YouSaid · the spoken record

Hikaru Nakamura

lines on the record
239
first
2022-10-17
most recent
2022-10-17
sittings or episodes
1
sources
podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

  1. “Perfect day. A perfect day would be something along the lines of I get up very early at like three, four o'clock in the morning, drive an hour away, and go climb mountains. That's the perfect day. Out of the mountains.”

    2022-10-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #330 – Hikaru Nakamura: Chess, Magnus, Kasparov, and the Psychology of Greatness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  2. “That's also why there's another question a lot of people wonder, which is why don't I play more of these classical tournaments? And sort of, it gets back to the literally don't care sort of stuff. But when I'm going to play in tournaments, I want to be able to give it my best shot. And if I don't feel that I can, I'm not going to play, which is why I play here and there, but I do balance my schedule very carefully because I'm not just going to go and play a tournament simply because if I don't feel that I can put in the work, it's not the right thing to do. Also because I'm taking away a spot from somebody else who probably will be putting in the work, who will want to compete in that event. And so when I look at the candidates or a lot of people say, well, why is he playing there? Like, okay, qualified, but he's not going to take it seriously. But I did give it everything I had in that tournament. And I always will as much as I can if I can't do that, then I'm just not going to play.”

    2022-10-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #330 – Hikaru Nakamura: Chess, Magnus, Kasparov, and the Psychology of Greatness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  3. “It's pretty brutal. It would be something like, okay, so the game starts at two o'clock. So you've done all this other stuff. The game probably goes from like two to seven, for example, or maybe two to eight, five, six hours. Probably you eat dinner for an hour or so. Maybe clear, like I'll go clear my head for 30 minutes. And then immediately it's right back to studying for a couple of hours.”

    2022-10-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #330 – Hikaru Nakamura: Chess, Magnus, Kasparov, and the Psychology of Greatness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  4. “It's very difficult. I think for myself, I just try to basically focus on it every single move. I just try and, again, you try to block out the noise, no matter which direction it's going in. So I try as best I can. I mean, sometimes I'm very poor at it. Like I just don't do a good job blocking out the noise at all. But I think generally I try to think, okay, just make this next move. Make your opponent have to find the best moves and just keep the game going no matter what. Just keep it going.”

    2022-10-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #330 – Hikaru Nakamura: Chess, Magnus, Kasparov, and the Psychology of Greatness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  5. “I think it's like it's nervous, but it's like you're too excited. I think you just, it's like you're waiting for it to end. You expect it to end. And then your opponent keeps defending and you can make mistakes”

    2022-10-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #330 – Hikaru Nakamura: Chess, Magnus, Kasparov, and the Psychology of Greatness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  6. “It's also because, like, I can say this when I've played Magnus before there have been times when I've gotten winning positions against him. And in that moment when I have the winning position, very often times my mind wanders like, okay, you're about to win this game and you're like, okay, what happens after the game? You win this game, gain the rating points, all these different things. But you haven't actually won the game yet. And I think for a lot of players, that's the hardest thing is when you get a winning position, your mind does drift. It drifts to like what happens after you've won the game or what the outcome is.”

    2022-10-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #330 – Hikaru Nakamura: Chess, Magnus, Kasparov, and the Psychology of Greatness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  7. “Think it really depends on the type of the game that you're playing. I think if it's a game that's very, very calm and very slow, we're not a lot happens at the start. It's a lot easier because you're not having to be super focused. Like your mind can drift and whatnot. And then the critical moment you have to sort of zone in. So those are the easiest ones. I think generally when games are very complicated from the start, what you're doing is you're trying to not let your mind wander at all. Because when games are complicated like that, one of the things that I've never been very good at is my mind does wander. And you're always like I'm always worrying about the next move is like, is this a blender? What's going on? What am I going to do? So you're trying, I think, very much to block out the noise.”

    2022-10-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #330 – Hikaru Nakamura: Chess, Magnus, Kasparov, and the Psychology of Greatness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  8. “Yeah, I think for a lot of people, they try to keep it light before the round. Actually, I remember hearing the story from Peter Savidler some years back, a Russian GM, and he said that Kasparov would go and eat a big steak right before the game, and he would be completely fine. But I think for most players, it's the exact opposite. You try to eat some snacks, maybe some nuts, a few bars, things of this nature, maybe just maybe fish, something very light for lunch before the game. And then you probably eat a lot after the game. That's generally what you try to do. But I don't think there's any specific diet that makes a huge difference, but everyone is different, of course.”

