WEBVTT - Fan Favorite: Why are Russians so good at Chess? 0:00:03.279 --> 0:00:06.240 Welcome to Part Time Genius, the production of I Heart Radio. 0:00:11.600 --> 0:00:14.240 I guess, well, well, what's that mango? So I was 0:00:14.280 --> 0:00:17.000 reading the story about the chess player Bobby Fisher this week. 0:00:17.160 --> 0:00:19.280 This is when he was young, and I guess he'd 0:00:19.320 --> 0:00:21.880 won a US championship at the time, so he was famous, 0:00:22.000 --> 0:00:24.920 but he was also just a kid, and he didn't 0:00:24.960 --> 0:00:27.560 have that much money, and you know, he's kind of 0:00:27.560 --> 0:00:30.520 a recluse, right. Actually, I had read that he used 0:00:30.560 --> 0:00:33.320 to play secretly online like later in his life, and 0:00:33.320 --> 0:00:36.159 there was always so much buzz when somebody thought they 0:00:36.240 --> 0:00:38.640 noticed his style of play and and and thought they 0:00:38.680 --> 0:00:41.200 were onto and that they discovered that it was him. Yeah, 0:00:41.320 --> 0:00:42.879 if I feel like you'd see that pop up from 0:00:42.880 --> 0:00:45.360 like Japan or Malaysia or wherever. There's these people who 0:00:45.360 --> 0:00:47.360 were just like so excited to have played Bobby Fisher. 0:00:47.440 --> 0:00:50.160 I think they've played Bobby Fisher. But so, anyway, he's 0:00:50.280 --> 0:00:52.120 young at this time. He wants to go see a 0:00:52.120 --> 0:00:54.200 movie and he doesn't have money for it, so he 0:00:54.320 --> 0:00:56.600 walks into the Chess and Checker Club of New York 0:00:56.920 --> 0:00:58.640 just to pick up a few extra bucks. I guess 0:00:58.640 --> 0:01:01.320 to hustle it, right, And I guess at the time 0:01:01.360 --> 0:01:04.880 it was this, uh, this large, smoke filled, crowded pool 0:01:04.880 --> 0:01:08.720 hall type place but for chess, and Bobby's totally in disguise. 0:01:08.760 --> 0:01:11.760 He's got a rainco, he's got his collar off, sunglasses 0:01:11.760 --> 0:01:14.039 and a hat. He looks ridiculous, but he does not 0:01:14.160 --> 0:01:16.440 want to be noticed. So he asked a friend, like, 0:01:16.600 --> 0:01:18.160 do you think he can just get me into a game? 0:01:18.680 --> 0:01:21.000 And a friend asked the owner across the bar. And 0:01:21.160 --> 0:01:23.959 remember it's smoke filled and like, Bobby's in disguise, so 0:01:23.959 --> 0:01:26.440 the owner goes tell him, no, he's just a kid. 0:01:26.720 --> 0:01:30.080 The hustlers will eat him alive. And so like, Bobby 0:01:30.120 --> 0:01:33.399 Fisher is furious and he just stomps out. And this 0:01:33.440 --> 0:01:36.240 is all reported. This is a real story. But when 0:01:36.280 --> 0:01:38.480 his friend tells the owner who it was, that it 0:01:38.560 --> 0:01:40.800 was Bobby Fisher who wanted a game, like, apparently the 0:01:40.840 --> 0:01:44.040 whole crowd at the place has this audible grown and 0:01:45.640 --> 0:01:47.920 this one guy goes, oh, man, I would have paid 0:01:47.960 --> 0:01:50.560 hundreds of dollars just to sit across from Bobby Fisher 0:01:50.600 --> 0:01:54.480 on a chess board. Anyway, So I don't know much 0:01:54.520 --> 0:01:56.480 about chess, but I do love stories about it. And 0:01:56.520 --> 0:01:59.400 we're gonna get into the most dangerous styles of chess, 0:01:59.400 --> 0:02:02.000 how the game moved from the battlefield to the royal court, 0:02:02.440 --> 0:02:05.040 and even why getting a billion people to play chess 0:02:05.240 --> 0:02:08.360 might be our best hope to keep away aliens. Let's 0:02:08.360 --> 0:02:33.160 dig in the their podcast listeners, Welcome to Part Time Genius. 