Speaker 1: Brought to you by the all new Toyota Corolla. Welcome
Speaker 1: to you Stuff you should Know from House Stuff Works
Speaker 1: dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Murray
Speaker 1: Head with me as always as Charles W. Chuck Bryant
Speaker 1: and uh Steffe should know Mary Head. And here's the
Speaker 1: guy who did One Night in Bangkok. Oh, I know,
Speaker 1: I just don't get the reference. Oh, it's about Bobby. Sure,
Speaker 1: it's from the musical Chess. What we talked about this before.
Speaker 1: I have no idea what you're talking in an episode? Jerry?
Speaker 1: Did we not? I'm almost positive we did. Jerry doesn't listen.
Speaker 1: What a yeah? I think I have a faint memory.
Speaker 1: One Night in Bangkok is from the the musical Chess,
Speaker 1: which I didn't know existed, right, And it's based loosely
Speaker 1: on the story of Bobby Fisher. Okay, I do remember
Speaker 1: that now, and I think I was just as surprised
Speaker 1: back then. It's but it's the truth. Tell me in
Speaker 1: another couple of years, and again, what's with Murray Head.
Speaker 1: That can't be the guy's real name? And why would
Speaker 1: that be a name you adopted although it's perfect for
Speaker 1: five I bet that's his name. Murray Head. Well, look
Speaker 1: into it. What parents name their kid Murray head? Was
Speaker 1: his last name was head, right, I'm saying yeah, but
Speaker 1: no doctor and mrs Head. Maybe doctor and doctor head.
Speaker 1: Maybe so maybe his parents are both doctors, but don't
Speaker 1: you think that. Probably then if his last name really
Speaker 1: was Head, it was actually like Hedowski or something like that,
Speaker 1: Murray Hedowski. I can live with Murray Head. It's terrible
Speaker 1: that we Chuck's checking his watch, which is the universal
Speaker 1: sign for me to hurry things along. Now I'm not.
Speaker 1: And I need to apologize to you because, uh, it's
Speaker 1: a it's a busy week for me. And I said, hey,
Speaker 1: let's do one that is, uh, it's not super tough.
Speaker 1: And I sent you chess. You were like today, You're like,
Speaker 1: I've never played chess before. I'm not in my life. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I had no idea. I apologize for some reason. I
Speaker 1: don't even know how to play checkers. Yeah, And now
Speaker 1: that I think about it, I don't see you as
Speaker 1: a chess player until now. I don't know you more
Speaker 1: as a type of person who would walk in and
Speaker 1: like drop a bowling ball on the chess board and say,
Speaker 1: I went, you got me way wrong. You're not like
Speaker 1: super strategic and tactical. What he's a big stick? Oh,
Speaker 1: I can be both ways. You you're just talking about
Speaker 1: your own experience with me. Oh yeah, I've can play
Speaker 1: chess and I intend to. Are you gonna play? Yeah?
Speaker 1: After researching to say emailed you, I was like, we
Speaker 1: have to start playing chess. She said her dad taught
Speaker 1: her like the basic moves when she was a kid,
Speaker 1: but she never really got into it. So we're gonna
Speaker 1: start playing chess. Well I never got into it, got
Speaker 1: into it, but I did learn when I was probably
Speaker 1: a young teenager. And uh, my brother and I played
Speaker 1: for a little while. Who won? I think he always won?
Speaker 1: But I never ever learned strategy. I was like, I
Speaker 1: learned how the pieces moved, and then as a dumb
Speaker 1: little thirteen year old kind of went about my way
Speaker 1: trying to get the king in checkmate. Right, you sold
Speaker 1: your Detective Comics number one and stopped playing the piano,
Speaker 1: And yeah, I started drinking beer. By the way, I
Speaker 1: looked at Murray Head. I rarely do this. His name
Speaker 1: is Murray Seafield St. George Head. So his name really
Speaker 1: is Murray Head. Yeah, why didn't he go by Murray St.
Speaker 1: George or Seafield St. George. That's awesome. Yeah, it sounds
Speaker 1: like you should be wearing a cravat anytime you say that.
Speaker 1: All right, so let's play some chess. Okay. So, um,
Speaker 1: you were just saying that you stopped playing chess and
Speaker 1: you really never got strategy. No, but I remember, like
Speaker 1: I could sit down and play right now, so I
Speaker 1: probably could too after reading this article eighteen times. Um.
Speaker 1: But the the thing that I gathered from this article
Speaker 1: is that had you kept playing, you would have eventually
Speaker 1: stopped thinking about how you can move your your pieces
Speaker 1: and started thinking strategically. That that just kind of comes
Speaker 1: with time and practice. It's the natural result of playing chess. Yea,
Speaker 1: And I think I remember probably getting a little better.
Speaker 1: But unless you know, like the bona fide bona fide strategies, uh,
Speaker 1: I don't know, there's a ceiling to how good you
Speaker 1: can get, you know. So we're gonna get email about this.
Speaker 1: It's bona fide as like a descriptor. But if it
Speaker 1: is your bona fide is like a noun, like your credentials,
Speaker 1: then that's how it pronounced. Bona fide can be correct. Yeah,
Speaker 1: bona fide is right. But when you're talking about like
Speaker 1: my bona fide is like are that I'm great? But
Speaker 1: um I'm bona fide great? Gotcha? I think that's right
Speaker 1: that and I thought was I was just mispronouncing as
Speaker 1: a joke like a normally do. Let's talk chess, alright.
Speaker 1: Chess for me, one of my favorite things about the
Speaker 1: game is that it is has pointed out in this article,
Speaker 1: is the great equalizer and sitting sitting in chess is
Speaker 1: very cool to me that chess the brainiest nerds in
Speaker 1: a classroom or a library might play. Or you can
Speaker 1: walk by Washington Square Park and seeing these old Kajars
Speaker 1: playing chess that have been like battling it out for years,
Speaker 1: or the kid from fresh It really played chess speed chess.
Speaker 1: So it really just is it spans ages and races
Speaker 1: and social and economic groups. Is it's really kind of cool.
Speaker 1: It's not like just like like some snooty game, you know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean everybody can play it and it's old. Yes,
Speaker 1: it is. The Indians can actually claim or India can
Speaker 1: claim chess the invention of chess and that those are Indians.
