Andrew Schultz

What's up, everybody? Welcome to flagrants. And a new cheating scandal has rocked the chess world. You guys will learn all about it. A dynasty has been broken. Yes. Well, actually, not really. Unfortunately, I might be the only person to cheat at chess and lose, but you guys will figure that out later. But today we are joined by an absolute legend in the chess community, alleged in the YouTube community. This is Levy. Rosie. We were very excited to have you here, dude.

Levy Rozman

I'm excited to be here.

Mark Gagnon

I'm still. I've been talking about you on the pod for. For a little bit now.

Levy Rozman

Why did it take. So, you guys, do you have the DM I sent you guys?

Mark Gagnon

No.

Levy Rozman

You don't know this lore?

Andrew Schultz

No.

Levy Rozman

2022. I DM the flagrant pod. No. During the cheating scandal.

Mark Gagnon

No.

Levy Rozman

No.

Andrew Schultz

Yeah.

Mark Gagnon

How did we let this happen?

Levy Rozman

But it's also kind of embarrassing. Yeah. Because I got. I got ghosted.

Andrew Schultz

Well, was it red and then.

Levy Rozman

No, no, no, no, no, no.

Andrew Schultz

Okay.

Levy Rozman

No. So. But that's how I kind of learned that you can't really. You can't really DM people on Instagram. I've tried since then. Not just you guys. I think people just don't check the. The requests page.

Mark Gagnon

Oh, that's the. That's the main account page. If you hit me directly, I would

Levy Rozman

have been in the. Yeah, not. Not too. I. I was a little bit, like,

Andrew Schultz

know who runs our Instagram page?

Levy Rozman

Because I was just like, oh, I watch. You know, I'm. I've watched UFC for so long, and obviously, you know, I saw, like, so much of Andrew stuff during COVID and after, I'm like, oh, it would have been cool to talk about the scandal, but four years later, you know, it's all good.

Andrew Schultz

Still super cool to be.

Levy Rozman

And that was really embarrassing for me. I have a really embarrassing story I could share here.

Andrew Schultz

Please.

Levy Rozman

But I don't want to, like, sidetrack.

Andrew Schultz

No, we're not sidetracking. This is why you're here.

Levy Rozman

Okay. Yeah. You're kind of in the sphere of, like, ufc. You've been on Ariel Helwani show.

Andrew Schultz

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Levy Rozman

I once accidentally followed him for, like, a whole commute. Yeah.

Andrew Schultz

Doesn't Ariel live up in, like, Connecticut or something?

Levy Rozman

Well, I don't know.

Mark Gagnon

That's made it awkward. He was driving behind him.

Levy Rozman

No, no, no. So right before. I don't know if he remembers this because it's been a decade, but I do, you know. Cause you have fan interactions that are all over the place. Right. Sometimes they're really excited Nervous. They don't know what to do. They try to small talk you. I'm on the train going downtown right before Floyd Conner. And I'm on the train and I'm going to a chess lesson because that was my career before I was a YouTuber. I see Ariel Helwani. My God, I want to go say hi. So I kind of walk over. We're on opposite sides of the train, so I'm already getting a little closer. Crazy guy gets on. Crazy guy yelling, violent. Everybody moves to the next car. Now I'm following Ariel to the next car. I'm very aware that this probably looks weird. Worst part is we both get off in fight eye because he's probably working there and I always.

Andrew Schultz

Down there. Yeah.

Levy Rozman

Worst part is we're walking in the same direction to the same exit because I live that way.

Andrew Schultz

Best part is nobody's ever felt threatened by you.

Levy Rozman

Yeah, that is true. So I don't know if he noticed. And finally I'm like, hey. And I like talk to him a little bit. And I think I was so nervous. I asked him his opinion on the fight. And then at some point I'm like, if you ever want recommendations in the area, we get in touch on it. And I was like, why the did I offer? So now whenever I have an awkward fan interaction, I'm like, hey, I've been there, done that. And yeah, if I saw you or if I saw some UFC fighter, I think I will also be pretty nervous.

Danny Rensch

Did you.

Andrew Schultz

Did you tell him like, hey, I'm not following you. We're just going in the same.

Levy Rozman

I don't remember at this point. I don't want to know what I said. If he remembers this interaction, I'm going to be really.

Mark Gagnon

He thought he was working with the crazy guy? Yeah, he was like, this is all part of the plan. Bring the crazy guy on the train.

Andrew Schultz

Just reliving cringe is so beautiful. I was doing some like, what's called ADR for this Street Fighter movie. So basically, like, you don't say the line well enough or they need you to say something different. So you go into this booth, right? And I gotta, like. I think I. I don't know if I can show. I don't know if we can show it. But if you wanna see, like, peak fucking cringe. So the director, Kitao Sakurai, who's amazing, he starts videotaping me while I'm doing the adr. And the ADR I have to do is I just have to make like screaming sounds. Cause I'm running against the bad guy, and the bad guy's kicking my ass. I don't know if we can show it, but I'm gonna show you guys. And then I'm just going to go hide somewhere.

Levy Rozman

So painful.

Andrew Schultz

So painful. Because I'm not just making the sounds. I'm, like, acting like I'm getting it in the movie.

Mark Gagnon

I mean, dude, the worst is, like seeing footage of yourself, like at a party or at the club. Like, do you remember? Someone pulled it up.

Danny Rensch

We were like.

Mark Gagnon

I don't remember. We were. It was me, like, at the club.

Andrew Schultz

It was at you at Madison Square Garden. Oh, goodness. Oh, no, no. Don't even bring that.

Mark Gagnon

Yeah.

Andrew Schultz

And like, 50 is just like, you know, rapid. And the whole place go crazy and just try to. Try to, like, fit in.

Mark Gagnon

Here's my theory.

Danny Rensch

All right?

Mark Gagnon

I'm just behind 50 cent 50 cents performing on stage in Master Square Garden. What do you do?

Levy Rozman

Right?

Mark Gagnon

You can't just stand there, so you got to kind of move a little. But now you're like, well, everyone's looking at me move like a dumbass. So I was like, okay, I'm just going to copy what he does. But then I just look like a backup dancer, literally copying every single move. And then he does a thing that looks so cool when he does it, where he'll be kind of like going side by side. He's going like this. But you can see when I'm doing it.

Levy Rozman

You kind of look like a predator, dude.

Billy

I don't. I get it.

Levy Rozman

If I had to be on stage behind a. I'm not sure I would have even gone. I would have been like, no, I'm good.

Mark Gagnon

I wanted a camera. I was like, give me that. I just want to film.

Levy Rozman

Yeah, man.

Billy

Oh, brother.

Andrew Schultz

We're so stoked to have you here. Like, Mark has become obsessed with chess. Yeah. Because of you.

Mark Gagnon

Is your fault.

Andrew Schultz

So, yes, you've done it.

Mark Gagnon

You'll have to handle some of the divorce of my wife. You'll have to.

Levy Rozman

Oh, it's amazing. Yeah.

Andrew Schultz

Is it getting there?

Mark Gagnon

Oh, my goodness. I mean, she'll just wake up at 2am she's like, what are you doing?

Andrew Schultz

And I'll just point it over.

Mark Gagnon

Keep playing.

Levy Rozman

Chess is like that.

Mark Gagnon

It.

Andrew Schultz

It gets you all consuming.

Mark Gagnon

I think. I think he's getting the bug, dude. I think. I think you dangerously the bug a little bit.

Andrew Schultz

I mean, it is fun. It is very fun. I don't know. It's like. It's one of those things. It's like, how many there's a lot of layers to the onion, you know? So I'm like, oh, God, if I get obsessed with this, like, is there not. Do I have enough time in my day to be obsessed with. Another thing is that it fills the gaps.

Mark Gagnon

It's the water in the jar.

Andrew Schultz

Yeah.

Mark Gagnon

Like, it just fills in everything else.

Levy Rozman

You're just like, what do you do when you poop?

Andrew Schultz

Scroll? Instagram. Yeah.

Levy Rozman

It's like, yeah, but imagine you played

Mark Gagnon

a little blitz game. Oh, nothing better.

Levy Rozman

Two more.

Andrew Schultz

Yeah, and then two more. That's the problem.

Levy Rozman

You get hemorrhoids.

Andrew Schultz

We're talking now.

Mark Gagnon

Now you're just, like, destroying some guy in, like, a third world country. Just, like, take that. You know what I mean?

Levy Rozman

It does have. It does have brain benefits. It also, it depends, like, what kind of a person you are. If you're a bad loser, if you're a bad student, if you're not good at analyzing your own weaknesses. Yeah, but I know you got into paddle, so if. Yeah, me too. I played it in Spain two years ago, and I'm completely obsessed. But it's the same thing, like, if you really enjoy something you want to get better at does extend to other parts of life. I'm also talking to the people that are gonna listen to this. It'll show you how to be a good student in anything, really.

Andrew Schultz

The problem with me is that I actually really enjoy the learning process, so I take lessons in paddle. So now I'm gonna have another thing that I'm taking lessons at, and I'm gonna have to tell my wife. They're like, you're gonna have to look after both of these kids while you're breastfeeding and losing your hair, because I have to learn a new opening. I need to learn a new.

Levy Rozman

You can teach your.

Andrew Schultz

That is true.

Mark Gagnon

And our pal Levy just wrote a little book on that.

Levy Rozman

It wasn't the goal, but.

Billy

Yeah.

Levy Rozman

I mean, no, we need to plug the book.

Mark Gagnon

Come on.

Levy Rozman

Chest for. Yeah, it's just for babies, but.

Mark Gagnon

And that's you and your daughter. In this case, there is a bonus

Levy Rozman

link that's like, this is kind of for the parent that also wants to get into it. I mean, it's been my thing for, you know, I was in college here in New York.

Andrew Schultz

Where'd you go to school?

Levy Rozman

I went to Baruch.

Andrew Schultz

I went to Baruch High School.

Levy Rozman

Yeah, I saw that. And I was like, I don't know if they're related. I don't know if they're ones of female.

Andrew Schultz

No, you just couldn't afford a real room, so they put us in the college.

Levy Rozman

I couldn't afford a real room, so I went to Beruga, and I was doing, like, a stats degree. And I started teaching chess while in college. So I basically got started teaching kids who are five and six years old. And if you can convince them chess is important. When Covid started, I was like, maybe I can make YouTube videos. Maybe people will watch Tuesday. I wonder. I can't believe people find this interesting. It's just as boring.

Andrew Schultz

I hit up Mark, I think this is a few days ago. I'm watching videos of you call games that are, like, famous games that have, like, happened throughout history. We're talking about not games that are, like, recent history. This could be fucking in the 1800s. And people have documented every move of these games. And then you're doing the play by play. And I text Mark and I'm just like, I don't know how, but I am mesmerized watching him explain what happened in these chess matches. I don't get it. It doesn't make any sense. I know there are people watching right now who don't care about chess that are like, there's no way that's possible. Just go to his thing, go to his YouTube page and watch this match. It's. What was it? What was it? It is the. It's called controversial. The most notorious chess player of all time. Two weeks ago, you posted this, right? Is that the one?

Levy Rozman

Yeah. I was disappointed. Didn't do very well.

Andrew Schultz

Yeah. Fucking 300,000 views, bombing complete printing money. But yeah. So I don't know why it's so interesting. And, like, there's a lot of. Want to talk about. I want to talk about the butt plug controversy. I want to talk about, like, Rise of Chess. I'm sure, you know, Marco has a million things he wants to talk about as well, but. So I watched this Chessmates documentary on Netflix that I'm sure everybody where there's this Hans Niemann character who somehow miraculously, you know, rises to the top of the chess world, beats Magnus. Magnus then said, magnus Carlsen is the, you know, number one ever, I think, basically. And then Magnus basically alleges, without saying anything, that he's cheating.

Levy Rozman

Yeah.

Andrew Schultz

What do you think was happening?

Billy

I think.

Andrew Schultz

Are you allowed to say, or is there, like, political shit you're not allowed to say?

Billy

No, no.

Levy Rozman

I mean, I can share. I've shared it in videos, too. I think basically the synopsis. That documentary is fantastic. If you didn't follow it at the time, It's a good synopsis, but there's definitely details left out. I have a theory. It took them four years to publish it because it came out in 2022. They needed a crescendo. They needed kind of like the grand moment. And in Paris, which is kind of where it ends. Two years later, in 2024, Magnus and Hans play for the first time sort of since the scandal. I remember I was nervous. I was there. I was interviewing both of them. I have a famous interview with Hans where it just goes completely off the rails, which was not in the documentary.

Andrew Schultz

Well, what happens?

Mark Gagnon

What did he do?

Levy Rozman

He just. Basically, he goes into a spiel. It's called explosive Hans Niemann interview. He goes into a whole thing about how I'm a Chess.com puppet. Chess.com controls the narrative. He tried to come at me and then it was. Yeah, it was a whole thing.

Danny Rensch

And.

Levy Rozman

And he ended up losing. He ended up losing to Magnus badly or pretty badly, but, like, convincingly. But I think they waited so long because they wanted him to win. Because ultimately, if the guy who's accused of cheating wins.

Andrew Schultz

And it validates everything.

Levy Rozman

Yeah, it validates a lot of things. He's had his opportunities to beat Hans since. To beat Magnus since this interview, he's never actually beaten him. Like, they played in the World Blitz Championship. Speed chess. Hans won one of the first four games. It's a best of four.

Andrew Schultz

This is recently.

Levy Rozman

Yeah, it was 2024. So Hans took the lead. One and a half.

Billy

Half.

Levy Rozman

He won a game. I'm like, oh, my God, he's going to beat Magnus in the quarterfinal. Magnus, two games, back to back, wins, and then he, like, slams the king on the board. And I'm like, this is fucking. This is awesome.

Mark Gagnon

Like, this is.

Danny Rensch

This.

Levy Rozman

Chess needs this shit.

Andrew Schultz

That. That's the thing that I hope people will kind of understand is there, I think, when you see just an Instagram clip and you see, like, some guy, like, crying. He's like an Indian guy crying. Or like, there's the Asian guy who gets beaten by the Indian kid.

Billy

Yeah.

Andrew Schultz

Do you remember that?

Levy Rozman

That sounds like. That sounds like every.

Andrew Schultz

But this was a big one. I forget. Exactly.

Levy Rozman

Yeah.

Andrew Schultz

Yeah.

Levy Rozman

Ding. Lauren is like, yeah. In tears and.

Mark Gagnon

Yes.

Andrew Schultz

Yeah, yeah. Anyway, so, like, you see the moment, you're like, why is there so much passion behind. I'm telling you, you either watch this documentary or you watch some of his videos, and it just changes. Everything turns into, like, Formula One or some shit. I don't know how else.

Levy Rozman

Yeah, I love it. And I think what makes it great for me is that I'm not faking. Like, ultimately I love the sport. I love following all the tournaments, even the tournaments nobody's really watching. Just because I'm curious to see, you know, what openings are being played, what players are on the rise. And I love it. And I just present it. I don't scream as much like on the street when I order coffee. But as far as this scandal, I think the summary is this. Hans has always been a really brash kid. He reminded me of me just to a whole nother level. And then he's always like, he's kind of this, A little bit arrogant, a little bit in your face, very aggressively extroverted, very smart. And I think there were rumors already before he beat Magnus, like this dude cheated online.

Andrew Schultz

But he did.

Levy Rozman

Yes, Chess.com published that. It wasn't public then. So have other people. Like, you know, but. But they're not as. They don't have the same personality as Hans. Hans is very unapologetic. So you almost get the sense like he doesn't take any, you know, like he doesn't believe that he did anything wrong. And I actually asked him in this interview, like, you know, you could have just been like, hey man, I cheated. I'm really sorry. You know, I've never cheated over the board. One famous example, Chael Sonnen, right? Like he did pd. He's like proud of it. He's just like, what do you mean? If you ain't cheating, you ain't trying to. I think people still to this day don't trust Hans. They will never trust Hans. We're sitting here, right? And Hans is playing now one on one matches against people.

Andrew Schultz

Because he can't play on chess.com no,

Levy Rozman

no, he can, but he doesn't get invited to tournaments because if you're gonna invite people to a tournament and you're like a really strong player, you're like, I don't want him there, I don't trust him.

Mark Gagnon

Right.

Levy Rozman

And then they're gonna listen to that. And so he's playing these one on one matches because I don't think people will ever fully trust him just because of the way he is combined with the fact that like, yeah, he cheated when he was a teenager.

Andrew Schultz

Yeah.

Levy Rozman

But he doesn't seem like he's like, sorry for it. Like, which is.

Andrew Schultz

But does he have the level?

Levy Rozman

Yeah, it seems like right now he's probably like a top 15, 20 player in the world. Oh, he got there. And in speech, just probably top 10 top.

Mark Gagnon

And that's the thing that I actually really like about Hans. I know he's controversial in the chess world, but as a casual chess fan, he brings an energy to the game.

Andrew Schultz

You need a villain.

Mark Gagnon

That makes me want, like, it's kind of like McGregor esque or it's like.

Andrew Schultz

Or Floyd esque.

Mark Gagnon

Like, he's talking shit, he's arrogant, he's like, he's just putting this energy into the game that I'm sure if I was a competitor and I played 30 years, like from the Soviet Union, and I played like a super strict game.

Andrew Schultz

Yeah.

Mark Gagnon

And I'm playing against this kid, I'd be a little annoyed. But as a fan, I'm like, oh, this is awesome.

Andrew Schultz

I mean, like, I mean, you watch wrestling at all, like WWE a little

Levy Rozman

bit, but not nowhere near as much as ufc.

Andrew Schultz

So like, the heel character is almost notoriously defined by the heel because he cheats.

Levy Rozman

Oh, okay.

Mark Gagnon

Right. And the worse the heel is, the more beloved the baby face is.

Andrew Schultz

So you know, the heel to have a baby face.

Mark Gagnon

Like, I like Magnus more seeing him beat Hans in that tournament because I'm like, oh, wow. Like, even with everything against Magnus, he still prevailed. Even against like all the allegations and the drama, he still achieved it.

Andrew Schultz

Like in wwe, the heel is the money maker and it's not the money maker because, like, they make all the money. But without the heel, you don't have the baby face that we're all rooting for. And that is the expression that we want to see. Right. It's like we want to see the David versus Goliath. We want to see the guy who can now possibly beat him. And so there is this version where I'm like, you got to kind of keep him involved.

Levy Rozman

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Mark Gagnon

And also I think it's important to be delicate with like the cheating stuff because that is like the gravest sin in chess. Yeah, it is. Like, if comedy is like joke stealing, chess is like you cannot cheat. It is like it is your whole credibility.

Andrew Schultz

Quick update. I'm going to be out in LA shooting a movie this summer, but we added some stand up shows, so pull on up. The Ontario Improv will be there the 26th and 27th, and then the Brea improv will be there July 17th and July 18th. And then we're going to be at the Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada Great Outdoors Fest August 8th. So you can go grab tickets, any of those shows, if tickets are still available. TheAndrew Schultz.com all right, Mark, what do you got?

Mark Gagnon

Oh, I have Great news. I'm going all over at the end of the year. I'm going to Plano, Texas, Chandler, Arizona, Pasadena, California, San Diego, California. And then I'm also going to a couple other spots that are going to be coming up at the end of the year, like Detroit, Michigan and Salt Lake City, Utah. And I can't wait to see you guys all there.

Andrew Schultz

Markagnon live.com Alex Guys, my monthly comedy show is back. Cancelled Comedy is on June 24th. We have a killer lineup. Get your tickets@cancelledcomedyx.com and then my tennis series, theallloveclub.com the tennis is on July 25th. I'll see you guys there. The first one was fantastic. Second one's going to be even better.

Levy Rozman

And we're live on matchday as Doug reaches for a buffalo wing. He's got it. Oh, and he's gone for a can of Pepsi, too. What a finish. There's no doubt about it.

Andrew Schultz

It just tastes better.

Levy Rozman

Match days deserve Pepsi. You guys know what the most viewed live chess match of all time is?

Andrew Schultz

No.

Mark Gagnon

It's.