    2022-10-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #330 – Hikaru Nakamura: Chess, Magnus, Kasparov, and the Psychology of Greatness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  9. “Almost never happens. I mean, there have been a couple times where it has happened, like in Norway specifically, but generally it just, I don't sleep well during chess terms. I wish I did”

    2022-10-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #330 – Hikaru Nakamura: Chess, Magnus, Kasparov, and the Psychology of Greatness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  10. “Well, I find that if I go outside, I just try to hear the birds or I try to listen. It's one of those meditation kind of things. It's like, you know, they always say when you meditate, you try to hear yourself breathing. It's like when you close your eyes, try to hear yourself breathing, just focus on that. So I do try to do things like that from time to time as well.”

    2022-10-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #330 – Hikaru Nakamura: Chess, Magnus, Kasparov, and the Psychology of Greatness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  11. “Perfect chess day, although I cannot do this, it would start like the night before. I would get like nine hours of sleep, like a consistent nine hours, like say 12 a.m. to 9 a.m., for example, let's just say the round starts at like 2 o'clock and then 9 to say 12 o'clock. I do preparation. And then 12 to 1, I go eat lunch. And one to two, I just nap or I walk or I do something completely unrelated to it. That would be the perfect day.”

    2022-10-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #330 – Hikaru Nakamura: Chess, Magnus, Kasparov, and the Psychology of Greatness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  12. “Or Kendall. Yeah, both of those actually. So it's very, very weird. But I do try when I can to get away from it all. I mean, another thing, like I said, I really like going out in a nature when I have the opportunity. I've spent a lot of time in Colorado, for example, hiking some of the 14ers. That is one of those life goals that I have to go and get to the top of every single one of them. So I try to disconnect when I can. But of course, it's very hard.”

    2022-10-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #330 – Hikaru Nakamura: Chess, Magnus, Kasparov, and the Psychology of Greatness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  13. “Right. I mean, that's definitely true. For myself, I remember when I was a little bit younger, when I was like 17, 18 around, I would actually try one day a week on the weekend to try not to look at my computer or my phone. Now, phones weren't where they are today, obviously, but I was able to do that pretty easily. Now it's very hard. Like when I try to go one day, recently I tried to do that. I actually just pulled some books out of my garage and I started reading. And it was a very foreign concept. I do read a lot, but it's always on an iPad.”

    2022-10-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #330 – Hikaru Nakamura: Chess, Magnus, Kasparov, and the Psychology of Greatness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  14. “It does seem ancient. It's sort of, I feel like for myself, one of the things I really like doing is getting away from technology when I have the opportunity trying to disconnect these sorts of things. And so when I read books like that, besides just having a general interest, it sort of reminds me like there is really a life without all this stuff or there was at least at some point. And so it's something that I can kind of relate to”

    2022-10-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #330 – Hikaru Nakamura: Chess, Magnus, Kasparov, and the Psychology of Greatness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  15. “So I think, I mean, one of my favorite books that I've read in the last couple years is The Histories by Herodotus, I mean, basically consider the father of history. And, I mean, I really love reading about these things like thermopylae or marathon, these great ancient battles. I don't know if there's like a specific quote or wording or something like that that I can come up with, but that is one of my favorite books on history by far.”

    2022-10-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #330 – Hikaru Nakamura: Chess, Magnus, Kasparov, and the Psychology of Greatness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  16. “Lot. I mean, I probably study mostly like it would be like ancient Roman history or pre Roman Empire. And of course, ancient Persia is another subject I've studied a lot on. If you ask me, I would say, I mean, it depends. You're talking like military generals, you're talking like philosophers. I mean, there's”

    2022-10-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #330 – Hikaru Nakamura: Chess, Magnus, Kasparov, and the Psychology of Greatness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  17. “I think another thing that's very unique about Chust is that all of us, even when we compete as children, like there are a lot of people like Nepo and others who I've known for a very, very long time, there are a lot of people who no longer play chess competitively, but inevitably you end up talking to these people many years down the road. And so you never truly lose touch with the game or the people that you grew up playing it with. And there's so many of these people that I connected with in the last couple of years who I knew when I was a kid and then they went off, did something else, but they still end up, you still end up talking to them and being able to share these old memories.”