Speaker 1: I know, if the one for Christopher Columbus. We wouldn't
Speaker 1: have to make that distinction. That's the second appearance today. Yes,
Speaker 1: it does. Is rioted in India, believe to have been
Speaker 1: born in about a d. Three hundred um by the
Speaker 1: name Kataraga, and it was a four person game. Kataranga
Speaker 1: was with sixty four squares on the board, but the
Speaker 1: moves are similar to the modern game, and the chess
Speaker 1: we all know and love is most closely tied to
Speaker 1: that original Indian game and not some of these other ones.
Speaker 1: We actually don't know the rules of Kataraga. It was
Speaker 1: lost to the ages. But there's a guy, but we
Speaker 1: do know that it did exist. We I think we
Speaker 1: have our hands on Katarango boards and it's obviously the
Speaker 1: predecessor of chess. Um But there's a guy. Read this
Speaker 1: article called Big Game Hunter from two thousand eight in
Speaker 1: Time magazine. It's about this guy named Irving Finkel, and
Speaker 1: that a great name, believing Finkel. Yeah, And he works
Speaker 1: at the British Museum and he's a game expert and
Speaker 1: basically his job is too far in old games and
Speaker 1: to figure out their rules. Man, is cool. Do you
Speaker 1: know how smart that guy has to be? Dude? So
Speaker 1: I don't know if he's worked on Kataranga or what,
Speaker 1: but I guarantee like that's on his like bucket list
Speaker 1: is to figure out exactly how Kataraga was played. That's
Speaker 1: pretty awesome. That's a well is it a job or
Speaker 1: is it? It's a gentle h good I think think so.
Speaker 1: Kataranga was originated about three in India, and a couple
Speaker 1: of hundred years later it made its way out to
Speaker 1: Persia Arang, Yeah, and the Persians um were firmly planted
Speaker 1: onto the Silk Road, and the Silk Road spread everything,
Speaker 1: it really did. Um. And one of the things that
Speaker 1: did spread was chat Trang or chat Trang and Uh
Speaker 1: it made it into uh Arabia and the Arabians or
Speaker 1: also referred to as the Moors when they invaded Spain
Speaker 1: or the Moops depending on whether you like I felt
Speaker 1: or not, and Uh. From there it's spread all through Europe, yes,
Speaker 1: and then of course eventually the America's and the rest
Speaker 1: of the continents. It spread like everything else spread, really
Speaker 1: it did. So our modern chest that we play today
Speaker 1: is traced back to rang Uh and that diasporas Chitrang.
Speaker 1: But of course the Chinese and the Japanese were like, well,
Speaker 1: just come up with our own bubble based it on chattaranga. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Like it seems like most cultures had a similar like
Speaker 1: slight variations UM, including Germany and the Byzantines who played
Speaker 1: on a circular board. Uh. Germans had three extra pieces
Speaker 1: that we don't use um in China and Japan, like
Speaker 1: you mentioned um, which they still play today their own versions.
Speaker 1: In China, it's called sankai and stended like the guy
Speaker 1: from NPR. Uh. And the board is a five by
Speaker 1: nine grid and it's green and two five by nine grids.
Speaker 1: It's expensive. Yeah, there are two five by nine grids
Speaker 1: separated by a moat. Well that's the part that I
Speaker 1: love best, the moat. It would it'd be cool if
Speaker 1: like you had a really great board that had like
Speaker 1: water in it and like a mini like sea monster
Speaker 1: swimming around. That's awesome. Uh. And the goal there instead
Speaker 1: of a king, you are supposed to topple the general, right,
Speaker 1: the general is that the top dog. Not a big
Speaker 1: difference in that place. But uh, the Japanese have one
Speaker 1: called she Go show ge I got it backwards? Um,
Speaker 1: and that's the nine by nine grid twenty game pieces,
Speaker 1: which is four more than chess twenty game pieces for
Speaker 1: each player. The big differences that they're all the same color. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you think that's confusing, but apparently they face in a
Speaker 1: certain direction and that's how you tell what who, what
Speaker 1: piece belongs to whom. But I guess if you know
Speaker 1: the game, that's not super confusing. So, like I said,
Speaker 1: modern chess that we play now is basically closely resembles
Speaker 1: the Indian original Indian game. Did you say that? Uh?
Speaker 1: And in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, though, is when
Speaker 1: the queen basically became the most powerful piece on the board,
Speaker 1: which is very surprising. It. Yes, the fifteenth and sixteenth
Speaker 1: centuries the age of misogyny, that's when witches were were created.
Speaker 1: The idea of women being powerful was a bad thing,
Speaker 1: like the continuation of just women being held down. They
Speaker 1: at the same time, in chess, in this universally enjoyed game,
Speaker 1: the one obviously female piece was given the most power. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but that was also like some pretty powerful queens at
Speaker 1: that time, right, it's a good point. I don't know.
Speaker 1: So there were some difference though between the pieces of course,
Speaker 1: in the Western game, like they had elephants in the
Speaker 1: Indian version, whereas we had nights. So just kind of
Speaker 1: character differences. Uh. And in the nineteen until the mid
Speaker 1: nineteenth century there were class differences as well, So like,
Speaker 1: if you're a wealthy person you have these big heavy
Speaker 1: chess pieces that would like fud and stay in place.
Speaker 1: If you're poor, you just had like chunks of wood
Speaker 1: that represented the pieces. And then in the mid nineteenth century,
Speaker 1: um Jean Jacques of Jacques of London created the design
Speaker 1: that we see in chess boards today, which is a
Speaker 1: symbol denoting what piece it is on top of the pedestal. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and did you know you know the pawn it's like
Speaker 1: basically like a ball on top of like a base
Speaker 1: or something like that. It's supposedly supposed to represent the
Speaker 1: compass and square of the masons. Interesting. Oh and the
Speaker 1: pedal stores of different heights too. That's important to know. Yes,
Speaker 1: is all come into play? Who will um what else? Uh? Well?
Speaker 1: You you know these days you can just play with
Speaker 1: each other. You can play on a computer. They have
Speaker 1: computers that play people. I know we all remember when
Speaker 1: Deep Blue two beat Gary casper Off in the nineties.