Levy Rozman

It's an Indonesian podcaster named Corbusier.

Andrew Schultz

Corbudzi.

Levy Rozman

Yeah. And it's the Dewa Keep Us chess match. Long story short, 2021, March, I play a game online on my stream, I'm like, my opponent's cheating. I just report my opponent and they get banned for cheating. At some point, that account won 27

Andrew Schultz

games in a row, and that just wouldn't happen.

Levy Rozman

It's just a cheater. That night, a guy makes a post from Indonesia. He's Indonesia. And says, my father played a big streamer, and the streamer got mad. He lost to my father. Mass reported my father. And, you know, now my dad is banned. And my dad is a local tournament champion. Here's all the proof. He won some chess trophies. I was canceled by a country I learned in March 2021.

Mark Gagnon

Indonesia.

Levy Rozman

Do you know how many people live in Indonesia? Like 250 million. It's like the fourth biggest country on the planet. CNN Indonesia picked this up. Nobody fact checked anything. For all we know, the young son could have cheated on the dad's account. We don't know. Long story short, Corbusier invites the dad and the son to the podcast. And what they do is they organize this match between the father and Irene Sukander, who is an international chess master, one of the best players in Indonesia, and they had a prize fund of like $20,000.

Danny Rensch

Oh.

Levy Rozman

This chess match was watched by 1.3 million people. Live on YouTube.

Andrew Schultz

So it became this massive sporting event

Levy Rozman

in Indonesia and she won 3, 0 because he was, he was like a.

Andrew Schultz

He was okay at chess.

Levy Rozman

He was okay at chess, but not enough to beat me or her. And it's still not clear like who actually cheated, but this is where it sort of stopped. But that was a crazy month because I was receiving thousands of DMs a day telling me that I'm gonna get murdered. And like, it was.

Andrew Schultz

I'm sure they all apologized to you.

Levy Rozman

That did not happen. But now there is a positive resolution to the whole thing. I do have a lot of chess fans from Indonesia. Like, hey man, sorry. Like, this is kind of how it is here. Like, we wanna stand up for what's right. And if you just read the headline, it's terrible. I reported a 50 year old man with my fan base and got him bed. But whatever that account was, if it was the sun, he probably cheated.

Mark Gagnon

And he did cheat.

Levy Rozman

So controversy sells. 1.3 million life.

Andrew Schultz

Does it negatively impact your score when you lose to somebody significantly worse than you?

Levy Rozman

Yeah, I mean, the elo, the rating changes every game.

Andrew Schultz

Got it.

Levy Rozman

So if you're 500 and I'm 1500 and I lose to you, mine might go down like 15 points. But the good thing is I can win it back. It's not a fatal blow. It's very different than if you lose a championship fight and the person pops. That's very different chess. You can run it back very fast.

Andrew Schultz

Yeah. There's a thing in Padel where in order to play in the certain division, you need to be over a five. So what happens is once people get over a five, they just stop playing matches where the scores are tallied because they're like, I can't risk going down. And then I can't play in this division anymore. But does that happen at all with chess?

Levy Rozman

Yeah, but like more on a human level in the sense that, oh my God, I'm so close to 1,000. That's a big benchmark for people.

Andrew Schultz

I need to get there.

Levy Rozman

Yeah, I think everybody. You could like, you can get to a thousand. You have to change a couple things. Fine tune, like study a little bit more. But once you get to 990, you're shitting your pants. My wife was on the grind recently. She got to 992 and then she lost like 100 points. And this is normal.

Andrew Schultz

100 points?

Danny Rensch

Yeah.

Levy Rozman

You know, well, because over time, you know, you lose, you get tilted, you want to play a little bit more. I was stuck at 2850, my peak for like five years.

Andrew Schultz

And then I hope that you were just playing as like other people against her. When she got to 992, I can't let this chicken. I'm near the end of it.

Levy Rozman

I also, we had the opposite where she'd be like, you know, we're like sometimes sitting. She's like, is my position good? I'm like, I'm very fair. I'm like, I can't tell you because if you were playing someone and like, on the other side, someone's cheating, I'm like, I would be furious. But yeah, certainly there's this. I was stuck at 2800 for five years and when I broke to 2900 the first time, I like, I almost threw a party for myself. And then since then I climbed to 3,000. And you know what I think? I think there was rating inflation.

Andrew Schultz

What does that mean?

Levy Rozman

I think just like the way it works, there's a weird period of time where the average rating sort of floats up. For example, if Hikaru and Magnus go from 3,300 to 3,400 and then they start losing games, it's like trickle down economics, obvious.

Andrew Schultz

Those points gotta go somewhere.

Levy Rozman

Then they go to the 32, the 31, the 3000. Suddenly everyone's kind of going up. Elo is a whole fascinating thing. It's like mathematical formulas and everything Elo around the world is different. For example, a 1500 in India is not a 1500 from America.

Andrew Schultz

Who's better?

Levy Rozman

The 1500 from India?

Andrew Schultz

Just more people playing.

Levy Rozman

Yeah, way better. Another example, before the chess boom six years ago, a 1200 on Chess.com was awful. Now a 400 can defeat a 1200 from five years ago because there's so much knowledge and the average ELO is going lower. Like, all the people are good.

Andrew Schultz

Oh, wow.

Levy Rozman

But they're all, you know, for your games might be chaotic, but they also might be completely. You just play a game, you're like, I didn't do anything wrong and I fucking lost. Right. What the fuck?

Mark Gagnon

Yeah, I was cheating and I lost.

Levy Rozman

Yeah.

Billy

Like, yeah.

Levy Rozman

So ELO is another fascinating thing.

Mark Gagnon

It's.

Levy Rozman

It's not like tennis. I wish it was. It's just a culmination of like a calendar year. But yeah, it's not quite like that.

Mark Gagnon

I'm curious. People use all sorts of metaphors to describe chess. And you were even mentioning some before, like a business or whatever. What is it about chess that is so addictive? And what metaphor could you use to explain it to People that maybe have never played or played a little when they were a kid.

Levy Rozman

Yeah, it's very easy for me also being a person who did some boxing, did some judo and followed it for basically half my life. It compares directly to a one on one fight. Even the preparation for an opponent is exactly the same. Their playing style, how they start the game, their strengths and weaknesses. At what point are they gonna get tired? It's very similar to that.

Andrew Schultz

What do you mean at what point are they gonna get tired?

Levy Rozman

Well, for ex. Well, I don't want to get too topic, so let me just answer this first. It probably like that is probably the best comparison that I could draw. It's to individual sport. And it hooks people because it's uniquely the one activity that makes you feel incredibly intelligent and incredibly stupid at the same time. There is nothing like it. You feel so proud when you win a chess game and then you feel unbelievably dumb when you play Rook Takes Pawn. You know, like, like you just, you're like, what? Nothing can bring that out of you. It's, it's a mental warfare. It's. It's like four hours of a physical sport, but in your head and we know we got demons up here and, and like they really come out. It exposes all of your kind of worst habits. What was your question?

Andrew Schultz

I like the mental aspect. Sorry. So the mental fatigue. Yeah, you can, you can track or you'll know when somebody will start to get tired.

Levy Rozman

Yeah, easily, easily. You can sort of analyze like, hey, this person in the third and fourth hour of the game is like less accurate. They manage their time worse, they leave themselves less time.

Andrew Schultz

So when you're preparing for an opponent that you know, not just a random game that happens on, on chess.com but like this is somebody that you know, that you're going up to, you're looking at like openings that they'll commonly use. How many different openings will for example, someone of your level have?

Levy Rozman

4 or 5 consistently, like with white and black.

Andrew Schultz

Oh, so it's not like 10,000 different.

Levy Rozman

No, it's tight.

Andrew Schultz

So you play.

Mark Gagnon

Wow.

Andrew Schultz

It is kind of like boxing where it's like this guy's a counter puncher, this guy. Big swings and then you have four or five that you're comfortable playing through. But there's thousands of permutations. So other people might have a four or five that have nothing to do with yours.

Levy Rozman

Yeah, I study their over the board games, you know, the games they've played live. If I'm lucky, I uncover their Secret online account that has no name. But there's, you know, there's ways that if you're smart, you can sort of, you can sort of find it. Now what people do is they play on chess.com with like a fake flag, a fake profile picture. I have an account like that. Everybody does.

Andrew Schultz

A ghost account.

Levy Rozman

Yeah. Because you need to train, you need to play your real openings so you can simulate it in a game. Like sparring in the gym.

Andrew Schultz

Yeah, yeah.

Levy Rozman

But you can't have people knowing that that's what you're practicing. Right. So that's what you do. You do three or four openings. You check your opponent's games. Most of us are working behind the scenes. Like for the next tournament, I'm going to go and I'm going to play a new thing that my opponent won't expect.

Andrew Schultz

So you're developing a new opening that

Levy Rozman

you're comfortable with that I played in online games, that you never saw, that I played in online games.

Andrew Schultz

Got it. So you're trying to track what that might be for your opponent.

Danny Rensch

Yes.

Andrew Schultz

And knowing what their opening is, like what type of advantage, percentage wise.

Levy Rozman

So first of all, you get them down on time early, so they're deep in the tank.

Andrew Schultz

That's interesting.

Levy Rozman

They're trying to like, then if you get really lucky.

Andrew Schultz

I don't like this time thing, by the way.

Levy Rozman

I. Yeah, but we gotta, you know, I know.

Andrew Schultz

You have to do it for the sport.

Danny Rensch

Yeah.

Andrew Schultz

Right. But like if you're looking at its purest form. Yeah. It's not who makes the decision the fastest, it's just who makes the right decision.

Mark Gagnon

But couldn't you say the same thing about fighting? Like you're in a boxing match and it's like, well, it should just be whoever beats the. Out of the other guy the most. But it's like, well, you have time.

Andrew Schultz

Well, I would say it's like the inverse in, in boxing. Right. Because it's like if you really want to know who the best, most skilled boxer was, you would have less time per round.

Mark Gagnon

Yeah.

Andrew Schultz

But it's kind of like you don't want exhaustion to be calculated into the skill of the sport.

Levy Rozman

Yes.

Andrew Schultz

You know what I'm saying? Like, because once you get tired by the end of the round, you can't throw as many punches, you can't dunk as much. If you just want to know who is the best at throwing punches, who hit the hardest, et cetera. But I guess it is part of having a gas tank is part of it. So I guess you could Calculate that as like decision speed.

Levy Rozman

It's like how Joe Rogan is. He advocates for one round or. I don't know if he advocates for one round or if he advocates for just an open space, like no cage.

Andrew Schultz

Yeah, I've heard.

Levy Rozman

I think the 25 minute round of fighting the champs would probably be different if they had an opportunity.

Andrew Schultz

Khabib. I think Khabib maybe even said that too, which is like, why? Or maybe Nate Diaz was like, why don't we just have no rounds? It's just one round, whoever wins the

Mark Gagnon

round, and it becomes a different sport in a way.

Levy Rozman

Yeah.

Andrew Schultz

And then it's like, yeah, yeah, I guess that's a good point. Okay, sorry, I deferred you.

Levy Rozman

No, no, you have a good point. This only changed like 30ish years ago. In 1984, there's a famous match. Kasparov, who's the go. He's like the Michael Jordan of chess. And then Karpov, the Soviet champion, young Kasparov, taking on Karpov. Back then, the rules were basically unlimited. You had to beat a guy six times to become the world champion. Draws didn't count, so you weren't playing to a point total. You had to beat him six times. Karpov gets out to a 51 lead with a bunch of draws. So they've played like 20 games, but he's won five.

Andrew Schultz

This is the Soviet.

Levy Rozman

Yeah, they're both Soviet. They're both Soviet.

Andrew Schultz

Oh, okay.

Levy Rozman

Kasparov at the time, now he's obviously much more, you know, Western. Probably lives in New York. You know, very, very anti Russian regime. We don't have to get into all that. But Kasparov starts locking down and winning games. So like, 10 draws, he wins a game. 10 draws, he wins another game over how much time? Three months. So Kasparov gets back into the match. Over the course of, like, two months

Andrew Schultz

of play, he's down 1 5.

Levy Rozman

Gets back to like 5, 4, 5, 3. And the Soviets are like, hey, you guys are both ill. We can't finish this match anymore. You're both going to, you know, and he's like, what? This is corruption. You know, like, what are you talking about? I want to play. I want to play. And then they postpone the match. They end up playing a match in 1985, and Kasparov wins it. But back then, they would play to a point total. They removed the fact that you had to win six games or you could theoretically play forever. That's why the clock is there. That's why they play to a Point.

Andrew Schultz

Okay. You need this. So we need the clock. We need some sort of restraint on. So who ends up winning the match or whatever you want.

Levy Rozman

So 1985, Kasparov beats Karpov. 1987, Kasparov beats KarpoV. 1990, Kasparov beats KarpovaV. So they played four World Championship matches. Kasparov won every world championship match by one game. It's like the closest rivalry ever that was not close. It's fascinating. Wow. Yeah.

Andrew Schultz

By not close, you mean. Kasparov always won.

Levy Rozman

He was the.

Andrew Schultz

But it was like 51% to 49% in terms of ability.

Levy Rozman

50.3 to 49.7. Yeah.

Mark Gagnon

Wow.

Andrew Schultz

Sorry.

Mark Gagnon

Go, Mark. Just. Is that the most intense rivalry, you

Levy Rozman

would say, by far? Because nobody rivals Magnus. Like, we haven't had that type of close rivalry ever, because, you know, tennis has, like, a big three. It always has a big two, big three. Chess has a big one. It's basically the way it's always been.

Andrew Schultz

And why is that?

Levy Rozman

It's inexplicable. Nobody quite knows why Magnus is so good. It could be a mix of, like, photographic memory. So he remembers patterns and positions in games from decades ago. And also he just has a better intuition. You drop him in any chess position, give him 1000 chess positions, he'll find the best move in a thousand position. Sample size better than anybody in the world.

Andrew Schultz

Could he have made it out of that position that I stupidly put myself in?

Levy Rozman

If you were. Oh, no, that was probably, like. I could probably beat Magnus consistently up a rook, but if he started the game against me down like a bishop, which is a substantial disadvantage with a clock, I think he would.

Mark Gagnon

He.

Andrew Schultz

Would he beat you on the clock, or would he beat you?

Levy Rozman

A mix of both. Because I would be also afraid of him. I would change my place.

Andrew Schultz

You would play a more delicate game.

Levy Rozman

Yeah, I'd be more afraid of. Yeah.

Andrew Schultz

How much does that play into it? How much is. You know, you would always hear this with, like, Mike Tyson and fighting where, like, certain guys lost the fight before they even got in the ring. You saw with Michael Jordan, fourth quarter, you know, he comes back in the game, and then guys would get a little spooked.

Danny Rensch

Yeah.

Andrew Schultz

Do you get the yips with your decision making in chess?

Levy Rozman

100%. Me especially, it's my. It's something that I've realized also since, like, late 20s, 30s, and I'm not used to playing and competing with such a spotlight. Like, my whole life. I just kind of go to tournaments. Nobody really knows who I am.

Andrew Schultz

And now everybody knows who you are. They're watching your games with all this pressure.

Levy Rozman

Yeah, yeah. And also, you know, I go home from a tournament game. Hikaru, who's the number two player in the world, already covered it.

Danny Rensch

It.

Andrew Schultz

That's right. So the number two is great, by the way.

Levy Rozman

Yeah, he's, like, covering my game. And, like, here's the good, you know, good moment, bad moment. And then, you know, that's. Yeah, it's way more pressure than I thought. And for opponents of Magnus, especially guys in their late 20s, 30s, 40s, like his generation. Yeah, totally. Like, definitely unfold. Yeah, they. They break at some point.

Andrew Schultz

And how does that manifest on the board? Like, for someone who knows nothing about chess, like, what. What is a. What is a decision that they're making? Are they more defensive? Are they more.

Levy Rozman

Yeah, it's two things. So you'll get into a long, long game against Magnus, fourth hour, fifth hour. The board is simplified, but he's known as an endgame. God.

Andrew Schultz

What does that mean?

Levy Rozman

That just means when half the pieces have been traded and there's no structure, nothing you can memorize anymore, that's his time. He somehow knows where the pieces go better than you. And so you're looking at something five moves down, he's looking at the same thing. You're like, damn, I feel like. I feel like he has something there. He's gonna get my pawn. He's gonna get his knight to, like, this square. And what's amazing is, like, I won't go for that. I'm gonna do something else, because I feel like in that type of position, he'll get me. But the computer is like, there's nothing there. Just go there. Just go to this, like, position that

Andrew Schultz

doesn't look very good. So if you could take the emotion out of it, you'd actually probably play better against him.

Levy Rozman

Yeah, everybody. Everybody would. Having said that, we're living in the midst of his worst tournament ever in, like, 10 years.

Mark Gagnon

The Norway tournament.

Levy Rozman

Yeah, he's playing in Norway, and he's lost four games, which hasn't happened in 11 years, and he's losing to, you know, the next generation. And it's going to happen. I mean, Father Time is undefeated. At some point, he will lose more than he wins or he will lose more than he's ever lost, but that hasn't really happened yet. He's won the world championship, like, 20 times.

Andrew Schultz

Can he pull himself back up in this tournament? Or you think he won't win it? He won't win it because It's a points.

Levy Rozman

Yeah, it's just the point thing. It'll be the first tournament in 23 or 24 tournaments over the course of three years that he hasn't won.

Mark Gagnon

Yeah. So here's his Kalsheet rating right now for this tournament versus Wesley.

Levy Rozman

So now this is the, this is the next match.

Andrew Schultz

It's a specific match.

Levy Rozman

This is the next match.

Andrew Schultz

So they have him at 64.

Levy Rozman

He's still a favorite. I mean, he's like, it's the worst tournament he's played in 10 years. He's still a 2 to 1 favorite.

Mark Gagnon

But I was talking to someone that kind of gave me some perspective on this, specifically with classical chess, that, that when you're the best for that long, the will and maybe the motivation to get in and study five different openings and get into your opponent's burner account to learn how they play, that will kind of goes away a little bit. Whereas if you're a young guy, when you're playing Magnus, that is the only game you're thinking about. But for Magnus, that's just another game. And so you have this sort of motivation disincentive that happens, I think, when you are the best for that long. And I wonder if that's what's happening to Magnus now.

Levy Rozman

100%. And he's a, he's a father.

Mark Gagnon

Right.

Levy Rozman

Everybody wants to get him involved in the, in the next chess project.

Andrew Schultz

Yeah. He's probably got business decisions, so he's not applying himself in the same way. And also, I imagine given the, given the amount of content that he has on the Internet, like, I imagine every game that he plays publicly is scrutinized. Right. So it's like you, I imagine you could probably memorize most of his openings, the ones that he uses classically. You're starting to recognize patterns at the end game, as you said. Like, I imagine if there's some young kid who's been studying one person, it's the best person. So he's probably the most, like, known player in terms of his tendencies, Right?

Levy Rozman

Yes. And yet having said all of that, it's still the story that he's underperforming as opposed to he's getting outplayed.

Mark Gagnon

Right.

Andrew Schultz

Oh, that's interesting. They're framing it as he's playing poorly instead of these young guys are playing great.

Levy Rozman

Yes, but that's, that's still kind of true.

Andrew Schultz

Really.

Levy Rozman

It hasn't, because it's one tournament. And so we are so used to, oh, he lost a couple games in the middle of A tournament. His. His odds of winning this tournament are now, like, 10, 20%. He just, like, roars back and wins the tournament.

Andrew Schultz

Is. Is there, like, a thing that happens? I've noticed this with standup. I've. I've noticed that even a little bit. Like, with paddle. Where are you in rooms with, like, incredibly, like, successful people, titans of business, and because you are better than them at something that they really value, do they have, like, a very different social dynamic with you? With, like, a Bill Gates or somebody who likes chess? Like, does he act like a little, like, fanboy around you or something like that?

Billy

I've.

Levy Rozman

I've never met him. I have a very different and fascinating dynamic with successful people than. Than a Magnus would have.