    2022-10-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #330 – Hikaru Nakamura: Chess, Magnus, Kasparov, and the Psychology of Greatness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  18. “I think this is probably a little bit more like political, but I think one of the things that's great is whenever you go and play these tournaments, you have a certain impression of what a country is like or what the people are like. And probably the best example for me was in 2004, actually no sorry, it was 2003, I think it was, I played in the Fide World Cup and it was held in Tripoli, the capital of Libya at the time when Gaddafi was still running the country. And you hear a lot of these things. But then when you go there and you see that people are so friendly, it's very eye-opening. And sort of, you look at it without just believing things you go to these places, you see how things truly are. And generally, I find that it's very different than how the media will portray it. One of my great regrets is as someone who loves history, not going to see Magnus Lepta, which were the greatest ruins, I think greatest ruins in Africa from the Roman times. And, of course, no longer exists.”

    2022-10-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #330 – Hikaru Nakamura: Chess, Magnus, Kasparov, and the Psychology of Greatness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  19. “Different positions, learning something new even after I've played the game for 30 years. It's very inspiring to me knowing that I've spent all this time. There still are new things that I can learn. Those are probably two biggest things that I would refer to.”

    2022-10-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #330 – Hikaru Nakamura: Chess, Magnus, Kasparov, and the Psychology of Greatness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  20. “I think looking back, it's really both over the board and also just like the memories that I've created. I think for me, the fact that I've been able to travel because of chess to meet so many people who are playing this great game from all different nationalities, all different backgrounds is probably the thing that I really like the most. Chess is one of the maybe the only thing I can think of where you can have people different backgrounds, different ages. Honestly, you can have someone who's a billionaire talking to someone who's like a nine-year-old kid from the inner city. And when they're talking about the game of chess, they're on the same level. And I don't think that is really applicable to anything else in this world. You don't have that level of respect that is communicated through a game. So for me, that's probably the single most beautiful thing about sort of chess and the chess world itself is that you have that. In terms of the game itself, the creativity, the possibility of”

    2022-10-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #330 – Hikaru Nakamura: Chess, Magnus, Kasparov, and the Psychology of Greatness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  21. “I don't think he really has. I mean, I feel like most players try to avoid talking about it. I think it's very difficult. I remember when I was in St. Louis, there was another Russian player, Peter Savidler, and I basically asked him, he's like, don't get me started because I just can't talk about it. So I think most of them are probably on the other side of the spectrum. I don't think they're probably supportive of what is going on right now. So it's a very, very, very difficult situation. But I don't really feel like that manifests itself in actual tensions when I play against the Russian players. I mean, maybe when I was younger playing certain events, the one country I felt like maybe it actually, I felt sometimes I really wanted to go out of my way to win against was against the Chinese, perhaps. That is maybe the one time I felt something along those lines. But generally, I feel like we treat the players as individuals. It's not about the country they represent.”

    2022-10-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #330 – Hikaru Nakamura: Chess, Magnus, Kasparov, and the Psychology of Greatness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  22. “Right. I've never really felt that. I think actually for me, it's very eye-opening to realize how difficult it is for a lot of the Russian chess players right now to play because of the situation, even Netbo, for that matter. I remember when we were in St. Louis, he essentially has to bring cash because obviously Russia's cut off from SWIFT. No credit cards work. So if these Russians don't have cash, they can't play. And I know a lot of them have fled the country just to try and keep their chess career going. So it's a very, very, very tough situation for them, obviously for the Ukrainians who are suffering. It's really, really bad.”

    2022-10-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #330 – Hikaru Nakamura: Chess, Magnus, Kasparov, and the Psychology of Greatness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  23. “I wish I was taller because I really like trying to come into the net. I like volleying a lot, but I am no raw labor. Rod Labor was very short, but he was able to make it work like 50, 60 years ago. I really like volleying, but I'm a little bit too short. So I kind of have to stay back. And I mean, I normally hit like I try to hit hard forehands and I try to slice or two hand backhand.”

    2022-10-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #330 – Hikaru Nakamura: Chess, Magnus, Kasparov, and the Psychology of Greatness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  24. “Think I could beat Magnus 10 out of 10 times in tennis. I mean, I took lessons for eight years. I tried to go out and hit two or three times every week. I think I could beat him in tennis 10 out of 10.”