Speaker 1: That was a big deal. Like one of a few
Speaker 1: times chess makes front page news these days. You know,
Speaker 1: it's got to be a big deal. It was a
Speaker 1: huge deal because they've been trying to build computers that
Speaker 1: could beat humans at chess for decades and they finally
Speaker 1: did it. And I mean cass Brov was the undisputed champ.
Speaker 1: He was the the best chess player walking the planet,
Speaker 1: like everyone agreed, and he got beat by a computer.
Speaker 1: I bet he was pissed. Oh but he was too.
Speaker 1: Can't you imagine that if the very at least you
Speaker 1: have a nightmare that night. All right, So let's if
Speaker 1: you've never played before, let's talk a little bit about
Speaker 1: the game itself. It's a two person game, not the
Speaker 1: four person game like it was originally. Um the end game,
Speaker 1: the goal is to attack the king, put the king
Speaker 1: in check, meaning it cannot move without being captured, which
Speaker 1: would be a checkmate. Yes, if you can get out
Speaker 1: of check you can keep playing. If there is no
Speaker 1: possible move the king can make, then you are in checkmate.
Speaker 1: Game over, which is a really odd little quirk of chess.
Speaker 1: The king actually is never captured. Yeah, it ends just
Speaker 1: before his capture witness capture becomes inevitable. Yeah, and captured,
Speaker 1: meaning like you don't take it off the board and
Speaker 1: rub it in. I guess it's the one piece that
Speaker 1: can never leave the board. It's an a legal move. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I've seen people knock over the king. I don't
Speaker 1: know if that's just a legit move or if that's
Speaker 1: a jerk move, but I've seen it happen. I have
Speaker 1: two Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm not sure about that. Fresh
Speaker 1: um they are the board is half white, the pieces
Speaker 1: are half white, half black. The board is half white
Speaker 1: and half black or white and dark. I'd like to
Speaker 1: quote the article if i'm uh. The rules of the
Speaker 1: game are based on the pieces, half of which are
Speaker 1: black and half of which are white. True game manufacturers
Speaker 1: who are in the business of fun create games with
Speaker 1: non traditional colors and replace typical game pieces with other characters,
Speaker 1: but for the purpose of this article, we will use
Speaker 1: the standard colors because we're talking about chess. I thought
Speaker 1: that was a great c A. Yeah, that's pretty funny.
Speaker 1: Game makers who are in the business of fun, I've
Speaker 1: never seen those. I wonder what like other characters. I'm
Speaker 1: sure like everybody who plays D and D R Star Tecker,
Speaker 1: you know, what I'm saying. I have their own versions
Speaker 1: made by game manufacturers, and they're in the business of fun.
Speaker 1: I do have a Star Wars monopoly, which is pretty fun. Um.
Speaker 1: So the chess board itself has sixty four squares that
Speaker 1: alternating color, like we said, across eight different rows. You've
Speaker 1: got horizontal rows called ranks, which are numbered one through eight. Yes,
Speaker 1: then you've got the vertical rows called files, rank and
Speaker 1: file lettered A through ah. So any square has a
Speaker 1: number letter designation. That's right, And uh, the four squares
Speaker 1: in the center are really the most important. Those are
Speaker 1: E four, E five, D four, and D five. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and they're they're the most important for controlling the game.
Speaker 1: Correct me if I'm wrong. It doesn't actually explicitly say
Speaker 1: in the article. But that's because it's the easiest place
Speaker 1: to block and defend an attack from. So if you
Speaker 1: control the center, you can move easily throughout anywhere on
Speaker 1: the rest of the board. Is that why controlling the
Speaker 1: center is important? I think so, And I think, uh,
Speaker 1: just in terms, if you were to look at chess
Speaker 1: is like a military invasion. You don't want to be
Speaker 1: trapped in the corner or against a wall, you know,
Speaker 1: what I'm saying, you're probably most dangerous, like in the middle.
Speaker 1: That's just a guess. Yeah, especially if you've got four
Speaker 1: guys in the middle with all their backs together and
Speaker 1: their guns pointed outward, and they'd just be like, you know,
Speaker 1: this is exactly how I thought this would go. Uh.
Speaker 1: So each player as sixteen starts with sixteen game pieces. Um,
Speaker 1: you have either all the black ones, are all the
Speaker 1: white ones, and those consist of eight ponds, two rooks
Speaker 1: that look like little castles, two nights that look like
Speaker 1: little horses, to bishops, which I guess they're they're sort
Speaker 1: of hard to describe. They have a meter on top,
Speaker 1: and a meter is the headwear of the maybe episcopalion
Speaker 1: definitely the Catholic Church from Yeah, the bishop on up.
Speaker 1: I think cardinals may basically you know, the funky headwear
Speaker 1: that the pope wears. That's a meter. That's what's on
Speaker 1: top of the bishops piece. Yeah, and they vary greatly
Speaker 1: like between manufacturers. I've seen um bishops that marked quite
Speaker 1: as ornate, you know. Yeah, but the ones that are
Speaker 1: that were originally manufactured by Jean Jacques, and then I
Speaker 1: think they're called the Eastman pieces. Um, they have a
Speaker 1: meter on top. Okay, uh, and then you've got your
Speaker 1: king and your queen. Uh. I believe the king usually
Speaker 1: has a well likeness said. It all depends the king's tallest.
Speaker 1: It is tallest, and that's how you remember what goes where? Um, starting,
Speaker 1: and the board has to be a certain way as well.
Speaker 1: Is right? White is right? So like there there should
Speaker 1: always be the white square on your right corner. When
Speaker 1: you've got that set up, then you can start putting
Speaker 1: your pieces up, starting in the first rank, which is
Speaker 1: the horizontal road closest to you. Um, you want to
Speaker 1: put your rooks right, the little castle on the far
Speaker 1: left and the far right inside one. Inside of the
Speaker 1: rooks are the knights, then the bishops, and then you
Speaker 1: have two squares left and uh, the queen goes on
Speaker 1: the square that is the same color as her. That's right.