Andrew Schultz

Okay.

Levy Rozman

His dynamic is, oh, my God, you're such a genius. Like, that's what. You know. And so he gets invited to. He was just like. He was the most random thing. It was a clip of him and Eileen Gu at the science. I don't know what it's called. It's like a science development conference. And they introduced an award for some sort of research. And I was like, okay. Like, that's cool. That's the stuff that. He gets invited to tech conferences, you know, AI, A lot of the tech folks, they sort of want to be adjacent. I get a lot of. I kind of get a lot of, like, hey, I didn't know how much chess could be fascinating. I'm sort of. I'm really into it. I played it when I was younger, and now I'm back into it in my 30s, 40s, 50s, and my kids play.

Danny Rensch

Yeah.

Levy Rozman

So the cool thing with chess content is I never thought it would be like this, but it's one of the few things every generation of a household does together.

Andrew Schultz

It's interesting.

Levy Rozman

Kids are not gonna. You know, the kids are gonna watch, like, the Mr. Beast stuff, and the parents are gonna watch CNN. I don't know, like, Fox. Like, they're not gonna. And chess is not. Is not the same way, but I've seen people. I finished the collab with. With Magnus once, and I got into a taxi in France going to Charles de Gaulle, and we're driving, and then the guy just turns around and goes, brother.

Danny Rensch

Like, yes.

Levy Rozman

He's like, was that guy Magnus Carlsen? And I'm just like, what?

Billy

Yeah.

Levy Rozman

I'm like, you play chess? He's like, no, no, no. I'm from Tunisia. I don't play so much chess. But that guy is a genius. And I was like, all right. Like, hell.

Billy

Hell, yeah.

Levy Rozman

You know. So I. Yeah, that's kind of like the. The Magnus effect.

Mark Gagnon

Is there ever an animosity within the chess world where you will be around these other grandmasters or these grandmasters that are, you know, the top five, but you are more well known in many ways.

Andrew Schultz

Wealthier.

Mark Gagnon

Yeah. Better paid. Is there ever animosity from the chess world? They're like, ah, why does Levy get this, not me?

Levy Rozman

I don't. So I think there's a lot of. There's a lot of behind closed doors talking about a person. And I kind of hear it. I sort of hear the murmurs and the rumors. And the answer to your question, the short answer is yes, absolutely. And not just me, there's content creators who are women. And they get it much worse than the sisters. Yeah, the sisters, yeah. They get a whole different side of things.

Mark Gagnon

Another one.

Levy Rozman

Yeah. These players don't like the fact that they have achieved the absolute top at this intellectual pursuit, this mental, cerebral type of thing. And here I am breaking it down for people, and people care a lot more about my content. I'm top 3,000 in the world, top 2,000 in the world. Why am I more famous? Why am I more popular? The only chess players in the world that really don't have these concerns are the ones that have achieved massive success, and that's the Magnus, the Hikaru, and some players who are, let's say, from India or Uzbekistan, where there's really good state sponsorship. So these players are superstars in India because they're world champ. They're top five, top ten in the world. And it's cultural. It's not really the culture to be like.

Andrew Schultz

Usually it's a reflection of, like, someone's success and their financial standing.

Danny Rensch

Yeah.

Levy Rozman

And, yeah, that's where the resentment kind of comes from. I will say it's probably similar stuff in comedy. It's slightly different. Chess is. And I've thought about this a lot, it's the only activity in the world where the top athletes hate the top creators. Imagine in basketball if Steph Curry hated the Professor.

Andrew Schultz

It's just like, what?

Levy Rozman

But it has to do with money. It has to do with chess hasn't grown the way it should.

Andrew Schultz

I'm sure there's NBA players are like, why is Stephen A. Smith making like a million? Or something like that?

Levy Rozman

But he's on TV criticizing them, which is a little different. Yes, of course they don't like that.

Andrew Schultz

But do they not recognize, like, how the ecosystem works and how there's probably much bigger prize money for these chess Matches now because of what you guys are doing.

Levy Rozman

Yes and no. So you would think, but Chess hasn't monetized itself competitively anywhere near to the degree that a content creator has.

Andrew Schultz

That's the tricky thing.

Levy Rozman

I have the channel. I wrote a book. It's a bestseller. Like, I have my, you know, educational platform. I'm smart about the way I do it. Beyond just being like the chess guy.

Andrew Schultz

Yeah, okay.

Levy Rozman

I'm an entrepreneur. Like, I have multiple businesses. I manage like 10, 15 people.

Andrew Schultz

Talk your shit.

Levy Rozman

Yeah, but that's like, that's what I'm always thinking, like, what's the next big project? I'll continue to make Chess successful, but I want to do big cool things. I want to do productions, you know, I want to do a limited series like on a Netflix. And these guys just want to play chess. They don't have big social media followings. And chess historically hasn't had the structure that any of these other sports have. Our FIFA equivalent. Don't even get me started. It's not, it's just nowhere near the same thing. And chess has relied on eccentric billionaires to fund tournaments. Billionaire comes in is like, I want to hang out with Magnus.

Andrew Schultz

Yes.

Levy Rozman

I'm gonna throw 20 million at this thing. Let's get all the players here. It dies after like a year or two years. And so that's, yeah, that's chess. It's, it's weird, man. It's. It. Competitively, the sport hasn't grown anywhere near. It should.

Mark Gagnon

Right, but does that paradigm make you want even more to get that GM title? You know, the fact that you have this, you know, your top, you know, 2,000, but you're like, man, if I could just be the biggest, you know, content creator and a gm, no one can say anything.

Levy Rozman

Yes and no. It's brutal. Like I said, I mean, I'm studying for three, four hours, I show up, some 11 year old kid is already like, better than me.

Andrew Schultz

No way.

Levy Rozman

Yeah. Knows openings. I mean, I got the international master title at 22 and now it's getting broken at 10. 10 year olds are like already. The average nine year old today would be the world champion 100 years ago.

Mark Gagnon

Right?

Andrew Schultz

The game has improved that much.

Levy Rozman

Yes, because it's all, it's like knowledge. You just know so many openings, you don't even have to think anymore.

Mark Gagnon

More access to information, you can play more games much more quick.

Levy Rozman

Imagine a nine year old kid's already played like 10,000 speed games on Chess.com? yeah, I'm playing. I'm playing kids on Chess.com, i'm losing. I go to their, like, I find their name. I'm like born in 2016.

Andrew Schultz

Crazy. Crazy.

Billy

What the fuck?

Andrew Schultz

So Kasparov would get mauled today.

Levy Rozman

Not mauled, but he would lose shockingly more than he. His aura was off the charts. His aura was very different than Magnus's aura, but his aura was a Michael Jordan aura.

Billy

Like he'll.

Levy Rozman

He'll kill you.

Mark Gagnon

Like the thing for him to get repeated steps, you know what I mean?

Andrew Schultz

Like, it makes total.

Mark Gagnon

You're a 22 year old kid in India in 1910. It's like you have to just play people around you.

Andrew Schultz

Who in your village is even good enough to give you some pressure now you're connected. Oh, wow, that's interesting.

Danny Rensch

Yeah.

Levy Rozman

India got their first grandmaster Anand in like 1980s, 1990s. Now they have like a hundred. The whole country plays chess.

Andrew Schultz

Yeah.

Levy Rozman

But they had like no grandmasters before Anand, even though they invented chess, basically.

Andrew Schultz

Yeah, they did, yeah.

Billy

Yeah.

Levy Rozman

So I wasn't there, but.

Andrew Schultz

So, yeah. Where, where, where does it come from?

Levy Rozman

It comes from India. And there was different forms of the game. Like the queen used to only be able to move two at a time, like a hop. Just like little moves like that chaturanga. I think these. I don't want to say the wrong thing and then look like an idiot. We'll have to cut it out. But that's where it evolved from. And I think the modern day chess comes from like Spain, 1500s, 1600s, they changed a few rules, but it hasn't gotten an Update in like 200 years. So we just keep at it and it's kind of cool. It doesn't need any like new characters, new pieces, anything like that.

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Levy Rozman

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Levy Rozman

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Danny Rensch

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Levy Rozman

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Andrew Schultz

18.

Mark Gagnon

Would you trade everything you've built so far to become a gm?

Levy Rozman

Well, no, I wouldn't even trade it to. I think the only thing I could trade it for, just on, like, scale, is to be, like, the world champion. Like, Magnus is a bigger star than me, for sure. Just purely on, like, name. But, no, it blows my mind. I mean, coming here to film. I took a walk today to Starbucks. I saw one person on the street because it was so early, and they're like, are you Gotham Chess? And I'm like, that blows my mind. Like, I was not born to be a celebrity, but I have, like. I'm like, I have 5 billion views on YouTube. Yeah. What even is that number?

Mark Gagnon

Every short you post is millions of views, which is.

Billy

But people.

Levy Rozman

People love chess. And. And I. I can collab with a big streamer. Like, the past month, I did, you know, a lot of collabs with Jinxy.

Andrew Schultz

Yeah.

Levy Rozman

And, you know, you see the.

Danny Rensch

The.

Levy Rozman

The amount of, like, top of funnel people. New people watching chess every day.

Andrew Schultz

Yeah.

Levy Rozman

Hundreds of thousands. And they just. They just love it. They watch a historical video video about AI, A video about two idiots playing chess. Yeah. And they just. They just get hooked.

Andrew Schultz

I feel like everybody thinks it's their little secret.

Levy Rozman

It's true. I bet you've been in places.

Andrew Schultz

What is that?

Levy Rozman

People don't talk. Athletes play it. Every day we discover an athlete, musician, designer, like, entrepreneur, plays it, but they don't want to talk about it.

Andrew Schultz

Jim Norton was on the pod last week, and he was telling me about, like, he would come back from the road, and he'd be at the Comedy Cellar, and then Patrice o', Neill, who. You know, Patrice is the greatest ever, and he goes, him and Patrice would just play chess until three in the morning. And then he said it, and it was just like. Like, first of all, the second I find out you play chess, I wonder if there's like, a. This is a stigma most people have. Like, I assume you're smart. I don't know why. Like, I would always think that Jim and Patrice were smart, but I was like, ooh, these guys. Instead of just, like, making fun of each other until three in the morning, I'm sure they were also doing that, but, like, they're just sitting across a chessboard and I don't know, there was just something about. To me, it was like, what a. What a peculiar thing that they'd Be doing. I've never seen anybody bust out a chessboard at the cell.

Mark Gagnon

No, I've been doing it lately.

Andrew Schultz

You have?

Mark Gagnon

Yeah.

Andrew Schultz

I love this.

Mark Gagnon

Me and Casey have been playing.

Andrew Schultz

Really?

Billy

Yeah.

Andrew Schultz

I love it.

Levy Rozman

You guys will be shocked. Like, I. In Stockholm, this has happened two or three times recently, so it's top of mind. But I'll be on the street. My wife and I were walking from Italy. Guy stops me, two steps behind him is another guy. They both know who I am. They're kind of awkward, and I'm like, you guys should, like, link up, play some chess. I mean, they both play chess. They were. I like to put people in strange situations like that. And they were both clearly, like, not extroverted enough to do that.

Andrew Schultz

Yes.

Levy Rozman

Are walking on the street every day. They're at the Comedy Cellar. They're anywhere. They all play chess.

Andrew Schultz

Yeah. Why is it everybody's little secret?

Levy Rozman

That I don't know. I think people are also intimidated by this. Not these guys, but, like, you know, people that. Who mostly play online, they. They're a little bit afraid of doing

Andrew Schultz

in real life over the board.

Mark Gagnon

But you'd be shocked, though. I played a game with Nick Sonnenberg. He's a chess kickboxing champion. Sure. He won gold for the United States as he.

Andrew Schultz

Let's go, Nick.

Mark Gagnon

Chess. Chess boxer. But I was playing.

Andrew Schultz

We went to college together.

Levy Rozman

Yeah. Yeah.

Mark Gagnon

I was playing with him at a restaurant. And the amount of people that just came around, just, like, watch.

Danny Rensch

Yep.

Levy Rozman

I love it.

Mark Gagnon

There was, like, a little kid that was having dinner with his parents. Like, walked over, was like, can I play? And, like, it just became a thing. It's just, like, such a fun, social, like, lubricator. Just everyone comes around.

Levy Rozman

Wendy, last year or two years ago was like, hey, anybody want to play chess in Washington Square Park?

Billy

Tweeted.

Mark Gagnon

That's right.

Levy Rozman

Tweeted. Before, he was, like, the ultra superstar that he is now, but he just went to Washington. I was like. I'm like. I'm like, it's raining. I doubt. Is this even real?

Billy

Yeah.

Andrew Schultz

What's the best street game in New York City?

Levy Rozman

Like, four chess or Washington Square Park.

Andrew Schultz

Better than Union Square.

Levy Rozman

Yeah. So they're different. Union Square, you pay to play. They're kind of Washington.

Andrew Schultz

You can pay to play.

Levy Rozman

You can. But they bet more on the games. Like, five to win.

Andrew Schultz

Okay. Yeah.

Levy Rozman

If you win, you get them. Sometimes they'll yell at you and be like, get the hell out of here.

Andrew Schultz

Yeah.

Levy Rozman

But, yeah, Washington Square Park. A lot of these content Creators over the last few years will just go set up shop like they. One guy in particular, I think his name is Johnny. He's in like, everybody's videos. Yeah. And a lot of them, you know, they. They've. Some of them, like, were. They're ex convicts. Some of them are like, they were

Andrew Schultz

in rehab and they found chess while in jail or found. Yes, while in rehab.

Levy Rozman

Chess in prisons. Huge program.

Danny Rensch

Huge.

Levy Rozman

Massive.

Andrew Schultz

Okay, so when. When you're playing against these guys, which I imagine you've played a bunch, is there something different about their game?

Danny Rensch

Yeah.

Andrew Schultz

And how so?

Levy Rozman

It's like scrappy. They don't play anything in the beginning of the game. That's correct.

Andrew Schultz

Tell me, tell me.

Levy Rozman

Yeah, no, it's just like. It's like they'll throw a different language to it almost.

Mark Gagnon

Yeah.

Levy Rozman

And I have to kind of cut. You know, I'm experienced enough that again, I compare it to martial arts. It's like a really scrappy person. Like. Like, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.

Andrew Schultz

Augustus.

Levy Rozman

Yes.

Andrew Schultz

The boxer. Yeah.

Levy Rozman

And how Rico fought Usyk. Yeah, Rico was unorthodox. Like, he was kind of like. And it was really successful and he was robbed. I'm just gonna say it now, but.

Andrew Schultz

Shout out Rico. Man, that was. That was really tough.

Levy Rozman

I was like, yeah, but it was. That's the style is that it's really, really unorthodox. And you have to use what, you know, to sort of carve it up. It's crazy. People were like, this was a mask era. What do I gotta get into that?

Andrew Schultz

What makes it unorthodox?

Levy Rozman

It's basically. It's similar to the trickiness of explaining computer moves.

Andrew Schultz

Okay.

Levy Rozman

So the moves that a lot of these guys play are not the best moves, but they're very confrontational. They're very combative. Like, they tie your pieces up so your pieces are kind of like grappling. And it's hard to know what the best move is because the pawns are looking at each other. The bishops are looking at each other. The knight, like, which permutation of move do you play? I can figure it out.

Mark Gagnon

Like, if you play basketball against someone that's not that good, but maybe they're super, like, aggressive.

Levy Rozman

Yeah, exactly.

Mark Gagnon

Like you're doing a move because they're supposed to go and then you cut back. But because they don't know, like, they won't cut back.

Levy Rozman

Just shoulder check you. So then you're just going back into it.

Mark Gagnon

Like that happens in soccer. Like, you'll do a move and they don't know the move so they don't bite. And so then you'll cut back into them and lose the ball.

Andrew Schultz

You're being.

Mark Gagnon

You're worse, and I'm playing worse because of that.

Andrew Schultz

It's like you play paddle with guys who, like, come from different racket sport disciplines. And like, they have immense skill so they can hit shots, but they aren't the shots they're supposed to hit.

Mark Gagnon

So you're out of position.

Andrew Schultz

Right. So, like, I'm in the position for the shot you should be hitting and you have me out of position, so I'm scrambling for. To get back in position, but you're hitting this other shot that exists in squash or tennis or something like that, and it's somehow effective. Yeah. Oh, that's really interesting.

Mark Gagnon

Did you notice a cultural difference? Like if you play like a Brazilian guy versus, like a Soviet guy or, you know.

Levy Rozman

Yeah, it's really. Yeah. So you said something really good. We weren't rolling, but. Can I quote you, please? You were like, chess is one of the few things that can make me racist. I think they should.

Andrew Schultz

He's got a lot of bits about that.

Levy Rozman

Yeah. They should hide the flag on chess.com.

Mark Gagnon

exactly. Like, you're playing chess.com. it's 2am you're getting beat by a Bangladeshi dude, and all of a sudden you're like, what's the slur for them?

Levy Rozman

He said that it was. It was him. Camera on him.

Mark Gagnon

It's cuz I lost. All right.

Andrew Schultz

Wait till he gives you his Bobby Fiser tank.

Levy Rozman

Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, you're making a.

Mark Gagnon

It's a.

Levy Rozman

It's a good point.

Andrew Schultz

Give your Bobby Fisher tick. And then we cut it out.

Mark Gagnon

I saw this in a tweet. It was an anti Semitic tweet, but it's very fun. It was like just the first line, it says, Bobby Fischer, the greatest pattern recognizer in history. Second line. Also hated Jews.

Levy Rozman

It's a rough time to be Jewish, you know, I'm letting you know, like, it's. Yeah, no, it's.

Andrew Schultz

But you were saying the different cultures

Levy Rozman

and how they play, there's 100% difference, especially at like, club level, amateur level. Just like people who download the app and just, like, get playing. So people who are Soviet, like Russia, even Kazakhstan, like some of the more Central Asian countries, they play very sound. What does that mean? Like, they don't take big risk. They won't open their king. They're going to castle in the beginning because that's what you're supposed to do. Very professional. Soviet School of chess. They'll trade the queens.

Andrew Schultz

They will trade the queens.

Levy Rozman

Yeah, because like, no queen, no danger. Less danger. Filipino, Indonesian ballistic, like, completely uncontrolled game. Everything you just watched on a YouTube video, out the window. You're gonna get really mad because you're like, they're not doing the thing that I'm supposed to do. They're throwing all the side pawns forward. And the computer is like, white is better, but you're not a computer. You're like, what the is going on? So you, you get your bishop trapped, like by pawns. You know, your bishop gets walled in.

Andrew Schultz

Yeah, yeah.

Levy Rozman

And now you're gonna lose bishop. You're like, God damn it, I just lost the bishop.

Mark Gagnon

Like, what?

Levy Rozman

Why am I. Are you losing like 20 moves? They just got your. They leave the king in the middle. They just bring the queen out, bring the bishop out. And it's bad if you know how to defend it. But that style, there's really Southeast Asia or Philippines. I don't know if that qualifies. My geography's not that great, but close enough. Yes. They're relentless. India, very unpredictable because you have so many cultures, you have so many people, you have so many parts of the. So you get a lot of that, you get a lot of really aggressive, but then you also get very proper. They know their openings very well. They study. So they'll, you know, the first five, ten moves, they play super, super well and on and on, you know, and some, some people will. Will trash talk. Like when my. When I had.

Andrew Schultz

Oh, they like to talk shit.

Levy Rozman

I had students playing on Chess.com back in the day. We were practicing an opening. Guy writes in like some foreign language, we translated. It's like, make a move, you fucking bitch. It's like an eight year old girl goes to Google Translate and it's like, dad, chat off, chat disabled, bro. You got like a 50 year old man on the other side of an 8 year old girl. That's chess.

Mark Gagnon

You know, how would you characterize the American game? Is there one singular way to describe how we play?

Levy Rozman

Yeah, we're. Well, if you look at the top rating lists of the United States, it's 90% Chinese and Indian, which is just. It's a mix of like, this is the right thing to do for college. And there's a blueprint of previous Asian American girls becoming champions and then going to Harvard.