0:02:33.200 --> 0:02:35.320 I'm Will Pearson and as always I'm joined by my 0:02:35.320 --> 0:02:37.520 good friend man Guess Ticketer and on the other side 0:02:37.560 --> 0:02:40.000 of the soundproof class writing down a list of chess 0:02:40.000 --> 0:02:42.680 openings he's trying to master. Actually, can you read what 0:02:42.720 --> 0:02:44.720 he's got on the white board over there, Mango, Yeah, 0:02:44.760 --> 0:02:50.519 he's got the hillbilly attack, the monkeys burn, Hippopotamus defense, 0:02:50.800 --> 0:02:55.680 does something called the toilet variation He's written definitely, Yeah, 0:02:55.720 --> 0:02:59.040 it definitely says toilet variation. Well, those are all real 0:02:59.240 --> 0:03:02.840 chess opening moves. But that's our friend and producer Tristan McNeil, 0:03:02.880 --> 0:03:05.840 who also happens to be a future chess master, not 0:03:05.880 --> 0:03:09.280 a current chess master, but I'm confident of future chester. Yeah. 0:03:09.360 --> 0:03:11.280 He can do anything he puts his mind too. But 0:03:11.600 --> 0:03:13.520 you know, chess is one of those things I used 0:03:13.560 --> 0:03:15.360 to love as a kid, Like I played it on 0:03:15.360 --> 0:03:17.919 my computer. We used to play it with relatives, but 0:03:18.400 --> 0:03:22.480 I never got good at it, Like I'm probably as 0:03:22.520 --> 0:03:25.760 good as I was in second grade. But I do 0:03:25.880 --> 0:03:28.200 love like movies and books that involved it. I I 0:03:28.360 --> 0:03:30.600 read this great book last year. It's really slim. It's 0:03:30.639 --> 0:03:33.639 called The Chess Game and it's by the same author 0:03:33.720 --> 0:03:36.600 that wrote The Hotel Budapest. And you know, I don't 0:03:36.680 --> 0:03:39.080 understand any of the chess strategy, but I was totally 0:03:39.200 --> 0:03:42.800 enamored with how the main character plays these games of 0:03:42.920 --> 0:03:45.760 chess in his head. Yeah, I mean, like that's a 0:03:45.800 --> 0:03:48.280 real skill. I had heard about these two Silicon Vallet 0:03:48.280 --> 0:03:50.240 guys who met for the first time. I want to 0:03:50.280 --> 0:03:53.840 say it was Peter thiel And and somebody equally famous. 0:03:53.880 --> 0:03:55.960 And any way, the first time they met, they sat 0:03:56.000 --> 0:03:58.440 down at a restaurant and one of them said, I 0:03:58.520 --> 0:04:00.840 heard you like chess, and then all about an opening 0:04:00.880 --> 0:04:03.720 play and they actually played a full game on an 0:04:03.760 --> 0:04:07.800 imaginary board in their heads. Like just these two chess savants. 0:04:09.200 --> 0:04:12.120 That would be the weirdest conversation to like, wait a 0:04:12.200 --> 0:04:16.480 table on just hearing people call out letters and numbers. 0:04:16.520 --> 0:04:19.760 But you know what's crazy to me is, you know, 0:04:20.120 --> 0:04:23.120 one of our friends dads was a chess champ in Ecuador, 0:04:23.320 --> 0:04:26.120 and they're these photos of him playing like twelve matches 0:04:26.160 --> 0:04:28.720 at a time, just moving from board to board to 0:04:28.800 --> 0:04:32.040 board and making moves super quick. And and then there's 0:04:32.040 --> 0:04:33.800 like blindfold chest, which is kind of like what you're 0:04:33.800 --> 0:04:35.640 talking about. But you know what's weird is that a 0:04:35.680 --> 0:04:38.240 lot of people used to think that playing chess while 0:04:38.360 --> 0:04:42.440 blindfolded can actually lead to brain damage, brain dam So 0:04:42.440 --> 0:04:45.080 so why do they think that. Apparently it's just so 0:04:45.160 --> 0:04:48.000 exhausting to keep track of all those pieces while also 0:04:48.000 --> 0:04:50.599 planning out your next moves. And in fact, the Soviet 0:04:50.680 --> 0:04:55.880 Union completely banned blindfold chess in because of that perceived danger. 0:04:56.000 --> 0:04:59.000 And and actually one Russian player died during his attempt 0:04:59.000 --> 0:05:00.839 to break the world record for a number of opponents 0:05:00.880 --> 0:05:04.520 played wild blindfolded. What you're saying, people combine those things 0:05:04.520 --> 0:05:09.240 like they blindfold themselves then play multiple games simultaneously. Do 0:05:09.880 --> 0:05:14.000 people still do this? Yeah? And actually a new world 0:05:14.040 --> 0:05:16.320 record was set less than two years ago. So this 0:05:16.560 --> 0:05:21.440 chess grandmaster, his name's Timore Garyev, and he played forty 0:05:21.600 --> 0:05:24.520 eight games of blindfold chess simultaneously over the course of 0:05:24.520 --> 0:05:28.200 the three hours. Yeah, he actually won eight percent of 0:05:28.320 --> 0:05:32.920 those games, and it's ridiculous. Along the way, he was 0:05:32.960 --> 0:05:36.480 actually riding an exercise bike the whole time, and in 0:05:36.560 --> 0:05:40.839 the end he peddled apparently about fifty miles. Good lord, 0:05:40.880 --> 0:05:43.120 I mean, I love that they just added the exercise 0:05:43.160 --> 0:05:48.320 bike because they're playing forty eight simultaneous blindfold games. Wasn't enough. 