Speaker 1: This is really going to be fun. For the first time,
Speaker 1: North America is hosting the prestigious fee Day World Rapid
Speaker 1: and Blitz Championships Chess Championships taking place in the heart
Speaker 1: of New York City's historic Wall Street district, including a
Speaker 1: special Wall Street gambit uniting the worlds of chess and finance.
Speaker 1: Joining us now to discuss is fee Day Deputy President
Speaker 1: vc onand he is a five time World chess champion. Wow.
Speaker 1: VH Welcome, thanks for joining us here. Talk to us
Speaker 1: about why you're in New York. Talk to us about
Speaker 1: this tournament. How important is it and how important is
Speaker 1: it in have it in America?
Speaker 2: Okay, So, historically the classical World Chess Championship, that is
Speaker 2: the long time six seven hour format is the most
Speaker 2: important andreminso, but over the last few years we've started
Speaker 2: to work on the Rapid and Blitz format. So the
Speaker 2: rapid is fifteen minutes plus ten seconds per game foot player,
Speaker 2: so already much faster. And then you have the Blitz
Speaker 2: which is three minutes into seconds per play up again,
Speaker 2: so highly sped up. This, as you can imagine, produces
Speaker 2: a lot of excitement. It's very fast paced, pulsating you
Speaker 2: can actually sit there and go oh, and you know
Speaker 2: it's that saturve event and it's important for us. The
Speaker 2: second thing is we had the candidates tournament for the
Speaker 2: Classical World Championship in Toronto in April this year, and
Speaker 2: we're so we're very, very excited that we have a
Speaker 2: second important event in the Americas within one year. And
Speaker 2: you know, it's part of something we're trying to do
Speaker 2: and so and you know, there's been a lot of excitement,
Speaker 2: a lot of growth in the US in chess. Famously,
Speaker 2: I think Queens Gamberto was the thing which kind of
Speaker 2: triggered it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, now I gotta ask you, I said, chess person,
Speaker 1: did you think that was a good representation of the
Speaker 1: sport and some of the people in the in the
Speaker 1: in the game?
Speaker 2: I mean, yes, I have only one or two quibbles
Speaker 2: the rest, but the rest is very authentic and it
Speaker 2: felt very natural. I mean you could easily see yourself
Speaker 2: in that person's shoes. I think it was very accurately done.
Speaker 3: Let's talk though, about a women versus a man, and
Speaker 3: that's not what's actually occurring. There's a women's chess spotlight
Speaker 3: as well, I understand. So how are we seeing demographics
Speaker 3: play out in the world of chess right now?
Speaker 2: It's becoming a global sport. One of the things that's
Speaker 2: happened is that technology has managed to make it a
Speaker 2: truly global sport. Earlier, if you lived in a country,
Speaker 2: whether or not a lot of chess players, chances are
Speaker 2: you wouldn't know how to get into the game. Now
Speaker 2: that problem has been solved. You can watch a game
Speaker 2: no matter where you are. There are live streams, they're broadcasts,
Speaker 2: you can follow the game in multiple platforms, and so
Speaker 2: it has become an ever more global game, and that
Speaker 2: is reflected here. I don't remember the exact number, but
Speaker 2: it is a very large number of nationalities and more
Speaker 2: than five hundred participants in the men and women's sections together,
Speaker 2: and I should say it's the open section and the
Speaker 2: women's section in a sense, the women can play in
Speaker 2: the open section, but not the other way around. The
Speaker 2: thing is there is still a gap, but more and
Speaker 2: more women are starting to beat male grandmasters. The gap
Speaker 2: is narrowing. There's always been a kind of gap, but
Speaker 2: it's narrowing, and so we hope this will trigger more
Speaker 2: and more women coming to participate in the game as well,
Speaker 2: because it's quite easy to.
Speaker 1: Do, right and this event in New York City, you've
Speaker 1: got some serious players here. Tell us about who's going
Speaker 1: to be playing.
Speaker 2: Yes, So in addition to yourself, I'm not actually participating,
Speaker 2: I can in my capacity is definitely for official duties.
