480 that's interesting, and so of course was digging into this 0:16:34.520 --> 0:16:37.120 in our research for this week. But chess first spread 0:16:37.120 --> 0:16:39.520 the Russia along the Persian and Indian trade routes. And 0:16:40.000 --> 0:16:42.320 that was way back in the seventh century or so, 0:16:42.360 --> 0:16:44.480 and it was popular from the start, but it didn't 0:16:44.520 --> 0:16:47.600 really become a national pastime until much later, when we're 0:16:47.640 --> 0:16:50.600 talking like the nineteenth century or so. Now, this was 0:16:50.680 --> 0:16:54.160 during the Russian Revolution when Lenin and the Bolsheviks took 0:16:54.160 --> 0:16:56.800 power and Lennon was a big player and he really 0:16:56.880 --> 0:16:59.680 loved the game, and Stalin would be after him. But 0:17:00.160 --> 0:17:03.760 the real mastermind behind the country's chess movement was Lennon's 0:17:03.760 --> 0:17:08.119 commander of the Soviet Army, this guy named Nicola Kurlenko. Now, 0:17:08.320 --> 0:17:12.800 he opened these dedicated chess schools, he organized competitions and 0:17:12.840 --> 0:17:16.200 really paved the way for these first state sponsored chess tournaments. 0:17:16.240 --> 0:17:19.600 And this was back in So you fast forward a 0:17:19.640 --> 0:17:23.240 decade and you've got roughly half a million amateur players 0:17:23.320 --> 0:17:26.120 that have signed up for these state chess programs. It's 0:17:26.119 --> 0:17:29.320 pretty remarkable how quickly it grew. Yeah, so it sounds 0:17:29.320 --> 0:17:32.119 like there's this big push from the state and that's 0:17:32.160 --> 0:17:34.840 what sort of kick started Russia's love affair with chess. 0:17:34.840 --> 0:17:36.919 But why were all those Soviet leaders and think are 0:17:36.960 --> 0:17:39.040 so into chess in the first place. Like, was it 0:17:39.200 --> 0:17:41.680 just because it's a strategic game, and and they were 0:17:41.920 --> 0:17:45.600 kind of seen as great schemers. You know, I'm guessing 0:17:45.640 --> 0:17:47.920 the strategy involved was a big part of the appeal 0:17:48.000 --> 0:17:50.680 for them, so that that's probably true. But I also 0:17:50.720 --> 0:17:53.560 read this article in Slate that suggested there might have 0:17:53.600 --> 0:17:55.639 been a little bit more to it, so I just 0:17:55.880 --> 0:17:57.560 will read a little bit of this. The author of 0:17:57.600 --> 0:18:00.320 the piece was Chris Beam, and he was described being 0:18:00.359 --> 0:18:03.600 the appeal of chess. So he writes the Soviets saw 0:18:03.720 --> 0:18:07.320 chess as embodying their revolutionary ideals. It was a game 0:18:07.359 --> 0:18:11.640 of skill, and the USSR prided itself on intellectual talents. 0:18:12.200 --> 0:18:14.760 It was also cheap, which meant anyone could play it, 0:18:15.320 --> 0:18:18.720 and it's back and forth dynamic reflected that dialectical concept 0:18:18.840 --> 0:18:22.040 of history espouse by Marxism. You know. Never mind the 0:18:22.080 --> 0:18:25.800 irony of playing with imperialist symbols like kings and queens. 0:18:26.600 --> 0:18:29.080 That is funny, you know, I have thought about that. 0:18:29.119 --> 0:18:32.760 But I know chess is hugely popular in Russia, even 0:18:32.800 --> 0:18:34.840 if it no longer has state money behind it. And 0:18:35.000 --> 0:18:37.840 there's actually this one famous chess supporter in particularly who 0:18:37.880 --> 0:18:40.160 I want to talk about, not only because he's done 0:18:40.200 --> 0:18:43.200 a lot to keep the game relevant for Russian citizens, 0:18:43.240 --> 0:18:46.879 but also because he's just a super weird guy. His 0:18:46.960 --> 0:18:51.159 name is kirsn uh Illium's in off, which I know 0:18:51.240 --> 0:18:54.400 I mispronouncing. He was president of the World Chess Federation 0:18:54.440 --> 0:18:57.800 from all the way up until just last year, and 0:18:57.920 --> 0:18:59.639 that's when he was finally ousted in favor of a 0:18:59.640 --> 0:19:01.880 new pres in it, it's a pretty impressive run those 0:19:01.920 --> 0:19:04.919 of what makes him such a weird guy. So there 0:19:04.920 --> 0:19:07.280 are actually a bunch of things, but honestly they all 0:19:07.359 --> 0:19:09.520 kind of hinge on one in particular, which is that 0:19:09.640 --> 0:19:13.920 Kirsen claims that he was abducted by aliens, and I'm 0:19:13.960 --> 0:19:16.080 just gonna let him explain what happened. And this is 0:19:16.080 --> 0:19:18.640 what he said an interview about a decade after the abduction. 0:19:19.359 --> 0:19:23.199 It happened on September sev I was taken from my 0:19:23.240 --> 0:19:26.040 apartment in Moscow and taken to the spaceship and we 0:19:26.080 --> 0:19:30.119 went to some star and after that I asked, please 0:19:30.160 --> 0:19:32.040 bring me back because the next day I should be 0:19:32.080 --> 0:19:35.480 back and go to the Ukraine. They said, no problem, Kirson, 0:19:35.640 --> 0:19:38.800 you have time. Oh no, no problems. I guess he 0:19:38.840 --> 0:19:41.480 got napped by some considerate aliens. I mean, not every 0:19:41.480 --> 0:19:44.920 abductee is so lucky, is that? Yeah? Usually there's more provings. 0:19:46.359 --> 0:19:49.800 These weren't just any aliens. They were the sophisticates that 0:19:49.880 --> 0:19:53.120 invented chess. Apparently that's true. You know, I didn't realize 0:19:53.119 --> 0:19:55.520 that this was even a theory. So do people really 0:19:55.560 --> 0:19:59.280 think chess was created by aliens? Well, at least one 0:19:59.280 --> 0:20:01.879 guy does, because in that same interview, Kerson went on 0:20:01.920 --> 0:20:04.520 to say, I am not a crazy man. My theory 0:20:04.560 --> 0:20:07.280 is that chess comes from space. Why because the same 0:20:07.400 --> 0:20:10.200 rules sixty four squares black and white, and the same 0:20:10.320 --> 0:20:13.520 rules in Japan and China and Qatar and Mongolia and Africa. 0:20:13.800 --> 0:20:16.320 The rules are the same. Why I think maybe it 0:20:16.400 --> 0:20:20.600 is from space. I mean, I don't want to challenge 0:20:20.600 --> 0:20:22.840 somebody that was in power for that long, but I 0:20:22.880 --> 0:20:25.440 have to say his evidence feels a little bit thin 0:20:25.560 --> 0:20:27.879 to me. I mean, we just tracked the spread of 0:20:27.960 --> 0:20:31.080 chess across different continents, so I feel like jumping straight 0:20:31.119 --> 0:20:33.720 to the aliens theory it feels a little off to 0:20:33.760 --> 0:20:36.520