0:05:49.080 --> 0:05:52.360 I'm thinking though, maybe after Tristan masters the Hippopotamus defense, 0:05:52.400 --> 0:05:54.600 that he's going to get on this blindfold chess train. 0:05:54.680 --> 0:05:57.840 We'll see. Well, anyway, for today's show, we're going to 0:05:57.960 --> 0:06:00.240 cover chess, so we'll we'll take a deep die into 0:06:00.279 --> 0:06:02.840 the history of the game, how the rules developed, and 0:06:02.920 --> 0:06:05.400 why the iconic pieces look the way they do. I 0:06:05.480 --> 0:06:08.080 think I've always been curious about this. And then a 0:06:08.120 --> 0:06:10.240 little later we'll try to figure out why Russians are 0:06:10.360 --> 0:06:12.840 so good at chess, as well as why computers might 0:06:12.920 --> 0:06:15.640 be the best players of all. Now, of course, we'll 0:06:15.640 --> 0:06:17.600 take a look at how playing chess can affect your 0:06:17.640 --> 0:06:21.279 brain and just what kind of smart it actually makes you. Anyway, 0:06:21.640 --> 0:06:23.720 that's right, So let's jump right in and talk about 0:06:23.720 --> 0:06:25.720 the history of chess, because it actually goes quite a 0:06:25.839 --> 0:06:29.120 ways back. So most historians believe in early version of 0:06:29.160 --> 0:06:31.960 the game was invented in India about fift undred years ago, 0:06:32.400 --> 0:06:35.520 and the first known mention of anything involving chess appears 0:06:35.720 --> 0:06:39.320 in a text from five and then about a century later, 0:06:39.480 --> 0:06:41.320 the game made its way to Persia, where a few 0:06:41.360 --> 0:06:44.120 different variations evolved. So the exact rules of the game 0:06:44.160 --> 0:06:46.520 and the appearances of the pieces hadn't been formalized at 0:06:46.560 --> 0:06:49.839 that time, but the pieces did have these established identities 0:06:49.960 --> 0:06:53.080 that aren't that dissimilar from what we're used today. So 0:06:53.520 --> 0:06:56.160 one of the main differences was that the game didn't 0:06:56.240 --> 0:06:58.280 lay out a royal court like it does. It was 0:06:58.360 --> 0:07:00.400 more of a battlefield back then, with the king being 0:07:00.440 --> 0:07:02.880 the only piece shared between the ancient version and the 0:07:02.920 --> 0:07:05.840 modern version. I'm curiously, do you know what the other 0:07:05.880 --> 0:07:10.280 pieces were in the old battlefield version? Yeah, so instead 0:07:10.320 --> 0:07:13.320 of ponds, you had these infantry pieces. Nights were cavalry, 0:07:13.480 --> 0:07:16.400 and and bishops were elephants. I think our rooks were 0:07:16.400 --> 0:07:19.280 actually chariots as well. And what about the what about 0:07:19.280 --> 0:07:20.880 the queen? Was the queen part of the game at 0:07:20.920 --> 0:07:23.800 that point. That's a different story. I mean, well, we'll 0:07:23.800 --> 0:07:25.640 get to that in a minute. But the short answer 0:07:25.760 --> 0:07:28.080 is that the piece would later become the Queen. It 0:07:28.200 --> 0:07:31.480 was actually called the vizier or or the advisor. So 0:07:31.840 --> 0:07:34.360 if you think about Jaffar, the villain from Aladdin, like, 0:07:34.640 --> 0:07:37.200 that's basically what the piece was, and he was the 0:07:37.320 --> 0:07:40.000 top counselor to the ruler. But you've got to remember 0:07:40.080 --> 0:07:42.200 the rules of the game hadn't solidified, so most of 0:07:42.200 --> 0:07:44.400 the pieces didn't move exactly like they do now. So 0:07:44.840 --> 0:07:48.040 the Advisor, for instance, could only move one square diagonally, 0:07:48.360 --> 0:07:51.240 which made it this much weaker piece than today's Queen, 0:07:51.840 --> 0:07:55.120 which can