Andrew Schultz

Oh, does it help you get into.

Levy Rozman

I think so. Yeah. I think so. Like, historically, the best women who end up applying to college in America, they don't pursue chess professionally, they become multiple time U.S. women's champion and then they go to Harvard.

Andrew Schultz

It's like being like a rower or something. Like a lot of any of my friends who have like kids that are trying to get into the Ivys, they'll pick these kind of like obscure, like white people sports and like it's just a catalyst to get into the iv like you're not going to become a professional squash player, but like you can kind of get in, in that way. And chess works like that. But there's a chess team at the school or do they look at it as like a reflection of IQ and discipline?

Levy Rozman

No, no, they just, they probably want like cool people in Harvard ultimately. And then these talented players know they can't make more than like 100k, 200k a year in chess, so they go to finance.

Andrew Schultz

Okay, that makes sense.

Levy Rozman

Whereas the men oftentimes will follow chess professionally and try to get like top 10, top 20, top 30 in the world. Which opens up the topic of men's and women's chess because it's arguably the one sport in the world you absolutely 100% do not need to split them up.

Andrew Schultz

That's what I never understood. Like that and driving.

Levy Rozman

Yeah, yeah.

Mark Gagnon

F1.

Andrew Schultz

Just let them drive. Yeah, yeah. So explain that. Why do they split them up?

Levy Rozman

And even that you could argue like the torque on the neck. I don't know, like the way they're

Andrew Schultz

good with their neck.

Danny Rensch

Next.

Levy Rozman

Yeah, damn.

Andrew Schultz

If anything, they have a. They have an advantage, you know, even doing what they're supposed to.

Levy Rozman

So ch.

Mark Gagnon

It took an hour to make him uncomfortable. That's actually pretty good.

Andrew Schultz

That normally goes way faster.

Levy Rozman

He was just fascinated by the chess. You know, chess world is not ready for, for Schultz jokes. Like, we're, we're sort of.

Billy

We're going to get there.

Levy Rozman

We're getting there. We're developing our, our thick skin. No, I mean, I. Look, I. In chess you have two things. Number one, you have all women's categories. So women play women.

Andrew Schultz

But why is that?

Levy Rozman

Well, that's what. Number one. Number two, you have. You have something even more weird. Women's titles. So Grandmaster is 2500.

Andrew Schultz

For women, it's what, 2300.

Levy Rozman

It's called Women's Grandmaster. WGM. There's.

Andrew Schultz

You're a women's Grandmaster.

Levy Rozman

Yes, and an International Master. I'm not a women's Grandmaster because I'm not eligible. We haven't progressed that far.

Andrew Schultz

But at any point in time, if you want to be a Grandmaster, women's Grandmaster, I get.

Levy Rozman

Oh, you're above grandma. Exactly.

Andrew Schultz

You're International Master.

Levy Rozman

Yeah.

Andrew Schultz

So what are you in women?

Levy Rozman

I've exceeded the threat. That's why. That's why it doesn't make any sense.

Andrew Schultz

You can't even get higher than what you are. If you were a woman, the women

Levy Rozman

can get the Open titles.

Andrew Schultz

Are you an Open?

Levy Rozman

Yes. International Master is an Open title. Anybody can get it.

Andrew Schultz

What's better than that?

Levy Rozman

Grandmaster.

Andrew Schultz

What's the best, Grandma?

Levy Rozman

Well, World champion, but Grandmaster is the highest title. They're super Grandmaster.

Andrew Schultz

Is there a woman that can beat you on the planet?

Danny Rensch

It.

Levy Rozman

Yeah, plenty. I don't know.

Billy

There's a lot.

Levy Rozman

There's a lot. The Queen of Chess.

Mark Gagnon

What's that?

Levy Rozman

Judith Polgar.

Mark Gagnon

Yes.

Levy Rozman

Yes. So the Polgar sisters were the exception to the rule. There's Queen of Chess, also on Netflix. She never played in women's events. She only played the Open. She got to as high as number seven in the world, which is extremely impressive. I believe that is absolutely something you can replicate. But it is very hard to do that.

Andrew Schultz

Do we know that she wasn't cheating?

Levy Rozman

Yeah, we know.

Andrew Schultz

Yeah, but there's more places to hide the buzzer.

Levy Rozman

Geez, dude, we're on like a street here. We're on a street here. No, she was not cheating. Andrew Schultz said that. And you know, no joke.

Andrew Schultz

No disrespect, Polar sister. No disrespect at all.

Levy Rozman

No, I think it starts really young. And you have a daughter.

Andrew Schultz

Yes.

Levy Rozman

And you're gonna see this when. I don't know how old she is, but you're gonna see this at 4 and 5 years old already. You have to decide, like, do I put the girl in code? Do I put a dance? Like, where are the friends at?

Andrew Schultz

I've heard this. I've heard, like at 3. If you want them to be like a supreme athlete in a specific discipline, you gotta get them started.

Levy Rozman

And it's hard in chess. Cause it's stem adjacent. And already a lot of girls that age are just not. They're not put there either through culture or socially. Like, their friends are not there. They're doing dance. They're doing more of the traditional.

Andrew Schultz

So you don't think it's any IQ thing?

Levy Rozman

No. Already from that age, it's like. Like 20 to 1, boy to girl.

Andrew Schultz

It's just density. It's like the reason why there's so many grand masters in India right now. It's like you have 2 billion people and if you're gonna have 400 million playing chess, you'll have a higher number.

Levy Rozman

And, yeah, the whole women's sports thing is, like, the number one ranked woman in the world is 2560, and the number one ranked man is Magnus, who is 2850. Like, 2560 would be top 400 or top 300 in the open category. So a lot of people sit at home, go, well, no woman's going up there. Like, obviously they're not as smart, but if you could be the best in the world and make a solid career,

Andrew Schultz

because, I mean, it makes sense financially for them. But maybe there's another point where it's like, as you expressed earlier, if you're not playing against the best, you can't become the best. And the game is elevated because you can play so many better people. So maybe it would be more advantageous for there to not be a women's league so that they would play against the men.

Levy Rozman

I think so. It's just really hard to envision how on earth you would even start doing that. Because if you just abolished it, what happens to the current players? You know, I think it's something that needs to be phased out over five to 10 years. But I'm a dude. Like, it doesn't even. You know, it's got to be something the women want.

Andrew Schultz

Do they play a little different?

Levy Rozman

Women's games are actually a lot more combative. There's a lot less safety and draws and.

Andrew Schultz

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Mark Gagnon

What do you mean by that?

Andrew Schultz

No, I could see. I could see them being more combative. That's all I'm saying. Just never admit they made the wrong move. Like, I get. I could see a lot.

Levy Rozman

Good thing in chess. You don't even have to argue. It's, like, all proven. They'll find a way.

Andrew Schultz

They'll find a way to argue. Levy,

Mark Gagnon

When can you discover that your child is prodigious at chess?

Levy Rozman

Like, as early as three and four.

Mark Gagnon

Really?

Levy Rozman

Yeah, because you're gonna see how well they even pick up. You know, if they're picking up the pieces, like fairy tale pieces and sort of floating them around, that's one thing. But at some point, like, a switch will flip, and if they have a little bit of competitiveness in them of anything, they will like chess. Then you will discover if your kid is a crier. Because you have to let your kid win to be happy.

Andrew Schultz

Yes.

Levy Rozman

You know, it's like a very delicate act. I've known kids that are really bright, really smart, you know, in all the different subjects, they go to a chess tournament and Again, this unique feeling of, like, insecurity and failing and they lose and they quit chess. They don't even want lessons anymore. They just, like, don't want anything to do with chess. It just breaks them.

Andrew Schultz

Do you find, like, the archetype or maybe the stereotype for the chess player is, like, you know, kind of spectrumy Social ability maybe isn't totally there. Is that a gross stereotype? That's wrong. Like, you are incredibly social. Like, your EQ is off the charts. Like, I think one of the reasons why your content flourishes, you're really just good at talking and passionate about the game. Are you an anomaly or an outlier, or is this just a bad representation of chess players?

Levy Rozman

No, I think. Okay, certainly I'm an anomaly in the sense of being good enough at the game from an understanding perspective and being probably as like a 1 on the 1 to 10 autism spectrum. Seriously. I think a lot of the strongest players in the world, particularly on the men's side, are somewhat spectrum. Yes. In very different ways. Then there's people who have, like, Asperger's and they're like, there's a famous grandmaster from the Czech Republic whose name is David Navarra. Extremely nice guy. Very open with his struggles with autism and how he sort of lives his life now. I think he's 30 years old, he can speak 12 languages. Obviously he's master at a bunch of different things. Very nice guy. But, yeah, I think chess players, both at the top and amateur people who are more on the spectrum are more drawn to the game. And even if you're not autistic per se, chess players are, on average a little bit stranger. But I think it sort of falls into the category of the gathering, more gamey type things. Things and women. That's a fascinating question because we. We still kind of like, don't know if there's as much autism or if it's very good at masks. Right.

Andrew Schultz

Doesn't feel like it hits them that much.

Levy Rozman

Yeah, I don't know.

Andrew Schultz

Yeah, I mean, they got a few of them. Like, there's a few of them that got it, you know, but, yeah, I guess it doesn't feel.

Levy Rozman

Because Judit Polgar is by far the most normal top player I like ever. Yeah, she's so nice.

Andrew Schultz

Hikaru seems, like, very sociable. Like, he doesn't seem super.

Levy Rozman

Yes. Y. Magnus got a little bit.

Mark Gagnon

Yeah.

Levy Rozman

And even he. Like, I think I've talked to him about this before and I. I don't think he. I don't think he's ever gotten a test. He's definitely like. Let's say when you compare to Hiharu, maybe a little bit more, but still very.

Mark Gagnon

He might just be Scandinavian.

Levy Rozman

Yes, there's a version of that. Yeah, there's a version, right? Like, the meme of, like, are you German or autistic? And I have met plenty of Germans, and. And I. I mean, in many ways, I love it because they're just like, no, no, no. This is a very bad idea. No, no, you will not do this.

Mark Gagnon

Are there other types of abilities that might be seen in the modern world as a disability, but actually as an advantage in chess, Are there any players that were blind, but because of that, they're able to see the board in a different way?

Levy Rozman

There's never been a blind or. I'm not even sure, deaf. Really, really successful player. It doesn't somehow increase anything from the sensory standpoint. But, I mean, I have played some unfortunately, really weird people in my time. And the thing is, you're exposed to this. As a kid, I was playing a tournament in the New Yorker Hotel as a K. And I'm just walking. My mom would drop me off. I would be, like, 11, 12 in New York by myself.

Danny Rensch

Normal. Hilarious.

Levy Rozman

And then I'd be walking through the tournament, and I have a very famous. I remember the guy's name. I'm not gonna say his full name, but, you know, he was standing and, like, you know, walking by, he's like, hey, nice to meet you. I just wiped my ass. Like, it sounds like. It sounds like I'm just making this up. Like, this. This actually happened.

Billy

And I.

Levy Rozman

And I was like, well, I don't know what to do with this information. So, like, you know, I'm. We used to play at the Marshall Chess Club with this one guy who was a war vet.

Andrew Schultz

Yeah.

Levy Rozman

And that comes with its own set of complications. And he had a thing. He just decided at one point that everybody around him was gay and wanted to have sex with him.

Andrew Schultz

Oh, that's schizophrenia.

Levy Rozman

And he would. You know, he would insult you at the board. You'd be eight years old, and he would just be. You know. And these people end up getting banned from the martial arts. We used to have a Russian guy that used to hiss when he would, you know, blunder pieces, and he would just be like. Like, fucking Voldemort, you know, summoning snakes on you. And you're a kid, you're like, what's going on? You know? But you learn to kind of toughen up early. You kind of learn to deal with the social outcasts. And do you think there's anything about

Mark Gagnon

the game that causes these eccentric sort of characteristics to come out?

Levy Rozman

It's probably just all mental. Right. I think it's something you can. A lot of people with ADHD benefit from chess as well, because you can

Andrew Schultz

lock it up, supreme focus.

Mark Gagnon

Yeah.

Levy Rozman

But I'm sure it must trigger some stuff and you know, if you have any self hatred or demons and you're already very angry and do you think

Mark Gagnon

chess contributed to Bobby Fischer's later sort of psychological issues?

Levy Rozman

It must have, right. If the guy worked at the US Postal office his whole life, who knows if that would have ended up being his life. Anyway, I think many people fall into obsessions over their years. It happens to me. I'll listen to my neighbors make noise and then I just can't unlisten to it. For other people that's like whatever, whatever their obsession is, they end up hyper fixating and then they go a little crazy.

Mark Gagnon

And who are the other eccentric characters in like the history of chess that

Levy Rozman

have kind of come out?

Mark Gagnon

There's the one dude that's bald. He's got like the hair in the back. He died like fairly like 55 or something. I forgot his name.

Levy Rozman

Was it Tal or.

Mark Gagnon

Oh yeah.

Andrew Schultz

This guy?

Mark Gagnon

Yeah, I think so.

Levy Rozman

Oh yeah, yeah, sure. Yeah. But Tal is like a legend.

Mark Gagnon

He.

Levy Rozman

The thing about Tal, chess players used to be way more fascinating. So there's this guy right now, I will answer this guy Dubov, Russian grandmaster. He's famous because he always wears Balenciaga sweaters and he can do one arm pull ups. He's a jack calisthenics, like Russian grandmaster. And he, you know, he, he has famously just been on podcast being like, yeah, I don't really try in tournaments anymore because I'm playing these kids that like have no life. Like I'm straight up playing kids that have no social life, no girlfriend, like, whereas, you know, when he was young he'd social drink, party, stay up till three in the morning, go and play his games. These kids are like, try hard spelling bee type of kids. That's sort of the, the point that he's making. And Tal back in the day was music. You know, composer, like he wrote music, he could speak, he, he would give speeches about anything, self help politics, anything. He was a very fascinating artistic guy. He couldn't make himself tea, but somebody could do that. And this guy was in a hospital with failing organs, left the hospital, went to play a chess tournament and beat Kasparov Wow. Before Kasparov was Kasparov. But imagine. And then he died. He died the same year. Wow. So this is the kind of lore. Alekhine, the most notorious guy. That video I made, story about Alekhine.

Andrew Schultz

Fantastic video, by the way.

Levy Rozman

Alekhine is insane, dude. I didn't even know half the shit about that video. So I knew a little bit. He was a world champion. He was the first ever Russian born world champion. Russians ran chess from the 1950s, but he was born in 1897 or something and became the world champion. Then he left the Soviet Union. He didn't agree with the whole. There was a Russian revolution, he left, went to France and then was a multiple time world champion on the run from the Soviet Union. And then When World War II broke out, he kind of aligned himself with the Nazis so that he could play chess because they ran Europe for five years. And then articles were published.

Andrew Schultz

I love chess, bro.

Levy Rozman

Articles were published with his name. Like imagine Andrew Schultz, it's like, yeah, you know, all these other chess masters, they play a Jewish style of chess. Like articles with his name. And to this day, like there's a big debate. Was that actually what he wrote or did they just put his name on it?

Mark Gagnon

Oh, wow.

Levy Rozman

So the war ended, ends. He can't play chess anymore.

Billy

He's banned.

Levy Rozman

He can only play on the Iberian Peninsula. And then he dies. And people debate how he died. They don't know if he died because somebody, you know, poisoned him. Somebody got to him. They don't know which person from where got to him. Or did he choke on a piece of meat because that's how he died because he took too big of a bite of steak.

Mark Gagnon

They thought he was a spy at one point.

Levy Rozman

Yeah, chess players used to be like way more interesting, man, you know.

Andrew Schultz

Oh, tell us more. This is fascinating.

Levy Rozman

Yeah, this is like he's on the

Mark Gagnon

Bobby Fischer versus the whole Soviet Union. Like this is a game that was like 1973 maybe.

Levy Rozman

Yeah.

Andrew Schultz

Can you give us a little Bobby Fischer lore?

Mark Gagnon

Yeah, yeah.

Levy Rozman

Bobby Fischer. First of all, he's born and raised in New York. Like I taught a kid born on the same street as Fischer somewhere in Brooklyn, grew up playing chess in the parks here. And he really, he rose to prominence in the 60s because he was one man taking on from America, taking on the Soviet mafia of chess. So they had.

Andrew Schultz

So this is like Cold War derivative. Yeah.

Levy Rozman

Right around the same era, there were several American grandmasters, but he was by far the best. And, you know, they wanted Soviet world champions. Like you had to break into that space. They sort of ran it. He did break into it and dominated. So Magnus right now is 30 points higher than the next person by rating. Bobby was a hunter, so he was

Andrew Schultz

like something that nobody had seen in the chess community in modern history.

Levy Rozman

Yeah. Up to that point. And he understood commercial viability. He refused to play the World Championship for $5,000. So his World Championship in 1972, I think the prize fund was a quarter million, which was 50 times higher than it had ever been.

Danny Rensch

Holy.

Andrew Schultz

This is 72 quarter million bucks. So we're talking about millions today.

Levy Rozman

Yeah, yeah. And he. It was in Iceland. He was playing Spassky. It was in Reykjavik, I think, like, the day before the event. He was like, I'm not going. So to his detriment, he was also a little crazy. He was like, they're gonna plant things in my room. They're Soviets. I don't trust them. How can one man take on this entire country? Yeah. Behemoth. And he ended up going. And then there's the story. They've made movies about this, and I made a video about it. And he loses the first game to an insanely uncharacteristic mistake. Like, elementary level mistake.

Andrew Schultz

Do you remember the move? Yeah.

Levy Rozman

He took a pawn with his bishop in the corner, and his bishop got trapped. If you imagine how a bishop moves, goes diagonal, and if you just close it, it can't come out.

Andrew Schultz

Yep, came out.

Levy Rozman

Just, like, totally malfunctioned. Mentally started saying, the cameras are making too much noise. The cameras are giving signals to my opponent. Whole thing threatened to leave Iceland and not continue the match. Returned. Won the match. 1972.

Andrew Schultz

So he comes back, wins the next one.

Levy Rozman

Like, wins, like, six games in a row.

Andrew Schultz

Just blows him out.

Levy Rozman

Yeah, blows him out. And wins the World Championship in 1972. There's YouTube clips of him on talk shows with some of the talk show hosts of the 70s.

Mark Gagnon

He's with Johnny Carson. He has.

Levy Rozman

Johnny Carson.

Mark Gagnon

He has, you know those, like, tile solving puzzle things where you have to, like, make a picture and then you scramble it.

Andrew Schultz

Okay. Yeah.

Mark Gagnon

And he's like, I can solve this in three seconds. And he just. And he just solves it. He just practiced that all day, just solving these, like, little pocket puzzles. Is that more or less the story?

Levy Rozman

Yeah. And there's tons of clips of him going on talk shows. And then he never.

Danny Rensch

He.

Levy Rozman

He never played another World Championship match ever again. Ever again. 1975, Karpov from the Soviet Union. Karpov.

Andrew Schultz

Fischer would have been the biggest match

Levy Rozman

The Jon Jones Ngannou of chess.

Andrew Schultz

Wow.

Levy Rozman

And it never happened because Fischer. I don't exactly remember the timeline after 1972, but every world champion who was a star ultimately when they won the title would have demands. They would want certain conditions, they would want to change the prize fund, they would want this and that. And the way chess has always worked is we don't even know where the next World Championship is or how much money is committed to it. We're sitting here in the middle of 2026. The World Championship is in five months.

Andrew Schultz

You have no idea what's going to happen.

Levy Rozman

No. There's bidding going on for it. Our International Federation is much better now than it was when Fischer was playing and much better than it has been in many years. But it's still a disorganized mess.

Andrew Schultz

Yes.