Speaker 1: What's the phrase the carpet matches the drapes? Oh my god, no,
Speaker 1: oh no. The queen's dress must always match your shoes, right,
Speaker 1: that's right, that's how you remember. Yeah, And then the
Speaker 1: king goes in the remaining square. That's right. Then in
Speaker 1: the rank in front of that, you've got your pawns
Speaker 1: that's right, all lined up on the and the of
Speaker 1: those eight squares. So, like we said, the goal is
Speaker 1: to put the king in checkmate. And it helps to
Speaker 1: think of it, like I said, as a game of war.
Speaker 1: Almost you want to use all your little soldiers, um,
Speaker 1: and we'll talk about how they can be moved to
Speaker 1: capture and remove pieces to eventually make the other king
Speaker 1: vulnerable while also protecting your own king. Yeah, that's that's
Speaker 1: a big thing. Like if you overextend yourself in an attack,
Speaker 1: you leave your king vulnerable. So it's not quite as
Speaker 1: simple as going on the offensive. Strategic and I think
Speaker 1: it bears repeating. Against is the point of the whole
Speaker 1: game when you place when your opponent places your king
Speaker 1: in a vulnerable situation where the king cannot get out
Speaker 1: of without being checked or without being checkmated, that's checkmate
Speaker 1: and the game is over. Yes, and the king uh
Speaker 1: if if in check must make a move to get
Speaker 1: out of check meaning either move the king or block
Speaker 1: or capture the piece that has the king in check.
Speaker 1: That's the only move you can make at that point. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so chuck in a second, let's talk about them, the
Speaker 1: individual pieces themselves, but first, let's do a message break
Speaker 1: real quick. Okay, so you want to look a little
Speaker 1: closer at an at the individual pieces. Yes, and this
Speaker 1: is something I did not know. Each piece is assigned
Speaker 1: a point value, but you don't keep score, No, basically
Speaker 1: just how much power it has. Yeah, and it's basically
Speaker 1: for you when you're thinking strategically, you can very quickly say, well,
Speaker 1: this move would cost me this many points because I
Speaker 1: could lose this east. So it's a good way of
Speaker 1: just using shorthand for figuring out the value of a
Speaker 1: particular strategic move. Yeah, and once you know it, you
Speaker 1: don't even think of the points. You're like you just
Speaker 1: innately kind of know, like this is a queen is
Speaker 1: the most valuable. Yeah, I think it comes in most
Speaker 1: handy for programming computers that play test to um. But
Speaker 1: let's start with the rook, which it comes from the
Speaker 1: Persian word rock are u k h which means chariot,
Speaker 1: which is what the rook, which is now a castle,
Speaker 1: originally was. And they think the castle is actually a
Speaker 1: siege tower. Yeah, it looks like a little uh it's
Speaker 1: called turret. Yeah, that's true. It is that, right, I believe. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a turret. Okay, um, but yes, so the rook
Speaker 1: is the castle. That's right. It's worth of five points um.
Speaker 1: And it can move along the ranks and files only
Speaker 1: in a straight line, but it can move as far
Speaker 1: as you want. If you have an open path from
Speaker 1: one end of the board to the other, you can
Speaker 1: slide that sucker all the way across. Uh. And if
Speaker 1: you do that, something happens, which we'll talk about in
Speaker 1: a minute. That's write something magical. Um, you can't jump
Speaker 1: over any pieces, and it says that for each piece.
Speaker 1: Let's just go ahead and say you can never jump
Speaker 1: over a piece. No it's not checkers. No, it's not
Speaker 1: the only one that can kind of jump over a
Speaker 1: pieces a night which we'll see. But that one doesn't
Speaker 1: even actually jump. It makes a normal standard move. Well
Speaker 1: we're there, go ahead and say it. Okay, Well the
Speaker 1: Night makes an L move that the Night is capable
Speaker 1: of moving um forward two spaces and then to the
Speaker 1: left or the right one space. So it makes a
Speaker 1: little hook or crowbar or L movement with each move.
Speaker 1: Or it can move over to and up one. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's what I said. Right, Well, you said forward to
Speaker 1: and over one. It can also be to the left
Speaker 1: to Okay, so it's it's always a combination of two,
Speaker 1: two and one. It basically can make a turn, which
Speaker 1: is the only piece that can make a turn. And
Speaker 1: if you look at a chessboard and and see where
Speaker 1: your night ends up, it looks like it it leapt
Speaker 1: over a piece, but ultimately it's just making a left
Speaker 1: or right, yeah, that's true, or an up or down. Um,
Speaker 1: and that makes the night pretty pretty unique as far
Speaker 1: as strategy goes. Yeah, the nights always screw me. Oh yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: they just they always would sneak up on me and
Speaker 1: I would kind of forget that they could, you know,
Speaker 1: move crazy turnover Creig Cray uh. And another good thing
Speaker 1: to remember. First of all, it's a three point piece,
Speaker 1: but um, if it starts on a light square, it's
Speaker 1: gonna end up on a dark square and vice versa.
Speaker 1: This I think it's just so basic that the article
Speaker 1: just didn't even think it was important to mention. But
Speaker 1: I want to make sure I have this right. You
Speaker 1: want to get to a square where your opponent's pieces,
Speaker 1: and when you move to that square, you take them
Speaker 1: out of play there off the board, right, Yes, essentially,
Speaker 1: when you can Uh. You when you can land on
Speaker 1: another opponent's space where there is a piece, you just
Speaker 1: knock it out and there auto play. They can't come
Speaker 1: back in, can't come backain. And what you've just done
Speaker 1: by doing that is weakening the defenses against your opposing king. Exactly.
Speaker 1: Um onto the bishop topped with a meter. Like you said,
Speaker 1: it's also worth a three spot. It goes diagonally. Um
Speaker 1: cannot go left and right. It can only attack diagonally right.
Speaker 1: But it's so it makes an X across the board. Yeah.
Speaker 1: But like the rook, you can go and however far
Speaker 1: you can go with it. But when you move it,
Speaker 1: you have to go or else you lose a turn.
Speaker 1: That's right. Then you've got your queen. It's worth nine points.
Speaker 1: She's a little shorter, but man, the Queen is a
Speaker 1: tough broad because she can go in any direction however far.
Speaker 1: She wants to all eight directions on the board, basically
Speaker 1: no restrictions as long as it's in in a straight line.