Speaker 2: But we have almost everyone in the top twenty or
Speaker 2: top thirty, bar two or three. It's the strongest ever edition.
Speaker 2: So in all the edition's history, this is the one
Speaker 2: which has the highest average rating, highest average, you know,
Speaker 2: historical record, all that a performance record, I should say.
Speaker 2: And you know, it's fantastic that we were able to
Speaker 2: host it in Wall Street, you know, a very good location,
Speaker 2: and that also kind of gives into our team. We're
Speaker 2: having this conference the Wall Street Gamut. Talking about chess
Speaker 2: and finance. Again, there's a lot of similarities between the
Speaker 2: two and there's been a lot of crossovers. A lot
Speaker 2: of former chess players migrated finance and went on to
Speaker 2: be very very successful. At one point there were companies
Speaker 2: like Bankers Trust Noel, which we're hiring chess players exactly
Speaker 2: for that reason. But the other thing is I would
Speaker 2: say that with all the technological development with AI and everything,
Speaker 2: the relevance. One of the biggest connections I see is
Speaker 2: that chess has kind of been ahead of the curve
Speaker 2: we from the finance perspective, I would say chess is
Speaker 2: like to the future of where finance will encounter air,
Speaker 2: which is what happens when AI becomes very, very good
Speaker 2: at what you do. And because chess is again with
Speaker 2: you know, it's finite sixty four squares, it's finite. So
Speaker 2: the computers were able to solve it, not solve it,
Speaker 2: but get better at humans much faster, and as a result,
Speaker 2: learning how to interpret that information has become a key
Speaker 2: skill for us. Now. Finance, of course much much more
Speaker 2: complex and may not be reduced like this, but again,
Speaker 2: as computers get better and better at different areas, you
Speaker 2: know our experience might be relevant there.
Speaker 3: I'm interested victually as many would say, and that we've
Speaker 3: had on the program before. Paul and I talking to
Speaker 3: Jenny just about how you educate people around poker playing
Speaker 3: and women in particular, and understanding risk and probability and
Speaker 3: ultimately reading people with poker. A professional poker comes money,
Speaker 3: and interestingly, with Wall Street comes money. What are the
Speaker 3: sort of prizes you're having to offer within the world
Speaker 3: of chess to bring about more and more people who
Speaker 3: are at this intersection of Wall Street and chess and
Speaker 3: wanting to be able to sort of tempt those that
Speaker 3: might be a little bit more financially motivated.
Speaker 2: Yes, price funds and chess have been growing clearly as
Speaker 2: the popularity of the sport grows and our broadcast audience
Speaker 2: audiences are larger than ever before, So the money is increasing.
Speaker 2: There's a record price fund for these World WLD Championships,
Speaker 2: more than million dollars. But you know, we have to
Speaker 2: keep expanding and getting more, that's clear. So this is
Speaker 2: part of our is a very important event for us
Speaker 2: because we get an incredible number of spectators. It's our
Speaker 2: second most watched event after the World Championships, and that's
Speaker 2: why it's so important as we connect with more and
Speaker 2: more people and hopefully attract more sponsors to the game.
Speaker 1: And the worst gambit that has some Wall Street players
Speaker 1: going to be playing in this, right, Like who's playing
Speaker 1: that's right?
Speaker 2: Well, that are famous people in the world of finance,
Speaker 2: Einstein and who are all former chess players and quite
Speaker 2: serious chess players. And so we're trying to play in
Speaker 2: that connection, all right, How do people watch this?
Speaker 1: How do they? Is there a stream somewhere or.
Speaker 2: There will be a stream, But you can also attend
Speaker 2: the conference, okay.
Speaker 1: And that's being held were downtown.
Speaker 2: Yes, in uh. I don't have the I'll get a thing,
Speaker 2: but it's basically at.
Speaker 1: All right, and you can check out the stream as well.
Speaker 1: All right, excellent, really interesting stuff on an adjoint says
Speaker 1: he's a five time world champion and fee D deputy president,
Speaker 1: joining us here in studio. They've got their chess event
Speaker 1: going to be down here in Lower Manhattan over the
Speaker 1: next several days, so that's a good thing.