Levy Rozman

It's very tricky for them to. It's no FIFA. FIFA. I think there's a saying. I think, actually Magnus said this. He's like, you can be corrupt or incompetent, but you cannot be both. And so I think that quote is out there somewhere. But. But this is. The major issue is, like, every World Championship cycle chess has ever had. And by the way, why is it a cycle? Why don't we just have, like, a tennis system where at the end of every year, you have a world number one. But I digress. We very much have a fight system where you don't know who the next challenger is. It's kind of like who's going to win. Unlike fight sports, where it's sort of like the number one contender or maybe the biggest draw, or whoever agrees to the contractual stipulations. We run a tournament, but we run it once every two years. It's called the candidates, and the winner who emerges from this Hunger Games competition challenges for the World Championship.

Andrew Schultz

Got it.

Levy Rozman

But it's funny, because in chess, you could have a guy as the World champion for two years, he can play terribly, but he's still the World Champion

Andrew Schultz

because he hasn't lost that title.

Levy Rozman

And in two years, if he defends the fucking title just in one match, head to head, he's still the World Champion, even if he's, like, down to number 50 in the world on the world rankings.

Andrew Schultz

There's a version of. There's a version where. I like that.

Levy Rozman

Okay.

Andrew Schultz

Because, like, it allows you to take chances and potentially, like, expand your game throughout the year against elite competition. And then when it really matters, you shut it down.

Levy Rozman

I completely agree with you.

Andrew Schultz

Whereas you might have to play safe because you're holding on to the belt. And I think sometimes what happens in fight sports, as you know, you're a big fight sports fan, is like, sometimes you see champions go, I don't want to lose this. And they're not taking the same risks. And sometimes fights get a little bit more boring. Yeah, Four champions. Boring is whatever. But like, I. There's a version where I like it for excitement purposes, but a reign of dominance is also pretty awesome. Yeah, like, you just kind of want to see your champ never lose.

Mark Gagnon

Has there ever been a massive cheating scandal that was confirmed? Like something where it was, you know, like, almost like a, like a Barry Bond style where it's like the greatest guy. Then they realize, like, oh, it actually

Andrew Schultz

was all a fugue.

Levy Rozman

Yeah. Not. Unfortunately not, I don't think, for a. A world championship. But there have been. Yeah, there have been several. They're the most famous one historically is Mechanical Turk in like the 17, 1800s. It's like a robot that plays just a dude.

Mark Gagnon

That's just impressive to me. Dude trying to play chess under.

Levy Rozman

Underneath a board, which I just remember, which makes me think, like, the whole thing was kind of. But maybe he like saw the board. Maybe that's. Yeah. And then he could kind of move pegs or something, which is kind of

Mark Gagnon

the inverse now, right. Where like, now you have like, humans using machines to cheat, whereas back then you had humans using. Being machines.

Levy Rozman

And also it's a bit humiliating to cheat now solo. So there's been several. But like the solo act is, you know, you literally go to the toilet and there's a phone. So there's a famous picture of a grandmaster from Latvia, I think, a couple of years ago, who literally just like had a phone in a toilet stall. He's sitting looking at his phone. I mean, this is like ridiculous. A couple of years ago, grandmaster by the name of Shevchenko taped a phone in a toilet stall and wrote a note that said in Spanish, because the tournament was in Spain, don't remove this phone. The guest will get it at the end of the day. Which is like groundbreaking cheating technique. There have been more sophisticated ones where. And again, you wonder what drives a person to cheat as like a young 20 year old who's kind of trying to break into the top. It's obviously money. Like, he's not. He's obviously struggling. I have too much empathy for these things. Some people are like, oh, get him out, get him out. Ban him. I'm like, I don't think people cheat, like, for fun. I mean, he's probably struggling or whatever, mental or financial. And then there was a famous case at the Olympiad where there was a system of three people. A guy watching the game, texting, a guy standing around the boards. And then the guy was relaying to the person playing, depending on where he was in the room, like, what piece to move. Because a grandmaster doesn't have to know the move. A grandmaster just has to be told. Bishop. And he'll be like, oh, shit.

Mark Gagnon

That's right.

Levy Rozman

You have to be told the move. And you won't even know why. Like an amateur won't know.

Andrew Schultz

That's what I was always wondering. It's like, how could you effectively communicate where to place the piece? But at a certain level, you just need to let them know which piece to move.

Danny Rensch

Move.

Levy Rozman

And they'll do the calculation themselves and evaluation. Yeah, if. If I'm ever confused about if something is winning or. Or not winning or whatever, it's too dangerous. And you just tell me the best move is with the bishop. I'm like, oh, I know the move.

Andrew Schultz

We gotta bring our boy in from chess.com. can we get him back in?

Mark Gagnon

Go grab him.

Andrew Schultz

Yeah, go grab them. And also bring Max in here. Maybe Max can sit on the couch because we have. So I went to school with the kid who played young Bobby Fischer.

Levy Rozman

That's great.

Danny Rensch

Crazy.

Andrew Schultz

And searching for Bobby Fischer. I remember this. I thought we went to PS6 together. We went to Wagner Middle School together. But he surprised me today.

Levy Rozman

I played chess at both those schools. PS6, PS9. I used to take kids before COVID because I ran a program.

Andrew Schultz

I was in the chess club, by the way, at PS6.

Levy Rozman

Dude.

Andrew Schultz

I'm just saying, that's where he learned

Mark Gagnon

to blunder his rope.

Andrew Schultz

What a dumb move. Now, if I didn't do that, I don't know where we are in the episode. Maybe you'll see. But if I didn't do that move, would the play have been consistent where you would have believed it?

Levy Rozman

No. In about five moves, I would have been like, something's going on.

Andrew Schultz

It was just too pristine.

Levy Rozman

I started thinking, okay, you played in school. You're probably like 1200, 1300. I've been lied to about your chess level.

Andrew Schultz

Well, I try to set you up. So before we. Before we played, I was like, hey, listen, I don't want to look like I'm a complete amateur. Like, I've been playing since I was a kid. And like, I would say I'm a good chess player.

Danny Rensch

Yeah.

Andrew Schultz

Hey, Danny.

Levy Rozman

Hey, my boy. Good night.

Andrew Schultz

You know, what's tough about, like, because I got my bio age and I'm younger than I'm. I am. I know exactly what you're about to say. Yeah, you're kind of like, I'm good. Yeah, you're killing it. You're right. I'm doing great. Like, I'm not going to stop drinking. God forbid I stop drinking. I age up. It was only younger by a couple of years. It wasn't really that n. I was younger by a lot. I think I was 34. Yeah. I think you're having a revisionist history right now.

Danny Rensch

Am I?

Andrew Schultz

Yeah, I think it's like. Like, probably like 38, 39. Like only a couple years. Yeah, I think I was 34. I do remember I was the healthiest and the youngest, so. Yeah, but you don't have any kids. You're not even married. I had to change the thing. I just kept doing what I've been doing. But you're not a fully grown adult. Yeah, yeah. Actually for a wedding, all of a

Mark Gagnon

sudden it goes up.

Andrew Schultz

Yeah, yeah, exactly. What are you at right now?

Mark Gagnon

I'm still at 23 and I feel great. But I did change some things.

Andrew Schultz

What did you change?

Mark Gagnon

I talked to the AI in the app and it said, said I got one. I'm eating less sugar because my resting glucose was high. That's true.

Andrew Schultz

That's true.

Levy Rozman

Don't bring that up.

Mark Gagnon

Can we edit that out?

Andrew Schultz

Miles, we were together all weekend and what did I do? You ate mad.

Levy Rozman

No, I did not.

Mark Gagnon

You were eating trace leches. Like, no tomorrow.

Andrew Schultz

I did have a trace. He was going crazy how to trace. Like, you're gonna up.

Mark Gagnon

This is ordered out trace leches that came in a can. He like, ordered it from a restaurant and it sat there for three hours

Andrew Schultz

and he still crushed the whole thing.

Danny Rensch

That's the.

Mark Gagnon

The best one.

Andrew Schultz

I would.

Danny Rensch

Yeah.

Andrew Schultz

The nice thing about a trace late chase is that it could be soggy. Yeah. Like, it doesn't get worse. It gets better.

Danny Rensch

Yeah. Yeah.

Mark Gagnon

I mean, I wouldn't know because I don't really do that kind of stuff, but I'm feeling better and I started taking psyllium husk. That's a new thing I'm on.

Andrew Schultz

Oh, yeah, it's.

Mark Gagnon

It's a. It's like a fiber thing that helps with my, like, lipids and my.

Danny Rensch

My.

Mark Gagnon

My heart. Yeah, I gotta lower my LDL according to function.

Andrew Schultz

Why you dress like guys? You on top.

Levy Rozman

No, we're not doing that.

Andrew Schultz

Has nothing to do with my.

Mark Gagnon

That help. Can we keep it Professional.

Andrew Schultz

Can we talk about our B. I just realized I don't know why I had picked up on this hoochie daddy shorts. Like this is.

Mark Gagnon

Yeah, no, see, this is what happens.

Levy Rozman

Y' all get jealous of my bio

Mark Gagnon

age cuz I look so young. Like a fast ass young man.

Andrew Schultz

You looking crazy, man.

Mark Gagnon

No, I feel good.

Levy Rozman

And I look better.

Andrew Schultz

That's what it is.

Mark Gagnon

And I. And also I can get you tell

Andrew Schultz

me about your husk or whatever. Like an RFK over here. I just don't understand this.

Mark Gagnon

Out coq 10. I'm also taking that. I'll take magnesium to sleep.

Andrew Schultz

Okay.

Mark Gagnon

Taking vitamin B.

Andrew Schultz

And then are these impacting your life in a positive way?

Mark Gagnon

I sometimes get nauseous if I do it on empty stomach. So that's. That's one thing that I've been trying to deal with. But I feel better.

Andrew Schultz

I mean, it can't be good for you if you can't eat it without food in your system already, right?

Mark Gagnon

No, I mean you got to get a little something in there. Not trace leches, but you do. Like a little. Couple eggs in the morning, you know.

Danny Rensch

Yeah.

Andrew Schultz

Shout out eggs.

Mark Gagnon

But you haven't switched anything up.

Andrew Schultz

You're exit eg Fire. Eggs are so fire. Yeah, that probably is why I'm so young.

Billy

Yeah.

Mark Gagnon

Yeah.

Andrew Schultz

Because I'll do multiple eggs in the morning.

Danny Rensch

Yep.

Andrew Schultz

High cholesterol eggs.

Mark Gagnon

Do you believe in cholesterol?

Andrew Schultz

Not if you boil. Have it.

Mark Gagnon

No, but you have high cholesterol. That's genetic.

Andrew Schultz

At the only fucking 25 with high cholesterol. Now you're actually right.

Mark Gagnon

High compared to what? Cholesterol. You need it for your brain.

Andrew Schultz

That's one of the predictors. You're right about it. Not the ldl, the bad one. No, you know, you're right about this.

Mark Gagnon

See, that's what I'm saying.

Andrew Schultz

One of my smartest friends said this. He's like, cholesterol is born.

Mark Gagnon

Thank you.

Andrew Schultz

Say that to all the people who died of heart attacks.

Mark Gagnon

You guys are.

Andrew Schultz

No, but that's not. Bro, they're dead.

Danny Rensch

Oh, yeah.

Andrew Schultz

It's not from cholesterol. No, it's not. It's high cholesterol. Builds the plaques and then it. No, no, no. Take your health advice from Andrew Show. I'm 34.

Billy

Yeah.

Andrew Schultz

How old are you? I was 20.

Levy Rozman

Yeah.

Mark Gagnon

Why are we gonna take your Advice, bro, you're 20 years old.

Andrew Schultz

I was like 20.

Danny Rensch

24.

Mark Gagnon

23.

Andrew Schultz

Yeah.

Mark Gagnon

He doesn't know anything.

Andrew Schultz

I was 23. Yeah. You're 23?

Mark Gagnon

Yeah. Why are we Gonna listen to you.

Danny Rensch

You don't know.

Andrew Schultz

We are healthy, man. I know I'm hungover as but I'm healthy. It's a healthy pod right here. Yeah.

Mark Gagnon

Look, we should drink more.

Andrew Schultz

If you want to. If you wanna. If you want to check your health. The way that we do. Function is. Function is really just what gave me the confidence. I was living a great life. Yeah.

Danny Rensch

All right.

Mark Gagnon

Before.

Andrew Schultz

And you know, we got 160 plus lab tests a year.

Danny Rensch

Year.

Andrew Schultz

365 bucks dollar a day basically.

Mark Gagnon

And you just go in one time. You get all the. All the data.

Andrew Schultz

Exactly. You just go in one time. You're not doing 160 plus tests. They're going to do all those tests anyway. The point is you don't have to guess about your health. You know, if your girls is being. Is nagging you about what you're eating and drinking and how many nicotine pouches you do, you just let her know that you're eight years younger than you're supposed to be.

Mark Gagnon

Exactly.

Andrew Schultz

Exactly.

Levy Rozman

You know what I mean?

Andrew Schultz

What do you want me to be 20? How young you want me to be?

Mark Gagnon

Yeah, it started to get weird. Exactly.

Andrew Schultz

So what you're going to do is go to functionalhealth.com flagrant. Use the code flagrant 25 for a 25 credit.

Mark Gagnon

All right.

Andrew Schultz

Bluetooth did it, bro. They did it. They did it. They upgraded. They got Bluechew gold. That boner's coming. 15 minutes or less. I could tell you all the info about it. It doesn't really matter to you. What matters to you is that you're hard in 15 minutes or less. All the other stuff we're talking about like 30 minutes. A lot can happen in 30 minutes. A lot can happen. You don't even know if you're getting laid 30 minutes before you get laid. Right. So now you're taking this pill. You don't even know what's going to happen 15 minutes before you get laid. You know 100% you're getting laid. So they did it. They knocked out of the park. So that's what you're going to do all summer. You are very welcome. You buy two months of Blue True Gold, you get the third for free with the promo code flagrant. That promo code is flagrants. And you're also gonna receive an additional 10% off free overnight shipping on your first order. Visit BlueChew.com for more details and important safety information. We thank Bluechew for sponsoring the pod and the bedroom. Danny from Chess.com back in the building. We don't know where we are in the episode. I know that we had already helped me cheat and somehow we fucked it up together. Together, yeah.

Billy

The most epic F up of all time.

Andrew Schultz

No, but it was good. It was a good thing. So we were talking about, like, again, like, the cheating scandals and how you've had to kind of deal with that@chess.com as it's exploded and people have computers near them and is it all algorithmically or is it like tattletailing?

Billy

We have. We have an algorithm, a data. A data approach to what we do, and we've been doing that and relying on that for a very long time.

Danny Rensch

Yeah.

Billy

As the stakes have gone up and we're faced with scandals and all kinds of crazy shit, and we've seen the, you know, the attention economy blow up where people are making millions of dollars as creators or otherwise. We've invested a lot in other things. So we now have, like, software where we observe people in real time. Our own proprietary thing that can sync up, like, what's going on in someone's room with the data. And so we do.

Danny Rensch

Do.

Billy

We do all kinds of things now to try to protect the millions and millions of dollars.

Andrew Schultz

So that's.

Billy

But it's mostly data.

Andrew Schultz

But that's the thing that's interesting you brought this up, is like, once there's a financial incentive in something, people will find a way to get the edge.

Mark Gagnon

Right?

Andrew Schultz

Like, and you saw with sports, even

Mark Gagnon

more than financial, if you have the whole nation, like, riding on.

Andrew Schultz

Oh, you're right. That's. That's awesome.

Mark Gagnon

I'm almost wondering if there's ever been a case where, you know, there's like, let's say Magnus is playing like a champion from, like, a Gulf country that has a bunch of oil money money. Could they pay someone in Magnus's team to be like, hey, here's $200,000. Here's a million dollars. What opening do you think?

Billy

Well, now you're talking collusion, which has existed in chess for a long time. I mean, Levy's been taking us down a lot of the different rabbit holes of, like, Fisher versus the ussr. And like, there's been.

Andrew Schultz

Wait, tell us the collusion story.

Billy

So there's been cheating in chess in the form of, like, pay someone to lose, pay someone to draw predetermined on the result. There's also been.

Andrew Schultz

Do you have specific times in history where there's. Yeah, I mean, tell us, tell us.

Levy Rozman

Yeah, when I was 8 years old. I'm not even joking. When I Was like, we'll get into the more serious ones. Yeah. When I was a kid, not exactly the same. I was playing my friend. We were at a local tournament, we both had two points. I was like, you want to just like play as fast as we can and see like who wins and we'll just like split the prize money. And he was like, okay, because I was a very convincing like 8 year old kid. And I ended up winning and we like split it. And then he went home and told his mom what a fucking sweet. So his mom called my dad and was like, yo, your son's a fucking entrepreneur.

Danny Rensch

Yeah,

Mark Gagnon

good friend.

Billy

You know what's funny is like, and we'll come back to that with the Soviet Union thing, because the truth is, you could argue there's like levels to the offense because those are just two kids messing around. One was an entrepreneur, future business leader. But the, the Fisher thing is because he was literally America versus the world. Every one of the top players at the time was a Russian or a state of the Soviet Union. And Fischer would be in this situation where if one of the Russians beat each other and they got ahead, if he even gets a single draw now he's a half a point behind. Everyone else starts losing to the guy who won so that Fischer can't catch him in the standing.

Andrew Schultz

Oh, so they would lose on purpose. They would lose on purpose to make

Billy

sure that their boy won. And they were under pressure from the Soviets to do so. And so part of the thing is like, it became interesting that they had to start devising formats. Part of the reason for match play is the, that the best way to determine a one on one kind of mono Emano thing is to kind of eliminate the idea that somebody could throw a game. Because in chess it's almost impossible to detect someone losing on purpose. Engines now just because it's, it's hard. They're so good at controlling it. It'd be like someone shaving points in basketball. But because there's like nobody else even involved in the team where they, where like people would start to go, that was a weird way to handle that possession. Dude didn't swing the ball, didn't run the fucking offense. Whatever, whatever. In chess you can throw a game and no one can really say that you did it on purpose. It's very, very difficult to do. But by the way, we don't talk about this one a lot. Even Levy and I don't. We talk about everything. But we also have an algorithm that detects sandbagging. We have an Algorithm that detects whether someone is playing below their DNA, not just above their DNA. So we've invested in this, but for a long time it was just not a thing you could control.

Levy Rozman

Yeah.

Mark Gagnon

Which that is an insulting update to get. I've had friends that have this where like, they'll get a notice on Chess.com like, hey, we're detect that you're sandbagging.

Billy

Yeah.

Mark Gagnon

They're like, dude, I just suck.

Billy

So. So there are reasons, because we've started investing in like prize events and it's not just money anymore for my Magnus, it's money for streamers and creators. There's reasons to cheat of all kinds.

Danny Rensch

Yeah.

Billy

And so. So we've had to invest in that too. But. But back to the. The funny thing about the culture of chess though, is that even though what those two 8 year old kids did was wrong and Levy just confessed to cheating on. On flagrant, the. The culture of the game has been starved for money.

Danny Rensch

That.

Billy

The other way to look at that is two Soviet grandmasters who weren't at the top, weren't being treated like kings. They're starving, they have families to feed. They show up and it's like, dude, if you beat me, the other guy, who's already half a point ahead of you, is going to win. But if, but if I beat you, I'll make sure I'm at least tying that guy because I have his score. So we'll split the prize money for sure. And so a lot of it was like a broken sport. No commercial viability, guys who are starving. And so I sound like I'm a cheating apologist, but I really.

Andrew Schultz

You understand the mechanism.

Billy

Yeah, I understand the mechanism. And I don't think it's totally fair to put everything in the same box when the truth is the game has been sort of out of whack for a very long time in terms of the amount of money coming in versus the amount of money being distributed to players across the world.

Andrew Schultz

So is it still as representative of patriotism today?

Mark Gagnon

It really is.

Andrew Schultz

You know, do you have these country rivalries that exist on the app or is it now there's just so many players and now there's other things that the countries are competing on?

Billy

I think it's both. I think Levy touched on the fact that there's. Okay, well, people revere chess for whatever reason still. Like billionaires still just. They just want to. With Magnus, they just want to hang out.

Andrew Schultz

That's what I was asking him about.

Levy Rozman

Yeah.