    2022-10-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #330 – Hikaru Nakamura: Chess, Magnus, Kasparov, and the Psychology of Greatness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  25. “Up there? He's definitely up there. I mean, I grew up as more of an Adolf fan just because actually, like, I felt like Nadal, it never looked easy. It was the exact opposite. Like for Nadal, it feels like he's always, he's running after every ball. He's exerting himself Looked really, really hard. And like for me, since nothing really came easily for me in chess, like I kind of can relate to that more. But at the same time, especially when Federalists start losing more and he seems more human, I started really liking him more as well. I think he changed the game. I don't know if you say the greatest ever, but. The game changed forever because of him”

    2022-10-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #330 – Hikaru Nakamura: Chess, Magnus, Kasparov, and the Psychology of Greatness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  26. “As a human being, I think it's very similar actually to use a comparison to tennis and Roger Federer in that it feels like with Magus everything comes very easily. For example, we've seen the situation with Hans Niemann. Somehow it's rolled right off his back and he's playing amazing chess in his latest event. So it's really how easy he seems to make it look. And I know because tennis is a sport that I've played a lot. I've followed it very closely. I remember hearing Andy Roddick say this about Federal. It's like somehow he handles it all. Like there's no pressure. He makes it look easy. And how does he do all of that? And I feel the same way about Magnus where it seems too easy. Because I know for myself when I'm playing these games, like they're stressed, the pressure. And for Magnus, it just, you don't ever see that. Now, I'm sure it's probably there, but we don't witness it. So that's what I would say is just how easy it is.”

    2022-10-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #330 – Hikaru Nakamura: Chess, Magnus, Kasparov, and the Psychology of Greatness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  27. “Yeah, I think with all the rivalries and chess, everybody tries to hype it up, like everyone hates each other. But the thing is, at the end of the day, yes, we're very competitive. We want to beat each other, whether it's myself or Magnus or other top players. But we also realize that it's a very small world. Like a lot of us are able to make a living playing the game as professionals. And as I alluded to earlier, the top 20 to 30 players can make a living. So even though we're competitive against each other, we want to beat each other, there is a certain level of respect that we have and there is a sort of brotherhood, I would say. So all of us are, I would say, friend enemies. I think that's the simplest way of putting it.”

    2022-10-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #330 – Hikaru Nakamura: Chess, Magnus, Kasparov, and the Psychology of Greatness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  28. “That's probably the only way to keep the format as it is, where I think both players have time to prepare, but it's not something crazy. Because when you compare the candidates to other classical tournaments, let's just say St. Louis. I played there recently. I played the Rapid and Blitz, but there was the Singfield Cup. This was, I think, like September 10th, something like that. Point is players probably came in and had a week or two to prepare for that tournament. Now there's the U.S. Championship. Players had a little bit of time to prepare. You play the event. Normally players don't have these long breaks where they can prepare for very long periods of time. So they are very well prepared, but you still have a lot of exciting games because that window of preparation is so much smaller.”

    2022-10-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #330 – Hikaru Nakamura: Chess, Magnus, Kasparov, and the Psychology of Greatness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  29. “Months. And when players have that much time to prepare, they are not going to have any weaknesses in the opening phase of the game. And so both players are likely going to be very solid. You'll have a lot of draws. And in many cases, it might come down to tiebreaks. Magnus, in fact, in two of the matches, both against Kariakin and against Karuana, he had to win in rapid tiebreaks. So I think for Magnus, he just doesn't feel like the format is right. I think he feels that there's just, it's too long, too many draws. He doesn't get to play creative or exciting chess. And that's why I think he pushed so hard for a change in the format. I don't know what the right change would be, but I do think that the format is becoming a little bit antiquated with all these classical games. If you don't want to change the format, the one suggestion that I've mentioned before, and I think it's probably still valid, is that the match should be held maybe one month after the candidates tournament to determine the challenger. It's held one month after that event.”