Speaker 1: She can't turn right, she's so that makes her um
Speaker 1: the most strategically valuable piece. Yeah, and the Queen's man,
Speaker 1: they'll sneak up on you too, because she can be
Speaker 1: all the way across the board and you'll make a
Speaker 1: move and not even like realize that you just put
Speaker 1: like a night in the path, you know, ten spaces
Speaker 1: away until the jerk across from you captures your night
Speaker 1: and you're like, oh man, I cannot wait to play
Speaker 1: hate that lady. I am so excited about playing thanks
Speaker 1: to this article. It's really fun. I'm gonna start playing again.
Speaker 1: I think I just need to. I don't know who
Speaker 1: and we could always play here. I guess I'll bring
Speaker 1: my bowling ball. I bet that Ben Bowling plays chess. Oh,
Speaker 1: I'm sure he probably speaks Chinese while he plays chess.
Speaker 1: He probably like shook his head when he heard you
Speaker 1: pronounce the Chinese version of He probably plays that. Sure, Um,
Speaker 1: just as a bunny. He dressed up in my gremlin
Speaker 1: outfit today. I was walking around there today again. How
Speaker 1: did he do it already? Yeah? I thought you like
Speaker 1: tweeted a picture Facebook the picture of him wearing the
Speaker 1: gremlin outfit. I mean that happened today, It happened like
Speaker 1: weeks before too. Wouldn't mean, Um, Ben Bowling, you should
Speaker 1: support his awesome show. Two of them stuff they don't
Speaker 1: want you to know and car stuff one of our colleagues. Um.
Speaker 1: So finally, onto the king. Uh. The King can also
Speaker 1: move in any direction, but just one at a time, um,
Speaker 1: which is good for getting out of the way. But
Speaker 1: the King is generally not like much of an attacker.
Speaker 1: He's kind of a milktoast really like the queen wears
Speaker 1: the pants in this relationship, she's she's the bad dude. Uh.
Speaker 1: And like we said, if the king is threatened and
Speaker 1: in check, he has to move to save himself. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And if he goes, well, if I move here, I'm screweding.
Speaker 1: If I move here, I'm screwing it. There's wait, there's
Speaker 1: nowhere for me to move to get out of being attacked.
Speaker 1: That's checkmate, baby. That's when the guy across from me
Speaker 1: is very smug and just sitting there waiting for you
Speaker 1: to realize it. Yeah. Or actually, traditionally you would call
Speaker 1: out of here and checkmate, yes you know, checkmate? Uh?
Speaker 1: Or actually I would say check and mate. I don't understand,
Speaker 1: and it's probably super obnoxious and wrong. And then you
Speaker 1: have your little ponds, the eight little guys up front,
Speaker 1: the foot soldiers. They're basically cannon fodder pretty much. But ponds.
Speaker 1: Some say there in lies the key. If you play
Speaker 1: your ponds right, then you're in good shape. Did you know? Ponds?
Speaker 1: Originally in the I think twelve thirteenth century, just to
Speaker 1: make a more interesting each pond, depending on its place
Speaker 1: on the rank, um had a name, like there was
Speaker 1: the Gambler. Yeah, there was the doctor, the the Coward
Speaker 1: of the county. Probably were they all Kenny Rogers songs? Yeah, exactly?
Speaker 1: Um what else was there? There are a couple others
Speaker 1: that were pretty interesting, but um, apparently it didn't stick.
Speaker 1: The innkeeper the islands in the stream, right, so the
Speaker 1: ponds can they're only worth one point? Um? They are defenders. Basically,
Speaker 1: they only move one square at a time. I can't
Speaker 1: go backwards, that can only go forwards, and they can
Speaker 1: only attack diagonally right, So you can't I can't just
Speaker 1: move upon. Like let's say you're upon and I'm upon.
Speaker 1: I can't just come at you from straight ahead and
Speaker 1: knock you out. We're basically just kind of staring at
Speaker 1: each other. But if I was to the left or
Speaker 1: right in front of you, I could go diagonally and
Speaker 1: get get ahold of you. That makes sense, yes, okay,
Speaker 1: it does I'm trying to visually, it's just as hard
Speaker 1: to visualize. Yeah, and it's it's the kind of game
Speaker 1: that sounds complicated, but once you play at once, you're like, okay,
Speaker 1: this isn't so hard. So then the pawn can move um,
Speaker 1: five directions left or right forward and then diagonally forward
Speaker 1: or to the left or diagonally forward to the right right. No, no, no,
Speaker 1: it cannot move left or right. Okay, So it can
Speaker 1: only move forward diagonally to the left or diagonally to
Speaker 1: the right. Correct three directions. And when you start the game,
Speaker 1: it's the only time you can move your pond two spaces,
Speaker 1: So you can move out upon two spaces on the
Speaker 1: front row only um. After that, it can only move
Speaker 1: one space at a time. Gotcha? All right, okay, so um,
Speaker 1: let's talk about some rules like we haven't been already. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the timer thing is, I never realized what the timer
Speaker 1: was all about. I can't imagine how stressful that is. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I thought the timer. I thought you had like each
Speaker 1: player has like sixty seconds to complete a move or
Speaker 1: something That is not true. No, Like those clocks with
Speaker 1: the two faces and the buttons on top of each
Speaker 1: face Um, they keep a predetermined amount of time a
Speaker 1: total time, so say like an hour, so you have
Speaker 1: an hour for this game, each have an hour, or okay,
Speaker 1: so you each have an hour, so there's two hours
Speaker 1: for the whole game. You divided the two hours into
Speaker 1: one hour for each and then when it's your turn, Um,
Speaker 1: your clock is running, and when you're done with your move,
Speaker 1: you hit the button on top of your side and
Speaker 1: it stops your clock and starts your opponent's clock. So
Speaker 1: now they're eating away from that two hours. And then
Speaker 1: if your opponent's time runs out, then you win just
Speaker 1: based on that. Yeah, which is way cooler than I thought,
Speaker 1: which was like you each have like two minutes to
Speaker 1: complete a move. In this way, towards the end of
Speaker 1: the game, you might have ten minutes left on your
Speaker 1: clock and your opponent might have thirty minutes because you
Speaker 1: took way too much time at the beginning, and then
Speaker 1: you're forced into playing like way faster towards the end. Right,
Speaker 1: pretty cool, So in my my the impression I have
Speaker 1: is that this is something that you take up once
Speaker 1: you've mastered chess, So well, that's kind of boring playing normally.