Billy

And so you had this weird culture of not just. I, I about talked, touched on the billionaire thing to get to the government thing, which is a lot of the money that is flowing in to the young Indian contingent and the young Uzbekistan. There's a number of top players who are young Uzbeks who are on the rise. A lot of that money is coming in from government funding because they want to be associated as the country with the most intellectually elite competitors on the planet. And so I think there is something to the national pride. And then on chess.com I mean you guys were joking about how you play someone with a flag and suddenly you find yourself like you hate everybody from you, whatever. Right. And like, so there is, I think there's a lot that can happen and we actually, we actually don't like that our platform sometimes, you know, can be involved in geo, geopolitical whatever. But the truth is like, I think people revere the idea of being good at chess because of the association they have of whatever being smart or.

Andrew Schultz

Yeah.

Billy

So, yeah.

Mark Gagnon

I mean, beating a guy from Ukraine in the middle of a war, you feel bad.

Danny Rensch

Yeah.

Mark Gagnon

You know what I mean? It's like, oh man, I should just give him this one.

Levy Rozman

I actually feel like, but you can't. When I play the Ukrainians, I'm like, they're going to be tough, like they're going to be resilient. I play. Yeah. And I mean, aren't you like, don't

Andrew Schultz

you guys have something else to be doing right now? Make some drones or something?

Mark Gagnon

There's downtime in war.

Andrew Schultz

Playing a four hour game of chess, like there's nothing happening.

Levy Rozman

I mean the, the best. So there was a grandmaster who played for many years for, for Lavia, but he's actually Ukrainian Igor Kovalenko and he straight up went to war. Like he's a 2700 very good player, like perennial top 40 in the world. He straight up like went into the barracks. He like had a helmet on. He was, he was with the gun, like he was with the soldiers. It's nuts. I mean over the last few years, yeah. There have been like reports of, you know, a famous chess coach or a famous chess player just straight up dying in, in.

Andrew Schultz

Holy shit.

Levy Rozman

Yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's crazy. It really is crazy. I was shocked China didn't have more of a, of a chess kind of revolution because they, they held on to both. They still have the women's world champion. She's the best player in the world. And then they had Ding who won the world Championship against NEPO in 2023. And at some point they had both the men's and women's gold medals as a team. So they swept. I was like, here comes the. You know, they have Chinese chess. But, like, they're gonna, you know, they're gonna dominate. Look at them.

Mark Gagnon

No, because go takes up some of the ab.

Billy

I do think it's go partly because of that.

Levy Rozman

It was like the white and black tile, like, territorial game.

Andrew Schultz

Oh, it's a. Okay, okay, okay.

Mark Gagnon

It's another, like, board strategy game, but it's super popular in China.

Andrew Schultz

Got it, got it.

Danny Rensch

Yeah.

Andrew Schultz

Similar.

Billy

But chess became a state sponsored sport in China. Not dissimilar from the Soviet Union when it was funding chess. And so China went from like zero chess culture to two decades of having dozens of grandmasters in the top 50 in the world. Ding Liren became world champion. Hoi Fan has been the best women's player in the world since Judith Polgar.

Levy Rozman

And she went to Oxford.

Billy

And she went to Oxford. And so what's interesting is China really invested. They established or achieved their goal to some degree. And, and it hasn't sustained in a way. Whereas India, it's like it's the birthplace of chess, had nothing, but now it's like it's going to be India's world and the rest of the chess players are living in it for a very long time.

Andrew Schultz

Can a country have a competitive chess program if it's not state sponsored?

Billy

It's a good question. I mean, I don't know.

Andrew Schultz

Does America sponsor it in any way?

Levy Rozman

You mean? So to work backwards, do you want one or two prodigies from a country or you want dominance?

Mark Gagnon

Like a dynasty?

Andrew Schultz

I wouldn't even say DOM is a dynasty. I would just say like a. A significant population of elite players. So they don't have to be the one or two. But like, you would have a few hundred people that are competitive from that country.

Levy Rozman

Yeah, yeah, it's definitely possible, but it's definitely limited to like United States. You'll get maximum five from all of South America. Africa. Chess is really not that big at all there. And like, the same goes for maybe the Caribbean. Australia. No, like that part of the world. No, it's got to be really Europe.

Billy

What you're touching on, I think goes back to what Levy was saying earlier is that the chess world is broken financially because the amount of money flowing in is not representative of the commercial viability of the product.

Andrew Schultz

Meaning you guys are making it all.

Billy

We have a subscription, we have a business that's built on people who want to get better.

Danny Rensch

Right?

Billy

So we actually invest heavily in chess as a media IP and build a content network ecosystem with creators and partnerships. And we invest in professionals because they all provide reasons for Mark to want to get better at chess. And then he's inspired by Magnus and he watched a Levy video. He's like, I'm going premium on chess.com. so we invest in like essentially a loss leader for the idea that we believe chess. You know, we do believe chess is good for people, better than most games. And that mission is fueled by the investment we make in the professionals. But it loses, loses money. What I'm getting to is like, it's

Andrew Schultz

like having a store on fifth Avenue.

Billy

It's like having a store on fifth Avenue, right? But the brand gets the brand of chess. Most people find their way to chess.com even though, even though there are a lot of other places. And so the reason you kind of need a government program to your point is that you have to be investing fake money. And fake money can either be philanthropic or it could be corrupt, but it's not representative of the commercial viability of the game. And so whether it comes from the old USSR or government, Gazprom or Kaspersky

Andrew Schultz

or some benevolent billionaire or some benevolent

Billy

billionaire, it's still not representative of the fact that not enough people are watching the game. The players are not investing in themselves enough. The biggest stars on the planet are not the best players in the game, which is great. But then the players resent the biggest stars on the planet, of course, because he's making more money than them or the Botes sisters are making more money than them. And so I think we're at the beginning of what I hope is like in 20 years. People look back and go like, ah, they. That was, that was a short period of time before we had some major breakthroughs and chess was inevitably going to get on ESPN and these things because the content creators helped lead the way. That's my hope.

Andrew Schultz

But anyway, here's the thing. I wonder, right, because like poker had this huge come up. Like I remember this movie, Rounders. Do you remember that, like Ed Norton, Matt Damon movie when we were kids? Do you remember that movie?

Levy Rozman

Yeah, you guys are older than me, so.

Danny Rensch

30.

Andrew Schultz

30. Oh, you're youngers. It probably just missed you by like five years or something like that. But like before rounders, after rounders come out the, like the poker tour and hold em just like absolutely explodes. And now it's not as popular as it was, but like There was a moment where it was just, like, all over ESPN and you hear these, like, characters, Chris Moneymaker, Doyle Brunson or whatever.

Levy Rozman

I don't want to cut you off. I thought poker also blew up on TV when they started showing the cards.

Andrew Schultz

Well, so. So the way that they shot it was good, and then they kind of, like, golfified it, is what I would say, where it's like, you don't need to follow every shot. You need to follow the important shot shots. So if, like, you have 200 people playing and you're just focusing on that one hand where the river card comes out and the guy was not supposed to win, wins. Now it just seems like this explosive, exciting thing. There's a version of, like, what I see you when you're calling these games, you're taking the most interesting games and you're speeding them up, cut down one move after another. But in order for commercial viability for the players, you need audience, and they either need to fill up stadium or you need it to be streaming on something. So how do you make it interesting to be streamed? Is a tricky one, and that's kind

Billy

of what we're working on now. And Levy's point about the pocket cam is only really relevant to chess, because what that did is it gave the viewer more knowledge than Phil Ivey. It gave the viewer more knowledge than Phil Hellmuth. And what that does is it puts you on the edge of your seat because you're like, fuck, he's got Jax, but he doesn't know that she caught the third eight on the river and he's going in, right? And so now you don't turn away.

Andrew Schultz

We do that with chess, and we

Billy

have been unable to do that with chess to some degree. We've been trying. I've invested in. I've called it to the team. I'm like, we need to make chess with no sound where you can look at it and you're in a bar and you see who's winning, and you have instant context, like you can with a sports game. So we've tried to invest in how to graphically tell the story, how to bring that to life, how to do our pocket cam of chess, which is we've done this evaluation bar where at least you can look at a game and go, ah, white's better, Black's better. Because. Because I quickly get this context of who's winning. So we're working on that. But then the last point to your. I think the most important point is stories like people have to give A shit emotionally.

Andrew Schultz

Well, they'll do that with you guys building up the characters. I think that that exists right there. But also like there's almost like a GPS ification of the game where it's like once you get deep into a game, there's only a couple moves that make sense. And those moves make sense to like different percentages, right? Like, yeah, I had that huge blunder, obviously. So like doing that would take your. If we're looking at like GPS as a metaphor for it, like that would take you way out of your way for victory. But there is a version where it's like moving your rook here gives you an 80% advantage on that evaluation metric or whatever you were saying. Yeah, maybe this is.

Levy Rozman

I, I was going to make a point about the previous point, but make it, make it. Yeah, and I will. We're living in fascinating times. Times in sports where we are seeing the athletes now have come from money and been descendants of players.

Andrew Schultz

NBA Classic.

Levy Rozman

Yeah. NBA tennis. I Google a player I've never heard of in tennis. Father is a hedge fund manager, billionaire. All of them.

Andrew Schultz

Or played and won like two grand slams.

Mark Gagnon

Right?

Andrew Schultz

Yeah.

Levy Rozman

Or like both parents were athletes. And there are some sports where this is not quite the case. You still see a lot of rags to riches stories in fighting, but you also see it in like soccer a little bit more and baseball and hockey also. It's regional, it's climate. It's when you're born and it is something you have to start young and you have to buy the equipment. Chess barrier to entry is like zero. I mean it's very, very little. And so we see parts all over the world where you can have massively strong young contingent of players with a budget of like, you know, $100 for like thousands of kids. Just get these chess sets. And resources now are much more available than ever for improvement moving. And if state sponsorship thrown into the mix messes a lot of things up. Because you have kids from India and Uzbekistan who might be becoming like millionaires at 19 and 20. Tons of resources and every top player in the country is plugged into making them better. And so there's this big rise. Whereas in the United States you got, for example, Abhimanyu Mishra, Indian American kid, he became the youngest Grandmaster ever at 12.

Danny Rensch

Holy.

Levy Rozman

I mean, they really tried to break that record. That's the thing in chess. None of these youngest ever records are accidents. The parents take them out of school. Like you got to try to break the record. Yeah, it's your life. He doesn't have a single major commercial sponsor in the United States.

Andrew Schultz

Why not?

Levy Rozman

Maybe, like, you don't know. I don't know if it's a mix of they haven't been offered or it has to be. Either it hasn't been offered enough or they're tough to work with.

Andrew Schultz

Like, why didn't Chess.com get involved with them?

Billy

So now you're hitting on the next point, which is the problem with the lack of commercial viability is the only, only profitable. Even though we're a big company, we're very profitable. The only profitable company capable of sponsoring has no reason to do it because everyone's on our site. There's no reason, there's no marketing.

Levy Rozman

It's kind of philanthropic at this point.

Billy

And so we do have a few sponsorships. Some of them are more philanthropic. We invest in a lot of after school programs. We do all kinds of work, and we have a scholastic site and we do the things that grow the game and give back. But on an individual sponsor level, I don't really need Chess.com's logo on your shoulder.

Levy Rozman

Right?

Billy

Like, not in the same way. Right. And so it's, it's tricky. Like, I've always been tell. I've been telling the players, and Levy's heard me give this speech many times. So forgive me, Levy, but I'm like, guys, like, I don't Want to see Chess.com on your arm. I want to see fucking Delta and American competing and Amex and Visa competing over here. Let me be your partner. If you can invest in yourself five seconds. I will, I will go a mile towards you. Meaning give a little bit of effort on social media and we will invest in your team. We have the staff. We know how to do this stuff. We, we have helped build and support creators like, this is our game. And it's very frustrating because, I mean, I'll just give you even more. We're debuting a film at Tribeca this week, which is a show called Grandmasters, which is our drive to survive for chess. We've been filming this documentary for two years. At the time of this recording, anyway, this is around Tribeca, so sorry for that. At the time of this recording, we are premiering a film at Tribeca. It's a three episode miniseries, Drive to Survive. It was so difficult to get. Get very few of the players to cooperate with this, even though they just don't understand that drive to survive didn't add crooked numbers to F1. It added zeros onto the industry in value. Right? And they, they're Very short sighted. Also because not only the short sighted, maybe because they're uncomfortable or on media, they don't have as much, you know, experience with it. But also back to the point about it being commercially out of whack. What is their reason? Many of the top players are actually getting very good, good high six and low seven figure salaries for doing nothing. Because the amount of money going into the game from fake money from benevolent billionaires and governments that are out of whack makes the young Indian guys like, I hear you, Chess.com and Danny, you gave a good speech about how you want Delta and Amex, but I don't really need this and I'm just going to keep playing chess. So we're always back to the square one of like, how do I trick these guys into doing something good for them? Yeah, how do I treat these guys?

Andrew Schultz

Why not have a creative agency that you sign certain players to and then you just outsource all that.

Billy

Yeah, we need like a ca. Just for chess.

Andrew Schultz

Yeah, yeah. Or just like a marketing agency. Then you go like, hey, listen, if you guys want to do it and you know they're going to build out all your socials and find things that are authentic to you.

Levy Rozman

Yeah, I feel like they would. They would maybe, but it's even hard when you show them the value. I, I'm not going to name any players, but I've had like one on one conversations. Like, hey, you sure you don't want to put this microphone on and talk for like 10 minutes? And they're like, no, I respect it.

Andrew Schultz

There's a purity to it.

Levy Rozman

Yeah, yeah.

Mark Gagnon

Or like a substack or like some type of way they can just get their ideas out. Like if they're uncomfortable talking.

Billy

Yeah, but I think Andrew's right that we, you know, we need, we need the marketing agency to do the work for them.

Andrew Schultz

You just need to outsource a World Cup.

Mark Gagnon

Like, I know that there's obviously international turnouts, but like, is there a version where it's like, hey, the best five Americans, best five Indians, best five.

Levy Rozman

We have, we have the Olympiad. It's every two years even that it's hard to. Chess doesn't market itself well enough for that to be an event that people look forward to every year. Chess also has this unique thing where even though it's a sport, you play it and you follow it and it's part of your life and you play it with your kids. It's tailor made for watching and knowing when everything is happening. Nobody watches or knows when anything is

Andrew Schultz

happening, what is the impetus for watching? I think the thing about the World cup or the Olympics is so interesting, is that we'll watch sports that we don't care about simply because there's patriotism attached to it. Right. So we'll watch curling. And we really love America. America's going up against Canada and curling. With chess, you actually have an investment in the sport. People love the sport now. They know the characters. Maybe we just have to find a way where it's digestible on a tv. You've done it.

Billy

I think we're on track. And I think, I mean, you know,

Andrew Schultz

well, what is the best way? Like, what is the most digestible?

Billy

With cut downs, actually.

Levy Rozman

Yeah, so. Well, here's the thing. The way it works now is I would imagine if you take an entire pool of people that are gonna watch the World Championship, which is our big thing or whatever, my recap is gonna drop for the first day. And that's when 90% of the audience that didn't watch live is gonna go, oh, fuck, I didn't even know this was happening. Now they're gonna tune in every single day live. And also maybe more generally to catch the post. Why not live? I just found out French Open was going on some week or two ago. It's on the TV every morning after I, you know, watch like whatever first take or like some sports highlights or anything. It's just there. I mean, I'm going to tune and watch it on mute. That's the thing. I'm going to watch it on mute on the smart TV in the, in the middle of the room. I'll be like, oh, AJ Aliasim is like playing. Sinner is playing. Djokovic is playing. Oh, I see the score. I can watch. Chess is like, I don't know what the hell is going on, because with it off, no one's explaining anything. The board is this big, the player is this big. You got a room for the commentators. And then like, how long is this going to take? You know, is this going to take two hours, three hours? What's the clock situation? They get more time.

Danny Rensch

Time.

Andrew Schultz

Like, what is the most interesting part of the game? Like, obviously it's not watching the guy's heads thinking, that's not fun to watch.

Levy Rozman

Yeah.

Andrew Schultz

What is the most. What I found was the most interesting part is like when you were doing these breakdowns, it's. It's Alakine, that. Alakine versus Babalu or something. What was the guy's name? Yeah, but it was specifically, you Doing this thing about, like, him sacrificing his queen. And the way that you were speaking about it is, is he would get the pawn to the other side, he would get queen again, he'd sacrifice it again. And every time he'd like, slowly bully him into this position. And to me, it felt like watching a crazy hand of hold'.

Danny Rensch

Em.

Mark Gagnon

But the benefit is that he already has the story.

Andrew Schultz

Exactly.

Billy

And he's doing it having known the game. At this point, poker really started to break through with the pocket cam. And then back to the cut down theory. They reverse engineered the hands to focus on because they know who won and they're telling story, the story of who makes it to the final table. We are preparing to do this. It's what we're trying to do with this drive to survive thing. The thing that we're premiering, so we are, I believe, on the precipice of finally figuring this out. And so in some ways, because I couldn't get the players to cooperate or we couldn't coordinate on what the best live broadcast was, I was like, I have this bickering, dysfunctional family. Let me just bring the cameras in and make it a reality TV show. Because instead of trying to fix the problem, let's just. So a lot of this show is super dramatic. It's a lot. It's like behind the scenes, it's raw and its arguments about this problem. And because it was like, well, if you can't fix them, join them. Right? Join the dysfunction. So, but I think the cut down. And then I'll bring this up only because I know earlier you were saying you hated the clock. The second most exciting thing about live chess is when people are under time pressure, because when someone's making moves and you see. So Levy does a great job with the cut downs. You know the story, you find the highlights, you focus on the sacrifice, you tell. You tell a great tale. In live chess, honestly, the two most exciting elements. Elements are the two things off the board, which is when someone is low on time and they're freaking out. And now the eval bar. So it's equal. Magnus makes a move because he was. He was about to lose on time, makes a move and the eval bar drops like, oh, shitty blundered. Is Gukesh gonna see it? Is he gonna lose? Kukesh moves because he's only got two seconds. Eval bar goes up like he missed it like that. That drama has really changed live chess and has helped us a lot. So I think when people start seeing that on tv. I'm hopeful that is going to be like people like man, this is more exciting than we thought. Along with hopefully some of the cut down approach that.

Andrew Schultz

What's the quickest game you can play?

Levy Rozman

Quickest in theory is you can play like 30 seconds per player but that's online. One minute per player.

Andrew Schultz

How fast does that game go?

Levy Rozman

Very fast.

Billy

A minute.

Levy Rozman

My, my favorite is Bullet on the computer. I, you know you just boot up a game in like a minute and I've got gotten to 3100 on chess.com in that and like 3000 in speed chess. Four hours of a game. I can't like, I can't do it anymore. One minute. One minute per player.

Andrew Schultz

One minute per player. So you have one minute for all the total moves you're going to make in the entire game. So you are predicting what that person is going to do if they don't do the thing that you predict they're going to do. You still have to make, you have

Levy Rozman

to adapt like media.

Mark Gagnon

Is there a way like forgive me for I haven't seen you know all like the major broadcasts but, but is there a way to get an over the table and then like AI or just a visual representation of all the possible moves?

Andrew Schultz

That's what I was thinking with the gps.

Mark Gagnon

I like that chess up board.

Levy Rozman

So I don't know.

Billy

The funny thing we did, we were probably early this like five years ago at our pro chess league championship we held in San Francisco. Eye tracking technology was like breaking through and we hooked up the players with an eye tracker so that you could get like a heat map of where they're focused. You could see what they're trying to calculate. And we, we leaned into it as best we could but the truth is the tech was kind of clunky at the time. And nothing feels weirder than like leaning into a storyline where you find out oh shit, the tracker was broken. And then like if you know now you're like ah fuck, I'm not going to lean on this tail. But I do think the combination of like AI, like heart rate, dude's nervous eye tracking. There are ways that I think the future is probably bright because what are we trying to do? We're trying to bring what's in a dude's head out.

Mark Gagnon

Yeah.