obviously, you know, move any number of squares 0:07:55.160 --> 0:07:58.040 in any direction she wants. Yeah, that's interesting. So how 0:07:58.080 --> 0:08:00.040 did the weakest piece in the game pretty much to 0:08:00.200 --> 0:08:02.920 become the strongest because the queen has you know, better 0:08:03.000 --> 0:08:04.520 moves than the king, right, I mean, I know the 0:08:04.640 --> 0:08:06.960 King can move in any direction just like the Queen can, 0:08:07.080 --> 0:08:09.440 but he only moves one square at a time, which 0:08:09.520 --> 0:08:11.080 is just I don't know that must that would piss 0:08:11.120 --> 0:08:15.480 me off if I Yeah, but he's probably got gout 0:08:15.880 --> 0:08:20.600 overrese you know. So the upset and power didn't actually 0:08:20.680 --> 0:08:23.600 happen until after the game had spread west to Europe 0:08:23.600 --> 0:08:26.400 in the early eleventh century, and once the game hit Europe, 0:08:26.680 --> 0:08:29.040 that's when it shifted from that army on the battlefield 0:08:29.120 --> 0:08:31.920 to members of the royal court. And for a while 0:08:32.000 --> 0:08:33.920 most of the pieces still moved more or less according 0:08:33.960 --> 0:08:36.959 to the original rules, but that changed sometime in the 0:08:37.120 --> 0:08:40.559 fourteen hundreds or so when this unknown inventor, I think 0:08:40.600 --> 0:08:42.960 it was either in Italy or Spain, introduced the rules 0:08:43.000 --> 0:08:46.080 we know today, and the most important revisions he made 0:08:46.120 --> 0:08:48.679 were to the Bishop and the Queen, which until then 0:08:48.720 --> 0:08:50.640 had been sort of the weakest pieces on the board 0:08:50.640 --> 0:08:53.320 except for the ponds and something. These pieces were less 0:08:53.320 --> 0:08:56.240 restricted in their movement and a whole lot stronger, and 0:08:56.480 --> 0:08:58.520 it was one of those changes that just made the 0:08:58.559 --> 0:09:01.559 game so much faster and more interesting to play. And 0:09:01.640 --> 0:09:03.560 that makes sense, and I could see how those would 0:09:03.600 --> 0:09:06.320 go over well in terms of the actual game play. 0:09:06.440 --> 0:09:08.920 But it's a little bit surprising because if you think 0:09:08.920 --> 0:09:11.240 about it making the queen the most powerful piece on 0:09:11.320 --> 0:09:14.319 the board, it it feels pretty progressive for you know, 0:09:14.400 --> 0:09:17.720 think about this was medieval times you're talking about. That's true, 0:09:17.720 --> 0:09:20.720 and there were tons of sexist players that did kind 0:09:20.760 --> 0:09:23.440 of excuse the change there and said that the strength 0:09:23.559 --> 0:09:26.160 was only in her defense of the King. That's when 0:09:26.200 --> 0:09:28.240 her power came up. But but the reality is that 0:09:28.480 --> 0:09:31.400 queens were getting more powerful on the chessboard at the 0:09:31.440 --> 0:09:33.560 same time they were getting more powerful in real life. 0:09:33.600 --> 0:09:36.360 So so you think back to the fourteenth and fifteen centuries, 0:09:36.640 --> 0:09:38.600 the ladies that were coming to power all over Europe, 0:09:38.640 --> 0:09:41.160 where people like Elizabeth the First and Mary Tudor and 0:09:41.320 --> 0:09:44.440 Queen Isabella. That's pretty cool to see that that would 0:09:44.520 --> 0:09:47.280 you know, be mirrored on the chessboard. But so I 0:09:47.280 --> 0:09:49.199 actually want to stick with the chess pieces for just 0:09:49.320 --> 0:09:51.600 a minute and talk about how they got these iconic 0:09:51.720 --> 0:09:54.240 designs that we're all used to seeing at this point. 