Speaker 1: You have never played with it because I imagine it
Speaker 1: changes everything. Alright, so let's play. Let's play with these
Speaker 1: rules here. Why it always goes first, It always goes first. Um,
Speaker 1: you cannot skip a turn. Nope, And therefore no player
Speaker 1: can move twice in a row. Yeah, you can't, like
Speaker 1: say I passed, you gotta move. Yeah, you can take
Speaker 1: back a move, but only under a very specific circumstance.
Speaker 1: We said that capturing the king is an illegal move. Ye,
Speaker 1: So if you move your king into a place where
Speaker 1: he will inevitably be captured, you moved him into check,
Speaker 1: that's an illegal move, and the opponent's supposed to tell you,
Speaker 1: and then you can take that move back. That's the
Speaker 1: only move you can take back. So I think the
Speaker 1: rule of thumb is once you take your hand off
Speaker 1: of your piece. I comed, but that's how I always played. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it seems legitimate. And also, now that I have not
Speaker 1: played it and I'm a little older, I bet you that, uh,
Speaker 1: it's better to try and do this stuff in your
Speaker 1: head than move your pieces all around with your finger
Speaker 1: on it, because I would imagine that would sort of
Speaker 1: tip off your strategy somewhat. Um, I bet, like real
Speaker 1: real pros do this in their head. They don't be like, go,
Speaker 1: hmm right, no, my finger is still on it. And
Speaker 1: then I think they played with the clock to don't
Speaker 1: they probably? Yeah? Uh? And do you want to say
Speaker 1: part part of strategy, you want to be thinking at
Speaker 1: least three moves ahead anyway. Yeah, I imagine that's very tough.
Speaker 1: Good luck with that beginner. Well, what else you said
Speaker 1: that you can't move upon more than one squared a
Speaker 1: time except for to start. Yeah, it's each pond's first
Speaker 1: move can either be one or two. It's not necessarily
Speaker 1: like at the beginning of the game. Um, oh, I
Speaker 1: like this one. You know the words stalemate, Yeah, stalemate
Speaker 1: is a chess term. It happens when, uh, if the
Speaker 1: king isn't under attack, but any direction that you move
Speaker 1: him in would place him in check so that there
Speaker 1: there's no checkmate going or coming. It's just you just
Speaker 1: happened to end up making a terrible move. That's a stalemate.
Speaker 1: No one wins. Sorry, everybody goes home a loser. That's
Speaker 1: no fun. All right, here's some other rules which I
Speaker 1: did not know about. I have never played with these rules,
Speaker 1: and they were really confusing to me. Yeah, I had
Speaker 1: to do some supplemental research. Yeah, like YouTube videos and
Speaker 1: stuff where Englishmen explained exactly what castling is. I think
Speaker 1: I have a decent hand on it. But go ahead,
Speaker 1: well castling in this article it says that it has
Speaker 1: to be done at the beginning of the game. I
Speaker 1: didn't see that anywhere else. I think it can only
Speaker 1: be done once a game. Well, here's the deal I
Speaker 1: got to the bottom of this. It can be done
Speaker 1: as long as the king and the rook that you're
Speaker 1: going to use to castle with has not moved yet, right, So,
Speaker 1: as long as they are still in their original positions,
Speaker 1: you can castle. Yeah, but that doesn't necessarily have to
Speaker 1: happen at the beginning of the game. Um, but you
Speaker 1: can move your king two pieces and then move the
Speaker 1: rook that hasn't moved. That's your your castle right um,
Speaker 1: to the last space the king past. So that means
Speaker 1: basically what you're doing is you're moving your king over
Speaker 1: and you're moving your rook next to it so that
Speaker 1: your rook can protect your king more more better better. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you can only do this if they're nothing in
Speaker 1: between the two. Um, and you can do it on
Speaker 1: either side. You can do a on the king's side
Speaker 1: or the queen's side, and it's the only move where
Speaker 1: you can move two pieces at once and you don't
Speaker 1: have to but it strategically, it's a very smart move
Speaker 1: to castle anytime you can. Yeah, I still don't fully
Speaker 1: get it or or the benefits. I know it's a
Speaker 1: defensive move. I don't understand why you have to move
Speaker 1: the king. Why not just move the rook next to
Speaker 1: the king like that seems like that would be the
Speaker 1: same thing. Yeah. I think someone will be able to
Speaker 1: explain this in a dummies fashion via email and then
Speaker 1: we're going to get a good one. But I think
Speaker 1: that is what it amounts to. It's a defensive move
Speaker 1: to make the rook put it in a better position
Speaker 1: to protect the king. Um, there's pawn promotion. Never heard
Speaker 1: of that. So there is pawn promotion where you said, like,
Speaker 1: if the pawn just makes it all the way across
Speaker 1: the board, your opposing rank either the first rank or
Speaker 1: the eighth rank, depending on where your opponent is, you
Speaker 1: could promote your pawn. I never heard of this. Most
Speaker 1: people choose to promote their pond to queen, but in
Speaker 1: certain instances I have no idea what they are, but
Speaker 1: I just saw that in certain and instance is it's
Speaker 1: better it might be better to promote it to something
Speaker 1: else other than queen, and that would be a different
Speaker 1: type of promotion. It's um like not a full proo promotion.
Speaker 1: I can't have I can't remember what the name of
Speaker 1: it is. But yeah, so typically you'd want to promote
Speaker 1: it to the queen because that's the best piece. And
Speaker 1: then you have two queens on the board. Yeah you
Speaker 1: have if you still have your queen that is. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And I I don't know, I've never heard of these,
Speaker 1: so I don't know if they're just seldom used or
Speaker 1: if it's just really rare that upon actually makes it
Speaker 1: to the other side, because that would seem pretty rare
Speaker 1: to me. I think they're fairly well used um or
Speaker 1: frequently used sell rules. Okay, I know this last one
Speaker 1: is not for fact, it's not a frequently used rule.