Billy

And that's many ways why chess was built for, for people like Levy in the digital age. Because one of the things about the online presentation of the game.

Andrew Schultz

Yeah.

Billy

Is now Levy can say the thing he could never say in front of a person because it would be distracting them or rude. So he's just like talking shit, he's having fun, he's singing a song, he's making, he's making jokes. And so chess in some ways was like, was kind of born for the streaming revolution. Because of all the things about it that you want to know that you haven't been able to know, these guys can now open up and talk.

Mark Gagnon

So anyway, yeah, I just think it's an interesting, like if I'm watching it live and assuming there's a clock and so there's. Now we're, you know, condensed on time. If it's like, okay, here's the possible options. He could play, knowing the way he plays. And then all of a sudden you see all the lights light up and you see the board light up and you say if, you know, his queen can go here, here, here, and then showing the optimal moves that the queen can make versus the suboptimal and then having the commentator talk through all the possible moves. Oh, I think he will just go pawn.

Andrew Schultz

Then it's like football.

Mark Gagnon

It's like, it's like that line of scrimmage, right?

Andrew Schultz

Tony Romo's there. It's like, okay, it's third and three. You know, they got probably going to run the ball, they're probably going to run this sweet play and then you see them do it and everybody goes, holy. Tony Romo is. Yeah, yeah.

Billy

No, you're right though. Half the content is them debating what they're going to do. Not what they actually do is they're like trying to think.

Andrew Schultz

And that's interesting for the casual, like me. Like I. That's what I liked about how you were explaining that moment. Like, I needed you to present to me why it was so interesting because I'm. I don't know how did you just

Mark Gagnon

scream the rook every time?

Andrew Schultz

Even if I'm moving the rook, just scream the rook. How do you put this into 30 seconds?

Levy Rozman

This, I. This. I'm not sure.

Billy

I might be able to figure it

Andrew Schultz

out here when you make it. So when you're doing. Oh good, did you get it? When you do a 30 second game, are you getting to the end of the game? Are you getting to a checkmate or is it often you just run out of time online?

Levy Rozman

Both. You can make enough moves theoretically, because when you pre move online, you set a model move to play automatically.

Andrew Schultz

Like, could you just whoop my ass real quick when we both do 30 seconds? But I'll actually try to win.

Billy

Okay, yeah, try to Just get your pieces out as fast you can.

Danny Rensch

All right.

Andrew Schultz

Ready?

Levy Rozman

Yeah. You got to hold on. I'm going to pause, set it.

Andrew Schultz

And I just go.

Danny Rensch

Yeah.

Levy Rozman

You have to make a move first and then press clock.

Andrew Schultz

Oh, Jesus.

Levy Rozman

I didn't even lose a second.

Andrew Schultz

Okay.

Mark Gagnon

Matches. Pulls his bishop out.

Billy

Love the commentary.

Levy Rozman

Now Levy pulls out his knight. This is an interesting.

Mark Gagnon

He's defending that pawn.

Levy Rozman

Shell's going for a 4 move. Checkmate. Because he thinks I'm brain.

Andrew Schultz

No. But I also have other things that I could do here.

Levy Rozman

You know, I'll lose on time, though. That would be.

Mark Gagnon

Then I could be like.

Andrew Schultz

I'd be Andrew Shillings in seven seconds.

Levy Rozman

What a YouTube video title. You know what I'm saying?

Andrew Schultz

Okay.

Danny Rensch

All right.

Billy

Levy opens the center and he's got

Mark Gagnon

tricks on putting pressure there right in the center.

Levy Rozman

This is interesting. Positioning, control.

Andrew Schultz

Oh, man, he's got good. Man, he's good. When I'm not playing with anybody. That's helpful. And he's good. He's good. He's good.

Levy Rozman

See, a lot of people think it has to do with how smart you are. No, that doesn't. A lot of good chess players are morons.

Billy

It's true.

Andrew Schultz

Okay. Is that all right? I had to. Right?

Billy

That was actually really good.

Levy Rozman

You got 50 seconds, though.

Andrew Schultz

50 cents. Oh, okay.

Levy Rozman

I would just start getting some pieces moving.

Andrew Schultz

Yeah, I got to start getting some pieces moving. Right.

Levy Rozman

Another fun thing would be me and Danny playing 32nd chest against each other.

Andrew Schultz

That would be.

Levy Rozman

That will show you like that. That would be the pace.

Andrew Schultz

Oh, maybe we have to do that. We can immediately after this.

Levy Rozman

Cuz you're going to just think and end up losing on time. That's.

Andrew Schultz

I don't know why I did that. What a dumb move that was.

Mark Gagnon

No, you.

Andrew Schultz

You're still good.

Mark Gagnon

Okay.

Andrew Schultz

Jesus.

Levy Rozman

Oh, yeah.

Andrew Schultz

That's tough.

Levy Rozman

You're in check right there. 91.

Andrew Schultz

I'm in check.

Danny Rensch

Yeah. Check.

Levy Rozman

Yeah. You only have one legal move.

Danny Rensch

He.

Mark Gagnon

Fortune Rogue.

Andrew Schultz

I have one legal.

Levy Rozman

Right.

Andrew Schultz

I can't go here. Oh, yeah. Check.

Danny Rensch

Yeah.

Mark Gagnon

You have one legal move.

Levy Rozman

Oh, that's actually stopping what I wanted to do, which is annoying.

Mark Gagnon

Annoying.

Andrew Schultz

And I can. I can't castle.

Levy Rozman

No. Yeah, There you go.

Danny Rensch

Yeah.

Mark Gagnon

Okay.

Levy Rozman

But you're gonna end up losing on time. Yeah. But it's actually crazy because Danny and I looked at each other and we thought you were gonna go here. Just keep running. And I had this really sick checkmate.

Andrew Schultz

And then it's over.

Levy Rozman

Because your queen is cutting these squares and the knight is. It's that one.

Andrew Schultz

Oh, my God.

Billy

All right, let me play.

Levy Rozman

Let me play.

Andrew Schultz

He's addicted.

Mark Gagnon

I love it.

Billy

This is gonna be good.

Levy Rozman

Thing is, you know, even us, like,

Andrew Schultz

this is so much fun.

Levy Rozman

I have the speed.

Andrew Schultz

The speed game really kind of opens, huh?

Billy

And that's because you're not wrong that like the best chess is. The best chess is not speed chess.

Andrew Schultz

It's not. Cuz you're. I want you to.

Levy Rozman

You want to play one minute or I feel like one minute.

Andrew Schultz

Do a minute. Okay.

Danny Rensch

Okay. That's.

Levy Rozman

At least we. It's not just going to be physical. Speed chess is really. Cuz you're going to end up just like smashing into like your. Each other's hands and not knocking over pieces. And you really shouldn't knock over pieces in a tournament and then press the clock. It's like bad etiquette. But if you're playing online, the speed is like unbelievable. Is there such a thing as a disrespectful move? Like it's legal?

Mark Gagnon

All you've done is.

Levy Rozman

Yeah, when I get tilted. Yeah, when I get tilted online, I play this, I play the diamond opening. I go boop, boop, boop, boop.

Mark Gagnon

Yeah.

Levy Rozman

Four turns.

Billy

Why?

Levy Rozman

Because I want to beat somebody four moves down. Like, basically my opponent's gonna get like four optimal moves and I have this. And I'm still gonna win because.

Andrew Schultz

And is that the best setup? Do you want something like that? That's a great.

Billy

We can. Controlling the center is. Is the best.

Andrew Schultz

Okay, let's, let's, let's not.

Levy Rozman

I don't want to give that to Dan.

Billy

All right.

Levy Rozman

This is going to be. This is going to be fun. I feel like Danny beats me in most exhibition bullet game we haven't played

Billy

in a while though.

Mark Gagnon

This is White's move. Opens up in the middle.

Billy

Little Kiro Khan here.

Andrew Schultz

This is unbelievable.

Levy Rozman

Yeah, but this is Levy's.

Billy

This is Levy's favorite stuff.

Mark Gagnon

And he captures a knight there. God.

Andrew Schultz

Almost too fast.

Danny Rensch

Okay.

Levy Rozman

I don't remember what I'm supposed to say.

Mark Gagnon

Levy's lost the line.

Billy

What do we got?

Danny Rensch

Here we go. Okay.

Billy

No, this is going to be just a big old. A big old psycho psycho chest leaning over the board.

Andrew Schultz

Oh, my goodness.

Mark Gagnon

Looking to trade rooks.

Levy Rozman

It seemed like. Yeah, Levy doesn't go for it.

Billy

Levy wants more.

Levy Rozman

Yep, there we go. Flying all over the board here.

Mark Gagnon

Just.

Levy Rozman

I'm gonna come back. Oh, Danny, Danny, Danny. Starting.

Billy

The old man starting to unwind. This is. This is the Russian technique endgame.

Andrew Schultz

Here we go. Oh, my.

Billy

Can I just trade you and win the king. Upon ending, we're gonna find out,

Danny Rensch

But.

Levy Rozman

Oh, my God. All right. Both kings are dead.

Mark Gagnon

Center of war Draw.

Levy Rozman

This was a great game. Tell me, tell me so online, like when we agreed to the draw because we were, you know, sportsman, we got sportsmanship. I had 15, he had 12 seconds.

Billy

So he would. He would have just moved and tried to flag.

Levy Rozman

And then. And then at some point, because there's a progress rule in chess. You can't just, like, shuffle around for 50 turns. If at 50 turns, nobody pushed the pawn or captured anything, it's an auto draw.

Andrew Schultz

And that's how you define progress. Yeah.

Levy Rozman

So at some point, I would have tried to, like, you know, go from. For this. But the idea is that if he takes. I take this pawn, and then you have a right. Yeah, but then, like, if he's here, then this is just stupid. I'm gonna, like, end up losing.

Andrew Schultz

And how many of these calculations are happening?

Billy

A lot of it is. It's like. It's like pattern recognition. Just because we've played something very similar, even if not exact before. So we're relying on. On intuition. Right.

Mark Gagnon

This is where Levy goes. Oh, I think I forgot what I was supposed to do, actually.

Levy Rozman

There was a really sick moment. Moment where I. I saw a really crazy pattern. Danny could have played. So when he went here and I took Danny, you can play C5.

Andrew Schultz

Oh, an amazing.

Levy Rozman

Because. Because this is a. It's like I have no legal moves. So what do I. Like, this would be a draw. It would be stalemate. Right. Normally, I have no. But I have to push these pawns.

Billy

So he's going to lose.

Levy Rozman

So I'm going to end up giving him this, and then I'm going to end up giving him. And then here, if he takes me en passant, like, because he can take me diagonally, he does this. And now I have a legal move, and now I'm going to lose because my king's just trapped. So when I was like, holy shit,

Andrew Schultz

that might actually happen.

Mark Gagnon

Have.

Levy Rozman

And I. Yeah, but, like, I saw that. I saw that in half a second. And maybe I had a.

Billy

You could have played King B5.

Levy Rozman

I have a way out. But I was like, oh, my God, what did I just do?

Danny Rensch

Again.

Andrew Schultz

Again. Again. Again.

Danny Rensch

Again.

Andrew Schultz

Is this. Is this a different skill set, this quick game?

Levy Rozman

Like, are there certain people who are

Andrew Schultz

built for this game?

Levy Rozman

Yeah, I think the.

Billy

So the gap of the best players is still close. Meaning, like, someone who's like, 1200 can't beat Magnus Even if they're a very good bullet player. Right. You still have to be a top player. But there are people who are better at the faster time controls. And, yeah, me and a lot of them, like, they either play it more or they're just better on their feet. Magnus likes to say that the faster time controls challenge more of the sporting elements, which is like your nerves, like your. How you deal with being surprised, being surprised, emotions and things. So I think that the longer the time control, obviously, the higher quality the moves. Some people say the lower the time control, especially if the chess is still good. Like, more of the sporting elements come out.

Andrew Schultz

Interesting.

Danny Rensch

Yeah.

Levy Rozman

So I also would have played the game much better on my phone. I'm like, so much more used to playing at the speed of my phone here.

Billy

I'm like.

Levy Rozman

I don't know. Like, I can't process what's happening, but on my phone I'm like, oh, easy

Mark Gagnon

pre move and things like that.

Billy

Yeah.

Andrew Schultz

Wow.

Levy Rozman

So here we go. Ready, set.

Danny Rensch

Oh, shit. What am I doing?

Billy

Go ahead.

Levy Rozman

Oh, Danny and I have played this plenty.

Billy

I am now slipping, which is where you.

Levy Rozman

Not going to happen.

Billy

Not going to happen.

Mark Gagnon

Okay.

Danny Rensch

All right.

Mark Gagnon

Okay, there. A nice little tempo there with the knight.

Billy

Little double tempo. You're right. Okay, now this is going to get really funky. What in the world are we doing here?

Danny Rensch

Here.

Levy Rozman

Oh, my God, Danny, how are you not just, like, lost?

Billy

I don't know.

Levy Rozman

Immediately, like, what is this?

Billy

I should have already lost this game, but I'm barely holding on now.

Mark Gagnon

You're surviving.

Levy Rozman

Let's go here. What?

Billy

Look at this position.

Levy Rozman

There is no chance. Protects the night.

Andrew Schultz

Wow. Oh, my goodness.

Levy Rozman

Oh, wow.

Billy

I blundered. It's funny, in Bullet, I'm like, barely touch moving the piece.

Andrew Schultz

Oh, wow.

Levy Rozman

Oh, my God.

Danny Rensch

Danny.

Levy Rozman

What? What is this?

Andrew Schultz

Falling apart.

Levy Rozman

Oh, queen.

Andrew Schultz

Wow.

Levy Rozman

I can't move it all the time.

Andrew Schultz

Oh, my God.

Levy Rozman

He got himself in trouble. Was cool, though. I hit him with a really nice. Like, when he brought his queen in. Yeah, it was very scary for my king, but I had to think for, like, three seconds. If I take this pawn, our queen see each other. And then my root guards my queen, and then my knight can take with check. And then, like, so I had to think for. And then.

Andrew Schultz

This is almost too fast.

Danny Rensch

Yeah.

Andrew Schultz

Oh, yeah. Like, for mainstream, for the cat. And again, I'm your most casual consumer, so, like, think of me as, like, the casual chess consumer. I'm blown away watching it, but I still need that. I need that, like, posthumous reflection on the game. I Need you to show me, like, what move changed this and how did you do it? Like, again, I'm just thinking of this, like, how do you get a casual to watch it? The speed is scintillating. Like, I can see watching this at a restaurant why people would run over and just be like, what the. How are they thinking this fast? How are they calculating these things?

Mark Gagnon

But even the end game of a 10 minute game can get to this

Levy Rozman

level of speed, right?

Billy

No, no, you're right though. Indeed. This is. This is almost too far.

Andrew Schultz

Can we. How much time do we have? Can we. Can we. Can we increase to two minutes? Not to like keep throwing you at each other. I just want to find like the time where you guys have enough time to think and then we get to kind of consume.

Levy Rozman

This sounds like the market agency. It's like the.

Billy

I'm all about this.

Levy Rozman

I thought you had stuff to do. I don't know when I got nowhere else.

Andrew Schultz

Charlemagne's on the way here, so once he comes here, I got to go

Billy

to the other room.

Andrew Schultz

Do you need to switch any cams or anything like that?

Levy Rozman

No, I brought my own.

Andrew Schultz

Just put them in there and you put them in there. So we're ready to go.

Danny Rensch

All right.

Andrew Schultz

Well, guys, this has been. This has been Gotham Chess Chess.com Levy and Danny and the Billy. Thank you guys so much for being here. We got one more game. We're doing it right now.

Danny Rensch

Do it.

Andrew Schultz

Let's set it up. You prefer to be black side?

Billy

No, I just set it up because we were just kind of.

Andrew Schultz

Is there a preference? Is there like an advantage to one?

Billy

White is typically. White is better than. Than black, like 56% of the time, but it's close to equal. But white usually wins just a little more than black because you get the first move.

Andrew Schultz

Got it.

Mark Gagnon

So you can kind of set the tempo.

Billy

And so white often is setting the tempo, choosing the structure, choosing the opening. And so that's also how I play.

Levy Rozman

Like with. I tried, like with white. I try to get what I want one immediately.

Danny Rensch

Fast. Yeah, yeah.

Andrew Schultz

Okay. All right, so now we're at two minutes.

Danny Rensch

We got.

Billy

We got a little bit of time to think. Here we go.

Levy Rozman

All right. The Schultz focus group of how to get chess televised right here.

Billy

I'm loving it.

Danny Rensch

All right, he's got.

Billy

He's playing B3.

Danny Rensch

This is like.

Levy Rozman

See, it's like non standard, you know?

Danny Rensch

Yeah, this is.

Levy Rozman

It's weird to develop your bishop and not your other pieces, but Danny's got very sophisticated, like, style of Chess that he plays. And it's. It's actually kind of annoying. Like I was.

Billy

I was raised by old Russians.

Levy Rozman

So I've got like a old school way that I play and correct me.

Mark Gagnon

You can play quickly out of the opening because these lines are fairly memorized. But once you get into the middle end game.

Billy

Yeah. It starts to get.

Mark Gagnon

You got to calculate.

Billy

Starts to get a little messy at that point. The further the game goes, the more. The more original the.

Andrew Schultz

The moves are interesting. Yeah.

Levy Rozman

Even here we could spend a little time on these decisions, but I don't know how much time.

Danny Rensch

Yeah. Because it's. It's a tricky. It's a tricky amount of. Okay, so we're both in weird positions

Levy Rozman

now that we don't know. I'm just targeting his two pawns. He knows that and so has to play something like that.

Andrew Schultz

This is where we need.

Mark Gagnon

Need defending the road.

Andrew Schultz

You need a layman like me.

Danny Rensch

Yeah.

Andrew Schultz

That knows almost nothing. So I can be the audience. And then you need somebody.

Mark Gagnon

I can commentate as I screen to show his queen can go here or here.

Andrew Schultz

That's what I was saying. And gps like the lines. Yeah.

Mark Gagnon

Like the chess up board that I have. When you put your finger on the, on the piece, the whole thing lights

Levy Rozman

up like a lightsaber. And then you need to know like, bet365 official betting partner.

Mark Gagnon

Does no one have a sponsored glove?

Levy Rozman

There's no. It's crazy in chess. There's no sponsor, like primary watch sponsor, which is. Which is by far the.

Billy

There should be like primary glasses sponsor. Like absurd. You know, I won't even name the brand Levy wears because I know it don't. You know?

Levy Rozman

Yeah, but it's. But yeah. I mean, a fingerless glove with the

Mark Gagnon

logo on it, like an over the hand thing. You can see every move. It seems so obvious.

Andrew Schultz

Okay, so I'm going to be asking you questions as you're doing it. What can you. And you're not going to divulge too much, right?

Levy Rozman

No, I mean I can like, I'm like expand. You know, I'm expanding on this side of the board. You know, Danny's attacking my rook. I slide it up. He's, you know, he's doing this. So he activates his rook and gets it on this side. I'm up a lot on time. So I have to make a decision. Like, am I gonna go for like a crazy attack? Am I gonna just, you know, suffocate his pieces?

Danny Rensch

I forgot that you were up a lot on time too.

Levy Rozman

You Said that I think he almost hung his rook.

Andrew Schultz

That.

Levy Rozman

That would have been sick.

Billy

But unfortunately not ideal for me.

Mark Gagnon

So are trying to distract him.

Andrew Schultz

Sorry. So that's a defensive move.

Levy Rozman

Yeah, I'm trying to like go over here.

Mark Gagnon

Defenses pawn.

Levy Rozman

I'm trying to like make some progress.

Danny Rensch

Oh, my God.

Levy Rozman

That's pretty annoying. Oh, what is happening?

Billy

My night is. My night is wandering.

Mark Gagnon

Puts him in check.

Billy

Wandering in the desert. It's not good.

Levy Rozman

Yeah, his knight is way back here. It's.

Billy

It's just over.

Mark Gagnon

Completely undefended.

Danny Rensch

He's.