0:09:54.320 --> 0:09:56.640 I mean, you know, you think about the horsehead knights 0:09:56.720 --> 0:09:59.880 and the castle shaped brooks, because obviously, during those sin 0:10:00.000 --> 0:10:02.720 trees of innovation and development that you were talking about, 0:10:02.760 --> 0:10:06.719 the game was really spreading through all different regions and cultures, 0:10:06.880 --> 0:10:10.160 and there was actually no standard chess set to play with. 0:10:10.720 --> 0:10:12.360 I mean, the basic setup was there. You had a 0:10:12.440 --> 0:10:15.959 board with sixty four squares and thirty two pieces, and 0:10:16.440 --> 0:10:18.719 you know, I guess they made pretty similar moves, but 0:10:19.200 --> 0:10:21.720 what those pieces actually looked like, or how they felt, 0:10:21.920 --> 0:10:23.679 or even what they were made of. I mean all 0:10:23.760 --> 0:10:27.120 of that very dramatically depending on where you were playing 0:10:27.160 --> 0:10:30.000 the game. And so all of these countless varieties of 0:10:30.080 --> 0:10:33.080 styles worked well enough for a while. But you come 0:10:33.160 --> 0:10:35.959 upon the nineteenth century and the game has become so 0:10:36.200 --> 0:10:39.640 popular that chess clubs and competitions began cropping up all 0:10:39.679 --> 0:10:42.240 over the world. So you can imagine it actually got 0:10:42.320 --> 0:10:45.480 pretty confusing when players from different cultures would sit down 0:10:45.559 --> 0:10:48.040 for a match and then realized that none of the 0:10:48.080 --> 0:10:51.440 opponent's pieces looked familiar to them. Would be so weird 0:10:51.520 --> 0:10:54.960 and very strange. But and it's still just so strange 0:10:55.040 --> 0:10:58.200 that the game evolved somewhat similarly in so many places, 0:10:58.280 --> 0:11:00.719 and that this was really the big difference. But you 0:11:00.800 --> 0:11:03.240 asked forward a bit to eighteen forty nine, and there 0:11:03.320 --> 0:11:06.319 was a British architect named Nathan Cook who built this 0:11:06.480 --> 0:11:10.000 standardized set that was called the Staunton Chess set, and 0:11:10.080 --> 0:11:12.800 its pieces are actually the ones that we still know today. 0:11:13.800 --> 0:11:17.200 So I'm curious, like, if Nathan Cook made the set, 0:11:17.400 --> 0:11:20.680 why is it called the Staunton set? Like who is Stunton? Yeah, 0:11:21.040 --> 0:11:23.240 what you'd think it might be called the Cook Chess set, 0:11:23.280 --> 0:11:26.319 But he actually decided to forego that fame and in 0:11:26.440 --> 0:11:29.480 favor of practicality. So there was a guy named Howard 0:11:29.559 --> 0:11:32.280 Staunton who was a major player in the London chess 0:11:32.320 --> 0:11:35.199 scene at the time, and he'd organized these tournaments and 0:11:35.360 --> 0:11:38.199 clubs and was really considered one of the best players 0:11:38.240 --> 0:11:41.320 in the world. And so Cook knew how respected Staunton 0:11:41.520 --> 0:11:44.200 was in this chess community, and so he approached him 0:11:44.200 --> 0:11:46.760 and asked if Staunton's name could be used to market 0:11:46.920 --> 0:11:50.120 his new designs, And of course Staunton was flattered and 0:11:50.200 --> 0:11:52.920 agreed as soon as he saw the pieces, and so 0:11:53.080 --> 0:11:55.120 the set was a huge hit with the public, and 0:11:55.600 --> 0:11:58.679 really since the nineteen twenties it's actually been the required 0:11:58.720 --> 0:12:02.959 set for all world chess organizations. I didn't realize that. 0:12:03.080 --> 0:12:05.160 So what was the revolutionary about the Stunt set? Like 0:12:05.280 --> 0:12:07.280 I I get that it became the standard, but why 0:12:07.520 --> 0:12:10.280 is that exactly? Well, the set had a few things 0:12:10.400 --> 0:12:13.280 going for it, so for starters it it wasn't wholly 0:12:13.400 --> 0:12:16.800 unfamiliar because Cook had studied a bunch of different popular 0:12:16.880 --> 0:12:18.760 chess sets that were in use at the time and 0:12:19.360 --> 0:12:22.679 use those common traits really as starting points for his 0:12:22.760 --> 0:12:25.199 own set, and then from there he would look to 0:12:25.280 --> 0:12:28.880 inspiration in the architecture of Victorian London, which was the 0:12:29.000 --> 0:12:31.960 city around him at the time, and also for some reason, 0:12:32.040 --> 0:12:35.160 from the ruins of ancient Greece and Rome. And so 0:12:35.520 --> 0:12:37.640 take the Night for example, The Night and the Staunton 0:12:37.720 --> 0:12:40.839 set is a great example of that influence. Like it's 0:12:40.880 --> 0:12:43.040 the only piece in the set that isn't an abstract 0:12:43.120 --> 0:12:46.800 representation of something, and instead it looks like a pretty 0:12:46.880 --> 0:12:50.720 realistic horse head. And that's because it's pretty clearly inspired 0:12:50.760 --> 0:12:53.880 by a sculpture on the east pediment of the Parthenon. 