Speaker 1: It's really obscure, so much so that the term m
Speaker 1: poissance is used in other sports to describe little known
Speaker 1: obscure rules. So it's become kind of a just a
Speaker 1: catch all term. Just has really had a huge cultural
Speaker 1: impact on the world, like an all sense of strange
Speaker 1: ways huh, yeah, just stalemate. So on poissant means in passing.
Speaker 1: It's pretty tricky. It allows a pond to capture an
Speaker 1: opponent's pawn by doing nothing, though without landing on the square. No, So,
Speaker 1: from what I understand this, this article is a little wrong.
Speaker 1: Basically it allows it allows you to capture a pond
Speaker 1: as if the pond had only moved one square, and
Speaker 1: it can only be played after a two square advance. Confusing, Right,
Speaker 1: So if a pawn moves two squares and happens to
Speaker 1: pass an opposing pawn, yes, then the pond that moved
Speaker 1: two squares to made the move is out. Yeah. It's
Speaker 1: almost like it can attack from the side, I think,
Speaker 1: but it's ultimately is attacking itself. The pond that's just
Speaker 1: sitting there captures that pawn that made the move. Yes,
Speaker 1: so you basically just made a bone head move because
Speaker 1: you just lost your pawn. Yeah. It can only be
Speaker 1: done too, if the pond comes from home base and
Speaker 1: moves two squares, which can only happen once a game, Right,
Speaker 1: I think, man can't can't we didn't We just say
Speaker 1: a pawn can only move two squares in one like
Speaker 1: at the beginning of a game each pond. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: so that could Yeah, that's that is obscure. Yeah, I've
Speaker 1: never heard of it, and I don't. I think I
Speaker 1: found that not many people use it. Nice, So those
Speaker 1: are the rules, and yeah, um let's talk strategy, man,
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, protect your king, capture the opponent's pieces, and
Speaker 1: attack the king, attack him like you hate him. That's
Speaker 1: not really strategy. I mean, that's just the basic like
Speaker 1: what you're trying to do. There are like real strategies
Speaker 1: that people have worked out with names. Yeah, they have
Speaker 1: like names kings, gambit connected, the shuffle, the fork attack,
Speaker 1: or the geto in Italian makes a kiss sound. Yeah
Speaker 1: see and then a vowel makes a sound. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: don't and I don't know much about these strategies, but um,
Speaker 1: I know if you want to get better at jess
Speaker 1: than you would do yourself a favor by trying to
Speaker 1: learn one or two instead of just being like, well,
Speaker 1: this guy goes this way and I don't like horses,
Speaker 1: so I'm gonna attack the night, which is how I
Speaker 1: play strategy. But what are some other basic strategies? Like
Speaker 1: let's say you're a beginner, like you, Okay, what should
Speaker 1: you try to do, I would be well served to
Speaker 1: not rush. Um. I want to consider what your next
Speaker 1: move would be after I made my move. But I
Speaker 1: want to do all this with my arms folded across
Speaker 1: my chest in my head, very quietly, so as not
Speaker 1: to give away my strategy. Um, I want to castle
Speaker 1: whenever possible, castle the king with the rook. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: that must be like a real light common thing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I need. I feel like I missed out. You didn't castle.
Speaker 1: That's how your brother beat. You had no idea. I'll
Speaker 1: betty castle and you were like what did you just do?
Speaker 1: And he's like never mind. Uh. Like we said, the
Speaker 1: center of the board is where you would like to
Speaker 1: control things. Um, you want to use all your pieces? Yeah,
Speaker 1: move them around smartly though. Yeah. Those ponds, like we said,
Speaker 1: are important. You gotta you gotta bring them out so
Speaker 1: you can start attacking. Don't like it's not a good strategy.
Speaker 1: Just be like, all right, I'm just gonna surround my
Speaker 1: king with ponds and just leave them all there, right,
Speaker 1: Like you want to get that clean out And like
Speaker 1: we said, you can't jump, so you gotta move stuff
Speaker 1: out of the way so everything can get out there.
Speaker 1: And start warring exactly. Uh, like I said, you want
Speaker 1: to plan three moves ahead. Um. And and as you
Speaker 1: were saying, like, you want to get your stuff out
Speaker 1: on the board, but you want to do it strategically.
Speaker 1: You want to um, set yourself up, take your time,
Speaker 1: don't attack too quickly because again that leaves your king overexposed. UM.
Speaker 1: And you you never want to sacrifice a piece of
Speaker 1: higher value for lesser value. Yeah, that's the big one.
Speaker 1: I think that's the one. Even I think I remember
Speaker 1: trying to employ not successfully, but uh yeah, no, you
Speaker 1: don't wanna um. You don't want to lose a rook
Speaker 1: to a pawn. You're just a sucker. And then probably
Speaker 1: the most important strategy is to have fun and not
Speaker 1: get discouraged, which I think I think that probably makes
Speaker 1: a lot of sense. Like I don't think chess is
Speaker 1: something you just come out and play well the first time.
Speaker 1: No one in the history of the world since has
Speaker 1: ever played chess or shadow Anger or anything. If you're
Speaker 1: a beginner, I think you should just concentrate your first
Speaker 1: few games on getting the moves correct and then you
Speaker 1: can start working about everything else. But I mean, if
Speaker 1: you want to get better very quickly. In addition to playing,
Speaker 1: there's all sorts of websites, books, people you can talk to, UM,
Speaker 1: and there's a lot of info out there to learn
Speaker 1: how to play chess. Yeah, and now that I'm thinking
Speaker 1: about it, I don't know that I've I've ever won
Speaker 1: a single game of chess. I always play people better
Speaker 1: than me. I think my record is like oh and
Speaker 1: sixty three and I quit playing. Yeah, I can see that,
Speaker 1: but I mean, you know, maybe play a little kid
Speaker 1: if you're not that great. A kid who sucks at chess.
Speaker 1: I was about to say, that's even more right now,
Speaker 1: a kid that sucks at chess. Just don't gloat too
Speaker 1: much because it's a kid. No, I'd glowed. So that's
Speaker 1: everything there is to know about chess. Do you got
Speaker 1: anything else? I got nothing else? Um. If you want
Speaker 1: to learn more about chess and see a pretty nifty
Speaker 1: little flash animation, UM, you can type in C H E. S.