Levy Rozman

He's just busted. Yeah, I'm gonna queen.

Danny Rensch

Yeah.

Levy Rozman

Okay. It's hard to like, I can't commentate and.

Andrew Schultz

Yeah.

Billy

And I resigned because I'm losing my rook to the new queen. Yeah. And I'm just down a rook.

Levy Rozman

But basically the way I would have commentated is that like I'm up a pawn. So that's like better. So I have to convert that now. Plus, you know, the whole time Danny was down about 10 seconds, which is huge.

Andrew Schultz

Huge.

Levy Rozman

Now the game is, you know, and, and when you're live commentating with the headphones and the lights, like, you know, I. I try to be like, very basic of what's going on. The hardest challenge I commentated chess boxing. You know, Ludwig the YouTuber, he did chess boxing like four years ago and the board broke, so the 2D board broke. So I had to commentate a 3D view to a live arena of what's going on. And I would try to be like, hey, everybody, like, you see this pawn like that pawns, you know, is blocking a couple things. Oh, like he move the pawn. Like now black can do this and people are just. You don't fully get it, but you get just enough that your intensity also translates. Yeah, that's the most important. You need emotion. You need to understand, like, oh, he only has 10 seconds to react.

Andrew Schultz

But you also need a layman.

Billy

Yeah, you do.

Andrew Schultz

You need someone to explain it to. Like, you're good at naturally understanding that, like communicate to some who doesn't know. But like, yeah, it's like you need somebody like me who's almost unaware so that the casual can come in and have it be explained. And the person who's like kind of mid level knows all of it. But it's nice for a refresher. Like when I'm watching football, like, I know they're going to be running on two, second and two.

Danny Rensch

Yeah, yeah.

Andrew Schultz

But it's nice to be like, what are the options of that running play,

Levy Rozman

you know and then even being able

Mark Gagnon

to draw on the board like circle pieces.

Billy

And that's one of the reasons why, again, I think the. The digital screen has really helped bring that to life. You see it. But you're. You're right. I think you really need a layman even just to represent what most the audience would want to ask.

Danny Rensch

Yeah.

Andrew Schultz

Say and be excited about it. Like, there is kind of an interesting thing where you could get different people to kind of step into that position. They have to be aware enough of how the pieces move. Like, they probably need to know more than I know, but they need to know little enough about strategy where you get to explain to them. And you're not explaining to someone who knows the shit already because that becomes kind of redundant. Like you explaining to Danny these things. It's like, yeah, we all know this kind of stuff. All right, guys, just some quick context for this game. I'm playing Levy from Gotham Chess. Guess he is blindfolded. And I'm absolutely doing this all by myself. I'm not getting any help from Danny, the guy who owns Chess.com and who's also a absolutely phenomenal chess player. Again, he is not helping me at all. He. I do not have an earpiece in where he is, you know, telling me the moves.

Levy Rozman

This is.

Andrew Schultz

This is just me. I don't believe him.

Mark Gagnon

Okay, intros, let's get on.

Andrew Schultz

There we go. There we go. That's extra. Okay, what's up, everybody? Welcome to Flagrance. And right now we are sitting here with a blindfolded, kidnapped Levy from Gotham Chess. And he has challenged me to a game of chess. Now, he is not the first professional athlete that has challenged me to, you know, something, assuming that I wouldn't be able to deliver on a. An absolutely immense task. And the last person that did it lost in historic fashion. I just want to point that out.

Levy Rozman

Thank you for calling me an athlete, by the way.

Andrew Schultz

This is a sport, dude.

Mark Gagnon

It is.

Levy Rozman

But if you saw my stomach, you would not think it is a sport. I'm the embodiment of. I can't do. So I teach.

Andrew Schultz

Ah. Fair, fair, fair, fair, fair. Well, for my victory, you're going to be one of the greatest athletes that's ever played chess.

Levy Rozman

Thank you. Thank you.

Andrew Schultz

Okay, so let's make this happen. I guess I'm. I'm white, so I will start.

Danny Rensch

Is that.

Levy Rozman

Yeah, we gotta shake hands.

Andrew Schultz

Oh, yes, yes, yes. Thank you so much. I appreciate it.

Levy Rozman

Okay, now we have to unpause his clock. So we have to hit the middle button and we have to make sure his time starts running.

Mark Gagnon

All right, I will unpause the clock.

Andrew Schultz

Okay, so now my turn.

Billy

Yep.

Mark Gagnon

White to move.

Andrew Schultz

He's all right.

Levy Rozman

Scared.

Mark Gagnon

Okay, Andrew, big move.

Levy Rozman

Pawn to e4.

Andrew Schultz

Big move. Have you seen this opening before?

Levy Rozman

Yeah, so far, so good. Okay, I'm going to go D5. Scandinavian.

Andrew Schultz

Oh, man, he's Scandinavian to H5.

Danny Rensch

Your queen's going to come all the way up to H5. Okay.

Mark Gagnon

All right, Schultze, I think we.

Levy Rozman

I think we got him.

Mark Gagnon

Schultz is thinking about this one. Okay. Queen to H5.

Levy Rozman

Yeah, he's trying to. He's trying to win in four moves. That's crazy. Pawn takes pawn.

Andrew Schultz

Pawn takes pawn.

Mark Gagnon

Okay. Pawn takes pawn. Black pawn to e4. E4.

Levy Rozman

Did you press the clock?

Mark Gagnon

I'm okay.

Levy Rozman

That's flagrant insiders.

Danny Rensch

White Bishop to C4. The White Bishop on F1 up to C4.

Andrew Schultz

Okay.

Danny Rensch

Okay.

Mark Gagnon

He plays White Bishop to C4.

Levy Rozman

Clock.

Andrew Schultz

Damn.

Levy Rozman

My sensory is you.

Andrew Schultz

How do you know

Levy Rozman

this was a good, valiant effort? I like it.

Andrew Schultz

What does that mean?

Levy Rozman

I mean, I see the threat. I don't. I see it up here. Okay, let's go. Pawn to g6. Attacking his queen.

Danny Rensch

Whoa.

Mark Gagnon

Pawn to g6. Attacking queen.

Levy Rozman

And what's your chess level like?

Mark Gagnon

450?

Danny Rensch

500.

Levy Rozman

500?

Mark Gagnon

Yeah, something like that.

Danny Rensch

Okay.

Levy Rozman

Schultz is eerily quiet on his own pod.

Danny Rensch

Yeah.

Mark Gagnon

Schultz plays Queen to E2.

Danny Rensch

Classy.

Levy Rozman

All right, knight F6. Let's develop.

Andrew Schultz

Oh, boy.

Levy Rozman

Knight two. F6.

Mark Gagnon

F6.

Danny Rensch

Okay, now you're gonna bring your knight out to C3.

Levy Rozman

I know. B1, so 500. I'm a little bit.

Andrew Schultz

Okay, let's go.

Mark Gagnon

Schultz plays Knight to C3.

Levy Rozman

It's a good move. Queen D4, like, right next to his bishop.

Mark Gagnon

Queen to D4.

Levy Rozman

Yeah, right next to.

Danny Rensch

Yeah.

Levy Rozman

Dark square.

Andrew Schultz

Yeah. Oh, wow.

Mark Gagnon

I mean, he knows the squares.

Danny Rensch

That's crazy. Yeah. You're gonna play pawn to B3. Pawn on B2. Up to B3.

Levy Rozman

I have been trained at this in the mines since I was 5, so

Mark Gagnon

I guess that helps.

Levy Rozman

Yeah, I used to not see sunlight.

Mark Gagnon

Scholz plays Pawn to B3. B B is in. Boy 3.

Levy Rozman

Got it. Let's go. You know, you want to, like, play the best move or the most aggressive one to get him scared. All right, let's go. Most aggressive bishop G4.

Mark Gagnon

Bishop to G4.

Andrew Schultz

Oh, wow.

Mark Gagnon

Oh.

Andrew Schultz

Levy.

Danny Rensch

Your pawn on F2 is going to go up to F3, blocking the bishop's attack to the queen.

Mark Gagnon

Schultz plays pawn to F3.

Levy Rozman

All right, pawn takes pawn.

Danny Rensch

Knight Takes pawn. Your knight on G1.

Mark Gagnon

Pawn takes pawn. So that's your E pawn.

Levy Rozman

That's the only pawn that can take another one.

Mark Gagnon

Pawn takes pawn. Schultz plays knight to f3.

Danny Rensch

Taking the pawn.

Levy Rozman

Got it. I'll take the knight with my bishop.

Danny Rensch

Sean.

Levy Rozman

Okay, we gotta press my clock. I'm gonna lose on time.

Andrew Schultz

No, no, no.

Mark Gagnon

Takes knight.

Levy Rozman

Yeah, it took his night.

Mark Gagnon

And Schultz takes back with the queen.

Danny Rensch

You're.

Mark Gagnon

You.

Andrew Schultz

You got some impressive, Levy. Yeah, I'm impressed.

Levy Rozman

I'm waiting for you to do something stupid, and it's not happening. All right, Knights C6 the other night, out to C6.

Mark Gagnon

Knight 2.

Levy Rozman

C6. Yes.

Danny Rensch

Yes.

Levy Rozman

How much time do I have left?

Danny Rensch

You have.

Mark Gagnon

You're at eight minutes.

Danny Rensch

Shultz has seven to B, as in point two.

Levy Rozman

You guys have a prediction market sponsor yet? Like, can we just. You can bet on this game now.

Mark Gagnon

Schultz plays Bishop to B2.

Levy Rozman

Schultz is annoying me. I wanted to win a lot faster. Let's go.

Danny Rensch

Let's.

Levy Rozman

Let's play Bishop G7.

Mark Gagnon

Bishop G7.

Danny Rensch

Yeah.

Andrew Schultz

What the fuck?

Levy Rozman

It's most of chess. It's just sitting there going, what the fuck is long?

Danny Rensch

Which means you put your king on E1 to see one.

Levy Rozman

And then for the audience at home, a door opened, and I heard footsteps.

Andrew Schultz

So the producers in the room.

Levy Rozman

I might. I might be strangled soon. I have really no idea. I've been wearing the blindfold since I woke up this morning and got thrown in a car, so.

Mark Gagnon

So Schultz is at seven minutes.

Levy Rozman

Sling. Very well.

Mark Gagnon

I don't want to give you a hint, but I have some. My dudes.

Danny Rensch

I don't know.

Andrew Schultz

Give me something.

Mark Gagnon

I mean, you can castle.

Andrew Schultz

That's what I was thinking.

Mark Gagnon

I don't think a castle is a wrong move here.

Levy Rozman

Castle which way?

Danny Rensch

You move the king on E1 to C1. Two squares. Yeah. I think long castle goes over.

Levy Rozman

Now, Schultz, who. Long castles.

Danny Rensch

Yeah.

Levy Rozman

Did he do it correctly?

Mark Gagnon

Yeah.

Levy Rozman

No, I'm serious. I'm not trying to like. King on C1. Rook on D1.

Mark Gagnon

King one. Rook is on D1.

Danny Rensch

Okay.

Levy Rozman

I'm gonna castle as well. Short side. So this left.

Mark Gagnon

So castle, short side.

Danny Rensch

Yeah.

Levy Rozman

King to G8. Rook to F8. All right, Andrew, I'm officially nervous. No, no, I'm officially nervous.

Andrew Schultz

Well, we're both there.

Danny Rensch

Okay.

Mark Gagnon

Levy castled short side.

Danny Rensch

So now you're going to play knight on C3, up to D5. The knight on C3 is going to go to D, as in dog 5, which is a discovered attack on the queen. The Bishop on B2 attacks the Queen. After you do that,

Andrew Schultz

This might be

Mark Gagnon

Scholz plays Knight to D5.5, the dumbest thing.

Levy Rozman

Or Knight to D5.

Mark Gagnon

Correct. D as in dog.

Danny Rensch

Holy.

Levy Rozman

Man played chess before.

Mark Gagnon

That's what I'm saying.

Andrew Schultz

That's what I said. I have played. I. I wouldn't say.

Levy Rozman

Are you cheating?

Mark Gagnon

No, he's just out of practice.

Andrew Schultz

I've played check your ass.

Levy Rozman

For legal reasons. That is a joke that has been debunked and proven to be not serious. Wow. All right. I kind of want to go for. For glory here, but I also want to play it safe. All right. I think. I think I'm gonna have to play it safe. I'm gonna go queen C5. Queen C5. Like, diagonally back one side to the right. One square.

Mark Gagnon

Queen C5.

Danny Rensch

Yeah. Pawn to D4. Damn. Pawn up two squares to D4.

Andrew Schultz

I'm. I'm fine. Pressed.

Mark Gagnon

He played a lot as a kid. I mean, New Yorkers just kind of

Levy Rozman

know how to play chess, which we're smarter than everybody. I thought maybe, like, fatherhood. Busy schedule.

Andrew Schultz

We got to get rid of this timer, dude.

Levy Rozman

Yeah.

Mark Gagnon

The time is going to kill you now.

Levy Rozman

The only chance I have of winning at this point, frankly.

Mark Gagnon

Yeah, Schultz here at five minutes.

Danny Rensch

What do you got?

Andrew Schultz

I don't know.

Danny Rensch

Yeah, pawn to D4. Ponta D is in dogfeeds yesterday, and

Levy Rozman

I won in, like, seven moves.

Andrew Schultz

This is.

Mark Gagnon

I mean, you could. I mean, I don't want to give too many hints.

Levy Rozman

No more hints.

Danny Rensch

Him?

Levy Rozman

What, are you crazy? I need hints.

Mark Gagnon

But that queen is a little pressure, I think.

Levy Rozman

Yeah, take his hint. That wasn't a good hint. Take it. Has he lost some time yet?

Mark Gagnon

No, he's down two minutes.

Levy Rozman

Like, he has two minutes left.

Mark Gagnon

He's at 429 now.

Danny Rensch

Okay. To d4. Pawn on d2. Up to d4. Attacking the queen.

Mark Gagnon

Can I. Schultz plays pawn to d4.

Levy Rozman

I think that's good enough. It's not. He had better, but thank you.

Mark Gagnon

His finger's still on the piece, though, so I can take it back.

Levy Rozman

No, no, he pressed the clock already. Queen d6. D queen. Like, in front of his knight.

Mark Gagnon

Queen d6.

Levy Rozman

Yeah.

Danny Rensch

So now rook on h1. Over to e1. The far rook.

Levy Rozman

And what's our time?

Danny Rensch

Move it to the center. Rook H1 to E1.

Mark Gagnon

Okay, he plays rook E1.

Levy Rozman

Which one?

Andrew Schultz

H1. E1.

Mark Gagnon

H1 to E1.

Danny Rensch

Man.

Levy Rozman

All right, Knight takes knight. Knight takes knight.

Danny Rensch

Okay.

Mark Gagnon

Bishop takes knight.

Levy Rozman

Knight B4. Knight B4.

Danny Rensch

Bishop takes pawn on B7. Your bishop on D5 takes the pawn on B7 attacking the rook. You see it?

Mark Gagnon

Yeah, I said I don't know if Schultz either.

Andrew Schultz

Oh, man.

Mark Gagnon

Schultz plays Rook to E6.7.

Levy Rozman

He took my pawn.

Danny Rensch

Correct. Wasn't the move.

Levy Rozman

Queen takes rook.

Danny Rensch

He played the wrong move.

Levy Rozman

He played the wrong move.

Andrew Schultz

I said bishop, take just a move. Just an absolutely move.

Mark Gagnon

Why did you do that?

Andrew Schultz

I don't know. I thought I saw something the second I did it.

Levy Rozman

I was like, what the was I thinking that was. You want to take it back?

Mark Gagnon

No.

Danny Rensch

Okay. Sorry. We're going to keep playing. Play. Bishop takes B7. Bishop on D5 takes pawn on B7.

Billy

All right.

Mark Gagnon

Schultz plays Bishop B7.

Levy Rozman

All right, let's play Rook, the one that's under attack to B8. Rook AB8 targeting his bishop.

Mark Gagnon

Rook to B8.

Levy Rozman

Yeah, I was gonna say the game was like really stressing me out, but that rook move surprised me.

Mark Gagnon

Schultz plays pawn to A three.

Levy Rozman

So you just like gave me a rook and you're just back to playing like all the best moves, like that's what we're doing.

Andrew Schultz

I just played the dumbest move I could imagine.

Mark Gagnon

I, he's under a thousand. You're gonna blunder sometimes, you know.

Levy Rozman

I, I, I know. But he's like, okay, let's play pawn to c5.

Andrew Schultz

I was playing really well too. You were? I was a little shaky in the beginning, but then I felt like I.

Mark Gagnon

You were playing pawn to C5.

Levy Rozman

You were playing really well that night. Jump into the middle was really impressive. Yeah, it was a ballsy move. I think it was just the best move. Like he just straight up, I was like, what? There's no way he played that move.

Mark Gagnon

He takes night with the pawn.

Andrew Schultz

Yeah, yeah.

Levy Rozman

I'll take the his light squared bishop with my rook.

Andrew Schultz

Light squared bishop.

Danny Rensch

Take the pawn on C5 with the B pawn. B as in boy. Take the pawn on c5.

Mark Gagnon

Takes the pawn at c5 with.

Andrew Schultz

With the b. B4.

Danny Rensch

B4.

Levy Rozman

All right, let's play pawn to a5.

Danny Rensch

Pawn to eight. Pawn to c6. Move the pawn up one and attack the rook. Pawn to c6.

Mark Gagnon

Schultz plays pawn to c6.

Levy Rozman

Let's go.

Danny Rensch

Rook two.

Levy Rozman

That's my move.

Danny Rensch

B8.

Levy Rozman

Slide it back one square to be.

Andrew Schultz

Yeah, okay.

Levy Rozman

It's not over.

Andrew Schultz

I thought it was over. I thought it was over.

Levy Rozman

It's only going to get harder for me to see the board. Cuz everything becomes non standard. The pattern is, ah, Remembering where every piece is is not easy. You sort of forget he's doing this blindfold. Yeah. I didn't forget. I have not forgotten. How many of these could you do at the same time? At the same time timed. Not probably three, but, like, if I. If it was quiet and I could just focus, probably five or six.

Mark Gagnon

Wow.

Levy Rozman

But it would need to be quiet. I can't probably, like, talk and.

Andrew Schultz

Okay, I'm going king to B1.

Mark Gagnon

King to B1.

Danny Rensch

All right.

Levy Rozman

Pawn to A4.

Mark Gagnon

Pawn to A4.

Danny Rensch

4. Pawn to D as in dog 5. Move the pawn on D4 up to D5.

Mark Gagnon

Pawn to D5.

Levy Rozman

Bishop takes bishop.

Danny Rensch

King takes bishop. King takes cross the board.

Levy Rozman

Bishop takes bishop.

Andrew Schultz

King takes bishop. Take bishop.

Mark Gagnon

King takes bishop.

Levy Rozman

I'll play. Queen E5.

Danny Rensch

Check.

Mark Gagnon

Queen E5.

Danny Rensch

Check.

Levy Rozman

See, like, you don't quite remember. Like, am I just losing the queen in one move? Like, because all the. Is around it.

Danny Rensch

But. King to c1. King to c is a mystery. King to charlie 1.

Mark Gagnon

Schultz plays king to c1.

Danny Rensch

Yeah.

Levy Rozman

How much time do we have?

Andrew Schultz

Don't worry about that time.

Mark Gagnon

You have three minutes and 40 seconds.

Danny Rensch

Okay.

Mark Gagnon

Schultz is like, a minute some change.

Levy Rozman

All right, let's go. Pawn to A three.

Mark Gagnon

Pawn to.

Danny Rensch

Just push it. A three.

Levy Rozman

Pushing the pawn. Okay, play.

Danny Rensch

Queen to G3. Queen to G3. Try to offer a queen trade. Queen slide over one square to G3.

Andrew Schultz

Let's just do a little trade.

Levy Rozman

No, no, no.

Andrew Schultz

I don't want a little trade. Give me a little trade. Give me a little trade here. That's a fair trade.