0:12:54.480 --> 0:12:57.480 So that carving depicts horses pulling the chariot of the moon, 0:12:57.640 --> 0:13:00.959 goddess of Greek mythology, and so that supposedly what the 0:13:01.040 --> 0:13:03.840 Staunton Night is based on, like this horse that drew 0:13:03.920 --> 0:13:07.520 the moon across the sky each night, which is such 0:13:07.600 --> 0:13:11.400 a weird mishmash of things, right, like Victorian London, you've 0:13:11.440 --> 0:13:15.400 got like Greece and Rome because the culture is like, 0:13:16.960 --> 0:13:19.640 so what else was Cook doing? All right? Well? I 0:13:19.679 --> 0:13:23.240 actually found this breakdown in the Smithsonian of the Staunton set, 0:13:23.280 --> 0:13:25.360 and here are a few of the key features. According 0:13:25.400 --> 0:13:29.000 to the article, it says, um, while some variation is tolerated, 0:13:29.080 --> 0:13:32.800 there are several key distinguishing characteristics that define a set 0:13:32.960 --> 0:13:35.880 as a stunt. The King is topped with a cross, 0:13:35.960 --> 0:13:38.720 and as the tallest piece, it serves as a metric 0:13:38.800 --> 0:13:41.480 for the height of the other ones. The Queen is 0:13:41.559 --> 0:13:44.559 topped by a crown and a ball, the Bishop has 0:13:44.600 --> 0:13:48.120 a split top, and the rook is a squat castle turret. 0:13:48.720 --> 0:13:51.319 And so with all of this, Cook really established this 0:13:51.520 --> 0:13:54.959 clear and simple language with the forms that he was choosing, 0:13:55.040 --> 0:13:58.240 which not only made them easy to recognize, but pretty 0:13:58.280 --> 0:14:00.800 cheap to produce as well. And so I'm betting that 0:14:00.920 --> 0:14:03.720 all of that together is probably why the Staunton said, 0:14:03.800 --> 0:14:07.040 is still, you know, really the global standard today. All right, well, 0:14:07.200 --> 0:14:09.040 I know we want to jump ahead in the timeline 0:14:09.040 --> 0:14:10.800 and talk a little bit about the rise of chess 0:14:10.840 --> 0:14:13.160 in Russia, but before we do that, I do want 0:14:13.200 --> 0:14:15.199 to run quickly through a little of its history in 0:14:15.240 --> 0:14:18.199 the US. And as you might imagine, the game made 0:14:18.240 --> 0:14:21.680 its way stateside thanks to European columnists, but despite the 0:14:21.720 --> 0:14:24.600 fact that Ben Franklin was a huge chess fan, the 0:14:24.680 --> 0:14:27.160 game really didn't catch on until the mid nineteenth century. 0:14:27.640 --> 0:14:30.360 And what turned the tide was that this American chess 0:14:30.360 --> 0:14:33.280 player his name was Paul Morphy. He managed to beat 0:14:33.520 --> 0:14:37.240 all of Europe's chess champions in this international tournament. It 0:14:37.400 --> 0:14:40.240 was the first time this had ever happened. So people's 0:14:40.240 --> 0:14:42.760 patriotism just kind of kicked in at that point and 0:14:43.080 --> 0:14:45.280 it did its thing, and from then on chess became 0:14:45.360 --> 0:14:48.600 super popular in the US. Of course, not everyone was 0:14:48.640 --> 0:14:50.840 happy to see the game takeoff. And why is that? 0:14:51.320 --> 0:14:53.560 I mean, I read this hilarious old article from this 0:14:53.760 --> 0:14:58.200 eighteen fifty nine edition of Scientific American, and the author 0:14:58.240 --> 0:15:01.920 basically treats chess like the sinis de corrupting influence, almost 0:15:01.960 --> 0:15:05.240 like it's the fortnight of its time. And so this 0:15:05.360 --> 0:15:08.120 is how the author describes this very real danger of chess. 