Speaker 1: S into search bart how stiff works dot com and
Speaker 1: it will bring up this article. And since I said
Speaker 1: search bar, it means it's time for listener mail. And
Speaker 1: I'm gonna call this Maori love. And like we said,
Speaker 1: the Kiwi's Love a little light shining on them, and
Speaker 1: so we have heard back from them in spades. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Have you ever seen Bad Taste? Oh no, I don't
Speaker 1: think so, because Peter Jackson's first movie. Yeah, I never
Speaker 1: saw that one. I saw the other one he did,
Speaker 1: Um Dead Alive I saw that one too. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: didn't see Bad Taste. I like Bad Taste Boy the Hobbit.
Speaker 1: I liked that Alive though, two in in the just
Speaker 1: the schlockiest way you can like something. Sure. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: didn't see The Hobbit, but this next Hobbit sequel in
Speaker 1: the never ending parade of Hobbit movies, actually looks kind
Speaker 1: of interesting. Yeah. I didn't see all of The Hobbit.
Speaker 1: I watched some of it the other night and I
Speaker 1: just couldn't do it. Have you ever heard of Rob Delaney,
Speaker 1: the Twitter guy? He had this tweet he was like, um,
Speaker 1: it was in all caps. He goes, I'm in the
Speaker 1: Hobbit right now. It's eight and a half hours long.
Speaker 1: They won't let anybody leave, please send, and then like
Speaker 1: it just runts down and heavenly creatures. Did you ever
Speaker 1: see that? No, man, that was really good. That was
Speaker 1: the first time I had seen Kate Winslet in a movie,
Speaker 1: really good movie. Al Right, enough about Peter Jackson, onto
Speaker 1: the Maori. I thought you guys, thought it'd send you
Speaker 1: a quick email that sincerely congratulate you and how you
Speaker 1: handled the Maori podcast production. Pronunciation of Maori words and
Speaker 1: phrases uses a style of linguistic that is totally different
Speaker 1: to most languages. See I don't feel so bad now
Speaker 1: like the pronounced yeah. Well, we're getting to that. As
Speaker 1: a twenty year old kily I often mispronounced Maori words myself,
Speaker 1: and due to the nature of trying to put a
Speaker 1: largely oral language into words, spelling and pronunciation often changed
Speaker 1: through the years. Still, why would you choose W for
Speaker 1: F sound? I thought I'd give you some Maori words
Speaker 1: and easy up their pronunciation for you guys. So that
Speaker 1: white white tangy, he said, The treaty um is pronounced
Speaker 1: why tangy? What's is the W sound? Is a W
Speaker 1: sound in that one? Yeah, that's what he says. He
Speaker 1: said this as though you're questioning someone's recipe for salsa.
Speaker 1: That's awesome. Uh. People in New Zealand know about salsa.
Speaker 1: That's weird. Um uh a r t Aura or Land
Speaker 1: of the Long White Cloud is pronounced alta roa al
Speaker 1: ta roa Okay, and that's that was that's New Zealand.
Speaker 1: It's the Maori word for New Zealand, right, I think
Speaker 1: so words that begin with the w h prefects you
Speaker 1: were talking about are almost always pronounced as an F sound,
Speaker 1: So waka papa sounds more like papa, which sounds weird
Speaker 1: to us and even dirty. But it's not that sounds
Speaker 1: pronounced but that's how the Maori pronounced the word that
Speaker 1: we butchered all over our episode, basically, yeah, exactly. Or
Speaker 1: the town of wanga Nui is pronounced funga nui. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's so weird and hard to get used too. But
Speaker 1: one of my favorite guys is a small town of
Speaker 1: but hold hold on, it is weird. It's weird to us,
Speaker 1: and like the the fuka papa word sounds hilarious, especially
Speaker 1: if you're in sixth grade or whatever. Exactly, But I
Speaker 1: mean this is again, that's how it's pronounced in Maori,
Speaker 1: and therefore, if you're saying a Maori word, you can't
Speaker 1: really just change the pronunciation because based on your own west.
Speaker 1: So here's this final one is the small town of Wakika,
Speaker 1: come out. Kyle is pronounced way kick a muko if
Speaker 1: you know the correct pronunciation the second time. Why did
Speaker 1: you what? Well? I mean I was just reading it
Speaker 1: as if I was oh, which I am, like basically
Speaker 1: during our Maori episode. Again, I'm really surprised that we
Speaker 1: got a lot of praise for this one. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: think that they're delighted that we talked about them and
Speaker 1: probably got a good laugh because no one can pronounce
Speaker 1: these words. Yeah, somebody wrote in and said they faced
Speaker 1: palm like times. Yeah, but they probably laughed about it
Speaker 1: on the whole though. Guys that wouldn't worry about offending
Speaker 1: Kiwi's too much. We're a small nation and we're usually
Speaker 1: just happy if we find out people in other countries. No,
Speaker 1: we exists as a separate entity. Plus in Australia they
Speaker 1: produced Play of the Concords, which is a pretty big
Speaker 1: that's a big production. Thanks again, that's from Tom. Thanks Tom.
Speaker 1: How would you say Tom and Kiwi? No, it's actually TLM,
Speaker 1: not the weird t h o M. Yeah, like Tom York. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's he dealing with Yorky. Yeah, that's what I call him. Uh,
Speaker 1: he's good though he's great. Um, well, thank you very much, Tom.
Speaker 1: We appreciate that, and thank you to everybody who wrote
Speaker 1: in to say way to go on, Maori, we were
Speaker 1: blown away. I'm glad to hear from you guys down there. Um,
Speaker 1: we're up there, depending on what direction you're traveling. UM,
Speaker 1: if you want to let us know that we did
Speaker 1: so so or really great or not that great on
Speaker 1: any episode, or if you have any great explanations on
Speaker 1: anything about chess, any tips, any tricks, any strategy, we'd
Speaker 1: love to share it with everybody. Basic strategies, right, we'll
Speaker 1: get too weird with the King scambit. Yes, well, um,
Speaker 1: but I'll bet that's like a totally basic strategy. Um.
Speaker 1: You can tweet to us at s Y s K podcast.
Speaker 1: You can join us on Facebook dot com, slash Stuff
Speaker 1: you Should Know. You can send us an email to
Speaker 1: Stuff Podcast at Discovery dot com and all as always,
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