    2022-10-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #330 – Hikaru Nakamura: Chess, Magnus, Kasparov, and the Psychology of Greatness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  30. “I still think that there is merit in having the world championship the way it is at the same time the game is always evolving and one of the things that has changed a lot in recent times is you now have a lot more blitz tournaments and also rapid tournaments in the past classical chess was the golden standard there that was the only thing that mattered but in the last probably 10 years slowly but surely there probably are as many rapid slash blitz tournaments as there are classical tournaments now maybe it's not quite 50 50 but at the top level at least it feels like it's getting very close to 50-50 and in terms of the world championship i feel that the biggest issue is you have too many draws the games can be exciting but the games inevitably end in a draw and the single biggest reason is because players have about six months or more to prepare for the match so for example the candidates tournament which i just played it was in june and july it ended i think around july 5th the world championship match will probably be in february of march so that's you know not nine months”

    2022-10-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #330 – Hikaru Nakamura: Chess, Magnus, Kasparov, and the Psychology of Greatness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  31. “Beat him probably in individual games. So he ended up quitting chess. I think he was sort of like a lawyer kind of, but he spent probably the last 15, I think last 15, 20 years of his life just doing nothing. Now, I have actually seen his grave in New Orleans. I have been to where he lived. I think it's now Brennan's, if I'm not mistaken, or something like that. So it's very tragic that there was no one who was competitive with him at the time. As far as Best Ever, I don't think you can say he's the goat. I still think he's in the top 10 if we're using a criteria of players who are better than their peers by a big, big, big margin.”

    2022-10-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #330 – Hikaru Nakamura: Chess, Magnus, Kasparov, and the Psychology of Greatness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  32. “Yeah, so Paul Morphy was the best player in the world by a bigger margin probably than anyone else in recent modern history. He was, I would say, roughly using today's rating, he's around like 2,400 in my opinion. And the other best players were maybe around 2,000 or 2,100 at best. So he's the best player by a bigger margin. Fisher, for example, I think it was about 170-ish points better than Boris Basski. But Morphy was 300 plus at least. Now by modern standards, he would probably be a very strong IM, which isn't saying a whole lot. But at the time, no one was even close. So I don't think you can put him in that category of best ever simply because he was not the best player for a long enough period of time. As far as why it's tragic, it's very tragic because he essentially quit chess. There was no competition for him. If you think about Magnus talking about the World Championship and feeling like it's not competitive enough, for Morphe, there was no one who could even.”

    2022-10-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #330 – Hikaru Nakamura: Chess, Magnus, Kasparov, and the Psychology of Greatness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  33. “Know in a bullet game, like I said, maybe in bullet, I can maybe score 50 in a blitz game or anything slower, maybe 10%, maybe one out of 10 I can win maybe.”

    2022-10-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #330 – Hikaru Nakamura: Chess, Magnus, Kasparov, and the Psychology of Greatness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  34. “When it's not the serious competitive online events or over the board, I do actually do this quite frequently, and I wish there were more opportunities, but top level chess, it's become harder and harder because due to computers, everybody's very, very well prepared in the opening. They know the first 15 to 20 move sequences, no matter what you do. So the room for creativity is less and less, which means you have less of those types of games.”

    2022-10-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #330 – Hikaru Nakamura: Chess, Magnus, Kasparov, and the Psychology of Greatness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  35. “Also, I think what it is in such situations, you know that there is at least a draw. I could always just check him with my rook if I wanted to to make a draw. So that also gives me some margin where if I calculate after I play the move and I calculate, it doesn't work out. I can still make the draw.”

    2022-10-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #330 – Hikaru Nakamura: Chess, Magnus, Kasparov, and the Psychology of Greatness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  36. “He did resign here. Yeah, because I just moved the rook over to that dark square in front of the pond, and that would be Chuckmate.”

    2022-10-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #330 – Hikaru Nakamura: Chess, Magnus, Kasparov, and the Psychology of Greatness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  37. “No, I still want to scoot the rook over to check on the H6 square, the dark square. I think did he resign here or did he make him”

    2022-10-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #330 – Hikaru Nakamura: Chess, Magnus, Kasparov, and the Psychology of Greatness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  38. “Well, it's just basically the king, the only piece that can sort of guard the king is the queen on D1. That's the only piece. If I can just keep checking. I'm going to be able to win here. So he goes there. And now I think I played this move.”

    2022-10-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #330 – Hikaru Nakamura: Chess, Magnus, Kasparov, and the Psychology of Greatness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  39. “This is, I think it's like a Catalan. It says Neo-Catalan. So, yeah, it's basically a Catalan opening, generally very slow.”