0:15:09.200 --> 0:15:12.120 A pernicious excitement to learn and play chess has spread 0:15:12.200 --> 0:15:15.080 all over the country, and numerous clubs for practicing this 0:15:15.240 --> 0:15:18.400 game have been formed in cities and villages. Why should 0:15:18.400 --> 0:15:21.480 we regret this, it may be asked. We answer, Chess 0:15:21.560 --> 0:15:24.760 is a mirror amusement of a very inferior character, which 0:15:24.960 --> 0:15:27.840 robs the mind a valuable time and might be devoted 0:15:27.880 --> 0:15:31.240 to nobler requirements, while it affords no benefits whatever to 0:15:31.320 --> 0:15:33.680 the body. A game of chess does not add a 0:15:33.760 --> 0:15:36.680 single new fact to the mind. It does not excite 0:15:36.720 --> 0:15:39.440 a single beautiful thought, nor does it serve a single 0:15:39.520 --> 0:15:43.560 purpose for polishing and improving the nobler faculties. You know, 0:15:43.680 --> 0:15:45.800 those were really the good old days when the greatest 0:15:45.880 --> 0:15:48.200 threat facing the youth of America with the pressure to 0:15:48.360 --> 0:15:51.880 join a chess club when you talk about it. Alright, well, 0:15:52.040 --> 0:15:53.640 now that we've heard from the critics, let's talk a 0:15:53.680 --> 0:15:56.440 little bit about some of the game's biggest proponents, which 0:15:56.480 --> 0:15:59.120 of course are the Russians. So but before we get 0:15:59.160 --> 0:16:17.240 to them, let's take a quick break. You're listening to 0:16:17.280 --> 0:16:19.520 part time Genius and we're talking about the enduring appeal 0:16:19.640 --> 0:16:22.840 of one of the world's oldest games, chess. So well, 0:16:23.080 --> 0:16:25.560 one thing I noticed this week is that it's suspiciously 0:16:25.680 --> 0:16:28.280 large number of top ranking chess players all hail from 0:16:28.360 --> 0:16:32.120 Russia or some other Soviet republic, and that includes chess 0:16:32.160 --> 0:16:36.880 grandmasters like Anthelie Karpov Gary Kasparov, And it really made 0:16:36.880 --> 0:16:39.120 me wonder, like, why do the Russians have such a 0:16:39.200 --> 0:16:42.680 dominance for chess. Well, it's interesting, and so of course 0:16:42.800 --> 0:16:45.120 was digging into this in our research for this week. 0:16:45.200 --> 0:16:47.600 But chess first spread the Russia along the Persian and 0:16:47.680 --> 0:16:50.440 Indian trade routes. And that was way back in the 0:16:50.520 --> 0:16:53.280 seventh century or so, and it was popular from the start, 0:16:53.360 --> 0:16:56.600 but it didn't really become a national pastime until much later. 0:16:56.680 --> 0:16:59.520 More we're talking like the nineteenth century or so. Now, 0:16:59.640 --> 0:17:02.560 this was during the Russian Revolution when Lenin and the 0:17:02.640 --> 0:17:05.720 Bolsheviks took power, and Lennon was a big player. I mean, 0:17:05.720 --> 0:17:08.840 he really loved the game, and Stalin would be after him. 0:17:08.960 --> 0:17:12.320 But the real mastermind behind the country's chess movement was 0:17:12.680 --> 0:17:17.320 Lennon's commander of the Soviet Army, this guy named Nikola Krelenko. Now, 0:17:17.640 --> 0:17:22.080 he opened these dedicated chess schools, he organized competitions and 0:17:22.160 --> 0:17:25.520 really paved the way for these first state sponsored chess tournaments. 0:17:25.600 --> 0:17:28.879 And this was back in So you fast forward a 0:17:28.960 --> 0:17:32.560 decade and you've got roughly half a million amateur players 0:17:32.640 --> 0:17:35.440 that have signed up for these state chess programs. It's 0:17:35.480 --> 0:17:38.600 pretty remarkable how quickly it grew. Yeah, so it sounds 0:17:38.640 --> 0:17:41.440 like there's this big push from the state and that's 0:17:41.480 --> 0:17:44.120 what sort of kick started Russia's love affair with chess. 