    2022-10-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #330 – Hikaru Nakamura: Chess, Magnus, Kasparov, and the Psychology of Greatness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  40. “That was a game also with a queen sacrifice. It was a game against this Polish player, Michael Krasenkau. It was played in Barcelona in 2007, I believe it was. I also sacrificed the queen for one pawn to just bring the king out into the middle of the board”

    2022-10-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #330 – Hikaru Nakamura: Chess, Magnus, Kasparov, and the Psychology of Greatness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  41. “Right, and computers can't. It's also very tricky because when we as humans sometimes you'll look at an opening variation and you'll see something like this and you want to do it in a game but the problem is we don't know how we're supposed to follow it up afterwards And so, if you do that and you don't know how to follow up afterwards, very oftentimes we'll make mistakes. We'll try to look at it in a human way. And then, of course, you end up losing in the long term because you've given up too much material. So it's a very double-edged sword.”

    2022-10-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #330 – Hikaru Nakamura: Chess, Magnus, Kasparov, and the Psychology of Greatness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  42. “Material imbalance or the material you give up doesn't matter as much as having this attack or having this piece on certain squares.”

    2022-10-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #330 – Hikaru Nakamura: Chess, Magnus, Kasparov, and the Psychology of Greatness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  43. “Well, that's one thing also that we're starting to learn more and more that Stockfish and the other programs don't care about ponds. You can sacrifice one pond, two ponds, three ponds in a lot of cases if the rest of your pieces are very active. And that's something that we kind of knew on a basic level about the initiative is what we call it in chess, where like you'll give up material, but your pieces are very well placed. But we didn't realize just how important that is. And computers will do that all the time now, all the time. And even actually in this variant Fisher random is another variant where you range the pieces on the back row. They will gladly sack rooks for bishops or for knights all the time, all the time.”

    2022-10-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #330 – Hikaru Nakamura: Chess, Magnus, Kasparov, and the Psychology of Greatness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  44. “Pretty rare because players tend to avoid these sorts of situations. Players don't like games that can go either way. So both players have to sort of cooperate. You have to want that kind of game in order for that situation to arise. And a lot of games at the top, neither player wants to go into that situation for the most part. So you don't really have those opportunities.”

    2022-10-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #330 – Hikaru Nakamura: Chess, Magnus, Kasparov, and the Psychology of Greatness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  45. “It's mainly that I was able to offer the queen sacrifice so many moves in a row, you almost never have that opportunity. And actually, normally the games you're going to consider your best involve sacrifices, and if you can sacrifice the queen, that makes it very memorable. There's just this constant theme of this one checkmate idea.”

    2022-10-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #330 – Hikaru Nakamura: Chess, Magnus, Kasparov, and the Psychology of Greatness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  46. “Yeah, he couldn't take it. He would have gotten checkmated. But anyway, the smoke clears and I'm up material here and I won this game. So this is the game that I would say is my why.”

    2022-10-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #330 – Hikaru Nakamura: Chess, Magnus, Kasparov, and the Psychology of Greatness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  47. “Same theme though. I keep going for this checkmate with a ponder of Bishpan on the square in front of the king. See, the queen is still hanging. In fact, I actually sacked the queen again.”

    2022-10-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #330 – Hikaru Nakamura: Chess, Magnus, Kasparov, and the Psychology of Greatness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  48. “I basically want to open up the king and try to check me. If I don't check me, I'm probably going to lose the game here in the center of the board. Yeah, now there are some very nice moves after Pontix Pawn. I take this because now quite. Takes the queen, I push the pawn forward and it's checkmate.”

    2022-10-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #330 – Hikaru Nakamura: Chess, Magnus, Kasparov, and the Psychology of Greatness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  49. “No, that would actually be a mistake. I mean, it's very high level, but it's a mistake because White will actually not recapture the pawn. And yeah, this is a very high level.”

    2022-10-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #330 – Hikaru Nakamura: Chess, Magnus, Kasparov, and the Psychology of Greatness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  50. “Right. Like White basically is trying to guard the king. He's going to retreat this bishop from C5 to G1, as you'll see in a second. Actually, not quite yet. Yeah, now he goes here. And so he's trying to guard his king with the Bishman on G1, but I'm able to keep attacking here in the next.”

    2022-10-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #330 – Hikaru Nakamura: Chess, Magnus, Kasparov, and the Psychology of Greatness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source