0:17:44.200 --> 0:17:46.239 But why were all those Soviet leaders and think are 0:17:46.280 --> 0:17:48.399 so into chess in the first place, Like, was it 0:17:48.520 --> 0:17:50.959 just because it's a strategic game, and and they were 0:17:51.280 --> 0:17:54.919 kind of seen as great schemers. You know, I'm guessing 0:17:54.960 --> 0:17:57.240 the strategy involved was a big part of the appeal 0:17:57.320 --> 0:17:59.960 for them, so that that's probably true. But I also 0:18:00.119 --> 0:18:02.879 read this article in Slate that suggested there might have 0:18:02.960 --> 0:18:04.879 been a little bit more to it, so I just 0:18:05.240 --> 0:18:06.879 will read a little bit of this. The author of 0:18:06.920 --> 0:18:09.720 the piece was Chris Beam, and he was describing the 0:18:09.920 --> 0:18:13.320 appeal of chess. So he writes, the Soviets saw chess 0:18:13.480 --> 0:18:17.119 as embodying their revolutionary ideals. It was a game of skill, 0:18:17.560 --> 0:18:21.760 and the USSR prided itself on intellectual talents. It was 0:18:21.800 --> 0:18:24.960 also cheap, which meant anyone could play it, and it's 0:18:24.960 --> 0:18:28.800 back and forth dynamic reflected that dialectical concept of history 0:18:28.960 --> 0:18:31.920 espouse by Marxism. You know, never mind the irony of 0:18:32.040 --> 0:18:36.520 playing with imperialist symbols like kings and queens. That is funny, 0:18:36.760 --> 0:18:39.240 you know. I I and thought about that. But I 0:18:39.359 --> 0:18:42.320 know chess is hugely popular in Russia, even if it 0:18:42.359 --> 0:18:44.840 no longer has state money behind it. And there's actually 0:18:44.880 --> 0:18:47.439 this one famous chess supporter in particularly who I want 0:18:47.480 --> 0:18:49.800 to talk about not only because he's done a lot 0:18:49.920 --> 0:18:53.080 to keep the game relevant for Russian citizens, but also 0:18:53.160 --> 0:18:56.600 because he's just a super weird guy. His name is 0:18:56.800 --> 0:19:01.400 kirsn uh illiams in Off, which I know I mispronouncing. 0:19:01.880 --> 0:19:04.960 He was president of the World Chess Federation from all 0:19:05.000 --> 0:19:07.600 the way up until just last year, and that's when 0:19:07.640 --> 0:19:09.600 he was finally ousted in favor of a new president. 0:19:09.760 --> 0:19:12.080 It's a pretty impressive run those of what makes him 0:19:12.080 --> 0:19:14.920 such a weird guy. So there are actually a bunch 0:19:14.960 --> 0:19:17.399 of things, but honestly, they all kind of hinge on 0:19:17.600 --> 0:19:20.320 one in particular, which is that Kirsen claims that he 0:19:20.520 --> 0:19:24.000 was abducted by aliens, and I'm just gonna let him 0:19:24.000 --> 0:19:25.959 explain what happened. And this is what he said an 0:19:26.000 --> 0:19:29.359 interview about a decade after the abduction. It happened on 0:19:29.440 --> 0:19:33.520 September sevent I was taken from my apartment in Moscow 0:19:33.680 --> 0:19:35.840 and taken to the spaceship and we went to some 0:19:36.040 --> 0:19:40.080 star and after that I asked, please bring me back 0:19:40.160 --> 0:19:41.960 because the next day I should be back and go 0:19:42.119 --> 0:19:45.600 to the Ukraine. They said, no problem, Kirson, you have time. 0:19:45.840 --> 0:19:48.800 Oh no, no problems, I guess he got napped by 0:19:48.880 --> 0:19:51.960 some considerate aliens. I mean, not every abductee is so lucky, 0:19:52.080 --> 0:19:56.200 is that? Yeah? Usually there's more provings. These weren't just 0:19:56.320 --> 0:20:00.119 any aliens. They were the sophisticates that invented che us. 0:20:00.119 --> 0:20:02.639 Apparently that's true. You know, I didn't realize that this 0:20:02.840 --> 0:20:05.480 was even a theory. So do people really think chess 0:20:05.600 --> 0:20:09.080 was created by aliens? Well, at least one guy does, 0:20:09.240 --> 0:20:11.560 because in that same interview, Kerson went on to say, 0:20:11.800 --> 0:20:14.040 I am not a crazy man. My theory is that 0:20:14.160 --> 0:20:17.600 chess comes from space. Why because the same rules sixty 0:20:17.640 --> 0:20:19.960 four squares black and white, and the same rules in 0:20:20.080 --> 0:20:23.159 Japan and China and Qatar and Mongolia and Africa. The 0:20:23.359 --> 0:20:25.760 rules are the same. Why I think maybe it is 0:20:25.840 --> 0:20:30.240 from space. I mean, I don't want to challenge somebody 0:20:30.320 --> 0:20:32.280 that was in power for that long, but I have 0:20:32.440 --> 0:20:35.119 to say his evidence feels a little bit thin to me. 0:20:35.280 --> 0:20:37.919 I mean, we just tracked the spread of chess across 0:20:38.119 --> 0:20:40.639 different continents, so I feel like jumping straight to the 0:20:40.720 --> 0:20:43.280